“Don’t try to talk. I’ve given you a combination of drugs that will help you. Your fever’s going down already. We’re drying up the congestion in your lungs.”

“Don’t let me die, please don’t. It’s all unfinished and it’s monstrous. I’ll go to hell if there is one, but I don’t think there is. If there is, it’s a hospital like this one, only it’s filled with sick children, dying children. But I think there’s just death.”

“A hospital full, of children?”

“Ah, look at the way she’s smiling at you, the way she puts her hand on your forehead. Women love you, Lestat. She loves you, even in that body, look at her. Such love.”

“Why shouldn’t she care about me? She’s a nurse, isn’t she? And I’m a dying man.”

“And such a beautiful dying man. I should have known you wouldn’t do this switch unless someone offered you a beautiful body. What a vain, superficial being you are! Look at that face. Better looking than your own face.”

“I wouldn’t go that far!”

She gave me the most sly smile, her face glowing in the dim, dreary room.

“Don’t worry, I’m with you. I’ll sit right here with you until you’re better.”

“I’ve seen so many humans die. I’ve caused their deaths. It’s so simple and treacherous, the moment when life goes out of the body. They simply slip away.”

“You’re saying crazy things.”

“No, I’m telling you the truth, and you know it. I can’t say I’ll make amends if I live. I don’t think it’s possible. Yet I’m scared to death of dying. Don’t let go my hand.”

“Lestat, why are we here?”

Louis?

I looked up. He was standing in the door of the crude little hospital, confused, faintly disheveled, the way he’d looked from the night I’d made him, not the wrathful blinded young mortal anymore, but the dark gentleman with the quiet in his eyes, with the infinite patience of a saint in his soul.

“Help me up,” I said, “I have to get her from the little bed.”

He put out his hand, but he was so confused. Didn’t he share in that sin? No, of course not, because he was forever blundering and suffering, atoning for it all even as he did it. I was the devil. I was the only one who could gather her from the little bed.

Time now to lie to the doctor. “The child there, that is my child.”

And he’d be oh, so glad to have one less burden.

“Take her, monsieur, and thank you.” He looked gratefully at the gold coins as I tossed them on the bed. Surely I did that. Surely I didn’t fail to help them. “Yes, thank you. God bless you.”

I’m sure he will. He always has. I bless him too.

“Sleep now. As soon as there’s a room available, we’ll move you into it, you’ll be more comfortable.”

“Why are there so many here? Please don’t leave me.”