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girdle bound it, and to hide it from me, she made her face very blank.
She looked like a girl when she did this, and again I smelt the sickness
in her, the decay in her lungs, and the clots of blood. Her mind
became a riot of fear. She wanted to scream out to me that she was
afraid. She wanted to beg me to hold on to her and remain with her
until it was finished, but she couldn't do this, and to my astonishment,
I realized she thought I would refuse her. That I was too young and
too thoughtless to ever understand. This was agony. I wasn't even
conscious of moving away from her, but I'd walked across the room.
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Stupid little details embedded themselves in my consciousness:
nymphs playing on the painted ceiling, the high gilt door handles and
the melted wax in brittle stalactites on the white candles that I wanted
to break off and crumple in my hand. The place looked hideous,
overdressed. Did she hate it? Did she want those barren stone rooms
again? I was thinking about her as if there were "tomorrow and
tomorrow and tomorrow.. . " I looked back at her, her stately figure
holding to the windowsill. The sky had deepened behind her and a
new light, the light of house lamps and passing carriages and nearby
windows, gently touched the small inverted triangle of her thin face.
"Can't you talk to me, " she said softly. "Can't you tell me how it's
come about? You've brought such happiness to all of us. " Even
talking hurt her. "But how does it go with you? With YOU! " I think I
was on the verge of deceiving her, of creating some strong emanation
of contentment with all the powers I had. I'd tell mortal lies with
immortal skill. I'd start talking and talking and testing my every word
to make it perfect. But something happened in the silence. I don't
think I stood still more than a moment, but something changed inside
of me. An awesome shift took place. In one instant I saw a vast and
terrifying possibility, and in that same instant, without question, I
made up my mind. It had no words to it or scheme or plan. And I
would have denied it had anyone questioned me at that moment. I
would have said, "No, never, farthest from my thoughts. What do you
think I am, what sort of monster " . . . And yet the choice had been
made. I understood something absolute. Her words had completely
died away, she was afraid again and in pain again, and in spite of the
pain, she rose from her chair. I saw the comforter slip away from her,
and I knew she was coming towards me and that I should stop her, but
I didn't do it. I saw her hands close to me, reaching for me, and the
next thing I knew she had leapt backwards as if blown by a mighty
wind. She had scuffed backwards across the carpet, and fallen past the
chair against the wall. But she grew very still quickly as though she
willed it, and there wasn't fear in her face, even though her heart was
racing. Rather there was wonder and then a baffled calm. If I had
thoughts at that moment, I don't know what they were. I came
towards her just as steadily as she had come towards me. Gauging her
every reaction, I drew closer until we were as near to each other as we
had been when she leapt away. She was staring at my skin and my
eyes, and quite suddenly she reached out again and touched my face.
"Not alive! " That was the horrifying perception that came from her
silently. "Changed into something. But NOT ALIVE. " Quietly I said
no. That was not right. And I sent a cool torrent of images to her, a
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procession of glimpses of what my existence had become. Bits, pieces
of the fabric of the nighttime Paris, the sense of a blade cutting
through the world soundlessly. With a little hiss she let out her breath.
The pain balled its fist in her, opened its claw. She swallowed, sealing
her lips against it, her eyes veritably burning into me. She knew now
these were not sensations, these communications, but that they were
thoughts.
"How then? " she demanded. And without questioning what I
meant to do I gave her the tale link by link, the shattered window
through which I'd been torn by the ghostly figure who had stalked me
at the theater, the tower and the exchange of blood. I revealed to her
the crypt in which I slept, and its treasure, my wanderings, my powers,
and above all, the nature of the thirst. The taste of blood and the feel
of blood, and what it meant for all passion, all greed to be sharpened
in that one desire, and that one desire to be satisfied over and over
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