Memnoch the Devil (The Vampire Chronicles 5)

"I couldn't give less of a damn!" I said. "You were a meal worth waiting for. "

"You've got quite a swagger, don't you?" he said acidly. "But you're nothing as shallow as you pretend to be. "

"Oh, you don't think so? Try me. You may find me 'as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. ' "

That gave him pause.

It gave me pause too. Where did those words come from? Why did they roll off my tongue like that? I was not likely to use that sort of imagery!

He was absorbing all this, my preoccupation, my obvious self-doubt. How did it manifest itself, I wonder? Did I sag or fade slightly as some mortals do, or did I merely look confused?

The bartender gave him the drink. Very tentatively now, he was trying to put his fingers around it and lift it. He managed and got it to his lips and took a taste. He was amazed, and thankful, and suddenly so full of fear that he almost disintegrated. The illusion was almost completely dispersed.

But he held firm. This was so obviously the person I had just killed, hacked to pieces and buried all over Manhattan, that I felt physically sick staring at him. I realized only one thing was saving me from panic. He was talking to me. What had David said once, when he was alive, about talking to me? That he wouldn't kill a vampire because the vampire could talk to him? And this damned ghost was talking to me.

"I have to talk to you about Dora," he said.

"I told you I will never hurt her, or anyone like her," I said. "Look, what are you doing here with me! When you appeared, you didn't even know that I knew about Dora! You wanted to tell me about Dora?"

"Depth, I've been murdered by a being with depth, how fortunate, someone who actually keenly appreciated my death, no?" He drank more of the sweet-smelling Southern Comfort. "This was Janis Joplin's drink, you know," he said, referring to the dead singer whom I, too, had loved. "Look, listen to me out of curiosity, I don't give a damn. But listen. Let me talk to you about Dora and about me. I want you to know. I want you to really know who I was, not what you might think. I want you to look out for Dora. And then there's something back at the flat, something I want you. . . "

"Veronica's veil in the frame?"

"No! That's trash. I mean, it's four centuries old, of course, but it's a common version of Veronica's veil, if you have enough money. You did look around my

place, didn't you?"

"Why did you want to give that veil to Dora?" I asked.

This sobered him appropriately. "You heard us talking?"

"Countless times. "

He was conjecturing, weighing things. He looked entirely reasonable, his dark Asian face evincing nothing but sincerity and great care.

"Did you say 'look out for Dora'?" I asked. "Is that what you asked me to do? Look out for her? Now that's another proposition and why the hell do you want to tell me the story of your life! You're running through your personal afterdeath judgment with the wrong guy! I don't care how you got the way you were. The things at the flat, why would a ghost care about such things?"

This was not wholly honest on my part. I was being far too flippant and we both knew it. Of course he cared about his treasures. But it was Dora that had made him rise from the dead.

His hair was a deeper black now, and the coat had taken on more texture. I could see the weave of the silk and the cashmere in it. I could see his fingernails, professionally manicured, very neat and buffed. Same hands I threw in the garbage! I don't think all these details had been visible moments ago.

"Jesus Christ," I whispered.

He laughed. "You're more afraid than I am. "

"Where are you?"

"What are you talking about?" he asked. "I'm sitting next to you. We're in a Village bar. What do you mean, where am I? As for my body, you know where you dumped the pieces of it as well as I. "

"That's why you're haunting me. "

"Absolutely not. Couldn't give less of a damn about that body. Felt that way the moment I left it. You know all this!"

"No, no, I mean, what realm are you in now, what is it, where are you, what did you see when you went. . . what. . . "

He shook his head with the saddest smile.

"You know the answer to all that. I don't know where I am. Something's waiting for me, however. I'm fairly certain of that. Something's waiting. Perhaps it's merely dissolution. Darkness. But it seems personal. It's not going to wait forever. But I don't know how I know.