by Rice, Anne
“David, it’s Lestat, I swear to you!” I cried in English. “This is the body of the mechanic! Remember the photograph! James did it, David. I’m trapped in this body. What can I tell you to make you believe me? David, let me in.”
He remained motionless. Then all of a sudden, he came forward with swift determined steps, his face quite unreadable as he stopped before the gate.
I was near to fainting with happiness. I clung to the bars still, with both hands as if I were in prison, and then I realized I was staring directly into his eyes—that for the first time we were the same height.
“David, you don’t know how glad I am to see you,” I said, lapsing into French again. “How did you ever get in? David, it’s Lestat. It’s me. Surely you believe me. You recognize my voice. David, God and the Devil in the Paris café! Who else knows but me!”
But it was not my voice to which he responded; he was staring into my eyes, and listening as if to distant sounds. Then quite suddenly his entire manner was altered and I saw the clear signs of recognition in his face.
“Oh, thank heaven,” he said with a small, very polite British sigh.
He reached into his pocket for a small case, quickly removing from it a thin piece of metal which he inserted into the lock. I knew enough of the world to realize this was a burglar’s tool of some sort. He swung the gate back for me, and then opened his arms.
Our embrace was long and warm and silent, and I fought furiously not to give way to tears. Only very seldom in all this time had I ever actually touched this being. And the moment was charged with an emotion which caught me somewhat off guard. The drowsy warmth of my embraces with Gretchen came back to me. I felt safe. And just for an instant, perhaps, I did not feel so utterly alone.
But there was no time now to enjoy this solace.
Reluctantly, I drew back, and thought again how splendid David looked. Indeed, so impressive was he to me that I could almost believe I was as young as the body I now inhabited. I needed him so.
All the little flaws of age which I naturally saw in him through my vampire eyes were invisible. The deep lines of his face seemed but part of his great expressive personality, along with the quiet light in his eyes. He looked entirely vigorous as he stood there in his very proper attire, the little gold watch chain glittering on his tweed waistcoat—so very solid and resourceful and grave.
“You know what the bastard’s done,” I said. “He’s tricked me and abandoned me. And the others have also abandoned me. Louis, Marius. They’ve turned their backs on me. I’m marooned in this body, my friend. Come, I have to see if the monster has robbed my rooms.”
I hurried towards the apartment door, scarce hearing the few words he uttered, to the effect that he thought the place was quite undisturbed.
He was right. The fiend had not rifled the apartment! Everything was exactly as I’d left it, down to my old velvet coat hanging on the open closet door. There was the yellow pad on which I’d made notes before my departure. And the computer. Ah, I had to go into the computer immediately and discover the extent of his thievery. And my Paris agent, the poor man might still be in danger. I must contact him at once.
But I was distracted by the light pouring through the glass walls, the soft warm splendour of the sun spilling down upon the dark couches and chairs, and on the lush Persian carpet with its pale medallion and wreaths of roses, and even upon the few large modern paintings—furious abstracts all—which I had long ago chosen for these walls. I felt myself shudder at the sight of it, marveling again that electric illumination could never produce this particular sense of well-being which filled me now.
I also noted that there was a blazing fire going in the large white-tiled fireplace—David’s doing, no doubt—and the smell of coffee coming from the nearby kitchen, a room I had scarce entered in the years I had inhabited this place.
At once David stammered an apology. He hadn’t even checked into his hotel, so anxious was he to find me. He’d come here direct from the airport, and only gone out for a few little provisions so that he might spend a comfortable night keeping watch that I might come or think to call.
“Wonderful, very glad that you did,” I said, a little amused by his British politeness. I was so glad to see him, and here he was apologizing for making himself at home.
I tore off the wet overcoat and sat down at the computer.
“This will take only a moment,” I said, keying in the various commands, “and then I’ll tell you about everything. But what made you come? Did you suspect what happened!”
