I laughed under my breath. “The thefts are symbolic, David. This is a creature of compulsion and obsession. It’s a game. That’s why he cannot hang on to what he steals. It’s the process that counts with him, more than anything else.”

“But, Lestat, it’s an endlessly destructive game.”

“I understand, David. Thank you for this information. I’ll call you soon.”

“Wait just a minute, you can’t ring off, I won’t allow it, don’t you realize—”

“Of course I do, David.”

“Lestat, there is a saying in the world of the occult. Like attracts like. Do you know what it means?”

“What would I know about the occult, David? That’s your territory, not mine.”

“This is no time for sarcasm.”

“I’m sorry. What does it mean?”

“When a sorcerer uses his powers in a petty and selfish fashion, the magic always rebounds upon him.”

“Now you’re talking superstition.”

“I am talking a principle which is as old as magic itself.”

“He isn’t a magician, David, he’s merely a creature with certain measurable and definable psychic powers. He can possess other people. In one case of which we know, he effected an actual switch.”

“It’s the same thing! Use those powers to try to harm others and the harm comes back to oneself.”

“David, I am the extant proof that such a concept is false. Next you will explain the concept of karma to me and I will slowly drop off to sleep.”

“James is the quintessential evil sorcerer! He’s already defeated death once at the expense of another human being; he must be stopped.”

“Why didn’t you try to stop me, David, when you had the opportunity? I was at your mercy at Talbot Manor. You could have found some way.”

“Don’t push me away with your accusations!”

“I love you, David. I will contact you soon.” I was about to put down the phone, when I thought of something. “David,” I said. “There’s something else I’d like to know.”

“Yes, what?” Such relief that I hadn’t hung up.

“You have these relics of ours—old possessions in your vaults.”

“Yes.” Discomfort. This was an embarrassment to him, it seemed.

“A locket,” I said, “a locket with a picture of Claudia, you have seen such a thing?”

“I believe I have,” he said. “I verified the inventory of all of those items after you first came to me. I believe there was a locket. I’m almost certain, in fact. I should have told you this, shouldn’t I, before now?”

“No. Doesn’t matter. Was it a locket on a chain, such as women wear?”

“Yes. Do you want me to look for this locket? If I find it, I shall give it to you, of course.”

“No, don’t look for it now. Perhaps sometime in the future. Good-bye, David. I’ll come to you soon.”

I hung up, and removed the small phone plug from the wall. So there had been a locket, a woman’s locket. But for whom had such a thing been made? And why did I see it in my dreams? Claudia would not have carried her own image with her in a locket. And surely I would remember it if she had. As I tried to envision it, or remember it, I was filled with a peculiar combination of sadness and dread. It seemed I was very near a dark place, a place full of actual death. And as so often happens with my memories, I heard laughter. Only it wasn’t Claudia’s laughter this time. It was mine. I had a sense of preternatural youth and endless possibility. In other words I was remembering the young vampire I’d been in the old days of the eighteenth century before time had dealt its blows.