“I told you the first time that I couldn’t see him,” Lestat said patiently. “Not until he had drunk the blood. Then I saw his image defined by the blood. It was the same this time, and I sent the Fire to that blood. Now, what if he had attacked you again? I don’t think those minute flames could have ignited you. There wasn’t thrust enough. But just in case, I’ll use another power if he comes again, a power you have as well, and that’s the Mind Gift, as some call it, not to read his mind but to push against him, to drive him away with a telekinetic strength until he’s so weary with defending himself that he can’t hold steady and has to flee.”

“But how can I push against what is not material?” I asked.

“He is material,” Lestat corrected me. “He’s just made of a material we don’t understand. Think clearly.”

I nodded. “I’ve tried to push him away,” I confessed. “But something happens, something happens in my reason, and he’s on me, and the pleasure starts pounding, the guilty pleasure that he and I are together, and the chills are running rampant, as if my soul had chills, and there’s a taunting rhythm to it, a thumping rhythm, and I’m his slave.”

I felt a delicious numbness come over me even as I spoke of it, some last vagrant shiver of the union. I looked at my hands. All the tiny pinprick wounds had healed. I felt my face, and I could see the memories again. I felt a vast secret knowledge of Goblin, an unshakable dependence.

“He’s become my vampire,” I said. “He makes a meal of me, he locks into me. I’m . . . yes, I’m his slave.”

“And a slave who wants to be rid of his master,” said Lestat thoughtfully. “Has it been stronger with each attack, this guilty pleasure?” he asked.

“Yes, yes, it has,” I confessed. “You know, there were years, important years, when he was my only friend. It was before Nash Penfield came. It was before my teacher Lynelle came. And even while Lynelle was here, it was me and Goblin together always. I never put up with anyone who didn’t tolerate my talking to Goblin. Patsy hated it. Patsy’s my mother, remember? It was at times a perfect comedy, but that’s the way it was. Patsy would stomp her feet and scream, ‘If you don’t stop talking to that damned ghost, I’m leaving!’ Now, Aunt Queen is perfectly patient, so patient that I could swear there have been times, though Aunt Queen won’t admit it, that she saw Goblin herself.”

“But why won’t she admit it?” he asked.