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"It has to work," Fareed whispered in the darkness. All scientific detachment deserted him. He was weeping, weeping like a child. "It has to work," he said aloud, "because I can't live with Lestat dying! I can't see a future without him. This is

more painful than I can bear."

30

Lestat

THE CALL CAME from Paris. Kapetria wanted me to meet her "out in the open" right in front of Notre Dame at 4:00 a.m. "The sun will be eighteen degrees below the horizon at that time." In other words very close to sunrise--at the time referred to as the dawn of astronomical twilight. Light in the sky but no visible sun.

"Why should I meet you?" I said.

"You know why."

"And what will you do if I don't?"

"Does it have to come to that?"

"Yes, unless you answer my questions."

"I'm going to do everything in my power to achieve this without your being harmed in any way."

"But you don't know that you can achieve it without my being harmed?"

"No. I don't."

"And how do you expect me to respond to that?"

"You're keeping him a prisoner inside you. I want to free him. I want to take him out."

He was Amel. And Amel was silent. But Amel was listening.

In fact, I was in Paris. I was just leaving Armand's home in Saint-Germain-des-Pres. We'd encountered an ugly problem there, a young and foolish fledgling named Amber who'd victimized one of Armand's oldest and most loyal mortal servants. Armand insisted that I, myself, extinguish the brief immortal life of the fledgling, and we knew where the fledgling was. I was going to do it, and now we were standing in the courtyard with the wooden gates to the street still closed, pondering just how we would do this--bring the fledgling back here or simply carry out the death sentence offstage. Armand wanted her brought back as an example. I loathed the idea of the grisly spectacle.

And now this.

Armand's face crumpled, and I saw pain in him such as I hadn't seen in years. "So this is it," he said in his old Russian.

"Maybe," I said. "Maybe not."

I addressed Kapetria. "Maybe you need to do some more work on the whole problem," I said. "Amel's perfectly safe where he is."

"I don't think I can do better."

"Not good enough."

"What do you want us to do?" she asked as if I were in control of that aspect of things. "Please come. Don't make this a battle."

"You can't win a battle. And I can't make myself participate in my own ruin without a fight."

She was still there, but she wasn't answering.

"I might come," I said. "I have an hour to think about it, don't I? Then again, I might not."

"Come now, please." She clicked off.

"Forget that unfortunate girl for a moment," I said to Armand. "You can deal with her tomorrow on your own. I have to think about this, think if I'm going to make a stand."

I glanced up at the roofs of the four-story house that formed a rectangle around the courtyard. Cyril sat up there on the edge of the roof like a gargoyle looking down at me. Thorne stood beside him, hands in the pockets of his leather pants.