“You don’t have to take life to do it, do you?” he asked quite seriously.

But what a crude question.

I made a short derisive noise. “I like to take life,” I said. I gestured to the tiger. “I’m a hunter as you were once. I think it’s fun.”

He looked at me for a long moment, his face full of a sort of troubled wonder and then he nodded slowly as if accepting this. But he was very far from accepting it.

“Have your supper while I’m gone,” I said. “I can tell you’re hungry. I can smell meat cooking somewhere in this house. And you can be certain that I intend to have my supper before I come back.”

“You’re quite determined that I’m to know you, aren’t you?” he asked. “That there’s to be no sentimentality or mistake.”

“Exactly.” I drew back my lips and showed him my fangs for a second. They are very small, actually, nothing compared to the leopard and the tiger, with which he kept company so obviously by choice. But this grimace always frightens mortals. It does more than frighten them. It actually shocks them. I think it sends some primal message of alarm through the organism which has little to do with its conscious courage or sophistication.

He blanched. He stood quite motionless, looking at me, and then gradually the warmth and the expression returned to his face.

“Very well,” he said. “I’ll be here when you come back. If you don’t come back, I’ll be furious! I won’t speak to you again, I swear it. You vanish on me tonight, you’ll never get another nod from me. It will be a crime against hospitality. You understand?”

“All right, all right!” I said with a shrug, though I was secretly touched that he wanted me here. I hadn’t really been so sure, and I’d been so rude to him. “I’ll come back. Besides, I want to know.”

“What?”

“Why you aren’t afraid of dying.”

“Well, you aren’t afraid of it, are you?”

I didn’t answer. I saw the sun again, the great fiery ball becoming earth and sky, and I shuddered. Then I saw that oil lamp in my dream.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I am afraid of dying,” I said with a nod for emphasis. “All my illusions are being shattered.”

“You have illusions?” he asked quite honestly.

“Of course I do. One of my illusions was that no one could really refuse the Dark Gift, not knowingly … ”

“Lestat, must I remind you that you refused it yourself?”

“David, I was a boy. I was being forced. I fought instinctively. But that had nothing to do with knowing.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. I think you would have refused even if you had fully understood.”

“Now we’re speaking about your illusions,” I said. “I’m hungry. Get out of my way or I’ll kill you.”

“I don’t believe you. You had better come back.”

“I will. This time I’ll keep the promise I made in my letter. You can say all you have to say.”