How odd. Didn't they themselves want to look at these fragments under microscopes?

But then surely others of our kind had done this, and why look at the bones and teeth of those who have been baked in Hell when you can carve pale white tissue from your own hand, and place this on the glass slide while your hand heals itself miraculously, as I was healing even now?

I lingered on the vision. I saw the hazy basement round about them. I saw the low beams above their heads. Gathering all my power into my projected gaze, I saw Santino's face, so troubled, soft, the very one who had shattered the only youth I might have ever had. I saw my old Master gazing almost wistfully at the flames.

"We're finished," Marius said in his quiet, commanding voice, speaking Italian perfectly to the other. "I cannot think of another thing that we should do."

"Break apart the Vatican, and steal the veil from them," answered Santino. "What right have they to claim such a thing?"

I could only see Marius's reaction, his sudden shock and then his polite and poised smile. "Why?" he asked, as if he held no secrets.

"What's the Veil to us, my friend? You think it will bring him back to his senses?

Forgive me, Santino, but you are so very young."

His senses, bring him back to his senses. This had to mean Lestat. There was no other possible meaning. I pushed my luck. I scanned Santino's mind for all he knew, and found myself recoiling in horror, but holding fast to what I saw.

Lestat, my Lestat-for he was never theirs, was he?-my Lestat was crazed and railing as the result of his awful saga, and held prisoner by the very oldest of our kind on the final decree that if he did not cease to disturb the peace, which meant of course our secrecy, he would be destroyed, as only the oldest could accomplish, and no one could plead for him on any account.

No, that could not happen! I writhed and twisted. The pain sent its shocks through me, red and violet and pulsing with orange light. I hadn't seen such colors since I'd fallen.

My mind was coming back, and coming back for what? Lestat to be destroyed! Lestat imprisoned, as I had once been centuries ago under Rome in Santino's catacombs. Oh, God, this is worse than the sun's fire, this is worse than seeing that bastard brother strike the little plum-cheeked face of Sybelle and knock her away from her piano, this is murderous rage I feel.

But the smaller damage was done. "Come, we have to get out of here," said Santino.

"There's something wrong, something I sense that I can't explain. It's as if someone is right near us yet not near us; it's as if someone as powerful as myself has heard my footfall over miles and miles."

Marius looked kindly, curious, unalarmed. "New York is ours tonight," he said simply. And then with faint fear he looked into the mouth of the furnace one last time.