“Of course I did,” he said. “Don’t you know of the vampire murder in New York? Only a monster could have wrecked those offices. Lestat, why didn’t you call me? Why didn’t you ask my help?”
“One moment,” I said. Already the little letters and figures were coming up on the screen. My accounts were in order. Had the fiend been into this system, I would have seen preprogrammed signals of invasion throughout. Of course there was no way to know for certain that he hadn’t attacked my accounts in European banks until I went into their files. And damn, I couldn’t remember the code words, and in fact, I was having a difficult time managing the simplest commands.
“He was right,” I muttered. “He warned me my thinking processes wouldn’t be the same.” I switched from the finances program into Wordstar, my means of writing, and immediately typed out a communication to my Paris agent, sending it through the phone modem, asking him for an immediate status report, and reminding him to take the utmost personal care as to his own safety. Over and out.
I sat back, heaving a deep breath, which immediately brought on a little fit of coughing, and realized that David was staring at me as if the sight were too shocking for him to absorb. Indeed, it was almost comical the way he was looking at me. Then again, he looked at Mojo, who was inspecting the place silently and a little sluggishly, eyes turning to me over and over for some command.
I snapped my fingers for Mojo to come to me and gave him a deep strong hug. David watched all this as if it were the weirdest thing in the world.
“Good Lord, you are really in that body,” he whispered. “Not just hovering inside, but anchored into the cells.”
“You’re telling me,” I said disgustedly. “It’s dreadful, the whole mess. And the others won’t help, David. I’m cast out.” I gritted my teeth in rage. “Cast out!” I went into a seething growl which inadvertently excited Mojo so that he at once licked my face.
“Of course I deserve it,” I said, stroking Mojo. “That’s the simplest thing about dealing with me, apparently. I always deserve the worst! The worst disloyalty, the worst betrayal, the worst abandonment! Lestat the scoundrel. Well, they have left this scoundrel entirely on his own.”
“I’ve been frantic to reach you,” he said, his voice at once controlled and subdued. “Your agent in Paris swore he couldn’t help me. I was going to try that address in Georgetown.” He pointed to the yellow pad on the table. “Thank God you’re here.”
“David, my worst fear is that the others have destroyed James and my body with him. This may be the only body I now possess.”
“No, I don’t think so,” he said with convincing equanimity. “Your little body borrower has left quite a trail. But come, get out of these wet clothes. You’re catching cold.”
“What do you mean, trail?”
“You know we keep track of such crimes. Now, please, the clothes.”
“More crimes after New York?” I asked excitedly. I let him coax me towards the fireplace, immediately glad of the warmth. I pulled off the damp sweater and shirt. Of course there was nothing to fit me in my various closets. And I realized I had forgotten my valise somewhere on Louis’s property last night. “New York was Wednesday night, was it not?”
“My clothes will fit you,” David said, immediately snatching the thought from my mind. He headed for a mammoth leather suitcase in the corner.
“What’s happened? What makes you think it’s James?”
“Has to be,” he answered, popping open the suitcase and removing several folded garments, and then a tweed suit very like his own, still on its hanger, which he laid over the nearest chair. “Here, change into these. You’re going to catch your death.”
“Oh, David,” I said, continuing to undress. “I’ve almost caught my death repeatedly. In fact, I’ve spent my whole brief mortal life nearly dying. The care of this body is a revolting nuisance; how do living people endure this endless cycle of eating, pissing, sniveling, defecating, and then eating again! When you mix in fever, headache, attacks of coughing, and a runny nose, it becomes a penitential sentence. And prophylactics, good Lord. Removing the ugly little things is worse than having to put them on! Whatever made me think I wanted to do this! The other crimes—when did they take place! When is more important than where.”
He had fallen into staring at me again, too purely shocked to answer. Mojo was giving him the eye now, sizing him up more or less, and offering a friendly lick of his pink tongue to David’s hand. David petted him lovingly, but continued to stare blankly at me.
