THE TALE OF THE BODY THIEF

2    THE TALE OF THE BODY THIEF

elders. I had powers which left me baffled and sometimes even frightened, I had powers which made me sorrowful though I did not always understand the reason for it.

I could, for example, move high into the air at will, traveling the night winds over great distances as easily as a spirit. I could effect or destroy matter with the power of my mind.ecco shoes sale I could kindle afire by the mere wish to do so. I could also call to other immortals over countries and continents with my preternatural voice, and I could effortlessly read the minds of vampires and humans.

Not bad, you might think. I loathed it. Without doubt, I was grieving for my old selves梩he mortal boy, Ecco shoes ukthe newborn revenant once determined to be good at being bad if that was his predicament.

I'm not a pragmatist, understand. I have a keen and merciless conscience. I could have been a nice guy. Maybe at times I am. But always, I've been a man of action. Grief is a waste, andsois fear. And action is what you will get here, as soon as I get through this introduction.

Remember, beginnings are always hard and most are artificial. It was the best of times and the worst of times梤eally? When! And all happy families are not alike; even Tolstoy must have realized that. I can't get away with "In the beginning," or "ecco shoes on saleThey threw me off the hay truck at noon," or I would do it. I always get away with whatever I can, believe me. And as Nabokov said in the voice of Humbert Humbert, "You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style. " Can '(fancy mean experimental? I already know of course that I am sensuous, florid, lush, humid nough critics have told me that.

Alas, 1 have to do things my own way. And we will get to the beginning梚f that isn't a contradiction in terms桰 promise you.

Right now I must explain that before this adventure commenced, I was also grieving for the other immortals I had known and loved, because they had long ago scattered from our last late-twentieth century gathering place. Folly to think we wanted to create a coven again.ecco shoes  They had one by one disappeared into time and the world, which was inevitable.

Vampires don't really like others of their kind, though their need for immortal companions is desperate.

Out of that need I'd made my fledglings桳ouis de Pointe du Lac, who became my patient and often loving nineteenth-century comrade, and with his unwitting aid, ecco ukthe beautiful and doomed child vampire, Claudia. And during these lonely vagabond nights