i kissed the old woman tenderly and quickly , lest she sense she was in close proximity to a demon , and then away i went with mojo , walking the narrow pretty streets of the french quarter and laughing to myself at how mortals stared at mojo , and gave him a wide berth and seemed indeed to be terrified of him , when guess who was the one to fear my next stop was the building on rue royale where claudia and louis and i had spent those splendid , luminous fifty years of earthly existence together in the early half of the old century-a place partially in ruins , as i have described .