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.I've never seen anyone eat so fast.She stacked up everything and tookit into the kitchen.I had to draw her away from the chores, and bringher back into the room.This gave me a chance both to hold herwarm, fragile hands and to be very close to her."What is your advice?"She sat down and pondered, or drew together her thoughts."I think you have little to lose by cooperating with this being.It'sperfectly obvious he could destroy you anytime he wanted.He hasmany ways.You slept in your house, even after you knew that he, theOrdinary Man, as you call him, knew the location.Obviously youaren't afraid of him on any material level.And in his realm, you wereable to exert sufficient force to push him away from you.What doyou risk by cooperating? Suppose he can take you to Heaven or Hell.The implication is that you can still refuse to help him, can't you?You can still say, to use his own fine language, 'I don't see thingsfrom your point of view.' ""Yes.""What I'm saying is, if you open yourself to what he wants toshow you, that does not mean you have accepted him, does it? On thecontrary, the obligation lies with him to make you see from hisperspective, or so it seems.Besides, the point is, you break the ruleswhatever they are.""He can't be tricking me into Hell, you mean.""You serious? You think God would let people be tricked intoHell?""I'm not people, Dora.I'm what I am.I don't mean to draw any parallels with God in my repetitive epithets.I only mean I'm evil.Very evil.I know I am.I have been since I started to feed on humans.I'm Cain, the slayer of his brothers.""Then God could put you in Hell anytime he wanted.Whynot?"I shook my head."I wish I knew.I wish I knew why He hasn't.Iwish I knew.But what you're saying is that there is power involvedhere on both sides.""Clearly.""And to believe in some sort of trickery is almost superstitious.""Precisely.If you go to Heaven, if you speak with God." Shestopped."Would you go if he were asking you to help him, if he were tell-I brought the meal inside the apartment and set it down for her onthe table.The apartment was now flooded with her mingling aromas,including that of her menses, that special, perfumed blood collectingneatly between her legs.The place breathed with her.I ignored the predictable raging desire to feast on her till shedropped.She was sitting crouched over in the chair, hands locked together,staring before her.I saw that the black leather folders were open allover the floor.She knew about her inheritance or had some idea of it.She wasn't looking at that, however, and she seemed absolutelyunsurprised by my return.She drifted towards the table now, as though she couldn't breakout of her reverie.Meantime, I stirred about in the kitchen drawersof the apartment for plates and utensils for her, found some mildlyinoffensive stainless-steel forks and knives and a china plate.I setthese down for her, and laid out the cartons of steaming food meatand vegetables and such, and some sort of sweet concoction, all of itas alien to me as it had always been, as if I hadn't recently been in amortal body and tasted real food.I didn't want to think about thatexperience!"Thank you," she said absently, without so much as looking atme."You are a darling for having done it." She opened a bottle of the water and drank it all greedily.I watched her throat as she did this.I didn't let myself think abouther in any way except lovingly, but the scent of her was enough todrive me out of the place.That's it, I vowed.If you feel you cannot control this desire, thenyou leave!She ate the food indifferently, almost mechanically, and thenlooked up at me."Oh, forgive me, do sit down, please.You can't eat, can you? Youcan't take this kind of nourishment.""No," I said."But I can sit down."I sat next to her, trying not to watch her or breathe her scent anymore than I had to.I looked directly across the room, out the glass atthe white sky.If snow was falling now, I couldn't tell, but it had to be.Because I couldn't see anything but the whiteness.Yes, that meantthat either New York had disappeared without a trace, or that it wassnowing outside."What could you possibly lose by doing it?" she said.I didn't answer.She walked about, thinking, her black hair falling forward in a curlagainst her cheek, her long black-clad legs looking painfully thin yetgraceful as she paced.She had let go of the black coat a long time ago,and I realized now that she wore only a thin black silk dress.I smelledher blood again, her secret, fragrant, female blood.I looked away from her.She said, "I know what I have to lose in such matters.If I believein God, and there is no God, then I can lose my life.I can end up ona deathbed realizing I've wasted the only real experience of theuniverse I'll ever be permitted to have.""Yes, exactly, that's what I thought when I was alive.I wasn'tgoing to waste my life believing in something that was unprovableand out of the question.I wanted to know what I was permitted to seeand feel and taste in my life.""Exactly.But you see, your situation is different.You are a vampire.You are, theologically speaking, a demon.You are powerful in your own way, and you cannot die naturally.You have an edge."I thought about it."Do you know what happened today in the world," she said, "justthis one day? We always begin our broadcast with such reports; doyou know how many people died in Bosnia? In Russia? In Africa?How many skirmishes were fought or murders committed?""I know what you're saying.""What I'm saying is, it's highly unlikely this thing has the powerto trick you into anything.So go with it.Let it show you what itpromises.And if I'm wrong.if you're tricked into Hell, then I'vemade a horrible mistake.""No, you haven't.You've avenged your father's death, that's all.But I agree with you.Trickery is too petty to be involved here.I'mgoing by instincts.And I'll tell you something else about Memnoch,the Devil, something maybe that will surprise you.""That you like him? I know that.I understood that all along.""How is that possible? I don't like myself, you know.I love my-self, of course, I'm committed to myself till my dying day.But I don'tlike myself.""You told me something last night," she said."You said that if Ineeded you I was to call to you with my thoughts, my heart."ing you he wasn't evil, but that he was the adversary of God, that hecould change your mind on things?""I don't know," she said."I might.I would maintain my free willthroughout the experience, but I very well might.""That's just it.Free will.Am I losing my will and my mind?""You seem to be in full possession of both and an enormousamount of supernatural strength.""Do you sense the evil in me?""No, you're too beautiful for that, you know it.""But there must be something rotten and vicious inside me thatyou can feel and see.""You're asking for consolation and I can't give that to you," shesaid."No, I don't sense it
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