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"No, it's got nothing to do with him," I said. "What's stalking mestarted months before. He doesn't know I'm following him. I didn'tcatch on right away myself that I was being followed by this thing,this.. . .""This what?""Watching him and his daughter, it's like my miniseries, youknow. He's so intricately evil.""So you said, and what is stalking you? Is this a thing or a personor ...?""I'll get to that. This Victim, he has killed so many people. Drugs.
Such people wallow in numbers. Kilos, kills, coded accounts. And thegirl, the girl of course turned out not to be some dim-witted littlemiracle worker telling diabetics she can cure them with the laying onof hands.""Lestat, your mind's wandering. What's the matter with you?
Why are you afraid? And why don't you kill this victim and get thatpart over?""You want to go back to Jesse and Maharet, don't you?" I askedsuddenly, a feeling of hopelessness descending on me. "You want tostudy for the next hundred years, among all those tablets and scrolls,and look into Maharet's aching blue eyes, and hear her voice, I knowyou do. Does she still always choose blue eyes?"Maharet had been blind eyes torn out when she was made avampire queen. She took eyes from her victims and wore them -untilthey could see no more, no matter how the vampiric blood tried topreserve them. That was her shocking feature the marble queenwith the bleeding eyes. Why had she never wrung the neck of somevampire fledgling and stolen his or her eyes? It had never occurred tome before. Loyalty to our own kind? Maybe it wouldn't work. But shehad her scruples, and they were as hard as she was. A woman that oldremembers when there was no Moses and no Hammurabi's Code.
When only the Pharaoh got to walk through the Valley of Death....
"Lestat," David said. "Pay attention. You must tell me what youare talking about. I've never heard you admit so readily that you wereafraid. You did say afraid. Forget about me for the moment. Forgetthat victim and the girl. What's up, my friend? Who's after you?""I want to ask you some more questions first.""No. Just tell me what's happened. You're in danger, aren't you?
Or you think you are. You sent out the call for me to come to youhere. It was an unabashed plea.""Are those the words Armand used, 'unabashed plea'? I hateArmand."David only smiled and made a quick impatient gesture with bothhands. "You don't hate Armand and you know you don't.""Wanna bet?"He looked at me sternly and reprimandingly. English schoolboystuff probably.
"All right," I said. "I'll tell you. Now, first, I have to remind youof something. A conversation we had. It was when you were alivestill, when we last talked together in your place in the Cotswolds,you know, when you were just a charming old gentleman, dying indespair?
"I remember," he said patiently. "Before you went into thedesert.""No, right after, when we knew I couldn't die as easily I thought Icould, when I'd come back burnt. You cared for me. Then youstarted talking about yourself, your life. You said something about anexperience you'd had before the war, you said, in a Paris cafe. Youremember? You know what I'm talking about?""Yes. I do. I told you that when I was a young man I thought I'dseen a vision.""Yes, something about the fabric of life ripping for a moment soyou glimpsed things you shouldn't have seen."He smiled. "You're the one who suggested that, that the fabrichad ripped somehow and I'd seen through the rip accidentally. Ithought then and I still think now that it was a vision I was meant tosee. But fifty years have passed since then. And my memory, mymemory is surprisingly dim of the whole affair.""Well, that's to be expected. As a vampire, you will remembereverything that happens to you from now on vividly, but the detailsof mortal life will slip rather fast, especially anything that had to dowith the senses, you'll find yourself chasing after it what did winetaste like?"He motioned for me to be quiet. I was making him unhappy. Ihadn't meant to do this.
I picked up my drink, savored the fragrance. It was some sort ofnot Christmas punch. I think they called it wassail in England. I setdown the glass. My hands and face were still dark from that excursiono the desert, that little attempt to fly into the face of the sun. Thathelped me pass for human. What an irony. And it made my hand alittle more sensitive to the warmth.
A ripple of pleasure ran through me. Warmth! Sometimes I thinkI get my money out of everything! There's no way to cheat asensualist like me, somebody who can die laughing for hours over thepattern of the carpet in a hotel lobby.
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