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"I told you It's just a dreaateway of life and death I'll bring you with ateway And why? Because I ao "

Such joy Daniel felt, such cold and lovely triumph And so the moment was his, and he was lost no more in the aweso millions ould sleep in this dank odoriferous earth, beneath the broken withered flowers, without nae, all vision lost

"I pro How can I? I've told you what lies ahead "

"I don't care I'll go towards it with you "

Armand's eyes were reddened, weary, old Such delicate clothes these were, hand sewn, dusty, like the clothes of a ghost Were they what the mind conjured effortlessly when it wanted to be purely itself?

"Don't cry! It's not fair," Daniel said "This is my rebirth How can you cry? Don't you knohat this means? Is it possible you never knew?" He looked up suddenly, to catch the whole sweep of this enchanted landscape, the distant Villa, the rolling land above and below And then he turned his face upwards, and the heavens astonished him Never had he seen so many stars

Why, it seemed as if the sky itself went up and up forever with stars so plentiful and bright that the constellations were utterly lost No pattern No y and matter But then he saw the Pleiades-the constellation beloved of the doomed red-haired twins in the dreaether on a lad

"Say the word, ether after all "

"But don't you see," Daniel said, "all human decisions are made like this Do you think the mother knoill happen to the child in her womb? Dear God, we are lost, I tell you What does it ! There is only desperation, and I would have it! I want to live forever with you "

He opened his eyes The ceiling of the cabin of the plane, the soft yellow lights reflected in the ood-paneled walls, and then around hiht of the flowers al loose from their stems

They stood beneath the dead tree twined full of airy purple wisteria blossoms And the blosso cao-that in the language of an ancient people the word for floas the same as the word for blood He felt the sudden sharp stab of the teeth in his neck

His heart was caught suddenly, wrenched in a powerful grip! The pressure was more than he could bear Yet he could see over Ar down around hirant bloo into the sky!

For a split second he saw the Va sleek black car How like a lion Lestat looked with his mane of hair blown back by the wind, his eyes filled with h spirits And then he turned and looked at Daniel, and froh

Louis was there too Louis was standing in a roo, and then he said, "Yes, come, Daniel, if that is what must happen "

But they didn't know about the burnt-out coven houses! They didn't know about the twins! About the cry of danger!