by Rice, Anne
“That can’t be,” said Marius. His face was dark and miserable. He glared at Santino. “There must be someone to restrain others. Yet I can’t bear it that he lives after what he’s done to me.”
To Thorne’s amazement the youthful face of Amadeo appeared only puzzled.
As for Pandora, she seemed sad and anxious, as though she feared that Marius wouldn’t keep to his word.
But Thorne knew otherwise.
And as he assessed this black-haired creature now, Santino rose from the bench and backed away from Thorne, pointing his finger at Thorne in terror.
But it was not quick enough.
Thorne sent all his strength at Santino and all Santino could do as he fell to his knees was cry out: “Thorne,” over and over again, his body exploding, the blood flowing from every orifice, the fire finally erupting from his chest and head as he twisted and collapsed on the stone floor, the flames at last consuming him.
Maharet had let out a terrible wail of sorrow, and into the large room her twin had come, her blue eyes searching for the source of pain in her sister.
Maharet rose to her feet. She looked down on the grease and ash that lay before her.
Thorne looked at Marius. He saw a small bitter smile on Marius’s lips, and then Marius looked to him and nodded.
“I need no thanks from you,” Thorne said.
Then he looked to Maharet who was weeping, her sister now holding tight to her arms, and pleading mutely with her to explain herself.
“Wergeld, my Maker,” said Thorne. “As it was in my time, I exact the wergeld or payment for my own life, which you took when you made me a blood drinker. I take it through Santino’s life, which I take beneath your roof.”
“Yes, and against my will,” Maharet cried. “You have done this terrible thing! And Marius, your own friend, has told you that I must rule here.”
“If you would rule here, do it on your own,” said Thorne. “Don’t look to Marius to tell you how to do it. Ah, look at your precious distaff and spindle. How will you protect the Sacred Core if you have no strength to fight those who oppose you?”
She couldn’t answer him, and he could see that Marius was angered, and that Mekare looked at him with menace.
He came towards Maharet, staring intently at her, at her smooth face which now bore no trace whatever of human life, the florid human eyes seemingly set within a sculpture.
“Would I had a knife,” he said, “would I had a sword, would I had any weapon I could use against you.” And then he did the only thing which he could do. He took her by the throat with both his hands and tried to topple her.
It was like holding fast to marble.
At once there came a frantic cry from her. He couldn’t understand the words, but when her sister drew him back gently he knew it had been a warning for his sake. He reached out still with both hands, struggling to be free, but it was useless.
These two were unconquerable, either divided or together, it did not matter.
“Put an end to this, Thorne,” cried Marius. “It’s enough. She knows what’s in your heart. You can’t ask for more than this.”
Maharet collapsed to her bench and there she sat crying, her sister at her side, Mekare’s eyes fixed on Thorne warily.
Thorne could see that all of them were afraid of Mekare, but he was not, and when he thought of Santino again, when he looked at the black stain on the stones, he felt a good deep pleasure.
Then moving swiftly, he accosted the mute twin and whispered something hurried in her ear, meant only for her, wondering if she would get the sense of it.
Within a second he knew that she had. As Maharet watched in wonder, Mekare forced him down on his knees. She clasped his face and turned it up. And then he felt her fingers plunge into the sockets of his eyes as she removed them.
“Yes, yes, this blessed darkness,” he said, “and then the chains, I beg you, the chains. Otherwise do away with me.”
Through Marius’s mind, he could see the image of himself groping in blindness. He could see the blood flowing down his face. He could see Maharet as Mekare put the eyes into her head. He could see those two tall delicate women with their arms entangled, the one struggling but not enough and the other pressing for the deed to be accomplished.
Then he felt others gathered around him. He felt the fabric of their garments, he felt their smooth hands.
And only in the distance could he hear Maharet weeping.
The chains were being put around him. He felt their thick links and knew he could not break loose from them. And being dragged further away, he said nothing.
The blood flowed from his eye sockets. He knew it. And in some quiet empty place he was now bound exactly as he had dreamt of it. Only she wasn’t close. She wasn’t close at all. He heard the jungle sounds. And he longed for the winter cold, and this place was too warm and too full of the perfume of flowers.
But he would get used to the heat. He would get used to the rich fragrances.
“Maharet,” he whispered.
He saw what they saw again, in another room, as they looked at each other, all of them talking in hushed voices of his fate and none fully understanding it. He knew that Marius was pleading for him, and he knew that Maharet whom he saw so vividly through their eyes was as beautiful now as she had been when she made him.
Suddenly she was gone from the group. And they talked in shadows without her.
