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"My answer?" I said softly. I was gathering my thoughts and I could almost feel Gabrielle's warning, Nicki's fear. "I'm no dealer in mysteries," I said. "No lover of philosophy. But it's plain enough what has happened here. "

He studied me with a strange earnestness.

"If you fear so much the power of God," I said, "then the teachings of the Church aren't unknown to you. You must know that the forms of goodness change with the ages, that there are saints for all times under heaven. "

Visibly he hearkened to this, warmed to the words I used.

"In ancient days," I said, "there were martyrs who quenched the flames that sought to burn them, mystics who rose into the air as they heard the voice of God. But as the world changed, so changed the saints. What are they now but obedient nuns and priests? They build hospitals and orphanages, but they do not call down the angels to rout armies or tame the savage beast. "

I could see no change in him but I pressed on.

"And so it is with evil, obviously. It changes its form. How many men in this age believe in the crosses that frighten your followers? Do you think mortals above are speaking to each other of heaven and hell? Philosophy is what they talk about, and science! What does it matter to them if white-faced haunts prowl a churchyard after dark? A few more murders in a wilderness of murders? How can this be of interest to God or the devil or to man?"

I heard again the old queen vampire laughing.

But Armand didn't speak or move.

"Even your playground is about to be taken from you," I continued. "This cemetery in which you hide is about to be removed altogether from Paris. Even the bones of our ancestors are no longer sacred in this secular age. "

His face softened suddenly. He couldn't conceal his shock.

"Les Innocents destroyed!" he whispered. "You're lying to me. . . "

"I never lie," I said offhand. "At least not to those I don't love. The people of Paris don't want the stench of graveyards around them anymore. The emblems of the dead don't matter to them as they matter to you. Within a few years, markets, streets, and houses will cover this spot. Commerce. Practicality. That is the eighteenth-century world. "

"Stop!" he whispered. "Les Innocents has existed as long as I have existed!" His boyish face was strained. The old queen was undisturbed.

"Don't you see?" I said softly. "It is a new age. It requires a new evil. And I am that new evil. " I paused, watching him. "I am the vampire for these times. "

He had not foreseen my point. And I saw in him for the first time a glimmer of terrible understanding, the first glimmer of real fear.

I made a small accepting gesture.

"This incident in the village church tonight," I said cautiously, "it was vulgar, I'm inclined to agree. My actions on the stage of theater, worse still. But these were blunders. And you know they aren't the source of your rancor. Forget them for the moment and try to envision my beauty and my power. Try to see the evil that I am. I stalk the world in mortal dressthe worst of fiends, the monster who looks exactly like everyone else. "

The woman vampire made a low song of her laughter. I could feel only pain from him, and from her the warm emanation of her love.

"Think of it, Armand," I pressed carefully. "Why should Death lurk in the shadows? Why should Death wait at the gate? There is no bedchamber, no ballroom that I cannot enter. Death in the glow of the hearth, Death on tiptoe in the corridor, that is what I am. Speak to me of the Dark Gifts -- I use them. I'm Gentleman Death in silk and lace, come to put out the candles. The canker in the heart of the rose. "

There was a faint moan from Nicolas.

I think I heard Armand sigh.

"There is no place where they can hide from me," I said, "these godless and powerless ones who would destroy les Innocents. There is no lock that can keep me out. "

He stared back at me silently. He appeared sad and calm. His eyes were darkened slightly, but they were untroubled by malice or rage. He didn't speak for a long moment, and then:

"A splendid mission, that," he said, "to devil them mercilessly as you live among them. But it's you still who don't understand. "

"How so?" I asked.

"You can't endure in the world, living among men, you cannot survive. "

"But I do," I said simply. "The old mysteries have given way to a new style. And who knows what will follow? There's no romance in what you are. There is great romance in what I am!"

"You can't be that strong," he said. "You don't know what you're saying, you have only just come into being, you are young. "

"He is very strong, however, this child," mused the queen, "and so is his beautiful newborn companion. They are fiends of high-blown ideas and great reason, these two. "