“This was something I did not wish to hear in particular. Babette had died young, insane, restrained finally from wandering towards the ruins of Pointe du Lac, insisting she had seen the devil there and must find him; I’d heard of it in wisps of gossip. And then came the funeral notices: I’d thought occasionally of going to her, of trying some way to rectify what I had done; and other times I thought it would all heal itself; and in my new life of nightly killing, I had grown far from the attachment I’d felt for her or for my sister or any mortal. And I watched the tragedy finally as one might from a theater balcony, moved from time to time, but never sufficiently to jump the railing and join the players on the stage.

“ ‘Don’t talk of her,’ I said.

“ ‘Very well. I was talking of the plantation. Not her. Her! Your lady love, your fancy.’ He smiled at me. ‘You know, I had it all my way finally in the end, didn’t I? But I was telling you about my young friend and how…’

“ ‘I wish you would play the music,’ I said softly, unobtrusively, but as persuasively as possible. Sometimes this worked with Lestat. If I said something just right he found himself doing what I’d said. And now he did just that: with a little snarl, as if to say, ‘You fool,’ he began playing the music. I heard the doors of the back parlor open and Claudia’s steps move down the hall. Don’t come, Claudia, I was thinking, feeling; go away from it before we’re all destroyed. But she came on steadily until she reached the hall mirror. I could hear her opening the small table drawer, and then the zinging of her hairbrush. She was wearing a floral perfume. I turned slowly to face her as she appeared in the door, still all in white, and moved across the carpet silently toward the piano. She stood at the end of the keyboard, her hands folded on the wood, her chin resting on her hands, her eyes fixed on Lestat.

“I could see his profile and her small face beyond, looking up at him. ‘What is it now!’ he said, turning the page and letting his hand drop to his thigh. ‘You irritate me. Your very presence irritates me!’ His eyes moved over the page.

“ ‘Does it?’ she said in her sweetest voice.

“ ‘Yes, it does. And I’ll tell you something else. I’ve met someone who would make a better vampire than you do.’

“This stunned me. But I didn’t have to urge him to go on. ‘Do you get my meaning?’ he said to her.

“ ‘Is it supposed to frighten me?’ she asked.

“ ‘You’re spoiled because you’re an only child,’ he said. ‘You need a brother. Or rather, I need a brother. I get weary of you both. Greedy, brooding vampires that haunt our own lives. I dislike it.’

“ ‘I suppose we could people the world with vampires, the three of us,’ she said.

“ ‘You think so!’ he said, smiling, his voice with a note of triumph. Do you think you could do it? I suppose Louis has told you how it was done or how he thinks it was done. You don’t have the power. Either of you,’ he said.

“This seemed to disturb her. Something she had not accounted for. She was studying him. I could see she did not entirely believe him.

“ ‘And what gave you the power?’ she asked softly, but with a touch of sarcasm.

“ ‘That, my dear, is one of those things which you may never know. For even the Erebus in which we live must have its aristocracy.’

“ ‘You’re a liar,’ she said with a short laugh. And just as he touched his fingers to the keys again, she said, ‘But you upset my plans.’

“ ‘Your plans?’ he asked.

“ ‘I came to make peace with you, even if you are the father of lies. You’re my father,’ she said. ‘I want to make peace with you. I want things to be as they were.’

“Now he was the one who did not believe. He threw a glance at me, then looked at her. ‘That can be. Just stop asking me questions. Stop following me. Stop searching in every alleyway for other vampires. There are no other vampires! And this is where you live and this is where you stay!’ He looked confused for the moment, as if raising his own voice had confused him. ‘I take care of you. You don’t need anything.’

“ ‘And you don’t know anything, and that is why you detest my questions. All that’s clear. So now let’s have peace, because there’s nothing else to be had. I have a present for you.’

“ ‘And I hope it’s a beautiful woman with endowments you’ll never possess;’ he said, looking her up and down. Her face changed when he did this. It was as if she almost lost some control I’d never seen her lose. But then she just shook her head and reached out one small, rounded arm and tugged at his sleeve.

“ ‘I meant what I said. I’m weary of arguing with you. Hell is hatred, people living together in eternal hatred. We’re not in hell. You can take the present or not, I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. Only let’s have an end to all this. Before Louis, in disgust, leaves us both.’ She was urging him now to leave the piano, bringing down the wooden cover again over the keys, turning him on the piano stool until his eyes followed her to the door.

“ ‘You’re serious. Present, what do you mean, present?’

“ ‘You haven’t fed enough, I can tell by your color, by your eyes. You’ve never fed enough at this hour. Let’s say that I can give you a precious moment. Suffer the little children to come unto me;’ she whispered, and was gone. He looked at me. I said nothing. I might as well have been drugged. I could see the curiosity in his face, the suspicion. He followed her down the hall. And then I heard him let out a long, conscious moan, a perfect mingling of hunger and lust.

“When I reached the door, and I took my time, he was bending over the settee. Two small boys lay there, nestled among the soft velvet pillows, totally abandoned to sleep as children can be, their pink mouths open, their small round faces utterly smooth. Their skin was moist, radiant, the curls of the darker of the two damp and pressed to the forehead. I saw at once by their pitiful and identical clothes that they were orphans. And they had ravaged a meal set before them on our best china. The tablecloth was stained with wine, and a small bottle stood half full among the greasy plates and forks. But there was an aroma in the room I did not like. I moved closer, better to see the sleeping ones, and I could see their throats were bare but untouched. Lestat had sunk down beside the darker one; he was by far the more beautiful. He might have been lifted to the painted dome of a cathedral. No more than seven years old, he had that perfect beauty that is of neither sex, but angelic. Lestat brought his hand down gently on the pale throat, and then he touched the silken lips. He let out a sigh which had again that longing, that sweet, painful anticipation. ‘Oh… Claudia…’ he sighed. ‘You’ve outdone yourself. Where did you find them?’

“She said nothing. She had receded to a dark armchair and sat back against two large pillows, her legs out straight on the rounded cushion, her ankles drooping so that you did not see the bottom of her white slippers but the curved insteps and the tight, delicate little straps. She was staring at Lestat. ‘Drunk on brandy wine,’ she said. ‘A thimbleful!’ and gestured to the table. ‘I thought of you when I saw them… I thought if I share this with him, even he will forgive.’

“He was warmed by her flattery. He looked at her now and reached out and clutched her white lace ankle. ‘Ducky!’ he whispered to her and laughed, but then he hushed, as if he didn’t wish to wake the doomed children. He gestured to her, intimately, seductively, ‘Come sit beside him. You take him, and I’ll take this one. Come.’ He embraced her as she passed and nestled beside the other boy. He stroked the boy’s moist hair, he ran his fingers over the rounded lids and along the fringe of lashes. And then he put his whole softened hand across the boy’s face and felt at the temples, cheeks, and jaw, massaging the unblemished flesh. He had forgotten I was there or she was there, but he withdrew his hand and sat still for a moment, as though his desire was making him dizzy. He glanced at the ceiling and then down at the perfect feast. He turned the boy’s head slowly against the back of the couch, and the boy’s eyebrows tensed for an instant and a moan escaped his lips.