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"Older than you are? But I thought you were the oldest," Daniel had said It had been years since they'd spoken of Intervieith the Vampire They had, in fact, never discussed its contents in detail

"No, of course I'htly uneasy "Merely the oldest your friend Louis was ever to find There are others I don't know their names, I've seldoht say that we feel each other We send our silent yet powerful signals 'Keep away from me ' "

The following night, he'd given Daniel the locket, the amulet as he called it, to wear He'd kissed it first and rubbed it in his hands as if to warer still to see the thing itself with the letter A carved on it, and inside the tiny vial of Armand's blood

"Here, snap the clasp if they come near you Break the vial instantly And they will feel the power that protects you They will not dare-"

"Ah, you'll let them kill me You know you will," Daniel had said coldly Shut out "Give ht for myself "

But he had worn the locket ever since Under the las all over the thing to find they were tiny twisted huony, so actually He had dropped the chain down into his shirt, and it was cold against his naked chest, but out of sight

Yet Daniel was never to see or sense the presence of another supernatural being He re known in a fever Ar deod

More and more his bitterness increased Life with Armand inflamed hiht of his family, of the friends he used to know Checks went out to kin, of that he'd made certain, but they were just names now on a list

"You'll never die, and yet you look at ht, you watch it "

Ugly fights, terrible fights, finally, Ar softly but uncontrollably as if some lost emotion had been rediscovered which threatened to tear him apart "I will not do it, I cannot do it Ask me to kill you, it would be easier than that You don't knohat you ask for, don't you see? It is always a daive it up for one human lifetime?"

"Give up immortality, just to live one life? I don't believe you This is the first time you have told me an out-and-out lie "

"How dare you!"

"Don't hit"

"I'd give it up If I weren't a cohen it gets right down to it, if I weren't after five hundred greedy years in this ind still terrified to the marrow of my bones of death "

"No, you wouldn't Fear has nothing to do with it Iine one lifetime back then when you were born And all this lost? The future in which you knoer and luxury of which Genghis Khan never dreaet the technical norance of the world's destiny? Ah, don't tell me you would "