Now David isn’t a vampire in the body into which he was born. The notorious Body Thief I encountered years ago was largely responsible for that, and when I brought David over into Darkness, as we so quaintly put it, he was a seventy-four-year-old man inhabiting a young, robust, dark-haired, and dark-eyed male body. So that is how he looks and how he will always look, but in my heart of hearts he remains David—my old mortal friend, once the gentle gray-haired Superior General of the Talamasca, and my partner in crime, my ally in my battle against the Body Thief—my forgiving fledgling.

As for Jesse Reeves, Maharet’s near-incomparable blood had made her a formidable monster. She was a tall, thin woman, with bones like a bird, and rippling light red hair down to her shoulders, whose fierce eyes always regarded the world from an uncommitted remove and a deep isolation. She had an oval face, and looked far too chaste and ethereal to be what anyone would call beautiful. In fact, she had the neuter-gender quality of an angel.

She had come to the meeting in refined safari wear with pressed khaki jacket and pants, and there sat David beaming when he saw her, the British gentleman in gray Donegal tweed with a brown suede vest and elbow patches. He rose to take her in his arms, and at once they fell to confiding in one another in hushed whispers that I could easily hear from my shadowy hiding place.

Well, I could stand this for maybe three minutes. Then the pain was just too much. I almost fled. After all, I’d given up on all this, had I not?

But then I knew I had to see them, had to hold them each in my arms, had to put my heart close to their hearts. So I plunged across the rainy street and into the café and sat down right beside them.

There was a sudden rush of paparazzi blood drinkers from doorways here and there, and they massed beyond the glass to take the inevitable pictures—It’s Lestat—. And then they vanished.

David and Jesse had seen me before I was halfway there and David rushed to meet me and threw his arms around me. Jesse hugged both of us. I was lost for a moment to the beating of their hearts, to the subtle scents rising from their hair and skin, and the sheer softness of affection emanating from the firmest of touches. Mon Dieu, why had I ever thought this was a good idea!

Now came all the tears and recriminations, along with more embraces of course, and the tender fragrant kisses, and Jesse’s lovely soft hair against my cheek again and David’s strict disapproving eyes fixing me mercilessly even though there were blood tears on his face and he had to wipe at them with one of his perfect linen handkerchiefs.