can smell meat cooking somewhere in this house. And you can be certain that I intend to have my supper before I come back.
You're quite determined that I'm to know you, aren't you? he asked. That there's to be no sentimentality or mistake.
Exactly. I drew back my lips and showed him my fangs for a second. They are very small, actually, nothing compared to the leopard and the tiger, with which he kept company so obviously by choice. But this grimace always frightens mortals. It does more than frighten them. It actually shocks them. I think it sends some primal message of alarm through the organism which has little to do with its conscious courage or sophistication.
He blanched. He stood quite motionless, looking at me, and then gradually the warmth and the expression returned to his face.
Very welt, he said. I'll be here when you come back. If you don't come back, I'll be furious! I won't speak to you again, I swear it. You vanish on me tonight, you'll never get another nod from me. It will be a crime against hospitality. You understand?
All right, all right! I said with a shrug, though I was secretly touched that he wanted me here. I hadn't really been so sure, and I'd been so rude to him. I'll come back. Besides, I want to know.
What?
Why you aren't afraid of dying.
Well, you aren't afraid of it, are you?
I didn't answer. I saw the sun again, the great fiery ball becoming earth and sky, and I shuddered. Then I saw that oil lamp in my dream.
What is it? he asked.
I am afraid of dying, I said with a nod for emphasis. All my illusions are being shattered.
You have illusions? he asked quite honestly.
Of course I do. One of my illusions was that no one could really refuse the Dark Gift, not knowingly ...
Lestat, must I remind you that you refused it yourself?
David, I was a boy. I was being forced. I fought instinctively. But that had nothing to do with knowing.
Don't sell yourself short, I think you would have refused even if you had fully understood.
Now we're speaking about your illusions, I said. I'm hungry. Get out of my way or I'll kill you.
I don't believe you. You had better come back.
I will. This time I'll keep the promise I made in my letter. You can say all you have to say.
I hunted the back streets of London. I was wandering near Charing Cross Station, looking for some petty cutthroat that would yield a mouthful even if his narrow little ambitions did sour my soul. But it didn't quite turn out that way.
There was an old woman walking there, shuffling along in a soiled coat, her feet bound with rags. Mad and bitter cold she was, and almost certain to die before morning, having stolen out of the back door of some place where they'd tried to lock her up, or so she bawled to the world in general, determined never to be caught again.
We made grand lovers! She had a name for me and a great warm cluster of memories, and there we were dancing in the gutter together, she and I, and I held her a long time in my arms. She was very well nourished, as so many beggars are in this century where food is so plentiful in the Western countries, and I drank slowly, oh, so slowly, savoring it, and feeling a rush all through my burnt skin.
When it was finished, I realized that I was experiencing the cold very keenly and had been all along. I was feeling all fluctuations of temperature with greater acuity. Interesting.
The wind was lashing me and I hated it. Maybe something of my flesh had actually been burnt off. I didn't know. I felt the wet cold in my feet, and my hands hurt so much I had to bury them in my pockets. I caught those memories again of the French winter of my last year at home, of the young mortal country lord with a bed of hay, and only the dogs for companions. All the blood in the world seemed not enough suddenly. Time to feed again, and again.
They were derelicts, all of them, lured into the icy darkness from their shacks of trash and cardboard, and doomed, or so I told myself, moaning and feasting amid the stench of rancid sweat and urine, and phlegm. But the blood was blood.
When the clocks struck ten, I was still thirsting,