"I cannot tell you how I knew this. Things about the flat disturbed me, alerted me. Claudia moved in the back parlor behind closed doors. And I fancied I heard another voice there, a whisper. Claudia never brought anyone to our flat; no one did except Lestat, who brought his women of the streets. But I knew there was someone there, yet I got no strong scent, no proper sounds. And then there were aromas in the air of food and drink. And chrysanthemums stood in the silver vase on the square grand-flowers which, to Claudia, meant death.
"Then Lestat came, singing something soft under his breath, his walking stick making a rat-tat-tat on the rails of the spiral stairs. He came down the long hall, his face flushed from the kill, his lips pink; and he set his music on the piano.'Did I kill him or did I not kill him!' He Bashed the question at me now with a pointing finger.-'What's your guess?'
" 'You did not,' I said numbly. Because you invited me to go with you, and would never have invited me to share that kill.'
"'Ah, but! Did I kill him in a rage because you would not go. with me!' he said and threw back the cover from the keys. I could see that he would be able to go on like this until dawn. He was exhilarated.
I watched him flip through the music, thinking, Can he die? Can he actually die? And does she mean to do this? At one point, I wanted to go to her and tell her we must abandon everything, even the proposed trip, and live as we had before. But I had the feeling now that there was no retreat. Since the day she'd begun to question him, this-whatever it was to be-was inevitable. And I felt a weight on me, holding me in the chair.
"He pressed two chords with his hands. He had an immense reach and even in life could have been a fine pianist. But lie played without feeling; he was always outside the music, drawing it out of the piano as if by magic, by the virtuosity of his vampire senses and control; the music did not come through him, was not drawn through him by himself.'Well, did I kill him?' he asked me again.
"'No, you did not,' I said again, though I could just as easily have said the opposite. I was concentrating on keeping my face a mask.
"'You're right. I did not,' he said.'It excites me to be close to him, to think over and over, I can kill him and I will kill him but not now. And then to leave him and find someone who looks as nearly like him as possible. If he had brothers... why, rd kill them one by one. The family would succumb to a mysterious fever which dried up the very blood in their bodies!' he said, now mocking 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: rd 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 rd 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