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Part IV

The Children Of Darkness

1

I could see nothing but the rain But I could hear the his coreat power, these two," he was telling thehts that had a curious sirant children "Take them both prisoner"

Gabrielle said: "Lestat, don’t fight It’s useless to prolong it"

And I knew she was right But I’d never surrendered to anybody inher with e

We tore through the press of wet cloaks andupon us, rushing so fast they were almost invisible to mortals, and with only a little fear of us now

In the dark streets of the Left Bank, the game was finished

White faces appeared above and below h they were demonic cherubs, and when I tried to draeapon, I felt their hands on my arms I heard Gabrielle say, "Let it be done"

I held fast toGabrielle too

And in a blaze of hideous i us It was to les Innocents, only yards away I could already see the flicker of the bonfires that burned each night araves, the flames that were supposed to drive away the effluvia

I locked my arm around Gabrielle’s neck and cried out that I couldn’t bear that stench, but they were carrying us on swiftly through the darkness, through the gates and past the white marble crypts

"Surely you can’t endure it," I said, struggling "So why do you live a the dead when you were made to feed on life?"

But I felt such revulsion now I couldn’t keep it up, the verbal or physical struggle All around us lay bodies in various states of decomposition, and even from the rich sepulchers there came that reek

And as we moved into the darker part of the cemetery, as we entered an enormous sepulcher, I realized that they too hated the stench, as ust, and yet they opened theirit Gabrielle was tre into h another doore passed, and then, by direw stronger It seemed to ooze from the mud walls I turnedblood upon the steps beneath me, which vanished as we raves," I said furiously "Tell me, why do you suffer hell already by your own choice?"

"Silence," whispered one of them close to me, a dark-eyed female with a witch’s mop of hair "You blasphemer," she said "You cursed profaner"

"Don’t be a fool for the devil, darling!" I sneered We were eye to eye "Unless he treats you a dahed Or rather she started to laugh, and she stopped as if she weren’t allowed to laugh What a gay and interesting little get-together this was going to be!

We were going lower and lower into the earth

Flickering light, the scrape of their bare feet on the dirt, filthy rags brushingskull Then another, then a heap of the a niche in the wall

I tried to wrench free andon the stairs The vaher Noe passed the ghastly spectacle of rotted corpses fixed in the walls like statues, bones swathed in rotted rags

"This is too disgusting’" I said with my teeth clenched

We had coreat catacomb I could hear the low rapid beat of kettledrums

Torches blazed ahead, and over a chorus of mournful wails,

there ca beyond these puzzling cries had caught my attention

Amid all the foulness, I sensed a mortal was near It was Nicolas and he was alive and I could hear hiled with his scent And sohts They were chaos

I couldn’t know if Gabrielle had caught it

We were quite suddenly thron together, in the dust And the others backed away fro Gabrielle with reat domed chamber, scarcely illuminated by three torches which the vale, in the center of which we stood

Soe and black to the back of the cha cloth, s mortal Nicolas there

Gabrielle’s hair had come loose entirely from the ribbon, and it fell around her shoulders as she cleaved to ly calm, cautious eyes

Wails rose all around us, but the s we had heard before, creatures somewhere deep in the earth

And I realized these were ento for forgiveness and release, screa even for the fires of hell The sound was as unbearable as the stench

No real thoughts from Nicki, only the for? Was he mad?

The roll of the drums was very loud and very close, and yet those screaain without rhyth of those nearest us died away, but the dru fro desperately not to clareat circle had been formed, and there were ten of the ones, old ones,boy -- and all clothed in the rearled with filth There was the woman I had spoken to on the stairs, her well-shaped body clothed in a filthy robe, her quick black eyes glinting like jewels in the dirt as she studied us And beyond these, the advance guard, were a pair in the shadows beating the kettledruth I tried to hear Nicolas without actually thinking of hih at the moment I do not know exactly how

The druly cadence that ainst my throat One of the torchbearers approached

I could feel the anticipation of the others, a palpable excitement as the flames were thrust at me

I snatched the torch fro down on his knees With a hard kick, I sent hi the torch wide driving them back

Then defiantly, I thren the torch

This caught theuard and I sensed a sudden quietness The excite more patient and less volatile

The dru the dru at the buckles on our shoes, at our hair, and at our faces, with such distress they appeared uish, reached out to touch Gabrielle