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But the sky was paling overhead, the stars drifting steadily away. Only precious moments we had together before the early spring morning.

"And so you really mean for it to happen," he said earnestly, his tone gentler than before.

"Louis, I mean for something and everything to happen," I said. "I mean for all that we have been to change! What are we but leeches now -- loathsome, secretive, without justification. The old romance is gone. So let us take on a new meaning. I crave the bright lights as I crave blood. I crave the divine visibility. I crave war. "

"The new evil, to use your old words," he said. "And this time it is the twentieth-century evil. "

"Precisely," I said. But again, I thought of the purely mortal impulse, the vain impulse, for worldly fame, acknowledgment. Faint blush of shame. It was all going to be such a pleasure.

"But why, Lestat?" he asked a little suspiciously. "Why the danger, the risk? After all, you have done it. You have come back. You're stronger than ever. You have the old fire as if it had never been lost, and you know how precious this is, this will simply to go on. Why risk it immediately? Have you forgotten what it was like when we had the world all around us, and no one could hurt us except ourselves?"

"Is this an offer, Louis? Have you come back to me, as lovers say?"

His eyes darkened and he looked away from me.

"I'm not mocking you, Louis," I said.

"You've come back to me, Lestat," he said evenly, looking at me again. "When I heard the first whispers of you at Dracula's Daughter, I felt something that I thought was gone forever -- " He paused.

But I knew what he was talking about. He had already said it. And I had understood it centuries ago when I felt Armand's despair after the death of the old coven. Excitement, the desire to continue, these things were priceless to us. All the more reason for the rock concert, the continuation, the war itself.

"Lestat, don't go on the stage tomorrow night," he said. "Let the films and the book do what you want. But protect yourself. Let us come together and let us talk together. Let us have each other in this century the way we never did in the past. And I do mean all of us. "

"Very tempting, beautiful one," I said. "There were times in the last century when I would have given almost anything to hear those words. And we will come together, and we will talk, all of us, and we will have each other. It will be splendid, better than it ever was before. But I am going on the stage. I am going to be Lelio again the way I never was in Paris. I will be the Vampire Lestat for all to see. A symbol, an outcast, a freak of nature -- something loved, something despised, all of those things. I tell you I can't give it up. I can't miss it. And quite frankly I am not the least afraid. "

I braced myself for a coldness or a sadness to come over him. And I hated the approaching sun as much as I ever had in the past. He turned his back to it. The illumination was hurting him a little. But his face was as full of warm expression as before.

"Very well, then," he said. "I would like to go into San Francisco with you. I would like that very much. Will you take me with you?"

I couldn't immediately answer. Again, the sheer excitement was excruciating, and the love I felt for him was positively humiliating.

"Of course I'll take you with me," I said.

We looked at each other for a tense moment. He had to leave now. The morning had come for him.

"One thing, Louis," I said.

"Yes?"

"Those clothes. Impossible. I mean, tomorrow night, as they say in the twentieth century, you will lose that sweater and those pants. "

The morning was too empty after he had gone. I stood still for a while thinking of that message, Danger. I scanned the distant mountains, the never ending fields. Threat, warning -- what did it matter? The young ones dial the telephones. The old ones raise their supernatural voices. Was it so strange?

I could only think of Louis now, that he was with me. And of what it would be like when the others came.

Epilogue 4

4

The vast sprawling parking lots of the San Francisco Cow Palace were overflowing with frenzied mortals as our motorcade pushed through the gates, my musicians in the limousine ahead, Louis in the leatherlined Porsche beside me. Crisp and shining in the black-caped costume of the band, he looked as if he'd stepped out of the pages of his own story, his green eyes passing a little fearfully over the screaming youngsters and motorcycle guards who kept them back and away from us.

The hall had been sold out for a month; the disappointed fans wanted the music broadcast outside so they could hear it. Beer cans littered the ground. Teenagers sat atop car roofs and on trunks and hoods, radios blaring The Vampire Lestat at appalling volume.

Alongside my window, our manager ran on foot explaining that we would have the outside video screens and speakers. The San Francisco police had given the go-ahead to prevent a riot.

I could feel Louis's mounting anxiety. A pack of youngsters broke through the police lines and pressed themselves against his window as the motorcade made its sharp turn and plowed on towards the long ugly tube-shaped hall.

I was positively enthralled with what was happening. And the recklessness in me was cresting. Again and again the fans surrounded the car before they were swept back, and I was beginning to understand how woefully I had underestimated this entire experience.