The Tale of the Body Thief tvc-4

by Anne Rice

  "I have another theory about the Devil."

  "Tell me."

  "There's more than one of them. And nobody appointed much likes the job." This he said almost in a murmur. He was distracted, as if he wanted to say more, but didn't.

  I laughed outright.

  "Now that I can understand," I said. "Who would like the job of being the Devil? And to think that one can't possibly win. And especially considering that the Devil was an angel at the start of it all, and supposed to be very smart."

  "Exactly." He pointed his finger at me. "Your little story about Rembrandt. The Devil, if he had a brain, should have acknowledged the genius of Rembrandt."

  "And the goodness of Faust."

  "Ah, yes, you saw me reading Faust in Amsterdam, didn't you? And you purchased your own copy as a consequence." "How did you know that?"

  "The proprietor of the bookstore told me the next afternoon. A strange blond-haired young Frenchman came in moments after I'd left, bought the very same book, and stood in the street reading it for half an hour without moving. Whitest skin the man had ever seen. Had to be you, of course."

  I shook my head and smiled. "I do these clumsy things. It's a wonder some scientist hasn't scooped me up in a net."

  "That's no joke, my friend. You were very careless in Miami several nights ago. Two victims drained entirely of blood."

  This created such instant confusion in me that at first I said nothing, then only that it was a wonder the news had reached him on this side of the sea. I felt the old despair touch me with its black wing.

  "Bizarre killings make international headlines," he answered. "Besides, the Talamasca receives reports of all sorts of things. We have people who clip for us in cities everywhere, sending in items on all aspects of the paranormal for our files. 'Vampire Killer Strikes Twice in Miami.' Several sources sent it along."

  "But they don't really believe it was a vampire, you know they don't."

  "No, but you keep it up and they might come to believe it. That's what you wanted to happen before with your little rock music career. You wanted them to catch on. It's not inconceivable. And this sport of yours with the serial killers! You're leaving quite a trail of those."

  This truly astonished me. My hunting of the killers had taken me back and forth across continents. I had never thought anyone would connect these widely scattered deaths, except Marius, of course.

  "How did you come to figure it out?"

  "I told you. Such stories always come into our hands. Satanism, vampirism, voodoo, witchcraft, sightings of werewolves; it all comes across my desk. Most of it goes into the trash, obviously. But I know the grain of truth when I see it. And your killings are very easy to spot.

  "You've been going after these mass murderers for some time now. You leave their bodies in the open. You left this last one in a hotel, where he was found only an hour after his death. As for the old woman, you were equally careless! Her son found her the following day. No wounds for the coroner to find on either victim. You're a nameless celebrity hi Miami, quite overshadowing the notoriety of the poor dead man in the hotel." "I don't give a damn," I said angrily. But I did, of course. I deplored my own carelessness, yet I did nothing to correct it. Well, this must surely change. Tonight, had I done any better? It seemed cowardly to plead excuses for such things.

  David was watching me carefully. If there was one dominant characteristic to David, it was his alertness. "It's not inconceivable," he said, "that you could be caught."

  I gave a scornful, dismissive laugh.

  "They could lock you up in a laboratory, study you in a cage of space-age glass."

  "That's impossible. But what an interesting thought."

  "I knew it! You want it to happen."

  I shrugged. "Might be fun for a little while. Look, it's a sheer impossibility. The night of my one appearance as a rock singer, all manner of bizarre things happened. The mortal world merely swept up afterwards and closed its files. As for the old woman in Miami, that was a terrible mishap. Should never have happened-" I stopped. What about those who died in London this very night?

  "But you enjoy taking life," he said. "You said it was fun."

  I felt such pain suddenly I wanted to leave. But I'd promised I wouldn't. I just sat there, staring into the fire, thinking about the Gobi Desert, and the bones of the big lizards and the way the light of the sun had filled up the entire world. I thought of Claudia. I smelled the wick of the lamp.

