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"No, Sir," I answered deferentially "May I have the one in front of the mirror?"

"Why?" he asked

"Because I can see her face in the mirror, and she's cruel "

He nodded

He slipped the door open and we ca air of the room The thirst was too hot for it The thirst was hopeless

At once, the women cried out in protest Where had we coar words, threats

With a remnant of my rational mind, I saw that the suitcase was filled withwas a huge vase of flowers near the far , bursting with color Howthe blood

Lestat drifted past ht with both his arms The rush of furious words from her came to an abrupt stop

The other woun there that she wanted so desperately to reach I had her before she could lay her hand on it, and I crushed her againstinto her black eyes

She gaveof curses in Spanish, and the thirst in me rose even more violently, as if her curses had drawn it out I brushed her thick black hair back from her neck and ran my thumb over the artery She was maddened, full of hatred

Slowly, I bit into the fount of blood

My Maker's lessons came back to me Love her sins, follow the path with her, led to obey as her mind was broken open I probed for the e and always over the white powder; and the wealth that had drawn her out of the deep filthy slums of her birth to finery and fortune, to those who toasted her beauty and her cunning; and murder after murder of those as covered in blood as herself Yes, love you, I whispered, love the sheer will and the ever present anger; yes, give it to , and suddenly there came, towards me, her unbounded love

Without language, she said, Surrender Without language, she said, I see it!, and it was all of her life, without pagination, and her ripened soul expanded, and there was a terrifying recognition of circumstance and inevitability, her crih by the hand of Heaven

But the hunger in me was sated, I was filled by her, I had had her, and I drew back, kissing the puncture wounds, lapping the tiny trickles of blood that I'd spilled, healing the evidence, even as the drowsiness overcaently I set her down on one of the indifferent chairs I kissed her lips

I knelt down before her I forcedher ue and sank ain a small rush of blood