confused by my absence of dread and filled with a distaste for being so close to him, 
handsome and intriguing though he was. And he shut the lid. Then I asked him if I was 
.completely dead. My body was tingling and itching all over. `No, you're not then,' he 
said. `When you are, you'll only hear and see it changing and feel nothing. You should be 
dead by tonight. Go to sleep."'
  "Was he right? Were you . . . dead when you woke up?"
  "Yes, changed, I should say. As obviously I am alive. My body was dead. It was some 
time before it became absolutely cleansed of the fluids and matter it no longer needed, 
but it was dead. And with the realization of it came another stage in my divorce from 
human emotions. The first thing which became apparent to me, even while Lestat and I were 
loading the coffin into a hearse and stealing another coffin from a mortuary, was that I 
did not like Lestat at all. I was far from being his equal yet, but I was infinitely 
closer to him than I had been before the death of my body. I can't really make this clear 
to you for the obvious reason that you are now as I was before my body died.
  You cannot understand. But before I died, Lestat was absolutely the most overwhelming 
experience I'd ever had. Your cigarette has become one long cylindrical ash."
  "Oh!" The boy quickly ground the filter into the glass. "You mean that when the gap was 
closed between you, he lost his . . . spell?" he asked, his eyes quickly fixed on the 
vampire, his hands now producing a cigarette and match much more easily than before.
  "Yes, that's correct," said the vampire with obvious pleasure. "The trip back to Pointe 
du Lac was thrilling. And the constant chatter of Lestat was positively the most boring 
and disheartening thing I experienced. Of course as I said, I was far from being his 
equal. I had my dead limbs to contend with . . . to use his comparison. And I learned 
that on that very night, when I had to make my first kill."
  The vampire reached across the table now and gently brushed an ash from the boy's 
lapel, and the boy stared at his withdrawing hand in alarm. "Excuse me," said the 
vampire. "I didn't mean to frighten you."
  "Excuse me," said the boy. "I just got the impression suddenly that your arm was . . . 
abnormally long. You reach so far without moving!"
  "No," said the vampire, resting his hands again on his crossed knees. "I moved forward 
much too fast for you to see. It was an illusion."
  "You moved forward? But you didn't. You were sitting just as you are now, with your 
back against the chair."
  "No," repeated the vampire firmly. "I moved forward as I told you. Here, I'll do it 
again." And he did it again, and the boy stared with the same mixture of confusion and 
fear. "You still didn't see it," said the vampire. "But, you see, if you look at my 
outstretched arm now, it's really not remarkably long at all." And he raised his arm, 
first finger pointing heavenward as if he were an angel about to give the Word of the 
Lord. "You have experienced a fundamental difference between the way you see and I see. 
My gesture appeared slow and somewhat languid to me. And the sound of my finger brushing 
your coat was quite audible. Well, I didn't mean to frighten you, I confess. But perhaps 
you can see from this that my return to Pointe du Lac was a feast of new experiences, the 
mere swaying of a tree branch in the wind a delight."
  "Yes," said the boy; but he was still visibly shaken. The vampire eyed him for a 
moment, and then he said, "I was telling you . . ."
  "About your first kill," said the boy.
  "Yes. I should say first, however, that the plantation was in a state of pandemonium. 
The overseer's body had been found and so had the blind old man in the master bedroom, 
and no one could explain the blind old man's presence. And no one had been able to find 
me in New Orleans. My sister had contacted the police, and several of them were at Pointe 
du Lac when I arrived. It was already quite dark, naturally, and Lestat quickly explained 
to me that I must not let the police see me in even minimal light, especially not with my 
body in its present remarkable state; so I talked to them in the avenue of oaks before 
the plantation house, ignoring their requests that we go inside. I explained I'd been to 
Pointe du Lac the night before and the blind old man was my guest. As for the overseer, 
he had not been here, but had gone to New Orleans on business.
  "After that was settled, during which my new detachment served me admirably, I had the 
problem of the plantation itself. My slaves were in a state of complete confusion, and no 
work had been done all day. We had a large plant then for the making of the indigo dye, 
and the overseer's management had been most important. But I had several extremely 
intelligent slaves who might have done his job just as well a long time before, if I had 
recognized their intelligence and not feared their African appearance and manner. I 
studied them clearly now and gave the management of things over to them. To the best, I 
gave the overseer's house on a promise. Two of the young women were brought back into the 
house from the fields to care for Lestat's father, and I told them I wanted as much 
privacy as possible and they would all of them be rewarded not only for service but for 
leaving me and Lestat absolutely alone. I did not realize at the time that these slaves 
would be the first, and possibly the only ones, to ever suspect that Lestat and I were 
not ordinary creatures. I failed to realize that their experience with the supernatural 
was far greater than that of white men. In my own inexperience I still thought of them as 
childlike savages barely domesticated by slavery. I made a bad mistake. But let me keep 
to my story. I was going to tell you about my first kill. Lestat bungled it with his 
characteristic lack of common sense."
  "Bungled it?" asked the boy.
  "I should never have started with human beings. But this was something I had to learn 
by myself. Lestat had us plunge headlong into the swamps right after the police and the 
slaves were settled. It was very late, and the slave cabins were completely dark. Rye 
soon lost sight of the lights of Pointe du Lac altogether, and I became very agitated. It 
was the same thing again: remembered fears, confusion. Lestat, had he any native 
intelligence, might have explained things to me patiently and gently-that I had no need 
to fear the swamps, that ;o snakes and insects I was utterly invulnerable, and that I 
must concentrate on my new ability to see in total darkness. Instead, he harassed me with 
condemnations. He was concerned only with our victims, with finishing my initiation and 
getting on with it.
  "And when we finally came upon our victims, he rushed me into action. They were a small 
camp of runaway slaves. Lestat had visited them before and picked off perhaps a fourth of 
their number by watching from the dark for one of them to leave the fire, or by taking 
them in their sleep. They knew absolutely nothing of Lestat's presence. We had to watch 
for well over an hour before one of the men, they were all men, finally left the clearing 
and came just a few paces into the trees. He unhooked his pants now and attended to an 
ordinary physical necessity, and as he turned to go, Lestat shook me and said, `Take 
him,' " The vampire smiled at the boy's wide eyes. "I think I was about as horrorstruck 
as you would be," he said. "But I didn't know then that I might kill animals instead of 
humans. I said quickly I could not possibly take him. And the slave heard me speak. He 
tamed, his back to the distant fire, and peered into the dark. Then quickly and silently, 
he drew a long knife out of his belt. He was naked except for the pants and the belt, a 
tall, strong-armed, sleek young man. He said something in the French patois, and then he 
stepped forward. I realized that, though I saw him clearly in the dark, he could not see 
us. Lestat stepped in back of him with a swiftness that baffled me and got a hold around 
his neck while he pinned his left arm. The slave cried out and tried to throw Lestat off.