by Rice, Anne
“Stop a minute,” she said. “I want to listen to you, but I must ask you something first.”
“Yes?”
“My father, how did it happen, was it quick and.…”
“Absolutely painless, I assure you,” I said, turning to her, looking at her. “He told me himself. No pain.”
She was owl-like with such a white face and big dark eyes, and she was actually slightly scary herself. I mean, she might have scared another mortal in this place, the way she looked, the strength of it.
“It was in a swoon that your father died,” I said. “Ecstatic perhaps, and filled with various images, and then a loss of consciousness. His spirit had left his body before the heart ceased to beat. Any physical pain I inflicted he never felt; once the blood is being sucked, once I’ve … no, he didn’t suffer.”
I turned and looked at her more directly. She’d curled her legs under her, revealing white knees beneath her hem.
“I talked with Roger for two hours afterwards,” I said. “Two hours. He came back for one reason, to make certain I’d look out for you. That his enemies didn’t get you, and the government didn’t get you, and all these people he’s connected with, or was. And that, and that his death didn’t … hurt you more than it had to.”
“Why would God do this?” she whispered.
“What has God got to do with it? Listen, darling, I don’t know anything about God. I told you. I walked into Notre Dame and nothing happened, and nothing ever has.…”
Now, that was a lie, wasn’t it? What about Him? Coming here in the guise of the Ordinary Man, letting that door slam, arrogant bastard, how dare he?
“How can this be God’s plan?” she asked.
“You’re perfectly serious, aren’t you? Look, I could tell you many stories. I mean, the one about the Paris vampires believing in the Devil is just the beginning! Look, there … there.…” I broke off.
“What is it?”
That sound. Those slow, measured steps! No sooner had I thought of him, insultingly and angrily, than the steps had begun.
“I … was going to say.…” I struggled to ignore him.
I could hear them approaching. They were faint, but it was the unmistakable walk of the winged being, letting me know, one heavy footfall after another, as though echoing through a giant chamber in which I existed quite apart from my existence in this room.
“Dora, I’ve got to leave you.”
“What is it?”
The footsteps were coming closer and closer. “You dare come to me while I’m with her!” I shouted. I was on my feet.
“What is it?” she cried. She was up on her knees on the bed. I backed across the room. I reached the door. The footsteps were growing fainter.
“Damn you to hell!” I whispered.
“Tell me what it is,” she said. “Will you come back? Are you leaving me now forever?”
“No, absolutely not. I’m here to help you. Listen, Dora, if you need me, call to me.” I put my ringer to my temple. “Call and call and call! Like prayer, you understand. It won’t be idolatry, Dora, I’m no evil god. Do it. I have to go.”
“What is your name?”
The footsteps came on, distant but loud, without location in the immense building, only pursuing me.
“Lestat.” I pronounced my name carefully for her—Le- stät—primary stress on the second syllable, sounding the final “t” distinctly. “Listen. Nobody knows about your father. They won’t for a while. I did everything he asked of me. I have his relics.”
“Wynken’s books?”
“All of it, everything he held sacred … A fortune for you, and all he possessed that he wanted you to have. I’ve got to go.”
Were the steps fading? I wasn’t certain. But I couldn’t take the risk of remaining.
“I’ll come again as soon as I can. You believe in God? Hang on to it, Dora, because you just might be right about God, absolutely right!”
I was out of there like particles of light, up the stairways, through the broken attic window, and up above the rooftop, moving fast enough that I could hear no footfall, and the city below had become a beguiling swirl of lights.
SEVEN
In moments, I stood in my own courtyard in the French Quarter behind the town house in the Rue Royale, looking up at my own lighted windows, windows that had been mine for so long, hoping and praying that David was there, and afraid he wasn’t.
I hated running from this Thing! I had to stand there a moment and let my usual rage cool. Why had I run? Not to be humiliated in front of Dora, who might have seen nothing more than me terrified by the Thing and thrown backwards onto the floor?
