“You know why this disconcerts you so very much?” David said. He drew up beside me. He was angry. I could feel the heat coming off him. In this strong, stout-chested young body he was my height, and those intense black eyes fixed me with David’s soul. “I’ll tell you why!” he said. “Because you never admitted to yourself that what you did in writing your books, in writing your songs, in singing your songs … you never admitted that it was all for us. You always pretended it was some great gesture to humankind and for their benefit. ‘Wipe us out.’ Really! You never admitted that you were one of us, talking to the rest of us, and what you did, you did as part of us!”

I was suddenly furious. “It was for me that I did it!” I said. “All right. I admit it. It was a disaster, but it was for me that I did it. There was no ‘us.’ I didn’t want the human race to wipe us out, that was a lie, I admit it. I wanted to see what would happen, who would show up for that rock concert. I wanted to find all those I’d lost … Louis, and Gabrielle, and Armand and Marius, maybe Marius most of all. That’s why I did it. Okay. I was alone! I didn’t have any grand reason! I admit it. And so goddamned what!”

“Exactly,” he said. “And you affected the entire tribe and you never took one ounce of responsibility for having done so.”

“Oh, for the love of Hell, are you going to preach vampire ethics from a pulpit?” I said.

“We can have ethics and we can have honor and we can have loyalty,” he insisted, “and every other key virtue we learned as humans.” He was roaring at me under his breath, as the British so often do it, with a veneer of silvery politeness.

“Oh, preach it in the streets,” I said disgustedly. “Go on Benji’s radio show. Call in and tell him and all of them out there. And you wonder why I go into exile?”

“Gentlemen, please,” said Jesse. She sat there still in her armchair looking small, fragile, shaken, shoulders hunched as if against the blast of our argument.

“Sorry, dearest,” said David. He returned to his chair beside her.

“Look, I need the remaining time before dawn,” she said. “Lestat, I want you to give me your iPhone, and you, David, let me give you all the numbers too. E-mail, mobile numbers, everything. We can stay connected with one another. You can e-mail Maharet and me. You can call us. Please, let’s share all our numbers now.”

“So what, the reigning Queen in hiding is willing to share her mobile number?” I asked. “And e-mails?”