Blood Canticle

by Rice, Anne

  I had to go on.

  "You're not going to walk away from here with any answers," I proceeded. "Get angry at me. Go ahead. Some night, many years from now, maybe Mona will choose to explain what happened, but for now you have to accept what you've seen. You no longer need to worry about Mona. Mona is on her own."

  "It's not that I'm ungrateful," Mona said, her voice thick and her eyes filming red. She blotted them at once with her handkerchief. "You know I'm grateful. It just feels so good to be free."

  Rowan fixed again on her. If Rowan found the slightest virtue in this miracle, it wasn't rising to the forefront of her mind.

  "Your voice isn't the same," said Rowan. "Your hair, your skin-." She looked back to me. "Something's wrong." She stared at Quinn.

  "This meeting's over," I said. "I don't mean to be harsh, truly I don't. But you know what you need to know. Obviously you know the phone number here, that's how you found us. You know where we are."

  I rose to my feet.

  Quinn and Mona followed but Rowan and Michael didn't move. Michael was taking his lead from Rowan, but then he reluctantly stood up, because Rowan or no Rowan, it was the courteous thing to do. This man was so lovable that even under these circumstances he didn't want to offend anyone, least of all Mona, and cause anyone any discomfort at all.

  He simply did not see us the way Rowan did. He didn't look at people. He looked into their eyes. He studied Quinn's expression but not the physicality of Quinn. He didn't even care that Quinn was so tall. He scouted for the kindness in people and invariably found it, and his own kindness invested his entire being, infusing his considerable physical gifts. It was a rugged beauty he possessed, and he put behind him a calm self-assurance that can only arise from immense strength.

  "Honey, do you need anything?" he asked Mona.

  "I'm going to need some money," said Mona. She ignored Rowan's fixed stare. "Of course I'm not the Heiress anymore. Nobody wanted to talk about that when I was dying, but I've known that for years. And I'd retire now anyway, if it wasn't the case. The Heiress to the Mayfair fortune has to bear a child. We all know that I can't do that anymore. But I want to ask for a settlement. Nothing like the billions of the Legacy. Nothing like that at all. I mean, just a settlement so that I won't be poor. That's no problem, is it?"

  "No problem at all," said Michael with a very loving smile to her and a shrug. The man was totally appealing. He wanted to hug her. But he took his lead from Rowan, and Rowan had not moved from the chair. "It's no problem, is it, Rowan?" he asked. His eyes swept the room a bit uneasily. He fixed for a few seconds on the brilliant Impressionist painting above the sofa in front of which I stood. He looked genially at me.

  He couldn't begin to guess what had transformed Mona. But he never dreamt of anything sinister or evil. It was amazing the degree with which he accepted it, and only as I searched his mind now, in this moment when he was confused by Rowan and without his habitual defenses, only in this moment did I understand. He accepted Mona as she was because he wanted so very much for her recovery to be true. He'd thought Mona was doomed. Now a miracle had happened to Mona. He didn't need to know who'd worked the miracle. Saint Juan Diego? Saint Lestat? Whatever! It was fine with him.

  I could have told him a harebrained story about us pumping her full of lipids and spring water and he would have bought it wholesale. He had flunked "Science" in school.

  But Rowan Mayfair couldn't escape being a scientific genius. She couldn't ignore the fact that Mona's recovery was a physical impossibility. And in her mind were memories so painful they had no pictures or people to them; they had only dark inchoate feelings and awesome guilt.

  She sat silent and motionless in the chair. Her eyes moved accusingly and wrathfully from Mona to me and back again and round once more.

  I had a sense, perhaps flawed, that she was moving towards a brave curiosity, but . . .

  Mona approached her. Not a great idea.

  I signaled Quinn, and Quinn tried to stop Mona but Mona shook him off. Mona was determined.

  Yet Mona appeared wary, as if Rowan was an animal that could scratch. I didn't like this at all. Mona stood between Rowan and everybody else in the room. I could no longer see Rowan, but I knew that Mona was only inches from Rowan and this was not good at all.

  Mona bent down with her arms out. She apparently meant to kiss or embrace Rowan.

