I was trying to suppress my laughter, but I couldn't do it entirely. David, if you keep this up, you'll be struck by lightning.
Nonsense. God does want us to figure it out.
No. That I can't accept,
You mean you accept the rest? he said with another little laugh. No, but I'm quite serious. Religion is primitive in its illogical conclusions. Imagine a perfect God allowing for the Devil to come into existence. No, that's simply never made sense.
The entire flaw in the Bible is the notion that God is perfect. It represents a failure of imagination on the part of the early scholars. It's responsible for every impossible theological question as to good and evil with which we've been wrestling through the centuries. God is good, however, wondrously good. Yes, God is love. But no creative force is perfect. That's clear.
And the Devil Is there any new intelligence about him?
He regarded me for a moment with just a touch of impatience. You are such a cynical being, he whispered.
No, I'm not, I said. I honestly want to know. I have a particular interest in the Devil, obviously. I speak of him much more often than I speak of God. I can't figure out really why mortals love him so much, I mean, why they love the idea of him. But they do.
Because they don't believe in him, David said. Because a perfectly evil Devil makes even less sense than a perfect God. Imagine, the Devil never learning anything during all this time, never changing his mind about being the Devil. It's an insult to our intellect, such an idea.
So what's your truth behind the lie?
He's not purely unredeemable. He's merely part of God's plan. He's a spirit allowed to tempt and try humans. He disapproves of humans, of the entire experiment. See, that was the nature of the Devil's Fall, as I see it. The Devil didn't think the idea would work. But the key, Lestat, is understanding that God is matter! God is physical, God is the Lord of Cell Division, and the Devil abhors the excess of letting all this cell division run wild.
Again, he went into one of his maddening pauses, eyes widening again with wonder, and then he said:
I have another theory about the Devil.
Tell me.
There's more than one of them. And nobody appointed much likes the job. This he said almost in a murmur. He was distracted, as if he wanted to say more, but didn't.
I laughed outright.
Now that I can understand, I said. Who would like the job of being the Devil And to think that one can't possibly win. And especially considering that the Devil was an angel at the start of it all, and supposed to be very smart.
Exactly. He pointed his finger at me. Your little story about Rembrandt. The Devil, if he had a brain, should have acknowledged the genius of Rembrandt.
And the goodness of Faust.
Ah, yes, you saw me reading Faust in Amsterdam, didn't you And you purchased your own copy as a consequence.
How did you know that?
The proprietor of the bookstore told me the next afternoon. A strange blond-haired young Frenchman came in moments
after I'd left, bought the very same book, and stood in the street reading it for half an hour without moving. Whitest skin the man had ever seen. Had to be you, of course.
I shook my head and smiled. I do these clumsy things. It's a wonder some scientist hasn't scooped me up in a net.
That's no joke, my friend. You were very careless in Miami several nights ago. Two victims drained entirely of blood.
This created such instant confusion in me that at first I said nothing, then only that it was a wonder the news had reached him on this side of the sea. I felt the old despair touch me with its black wing.
Bizarre killings make international headlines, he answered. Besides, the Talamasca receives reports of all sorts of things. We have people who clip for us in cities everywhere, sending in items on all aspects of the paranormal for our files. 'Vampire Killer Strikes Twice in Miami. ' Several sources sent it along.
But they don't really believe it was a vampire, you know they don't.
No, but you keep it up and they might come to believe it. That's what you wanted to happen before with your little rock music career. You wanted them to catch on. It's not inconceivable. And this sport of yours with the serial killers! You're leaving quite a trail of those.
This truly astonished me. My hunting of the killers had taken me back and forth across continents. I had never thought anyone would connect these widely scattered deaths, except Marius, of course.