"Hurry, both of you! " said a female voice in French suddenly.
"What are you waiting for, the Church to pronounce it a miracle? " And I was jerked into the leather bucket seat before I realized what was happening, dragging Louis in on top of me so that he had to scramble over me into the compartment in back. The Porsche lurched forward, scattering the fleeing mortals in front of its headlights. I stared at the slender figure of the driver beside me, her yellow hair streaming over her shoulders, her soiled felt hat smashed down over her eyes. I wanted to throw my arms around her, to crush her with kisses, to press my heart against her heart and forget absolutely everything else. The hell with these idiot fledglings. But the Porsche almost went over again as she made the sharp right out of the gate and into the busy street.
"Gabrielle, stop! " I shouted, my hand closing on her arm. "You didn't do that, burn them like that-! "
"Of course not, " she said, in sharp French still, barely glancing at me. She looked irresistible as with two fingers she twisted the wheel again, swinging us into yet another ninety-degree turn. We were headed for the freeway.
"Then you're driving us away from Marius! " I said. "Stop. "
"So let him blow up the van that's following us! " she cried. "Then I'll stop. " She had the gas pedal floored, her eyes fixed on the road in front of her, her hands locked to the leatherclad wheel. I turned to see it over Louis's shoulder, a monster of a vehicle bearing down with surprising speed-an overgrown hearse it seemed, hulking and black, with a mouthful of chromium teeth across the snub-nosed front and four of the undead leering at us from behind the tinted windshield glass.
"We can't get clear of this traffic to outrun them! " I said.
"Turn around. Go back to the auditorium. Gabrielle, turn around!
" But she bore on, weaving in and out of the motor coaches wildly, driving some of them in sheer panic to the side. The van was gaining.
"It's a war machine, that's what it is! " Louis said. "They've rigged it with an iron bumper. They're going to try to ram us, the little monsters! " Oh, I had played this one wrong. I had underestimated. I had envisioned my own resources in this modem age, but not theirs. And we were moving farther and farther away from the one immortal who could blow them to Kingdom Come. Well, I would handle them with pleasure. I'd smash their windshield to pieces for starters, then tear off their heads one by one. I opened the window, climbing halfway up and out of it, the wind whipping my hair, as I glared at them, their ugly white faces behind the glass. As we shot up the freeway ramp, they were almost on top of us. Good. Just a little closer and I would spring. But our car was skidding to a halt. Gabrielle couldn't clear the path ahead.
"Hold on, it's coming! " she screamed.
"Like hell it is! " I shouted, and in an instant I would have jumped off the roof and gone into them like a battering ram. But I didn't have that instant. They had struck us full force, and my body flew up in the air, diving over the side of the freeway as the Porsche shot out in front of me, sailing into space. I saw Gabrielle break through the side door before the car hit the ground. And she and I were both rolling over on the grassy slope as the car capsized and exploded with a deafening roar.
"Louis! " I shouted. I scrambled towards the blaze. I would have gone right into it after him: But the glass of the back portal splintered as he came through it. He hit the embankment just as I reached him. And with my cape I beat at his smoking garments, Gabrielle ripping off her jacket to do the same. The van had stopped at the freeway railing high above. The creatures were dropping over the edge, like big white insects, and landing on their feet on the slope. And I was ready for them. But again, as the first one skidded down towards us, scythe raised, there came that ghastly preternatural scream again and the blinding combustion, the creature's face a black mask in a riot of orange flame. The body convulsed in a horrid dance. The others turned and ran under the freeway. I started after them, but Gabrielle had her arms around me and wouldn't let me go. Her strength maddened me and amazed me.
"Stop, damn it! " she said. "Louis, help me! "
"Let me loose! " I said furiously. "I want one of them, just one of them. I can get the hindmost in the pack! " But she wouldn't release me, and I certainly wasn't going to fight her, and Louis had joined with her in her angry and desperate entreaties.
"Lestat, don't go after them! " he said, his polite manner strained to the fullest. "We've had quite enough. We must leave here now. "
"All right! " I said, giving it up resentfully. Besides, it was too late. The burnt one had expired in smoke and sputtering flames, and the others were gone into silence and darkness without a trace. The night around us was suddenly empty, except for the thunder of the freeway traffic high above. And there we were, the three of us, standing together in the lurid glaze of the blazing car. Louis wiped the soot from his face wearily, his stiff white shirtfront smudged, his long velvet opera cape burnt and torn. And there was Gabrielle, the waif just as she'd been so long ago, the dusty, ragged boy in frayed khaki jungle jacket and pants, the squashed brown felt hat askew on her lovely head. Out of the cacophony of city noises, we heard the thin whine of sirens approaching. Yet we stood motionless, the three of us, waiting, glancing to one another. And I knew we were all scanning for Marius. Surely it was Marius. It had to be. And he was with us, not against us. And he would answer us now. I said his name aloud softly. I peered into the dark under the freeway, and out over the endless army of little houses that crowded the surrounding slopes. But all I could hear were the sirens growing louder and the murmur of human voices as mortals began the long climb from the boulevard below. I saw fear in Gabrielle's face. I reached out for her, went towards her, in spite of all the hideous confusion, the mortals coming nearer and nearer, the vehicles stopped on the freeway above. Her embrace was sudden, warm. But she gestured for me to hurry.