  Rowan moved back so fast to get away from Mona that she knocked over the chair in which she'd been sitting and the table and lamp beside it, crash, thump, bang, shuffle, and plastered herself against the wall.

  Michael went on full alert, shooting to her side. But what was there to see?

  Mona stepped back to the center of the room, whispering "Oh, my God," under her breath, and Quinn took hold of her from behind and held her and kissed her cheek.

  Rowan couldn't move. Her heart was pounding and her mouth was open and she shut her eyes as if she were about to scream. She had passed right through terror. It was utter revulsion, as if she'd seen a giant insect. It was the most explosive reaction on the part of a mortal to a vampire that I'd ever seen. It was panic.

  I knew I could charm her because I'd done it before, crossed the barrier between the species without ever evoking that panic, and I determined to cross the barrier now with all my nerve. And this did take tremendous nerve.

  "Very well, darling, very well, sweetheart," I said, advancing on Rowan as fast as I dared. "My precious, my darling," I said, as I slipped my arms behind her and under her, and caught her up and carried her past an astonished Michael, towards the door. Her body grew soft. (Thank Heaven.) "I have you, my sweetheart," I said to her, crooning in her ear, kissing her ear, "I'm holding you, precious darling," as I carried her out and down the steps, her body now completely limp, "I have you, my sweetheart, nothing can hurt you, yes, yes," her head falling against my chest and her hand clawing weakly at my shirt. She was gasping. "I understand, my precious," I said. "But you're safe, you're really safe, I would never let anything bad happen to you, I promise you, that's my promise, and Michael's here, he's with you, it's all right, darling, you know I'm telling you the truth, that these things are truly all right."

  I could see these words sinking down, down into her mind, through the levels of guilt and remembrance and flight from the present, and what she'd sensed and couldn't deny and could only retreat from, and all the truths she had feared.

  Michael was right behind me, and as soon as we reached the flagstones he took her from me effortlessly, and she fell into his arms in the same way.

  Boldly I kissed her cheek, my lips lingering, and her hand found mine and her fingers coiled around mine. Behold, thou art fair my love, thou art fair. Her panic was still so great that she couldn't speak.

  " 'A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.' " I whispered in her ear. I kissed her again and again on her soft cheek. I stroked her hair. Her fingers gripped me, but the grip had softened, as she was softened.

  "I've got you, darling," Michael said in exactly the same tone. "Rowan, my sweetheart, I have you, honey,

  I'll take you home." As I backed off his eyes looked at me searchingly, and without enmity. I sensed something about his love for her, that it was immense and beyond pettiness, and that he claimed no dominion over her, that he adored her. It was difficult for me to really accept.

  Rowan lost consciousness. Her head fell forward and against Michael. He realized it with total alarm.

  "It's all right," I said. "Just take her home and lie down beside her and don't leave her alone."

  "But what the Hell happened?" he whispered to me as he cuddled her.

  "Doesn't matter," I said. "Remember that. It doesn't matter. What matters is that Mona has been saved."

  I went back upstairs.

  Of course Mona was sobbing.

  She lay across the bed in their room where the computer purred, and she was sobbing, and Quinn sat by

  her, as was becoming the cu
stom.

  "What did I do wrong?" Mona asked. She looked up at me. "Tell me, what did I do wrong?"

  I sat at the computer desk.

  She sat up, cheeks streaked with blood.

  "I can't live with them the way Quinn lives at Blackwood Manor; you see it, don't you? I didn't do

  anything wrong."

  "Oh, stop lying to yourself," I said. "You know very well you're angry with her, deeply angry. Your

  intentions weren't pure when you approached her. She's done something to you, deceived you, something,

  something you can't forgive. You practically told us right here in this room. You had to show her your

  power, you had to push it-."

  "You really think so?" she asked.

  "I know so," I said.

  "You think she's kept secrets from you. Magic secrets, secrets you haven't explained to Quinn and to me.

  You've resented her all these years as the doctor, the mad scientist, yes, right, the mad scientist, the keeper of the keys to the magic, coming in and out of your death chamber, ordering this medication and that medication and never really telling you what was happening, but other secrets, darker secrets, secrets that you and she and Michael know, not so?"

