Well, anyway, I was down there, and I had come into the courtyard of this building—it's, you know, a shape as old as architecture, main building, two long wings, inner courtyard."
"The rather typical late-nineteenth-century brick institution."
"Exactly, and I was watching through the windows, the progress of that little girl walking by herself through the pitch-black corridor. She was carrying a flashlight. And she was singing to herself, one of her hymns. They're all sort of medieval and modern at the same time."
"I believe the phrase is 'New Age,' " David suggested.
"Yes, it's somewhat like that, but this girl is on an ecumenical religious network. I told you. Her program is very conventional. Believe in Jesus, be saved. She's going to sing and dance people into Heaven, especially the women, apparently, or at least they'll lead the way."
"Go on with the story, you were watching her. . . ."
"Yes, and thinking how brave she was. She finally reached her own quarters; she lives in one of the four towers of the building; and I listened as she threw all the locks. And I thought, not many mortals would like to go prowling about this dark building, and the place wasn't entirely spiritually clean."
"What do you mean?"
"Little spirits, elementals, whatever, what did you call them in the Talamasca?"
"Elementals," he said.
"Well, there are some gathered about this building, but they're no threat to this girl. She's simply too brave and strong."
"But not the Vampire Lestat, who was spying her. He was out in the courtyard, and he heard the voice right next to his ear, as if Two Men were talking at his right shoulder and the other one, the one who is not following me, says quite plainly, 'No, I don't see him in the same light.' I turned round and round trying to find this Thing, close in on it mentally and spiritually, confront it, bait it, and then I realized I was shaking all over, and you know, the elementals, David, the little pesky spirits . . . the ones I could feel hanging about the convent... I don't think they even realized this person, or whoever he was, had been talking in my ear."
"Lestat, you do sound as if you've lost your immortal mind," he said. "No, no, don't get angry. I believe you. But let's backtrack.
Why were you following the girl?"
"I just wanted to see her. My Victim, he's worried—about who he is, what's he done, what the officials know about him. He's afraid he'll blemish her when the final indictment comes and all the newpa- per stories. But the point is, he'll never be indicted. I'm going to kill him first."
"You are. And then it actually might save her church, is that not right? Your killing him speedily, so to speak. Or am I mistaken?"
"I wouldn't hurt her for anything on this earth. Nothing could persuade me to do that." I sat silent for a moment.
"Are you sure you are not in love? You seem spellbound by her."
I was remembering. I had fallen in love only a short time ago with a mortal woman, a nun. Gretchen had been her name. And I had driven her mad. David knew the whole story. I'd written it; written all about David, too, and he and Gretchen had passed into the world in fictional form. He knew that.
"I would never reveal myself to Dora as I did with Gretchen," I said. "No. I won't hurt Dora. I learnt my lesson. My only concern is to kill her father in such a way that she experiences the least suffering and the maximum benefit. She knows what her father is, but I'm not sure she's prepared for all the bad things that could happen on account of him."
"My, but you are playing games."
"Well, I have to do something to keep my mind off this Thing that's following me or I'll go mad!"
"Shhhh . . . what's the matter with you? My God, but you're rattled."
"Of course I am," I whispered.
"Explain more about the Thing. Give me more fragments."
"They're not worth repeating. It's an argument. It's about me, I tell you. David, it's like God and the Devil are arguing about me."
I caught my breath. My heart was hurting me, it was beating so fast, no mean feat for a vampiric heart. I rested back against the wall, let my eyes range over the bar—middle-aged mortals mostly, ladies in old-style fur coats, balding men just drunk enough to be loud and careless and almost young.
The pianist had moved on into something popular, from the Broadway stage, I think. It was sad and sweet, and one of the old women in the bar was rocking slowly to the music, and mouthing the words with her rouged lips as she puffed on a cigarette. She was from that generation that had smoked so much that stopping now was out of the question. She had skin like a lizard. But she was a harmless and beautiful being. All of them were harmless and beautiful beings.
My victim? I could hear him upstairs. He was still talking with his daughter. Would she not take just one more of his gifts? It was a picture, a painting perhaps.
He would move mountains for his daughter, this victim, but she didn't want his gift, and she wasn't going to save his soul.
I found myself wondering how late St. Patrick's stayed open. She wanted so badly to go there. She was, as always, refusing his money. It's "unclean," she said to him now. "Roge, I want your soul. I can't take the money for the church! It comes from crime. It's filthy."
The snow fell outside. The piano music grew more rapid and urgent.
Andrew Lloyd Webber at his best, I thought. Something from Phantom of the Opera.
There was that noise again out in the lobby, and I turned abruptly in my chair and looked over my shoulder, and then back at David. I listened. I thought I heard it again, like a footstep, an echoing footstep, a deliberately terrifying footstep. I did hear it. I knew I was trembling. But then it was gone, over. There came no voice in my ear.
I looked at David.
"Lestat, you're petrified, aren't you?" he asked, very sympathetically.
"David, I think the Devil's come for me. I think I'm going to Hell."
He was speechless. After all, what could he say? What does a vampire say to another vampire on such subjects? What would I have said if Armand, three hundred years older than me, and far more wicked, had said the Devil was coming for him? I would have laughed at him.
I would have made some cruel joke about his fully deserving it and how he'd meet so many of our kind down there, subject to a special sort of vampiric torment, far worse than mere damned mortals ever experienced. I shuddered.
"Good God," I said under my breath.
"You said you've seen it?"
"Not quite. I was ... somewhere, it's not important. I think New York again, yes, back here with him—"
"The victim."
"Yes, following him. He had some transaction at an art gallery. Midtown. He's quite a smuggler. It's all part of his peculiar personality, that he loves beautiful and ancient objects, the sort of tilings you love, David. I mean, when I finally do make a meal of him, I might bring you one of his treasures."
David said nothing, but I could see this was distasteful to him, the idea of purloining something precious from someone whom I had not yet killed but was surely to kill.
"Medieval books, crosses, jewelry, relics, that's the sort of thing he deals in. It's what got him into the dope, ransoming church art that had been lost during the Second World War in Europe, you know, priceless statues of angels and saints that had been pillaged.
He's got his most valued treasures stashed in a flat on the Upper East Side. His big secret. I think the dope money started as a means to an end. Somebody had something he wanted. I don't know. I read his mind and then I tire of it. And he's evil, and all those relics have no magic, and I'm going to Hell." "Not so fast," he said. "The Stalker. You said you saw something. What did you see?"
I fell silent. I had dreaded this moment. I had not tried to describe these experiences even to myself. But I had to continue. I had called David here for help. I had to explain.