"No, Louis, you've misunderstood everything. I don't want her to guide me. I don't want this mortal life!"
"Lestat, can't you see the chance you've been given? Can't you see the path laid out for you and the light ahead?"
"I'm going to go mad if you don't stop saying these things..."
"Lestat, what can any of us do to redeem ourselves? And who has been more obsessed with this very question than you?"
"No, no!" I threw my arms up and crossed them, back and forth, repeatedly, as if trying to head off this dump truck of mad philosophy which was driving right down upon me.
"No! I tell you, this is false. This is the worst of all lies."
He turned away from me, and again I rushed at him, unable to stop myself, and would have grabbed him by the shoulders and shaken him, but with a gesture too quick for my eye, he hurled me backwards against the chair.
Stunned, one ankle painfully twisted, I fell down on the cushions, and then made my right hand into a fist and drove it into the palm of my left. "Oh, no, not sermons, not now." I was almost weeping. "Not platitudes and pious recommendations." "Go back to her," he said. "You're mad!" "Imagine it," he went on, as if I hadn't spoken, his back turned to me, his eyes fixed perhaps on the distant window, his Voice almost inaudible, his dark form outlined against the running silver of the rain. "All the years of inhuman craving, of sinister and remorseless feeding. And you are reborn. And there-in that little jungle hospital you could conceivably save a human life for every one you've ever taken. Oh, what guardian angels look over you. Why are they so merciful? And you come to me and you beg me to bring you back into this horror, yet with every word you affirm the splendour of all you've suffered and seen."
"I bare my soul to you and you use it against me!" "Oh, I do not, Lestat. I seek to make you look into it. You are begging me to drive you back to Gretchen. Am I perhaps the only guardian angel? Am I the only one who can confirm this fate?" "You miserable bastard son of a bitch! If you don't give me the blood . . ."
'He turned around, his face like that of a ghost, eyes wide and hideously unnatural in their beauty. "I will not do it. Not now, not tomorrow, not ever. Go back to her, Lestat. Live this mortal life."
"How dare you make this choice for me!" I was on my feet again, and finished with whining and begging.
"Don't come at me again," he said patiently. "If you do, I shall hurt you. And that I don't wish to do."
"Ah, you've killed me! That's what you've done. You think I believe all your lies! You've condemned me to this rotting, Stinking, aching body, that's what you've done! You think I don't know the depth of hatred in you, the true face of retribution when I see it! For the love of God, speak the truth."
"It isn't the truth. I love you. But you are blind with impatience now, and overwrought with simple aches and pains. It is you who will never forgive me if I rob you of this destiny. Only it will take time for you to see the true meaning of what I've done."
"No, no, please." I came towards him, only this time not in anger. I approached slowly, until I could lay my hands on his shoulders and smell the faint fragrance of dust and the grave that clung to his clothes. Lord God, what was our skin that it drew the light to itself so exquisitely? And our eyes. Ah, to look into his eyes.
"Louis," I said. "I want you to take me. Please, do as I ask you. Leave the interpretations of all my tales to me. Take me, Louis, look at me." I snatched up his cold, lifeless hand and laid it on my face. "Feel the blood in me, feel the heat. You want me, Louis, you know you do. You want me, you want me in your power the way I had you in my power so long, long ago. I'll be your fledgling, your child, Louis. Please, do this. Don't make me beg you on my knees."
I could sense the change in him, the sudden predator}' glaze that covered his eyes. But what was stronger than his thirst? His will.
"No, Lestat," he whispered. "I can't do it. Even if I'm wrong and you are right, and all your metaphors are meaningless, I can't do it."
I took him in my arms, oh, so cold, so unyielding, this monster which I had made out of human flesh. I pressed my lips against his cheek, shuddering as I did so, my fingers sliding around his neck.
He didn't move away from me. He couldn't bring himself to do it. I felt the slow silent heave of his chest against mine.
"Do it to me, please, beautiful one," I whispered in his ear. "Take this heat into your veins, and give me back all the power that I once gave to you." I pressed my lips to his cold, colorless mouth. "Give me the future, Louis. Give me eternity. Take me off this cross."
In the corner of my eye, I saw his hand rise. Then I felt the satin fingers against my cheek. I felt him stroke my neck. "I can't do it, Lestat."
"You can, you know you can," I whispered, kissing his ear as I spoke to him, choking back the tears, my left arm slipping around his waist. "Oh, don't leave me hi this misery, don't do it."
"Don't beg me anymore," he said sorrowfully. "It's useless. I'm going now. You won't see me again."
"Louis!" I held fast to him. "You can't refuse me."
"Ah, but I can and I have."
I could feel him stiffening, trying to withdraw without bruising me. I held him ever more tightly, refusing to back away.
"You won't find me again here. But you know where to find her. She's waiting for you. Don't you see your own victory? Mortal again, and so very, very young. Mortal again, and so : very, very beautiful. Mortal again, with all your knowledge and ?i with the same indomitable will."
Firmly and easily he removed my arms and pushed me back, Aclosing his hands over mine as he held me away from him.
"Good-bye, Lestat," he said. "Perhaps the others will come to you. In time, when they feel you've paid enough."
I gave one last cry, trying to free my hands, trying to fix upon him, for I knew full well what he meant to do. ? In a dark flash of movement, he was gone, and I was lying on the floor.
The candle had fallen over on the desk and had gone out. Only the light of the dying fire filled the little room. And the shutters of the door stood open, and the rain was falling, thin and quiet, yet steady. And I knew I was completely alone. I had fallen to one side, my hands out before me to break the fall. And as I rose now, I cried out to him, praying that somehow he could hear me, no matter how far away he'd gone. "Louis, help me. I don't want to be alive. I don't want to be mortal! Louis, don't leave me here! I can't bear it! I don't want sit! I don't want to save my soul!"
How long I repeated these themes I don't know. Finally, I was too exhausted to continue; and the sounds of this mortal world and all its desperation were hurtful to my own ears.
I sat on the floor, one leg crooked beneath me, my elbow resting on my knee, my fingers in my hair. Mojo had come forward, fearfully, and lay now beside me, and I leaned down ad pressed my forehead into his fur.
The little fire was almost gone out. The rain hissed and sighed and redoubled its strength, but falling straight from the heavens without a breath of hateful wind.
Finally I looked up at this dark, dismal little place, at its Bumble of books and old statues, at the dust and filth everywhere, and at the glowing embers heaped hi the little hearth. How weary I was; how seared from my own anger; how close to despair.
Had I ever in all my misery been this completely without hope?
My eyes moved sluggishly to the doorway, and to the steady downpour, and the menacing darkness which lay beyond. Yes, go out in it, you and Mojo, who will of course love it as he loved the snow. You have to go out in it. You have to get out of this abysmal little house, and find some comfortable shelter where you can rest.
My rooftop apartment, surely there was some way I could break into it. Surely . . . some way. And then the sun was coming hi a few hours, wasn't it? Ah, this my lovely city, beneath the warm light of the sun.