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"Learn what?" I asked. "David, I'm going to Dora. She's the onlyperson I can go to. And besides, I can't leave things with her as I did!
I have to go back, and I am going back. Now from you, Armand, apromise, the obvious thing. Around this Dora, I've thrown aprotective light. None of us can touch her.""That goes without saying. I won't hurt your little friend. Youwound me." He looked genuinely put out.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I know. But I know what blood is and innocenceand how delicious both can be. I know how much the girltempts me.""Then you must be the one to give in to that temptation," saidArmand crossly. "I never choose my victims anymore, you know this.
I can stand before a house as always, and out of the doors will comethose who want to be in my arms. Of course I won't hurt her. You dohold old grudges. You think I live in the past. You don't understandthat I actually change with every era, I always have as best I can. Butwhat in the world can Dora tell you that will help you?""I don't know," I said. "But I'm going directly tomorrow night.
If there were time left, I'd go now. I'm going to her. David, ifsomething happens to me, if I vanish, if I ... you have all Dora'sinheritance."He nodded. "You have my word of honor on the girl's bestinterests, but you must not go to her!""Lestat, if you need me? Armand said. "If this being tries totake you by force!""Why do you care about me?" I asked. "After all the bad things Idid to you? Why?""Oh, don't be such a fool," he begged gently. "You convinced melong ago that the world was a Savage Garden. Remember your oldpoetry? You said the only laws that were true were aesthetic laws,that was all you could count on.""Yes, I remember all that. I fear it's true. I've always feared it wastrue. I feared it when I was a mortal child. I woke up one morningand I believed in nothing.""Well, then, in the Savage Garden," said Armand, "you shinebeautifully, my friend. You walk as if it is your garden to do with asyou please. And in my wanderings, I always return to you. I alwaysreturn to see the colors of the garden in your shadow, or reflected inyour eyes, perhaps, or to hear of your latest follies and madobsessions. Besides, we are brothers, are we not?""Why didn't you help me last time, when I was in all that trouble,having switched bodies with a human being?""You won't forgive me if I tell you," he said.
"Tell me.""Because I hoped and prayed for you, that you would remain inthat mortal body and save your soul. I thought you had been grantedthe greatest gift, that you were human again, my heart ached for yourtriumph! I couldn't interfere. I couldn't do it.""You are a child and a fool, you always were."He shrugged. "Well, it looks like you're being given anotherchance to do something with your soul. You'd best be at your verystrongest and most resourceful, Lestat. I distrust this Memnoch, farworse than any human foe you faced when you were trapped in theflesh. This Memnoch sounds very far from Heaven. Why should theylet you in with him?""Excellent question.""Lestat," said David, "don't go to Dora. Will you remember thatmy advice last time might have saved you misery!"Oh, there was too much to comment on there, for his advicemight have prevented him from ever being what he was now, in thisfine form, and I could not, I could not regret that he was here, that hehad won the Body Thief's fleshly trophy. I couldn't. I just couldn't.
"I can believe the Devil wants you," said Armand.
"Why?" I asked.
"Please don't go to Dora," said David seriously.
"I have to, and it's almost morning now. I love you both."Both of them were staring at me, perplexed, suspicious, uncertain.
I did the only thing I could. I left.
9THE NEXT night, I rose from my attic hiding place and wentdirectly out in search of Dora. I didn't want to see or hear anymore of David or Armand. I knew I couldn't be preventedfrom what I had to do.
How I meant to do it, that was the question. They had unwittinglyconfirmed something for me. I was not totally mad. I was notimagining everything that was happening around me. Some of it, perhaps, Iwas imagining, but not all.
Whatever the case, I decided upon a radical course of action withDora, and one which neither David nor Armand could conceivablyhave approved.
Knowing more than a little about her habits and her whereabouts,I caught up with Dora as she was coming out of the televisionstudio on Chartres Street in the Quarter. She'd spent theentire afternoon taping an hour-long show, and then visiting withher audience afterwards. I waited in the doorway of a nearby shopas she said farewell to the last of her "sisters" or seeming worshippers. They were young women, though not girls, and very firm believersin changing the world with Dora, and had about them acareless, nonconformist air.
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