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An explosion ripped the towers of the city and they tumbled. Was that the tolling of a bell! The huge mosque had collapsed. A man with a gun fired on those who fled. Veiled women cried out as they fell to the ground.

Louder and louder pealed the bell.

"Good God, Memnoch, a bell tolling, listen, more than one bell. "

"The bells of Hell, Lestat, and they are not tolling for anyone! They are ringing for us, Lestat!"

He clutched my collar as if he'd lift me off my feet.

"Remember, your own words, Lestat, Hell's Bells, you hear the call of Hell's Bells!"

"No, let me go. I didn't know what I was saying. It was poetry. It was stupidity. Let me go. I can't stand it!"

Around the table under the lamp a dozen people argued over the map, some embracing each other as they pointed to various areas marked in dull colors. A head was turned. A man? A face. "You!"

"Let me go. " I turned and was thrown against a wall of bookshelves, spines gleaming in the light, books tumbling, striking me on the shoulders, dear God, my limbs couldn't take any more. My fist went through the glittering globe of the world, mounted on its fancy arc of wood. A child with bent knees sat staring up at me with empty eye sockets.

I saw the doorway and ran.

"No, let me go. I cannot. I will not. I will not. "

"Will not?" Memnoch caught me by my right arm, dark scowl looming over me, the wings flexing and rising, blotting out the light again as they closed to enfold me as though I were his own. "Will you not help me to empty this place, to send these souls to Heaven?"

"I can't do it!" I cried. "I won't do it!" Suddenly my fury rose. I felt it obliterate all fear and trembling and doubt; I felt it rush through my veins like molten metal. The old anger, the resolve of Lestat. "/ will not be pan of this, not for you, not for Him, not for them, not for anyone!"

I staggered backwards, glaring at him. "No, not this. Not for a God as blind as He, and not for one who demands what you demand of me. You're mad, the two of you! I won't help you. I won't. I refuse. "

"You would do this to me, you would abandon me?" he cried, stricken, dark face convulsed with pain, tears shimmering on his shining black cheeks. "You would leave me with this, and not lift your hands to help me after all that you have done, Cain, slayer of Brothers, slayer of the Innocents, you cannot help me¡ª?"

"Stop it, stop it. I won't. I can't support this. I can't help this to happen! I cannot create this! I cannot endure it! I cannot teach in this school!"

My throat was hoarse and burning, and the din seemed to swallow my words but he heard them.

"No, no, I will not, not this fabric, not these rules, not this design, never, never, never!"

"Coward," he roared, the almond-shaped eyes immense, the fire flickering on the hard black forehead and cheeks. "I have your soul in my hands, I hand you your salvation at a price that those who have suffered here for millennia would beg for!"

"Not me. I won't be part of this pain, no, not now, not ever. . . Go to Him, change the rules, make it make sense, make it better, but not this, this is beyond human endurance, this is unfair, unfair, unfair, this is unconscionable. "

"This is Hell, you fool! What did you expect? That you'd serve the Lord of Hell while suffering nothing?"

"I won't do it to them!" I screamed. "To hell with you and with me. " My teeth were clenched. I seethed and stormed with my own conviction. "I will not participate in this with them! Don't you see? I cannot accept this! I cannot commit to it. I cannot abide it. I'm leaving you now, you gave me the choice, I'm going home! Release me!"

I turned.

He grabbed my arm again and this time the fury in me knew no bounds. I hurled him backwards over the dissolving and tumbling souls. The Helpful Dead turned here and there to witness and cry out, their pale oval faces full of alarm and distress.

"You go now," Memnoch swore, even as he lay still on the ground where I had thrown him. "And as God is my witness you come back my pupil and my student on your knees at death, and never again this offer to make you my prince, my helper!"

I froze, staring over my shoulder at him, at his fallen figure, his elbow digging into the soft black underdown of his wing as he rose to his cloven feet and came at me again, in that hobbled monstrous walk.

"Do you hear me!"

"I cannot serve you!" I roared at the top of my lungs. "I cannot do it. "

Then I turned for the last time, knowing I would not look back, with only one thought in my mind, Escape! I ran and ran, sliding down the loose marl and the slippery bank, and stomping through the shallow streams and through the clumps of astonished Helpful Dead, and over wailing souls.

"Where is the stairs? Where are the gates? You can't deny it to me. You have no right. Death has not taken me!" I shouted but I never looked back and I never stopped running.