Those Who Must Be Kept is another name for Akasha and Enkil. The name appears in The Vampire Lestat (1985), The Queen of the Damned (1988), and Blood and Gold (2001).
One night, two ancient vampires are discovered naked and holding each other on a cold floor. They have been imprisoned in a hidden sanctuary under large blocks of diorite and granite for so long that no younger vampires truly know their story. The legend is that they are Akasha and Enkil, the first vampires who spawned every vampire in existence, but none knows who was created first or if they were created simultaneously. Legend also has it that if they are the Mother and the Father, they are so old that they have become statuelike.
Their current vampire caretakers recognize the immensity of the power and importance in the great age of these two most ancient of vampires, and they bathe them, dress them in fine clothes, and set them on thrones, like two statues facing forward with eyes wide open.
One vampire, called the Elder, must watch over them, care for them, and protect them from harm. No longer formally referred to as Akasha and Enkil, or even as the Mother and the Father, these two mute and unmoving vampires now become known as Those Who Must Be Kept.
The Elder cares for them for centuries under the same routine of bathing them, changing their clothes, wiping the dust from the tiny crevices between their eyes, fingers, and toes. A new religious practice develops around them. Blood priests bring sacrificial victims for Those Who Must Be Kept to feed on. Also, young vampires are allowed to feed off Akasha’s Sacred Fount of ancient blood to grow stronger, such as Eudoxia, fledgling of Cyril, fledgling of the Elder. No matter how much blood the Mother and the Father are given, no matter how much time passes, the two ancient vampires on their thrones rarely move and never speak. Eventually the Elder grows so weary of his burdensome task that he takes Those Who Must Be Kept out of their shrine in old Egypt and places them on the bank of the Nile River with the intent of letting them be destroyed under the sunlight. Those Who Must Be Kept have become so powerful that the sunlight can only bronze their skin. The Elder awakens from his daytime slumber and observes that his formerly white skin is now bronzed and that all younger vampires have either been immolated or charred to a crisp in the Great Burning of 4 C.E. He concludes that Those Who Must Be Kept are profoundly interconnected to every vampire in existence. Hurriedly, without revealing to anyone the great crime he has committed, the Elder retrieves Those Who Must Be Kept and brings them back to their shrine, as if nothing has happened.
While the world goes on, Akasha’s mind is active. No longer trusting the Elder, she reads his thoughts with the Mind Gift and realizes that he is plotting to rid himself of his tedious duty by dropping Those Who Must Be Kept to the bottom of the ocean, where no sunlight or heat can damage them and where they cannot damage their children. Before he can enact that plan, Teskhamen, an ancient vampire blackened by the Elder’s treachery, dispatches his new young fledgling, Marius, to Egypt to discover the fate of Those Who Must Be Kept. When Marius arrives with questions about the Great Burning of 4 C.E., the Elder lies, telling him he does not know its cause. Despite the Elder’s treachery, Akasha communicates telepathically to Marius with the Mind Gift, showing him images of the history of Those Who Must Be Kept—how Amel entered Akasha; how she turned Enkil into a vampire; how they created a vampire cult; how the cult was overthrown by rebels; how Akasha and Enkil were captured and imprisoned; how they became Those Who Must Be Kept; and how the Elder is now trying to destroy them. Once Marius understands, Akasha reveals to him the Elder’s plot to harm them again. She begs Marius to take them away. When he agrees, Akasha then rises from her throne, crushes the Elder under her feet, and, with her Mind Gift, telekinetically knocks over the oil lamp that burns the Elder’s pulpy remains to cinders.
Marius first takes them out of Egypt into Antioch. Akasha makes no mention of reestablishing the ancient cult practice of worshipping Those Who Must Be Kept as a goddess and god, so Marius keeps Akasha and Enkil in a hidden shrine beneath his house. He reveals to no other vampire the hidden location of the Mother and the Father. In response, the ancient vampire Akbar, who is as old as Teskhamen and was severely burned in the Great Burning of 4 C.E., drains the blood from Marius’s beloved mortal, Pandora, to the point of death and extorts Marius to reveal to him the hidden location of Those Who Must Be Kept, otherwise Pandora will die. When Marius reluctantly acquiesces and takes Akbar to the shrine of the royal pair, Akasha refuses Akbar, crushes his skull, dismembers him, and destroys him by dropping an oil lamp on his remains and burning him to ash. Marius saves Pandora by turning her into a vampire; and for many years she helps Marius fulfill his duties. Akasha allows both Marius and Pandora to drink her blood, which increases their power and makes them a better fit to protect Those Who Must Be Kept.
