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"¡ªthe ground was gone The hotel was gone I wasn't anywhere or anchored to anything, and yet I was surrounded by people, people howling and chattering and screa, and all this was happening si This wasn't darkness, this wasn't the cliched flames of the inferno, and I reached out I didn't do this with my ar, every liain equilibriu on terra fir over me Look, I don't have any words for this It was horrific It was very certainly the worst thing I've ever seen! The light was shining behind it, and it stood between ht and it had a face, and the face was dark, extremely dark, and as I looked at it I lost all control I must have roared Yet I have no idea if in the real world I made a sound

"When I ca looked ordinary, and it was as if I'd been in that other place for years and years, and all sorts of frag away froht or finished proposition or suggestion

"All I could remember with any certainty is what I just told you I stood there I looked at the flowers Nobody in the lobby noticedto rements, beset by bits and pieces of talk, or threat or description, and I kept seeing very clearly this truly ugly dark Being before me, exactly the sort of deht out of his reason I kept seeing this face and"

"Yes?"

"I've seen hiain "

I realized I was iven ain David placed an order Then he leant close to me

"You think you've seen the Devil "

"There's not hten me, David," I said"We both know that There isn't a vahten me Not the very oldest, not the wisest, not the cruelist Not even Maharet And what do I know of the supernatural other than us? The eleeists, the little addlebrained spirits, we all know and seethe things you called up with Candomblewitchcraft "

"Yes," he said

"This was The Man Himself, David "

He smiled, but it was by no means unkind or unsympathetic "For you, Lestat," he teased softly, seductively, "for you, it would have to be the Devil Himself "

We both laughed Though I think it riters call a h I went on

"The second time it was in New Orleans I was near ho And I started to hear those steps behindme know it Damn it, I've done this to mortals myself and it's so viciousGod! Why was I ever created! And then the third ti over s or I in , and it is hideous, and this last tih to run from it, to flee, David, like a cowardAnd then I woke up, as I always do, in so's just the way it was Nobody has a hair out of place "

"And it doesn't talk to you when it appears like this?"

"No, not at all It's trying to drive , perhaps Remember what you said, Davi