  "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be cruel to you," he said.

  "Well, why the hell not? I can't think of a finer choice for cruelty. Besides, I'm not always so kind to you."

  "What do you really want? What is your overriding passion?"

  I thought of Marius, and Louis, who had both asked me that same question many a time.

  "What could redeem what I've done?" I asked. "I meant to put an end to the killer. He was a man-eating tiger, my brother. I lay in wait for him. But the old woman-she was a child in the forest, nothing more. But what does it matter?" I thought of those wretched creatures whom I'd taken earlier this evening. Fd left such carnage in the back alleys of London. "I wish I could remember that it doesn't matter," I said. "I meant to save her. But what good would one act of mercy be in the face of all Fve done? I'm damned if there is a God or a Devil. Now why don't you go on with your religious talk? The odd thing is, I find talk of God and the Devil remarkably soothing. Tell me more about the Devil. He's changeable, surely. He's smart. He must feel. Why ever would he remain static?"

  "Exactly. You know what it says in the Book of Job."

  "Remind me."

  "Well, Satan is there in heaven, with God. God says, where have you been? And Satan says, roaming around the earth! It's a regular conversation. And they begin arguing about Job. Satan believes Job's goodness is founded entirely upon his good fortune. And God agrees to let Satan torment Job. This is the most nearly true picture of the situation which we possess. God doesn't know everything. The Devil is a good friend of his. And the whole thing is an experiment. And this Satan is a far cry from being the Devil as we know him now, worldwide."

  "You're really speaking of these ideas as if they were real beings. . ."

  "I think they are real," he said, his voice trailing off slightly as he fell into his thoughts. Then he roused himself. "I want to tell you something. Actually I should have confessed it before now. In a way, I'm as superstitious and religious as the next man. Because all this is based on a vision of sorts-you know, the sort of revelation that affects one's reason."

  "No, I don't know. I have dreams but without revelation," I said. "Explain, please."

  He sank back into reverie again, looking at the fire.

  "Don't shut me out," I said softly.

  "Hmmm. Right. I was thinking how to describe it. Well, you know I am a Candomble priest still. I mean I can summon invisible forces: the pest spirits, the astral tramps, whatever one wants to call them ... the poltergeist, the little haunts. That means I must have always had a latent ability to see spirits."

  "Yes. I suppose . . ."

  "Well, I did see something once, something inexplicable, before I ever went to Brazil." "Yes?"

  "Before Brazil, I'd pretty much discounted it. In fact, it was so disturbing, so perfectly unaccountable, that I'd put it out of my mind by the time I went to Rio. Yet now, I think of it all the time. I can't stop myself from thinking of it. And that's why I've turned to the Bible, as if I'll find some wisdom there."

  "Tell me."

  "Happened in Paris right before the war. I was there with my mother. I was in a cafe on the Left Bank, and I don't even remember now which cafe it was, only that it was a lovely spring day and a simply grand time to be in Paris, as a!l the songs say. I was drinking a beer, reading the English papers, and I realized I was overhearing a conversation." He drifted away again. "I wish I knew what really happened," he murmured under his breath.

  He sat forward, gathered up the poker in his right hand, an jabbed at th
e logs, sending a plume of fiery sparks up the dark bricks.

  I wanted desperately to pull him back, but I waited. At last he went on.

  "I was in this cafe, as I said."

  "Yes."

  "And I realized I was overhearing this strange conversation . . . and it wasn't in English and it wasn't in French . . . and gradually I came to know that it wasn't in any language really, and yet it was fully understandable to me. I put down my paper, and began to concentrate. On and on it went. It was a sort of argument. And suddenly I didn't know whether or not the voices were audible in any conventional sense. I wasn't sure anyone else could actually hear this! I looked up and slowly turned around.

