falling in time with the slow rocking, until suddenly his whole body tensed, and his hands seemed to grope for some way to push the boy away, as if the boy himself in his helpless slumber were clinging to Lestat; and finally he embraced the boy again and moved slowly forward over him, letting him down among the pillows, the sucking softer, now almost inaudible.
"He withdrew. His hands pressed the boy down. He knelt there, his head thrown back, so the wavy blond hair bung loose and disheveled. And then he slowly sank to the floor, turning, his back against the leg of the couch.'Ah... God... : he whispered, his head back, his lids half-mast. I could see the color rushing to his cheeks, rushing into his hands. One hand lay on his bent knee, fluttering, and then it lay still.
"Claudia had not moved. She lay like a Botticelli angel beside the unharmed boy. The other's body already withered, the neck like a fractured stem, the heavy head falling now at an odd angle, the angle of death, into the pillow.
"But something was wrong. Lestat was staring at the ceiling. I could see his tongue between his teeth. He lay too still, the tongue, as it were, trying to get out of the mouth, trying to move past the barrier of the teeth and touch the lip. He appeared to shiver, his shoulders convulsing... then relaxing heavily; yet he did not move. A veil had fallen over his clear gray eyes. He was peering at the ceiling. Then a sound came out of him. I stepped forward from the shadows of the hallway, but Claudia said in a sharp hiss,'Go back!'
"'Louis... : he was saying. I could hear it now...'Louis... Louis....'
"'Don't you like it, Lestat?' she asked him.
"'Something's wrong with it,' he gasped, and his eyes widened as if the mere speaking were a colossal effort. He could not move. I saw it. He could not move at all.'Claudia!' He gasped again, and his eyes rolled towards her.
"'Don't you like the taste of children's blood... ?' she asked softly.
"'Louis... : he whispered, finally lifting his head just for an instant. It fell back on the couch.'Louis, it's... it's absinthe! Too much absinthe!' he gasped.'She's poisoned them with it. She's poisoned me. Louis.... : He tried to raise his hand. I drew nearer, the table between us.
"'Stay back!' she said again. And now she slid off the couch and approached him, peering down into his face as he had peered at the child.'Absinthe, Father,' she said,'and laudanum!'
"'Demon!' he said to her.'Louis... put me in my coffin.' He struggled to rise.'Put me in my coffin!' His voice was hoarse, barely audible. The hand fluttered, lifted, and fell back.
" 'I'll put you in your coffin, Father,' she said, as though she were soothing him.'I'll put you in it forever.' And then, from beneath the pillows of the couch, she drew a kitchen knife.
" 'Claudia! Don't do this thing!' I said to her. But she flashed at me a virulency I'd never seen in her face, and as I stood there paralyzed, she gashed his throat, and he let out a sharp, choking cry.'God!' he shouted out.'God!'
"The blood poured out of him, down his shirt front, down his coat. It poured as it might never pour from a human being, all the blood with which he had filled himself before the child and from the child; and he kept turning his head, twisting, making the bubbling gash gape. She sank the knife into his chest now and he pitched forward, his mouth wide, his fangs exposed, both hands convulsively flying towards the knife, fluttering around its handle, slipping off its handle. He looked up at me, the hair falling down into his eyes.'Louis! Louis!' He let out one more gasp and fell sideways on the carpet. She stood looking down at him. The blood flowed everywhere like water. He was groaning, trying to raise himself, one arm pinned beneath his chest, the other shoving at the floor. And now, suddenly, she flew at him and clamping both arms about his neck, bit deep into him as he struggled.'Louis, Louis!' he gasped over and over, struggling, trying desperately to throw her off; but she rode him, her body lifted by his shoulder, hoisted and dropped, hoisted and dropped, until she pulled away; and, finding the floor quickly, she backed away from him, her hands to her lips, her eyes for the moment clouded, then clear.