Maybe Dora could have seen it!
Every instinct in me told me I’d done the proper thing, gotten away, and kept that thing away from Dora. That thing was after me. I had to protect Dora. I now had a very good reason to fight that thing, for another’s sake, not my own.
Only now did the full goodness of Dora take a contained shape in my mind, that is, only now did I get a full impression of her, untangled from the blood smell between her legs and her owl-like face peering at me. Mortals tumble through life, from cradle to grave. Once in a century or two perhaps, one crosses the path of a being like Dora. An elegant intelligence and concept of goodness, precisely, and the other thing Roger had struggled to describe, the magnetism which had not burst free as yet from the tangle of faith and scripture.
The night was warm and receptive.
My courtyard banana trees had not been touched by a freeze this winter, and grew thick and drowsing as ever against the brick walls. The wild impatiens and lantana were glowing in the overgrown beds, and the fountain, the fountain with its cherub, was making its crystalline music as the water splashed from the cherub’s horn into the basin.
New Orleans, scents of the Quarter.
I ran up the back steps from the courtyard to the rear door of my flat.
I went inside, pounding down the hall, a man in a state of visible and ostentatious confusion. I saw a shadow cross the living room.
“David!”
“He’s not here.”
I came to a halt in the doorframe.
It was the Ordinary Man.
He stood with his back to Louis’s desk between the two front windows, arms folded loosely, face evincing a patient intellect and a sort of unbreakable poise.
“Don’t run again,” he said without rancour. “I’ll go after you. I asked you to please leave that girl out of it. Didn’t I? I was only trying to get you to cut it short.”
“I’ve never run from you!” I said, quite unsure of myself and determined to make that the truth from this moment on. “Well, not really! I didn’t want you near Dora. What do you want?”
“What do you think?”
“I told you,” I said, gathering all my strength, “if you are here to take me, I am ready to go to Hell.”
“You’re drenched in blood sweat,” he said, “look at you, you’re so afraid. You know, this is what it takes for me to get through to someone like you.” His voice was reasonable, easy to hear. “Now a mortal?” he asked. “I could have simply appeared once and said what I had to say. But you, no, that’s a different matter, you’ve already transcended too many stages, you’ve got too much to bargain with, that’s why you’re worth everything to me just now.”
“Bargain? You mean I can get out of this? We are not going to Hell? We can have a trial of some sort? I can find a modern Daniel Webster to plead for me?” There was mockery and impatience in all of this, and yet it was the logical question to which I wanted the logical answer at once.
“Lestat,” he said with characteristic forbearance, loosening his folded arms and taking a leisurely step towards me. “It goes back to David and his vision in the café. The little story he told you. I am the Devil. And I need you. I am not here to take you by force to Hell, and you don’t know the slightest thing about Hell anyway. Hell isn’t what you imagine. I am here to ask your help! I’m
tired and I need you. And I’m winning the battle, and it’s crucial that I don’t lose.”
I was dumbstruck.
For a long moment he regarded me and then deliberately began to change; his form appeared to swell in size, to darken, the wings to rise once more like smoke curling towards the ceiling, and the din of voices to begin and fast grow deafening, and the light suddenly rose behind him. I saw the hairy goat legs move towards me. My feet had no place to stand, my hands nothing to touch but him as I screamed. I could see the gleam of the black feathers, the arch of the wings rising higher and higher! And the din seemed a mixture of almost exquisite music with the voices!
“No, not this time, no!” I hurled myself right at him. I grabbed for him and saw my fingers wrap around his jet-black wrist. I stared right into his immense face, the face of the granite statue, only fully animate and magnificently expressive, the horrific noise of chant and song and howl swelling and drowning out my words. I saw his mouth open, the great eyebrows scowl, the huge innocent almond-shaped eyes grow immense and fill with light.
