green, looked down upon me without the slightest palpable emotion.
With all my soul I cried the words again, but when had he ever been able to divine the thoughts of his victims I could have done that, but not he! Oh, God help me, Gretchen help me, I was screaming in my soul.
As the foot increased its pressure, perhaps for the final time, all indecision cast aside, I wrenched my head to the right, sucked in one desperate tiny breath, and forced from my constricted throat one hoarse word: Lestat! all the while desperately pointing to myself with my right hand and first finger.
It was the last gesture of which I was capable. I was suffocating, and the darkness came rolling over me. Indeed it was bringing a total strangling nausea with it, and just at the moment when I ceased to care hi the most lovely light-headed fashion, the pressure ceased, and I found myself rolling over and rising up on my hands, one frantic cough tearing loose from me after another.
For the love of God, I cried, spitting the words in between my hoarse painful choking breaths, I'm Lestat. I'm Lestat in this body! Couldn't you have given me a chance to speak Do you kill any hapless mortal who blunders into your little house What of the ancient laws of hospitality, you bloody fool! Why the hell don't you put iron bars on your doors! I struggled to my knees, and suddenly the nausea won out. I vomited a filthy stream of spoiled food into the dirt and the dust, and then shrank back from it, chilled and miserable, staring up at him.
You killed the dog, didn't you You monster! I flung myself forward on Mojo's inert body. But he wasn't dead, merely unconscious, and at once, I felt the slow pumping of his heart. Oh, thank God, if you'd done that, I would never, never, never have forgiven you.
A faint moan came from Mojo, and then his left paw moved, and then slowly his right. I laid my hand between his ears. Yes, he was coming back. He was unhurt. But oh, what a wretched experience this had been! Here of all places to come to the very brink of mortal death! Enraged again, I glared up at Louis.
How still he was as he stood there, how quietly astonished. The pounding of the rain, the dark lively sounds of the winter night-all seemed to evaporate suddenly as I looked at him. Never had I seen him with mortal eyes. Never had I beheld this wan, phantom beauty. How could mortals believe this was a human when their eyes passed over him Ah, the hands-like those of plaster saints come to life in shadowy grottoes. And how utterly devoid of feeling the face, the eyes not windows of the soul at all, but fine jewel-like snares of illumination.
Louis, I said. The worst has happened. The very worst. The Body Thief made the switch. But he's stolen my body and has no intention of giving it back to me.
Nothing palpable quickened in him as I spoke. Indeed so lifeless and menacing did he seem, that I suddenly broke into a stream of French, pouring forth every image and detail which I could recall in the hopes of wringing recognition from him. I spoke of our last conversation in this very house, and the brief meeting at the foyer of the Cathedral. I recalled his warning to me that I must not speak to the Body Thief. And I confessed that I had found the man's offer impossible to resist, and had gone north to meet with him, and to accept his proposal.
Still, nothing of vitality sparked the merciless face, and suddenly, I fell silent. Mojo was trying to stand, occasional little moans coming from him, and slowly I wrapped my right arm around his neck, and leaned against him, struggling to catch my breath, and telling him in a soothing voice that everything was fine now, we were saved. No more harm would come to him.
Louis shifted his gaze slowly to the animal, then back to me. Then gradually, the set of his mouth softened ever so slightly. And then he reached for my hand, and pulled me up-quite without my cooperation or consent-to a standing position.
It really is you, he said in a deep, raw whisper.
You're damned right it's me. And you nearly killed me, you realize that! How many times will you try that little trick