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“Not really,” said the vas But where e? You want to kno it happened, how I became a vampire”

“Yes,” said the boy “How did you change, exactly?”

“I can’t tell you exactly,” said the vampire “I can tell you about it, enclose it ords that will make the value of it to me evident to you But I can’t tell you exactly, any more than I could tell you exac

tly what is the experience of sex if you have never had it”

The young man seemed struck suddenly with still another question, but before he could speak the vampire went on “As I told you, this vampire Lestat, wanted the plantation Ame a life which will last until the end of the world; but he was not a very discri person He didn’t consider the world’s s a select club, I should say He had human problems, a blind father who did not know his son was a va in New Orleans had beco his needs and the necessity to care for his father, and he wanted Pointe du Lac

“We went at once to the plantation the next evening, ensconced the blind father in the e I cannot say that it consisted in any one step really — though one, of course, was the step beyond which I could make no return But there were several acts involved, and the first was the death of the overseer Lestat took him in his sleep I was to watch and to approve; that is, to witness the taking of a hue This proved without doubt the ardingard for the life of others, and a horror of death most recently developed because of my brother I had to watch the overseer aith a start, try to throw oft Lestat with both hands, fail, then lie there struggling under Lestat’s grasp, and finally go limp, drained of blood And die He did not die at once We stood in his narrow bedroo hie, as I said Lestat would never have stayed otherwise Then it was necessary to get rid of the overseer’s body I was almost sick from this Weak and feverish already, I had little reserve; and handling the dead body with such a purpose causedme callously that I would feel so different once I was a va about that I never laugh at death, no ularly I am the cause of it

“But let s in order We had to drive up the river road until we came to open fields and leave the overseer there We tore his coat, stole his money, and saw to it his lips were stained with liquor I knew his wife, who lived in New Orleans, and knew the state of desperation she would suffer when the body was discovered But more than sorrow for her, I felt pain that she would never knohat had happened, that her husband had not been found drunk on the road by robbers As we beat the body, bruising the face and the shoulders, I became more and more aroused Of course, you must realize that all this time the vampire Lestat was extraordinary He was no el But under this pressure,a vaht was simply enchantment; Lestat had overwhelht was hly dah which Lestat had come on both the first and second occasion Noas not destroying myself but someone else The overseer, his wife, his faht have fled frohly shattered, had not he sensed with an infallible instinct as happening Infallible instinct…” The vampire mused “Let me say the powerful instinct of a vae in a huesture Lestat had preternatural tie and whipped the horses hoan to murmur ‘This is unbearable I want to die You have it in your power to kill me Let me die’ I refused to look at him, to be spellbound by the sheer beauty of his appearance He spokeAs I said, he was determined to have the plantation”

“But would he have let you go?” asked the boy “Under any circumstances?”

“I don’t know Knowing Lestat as I do noould say he would have killed o But this hat I wanted, you see It didn’t ht I wanted As soon as we reached the house, I jue and walked, a zombie, to the brick stairs where my brother had fallen The house had been unoccupied for e, and the Louisiana heat and da apart the steps Every crevice was sprouting grass and even s the ht was cool as I sat down on the lower steps and even rested ainst the brick and felt the little wax-stemmed wildfloith my hands I pulled a clump of them out of the easy dirt in one hand ‘I want to die; kill uilty of murder I can’t live’ He sneered with the i to the obvious lies of others And then in a flash he fastened on ainst hi my boot into his chest and kicked hiin my temples And with a movement of his entire body,disdainfully at the foot of the steps ‘I thought you wanted to die, Louis,’ he said”

The boy made a soft, abrupt sound when the vaed with the quick statement, “Yes, that is my name,” and went on

“Well, I lay there helpless in the face of ain,” he said “Perhaps so directly confronted with it, I e to truly takefor others to take it I sawin a day-to-day suffering which I found as necessary as penance fro death would find me unawares and render me fit for eternal pardon And also I sawat the head of the stairs, just wheremy body down on the bricks

“But there was no tie Or shall I say, there was no ti but his plan ‘Now listen to me, Louis,’ he said, and he lay down beside raceful and so personal that at once it ht arm around me and pulled me close to his chest Never had I been this close to hinificent radiance of his eye and the unnatural ht fingers againstto drain you now to the very threshold of death, and I want you to be quiet, so quiet that you can alh your veins, so quiet that you can hear the flow of that sah mine It is your consciousness, your will, which le, but he pressed so hard with his fingers that he held my entire prone body in check; and as soon as I stopped my abortive attempt at rebellion, he sank his teeth into my neck”

The boy’s eyes grew huge He had drawn farther and farther back in his chair as the vampire spoke, and now his face was tense, his eyes narrow, as if he were preparing to weather a blow

“Have you ever lost a great a?”

The boy’s lips shaped the word no, but no sound came out He cleared his throat “No,” he said