When I thought of the possibility of her coming out to accuse me, when I thought of the humiliation I might risk with such a choice, I left the house behind me and walked fast, and alone, uptown.

Once again, in the desolate chapel of St. Elizabeth's Orphanage, Lestat was my confidant. And once again, I was certain that no spirit occupied his body. To my woes he gave no ear. I only prayed that Merrick would be safe, that Louis would not risk my rage, and that some night Lestat's soul would return to his body, because I needed him. I needed him desperately. I felt alone with all my years and all my lessons, with all my experiences and all my pain.

The sky was growing dangerously light when I left Lestat and made my way to the secret place, below an abandoned building where I kept the iron coffin in which I lie.

This is no unusual configuration among our kind—the sad old building, my title to it, or the cellar room cut off from the world above by iron doors no mortal could independently seek to lift.

I had lain down in the frigid darkness, the cover of the casket in its place, when I was suddenly overcome with the strangest panic. It was as if someone were speaking to me, demanding that I listen, seeking to tell me that I had made a dreadful error, and that I would pay for it with my conscience; that I had done a foolish and vain thing. It was too late for me to respond to this lively mixture of emotion. The morning crept over me, stealing all warmth and life from me. And the last thought I remember was that I had left the two of them alone out of vanity, because they had excluded me. I had behaved like a schoolboy out of vanity, and I would pay as the result. Inevitably the sunset followed on the sunrise, and, after some unmeasured sleep, I woke to the new evening, my eyes open, my hands reaching at once for the lid of the coffin and then withdrawing and falling to my sides. Something kept me from opening the coffin just yet. Even though I hated its stifling atmosphere, I remained in this, the only true blackness ever bequeathed to my powerful vampire eyes.

I remained, because last night's panic had come back to me—that keen awareness that I'd been a proud fool to leave Merrick and Louis alone. It seemed some turbulence in the very air surrounded me, indeed, penetrated the iron of the coffin so that I might breathe it into my lungs.