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"What has God got to do with it? Listen, darling, I don't know anything about God. I told you. I walked into Notre Dame and nothing happened, and nothing ever has. . . . "

Now, that was a lie, wasn't it? What about Him? Coming here in the guise of the Ordinary Man, letting that door slam, arrogant bastard, how dare he?

"How can this be God's plan?" she asked.

"You're perfectly serious, aren't you? Look, I could tell you many stories. I mean, the one about the Paris vampires believing in the Devil is just the beginning! Look, there . . . there. . . . " I broke off.

"What is it?"

That sound. Those slow, measured steps! No sooner had I thought of him, insultingly and angrily, than the steps had begun.

"I. . . was going to say. . . . " I struggled to ignore him.

I could hear them approaching. They were faint, but it was the unmistakable walk of the winged being, letting me know, one heavy footfall after another, as though echoing through a giant chamber in which I existed quite apart from my existence in this room.

"Dora, I've got to leave you. "

"What is it?"

The footsteps were coming closer and closer. "You dare come to me while I'm with her!" I shouted. I was on my feet.

"What is it?" she cried. She was up on her knees on the bed. I backed across the room. I reached the door. The footsteps were growing fainter.

"Damn you to hell!" I whispered.

"Tell me what it is," she said. "Will you come back? Are you leaving me now forever?"

"No, absolutely not. I'm here to help you. Listen, Dora, if you need me, call to me. " I put my finger to my temple. "Call and call and call! Like prayer, you understand. It won't be idolatry, Dora, I'm no evil god. Do it. I have to go. "

"What is your name?"

The footsteps came on, distant but loud, without location in the immense building, only pursuing me.

"Lestat. " I pronounced my name carefully for her¡ªLe-'stat¡ªprimary stress on the second syllable, sounding the final "t" distinctly.

"Listen. Nobody knows about your father. They won't for a while. I did everything he asked of me. I have his relics. "

"Wynken's books?"

"All of it, everything he held sacred . . . A fortune for you, and all he possessed that he wanted you to have. I've got to go. "

Were the steps fading? I wasn't certain. But I couldn't take the risk of remaining.

"I'll come again as soon as I can. You believe in God? Hang on to it, Dora, because you just might be right about God, absolutely right!"

I was out of there like particles of light, up the stairways, through the broken attic window, and up above the rooftop, moving fast enough that I could hear no footfall, and the city below had become a beguiling swirl of lights.

Chapter 7

7

IN MOMENTS, I stood in my own courtyard in the French Quarter behind the town house in the Rue Royale, looking up at my own lighted windows, windows that had been mine for so long, hoping and praying that David was there, and afraid he wasn't.

I hated running from this Thing! I had to stand there a moment and let my usual rage cool. Why had I run? Not to be humiliated in front of Dora, who might have seen nothing more than me terrified by the Thing and thrown backwards onto the floor?

Maybe Dora could have seen it!

Every instinct in me told me I'd done the proper thing, gotten away, and kept that thing away from Dora. That thing was after me. I had to protect Dora. I now had a very good reason to fight that thing, for another's sake, not my own.