flickering candle, and the light was too much like the light of that long ago evening at 
Oak Haven, though tonight the late spring evening was only moist, not wet with a coming 
storm.
  She sipped the rum, rolling it around a bit before she swallowed it. But she didn't 
fool me. She'd soon start drinking it fast again. She set the glass aside and let her 
fingers spread wide apart on the soiled marble. Rings. Those were Great Nananne's many 
rings, beautiful gold filigree with various wondrous stones. She'd worn them even in the 
jungles, when I'd thought it so unwise. She'd never been prone to fear of any sort.
  I thought of her in those hot tropical nights. I thought of her during those steamy 
hours under the high canopy of green. I thought of the trek through the darkness of the 
ancient temple. I thought of her climbing ahead of me, in the steam and roar of the 
waterfall up the gentle slope.
  I'd been far too old for it, our great and secret adventure. I thought of precious 
objects made of jade as green as her eyes.
  Her voice brought me out of my selfish reverie:
  "Why are you asking me to do this magic?" She put the question to me again. "I sit here 
and I took at you, David, and with every passing second, I become more aware of what you 
are and what's happened to you. I put all kinds of pieces together from your open 
mind-and your mind's as open as it ever was, David, you know that, don't you?"
  How resolute was her voice. Yes, the French was utterly gone. Ten years ago it had been 
gone. But now there was a clipped quality to her words, no matter how soft and low they 
came.
  Her large eyes widened easily with her expressive verbal rhythms.
  "You couldn't even be quiet of mind on the porch the other night," she scolded. "You 
woke me. I heard you, just as if you'd been tapping on the panes. You said, 'Merrick, can 
you do it? Can you bring up the dead for Louis de Pointe du Lac?' And do you know what I 
heard underneath it? I heard 'Merrick, I need you. I need to talk to you. Merrick, my 
destiny is shattered. Merrick, I reach for understanding. Don't turn me aside.'"
  I felt an acute pain in my heart.
  "It's true what you're saying," I confessed.
  She drank another big swallow of the rum, and the heat danced in her cheeks.
  "But you want this thing for Louis," she said. "You want it enough to overcome your own 
scruples and come to my window. Why? You, I understand. Of him, I know other people's 
stories and just the little I've seen with my own eyes. He's a dashing young man, that 
one, isn't he?"
  I was too confused to answer, too confused to will courtesy to build a temporary bridge 
of polite lies.
  "David, give me your hand, please," she asked suddenly. "I have to touch you. I have to 
feel this strange skin."
  "Oh, darling, if only you could forego that," I murmured.
  Her large golden earrings moved against the nest of her black hair and the long line of 
her beautiful neck. All the promise of the child had been fulfilled in her. Men admired 
her enormously. I had known that a long time ago.
  She reached out to me gracefully. Boldly, hopelessly, I gave her my hand.
  I wanted the contact. I wanted the intimacy. I was powerfully stimulated. And 
treasuring the sensation, I let her fingers linger as she looked into my palm.
  "Why read this palm, Merrick?" I asked. "What can it tell you? This body belonged to 
another man. Do you want to read the map of his broken fate? Can you see there that he 
was murdered and the body stolen? Can you see there my own selfish invasion of a body 
that ought to have died?"
  "I know the story, David," she answered. "I found it all in Aaron's papers. Body 
switching. Highly theoretical as regards the official position of the Order. But you were 
a grand success."
  Her fingers sent the thrills up my spine and through the roots of my hair.
  "After Aaron's death, I read the whole thing," she said, as she moved her fingertips 
across the pattern of deeply etched lines. She recited it:
  "'David Talbot is no longer in his body. During an ill-fated experiment with astral 
projection he was ousted from his own form by a practiced Body Thief and forced to claim 
the youthful trophy of his opponent, a body stolen from a shattered soul which has, as 
far as we can know, moved on.'"
  I winced at the old familiar Talamasca style.
  "I wasn't meant to find those papers," she continued, her eyes still fixed on my palm. 
"But Aaron died here, in New Orleans, and I had them in my hands before anyone else. 
They're still in my possession, David; they have never been filed with the Elders and 
maybe they never will be filed. I don't know."
  I was amazed at her audacity, to have held back such secrets from the Order to which 
she still devoted her life. When had I ever had such independence, except perhaps at the 
very end?
  Her eyes moved quickly back and forth as she examined my palm. She pressed her thumb 
softly against my flesh. The chills were unbearably enticing. I wanted to take her in my 
arms, not feed from her, no, not harm her, only kiss her, only sink my fangs a very 
little, only taste her blood and her secrets, but this was dreadful and I wouldn't let it 
go on.
  I withdrew my outstretched hand.
  "What did you see, Merrick?" I asked quickly, swallowing the hunger of body and mind.
  "Disasters large and small, my friend, a life line that goes on as long as any, stars 
of strength, and a brood of offspring."
  "Stop it, I don't accept it. The hand's not mine."
  "You have no other body now," she countered. "Don't you think the body will conform to 
its new soul? The palm of a hand changes over time. But I don't want to make you angry. I 
didn't come here to study you. I didn't come here to stare in cold fascination at a 
vampire. I've glimpsed vampires. I've even been close to them, in these very streets. I 
came because you asked me and because I wanted ... to be with you."
  I nodded, overcome and unable for the moment to speak. With quick gestures I pleaded 
for her silence.
  She waited.
  Then at last:
  "Did you ask permission of the Elders for this meeting?"
  She laughed but it wasn't cruel. "Of course I did not."
  "Then know this," I said. "It started the same way with me and the Vampire Lestat. I 
didn't tell the Elders. I didn't let them know how often I saw him, that I brought him 
into my house, that I conversed with him, traveled with him, taught him how to reclaim 
his preternatural body when the Body Thief tricked him out of it."
  She tried to interrupt me but I would have none of it.
  "And do you realize what's happened to me?" I demanded. "I thought I was too clever for 
Lestat ever to seduce me. I thought I was too wise in old age for the seduction of 
immortality. I thought I was morally superior, Merrick, and now you see what I am."
  "Aren't you going to swear to me that you'll never hurt me?" she asked, her face 
beautifully flushed. "Aren't you going to assure me that Louis de Pointe du Lac would 
never bring me harm?"