a barker’s tone. ‘Claudia has a taste for families. Speaking of families, I suppose you heard. The Freniere place is supposed to be haunted; they can’t keep an overseer and the slaves run away.’

“This was something I did not wish to hear in particular. Babette had died young, insane, restrained finally from wandering towards the ruins of Pointe du Lac, insisting she had seen the devil there and must find him; I’d heard of it in wisps of gossip. And then came the funeral notices. I’d thought occasionally of going to her, of trying some way to rectify what I had done; and other times I thought it would all heal itself; and in my new life of nightly killing, I had grown far from the attachment I’d felt for her or for my sister or any mortal. And I watched the tragedy finally as one might from a theater balcony, moved from time to time, but never sufficiently to jump the railing and join the players on the stage.

“ ‘Don’t talk of her,’ I said.

“ ‘Very well. I was talking of the plantation. Not her. Her! Your lady love, your fancy.’ He smiled at me. ‘You know, I had it all my way finally in the end, didn’t I? But I was telling you about my young friend and how…’

“ ‘I wish you would play the music,’ I said softly, unobtrusively, but as persuasively as possible. Sometimes this worked with Lestat. If I said something just right he found himself doing what I’d said. And now he did just that: with a little snarl, as if to say, ‘You fool,’ he began playing the music. I heard the doors of the back parlor open and Claudia’s steps move down the hall. Don’t come, Claudia, I was thinking, feeling; go away from it before we’re all destroyed. But she came on steadily until she reached the hall mirror. I could hear her opening the small table drawer, and then the zinging of her hairbrush. She was wearing a floral perfume. I turned slowly to face her as she appeared in the door, still all in white, and moved across the carpet silently towards the piano. She stood at the end of the keyboard, her hands folded on the wood, her chin resting on her hands, her eyes fixed on Lestat.

“I could see his profile and her small face beyond, looking up at him. ‘What is it now!’ he said, turning the page and letting his hand drop to his thigh. ‘You irritate me. Your very presence irritates me!’ His eyes moved over the page.

“ ‘Does it?’ she said in her sweetest voice.

“ ‘Yes, it does. And I’ll tell you something else. I’ve met someone who would make a better vampire than you do.’

“This stunned me. But I didn’t have to urge him to go on. ‘Do you get my meaning?’ he said to her.

“ ‘Is it supposed to frighten me?’ she asked.

“ ‘You’re spoiled because you’re an only child,’ he said. ‘You need a brother. Or rather, I need a brother. I get weary of you both. Greedy, brooding vampires that haunt our own lives. I dislike it.’

“ ‘I suppose we could people the world with vampires, the three of us,’ she said.

“ ‘You think so!’ he said, smiling, his voice with a note of triumph. ‘Do you think you could do it? I suppose Louis has told you how it was done or how he thinks it was done. You don’t have the power. Either of you,’ he said.

“This seemed to disturb her. Something she had not accounted for. She was studying him. I could see she did not entirely believe him.

“ ‘And what gave you the power?’ she asked softly, but with a touch of sarcasm.

“ ‘That, my dear, is one of those things which you may never know. For even the Erebus in which we live must have its aristocracy.’

“ ‘You’re a liar,’ she said with a short laugh. And just as he touched his fingers to the keys again, she said, ‘But you upset my plans.’

“ ‘Your plans?’ he asked.

“ ‘I came to make peace with you, even if you are the father of lies. You’re my father,’ she said. ‘I want to make peace with you. I want things to be as they were.’

“Now he was the one who did not believe. He threw a glance at me, then looked at her. ‘That can be. Just stop asking me questions. Stop following me. Stop searching in every alleyway for other vampires. There are no other vampires! And this is