“David,” I said, as I took off the wet socks. “Speak to me. The other crimes! You said that James had left a trail.”
“It’s so wildly uncanny,” he said in a stunned voice. “I have a dozen pictures of this face. But to see you inside it. Oh, I simply couldn’t imagine it. Not at all.”
“When did this fiend strike last?”
“Ah … The last report was from the Dominican Republic. That was, let me see, two nights ago.”
“Dominican Republic! Why in the world would he go there?”
“Exactly what I would like to know. Before that he struck near Bal Harbour in Florida. Both times it was a high-rise condominium, and entry was the same as in New York—through the glass wall. Furniture smashed to pieces at all three crime scenes; wall safes ripped from their moorings; bonds, gold, jewelry taken. One man dead in New York, a bloodless corpse, of course. Two women left drained in Florida, and a family killed in Santo Domingo, with only the father drained in classic vampire style.”
“He can’t control his strength. He’s blundering about like a robot!”
“Exactly what I thought. It was the combination of destructiveness and sheer force which first alerted me. The creature’s unbelievably inept! And the whole operation is so stupid. But what I can’t figure is why he’s chosen these locations for his various thefts.” Suddenly he broke off and turned away, almost shyly.
I realized I had stripped off all the garments and was standing there naked, and this had produced in him a strange reticence, and a near blush to his face.
“Here, dry socks,” he said. “Don’t you know better than to go about in soaking wet garments?” He tossed the socks to me without looking up.
“I don’t know much of anything,” I said. “That’s what I’ve discovered. I see what you mean about the locations. Why in the world would he journey to the Caribbean when he might steal to his heart’s content in the suburbs of Boston or New York?”
“Yes. Unless the cold is giving him considerable discomfort, but does that make sense?”
“No. He doesn’t feel it that keenly. It’s just not the same.”
It felt good to pull on the dry shirt and pants. And these garments did fit, though they were loose in a rather old-fashioned way—not the slim tailored clothes more popular with the young. The shirt was heavy broadcloth, and the tweed pants were pleated, but the waistcoat felt snug and warm.
“Here, I can’t tie this tie with mortal fingers,” I declared. “But why am I dressing up like this, David? Don’t you ever go around in anything casual, as the expression goes? Good Lord, we look like we’re going to a funeral. Why must I wear this noose around my neck?”
“Because you’ll look foolish in a tweed suit without it,” he answered in a slightly distracted voice. “Here, let me help you.” Once again, he had that shy look about him as he drew close to me. I realized that he was powerfully drawn to this body. In the old one, I had amazed him; but this body truly ignited his passion. And as I studied him closely, as I felt the busy work of his fingers on the knot of the tie—that keen little pressure—I realized that I was powerfully attracted to him.
I thought of all the times I’d wanted to take him, enfold him in my arms, and sink my teeth slowly and tenderly into his neck, and drink his blood. Ah, now I might have him in a sense without having him—in the mere human tangling with his limbs, in whatever combination of intimate gestures and delectable little embraces he might like. And I might like.
The idea paralyzed me. It sent a soft chill over the surface of my human skin. I felt connected to him, connected as I had been to the sad unfortunate young woman whom I’d raped, to the wandering tourists of the snow-covered capital city, my brothers and sisters—connected as I had been to my beloved Gretchen.
Indeed so strong was this awareness—of being human and being with a human—that I feared it suddenly in all its beauty. And I saw that the fear was part of the beauty.
Ah, yes, I was mortal now as he was. I flexed my fingers, and slowly straightened my back, letting the chill become a deep erotic sensation.
He broke away from me abruptly, alarmed and vaguely determined, picked up the jacket from the chair, and helped me to put it on.
“You have to tell me all that’s happened to you,” he said. “And within an hour or so we may have news from London, that is, if the bastard has struck again.”
I reached out and clamped my weak, mortal hand on his shoulder, drew him to me, and kissed him softly on the side of his face. Once again, he backed away.
