"The hell I do. You're too full of your own authority. You know perfectly well that I am not the boy you see here."
"Ah, I must be reminded of that, you're correct. But you could never abide evil. If you've told the truth half the time in your books, it's plain that you were sick of evil from the beginning. You'd give anything to discover what God wants of you and to do what He wants."
"You're in your dotage already. Make your will."
"Oooh, so cruel," he said with his bright smile.
I was going to say something else to him, when I was distracted. There was a little pulling somewhere in my consciousness. Sounds. A car passing very slowly on the narrow road through the distant village, in a blinding snow.
I scanned, caught nothing, merely the snow falling, and the car edging its way along. Poor sad mortal to be driving through the country at this hour. It was four of the clock.
"It's very late," I said. "I have to leave now. I don't want to spend another night here, though you've been most kind. It's nothing to do with anyone knowing. I simply prefer . .
"I understand. When will I see you again?"
"Perhaps sooner than you think," I said. "David, tell me. The other night, when I left here, hell-bent on burning myself to a crisp in the Gobi, why did you say that I was your only friend?"
"You are."
We sat there in silence for a moment.
"You are my only friend as well, David," I said.
"Where are you going?"
"I don't know. Back to London, perhaps. I'll tell you when I go back across the Atlantic.
Is that all right?"
"Yes, do tell me. Don't . . . don't ever believe that I don't want to see you, don't ever abandon me again."
"If I thought I was good for you, if I thought your leaving the order and traveling again was good for you . . ."
"Oh, but it is. I don't belong anymore in the Talamasca. I'm not even sure I trust it any longer, or believe hi its aims."
I wanted to say more-to tell him how much I loved him, that I'd sought shelter under his roof and he'd protected me and that I would never forget this, and that I would do anything he wished of me, anything at all.
But it seemed pointless to say so. I don't know whether he would have believed it, or what the value would have been. I was still convinced that it was not good for him to see me. And there wasn't very much left to him in this life.
"I know all this," he said quietly, gracing me with that smile again.
"David," I said, "the report you made of your adventures in Brazil. Is there a copy here? Could I read this report?"
He stood up and went to the glass-doored bookshelf nearest his desk- He looked through the many materials there for a long moment, then removed two large leather folders from the shelf.
"This is my life in Brazil-what I wrote in the jungles after, on a little rattletrap portable typewriter at a camp table, before I came home to England. I did go after the jaguar, of course. Had to do it. But the hunt was nothing compared to my experiences in Rio, absolutely nothing. That was the turning point, you see. I believe the very writing of this was some desperate attempt to become an Englishman again, to distance myself from the Candomble people, from the life I'd been living with them. My report for the Talamasca was based upon the material here."
I took it from him gratefully.
"And this," he said, holding the other folder, "is a brief summary of my days in India and Africa."
"I would like to read that too."
"Old hunting stories mostly. I was young when I wrote this. It's all big guns and action! It was before the war."
I took this second folder as well. I stood up, in slow gentlemanly fashion.
"I've talked the night away," he said suddenly. "That was rude of me. Perhaps you had things to say."
"No, not at all. It was exactly what I wanted." I offered my hand and he took it. Amazing the sensation of his touch against the burnt flesh.
"Lestat," he said, "the little short story here... the Lovecraft piece. Do you want it back, or shall I save it for you?"
"Ah, that, now that's a rather interesting tale-I mean how I came in possession of that."
I took the story from him and shoved it in my coat. Perhaps I'd read it again. My curiosity returned, and along with it a sort of fearful suspicion. Venice, Hong Kong, Miami. How had that strange mortal spotted me in all three places, and managed to see that I had spotted him!
"Do you care to tell me about it?" David asked gently,
"When there's more time," I said, "I shall tell you." Especially if I ever see that guy again, I thought. How ever did he do it?
I went out in a civilized manner, actually making a little bit of deliberate noise as I closed the side door of the house.
It was close to dawn when I reached London. And for the first time in many a night, I was actually glad of my immense powers, and the great feeling of security which they conveyed. I needed no coffins, no dark hiding places, merely a room completely isolated from the rays of the sun. A fashionable hotel with heavy curtains would provide both the peace and the comfort.
And I had a little time to settle in the warm light of a lamp and begin David's Brazilian adventure, which I looked forward to, with inordinate delight.
I had almost no money with me, thanks to my recklessness and madness, so I used my considerable powers of persuasion with the clerks of venerable old Claridge's so that they accepted the number of my credit account, though I had no card to verify it, and upon my signature-Sebastian Melmoth, one of my favorite aliases-I was shown to a lovely upper suite crowded with charming Queen Anne furniture and fitted with every convenience I could wish.
I put out the polite little printed notice that I wasn't to be disturbed, left word with the desk I must not be bothered until well after sunset, then latched all the doors from the inside.
There really wasn't time to read. The morning was coming behind the heavy gray sky and the snow drifting down still in large soft wet flakes. I closed all the draperies, save one, so that I might look at the sky, and I stood there, at the front of the hotel, waiting for the spectacle of the light to come, and still a little afraid of its fury, and the pain in my skin growing a little worse from that fear, more than anything else.
David was much on my mind; I hadn't ceased to think about our conversation for a second since I'd left him. I kept hearing his voice and trying to imagine his fragmentary vision of God and the Devil in the cafe. But my position on all this was simple and predictable. I thought David in possession of the most comforting delusions. And soon he'd be gone from me. Death would have him. And all I would have would be these manuscripts of his life. I couldn't force myself to believe he would know anything more at all when he was dead.
Nevertheless it was all very surprising, really, the turn the conversation had taken, and his energy, and the peculiar things he'd said.
I was comfortable in these thoughts, watching the leaden sky and the snow piling on the sidewalks far below, when I suddenly experienced a bout of dizziness-in fact, a complete moment of disorientation, as though I were falling asleep. It was very pleasurable, actually, the subtle vibratory sensation, accompanied by a weightlessness, as though I were indeed floating out of the physical and into my dreams. Then came that pressure again which I'd felt so fleetingly in Miami-of my limbs constricting, indeed of my whole form pressing inwards upon me, narrowing me and compressing me, and the sudden frightening image of myself being forced through the very top of my head!
Why was this happening? I shuddered as I had done on that lonely dark Florida beach when it happened before. And at once the feeling was dissipated. I was myself again and vaguely annoyed.
Was something going wrong with my handsome, godlike anatomy? Impossible. I didn't need the old ones to assure me of such a truth. And I had not made up my mind whether I should worry about this or forget it, or indeed, try to induce it again myself, when I was brought out of my preoccupation by a knock at the door.