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But Lestat, you are here He had taken the tape recorder out, set it down, put in the first tape, and let the voice of Louis rise softly in the shadowy room Hour by hour, the tapes played Then just before dawn he had seen a figure in the hallway, and known that he was meant to see it And he had seen the moon strike the boyish face, the auburn hair The earth tilted, the darkness came down The last word he uttered had been the name Armand

He should have died then Had a whim kept him alive?

He'd awakened in a dark, da in the blackness, he'd discovered a bricked-up , a locked door plated with steel

And as his cood of the secret pantheon-Armand, the oldest of the immortals whom Louis had described, Armand, the coven master of the nineteenth-century Theater of the Vampires in Paris, who had confided his terrible secret to Louis: of our origins nothing is known

For three days and nights, perhaps, Daniel had lain in this prison I certainly, the stench of his own urine sickening hiious fervor He had co truths that Louis had revealed Slipping in and out of consciousness, he drea to him in that dirty little roos such as we are, always, Louis e suddenly as he let Daniel see the fang teeth

The fourth night, Daniel had awakened and known at once that so was in the roo soround sewer Slowly his eyes grew accustoht froure standing against the wall

So immaculate the black suit, the starched white shirt-like the imitation of a twentieth-century lea dully even in this semi-darkness Like a corpse for the coffin-that sterile, that well prepared

The voice had been gentle with a trace of an accent Not European; so sharper yet softer at the same time Arabic or Greek perhaps, that kind of er

"Get out Take your tapes with you They are there beside you I know of your book No one will believe it Now you will go and take these things "

Then you won't kill me And you won't hts, but he couldn't stop the here And he'd felt hier, reduced to a child

"Make you one of us?" The accent thickened, giving a fine lilt to the words "Why would I do that?" Eyes narrowing "I would not do that to those who in hell as a matter of course So why should I do it to an innocent fool-like you?"

I want it I want to live forever Daniel had sat up, cli to see Armand more clearly A dim bulb burned somewhere far down the hall I want to be with Lquis and with you

Laughter, low, gentle But contemptuous "I see why he chose you for his confidant You are naive and beautiful But the beauty could be the only reason, you know "

Silence

"Your eyes are an unusual color, al in the same breath "