"Yes, I am. So you ran off... you wanted to show me you could get along without me. You 
could hunt for yourself; you could find a hiding place by day. You didn't need me. But 
here you are!"
  
  "Are you coming with us to Rio or not?"
  
  "Coming with us! Did you say 'us'?"
  
  "I did."
  
  He walked over to the chair nearest the end of the couch and sat down. It penetrated to 
me that obviously he was already in full command of his new powers. And I, of course, 
couldn't gauge how strong he truly was merely by looking at him. The dark tone of his 
skin concealed too much. He crossed his legs and fell into an easy posture of relaxation, 
but with David's dignity intact.
  
  Perhaps it was a matter of the way his back remained straight against the chair behind 
him, or the elegant way his hand rested on his ankle, and the other arm molded itself to 
the arm of the chair.
  
  Only the thick wavy brown hair betrayed the dignity somewhat, tumbling down on his 
forehead so that finally he gave a little unconscious toss to his head.
  
  But quite suddenly his composure melted; his face bore all the sudden lines of serious 
confusion, and then pure distress.
  
  I couldn't stand it. But I forced myself to be silent.
  
  "I tried to hate you," he confessed, the eyes widening even as the voice nearly died 
away. "I couldn't do it; it's as simple as that." And for one moment there was the 
menace, the great preternatural anger, glaring out of him, before the face became 
perfectly miserable and then merely sad.
  
  "Why not?"
  
  "Don't play with me."
  
  "I've never played with you! I mean these things when I say them. How can you not hate 
me?"
  
  "I'd be making the same mistake you made if I hated you," he said, eyebrows raised. 
"Don't you see what you've done? You've given me the gift, but you spared me the 
capitulation. You've brought me over with all your skill and all your strength, but you 
didn't require of me the moral defeat. You took the decision from me, and gave me what I 
could not help but want."
  
  I was speechless. It was all true, but it was the damnedest lie I'd ever heard. "Then 
rape and murder are our paths to glory! I don't buy it. They are filthy. We are all 
damned and now you are too. And that's what I've done to you."
  
  He bore that as if it were a series of soft slaps, merely flinching just a little and 
then fixing his eyes on me again.
  
  "It took you two hundred years to learn that you wanted it," he said. "I knew the 
moment I woke out of the stupor and saw you lying there on the floor. You looked like an 
empty shell to me. I knew you'd gone too far with it. I was in terror for you. And I was 
seeing you with these new eyes."
  
  "Yes."
  
  "Do you know what went through my mind? I thought you'd found a way to die. You'd given 
me every drop of blood in you. And now you yourself were perishing before my very eyes. I 
knew I loved you. I knew I forgave you. And I knew with every breath I took and with 
every new color or shape I saw before me that I wanted what you'd given me-the new vision 
and life, which none of us can really describe! Oh, I couldn't admit it. I had to curse 
you, fight you for a little while. But that's all it was in the end-a little while."
  
  "You're much smarter than I am," I said softly.
  
  "Well, of course, what did you expect?"
  
  I smiled. I settled back on the couch.
  
  "Ah, this is the Dark Trick," I whispered. "How right they were, the old ones, to give 
it that name. I wonder if the trick's on me. For this is a vampire sitting here with me, 
a blood drinker of enormous power, my child, and what are old emotions to him now?"
  
  I looked at him, and once more I felt the tears coming. They never let me down.
  
  He was frowning, and his lips were slightly parted, and it seemed now I truly had dealt 
him a terrible blow. But he didn't speak to me. He seemed puzzled, and then he gave a 
little shake of his head as though he couldn't reply.
  
  I realized that it wasn't vulnerability I saw in him now so much as compassion, and 
blatant concern for me.
  
  He left the chair suddenly, dropping to his knees in front of me, and putting his hands 
on my shoulders, completely ignoring my faithful Mojo, who stared at him with indifferent 
eyes.
  
  Did he realize this was how I'd faced Claudia in my fever dream?
  
  "You're the same," he said. He shook his head. "The very same." .   "The same as what?"
  
  "Oh, every time you ever came to me, you touched me; you wrung from me a deep 
protectiveness. You made me feel love. And it's the same now. Only you seem all the more 
lost and in need of me now. I'm to take you forward, I see it clearly. I'm your link with 
the future. It's through me that you'll see the years ahead."
  
  "You're the same too. An absolute innocent. A bloody fool." I tried to brush his hand