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"I'm not upbraiding you," he said. "I'm merely suggesting thatthis thing has not threatened the others. That in all of these hundredsof years, none of the others ... none that we know has ever spoken ofsuch a thing. Indeed, in your writing, in your books, you've beenmost explicit that no vampire had ever seen the Devil, have you not?"I admitted it with a shrug. Louis, my beloved pupil and fledgling,had once crossed the world to find the "eldest" of the vampires, andArmand had stepped forward with open arms to tell him that therewas no God or Devil. And I, half a century before that, had made myown journey for the "eldest" and it had been Marius, made in thedays of Rome, who had said the very same thing to me. No God. NoDevil.
I sat still, conscious of stupid discomforts, that the place wasstuffy, that the perfume was not really perfume, that there were nolilies in these rooms, that it was going to be very cold outside, andI couldn't think of rest until dawn forced me to it, and the nightwas long, and I was not making sense to David, and I might losehim ... 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 totake you.""You will?""Yes," he said.
"Why?""Don't be foolish," he said. "Look, I don't know what I saw in thecafe. 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 theCandomble secrets. The night you . . . you came after me, I tried tosummon the spirits.""They came. They were too weak to help.""Right. But. . . what is my point? My point is simply that I loveyou, 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 hepretends to hate you for having made him. Armand envies you andspies 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, Ithink you know that, for not becoming his acolyte, for not believingin history as some sort of redemptive coherence.""Well put. That is what he believes. Oh, but he's angry with mefor much greater things than that, you weren't one of us when I wokethe Mother and the Father. You weren't there. But that's anothertale.""I know all of it. You forget your books. I read your work as soonas 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 downat the table, drifting, the way he so often had when he was mortal,when I could read his mind yet he could defeat me, consciouslylocking me out. Now it was simply a barrier. I would never again knowwhat his thoughts felt like.
"I'm hungry," I whispered.
"Hunt."I shook my head. "When I'm ready, I'll take the Victim. As soonas 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'vedone it, that one of his many enemies got him, that his evil came backon him, very Biblical, when all the time it was just a species of killerroaming the Savage Garden of the Earth, a vampire, looking for ajuicy mortal, and her father had caught my eye, and it's going to beover, 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 wellenough. Nobody had to tell him anymore about drinking the blood,the soul, the memory, the spirit, the heart. I wouldn't know thatwretched 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 manythoughts, 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 ... closeto the cathedral.""Why?""Well, David, you should know why. If the Devil starts chasing medown Fifth Avenue, I'll just run into St. Patrick's and run to the HighAltar and fall on my knees before the Blessed Sacrament and beg Godto 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 mytie. Takes some care, you know, to get it all around your neck andinto your shirt and so forth, and not look like a lunatic with a big scarfaround your neck. I'm together, as mortals so bluntly state it. Canyou find us some rooms?"He nodded.
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