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"Vampires," he said. "I saw ghosts when I was a boy in our house inNew Orleans.""Everybody in New Orleans sees ghosts."He laughed in spite of himself, a very short, quiet laugh. "Iknow," he said, "but really I did and I have, and I've seen them inother places. But I never believed in God or the Devil or Angels orVampires or Werewolves, or things like that, things that could affectfate, or change the course of some chaotic-seeming rhythm thatgoverned the universe.""You believe in God now?""No. I have the sneaking suspicion that I'll hold firm as long as Ican in this form條ike all the ghosts I've ever glimpsed梩hen I'llstart to fade. I'll die out. Rather like a light. That's what's waiting forme. Oblivion, And it isn't personal. It just feels that way because mymind, what's left of it, what's clinging to the earth here, can'tcomprehend anything else. What do you think?""It terrifies me either way or any way." I was not going to tell himabout the Stalker. I was not going to ask him about the statue. I knewnow he had had nothing to do with the statue seeming animate. Hehad been dead, going up.
"Terrifies you?" he asked respectfully. "Well, it's not happeningto you. You make it happen to others. Let me explain about Dora.""She's beautiful. I'll. ,. I'll try to look out for her.""No, she needs something more from you. She needs a miracle.""A miracle?""Look, you're alive, whatever you are, but you're not human. Youcan make a miracle, can't you? You could do this for Dora, it wouldbe no problem for a creature of your abilities at all!""You mean some sort of fake religious miracle?""What else? She's never going to save the world without a miracleand she knows it. You could do it!""You're remaining earthbound and haunting me in this place tomake a sleazy proposition like this!" I said. "You're unsalvageable.
You are dead. But you're still a racketeer and a criminal. Listen toyourself. You want me to fake some spectacle for Dora? You thinkDora would want that?"He was flabbergasted, clearly. Much too much so to be insulted.
He put the glass down and sat there, composed and calm,appearing to scan the bar. Looking dignified and about ten years youngerthan he had been when I killed him. I don't guess anyone wants tocome back as a ghost except in beautiful form. It was only natural.
And I felt a deepening of my inevitable and fatal fascination, this, myVictim. Monsieur, your blood is inside me!
He turned.
"You're right," he said in the most torn whisper. "You're absolutelyright. I can't make some deal with you to fake miracles for her.
It's monstrous. She'd hate it.""Now you're talking like the Grateful Dead," I said.
He gave another litde contemptuous laugh. Then with a low sombreemotion, he said, "Lestat, you have to take care of her ... for awhile,"When I didn't answer, he persisted gently:
"Just for a little while, until the reporters have stopped, and thehorror of it is over; until her faith is restored, and she's whole andDora after all, and back to her life. She has her life, yet, She can't behurt because of me, Lestat, not because of me, it's not fair.""Fair?""Call me by my name," he said. "Look at me."I looked at him. It was exquisitely painful. He was miserable. Ididn't know whether human beings could express this same intensityof misery. I actually didn't know.
"My name's Roger," he said. He seemed even younger now, asthough he were traveling backwards in time, in his mind, or merelybecoming innocent, as if the dead, if they are going to stick around,have a right to remember their innocence.
"I know your name," I said. "I know everything about you, Roger.
Roger, the Ghost. And you never let Old Captain touch you; you justlet him adore you, and educate you, and take you places, and buy youbeautiful things, and you never even had the decency to go to bedwith him."I said those things, about the images I'd drunk with his blood, butwithout malice. I was just talking in wonder of how bad we all are, thelies we tell.
He said nothing for the moment.
I was overwhelmed. It was grief veritably blinding me, and bitternessand a deep ugly horror for what I had done to him, and to others,and that I had ever harmed any living creature. Horror.
What was Dora's message? How were we to be saved? Was it thesame old canticle of adoration?
He watched me. He was young, committed, a magnificent semblanceof life. Roger.
"All right," he said, the voice soft and patient, "I didn't sleep withOld Captain, you're right, but he never really wanted that of me, yousee, it wasn't like that, he was far too old. You don't know what it wasreally like. You might know the guilt I feel. But you don't know laterhow much I regretted not having done it. Not having known thatwith Old Captain. And that's not what made me go wrong. It wasn'tthat. It wasn't the big deception or heist that you imagine it to be. Iloved the things he showed me. He loved me. He lived two, threemore years, probably because of me. Wynken de Wilde, we lovedWynken de Wilde together. It should have turned out different. Iwas with Old Captain when he died, you know. I never left the room.
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