Memnoch is the principal antagonist in his eponymous book. He takes Lestat on a Dantesque tour through Heaven and Hell, offering Lestat a choice to serve the will of a higher power. Memnoch appears only in Memnoch the Devil (1995), but he is mentioned in Blood Canticle (2003), Prince Lestat (2014), Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis (2016), and Blood Communion (2018).
In the 1990s, after Lestat reclaims his rightful vampire body from Raglan James, the Body Thief, he encounters another individual, who says his name is Memnoch and refers to himself as the Devil of the Judeo-Christian belief system. Intrigued, Lestat follows Memnoch on a journey beyond time, into the supernatural realms of Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell. Memnoch explains to Lestat how he is the first angel that God created, how God held him in such great esteem that Memnoch became second-in-command throughout all of Heaven, and how Memnoch himself once commanded more than one-third of Heaven’s angelic hosts. Memnoch then explains how, after God created human beings, Memnoch argued with God over the problem of suffering and death. Memnoch insisted that human torment and mortality are antithetical to the God of love and creation. Memnoch next attempted to empirically demonstrate the faultiness in God’s creative plans by creating for himself a body of flesh and bone, into which he entered and used to interact with men and women, a defiance of God’s command. For his defiant actions, God banished Memnoch from Heaven eternally. Throughout all of this, Memnoch shows Lestat the beauty of creation, the horrible facets of Hell, the penitential echelons of Purgatory, and the mystical divinity of Heaven. Memnoch even takes Lestat to Calvary, where Jesus Christ was crucified. After drinking Jesus’s blood, Lestat wipes Jesus’s face with Veronica’s Veil and Jesus’s face miraculously appears as an icon on the veil. In the end, Memnoch gives Lestat a choice: either serve the Devil, as the Children of Satan attempted to do centuries earlier throughout Europe during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, or serve God. With his usual bravado, Lestat refuses to serve either, serving only himself instead. Memnoch tries to take Veronica’s Veil away from Lestat but only plucks out Lestat’s left eye. Lestat flees from his supernatural pilgrimage and returns to the world; and Memnoch lets him go, since this is all according to Memnoch’s plan. He explains this to Lestat when he sends Maharet to give him a ball of crumpled vellum, at the center of which is Lestat’s eye. Unraveling the vellum and returning his eye to his socket, Lestat discovers that the vellum is decorated with beautiful ornamentation, a design of swirling shapes, which he eventually understands is writing that only he can make out. It is Memnoch’s archaic writing, a mere note, simply thanking Lestat for a job perfectly well done.
For more perspectives on the Memnoch character in the Vampire Chronicles, read the Alphabettery entries Dora, Lestat de Lioncourt, Maharet, Memnoch, Ordinary Man, and Roger.