Do this again? Oooh! Get a grip on yourself, Lestat. You’ve clenched your teeth so hard that you’ve hurt yourself! You’ve cut your tongue! You are making your own mouth bleed! And the blood tastes like water and salt, nothing but water and salt, water and salt! For the love of hell, get a grip on yourself. Stop!

After a quiet few moments, I stood up and went on a systematic search for a phone.

There was none in the entire house.

Beautiful.

How foolish I’d been not to plan sufficiently for this entire experience. I’d been so carried away with the larger spiritual issues, I’d made no sensible provisions for myself at all! I should have had a suite at the Willard, and money in the hotel safe! I should have arranged for a car.

The car. What about the car?

I went to the hall closet, removed the overcoat, noted a rip in the lining—probably the reason he didn’t sell it—put it on, despairing that there were no gloves in the pockets, and went out the back way, after carefully securing the dining room door. I asked Mojo if he wanted to join me or stay there. Naturally he wanted to come along.

The snow in the alley was about a foot deep. I had to slosh my way through it and when I reached the street, I realized it was deeper still.

No red Porsche, of course. Not to the left of the front steps, nor anywhere on this block. Just to be certain, I made my way to the corner and then turned around and came back. My feet were freezing and so were my hands, and the skin of my face positively ached.

All right, I must set out on foot, at least until I located a public phone. The snow was blowing away from me, which was something of a blessing, but then I didn’t know where I was going, did I?

As for Mojo he appeared to love this sort of weather, plowing ahead steadily, the snow tumbling and glistening in tiny flakes from his long plush gray coat. I should have switched bodies with the dog, I thought. And then the thought of Mojo inside my vampiric body started me to laughing. I went into one of my regular fits. I laughed and laughed and laughed, turning in circles, and then finally stopped because I was truly freezing to death.

But all this was terribly funny. Here I was a human being, the priceless event I’d dreamed of since my death, and I hated it to the marrow of these human bones! I felt a hunger pang in my noisy, churning stomach. And then another, which I could only call a hunger cramp.

“Paolo’s, I have to find Paolo’s but how am I going to get any food? I need food too, don’t I? I can’t simply go without food. I’ll get weak if I don’t have food.”

When I came to the corner of Wisconsin Avenue, I saw lights and people down the hill. The street had been cleared of snow, and was definitely open to traffic. I could see the people moving busily back and forth under the street lamps, but all this was maddeningly dim, of course.