I held fast with my left hand clutching at his powerful arm, certain he was trying to get away from me and he couldn’t! Aha! He couldn’t! And then I slammed my right fist into his face. I felt the hardness, preternatural hardness, as if striking another of my own kind. But this was no solid vampiric form.
The entire figure blinked even in its density and defensiveness; the image recoiled and redressed itself and began to grow again; I gave him one last full shove in the chest with every bit of strength I had in me, my fingers splayed out against his black armour, the stammering ornamented breastplate, my eyes so close in the first instant that I saw the carvings on it, the writing in the metal, and then the wings flapped above me as if to terrify me. He was far from me, suddenly, gigantic, yes, still, but I’d thrown him back, damn him. One fine blow that had been. I gave a war cry before I could stop myself and flew at him, though propelling myself from what base and by what force I couldn’t have said.
There came a swirl of black feathers, sleek and stalling, and then I was falling; I wouldn’t scream, I didn’t give a damn, I wouldn’t. Falling.
Plummeting. As if through a depth that only nightmare can fathom. An emptiness so perfect we can’t conceive of it. And falling fast.
Only the Light remained. The Light obliterated everything visible and was so beautiful suddenly that I lost all sense of my own limbs or parts or organs or whatever I am created of. I had no shape or weight. Only the momentum of my fall continued to terrify, as though gravity remained to ensure utter ruin. There was one great surge of the voices.
“They are singing!” I cried out.
Then I lay still.
Slowly I felt the floor beneath me. The slightly rough surface of the carpet. Scent of dust, wax, my home. I knew we were in the same room.
He had taken Louis’s chair at the desk, and I lay there on my back, staring at the ceiling, my chest bursting with pain.
I sat up, crossed my legs, and looked at him defiantly.
He was puzzled. “It makes perfect sense,” he said.
“And what’s that?”
“You’re as strong as one of us.”
“No, I don’t think so,” I said furiously. “I can’t grow wings; I can’t make music.”
“Yes, you can, you’ve made images before for mortals. You know you can. You’ve wrapped them in spells. You are as strong as we are. You have achieved a very interesting stage in your development. I knew I was right about you all along. I’m in awe of you.”
“In awe of what? My independence? Look, let me tell you something, Satan, or whoever you are.”
“Don’t use that name, I hate it.”
“That’s likely to make me pepper my speeches with it.”
“My name is Memnoch,” he said calmly, with a small pleading gesture. “Memnoch the Devil. I want you to remember it that way.”
“Memnoch the Devil.”
“Aye.” He nodded. “That is how I sign my name when I sign it.”
“Well, let me tell you, Your Royal Highness of Darkness. I’m not helping you with anything! I don’t serve you!”
“I think I can change your mind,” he said calmly. “I think you will come to understand things very well from my point of view.”
I felt a sudden sagging, a complete exhaustion, and a despair.
Typical.
I rolled over on my face and tucked my arm under my head and started crying like a child. I was perishing from exhaustion. I was worn and miserable and I loved crying. I couldn’t do anything else. I gave in to it fully. I felt that profound release of the utterly grief-stricken. I didn’t give a damn who saw or heard. I cried and cried.
Do you know what I think about crying? I think some people have to learn to do it. But once you learn, once you know how to really cry, there’s nothing quite like it. I feel sorry for those who don’t know the trick. It’s like whistling or singing.
Whatever the case, I was too miserable to take much consolation just from feeling good for a moment in a welter of shudders and salted, bloodstained tears.
I thought of years and years ago, when I had walked into Notre Dame and those fiendish little vampires had lain in wait for me, Servants of Satan, I thought of my mortal self, I thought of Dora, I thought of Armand in those days, the immortal boy leader of Satan’s Elect beneath the cemetery, who had made himself a dark saint, sending forth his ragged blood drinkers to torment mortals, to bring death, to spread fear and death like pestilence. I was choking with sobs.
“It is not true!” I think I said. “There is no God or Devil. It is not true.”