Maharet discovers their secret location, steals into the shrine undetected, stands before Akasha, and plunges a dagger into the Queen’s heart, taking revenge for Akasha’s tyrannical maltreatment, as both mortal and immortal, of Maharet and her twin sister, Mekare. Maharet feels dizzy when the dagger causes Akasha’s heart to pause ever so briefly; she knows that other vampires, especially the younger ones, must have felt an even-worse moment of suffering. Maharet understands Akasha’s connection to all other vampires, so she leaves the Queen in Marius’s care and never again returns.
When Marius and Pandora separate, he moves Akasha, Enkil, and himself in three large sarcophagi to Rome, where he takes into his confidence Avicus, who was a member of Akasha’s blood cult, and Avicus’s fledgling Mael. After the fall of Rome, Marius, Avicus, and Mael move Those Who Must Be Kept to Constantinople, where they encounter Eudoxia, who has already imbibed Akasha’s ancient and powerful blood. Eudoxia demands to have Those Who Must Be Kept. When Marius denies her, she tries to fight for them, but Marius is too powerful. Humbled, Eudoxia begs Marius to let her simply see them, and he kindly allows it. When Eudoxia sees them, she is so moved by the sight of Akasha that she offers herself as a victim for the Queen, who grabs Eudoxia and nearly drains her completely of blood. Vengeful, Eudoxia next kills a mortal and frames Marius for the murder. The citizens of Constantinople exact retribution for the murder by attacking Marius’s house. Enraged by Eudoxia’s treachery, Marius drags her from her home, brings her one last time to the shrine of Those Who Must Be Kept, and flings her before Akasha, who drains her completely of blood and burns her to ashes with the Fire Gift.
Marius takes Those Who Must Be Kept away from Avicus and Mael. He builds a new shrine deep inside a mountain, away from the sunlight, the interior painted with beautiful murals, all hidden in a secluded location in a series of uninhabited slopes in the Alps, so steep that mortals of that time dare not make the ascent, which is no problem for a powerful vampire like Marius.
Later, in the sixteenth century, after Marius is badly burned by Santino and the Children of Satan, he and his new fledgling Bianca move Those Who Must Be Kept to a castle dungeon in Saxony, Germany, which they transform into a beautiful shrine for the King and Queen of the Vampires. Marius and Bianca care for Those Who Must Be Kept. Akasha allows both Marius and Bianca to drink her blood, making each stronger.
After Bianca leaves Marius a few centuries later, he moves Those Who Must Be Kept to a new shrine on an island in the Aegean Sea. After becoming aware that the vampire Lestat is seeking him with an obsessed desperation, Marius brings Lestat to his island sanctuary and invites him into the shrine. Enraptured by what he sees, Lestat returns to the shrine when Marius is absent, takes a violin, and begins performing for Enkil and most especially for Akasha. The Queen, who has never before heard either that instrument or such bedeviled playing, rises from her throne, takes Lestat in her embrace, drinks his blood, and gives him her blood to drink. Marius attempts to enter the shrine, but Akasha keeps the doors barred against him, keeping him out and away from this rapturous moment. She relents and opens the doors when, after centuries of stillness, Enkil rises from his throne in a jealous rage and tries to kill Lestat. Marius and Akasha fend him off, and then Those Who Must Be Kept return to their thrones, where they resume sitting in mute stillness. Marius understands that, despite his almost two millennia of indefatigable service, Akasha desires Lestat to care for her and to love her. Marius sends Lestat away from the island and moves Those Who Must Be Kept to the unpopulated, frozen lands in the Canadian north.
Marius builds for them a technologically advanced citadel where Akasha and Enkil sit on their thrones surrounded by newer technology as the world progresses faster into the industrial age. In the twentieth century, he sets before them a television that receives satellite-transmission broadcasts. In that sanctuary, Akasha sees Lestat once more, only now instead of playing the violin, he is singing in the popular rock band the Vampire Lestat. His words and music tell the story of Those Who Must Be Kept and urge them to awaken. Reminded of the days when she was the blood Queen, not hiding from the world but exposed fearlessly and worshipped by fearful disciples, Akasha rises from her throne, bites into Enkil’s neck, drains every drop of blood from his body, and destroys her old king and companion, thus ending the keeping of Those Who Must Be Kept, for Akasha will not be kept back anymore, as she seeks to rule the world once again as the Queen of the Damned.
For more perspectives on Those Who Must Be Kept in the Vampire Chronicles, read the Alphabettery entries Akasha, Akbar, Amel, Avicus, Bianca Solderini, Children of Satan, Cyril, The Elder, Enkil, Eudoxia, Mael, Maharet, Marius, Mekare, Pandora, Santino, Teskhamen, and The Vampire Lestat.