"Of course I am. But there's a bit of decency left in me, and that decency compels me 
to remind you that I'm a creature of supernatural appetite."
  Again she tried to interject, but I wouldn't allow it.
  "My very presence, with all its signals of power, can erode your own tolerance for 
living, Merrick; it can eat away your faith in a moral order, it can hurt your 
willingness to die an ordinary death."
  "Ah, David," she said, chiding me for my official tone. "Speak plainly. What's in your 
heart? " She sat up straight in the chair, her eyes looking me up and down. "You look 
boyish and wise in this young body. Your skin's darkened like mine! Even your features 
have the stamp of Asia. But you're more David than you ever were!"
  I said nothing.
  I watched through dazed eyes as she drank more of the rum. The sky darkened behind her, 
but bright, warm electric lights filled up the outside night. Only the cafe itself was 
veiled in dreary shadow, what with its few dusty bulbs behind the bar.
  Her cool confidence chilled me. It chilled me that she had so fearlessly touched me, 
that nothing in my vampire nature repelled her, but then I could well remember how Lestat 
in all his subdued glory had attracted me. Was she attracted? Had the fatal fascination 
begun?
  She kept her thoughts half concealed as she always had.
  I thought of Louis. I thought of his request. He wanted desperately for her to work her 
magic. But she was right. I needed her. I needed her witness and her understanding.
  When I spoke, my words were full of heartbreak and wonder, even to myself.
  "It's been magnificent," I said. "And unendurable. I am most truly out of life and 
can't escape from it. I have no one to whom I can give what I learn."
  She didn't argue with me or question me. Her eyes seemed suddenly to be full of 
sympathy, her mask of composure to be gone. I'd seen such sharp changes in her many 
times. She concealed her emotions except for such silent and eloquent moments.
  "Do you think," she asked, "that if you hadn't taken up life in the young body, that 
Lestat would have forced you as he did? If you'd still been old-our David, our blessed 
David, aged seventy-four, wasn't it?-do you think if you'd still been our honorable 
Superior General that Lestat would have brought you over?"
  "I don't know," I said shortly, but not without feeling. "I've often asked myself the 
same question. I honestly don't know. These vampires ... ah, I mean, we ... we vampires, 
we love beauty, we feed on it. Our definition of beauty expands enormously, you can't 
quite imagine how much. I don't care how loving your soul, you can't know how much we 
find beautiful that mortals don't find beautiful, but we do propagate by beauty, and this 
body has beauty which I've used to evil advantage countless times."
  She lifted her glass in a small salute. She drank deeply.
  "If you'd come up to me with no preamble," she said, "whispering in a crowd as you 
touched me-I would have known you, known who you were." A shadow fell over her face for a 
moment, and then her expression became serene. "I love you, old friend," she said.
  "You think so, my darling?" I asked. "I have done many things to feed this body; not so 
very lovely to think about that at all."
  She finished the glass, set it down, and, before I could do it for her, she reached for 
the bottle again.
  "Do you want Aaron's papers?" she asked.
  I was completely taken aback.
  "You mean you're willing to give them to me?"
  "David, I'm loyal to the Talamasca. What would I be if it weren't for the Order?" She 
hesitated, then: "But I'm also deeply loyal to you." For a few seconds she was musing. 
"You were the Order for me, David. Can you imagine what I felt when they told me you were 
dead?"
  I sighed. What could I say in answer?
  "Did Aaron tell you how we grieved for you, all those of us who weren't entrusted with 
a speck of the truth?"
  "From my soul, I'm sorry, Merrick. We felt we kept a dangerous secret. What more can I 
say?"
  "You died here in the States, in Miami Beach, that was the story. And they'd flown the 
remains back to England before they even called to tell me you were gone. You know what I 
did, David? I made them hold the casket for me. It was sealed shut when I got to London 
but I made them open it. I made them do it. I screamed and carried on until they gave in 
to me. Then I sent them out of the room and I stayed alone with that body, David, that 
body all powdered and prettied up and nestled in its satin. I stayed there for an hour 
perhaps. They were knocking on the door. Then finally I told them to proceed."
  There was no anger in her face, only a faint wondering expression.
  "I couldn't let Aaron tell you," I said, "not just then, not when I didn't know whether 
I'd survive in the new body, not when I didn't understand what life held for me. I 
couldn't. And then, then it was too late."
  She raised her eyebrows and made a little doubting gesture with her head. She sipped 
the rum.
  "I understand," she said.
  "Thank God," I answered. "In time, Aaron would have told you about the body switching," 
I insisted. "I know he would have. The story of my death was never meant for you."
  She nodded, holding back the first response that came to her tongue.
  "I think you have to file those papers of Aaron's," I said. "You have to file them 
directly with the Elders and no one else. Forget the Superior General of the moment."
  "Stop it, David," she responded. "You know it is much easier to argue with you now that 
you are in the body of a very young man."
  "You never had difficulty arguing with me, Merrick," I retorted. "Don't you think Aaron 
would have filed the papers, had he lived?"
  "Maybe," she said, "and maybe not. Maybe Aaron would have wanted more that you be left 
to your destiny. Maybe Aaron wanted more that whatever you had become, you'd be left 
alone."
  I wasn't sure what she was saying. The Talamasca was so passive, so reticent, so 
downright unwilling in interfere in anyone's destiny, I couldn't figure what she meant.
  She shrugged, took another sip of ram, and rolled the rim of the glass against her 
lower lip.
  "Maybe it doesn't matter," she said. "I only know that Aaron never filed the pages 
himself." She went on speaking:
  "The night after he was killed I went down to his house on Esplanade Avenue. You know 
he married a white Mayfair, not a witch by the way, but a resilient and generous 
woman-Beatrice Mayfair is her name, she's still living-and at her invitation I took the 
papers marked 'Talamasca.' She didn't even know what they contained.
  "She told me Aaron had once given her my name. If anything happened, she was to call 
me, and so she'd done her duty. Besides, she couldn't read the documents. They were all 
in Latin, you know, Talamasca old style.
  "There were several files, and my name and number were written on the front of each, in 
Aaron's hand. One file was entirely devoted to you, though only the initial, D, was used 
throughout. The papers on you, I translated into English. No one's ever seen them. No 
one," she said with emphasis. "But I know them almost word for word."