He didn’t answer. I rolled over and sat up. I wiped my face on my sleeve. No handkerchief. Of course, I’d given it to Dora. A faint perfume of Dora rose from my clothes, my chest against which she’d lain, blood sweetness. Dora. I should never have left Dora in such distress. Dear God, I was bound to look out for the sanity of Dora! Damn.
I looked at him.
He was still sitting there, his arm resting on the back of Louis’s chair, and he was simply watching me.
I sighed. “You’re not going to leave me alone, are you?”
He was taken aback. He laughed. His face was marvelously friendly, rather than neutral.
“No, of course not,” he said in a low voice, as if careful not to unbalance me any further. “Lestat, I’ve been waiting for someone like you for centuries. I’ve been watching you yourself for centuries. No, I’m afraid I’m not going to leave you alone. But I don’t want you to be miserable. What can I do to calm you? Some small miracle, gift, anything, so that we can proceed?”
“And how in hell will we proceed?”
“I’ll tell you everything,” he said with a slight shrug, his hands open, “and then you’ll understand why I have to win.”
“The implication … it’s that I can refuse to cooperate with you, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely. Nobody can really help me who doesn’t choose to do it. And I’m tired. I’m tired of the job. I need help. That part your friend David heard correctly when he experienced that accidental epiphany.”
“Was David’s epiphany accidental? What happened to that other word? What had it been … I don’t remember. David wasn’t meant to see you or hear you and God talking together?”
“That’s almost impossible to explain.”
“Did I upset some plan of yours by taking David, making him one of us?”
“Yes and no. But the point is, David heard that part correctly. My task is hard and I’m tired! Some of the rest of David’s ideas about that little vision, well—” He shook his head. “The point is, you are the one I want now and it’s terribly important you see everything before you make up your mind.”
“I’m that bad, am I?” I whispered, lips trembling. I was going to bawl again. “In all the world, with all the things humans have done, all the unspeakable horrors men have visited on other men, the unthinkable suffering of women and children wo
rldwide at the hands of mankind, and I’m that bad! You want me! David was too good, I suppose. He didn’t become as consummately evil as you thought he would. Is that it?”
“No, of course you’re not that bad,” he said soothingly. “That’s the very point.” He gave a little sigh again.
I was beginning to notice more distinct details of his appearance, not because they were becoming more vivid as had happened with the apparition of Roger, but because I was growing more calm. His hair was a dark ashen blond, and rather soft and curling. And his eyebrows were the same shade, not distinctly black at all, but very carefully drawn to maintain an expression that contained no closed vanity or arrogance. He didn’t look stupid either, of course. The clothes were generic. I don’t believe they were really clothes. They were material, but the coat was too plain and without buttons, and the white shirt was too simple.
“You know,” he said, “you always have had a conscience! That’s precisely what I’m after, don’t you see? Conscience, reason, purpose, dedication. Good Lord, I couldn’t have overlooked you. And I’ll tell you something. It was as though you sent for me.”
“Never.”
“Come on, think of all the challenges you’ve flung out to the Devil.”
“That was poetry, or doggerel, depending on one’s point of view.”
“Not so. And then think of all the things you did, waking that ancient one Akasha and almost loosing her on humanity.” He gave a short laugh. “As if we don’t have enough monsters created by evolution. And then your adventure with the Body Thief. Coming into the flesh again, having that chance, and rejecting it for what you were before. You know your friend Gretchen is a saint in the jungles, don’t you?”
“Yes. I’ve seen mentions of it in the papers. I know.”
Gretchen, my nun, my love when I’d been so briefly mortal, had never spoken one word since the night she fled from me into her missionary chapel and fell on her knees before the crucifix. She remained in prayer night and day in that jungle village, taking almost no nourishment, and on Fridays people journeyed miles through the jungle, and sometimes even came from Caracas and Buenos Aires just to see her bleed from her hands and her feet. That had been the end of Gretchen.