  "I love her."

  "And now here you knew you had the powerful magic. You had the keys to a powerful secret. You condescended to her. And so she saw through this duplicity, this display of patronizing affection, and she was panic-stricken when she realized you weren't alive anymore, just as you wanted her to be. You wanted her to acknowledge your power, that next to you, the way you are, she was nothing."

  "You really think so?" Tears. Sniffles.

  "I know so. And you're not finished with her. Not at all."

  "Hold on, Lestat," said Quinn, "you're being unfair. Mona confessed that they had a score to settle. But surely she wasn't thinking of all those things, not when she went towards Rowan."

  "Yes, she was," I insisted.

  "You've fallen in love with her," said Quinn.

  "In love with who? Mona? I told you I love both of you."

  "No," said Quinn. "You know I don't mean Mona. You've fallen completely in love with Rowan in a way that's not like your infatuation with us. You've connected with something deep inside of Rowan and we can't compete with it. It started last night. But you can't have Rowan. You just can't."

  "Mon Dieu!" I whispered.

  I crossed the hall, went into my bedroom and shut and locked the door.

  There stood Julien in his natty white-tie regalia, arms folded smugly as he gazed at me, leaning against the tall mahogany headboard of the bed.

  "That's right, you can't have her," he said, laughing under his breath. "I watched you slip into it like the fly into the honey. I loved it. Her taking you so unawares, oh yes, your tasting that kernel of evil with your oh-so-refined senses, kisses in the shadows, yes, and falling so blithely in love with her, so tenderly for you with all your loathsome powers. And you cannot have her. No, never. Not Rowan Mayfair. Never ever. Not the Magnate, not the Creator of the greatest family enterprise, not the champion of the family's public dreams, the family's philanthropic wonder, the family's guiding star! You can't ever have her. And you shall have all the fun of watching her from afar and never knowing what might happen to her. Old age, sickness, accident, tragedy. Won't it be something to behold! And you can't ever interfere. You don't dare!"

  There stood beside him little Stella, aged eight or nine, in a lovely white dress, drop waist style, a white bow in her black hair.

  "Don't be so mean to him, Oncle Julien!" she said. "Poor darling."

  "Oh, but he is a mean creature, Stella dearest," said Julien. "He took our beloved Mona. He deserves nothing but the worst."

  "Listen to me, you cheap backstairs ghost," I said. "I'm no sentimental rake out of a bad Byronic poem. I'm not in love with your precious Rowan Mayfair. The love I feel for her is something you can't know in your shallow wanderings. And Rowan's in more trouble than you can ever imagine. Now why don't you tell me what disastrous mistake you made with all your clever machinations and visitations? Or shall I get it out of Mona or Rowan or Michael? You haven't been an angelic success, have you? Take your little girl in your arms and get out of my sight. Is God giving you the power to writhe and spit with anger?"

  Pounding on the door. Mona calling my name over and over again.

  They were gone, the ghosts.

  She came into my arms. "But I can't bear it if you're angry with me, tell me you're not, I love you with my whole soul."

  "No, no, never angry," I said. "Let me hold you tight, my fledgling, my darling, my newborn one. I adore you. We'll fix everything. We'll make everything perfect for everyone. Somehow."

  HOTEL CORRIDORS. Muffled voices. On and on. Dark blue carpet. Candle flame electric lights. Door after door. That's a pretty table. Oh, you rank materialist, be done with tables, and be gone on your filthy errand. What if some ruthless enterprising individual did a catalog of all the furniture you have personally described in your Vampire Chronicles, then what, I'll tell you what, that would put you to shame, you avaricious, shameless, hoarding, ever-hungry Seven Deadly Sin Committing fiend, what did Louis once say to you, that you made a junk shop of eternity? Move it!

  Bedroom interior. Mirrors and mahogany. Wreckage of room service. (Look Ma, no tables!) Olive-skinned woman, dark of hair, half conscious on the pillows. Smell of gin. Drapes open on the crowded sparkling high-rise night. Tumbler full of ice cubes and gin and tonic, catching light in frozen bubbles.

