Merrick Page 0,14

in a moral order, it can hurt your willingness to die an ordinary death."

"Ah, David," she said, chiding me for my official tone. "Speak plainly. What's in your heart? " She sat up straight in the chair, her eyes looking me up and down. "You look boyish and wise in this young body. Your skin's darkened like mine! Even your features have the stamp of Asia. But you're more David than you ever were!"

I said nothing.

I watched through dazed eyes as she drank more of the rum. The sky darkened behind her, but bright, warm electric lights filled up the outside night. Only the caf茅 itself was veiled in dreary shadow, what with its few dusty bulbs behind the bar.

Her cool confidence chilled me. It chilled me that she had so fearlessly touched me, that nothing in my vampire nature repelled her, but then I could well remember how Lestat in all his subdued glory had attracted me. Was she attracted? Had the fatal fascination begun?

She kept her thoughts half concealed as she always had.

I thought of Louis. I thought of his request. He wanted desperately for her to work her magic. But she was right. I needed her. I needed her witness and her understanding.

When I spoke, my words were full of heartbreak and wonder, even to myself.

"It's been magnificent," I said. "And unendurable. I am most truly out of life and can't escape from it. I have no one to whom I can give what I learn."

She didn't argue with me or question me. Her eyes seemed suddenly to be full of sympathy, her mask of composure to be gone. I'd seen such sharp changes in her many times. She concealed her emotions except for such silent and eloquent moments.

"Do you think," she asked, "that if you hadn't taken up life in the young body, that Lestat would have forced you as he did? If you'd still been old - our David, our blessed David, aged seventyfour, wasn't it? - do you think if you'd still been our honorable Superior General that Lestat would have brought you over?"

"I don't know," I said shortly, but not without feeling. "I've often asked myself the same question. I honestly don't know. These vampires ... ah, I mean, we ... we vampires, we love beauty, we feed on it. Our definition of beauty expands enormously, you can't quite imagine how much. I don't care how loving your soul, you can't know how much we find beautiful that mortals don't find beautiful, but we do propagate by beauty, and this body has beauty which I've used to evil advantage countless times."

She lifted her glass in a small salute. She drank deeply.

"If you'd come up to me with no preamble," she said, "whispering in a crowd as you touched me - I would have known you, known who you were." A shadow fell over her face for a moment, and then her expression became serene. "I love you, old friend," she said.

"You think so, my darling?" I asked. "I have done many things to feed this body; not so very lovely to think about that at all."

She finished the glass, set it down, and, before I could do it for her, she reached for the bottle again.

"Do you want Aaron's papers?" she asked.

I was completely taken aback.

"You mean you're willing to give them to me?"

"David, I'm loyal to the Talamasca. What would I be if it weren't for the Order?" She hesitated, then: "But I'm also deeply loyal to you." For a few seconds she was musing. "You were the Order for me, David. Can you imagine what I felt when they told me you were dead?"

I sighed. What could I say in answer?

"Did Aaron tell you how we grieved for you, all those of us who weren't entrusted with a speck of the truth?"

"From my soul, I'm sorry, Merrick. We felt we kept a dangerous secret. What more can I say?"

"You died here in the States, in Miami Beach, that was the story. And they'd flown the remains back to England before they even called to tell me you were gone. You know what I did, David? I made them hold the casket for me. It was sealed shut when I got to London but I made them open it. I made them do it. I screamed and carried on until they gave in to me. Then I sent them out of the room and I stayed alone with that body, David, that