"Certainly, as you say."
He went into the little room to take up the bottle of Scotch, pour himself a drink, and then he joined me at the wooden table. I had just seated myself in one of the chairs and was looking directly out over the sea.
"So what have you been doing?" I asked.
"Ah, where do I begin?" he asked. "I've been writing about it continuously-trying to describe all the little sensations, the new discoveries."
"Is there any doubt that you're securely anchored in the body?"
"None." He took a deep drink of his Scotch. "And there seems to be no deterioration of any kind. You know, I feared that. I feared it even when you were in this body, but I didn't want to say it. We had enough to worry about, didn't we?" He turned and looked at me, and quite suddenly he smiled. In a low stunned voice he said, "You're looking at a man you know from the inside out."
"No, not really," I said. "Tell me, how do you deal with the perception of strangers ... those who don't guess. Do women invite you into their bedrooms? What about young men?"
He looked out to the sea, and there was a little bitterness in his face suddenly. "You know the answer. I can't make a vocation of those encounters. They mean nothing to me. I don't say I haven't enjoyed a few safaris into the bedroom. I have more important things to do, Lestat, far more important things to do. "There are places I want to go-lands and cities I always dreamt I would visit. Rio is only the beginning. There are mysteries I must solve; things I must find out."
"Yes, I can imagine."
"You said something very important to me when we were together last. You said, surely you won't give the Talamasca this life too. Well, I won't give it to them. What's paramount in my mind is that I must not waste it. That I must do something of absolute importance with it. Of course the direction won't come to me all at once. There has to be a period of traveling, of learning, of evaluation, before I make a decision as to direction. And as I engage in my studies, I write. I write everything down. Sometimes the record itself seems the goal."
"I know."
"There are many things I want to ask you. I've been plagued with questions."
"Why? What sort of questions?"
"About what you experienced those few days, and whether you have the slightest regret that we ended the venture so soon."
"What venture? You mean my life as a mortal man?"
"Yes."
"No regret."
He started to speak again, and then broke off. Then again he spoke. "What did you take back with you?" he asked in a low fervent voice.
I turned and looked at him again. Yes, the face was definitely more angular. Was it personality which had sharpened it and given it more definition. Perfect, I thought.
"I'm sorry, David, my mind wandered. Ask me this question again."
"What did you take back with you?" he said, with his old familiar patience. "What lesson?"
"I don't know that it was a lesson," I said. "And it may take time for me to understand whatever I learnt."
"Yes, I see, of course."
"I can tell you that I'm aware of a new lust for adventure, for wandering, the very things you describe. I want to go back to the rain forests. I saw them so briefly when I went to visit Gretchen. There was a temple there. I want to see it again."
"You never told me what happened."
"Ah, yes, I told you but you were Raglan at the time. The Body Thief witnessed that little confession. Why on earth would he want to steal such a thing? But I'm drifting off the point. There are so many places that I, too, want to go."
"Yes."
"It's a lust again for time and for the future, for the mysteries of the natural world. For being the watcher that I became that long-ago night in Paris, when I was forced into it. I lost my illusions. I lost my favorite lies. You might say I revisited that moment and was reborn to darkness of my own free will. And such a will!"
"Ah, yes, I understand."
"Do you? That's good if you do."
"Why do you speak that way?" He lowered his voice and spoke slowly. "Do you need my understanding as much as I need yours?"
"You've never understood me," I said. "Oh, it's not an accusation. You live with illusions about me, which make it possible for you to visit with me, to speak with me, even to shelter me and help me. You couldn't do that if you really knew what I was. I tried to tell you. When I spoke of my dreams . . ."
"You're wrong. That's your vanity talking," he said. "You love to imagine you're worse than you are. What dreams? I don't remember your ever speaking to me of dreams."
I smiled. "You don't? Think back, David. My dream of the tiger. I was afraid for you.
And now the menace of the dream will be fulfilled."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm going to do it to you, David. I'm going to bring you to me."
"What?" His voice dropped to a whisper. "What are you saying to me?" He leant forward, trying to see clearly the expression on my face. But the light was behind us, and his mortal vision wasn't sharp enough for that.
"I just told you. I'm going to do it to you, David."
"Why, why are you saying this?"
"Because it's true," I said. I stood up and pushed the chair aside with my leg.
He stared up at me. Only now did his body register the danger. I saw the fine muscles of his arms tense. His eyes were fixed on mine.
"Why are you saying this? You couldn't do this to me," he said.
"Of course I could. And I shall. Now. All along I've told you I was evil. I've told you I'm the very devil. The devil in your Faust, the devil of your visions, the tiger in my dream!"
"No, that's not true." He climbed to his feet, knocking the chair over behind him, and almost losing his balance. He stepped back into the room. "You're not the devil, and you know that you're not. Don't do this to me! I forbid it!" He clenched his teeth on the last words. "You are in your own heart as human as I am. And you will not do it."
"The hell I won't," I said. I laughed. I couldn't help it suddenly. "David the Superior General," I said. "David the Can-domble priest."
He backed across the tiled floor, the light fully illuminating his face, and the tense powerful muscles of his arms.
"Want to fight me? It's useless. There's no force on earth that can stop me from doing this."
"I'll die first," he said, in a low strangled voice. His face was darkening, flushed with blood. Ah, David's blood.
"I won't let you die. Why don't you call on your old Brazilian spirits? You don't remember how to do it, do you? Your heart's not in it. Well, it wouldn't do you the slightest good if you did."
"You can't do this," he said. He was struggling for calm. "You can't repay me in this fashion."
"Oh, but this is how the devil repays his helpers!"
"Lestat, I helped you against Raglan! I helped you recover this body, and what was your pledge to me of loyalty! What were your words?"
"I lied to you, David. I lie to myself and to others. That's what my little excursion in the flesh taught me. I lie. You surprise me, David. You're angry, so very angry, but you're not afraid. You're like me, David-you and Claudia-the only ones who really have my strength."
"Claudia," he said, with a little nod. "Ah, yes, Claudia. I have something for you, my dear friend." He moved away, deliberately turning his back on me, letting me see the fearlessness of this gesture, and he went slowly, refusing to hurry, to the chest beside the bed. When he turned around again he had a small locket in his hands. "From the Motherhouse. The locket you described to me."
"Oh, yes, the locket. Give it to me."
Only now did I see how his hands shook as he struggled with the little oval gold case.
And the fingers, he did not know them so very well, did he? At last he had it opened and he thrust it at me, and I looked down at the painted miniature-her face, her eyes, her golden curls. A child staring back at me out of the mask of innocence. Or was this a mask?