  She turned on her back, rose up on her elbows. Beige satin nightgown, lank, nipples brown.

  "So they sent you, did they?" she asked, lids half closed, eyes scornful, painted mouth hard. "So how will

  you do it? Hmmm. Get a load of that blond hair."

  I lay down on the bed beside her, on my left elbow. Bed thick with her sweet human perfume. Luxurious

  hotel sheets and pillows.

  "You're some hit man," she said, sneering. She picked up the beautiful tumbler. "You don't mind if I have

  a drink before I die, do you?" She drained the gin and tonic out of it. It smelled like poison to me.

  Ahhhhh, gambling debts, millions, how does one do that, but it was only the tip of it, she'd been in much

  deeper, flying back and forth to Europe, stashing the wealth for the wrong man. When she fired a gun she emptied it. Making a living. Her partner had vanished. She knew she was next. Didn't care anymore. All that money gone to waste. Drunk all the time now. Sick of waiting. Black hair oily and fine. One of those faces completely transformed by maturity. Lots of there there but who cares?

  She fell back on the pillow.

  "So kill me, you bastard," she purred. I mean slurred.

  "You got it, sweetheart," I said. I covered her, and kissed her throat. Hmmm. Fragrance of nobody.

  "What is this, Rape?" Snickering laughter. "Can't you find a two hundred dollar ho in this hellhole city?

  You know how old I am? You have to put a spin on the job, a guy with your looks?"

  I covered her mouth. She gave just a little to the press of my lips.

  "And kissy face on top of it," she drawled. "Stick to the pelvic moves, fancy man."

  "I have something better, honey, you underestimate me."

  I nuzzled against her neck, kissed the artery, heard the blood surging, opened my mouth slowly, tasting

  skin again, sank my teeth and drew fast so that she swooned before the pinprick pain could catch up. Oh,

  Lord God, this is from Somebody's Heaven.

  Easy.

  Weightless, timeless, apocalyptic. Oh, baby, you're no liar, don't expect me to give a hoot about the things I've done, never, how could I, I'm not God, honey bunch, well, then, who, the Devil, oh, sweet, I told you, didn't I, I don't believe in you, I hate you, keep it going, I am, I am, as much as I can bother to despise anyone, I love this! hmmm, yeah, tell me about it, and then what was it? I almost, if you want to g
ive it up, do it, but if you don't, I don't need it, it's what you need, sidewalk hopscotch, colored chalk, I hate them, lemme go, jump rope, screen door bang shut, never could, kids crying, I just need the blood, oh, but wait, I see it, I never knew it could be so-back down that hallway, no, well, guess what? it isn't. Laughter, light and laughter, I should have-.

  Her heart couldn't pump it any longer. I lifted her, drew harder, the heart stopped, arteries burst, blood blind, body slowly filling with weight, slipslide of satin, shock of downtown lights, the sparkle in the ice cubes, the Miracle of the Ice Cubes.

  Blood to the brain, My Lord and My God, I'm out of here. Thou shalt not lie beside the corpse of thy victim, for the Deadly Sin of Pride I shattered the huge window, arms out, glass flying in all directions, Take me, Oh Twinkling Downtown Lights, Take me!-glass falling on the airwell gravel roof and the mighty modern unromantic ever-churning air machines.

  Won't the hit man be surprised?

  THE NEXT NIGHT I AWOKE to discover the National Catholic Reporter had arrived in the mail, and I tore it open for news of Saint Juan Diego.

  There was great coverage, including a wonderful black and white photograph of the Pope in his white mitre, listing badly to the right proper but doing fine otherwise, watching "indigenous dancers" at the canonization Mass in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City. Huge crowd. Of course the article HAD to mention the fact that some people doubted that Juan Diego had ever existed!

  But what did that matter to the faithful like me?

  Only after I had devoured all the articles on the Pope's travels did I realize there was a note lying on the desk from one of the guards, saying that Michael Curry had come by in the afternoon and asked if I might call him. No one was answering the phone.