his eyes, the smooth rise of his forehead. And the eyes, they burned with a silent rage that seemed infused with vanity, an awful relentless vanity that said,'See what I am.'
"'This is the one?' said Santiago, thrusting me forward.
"But Lestat turned sharply to him and said in a harsh low voice,'I told you I wanted Claudia, the child! She was the one!' And now I saw his head moving involuntarily with his outburst, and his hand reaching out as if for the arm of a chair only to close as he drew himself up again, eyes to me.
"'Lestat,' I began, seeing now the few straws left to me.'You are alive! You have your life! Tell them how you treated us....
"'No,' he shook his head furiously.'You come back to me, Louis,' he said.
"For a moment I could not believe my ears. Some saner, more desperate part of me said, Reason with him, even as the sinister laughter erupted from my lips.'Are you mad!'
Chapter 29
"'I'll give you back your life!' he said, his eyelids quivering with the stress of his words, his chest heaving, that hand going out again and closing impotently in the dark.'You promised me,' he said to Santiago,'I could take him back with me to New Orleans.' And then, as he looked from one to the other of them as they surrounded us, his breath became frantic, and he burst out, 'Claudia, where is she? She's the one who did it to me, I told you!'
"'By and by,' said Santiago. And when he reached out for Lestat, Lestat drew back and almost lost his balance. He had found the chair arm he needed and stood holding fast to it, his eyes closed, regaining his control.
"'But he helped her, aided her... ' said Santiago, drawing nearer to him. Lestat looked up.
"'No,' he said. 'Louis, you must come back to me. There's something I must tell you... about that night in the swamp.' But then he stopped and looked about again, as though he were caged, wounded, desperate.
"'Listen to me, Lestat,' I began now.'You let her go, you free her... and I will... I'll return to you,' I said, the words sounding hollow, metallic. I tried to take a step towards him, to make my eyes hard and unreadable, to feel my power emanating from them like two beams of light. He was looking at me, studying me, struggling all the while against his own fragility. And Celeste had her hand on my wrist.'You must tell them,' I went on,'how you treated us, that we didn't know the laws, that she didn't know of other vampires,' I said. And I was thinking steadily, as that mechanical voice came out of me: Armand must return tonight, Armand must come back. He will stop this, he won't let it go on.
"'There was a sound then of something dragging across the floor. I could hear Madeleine's exhausted crying. I looked around and saw her in a chair, and when she saw my eyes on her, her terror seemed to increase. She tried to rise but they stopped her.'Lestat,' I said.'What do you want of me? I'll give it to you....
"And then I saw the thing that was making the noise. And Lestat had seen it too. It was a coffin with large iron locks on it that was being dragged into the room. I understood at once.'Where is Armand?' I said desperately.
"'She did it to me, Louis. She did it to me. You didn't! She has to dies' said Lestat, his voice becoming thin, rasping, as if it were an effort for him to speak.'Get that thing away from here, he's coming home with me,' he said furiously to Santiago. And Santiago only laughed, and Celeste laughed, and the laughter seemed to infect them all.
"'You promised me,' said Lestat to them.
"'I promised you nothing,' said Santiago.
"'They've made a fool of you,' I said to him bitterly as they were opening the coffin. 'A fool of you! You must reach Armand, Armand 13 the leader here,' I burst out. But he didn't seem to understand.
"What happened then was desperate axed clouded and miserable, my kicking at them, struggling to free my arms, raging against them that Armand would stop what they were doing, that they dare not hurt Claudia. Yet they forced me down into the coffin, my frantic efforts serving no purpose against them except to take my mind off the sound of Madeleine's cries, her awful wailing cries, and the fear that