“Stop all this nonsense,” he said, as if reproving a child. “I want to know everything. Now, have you had breakfast? You need a handkerchief. Here.”
“How will we get this news from London?”
“Fax from the Motherhouse to the hotel. Now come, let’s have something to eat together. We have a day of work ahead to figure this all out.”
“If he isn’t already dead,” I said with a sigh. “Two nights ago in Santo Domingo.” I was again filled with a crushing and black despair. The delicious and frustrating erotic impulse was threatened.
David removed a long wool scarf from the suitcase. He placed this around my neck.
“Can’t you call London again now by phone?” I asked.
“It’s a bit early, but I’ll give it a try.”
He found the phone beside the couch, and was in fast conversation with someone across the sea for about five minutes. No news yet.
Police in New York, Florida, and Santo Domingo were not in communication with each other, apparently, as no connections regarding these crimes had yet been made.
At last he hung up. “They’ll fax information to the hotel as soon as they receive it. Let’s go there, shall we? I myself am famished. I’ve been here all night long, waiting. Oh, and that dog. What will you do with that splendid dog?”
“He’s had breakfast. He’ll be happy in the roof garden. You’re very anxious to be out of these rooms, aren’t you? Why don’t we simply get into bed together? I don’t understand.”
“You’re serious?”
I shrugged. “Of course.” Serious! I was beginning to be obsessed with this simple little possibility. Making love before anything else happened. Seemed like a perfectly marvelous idea!
Again, he fell to staring at me in maddening trancelike silence.
“You do realize,” he said, “that this is an absolutely magnificent body, don’t you? I mean, you aren’t insensible to the fact that you’ve been deposited in a … a most impressive piece of young male flesh.”
“I looked it over well before the switch, remember? Why is it you don’t want to …”
“You’ve been with a woman, haven’t you?”
“I wish you wouldn’t read my mind. It’s rude. Besides, what does that matter to you?”
“A woman you loved.”
“I have always loved both men and women.”
“That’s a slightly different use of the word ‘love.’ Listen, we simply can’t do it now. So behave yourself. I must hear everything about this creature James. It’s going to take us time to make a plan.”
“A plan. You really think we can stop him?”
“Of course I do!” He beckoned for me to come.
“But how?” I asked. We were going out the door.
“We must look at the creature’s behavior. We must assess his weaknesses and his strengths. And remember there are two of us against him. And we have a powerful advantage.”
“But what advantage?”
“Lestat, clear your mortal brain of all these rampant erotic images and come. I can’t think on an empty stomach, and obviously you’re not thinking straight at all.”
Mojo came padding to the gate to follow us, but I told him to stay.
I kissed him tenderly on the side of his long black nose, and he lay down on the wet concrete, and merely peered at me in solemn disappointed fashion as we went down the stairs.
It was only a matter of several blocks to the hotel, and the walk beneath the blue sky was not intolerable, even with the biting wind. I was too cold, however, to begin my story, and also the sight of the sunlighted city kept tearing me out of my thoughts.
Once again, I was impressed with the carefree attitudes of the people who roamed by day. All the world seemed blessed in this light, regardless of the temperature. And a sadness was growing in me as I beheld it, because I really didn’t want to remain in this sunlighted world no matter how beautiful it was.
No, give me back my preternatural vision, I thought. Give me back the dark beauty of the world by night. Give me back my unnatural strength and endurance, and I shall cheerfully sacrifice this spectacle forever. The Vampire Lestat—c’est moi.
Stopping at the hotel desk, David left word that we would be in the coffee shop, and any fax material which came in must be brought to us at once.
Then we settled at a quiet white-draped table in the corner of the vast old-fashioned room with its fancy plaster ceiling and white silk draperies, and commenced to devour an enormous New Orleans breakfast of eggs, biscuits, fried meats, gravy, and thick buttery grits.