Memnoch the Devil (The Vampire Chronicles 5)

"Ordinary, I told you, very ordinary. Anglo-Saxon? Yes, probably. Distinctly Irish or Nordic? No. Just a man. Not a Frenchman, I don't think. No, a routine flavor of American. A man of good height, my height, but not overwhelmingly tall like you. I couldn't have seen him for more than five seconds. It was sunrise. He had me trapped there. I couldn't flee, I went blank. The mattress covered me, and when I woke, no man. Gone, as if I'd imagined it. But I didn't imagine it!"

"Thank you. The hair?"

"Ash blond, almost gray. You know how ash blond can fade to where it's really truly a . . . a graying brown color, or colorless almost, just sort of deep gray. "

He gave a little gesture that he understood.

Cautiously I leant on the glass. With my strength it would have been a simple thing to have accidentally shattered the wall. The last thing I wanted was a blunder.

Obviously he wanted me to say more, and I was trying. I could recall the man fairly distinctly. "An agreeable face, very agreeable.

He was the kind of man who doesn't impress one with size or physicality so much as a sort of alertness, a poise and intelligence, I suppose you'd call it. He looked like an interesting man. "

"Clothes. "

"Not noticeable. Black I think, maybe even a bit dusty? I think I would remember jet black, or beautiful black, or fancy black. "

"Eyes distinctive?"

"Only for the intelligence. They weren't large or deeply colored. He looked normal, smart. Dark eyebrows but not terribly heavy or anything like that. Normal forehead, full hair, nice hair, combed, but nothing dandified like mine. Or yours. "

"And you believe he spoke the words?"

"I'm sure he did. I heard him. I jumped up. I was awake, you understand, fully awake. I saw the sun. Look at my hand. "

I was not as pale as I had been before I went into the Gobi desert, before I had tempted the sun to kill me in the recent past. But we could both see the burn where the rays of the sun had struck my hand. And I could feel the burn on the right side of my face, though it wasn't visible there because I'd probably turned my head.

"And you woke and you were under the bed, and it was askew, and had been thrown over and had fallen back down. "

"No question of it. A lamp was overturned. I had not dreamed it any more than I dreamed Roger or anything else. Look, I want you to come uptown with me. I want you to see this place. Roger's things. "

"Oh, I want to," he said. He stood up. "I wouldn't miss this for the world. It's just I wanted you to take your ease a little longer, to try to. . . . "

"What? Get calm? After talking to the ghost of one of my victims? After seeing this man standing in my room! After seeing this thing take Roger, this thing which has been stalking me all over the world, this herald of madness, this¡ª"

"But you didn't really see it take Roger, did you?"

I thought about it for a moment.

"I'm not sure. I'm not sure Roger's image was animated anymore. He looked completely calm. He faded. Then the face of the creature or being or whatever it was¡ªthe face was visible for an instant. By that time, I was completely lost¡ªno sense of balance or locality, nothing. I don't know whether Roger was just fading as it took him or whether he accepted it and went along. "

"Lestat, you don't know that either thing happened. You only know Roger's ghost disappeared and this thing appeared. That's all you know. "

"I suppose that's true. "

"Think about it this way- Your Stalker chose to make himself manifest. And he obliterated your ghostly companion. "

"No. They were connected. Roger heard him coming! Roger knew he was coming even before I heard the footsteps. Thank God for one thing. "

"Which is what?"

"That I can't communicate the fear to you. That I can't make you feel how bad it was. You believe me, which is more than sufficient for the moment, but if you really knew, you wouldn't be calm and collected and the perfect British gentleman. "

"I might be. Let's go. I want to see this treasure-house. I believe you're absolutely correct that you can't let all these objects slip out of the possession of the girl. "

"Woman, young woman. "

"And we should check on her whereabouts, immediately. "