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I became aware again of his watching me.
He seemed to have collected himself somewhat or forgiven me forthe one thousandth time for having put his soul into a vampire's bodywithout his permission, indeed against his will. He looked at me,almost lovingly suddenly, as if I needed that reassurance.
I took it. I did.
"In this Paris cafe, you heard two beings talking to each other," Isaid, going back to his vision of years before. "You were a youngman. It all happened gradually. But you realized they weren't 'really'
there, the two, in a material sense, and the language they werespeaking was understandable to you even though you didn't know what itwas."He nodded. "That's correct. And it sounded precisely like Godand the Devil talking to each other."I nodded. "And when I left you in the jungles last year, you said Iwasn't to worry, that you weren't going off on any religious quest tofind God and the Devil in a Paris cafe. You said you'd spent yourmortal life looking for such things in the Talamasca. And now youwould take a different turn.""Yes, that's what I said," he admitted agreeably. "The vision'sdimmer now than it was when I told you. But I remember it. I stillremember it, and I still believe I saw and heard something, and I'm asresigned as ever that I'll never know what it was.""You're leaving God and the Devil to the Talamasca, then, as youpromised.""I'm leaving the Devil to the Talamasca," he said. "I don't thinkthe Talamasca as a psychic order was ever that interested in God."All this was familiar verbal territory. I acknowledged it. We bothkept our eye on the Talamasca, so to speak. But only one member ofthat devout order of scholars had ever known the true fate of DavidTalbot, the former Superior General, and now that human being wasdead. His name had been Aaron Lightner. This had been a greatsadness to David, the loss of the one human who knew what he was now,the human who had been his knowing mortal friend, as David hadbeen mine.
He wanted to pick up the thread.
"You've seen a vision?" he asked. "That's what's frighteningyou?"I shook my head. "Nothing as clear as that. But the Thing isstalking me, and now and then it lets me see something in the blink of aneye. I hear it mostly. I hear it sometimes talking in a normalconversational voice to another, or I hear its steps behind me on the street,and I spin around. It's true. I'm terrified of it. And then when itshows itself, well, I usually end up so disoriented, I'm sprawled in thegutter like a common drunk. A week will pass. Nothing. Then I'llcatch that fragment of conversation again. ...""And what are the words?""Can't give the fragments to you in order. I'd been hearing thembefore I realized what they were. On some level, I knew I was hearinga voice from some other locale, so to speak, you knew it wasn't a meremortal in the next room. But for all I knew, it could have had anatural explanation, an electronic explanation.""I understand.""But the fragments are things like two people talking, and onesays-the one, that is梥ays, 'Oh, no, he's perfect, it has nothing to dowith vengeance, how could you think I wanted mere vengeance?' " Ibroke off, shrugged. "It's, you know, the middle of a conversation.""Yes," he said, "and you feel this Thing is letting you hear a littleof it... just the way I thought the vision in the cafe was meant forme.""You've got it exactly right. It's tormenting me. Another time,this was only two days ago, I was in New Orleans; I was sort of spyingon the Victim's daughter, Dora. She lives there in the convent build-I mentioned. It's an old 1880s convent, unoccupied for years, andgutted, so that it's like a brick castle, and this little sparrow of a girl,lovely little woman, lives there fearlessly, completely alone. Shewalks about the house as if she were invincible.
Well, anyway, I was down there, and I had come into the courtyardof this building梚t's, you know, a shape as old as architecture,main building, two long wings, inner courtyard."The rather typical late-nineteenth-century brick institution."Exactly, and I was watching through the windows, the progressof that little girl walking by herself through the pitch-black corridor.
She was carrying a flashlight. And she was singing to herself, one ofher hymns. They're all sort of medieval and modern at the sametime.""I believe the phrase is 'New Age,' " David suggested.
"Yes, it's somewhat like that, but this girl is on an ecumenical religiousnetwork. I told you. Her program is very conventional. Believein Jesus, be saved. She's going to sing and dance people into Heaven,especially the women, apparently, or at least they'll lead the way.""Go on with the story, you were watching her. . . .""Yes, and thinking how brave she was. She finally reached herown quarters; she lives in one of the four towers of the building; andI listened as she threw all the locks. And I thought, not many mortalswould like to go prowling about this dark building, and the placewasn't entirely spiritually clean.""What do you mean?""Little spirits, elementals, whatever, what did you call them in theTalamasca?""Elementals," he said.
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