I swam out quite far, and then rolled over on my back and looked at the sky. It was still full of fleecy white clouds. A moment of peace came over me, in spite of the chill on my exposed skin, and the dimness all around me, and the strange feeling of vulnerability I experienced as I floated on this dark treacherous sea. When I thought of being back in my old body, I could only be happy, and once again, I knew that in my human adventure, I had failed.

I had not been the hero of my own dreams. I had found human life too hard.

Finally I swam back into the shallows and then walked up onto the beach. I picked up my clothes, shook off the sand, slung them over my shoulder, and walked back to the little room.

Only one lamp burned on the dressing table. David was sitting on his bed, closest to the door, and dressed only in a long white pajama shirt and smoking one of those little cigars. I liked the scent of it, dark and sweet.

He looked his usual dignified self, arms folded, eyes full of normal curiosity as he watched me take a towel from the bath and dry off my hair and my skin.

“Just called London,” he said.

“What’s the news?” I wiped my face with the towel, then slung it over the back of the chair. The air felt so good on my naked skin, now that it was dry.

“Robbery in the hills above Caracas. Very similar to the crimes in Curaçao. A large villa full of artifacts, jewels, paintings. Much was smashed; only small portables were stolen; three people dead. We should thank the gods for the poverty of the human imagination—for the sheer meanness of this man’s ambitions—and that our opportunity to stop him has come so soon. In time, he would have wakened to his monstrous potential. As it is, he is our predictable fool.”

“Does any being use what he possesses?” I asked. “Perhaps a few brave geniuses know their true limits. What do the rest of us do but complain?”

“I don’t know,” he said, a sad little smile passing over his face. He shook his head and looked away. “Some night, when this is all over, tell me again how it was for you. How you could be in that beautiful young body and hate this world so much.”

“I’ll tell you, but you’ll never understand. You’re on the wrong side of the dark glass. Only the dead know how terrible it is to be alive.”

I pulled a loose cotton T-shirt out of my little suitcase, but I didn’t put it on. I sat down on the bed beside him. And then I bent down and kissed his face again gently, as I had in New Orleans, liking the feel of his roughly shaven beard, just as I liked that sort of thing when I was really Lestat and I would soon have that strong masculine blood inside.