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Cautiously I leant on the glass. With my strength it would havebeen a simple thing to have accidentally shattered the wall. The lastthing I wanted was a blunder.
Obviously he wanted me to say more, and I was trying. I couldrecall the man fairly distinctly. "An agreeable face, very agreeable.
He was the kind of man who doesn't impress one with size or physi-cality so much as a sort of alertness, a poise and intelligence, Isuppose you'd call it. He looked like an interesting man.""Clothes.""Not noticeable. Black I think, maybe even a bit dusty? I think Iwould remember jet black, or beautiful black, or fancy black.""Eyes distinctive?""Only for the intelligence. They weren't large or deeply colored.
He looked normal, smart. Dark eyebrows but not terribly heavy oranything like that. Normal forehead, full hair, nice hair, combed, butnothing dandified like mine. Or yours.""And you believe he spoke the words?""I'm sure he did. I heard him. I jumped up. I was awake, youunderstand, fully awake. I saw the sun. Look at my hand."I was not as pale as I had been before I went into the Gobi desert,before I had tempted the sun to kill me in the recent past. But wecould both see the burn where the rays of the sun had struck myhand. And I could feel the burn on the right side of my face, though itwasn't visible there because I'd probably turned my head.
"And you woke and you were under the bed, and it was askew, andhad been thrown over and had fallen back down.""No question of it. A lamp was overturned. I had not dreamed itany more than I dreamed Roger or anything else. Look, I want you tocome uptown with me. I want you to see this place. Roger's things.""Oh, I want to," he said. He stood up. "I wouldn't miss this forthe world. It's just I wanted you to take your ease a little longer, to tryto....""What? Get calm? After talking to the ghost of one of my victims?
After seeing this man standing in my room! After seeing this thingtake Roger, this thing which has been stalking me all over the world,this herald of madness, this?
"But you didn't really see it take Roger, did you?"I thought about it for a moment.
"I'm not sure. I'm not sure Roger's image was animated anymore.
He looked completely calm. He faded. Then the face of the creatureor being or whatever it was梩he face was visible for an instant. Bythat time, I was completely lost梟o sense of balance or locality,nothing. I don't know whether Roger was just fading as it took him orwhether he accepted it and went along.""Lestat, you don't know that either thing happened. You onlyknow Roger's ghost disappeared and this thing appeared. That's allyou know.""I suppose that's true.""Think about it this way- Your Stalker chose to make himselfmanifest. And he obliterated your ghostly companion.""No. They were connected. Roger heard him coming! Rogerknew he was coming even before I heard the footsteps. Thank Godfor one thing.""Which is what?""That I can't communicate the fear to you. That I can't make youfeel how bad it was. You believe me, which is more than sufficient forthe moment, but if you really knew, you wouldn't be calm andcollected and the perfect British gentleman.""I might be. Let's go. I want to see this treasure-house. I believeyou're absolutely correct that you can't let all these objects slip out ofthe possession of the girl.""Woman, young woman.""And we should check on her whereabouts, immediately.""I did that on the way here.""In the state you were in?""Well, I certainly snapped out of it long enough to go into thehotel and make certain she'd left. I had to do that much. A limousinehad taken her to La Guardia at nine a.m. this morning. She reachedNew Orleans this afternoon. As for the convent, I have no idea howto reach her there. I don't even know if she has the wiring in it for aphone. For now, she's as safe as she ever was while Roger was living.""Agreed. Let's go uptown."SOMETIMES fear is a warning. It's like someone putting a hand onyour shoulder and saying Go No Farther.
As we entered the flat, I felt that for a couple of seconds. Panic.
Go No Farther.
But I was too proud to show it and David too curious, proceedingbefore me into the hallway, and noting, no doubt, as I did, that theplace was without life. The recent death? He could smell it as well asI could. I wondered if it was less noxious to him since it had not beenhis kill.
Roger! The fusion of the mangled corpse and Roger the Ghost inmemory was suddenly like a sharp kick in the chest.
David went all the way to the living room while I lingered, lookingat the big white marble angel with its shell of holy water andthinking how like the granite statue it was. Blake. William Blake hadknown. He had seen angels and devils and he'd gotten theirproportions right. Roger and I could have talked about Blake. ...
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