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Al room He had only just come up the stairs from the cellar where he had slept by day in a vault behind the wall He had no awareness at all of anyone watching He moved with silky strides across the dusty roolass at the thick flow of passing cars Saed ant and sensuous creature who had caused such a little tumult with his story in Intervieith the Va for Lestat He had had troubling dreams; he was fearful for Lestat, and full of old and unfas
Reluctantly, he let the ireat affection for that one, Louis And the affection was not wise because Louis had a tender, educated soul and none of the dazzling power of Gabrielle or her devilish son Yet Louisas they, he was sure of that Curious the kinds of courage which made for endurance Maybe it had to do with acceptance But then how account for Lestat, beaten, scarred, yet risen again? Lestat who never accepted anything?
They had not found each other yet, Gabrielle and Louis But it was all right What was he to do? Bring theether? The very ideaBesides, Lestat would do that soon enough
But noas sain "Lestat, you are the damnedest creature! Yes, a brat prince " Slowly, he reinvoked every detail of Lestat's face and forenerous sether in a boyish scowl; the sudden flares of high spirits and blasphemous hue So uncoth, always such strength and such irrepressible optimism
The fact was, he did not know his own mind about the entire enterprise, only that he was aeance against Lestat for telling his secrets And surely Lestat had counted upon that, but then one never knew Maybe Lestat truly did not care He knew no more than the fools back there in the bar, on that score
What mattered to him was that for the first ti in terms of past and future; he found himself most keenly aware of the nature of this era Those Who Must Be Kept were fiction even to their own children! Long gone were the days when fierce rogue blood drinkers searched for their shrine and their powerful blood Nobody believed or even cared any longer!
And there lay the essence of the age; for itsat every turn the e, they had founded their greatest ethical advances squarely upon the truths embedded in the physical
Two hundred years since he and Lestat had discussed these very things on an island in the Mediterranean-the dreaodless and truly moral world where love of one's fellowAnd now such a world was almost realized And the Vampire Lestat had passed into popular art where all the old devils ought to go, and would take with hi Those Who Must Be Kept, though they ht never know it
It made him smile, the syly seduced by the whole idea of what Lestat had done He could well understand the lure of fame
Why, it had thrilled him shamelessly to see his own nahed; but he had enjoyed the laughter thoroughly
Leave it to Lestat to construct such an inspiring draht Lestat, the boisterous boulevard actor of the ancien regime, now risen to stardom in this beauteous and innocent era
But had he been right in his little su in the bar, that no one could destroy the brat prince? That was sheer ro The fact is, any of us can be destroyedone way or another Even Those Who Must Be Kept, surely
They eak, of course, those fledgling "Children of Darkness," as they styled thenificantly But what of the older ones? If only Lestat had not used the names of Mael and Pandora But were there not blood drinkers older even than that, ones of who on the wall: "ancient and terrible beingsslowly and inexorably to answer his summons "
A frisson startled hireen, fetid place, full of unwholeso warnals and o to shut out the endless flow of voices and ies that hisviolent and unexpected, like a sharp cry, cah
Whatever, he had been in this city long enough He did not know that he ry with his own sudden war He wanted to be home now He had been away fro