  "And there they were . . . two beings, seated at the table talking to each other, and just for a moment, it seemed normal-two men in conversation. I looked back at my paper, and this swimming feeling came over me. I had to anchor myself to something, to fix on the paper for a moment and then the tabletop, and make the swimming cease. The noise of the cafe came back like a full orchestra. And I knew I'd just turned and looked at two individuals who weren't human beings.

  "I turned around again, forcing myself to focus tightly, to be aware of things, keenly aware. And there they were still, and it was painfully clear they were iflusory. They simply weren't of the same fabric as everything else. Do you know what I'm saying? I can break it down into parts. They weren't being illuminated by the same light, for instance, they existed in some realm where the light was from another source."

  "Like the light in Rembrandt."

  "Yes, rather like that. Their clothes and their faces were smoother than those of human beings. Why, the whole vision was of a different texture, and that texture was uniform in all its details."

  "Did they see you?"

  "No. I mean to say, they didn't look at me, or acknowledge me. They looked at each other, they went on talking, and I picked up the thread again instantly. It was God talking to the Devil and telling the Devil that he must go on doing the job. And the Devil didn't want to do it. He explained that his term had already been too long. The same thing was happening to him that had happened to all the others. God said that He understood, but the Devil ought to know how important he was, he couldn't simply shirk his duties, it wasn't that simple, God needed him, and needed him to be strong. And all this was very amicable."

  "What did they look like?"

  "That's the worst part of it. I don't know. At the time I saw two vague shapes, large, definitely male, or assuming male form, shall we say, and pleasant-looking-nothing monstrous, nothing out of the ordinary really. I wasn't aware of any absence of particulars-you know, hair color, facial features, that sort of thing. The two figures seemed quite complete. But when I tried to reconstruct the event afterwards, I couldn't recall any details! I don't think the illusion was that nearly complete. I think I was satisfied by it, but the sense of completeness sprang from something else."

  "From what?"

  "The content, the meaning, of course."

  "They never saw you, never knew you were there."

  "My dear boy, they had to know I was there. They must have known. They must have been doing it for my benefit! How else could I have been allowed to see it?"

  "I don't know, David. Maybe they didn't mean for you to see. Maybe it's that some people can see, and some people can't. Maybe it was a little rip in the other fabric, the fabric of everything else in the cafe."

  "That could be true. But I fear it wasn't. I fear I was meant to see it and it was meant to have some effect on me. And that's the horror, Lestat. It didn't have a very great effect."

  "You didn't change your life on account of it."

  "Oh, no, not at all. Why, two days later I doubted I'd even seen it. And with each telling to another person, with each little verbal confrontation-'David, you've gone crackers'-it became ever more uncertain and vague. No, I never did anything about it."

  "But what was there to do? What can anybody do on account of any revelation but live a good life? David, surely you told your brethren in the Talamasca about the vision."

  "Yes, yes, I told them. But that was much later, after Brazil,, when I filed my long memoirs, as a good member should do. I told them the whole story, such as it was, of course."

  "And what did they say?"

  "Lestat, the Talamasca never says much of anything, that's what one has to face. 'We watch and we are always there.' To tell the truth, it wasn't a very popular vision to go talking about with the other members. Speak of spirits in Brazil and you have an audience. But the Christian God and His Devil? No, I fear the Talamasca is subject somewhat to prejudices and even fads, like any other institution. The story raised a few eyebrows. 1 don't recall much else. But then when you're talking to gentlemen who have seen werewolves, and been seduced by vampires, and fought witches, and talked to ghosts, well, what do you expect?"

  "But God and the Devil," I said, laughing. "David, that's the big time. Maybe the other members envied you more than you realized."

  "No, they didn't take it seriously," he said, acknowledging my humor with a little laugh of his own. "I'm surprised that you've taken it seriously, to be quite frank."

  He rose suddenly, excitedly, and walked across the room to the window, and pushed back the drape with his hand. He stood trying to see out into the snow-filled night.

  "David, what could these apparitions have meant for you to do?"