Then he felt her hand on his cheek. He knew it. He knew the soft wool of her gown. He knew her lips when she kissed him.
“You do have my eyes,” he said.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “I see wondrously through them.”
“And these chains, are they made of your hair?”
“Yes,” she answered. “From hair to thread, from thread to rope, from rope to links, I have woven them.”
“My weaving one,” he said, smiling. “And when you weave them now,” he asked, “will you keep me close to you?”
“Yes,” she said. “Always.”
9:20 p.m.
March 19, 2000
Dedicated to my beloved husband, Stan Rice,
and my beloved sister Karen O’Brien
A Ballantine Book
Published by the Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 2002 by Anne O’Brien Rice
All Rights Reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-1-400-04020-9
This edition published by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
www.ballantinebooks.com
v3.1
Contents
Master Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
C
hapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Dedication
My days have passed away, my
thoughts are dissipated, tormenting my
heart.
They have turned night into day,
and after darkness I hope for light again.
If I wait hell is my house, and I have
made my bed in darkness.
I have said to rottenness: thou art
my father; to worms, my mother and
my sister.
Where is now then my expectation,
and who considereth my patience?
All that I have shall go down into
the deepest pit: thinkest thou that there
at least I shall have rest?
JOB 17:11–16 DV.
1
Lestat,
If you find this letter in your house in the Rue Royale, and I do sincerely think you will find it—you’ll know at once that I’ve broken your rules.
I know that New Orleans is off limits to Blood Hunters, and that any found there will be destroyed by you. And unlike many a rogue invader whom you have already dispatched, I understand your reasons. You don’t want us to be seen by members of the Talamasca. You don’t want a war with the venerable Order of Psychic Detectives, both for their sake and ours.
But please, I beg you, before you come in search of me, read what I have to say.
My name is Quinn. I’m twenty-two years old, and have been a Blood Hunter, as my Maker called it, for slightly less than a year. I’m an orphan now, as I see it, and it is to you that I turn for help.
But before I make my case, please understand that I know the Talamasca, that I knew them before the Dark Blood was ever given to me, and I know of their inherent goodness and their legendary neutrality as regards things supernatural, and I will have taken great pains to elude them in placing this letter in your flat.
That you keep a telepathic watch over New Orleans is plain to me. That you’ll find the letter I have no doubt.
If you do come to bring a swift justice to me for my disobedience, assure me please that you will do your utmost to destroy a spirit which has been my companion since I was a child. This creature, a duplicate of me who has grown with me since before I can remember, now poses a danger to humans as well as to myself.
Let me explain.
As a little boy I named this spirit Goblin, and that was well before anyone had told me nursery rhymes or fairy tales in which such a word might appear. Whether the name came from the spirit himself I don’t know. However, at the mere mention of the name, I could always call him to me. Many a time he came of his own accord and wouldn’t be banished. At others, he was the only friend I had. Over the years, he has been my constant familiar, maturing as I matured and becoming ever more skilled at making known to me his wishes. You could say I strengthened and shaped Goblin, unwittingly creating the monster that he is now.
The truth is, I can’t imagine existence without Goblin. But I have to imagine it. I have to put an end to Goblin before he metamorphoses into something utterly beyond my control.
Why do I call him a monster—this creature who was once my only playmate? The answer is simple. In the months since my being made a Blood Hunter—and understand, I had no choice whatsoever in the matter—Goblin has acquired his own taste for blood. After every feeding, I am embraced by him, and blood is drawn from me into him by a thousand infinitesimal wounds, strengthening the image of him, and lending to his presence a soft fragrance which Goblin never had before. With each passing month, Goblin becomes stronger, and his assaults on me more prolonged.
I can no longer fight him off.
It won’t surprise you, I don’t think, that these assaults are vaguely pleasurable, not as pleasurable to me as feeding on a human victim, but they involve a vague orgasmic shimmer that I can’t deny.
But it is not my vulnerability to Goblin that worries me now. It is the question of what Goblin may become.
Now, I have read your Vampire Chronicles through and through. They were bequeathed to me by my Maker, an ancient Blood Hunter who gave me, according to his own version of things, an enormous amount of strength as well.
In your stories you talk of the origins of the vampires, quoting an ancient Egyptian Elder Blood Drinker who told the tale to the wise one, Marius, who centuries ago passed it on to you.
Whether you and Marius made up some of what was written in your books I don’t know. You and your comrades, the Coven of the Articulate, as you are now called, may well have a penchant for telling lies.
