It had been months since Marius had touched human flesh, months since he’d lowered his lips to that heated elixir, months since he’d felt the fragile yet indomitable pulse of some living thing struggling consciously or unconsciously against his remorseless hunger. It had been a heavy, powerful Brazilian man whom he stalked into the darkened woods of Corcovado, flushing him deeper and deeper into the rain forest and then dragging him from his hiding place for a long slow repast.

When had it happened that arterial blood was not enough, and he must rip out the heart and suck it dry also? When had it started that he had to lick the most vicious wounds for the little juice they would yield? He could exist without this, yet he couldn’t resist it, and so he sought—or so he told himself—to make the very most of it when he feasted. There had been but a mangled mess of remains to bury afterwards. But he’d kept a trophy, as he so often did—not just the thousands in American dollars in drug money that the victim had been carrying, but a fine gold Patek Philippe watch. Why had he done that? Well, it seemed pointless to bury such an artifact, but timepieces had of late begun to fascinate him. He had become faintly superstitious about them and knew it. These were remarkable times, and timepieces themselves reflected this in intricate and beautiful ways.

Let it be for now. No hunting. No hunting needed. And the watch was secure on his left wrist, a surprising ornament for him, but so what?

He closed his eyes and listened. Out of his hearing the traffic of the boulevard died away, and the voices of Rio de Janeiro rose as if the sprawling metropolis of eleven million souls were the most magnificent choir ever assembled.

Daniel.

Quickly, he locked in on his companion: the tall thin boyish young man with the violet eyes and the ashen hair whom Lestat had so aptly called “the Devil’s Minion.” It was Daniel who had interviewed the vampire who was Louis de Pointe du Lac, thereby giving birth unwittingly and innocently enough decades ago to the collection of books known as the Vampire Chronicles. It was Daniel who’d captured the damaged heart of the Vampire Armand and been brought over by him into Darkness. It was Daniel who had languished for many a year—shocked, deranged, lost, unable to care for himself—in Marius’s care until only a couple of years ago when his sanity, ambition, and dreams had been restored to him.

And there he was, Daniel, in his tight white short-sleeved polo shirt and dungarees, dancing wildly and beautifully with two shapely chocolate-skinned women under the red lights of a small club, the floor around them so packed that the crowd itself appeared to be one writhing organism.

Very well. All is well. Daniel is smiling. Daniel is happy.