" `It's Louis! Louis!' he said. `Let him in' And he gestured frantically, like an 
invalid, for the young `nurse' to obey.
  "As soon as the window opened I breathed the stench of the room and its sweltering 
heat. The swarming of the insects on the rotted animals scratched at my senses so that I 
recoiled despite myself, despite Lestat's desperate pleas for me to come to him. There, 
in the far corner, was the coffin where he slept, the lacquer peeling from the wood, half 
covered with piles of yellow newspapers. And bones lay in the corners, picked clean 
except for bits and tufts of fur. But Lestat had his dry hands on mine now, drawing me 
towards him and towards the warmth, and I could see the tears welling in his eyes; and 
only when his mouth was stretched in a strange smile of desperate happiness that was near 
to pain did I see the faint traces of the old scars. How baffling and awful it was, this 
smoothfaced, shimmering immortal man bent and rattled and whining like a crone.
  " `Yes, Lestat,' I said softly. `I've come to see you' I pushed his hand gently, slowly 
away and moved towards the baby, who was crying desperately now from fear as well as 
hunger. As soon as I lifted it up and loosened the covers, it quieted a little, and then 
I patted it and rocked it. Lestat was whispering to me now in quick, half-articulated 
words I couldn't understand, the tears streaming down his cheeks, the young vampire at 
the open window with a look of disgust on his face and one hand (r)n the window latch, as 
if he meant at any minute to bolt.
  " `So you're Louis,' said the young vampire. This seemed to increase Lestat's 
inexpressible. excitement, and he wiped frantically at his tears with the hem of his robe.
  "A fly lit on the baby's forehead, and involuntarily I gasped as I pressed it between 
two fingers and dropped it dead to the floor. The child was no longer crying. It was 
looking up at me with extraordinary blue eyes, dark-blue eyes, its round face glistening 
from the heat, and a smile played on its lips, a smile that grew brighter like a flame. I 
had never brought death to anything so young, so innocent, and I was aware of this now as 
I held the child with an odd feeling of sorrow, stronger even than that feeling which had 
come over me in the Rue Royale. And, rocking the child gently, I pulled the young 
vampire's chair to the fire and sat down.
  " `Don't try to speak . . . it's all right,' I said to Lestat, who dropped down 
gratefully into his chair and reached out to stroke the lapels of my coat with both hands.
  " `But I'm so glad to see you,' he stammered through his tears. `I've dreamed of your 
coming . . . coming. . ' he said. And then he grimaced, as if he were feeling a pain he 
couldn't identify, and again the fine map of scars appeared for an instant. He was 
looking off, his hand up to his ear, as if he meant to cover it to defend himself from 
some terrible sound. `I didn't . . ' he started; and then he shook his head, his eyes 
clouding as he opened them wide, strained to focus them. `I didn't mean to let them do 
it, Louis . . . I mean that Santiago . . . that one, you know, he didn't tell me what 
they planned to do.'
  " `That's all past, Lestat,' I said.
  " `Yes, yes,' he nodded vigorously. `Past. She should never . . . why, Louis, you know. 
. . ' And he was shaking his head, his voice seeming to gain in strength, to gain a 
little in resonance with his effort. `She should have never been one of us, Louis.' And 
he rapped his sunken chest with his fist as he said `Us' again softly.
  "She. It seemed then that she had never existed That she had been some illogical, 
fantastical dream that, was too precious and too personal for me ever to confide in 
anyone. And too long gone. I looked at him. I stared at him. And tried to think, Yes, the 
three of us together.
  " `Don't fear me, Lestat,' I said, as though talking to myself. `I bring you no harm.'
  " `You've come back to me, Louis,' he whispered in that thin, high-pitched voice. 
`You've come home again to me, Louis, haven't you?' And again he bit his lip and looked 
at me desperately.
  " `No, Lestat.' I shook my head. He was frantic for a moment, and again he commenced 
one gesture and then another and finally sat there with his hands over his face in a 
paroxysm of distress. The other vampire, who was studying me coldly, asked:
  " `Are you . . . have you come back to him?'
  " `No, of course not,' I answered. And he smirked, as if this was as he expected, that 
everything fell to him again, and he walked out onto the porch. I could hear him there 
very near, waiting.
  " `I only wanted to see you, Lestat,' I said. But Lestat didn't seem to hear me. 
Something else had distracted him. And he was gazing off, his eyes wide, his hands 
hovering near his ears. Then I heard it also. It was a siren. And as it grew louder, his 
eyes shut tight against it and his fingers covered his ears. And it grew louder and 
louder, coming up the street from downtown. `Lestat!' I said to him, over the baby's 
cries, which rose now in the same terrible fear of the siren. But his agony obliterated 
me. His lips were drawn back from his teeth in a terrible grimace of pain. `Lestat, it's 
only a siren!' I said to him stupidly. And then he came forward out of the chair and took 
hold of me and held tight to me, and, despite myself, I took his hand. He bent down, 
pressing his head against my chest and holding my hand so tight that he caused me pain. 
The room was filled with the flashing red light of the siren, and then it was going away.
  " `Louis, I can't bear it, I can't bear it,' he growled through his tears. `Help me, 
Louis, stay with me.'
  " `But why are you afraid?' I asked. `Don't you know what these things are?' And as I 
looked down at him, as I saw his yellow hair pressed against my coat, I had a vision of 
him from long ago, that tall, stately gentleman in the swirling black cape, with his head 
thrown back, his rich, flawless voice singing the lilting air of the opera from which 
we'd only just come, his walking stick tapping the cobblestones in time with the music, 
his large, sparkling eye catching the young woman who stood by, enrapt, so that a smile 
spread over his face as the song died on his lips; and for one moment, that one moment 
when his eye met hers, all evil seemed obliterated in that flush of pleasure, that 
passion for merely being alive.
  "Was this the price of that involvement? A sensibility shocked by change, shriveling 
from fear? I thought quietly of all' the things I might say to him, how I might remind 
him that he was immortal, that nothing condemned him to this retreat save himself, and 
that he was surrounded with the unmistakable signs of inevitable death. But I did not say 
these things, and I knew that I would not.
  "It seemed the silence of the room rushed back around us, like a dark sea that the 
siren had driven away. The flies swarmed on the festering body of a rat, and the child 
looked quietly up at me as though my eyes were bright baubles, and its dimpled hand 
closed on the finger that I poised above its tiny petal mouth.
  "Lestat had risen, straightened, but only to bend over and slink into the chair. `You 
won't stay with me,' he sighed. But then he looked away and seemed suddenly absorbed.
  " `I wanted to talk to you so much,' he said. `That night I came home in the Rue Royale 
I only wanted to talk to you!' He shuddered violently, eyes closed, his throat seeming to 
contract. It was as if the blows I'd struck him then were falling now. He stared blindly 
ahead, his tongue moistening his lip, his voice low, almost natural. `I went to Paris 
after you. . . '
  " `What was it you wanted to tell me?' I asked. `What was it you wanted to talk about?'
  "I could well remember his mad insistence in the Theatre des Vampires. I hadn't thought 
of it in years. No, I had never thought of it. And I was aware that I spoke of it now