AMCAnne Rice’s Immortal Universe has always been packed full of strange creatures and occurrences. It’s not just vampires populating this world; a powerful network of witches, as well as the secret order known as Talamasca, are also skulking in the shadows. That said, as AMC works to adapt Rice’s novels into live-action, there hasn’t been a ton of connective tissue between these parallel societies. Interview with the Vampire (now known as The Vampire Lestat) is by far the most visible adaptation of the Immortal Series, but AMC’s Talamasca-focused spinoff was short-lived. And though Mayfair Witches is still going strong with another season on the way, it couldn’t feel further removed from the goings-on in Vampire Lestat. That might finally change with Lestat’s latest episode. In Episode 6, our title anti-hero (Sam Reid) reunites with the One Who Got Away, Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson), for an unconventional night of healing. Their reconciliation hits a few not-insignificant roadblocks — the worst being the leak of a tape that features Lestat making love to his own mother, the Vampire Gabriella (Jennifer Ehle) — but it reaches a fever pitch when Lestat and Louis summon their surrogate daughter Claudia (Delainey Hayles) from beyond the grave. This séance is shocking enough on its own, given all the anger Claudia has to unleash on her makers. But it also brings a fan-favorite character into the spotlight, setting up a fascinating thread for Louis down the line.Spoilers ahead for The Vampire Lestat Episode 6.Who is Merrick Mayfair?The Immortal Universe’s most ambitious witch has finally arrived. | AMCTowards the end of Lestat and Louis’ no-good, very-bad night, the pair heads to a cozy hotel room, where a beautiful woman waits to perform their séance. This is Merrick Mayfair (Sarah Afful), a powerful witch descended from one of the Mayfair family lines. In The Vampire Lestat, she’s recruited by Lestat to summon Claudia — but it’s a slightly different story in the novels. Rice penned a spinoff novel focused explicitly on Merrick. Appropriately named after its protagonist, Merrick follows the witch as she becomes an agent of the Talamasca and amasses huge amounts of spiritual power. Louis eventually uses the former leader of the Talamasca, David Talbot, to broker an introduction. It’s he who requests that Merrick open a channel for him to speak to Claudia, and she embraces the opportunity as a means to gain even more power… this time by inheriting the Dark Gift.The differences between the Merrick we meet in the books and Lestat’s version of the character don’t end there, either. Rice imagined Merrick as a biracial, light-skinned woman — but Afful more than captures the essence of the character.“I don't look like the Merrick that Anne Rice wrote,” Afful says, “but there are other aspects of her that I can flesh out and that I enjoy.” | AMC“She’s like a renegade witch,” Afful tells Inverse with a smile. “I enjoyed her sensuality, her sense of fun, her bravery, her pride, her curiosity, and then her artistry as a witch and that willingness to… to cross lines if it means that she’s going to get heard.”Her connection with Louis is also well worth exploring. A New Orleans native, Merrick grew up hearing stories about the du Lac boys. As the family is notorious for building an empire on less savory labor, Merrick might consider her work here as a form of reparations. “But it exists with a lot of love,” Afful says. “There’s just a connection and an empathy that’s there, regardless of how she feels.” Whatever she feels for Louis remains unspoken, but potent nonetheless: “It’s that thing that happens between Black people. It’s that connection of that shared history and that shared experience.”The beginning of a new coven?Merrick, Louis, and Lestat form a coven in the books — could that happen on screen? | AMCIn the books, Merrick’s service for Louis is just the beginning of their relationship. The witch secretly casts a spell to make Louis fall in love with her, all so he can pass on the Dark Gift without hesitation. Witch-vampire hybrids are considered abominations in the Immortal Universe, and for good reason: that’s too much power for any one being to have. But Merrick’s spell works — she exchanges blood not only with Louis, but also Lestat, whose powerful lineage only makes her more formidable.Seeing as Louis and Lestat have a lot more to worry about in The Vampire Lestat (they’re full-on decapitated at the end of the episode), Merrick doesn’t have much time to unleash her feminine wiles. Still, Afful tapped into the character’s sensuality anyway. Embodying Merrick “just turned into this opening up of chakras,” the most important being the sacral chakra, which governs passion and sexuality. “Rice writes a lot about sex, sensuality, and opening up that area of our being in order to go into other realms and open the gates.”Could Merrick have sown the first seeds of a spell without anyone’s knowledge? Will The Vampire Lestat honor her journey to become a creature of the night? Time will tell, but the character’s presence in the penultimate episode should excite a lot of fans either way. The Vampire Lestat is streaming on AMC+.