"Again, you're making it sound so simple! How can such a thing be done?"
"Shhh, you're attracting needless attention," he said with quiet authority. "Drink the orange juice. You need it. I'll order some more."
"I don't need the orange juice and I don't need any more nursing," I said. "Are you seriously suggesting that we have a chance of catching this fiend?"
"Lestat, as I told you before-think on the most obvious and unchangeable limitation of your former state. A vampire cannot move about in the day. A vampire is almost entirely helpless in the day. Granted, there is a reflex to reach out for and harm anyone disturbing his rest. But otherwise, he is helpless. And for some eight to twelve hours he must remain in one place. That gives us the traditional advantage, especially since we know so much about the being in question. And all we require is an opportunity to confront the creature, and confuse him sufficiently for the switch to be made." "We can force it?" "Yes, I know that we can. He can be knocked loose from that body long enough for you to get in."
"David, I must tell you something. In this body I have no psychic power at all. I didn't have any when I was a mortal boy. I don't think I can . . . rise out of this body. I tried once in Georgetown. I couldn't budge from the flesh."
"Anyone can do this little trick, Lestat; you were merely afraid. And some of what you learned in the vampiric body, you now carry with you. Obviously the preternatural cells gave you an advantage, but the mind itself does not forget. Obviously James took his mental powers from body to body. You must have taken some part of your knowledge with you as well."
"Well, I was frightened. I've been afraid to try since-afraid I'd get out and then couldn't get back in."
"I'll teach you how to rise out of the body. I'll teach you how to make a concerted assault upon James. And remember, there are two of us, Lestat. You and I together will make the assault. And I do have considerable psychic power, to use the simplest descriptive words for it. There are many things which I can do."
"David, I shall be your slave for eternity in exchange for this. Anything you wish I will get for you. I shall go to the ends of the earth for you. If only this can be done."
He hesitated as if he wanted to make some small jesting comment, but then thought the better of it. And went right on.
"We will begin with our lessons as soon as we can. But the more I consider it, I think it's best I jolt him out of the body. I can do it before he even realizes that you are there. Yes, that must be our game plan. He won't suspect me when he sees me. I can veil my thoughts from him easily enough. And that's another thing you must learn, to veil your thoughts."
"But what if he recognizes you. David, he knows who you are. He remembers you. He spoke of you. What's to stop him from burning you alive the minute he sees you?"
"The place where the meeting occurs. He won't risk a little conflagration too near his person. And we shall be sure to ensnare him where he would not dare to show his powers at all. We may have to lure him into position. This requires thinking. And until we know how to find him, well, that part can wait."
"We approach him in a crowd."
"Or very near to sunrise, when he cannot risk a fire near his lair."
"Exactly."
"Now, let's try to make a fair assessment of his powers from the information we have in hand."
He paused as the waiter swooped down upon the table with one of those beautiful heavy silver-plated coffeepots which hotels of quality always possess. They have a patina like no other silver, and always several tiny little dents. I watched the black brew coming out of the little spout.
Indeed, I realized I was watching quite a few little things as we sat there, anxious and miserable though I was. Merely being with David gave me hope.
David took a hasty sip of the fresh cup as the waiter went away, and then reached into the pocket of his coat. He placed in my hand a little bundle of thin sheets of paper. "These are newspaper stories of the murders. Read them carefully. Tell me anything that comes to your mind."
The first story, "Vampire Murder in Midtown," enraged me beyond words. I noted the wanton destruction which David had described. Had to be clumsiness, to smash the furniture so stupidly. And the theft-how silly in the extreme. As for my poor agent, his neck had been broken as he'd been drained of his blood. More clumsiness.
"It's a wonder he can use the power of flight at all," I said angrily. "Yet here, he went through the wall on the thirtieth floor." "That doesn't mean he can use the power over really great distances," David replied.
"But how then did he get from New York to Bal Harbour in one night, and more significantly, why? If he is using commercial aircraft, why go to Bal Harbour instead of Boston? Or Los Angeles, or Paris, for heaven's sakes. Think of the high stakes for him were he to rob a great museum, an immense bank? Santo Domingo I don't understand. Even if he has mastered the power of flight, it can't be easy for him. So why on earth would he go there? Is he merely trying to scatter the kills so that no one will put together all the cases?"
"No," said David. "If he really wanted secrecy, he wouldn't operate in this spectacular style. He's blundering. He's behaving as if he's intoxicated!"
"Yes. And it does feel that way in the beginning, truly it does. You're overcome by the effect of your heightened senses."
"Is it possible that he is traveling through the air and merely striking wherever the winds carry him?" David asked. "That there is no pattern at all?"
I was considering the question as I read the other reports slowly, frustrated that I could not scan them as I would have done with my vampire eyes. Yes, more clumsiness, more stupidity. Human bodies crushed by "a heavy instrument," which was of course simply his fist.
"He likes to break glass, doesn't he?" I said. "He likes to surprise his victims. He must enjoy their fear. He leaves no witnesses. He steals everything of obvious value. And none of it is very valuable at all. How I hate him. And yet... I have done things as terrible myself."
I remembered the villain's conversations with me. How I had failed to see through his gentlemanly manner! But David's early descriptions of him, of his stupidity, and his selfdestructiveness, also came back. And his clumsiness, how could I ever forget that?
"No," I said, finally. "I don't believe he can cover these distances. You have no idea how terrifying this power of flight can be. It's twenty times more terrifying than out-of-body travel. All of us loathe it. Even the roar of the wind induces a helplessness, a dangerous abandon, so to speak."
I paused. We know this flight in our dreams, perhaps because we knew it in some celestial realm beyond this earth before we were ever born. But we can't conceive of it as earthly creatures, and only I could know how it had damaged and torn my heart and soul.
"Go on, Lestat. I'm listening. I understand."
I gave a little sigh. "I learnt this power only because I was in the grip of one who was fearless," I said, "for whom it was nothing. There are those of us who never use this power. No. I can't believe he's mastered it. He's traveling by some other means and then taking to the air only when the prey is near at hand."
"Yes, that would seem to square with the evidence, if only we knew-"
He was suddenly distracted. An elderly hotel clerk had just appeared in the distant doorway. He came towards us with maddening slowness, a genial kindly man with a large envelope in his hand.
At once David brought a bill out of his pocket, and held it in readiness.
"Fax, sir, just in."
"Ah, thank you so much."
He tore open the envelope.
"Ah, here we are. News wire via Miami. A hilltop villa on the island of Curacao.
Probable time early yesterday evening, not discovered till four a.m. Five persons found dead."