  "I don't know," he said, in a bitter discouraged voice. "That's my point. I'm seventy-four, and I don't know. I'll die without knowing. And if there is no illumination, then so be it. That in itself is an answer, whether I am conscious enough to know it or not."

  "Come back and sit down, if you will. I like to see your face when you talk."

  He obeyed, almost automatically, seating himself and reaching for the empty glass, eyes shifting to the fire again.

  "What do you think, Lestat, really? Inside of you? Is there a God or a Devil? I mean truly, what do you believe?"

  I thought for a long time before I answered. Then:

  "I do think God exists. I don't like to say so. But I do. And probably some form of Devil exists as well. I admit-it's a matter of the missing pieces, as we've said. And you might well have seen the Supreme Being and His Adversary in that Paris cafe. But it's part of their maddening game that we can never figure it out for certain. You want a likely explanation for their behavior? Why they let you have a little glimpse? They wanted to get you embroiled in some sort of religious response! They play with us that way. They throw out visions and miracles and bits and pieces of divine revelation. And we go off full of zeal and found a church. It's all part of their game, part of their ongoing and endless talk. And you know? I think your view of them-an imperfect God and a learning Devil-is just about as good as anyone else's interpretation. I think you've hit on it."

  He was staring at me intently, but he didn't reply.

  "No," I continued. "We aren't meant to know the answers. We aren't meant to know if our souls travel from body to body through reincarnation. We aren't meant to know if God made the world. If He's Allah or Yahweh or Shiva or Christ. He plants the doubts as He plants the revelations. We're all His fools."

  Still he didn't answer.

  "Quit the Talamasca, David," I said. "Go to Brazil before you're too old. Go back to India. See the places you want to see."

  "Yes, I think I should do that," he said softly. "And they'll probably take care of it all for me. The elders have already met to discuss the entire question of David and his recent absences from the Motherhouse. They'll retire me with a nice pension, of course."

  "Do they know that you've seen me?"

  "Oh, yes. That's part of the problem. The elders have forbidden contact. Very amusing really, since they are so desperate to lay eyes upon you themselves. They know when you come round the Motherhouse, of course."

  "I know they do," I said. "What do you mean, they've forbidden contact?"

  "Oh, just the standard admonition,"
he said, eyes still on the burning log. "All very medieval, really, and based upon an old directive: 'You are not to encourage this being, not to engage in or prolong conversation; if he persists in his visits, you are to do your best to lure him to some populated place. It is well known that these creatures are loath to attack when surrounded by mortals. And never, never are you to attempt to learn secrets from this being, or to believe for one moment that any emotions evinced by him are genuine, for these creatures dissemble with remarkable ability, and have been known, for reasons that cannot be analyzed, to drive mortals mad. This has befallen sophisticated investigators as well as hapless innocents with whom the vampires come in contact. You are warned to report any and all meetings, sightings, etc., to the elders without delay.'"

  "Do you really know this by heart?"

  "I wrote the directive myself," he said, with a little smile. "I've given it to many other members over the years."

  "They know I'm here now?"

  "No, of course not. I stopped reporting our meetings to them a long time ago." He fell into his thoughts again, and then: "Do you search for God?" he asked.

  "Certainly not," I answered. "I can't imagine a bigger waste of time, even if one has centuries to waste. I'm finished with all such quests. I look to the world around me now for truths, truths mired in the physical and in the aesthetic, truths I can fully embrace. I care about your vision because you saw it, and you told me, and I love you. But that's all."

  He sat back, gazing off again into the shadows of the room.

  "Won't matter, David. In time, you'll die. And probably so shall I."

  His smile was warm again as though he could not accept this except as a sort of joke.

  There was a long silence, during which he poured a little more Scotch and drank it more slowly than he had before. He wasn't even close to being intoxicated. I saw that he planned it that way. When I was mortal I always drank to get drunk. But then I'd been very young, and very poor, castle or no castle, and most of the brew was bad.

  "You search for God," he said, with a little nod.