were women in the parlor. The candles were a few, scattered on the small tables and the carved buffet, and Lestat had his arm around one woman and was kissing her. She was very drunk and very beautiful, a great drugged doll of a woman with her careful coif falling slowly down on her bare shoulders and over her partially bared breasts. The other woman sat over a ruined supper table drinking a glass of wine. I could see that the three of them had dined (Lestat pretending to dine…you would be surprised how people do not notice that a vampire is only pretending to eat), and the woman at the table was bored. All this put me in a fit of agitation. I did not know what Lestat was up to. If I went into the room, the woman would turn her attentions to me. And what was to happen, I couldn’t imagine, except that Lestat meant for us to kill them both. The woman on the settee with him was already teasing about his kisses, his coldness, his lack of desire for her. And the woman at the table watched with black almond eyes that seemed to be filled with satisfaction; when Lestat rose and came to her, putting his hands on her bare white arms, she brightened. Bending now to kiss her, he saw me through the crack in the door. And his eyes just stared at me for a moment, and then he went on talking with the ladies. He bent down and blew out the candles on the table. ‘It’s too dark in here,’ said the woman on the couch. ‘Leave us alone,’ said the other woman. Lestat sat down and beckoned her to sit in his lap. And she did, putting her left arm around his neck, her right hand smoothing back his yellow hair. ‘Your skin’s icy,’ she said, recoiling slightly. ‘Not always,’ said Lestat; and then he buried his face in the flesh of her neck. I was watching all this with fascination. Lestat was masterfully clever and utterly vicious, but I didn’t know how clever he was until he sank his teeth into her now, his thumb pressing down on her throat, his other arm locking her tight, so that he drank his fill without the other woman even knowing. ‘Your friend has no head for wine,’ he said, slipping out of the chair and seating the unconscious woman there, her arms folded under her face on the table. ‘She’s stupid,’ said the other woman, who had gone to the window and had been looking out at the lights. New Orleans was then a city of many low buildings, as you probably know. And on such clear nights as this, the lamplit streets were beautiful from the high windows of this new Spanish hotel; and the stars of those days hung low over such dim light as they do at sea. ‘I can warm that cold skin of yours better than she can.’ She turned to Lestat, and I must confess I was feeling some relief that he would now take care of her as well. But he planned nothing so simple. ‘Do you think so?’ he said to her. He took her hand, and she said, ‘Why, you’re warm.’ ”

“You mean the blood had warmed him,” said the boy.

“Oh, yes,” said the vampire. “After killing, a vampire is as warm as you are now.” And he started to resume; then, glancing at the boy, he smiled. “As I was saying…Lestat now held the woman’s hand in his and said that the other had warmed him. His face, of course, was flushed; much altered. He drew her close now, and she kissed him, remarking through her laughter that he was a veritable furnace of passion.

“ ‘Ah, but the price is high,’ he said to her, affecting sadness. ‘Your pretty friend…’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I exhausted her.’ And he stood back as if inviting the woman to walk to the table. And she did, a look of superiority on her small features. She bent down to see her friend, but then lost interest—until she saw something. It was a napkin. It had caught the last drops of blood from the wound in the throat. She picked it up, straining to see it in the darkness. ‘Take down your hair,’ said Lestat softly. And she dropped it, indifferent, and took down the last tresses, so that her hair fell blond and wavy down her