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It seemed so awful to me suddenly, that some immortal whom I didn't know should intrude here on my random private thoughts, perhaps to make a selfish approximation of what I felt.

It was only David Talbot.

He came from the chapel wing, through the bridge rooms of the convent that connect it to the main building where I stood at the top of the staircase to the second floor.

I saw him come into the hallway. Behind him was the glass of the door that led to the gallery, and beyond that the soft mingled gold and white light of the courtyard below.

"It's quiet now," he said. "And the attic's empty and you know that you can go there, of course. "

"Go away," I said. I felt no anger, only the honest wish to have my thoughts unread and my emotions left alone.

With remarkable self-possession he ignored me, then said:

"Yes, I am afraid of you, a little, but then terribly curious too. "

"Oh, I see, so that excuses it, that you followed me here?"

"I didn't follow you, Armand," he said. "I live here. "

"Ah, I'm sorry then," I admitted. "I hadn't known. I suppose I'm glad of it. You guard him. He's never alone. " I meant Lestat of course. "Everyone's afraid of you," he said calmly. He had taken up a position only a few feet away, casually folding his arms. "You know, it's quite a study, the lore and habits of the vampires. "

"Not to me," I said.

"Yes, I realize that," he said. "I was only musing, and I hope you'll forgive me. It was about the child in the attic, the child they said was murdered. It's a tall story, about a very small little person. Maybe if your luck is better than that of everyone else, you'll see the ghost of the child whose clothes were shut up in the wall. "

"Do you mind if I look at you?" I said. "I mean if you're going to dip your beak into my mind with such abandon? We met some time ago before all this happened-Lestat, the Heavenly Journey, this place. I never really took stock of you. I was indifferent, or too polite, I don't know which. "

I was surprised to hear such heat in my voice. I was volatile, and it wasn't David Talbot's fault.

"I'm thinking of the conventional knowledge about you," I said. "That you weren't born in this body, that you were an elderly man when Lestat knew you, that this body you inhabit now belonged to a clever soul who could hop from living being to living being, and there set up shop with his own trespassing soul. "

He gave me a rather disarming smile.

"So Lestat said," he answered. "So Lestat wrote. It's true, of course. You know it is. You've known since you saw me before. "

"Three nights we spent together," I said. "And I never really questioned you. I mean I never really even looked directly into your eyes. "

"We were thinking of Lestat then. "

"Aren't we now?"

"I don't know," he said.

"David Talbot," I said, measuring him coldly with my eyes, "David Talbot, Superior General of the Order of Psychic Detectives known as the Talamasca, had been catapulted into the body in which he now walks. " I didn't know whether I paraphrased or made it up as I went along. "He'd been entrenched or chained inside it, made a prisoner by so many ropey veins, and then tricked into a vampire as a fiery unstanchable blood invaded his lucky anatomy, sealing his soul up in it as it transformed him into an immortal-a man of dark bronzed skin and dry, lustrous and thick black hair. "

"I think you have it right," he said with indulgent politeness.

"A handsome gent," I went on, "the color of caramel, moving with such catlike ease and gilded glances that he makes me think of all things once delectable, and now a potpourri of scent: cinnamon, clove, mild peppers and other spices golden, brown or red, whose fragrances can spike my brain and plunge me into erotic yearnings that live now, more than ever, to play themselves out. His skin must smell like cashew nuts and thick almond creams. It does. "

He laughed. "I get your point. "

I had shocked myself. I was wretched for a moment. "I'm not sure I get myself," I said apologetically.

"I think it's plain," he said. "You want me to leave you alone. "

I saw the preposterous contradictions in all this at once.

"Look," I whispered quickly. "I'm deranged," I whispered. "My senses cross, like so many threads to make a knot: taste, see, smell, feel. I'm rampant. "