But I don’t think so. I’m living proof that Blood Drinkers exist—whether they are called Blood Drinkers, vampires, Children of the Night or Children of the Millennia—and the manner in which I was made conforms to what you describe.
Indeed, though my Maker called us Blood Hunters rather than vampires, he used words which have appeared in your tales. The Cloud Gift he gave to me so that I can travel effortlessly by air; and also the Mind Gift to seek out telepathically the sins of my victims; as well as the Fire Gift to ignite the fire in the iron stove here that keeps me warm.
So I believe your stories. I believe in you.
I believe you when you say that Akasha, the first of the vampires, was created when an evil spirit invaded every fiber of her being, a spirit which had, before attacking her, acquired a taste for human blood.
I believe you when you say that this spirit, named Amel by the two witches who could see him and hear him—Maharet and Mekare—exists now in all of us, his mysterious body, if we may call it that, having grown like a rampant vine to blossom in every Blood Hunter who is made by another, right on up to the present time.
I know as well from your stories that when the witches Mekare and Maharet were made Blood Hunters, they lost the ability to see and talk to spirits. And indeed my Maker told me that I would lose mine.
But I assure you, I have not lost my powers as a seer of spirits. I am still their magnet. And it is perhaps this ability in me, this receptiveness, and my early refusal to spurn Goblin, that have given him the strength to be plaguing me for vampiric blood now.
Lestat, if this creature grows ever more strong, and it seems there is nothing I can do to stop him, is it possible that he can enter a human being, as Amel did in ancient times? Is it possible that yet another species of the vampiric root may be created, and from that root yet another vine?
I cannot imagine your being indifferent to this question, or to the possibility that Goblin will become a killer of humans, though he is far from that strength right now.
I think you will understand when I say that I’m frightened for those whom I love and cherish—my mortal family—as well as for any stranger whom Goblin might eventually attack.
It’s hard to write these words. For all my life I have loved Goblin and scorned anyone who denigrated him as an “imaginary playmate” or a “foolish obsession.” But he and I, for so long mysterious bedfellows, are now enemies, and I dread his attacks because I feel his increasing strength.
Goblin withdraws from me utterly when I am not hunting, only to reappear when the fresh blood is in my veins. We have no spiritual intercourse now, Goblin and I. He seems afire with jealousy that I’ve become a Blood Hunter. It’s as though his childish mind has been wiped clean of all it once learned.
It is an agony for me, all of this.
But let me repeat: it is not on my account that I write to you. It is in fear of what Goblin may become.
Of course I want to lay eyes upon you. I want to talk to you. I want to be received, if such a thing is possible, into the Coven of the Articulate. I want you, the great breaker of rules, to forgive me that I have broken yours.
I want you who were ki
dnapped and made a vampire against your will to look kindly on me because the same thing happened to me.
I want you to forgive my trespass into your old flat in the Rue Royale, where I hope to hide this letter. I want you to know as well that I haven’t hunted in New Orleans and never will.
And speaking of hunting, I too have been taught to hunt the Evil Doer, and though my record isn’t perfect, I’m learning with each feast. I’ve also mastered the Little Drink, as you so elegantly call it, and I’m a visitor to noisy mortal parties who is never noticed as he feeds from one after another in quick and deft moves.
But in the main, my existence is lonely and bitter. If it weren’t for my mortal family, it would be unendurable. As for my Maker, I shun him and his cohorts, and with reason.
That’s a story I’d like to tell you. In fact, there are many stories I want to tell you. I pray that my stories might keep you from destroying me. You know, we could play a game. We meet and I start talking, and slap damn, you kill me when I take a verbal turn you don’t like.
But seriously, Goblin is my concern.
Let me add before I close that during this last year of being a fledgling Blood Hunter, of reading your Chronicles and trying to learn from them, I have often been tempted to go to the Talamasca Motherhouse at Oak Haven, outside of New Orleans. I have often been tempted to ask the Talamasca for counsel and help.
When I was a boy—and I’m hardly more than that now—there was a member of the Talamasca who was able to see Goblin as clearly as I could—a gentle, nonjudgmental Englishman named Stirling Oliver, who advised me about my powers and how they could become too strong for me to control. I grew to love Stirling within a very short time.
I also fell deeply in love with a young girl who was in the company of Stirling when I met him, a red-haired beauty with considerable paranormal power who could also see Goblin—one to whom the Talamasca had opened its generous heart.
That young girl is beyond my reach now. Her name is Mayfair, a name that is not unfamiliar to you, though this young girl probably knows nothing of your friend and companion Merrick Mayfair, even to this day.