"I am listening to you, Roger, to every word you say. They aren't on to her yet, I can assure you."

"My enemies are a ruthless lot. And the government ...who knows who the hell the government is or what the hell the government does."

"She's afraid of this scandal?"

"No. Brokenhearted, yes, afraid of scandal, never. She'd take what would come. What she wanted was for me to give it all up! That became her attack. She didn't care that the world might find out we were father and daughter. She wanted me to renounce everything. She was afraid for me, like a gangster's daughter would be, like a gangster's wife.

" 'Just let me build the church,' I kept pleading. 'Take the money.' The television show has proved her mettle. But no more ...things are in ruins around her. She's a little one-hour program three times a week. The ladder to heaven is hers alone to climb. I'm out of it. She's relying on her audience to bring the millions needed to her.

"And the female mystics she quotes, you've heard her read from them, Hildegard of Bingen, and Julian of Norwich. Teresa of Avila. You've read any of those women?"

"All of them," I said.

"Smart females who want to hear smart females listen to her. But she's beginning to attract everyone. You cannot make it in this world if you speak to only one gender.

That isn't possible. Even I know that, the marketeer in me knows that, the Wall Street genius, and I am that, too, have no doubt. She attracts everyone. Oh, if I only had those last two years to do over, if only I could have launched the church before she discovered—"

"You're looking at this all wrong. Stop regretting. If you'd made the church big, you would have precipitated your exposure and the scandal."

"No, once the church was big enough, the scandal wouldn't have mattered. That's just the catch. She stayed small, and when you're small, a scandal can do you in!" He shook his head again, angrily. He was becoming too agitated, but the image of him only grew stronger. "I cannot be allowed to destroy Dora...." His voice drifted off again. He shuddered. He looked at me:

"What does it come to, Lestat?" he asked.

"Dora herself must survive," I said. "She has to hang on to her faith after your death is discovered!"

"Yes. I'm her biggest enemy, dead or alive. And her church, you know, she walks a thin line; she's no puritan, my daughter. She thinks Wynken's a heretic, but she doesn't know how much her own modern compassion for the flesh is just what Wynken was talking about."

"I get it. But what about Wynken, am I supposed to save Wynken too? What do I do with Wynken?"

"She is a genius in her own way, actually," he went on, ignoring me. "That's what I meant when I called her a theologian. She's done the near impossible thing of mastering Greek and Latin and Hebrew, even though she was not bilingual as a small child. You know how hard it is."