He shook his head in the negative gesture. His eyes were changing.

It was the hunger. It was giving him that dull look, like a dog who had caught the scent of the bitch in heat. We all get that look, the bestial look, but we are nothing as good as bestial, are we? Any of us. I stood up. "The rooms in the Olympic Tower," I said. "You'll get them so that they look down on St. Patrick's, won't you? Not too high up, low if you can do it, so that the steeples are close." "You are out of your brilliant preternatural mind."

"No. But I'm going out into the snow now. I hear him up there.

He's planning to leave her, he's kissing her, chaste and loving kisses. His car is prowling around out front. He'll go way uptown to that secret place of his where the relics are kept. He thinks his enemies in crime and government know nothing of it, or believe it's just the junk shop of a friend. But I know of it. And what all those treasures mean to him. If he goes up there, I'll follow.... No more time, David."

"I've never been so completely confused," he said. "I wanted to say God go with you."

I laughed. I leant to give him a quick kiss on the forehead, so swift others would not make anything of it if they saw it, and then swallowing the fear, the instantaneous fear, I left him. In the rooms high above, Dora cried. She sat by the window watching the snow and crying. She regretted refusing his new present for her. If only.... She pushed her forehead against the cold glass and prayed for her father.

I crossed the street. The snow felt rather good, but then I'm a monster.

I stood at the back of St. Patrick's, watching as my handsome Victim came out, hurriedly through the snow, shoulders hunched, and plunged into the backseat of his expensive black car. I heard him give the address very near to that junk-shop flat where he kept his treasures.

All right, he'd be alone up there for a while. Why not do it, Lestat?

Why not let the Devil take you? Go ahead! Refuse to enter Hell in fear. Just go for it.

Chapter Two

I reached his house on the Upper East Side before he did.

I'd tracked him here numerous times. I knew the routine. Hirelings lived on the lower and upper floors, though I don't think they knew who he was. It wasn't unlike a vampire's usual arrangement. And between those two flats was his long chain of rooms, the second story of the town house, barred like a prison, and accessible by him through a rear entrance.

He never had a car let him out in front of the place. He'd get out on Madison and cut deep into the block to his back door. Or sometimes he got out on Fifth. He had two routes, and some of the surrounding property was his. But nobody—none of his pursuers—knew of this place.