have particular reasons for loving Claudia. Yet, in addition to her needs, she does have particular reasons. Claudia's beautiful surface, Claudia's quiet, Claudia's dominance and control. They are perfect together. But I think... that as soon as possible they should leave Paris:
"'Why?'
"'You know why. Because Santiago and the other vampires watch them with suspicion. All the vampires have sees Madeleine. They fear her because she knows about them and they don't know her. They don't let others alone who know about them'
"'And the boy, Denis? What do you plan to do with him?'
"'He's dead,' he answered.
"I was astonished. Both at his words and his calm.'You killed him?' I gasped.
"He nodded. And said nothing. But his large, dark eyes seemed entranced with me, with the emotion, the shock I didn't try to conceal. His soft, subtle smile seemed to draw me close to him; his hand closed over mine on the wet window sill and I felt my body turning to face him, drawing nearer to him, as though I were being moved not by myself but by him.'It was best,' he conceded to me gently. And then said,'We must go now.... : And he glanced at the street below.
"'Armand,' I said.'I can't...'
"'Louis, come after me,' he whispered. And then on the ledge, he stopped.'Been if you were to fall on the cobblestones there,' he said,'you would only be hurt for a while. You would heal so rapidly and so perfectly that in days you would show no sign of it, your bones healing as your skin heals; so let this knowledge free you to do what you can so easily do already. Climb down, now.'
"'What can kill me?' I asked.
"Again he stopped.'The destruction of your remains,' he said.'Don't you know this? Fire, dismemberment... the heat of the sun. Nothing else. You can be scarred, yes; but you are resilient. You are immortal.'
"I was looking down through the quiet silver rain into darkness. Then .a light flickered beneath the shifting tree limbs, and the pale beams of the light made the street appear. Wet cobblestones, the iron hook of the carriage-house bell, the vines clinging to the top off the wall. The huge black hulk of a carriage brushed the vines, and then the light grew weak, the street went from yellow to silver and vanished altogether, as if the dark trees had swallowed it up. Or, rather, as if it had all been subtracted from the dark. I felt dizzy. I felt the building move. Armand was seated on the window sill looking down at me.
"'Louis, come with me tonight,' he whispered suddenly, with an urgent inflection.
"'No,' I said gently.'It's too soon. I can't leave them yet'
"I watched him turn away and look at the dark sky. He appeared to sigh, but I didn't hear it. I felt his hand close on mine on the window sill.'Very well... ' he said.
"'A little more time... ' I said. And he nodded and patted my hand as if to say it was all right. Then he swung his legs over and disappeared. For only a moment I hesitated, mocked by the pounding of my heart. But then I climbed over the sill and commenced to hurry after him, never daring to look down."
"It was very near dawn when I put my key into the lock at the hotel. The gas light flared along the walls. And Madeleine, her needle and thread in her hands, had fallen asleep by the grate. Claudia stood still, looking at me from among the ferns at the window, in shadow. She had her hairbrush in her hands. Her hair was gleaming.
"I stood there absorbing some shock, as if all the sensual pleasures and confusions of these rooms were passing over me like waves and my body were being permeated with these things, so different from the spell of Armand and the tower room where we'd been. There was something comforting here, and it was disturbing. I was looking for my chair. I was sitting in it with my hands on my temples. And then I felt Claudia near me, and I felt her dips against my forehead.
"'You've been with Armand,' she said.'You want to go with him.'
"I looked up at her. How soft and beautiful her face was, and, suddenly, so much mine. I felt no compunction in yielding to my urge to touch her cheeks, to lightly touch her eyelids---familiarities, liberties I hadn't taken with her since the night of our quarrel.'I'll see you again; not