"I know all of it. You forget your books. I read your work as soon as you write it, as soon as you let it loose into the mortal world."

I laughed bitterly. "Maybe the Devil's read my books too," I said.

Again, I loathed being afraid. It made me furious.

"But the point is," he said, "I'll stand with you." He looked down at the table, drifting, the way he so often had when he was mortal, when I could read his mind yet he could defeat me, consciously locking me out. Now it was simply a barrier. I would never again know what his thoughts felt like.

"I'm hungry," I whispered.

"Hunt."

I shook my head. "When I'm ready, I'll take the Victim. As soon as Dora leaves New York. Soon as she goes back to her old convent. She knows the bastard's doomed.

That's what she will think after I've done it, that one of his many enemies got him, that his evil came back on him, very Biblical, when all the time it was just a species of killer roaming the Savage Garden of the Earth, a vampire, looking for a juicy mortal, and her father had caught my eye, and it's going to be over, just like that."

"Are you planning to torture this man?"

"David. You shock me. What an impolite question."

"Will you?" he asked more timidly, more imploringly.

"I don't think so. I just want to...." I smiled. He knew now well enough. Nobody had to tell him anymore about drinking the blood, the soul, the memory, the spirit, the heart. I wouldn't know that wretched mortal creature until I took him, held him against my chest, opened up the only honest vein in his body, so to speak. Ah, too many thoughts, too many memories, too much anger.

"I'm going to stay with you," he said. "Do you have rooms here?"

"Nothing proper. Find something for us. Find it close to ... close to the cathedral."

"Why?"

"Well, David, you should know why. If the Devil starts chasing me down Fifth Avenue, I'll just run into St. Patrick's and run to the High Altar and fall on my knees before the Blessed Sacrament and beg God to forgive me, not to sink me into the river of fire up to my eyes."

"You are on the verge of being truly mad."

"No, not at all. Look at me. I can tie my shoelaces. See? And my tie. Takes some care, you know, to get it all around your neck and into your shirt and so forth, and not look like a lunatic with a big scarf around your neck. I'm together, as mortals so bluntly state it. Can you find us some rooms?"

He nodded.

"There's a glass tower, right over there somewhere, beside the cathedral. Monstrous building."

"The Olympic Tower."

"Yes, could you get us some rooms there? Actually I have mortal agents who can do this sort of thing, I don't know why in the world I'm whining like a fool in this place, asking you to take care of humiliating particulars...."