I sat still, conscious of stupid discomforts, that the place was stuffy, that the perfume was not really perfume, that there were no lilies in these rooms, that it was going to be very cold outside, and I couldn't think of rest until dawn forced me to it, and the night was long, and I was not making sense to David, and I might lose him ... and that Thing might come, that Thing might come again.
"Will you stay near me?" I hated my own words.
"I'll stand at your side, and I'll try to hold on to you if it tries to take you."
"You will?"
"Yes," he said.
"Why?"
"Don't be foolish," he said. "Look, I don't know what I saw in the cafe. Never again in my life did I ever see anything like that or hear it. You know, I told you my story once. I went to Brazil, I learned the Candomble secrets. The night you . . . you came after me, I tried to summon the spirits."
"They came. They were too weak to help."
"Right. But. . . what is my point? My point is simply that I love you, that we're linked in some way that none of the others is linked. Louis worships you. You're some sort of dark god to him, though he pretends to hate you for having made him. Armand envies you and spies on you far more than you might think."
"I hear Armand and I see him and I ignore him," I said.
"Marius, he hasn't forgiven you for not becoming his pupil, I think you know that, for not becoming his acolyte, for not believing in history as some sort of redemptive coherence."
"Well put. That is what he believes. Oh, but he's angry with me for much greater things than that, you weren't one of us when I woke the Mother and the Father. You weren't there. But that's another tale."
"I know all of it. You forget your books. I read your work as soon as you write it, as soon as you let it loose into the mortal world."
I laughed bitterly. "Maybe the Devil's read my books too," I said. Again, I loathed being afraid. It made me furious.
"But the point is," he said, "I'll stand with you." He looked down at the table, drifting, the way he so often had when he was mortal, when I could read his mind yet he could defeat me, consciously locking me out. Now it was simply a barrier. I would never again know what his thoughts felt like.
"I'm hungry," I whispered.
"Hunt."
I shook my head. "When I'm ready, I'll take the Victim. As soon as Dora leaves New York. Soon as she goes back to her old convent. She knows the bastard's doomed. That's what she will think after I've done it, that one of his many enemies got him, that his evil came back on him, very Biblical, when all the time it was just a species of killer roaming the Savage Garden of the Earth, a vampire, looking for a juicy mortal, and her father had caught my eye, and it's going to be over, just like that."
"Are you planning to torture this man?"
"David. You shock me. What an impolite question."
"Will you?" he asked more timidly, more imploringly.
"I don't think so. I just want to...." I smiled. He knew now well enough. Nobody had to tell him anymore about drinking the blood, the soul, the memory, the spirit, the heart. I wouldn't know that wretched mortal creature until I took him, held him against my chest, opened up the only honest vein in his body, so to speak. Ah, too many thoughts, too many memories, too much anger.
"I'm going to stay with you," he said. "Do you have rooms here?"
"Nothing proper. Find something for us. Find it close to ... close to the cathedral."
"Why?"
"Well, David, you should know why. If the Devil starts chasing me down Fifth Avenue, I'll just run into St. Patrick's and run to the High Altar and fall on my knees before the Blessed Sacrament and beg God to forgive me, not to sink me into the river of fire up to my eyes."
"You are on the verge of being truly mad."
"No, not at all. Look at me. I can tie my shoelaces. See? And my tie. Takes some care, you know, to get it all around your neck and into your shirt and so forth, and not look like a lunatic with a big scarf around your neck. I'm together, as mortals so bluntly state it. Can you find us some rooms?"
He nodded.
"There's a glass tower, right over there somewhere, beside the cathedral. Monstrous building."
"The Olympic Tower."
"Yes, could you get us some rooms there? Actually I have mortal agents who can do this sort of thing, I don't know why in the world I'm whining like a fool in this place, asking you to take care of humiliating particulars. . . ."
"I'll take care of it. It's probably too late tonight, but I can swing it tomorrow evening. It will be under the name David Talbot."
"My clothes. There's a stash of them here under the name Isaac Rummel. Just a suitcase or two, and some coats. It's really winter, isn't it?" I gave him the key to the room. This was humiliating. Rather like making a servant of him. Perhaps he'd change his mind and put our new lodgings under the name of Renfield.
"I'll take care of it all. We'll have a palatial base of operations by tomorrow. I'll see that keys are left for you at the desk. But what are you going to be doing?"
I waited, I was listening for the Victim. Still talking to Dora. Dora was leaving in the morning.
I pointed upwards. "Killing that bastard. I think I'll do it tomorrow right after sunset if I can zone in on him quickly enough. Dora will be gone. Oh, I am so hungry. I wish she'd take a midnight plane out of here. Dora, Dora."
"You really like this little girl, don't you?"
"Yes. Find her on television sometime, you'll see. Her talent's rather spectacular, and her teaching has that dangerous emotional grip to it."
"Is she really gifted?"
"With everything. Very white skin, short black hair, bobbed, long thin yet shapely legs, and she dances with such abandon, arms flung out, rather makes one think of a whirling dervish or the Sufis in their perfection, and when she speaks it's not humble precisely, it's full of wonder and all very, very benign."
"I should think so."
"Well, religion isn't always, you know. I mean she doesn't rant about the coming Apocalypse or the Devil coming to get you if you don't send her a check."
He reflected for a moment, then said meaningfully, "I see how it is."
"No, you don't. I love her, yes, but I'll soon forget her com-
pletely. It's just that. . . well, there's a convincing version of something there, and delicacy, and she really believes in it; she thinks Jesus walked on this earth. She thinks it happened."
"And this thing that's following you, it's not connected in any way with this choice of victim, her father?"
"Well, there is a way to find out," I said.
"How?"
"Kill the son of a bitch tonight. Maybe I'll do it after he leaves her. My Victim won't stay here with her. He's too scared of bringing danger to her. He never stays in the same hotel with her. He has three different apartments here. I'm surprised he's stayed this long."
"I'm staying with you."
"No, go on, I have to finish this one. I need you, I really need you.
I needed to tell you, and to have you with me, the age-old venerable human needs, but I don't need you at my side. I know you're thirsting.
I don't have to read your mind to feel that much. You starved as you came here, so that you wouldn't disappoint me. Go prowl the city." I smiled. "You've never hunted New York, have you?"
He shook his head in the negative gesture. His eyes were changing.
It was the hunger. It was giving him that dull look, like a dog who had caught the scent of the bitch in heat. We all get that look, the bestial look, but we are nothing as good as bestial, are we? Any of us.
I stood up. "The rooms in the Olympic Tower," I said. "You'll get them so that they look down on St. Patrick's, won't you? Not too high up, low if you can do it, so that the steeples are close."