The Tale of the Body Thief tvc-4

by Anne Rice

  "Come, Mojo," I said, and we sought the stairs rather than the elevator, which was no great feat as we were only one floor above the ground, and we slipped out through the quiet and near-deserted lobby and into the night.

  Deep drifts of snow lay everywhere. The streets were clearly impassable to traffic, and there were tunes when I fell on my knees again, arms going deep into the snow, and Mojo licked my face as though he were trying to keep me warm. But I continued, struggling uphill, whatever my state of mind and body, until at last I turned the corner, and saw the lights of the familiar town house ahead.

  The darkened kitchen was now quite filled with deep, soft snow. It seemed a simple matter to plow through it until I realized that a frozen layer-from the storm of the night before-lay beneath it, which was quite slick.

  Nevertheless I managed to reach the living room safely, and lay down shivering on the floor. Only then did I realize I'd forgotten my overcoat, and all the money stuffed hi its pockets. Only a few bills were left in my shirt. But no matter. The Body Thief would soon be here. I would have my own form back again, all my powers! And then how sweet it would be to reflect on everything, safe and sound in my digs in New Orleans, when illness and cold would mean nothing, when aches and pains would exist no more, when I was the Vampire Lestat again, soaring over the rooftops, reaching with outstretched hands for the distant stars.

  The place seemed chilly compared to the hotel. I turned over once, peering at the little fireplace, and tried to light the logs with my mind. Then I laughed as I remembered I wasn't Lestat yet, but that James would soon arrive.

  "Mojo, I can't endure this body a moment longer," I whispered. The dog sat before the front window, panting as he looked out into the night, his breath making steam on the dim glass.

  I tried to stay awake, but I couldn't. The colder I became, the drowsier I became. And then a most frightening thought took hold of me. What if I couldn't rise out of this body at the appointed moment? If I couldn't make fire, if I couldn't read minds, if I couldn't. . .

  Half wrapped in dreams, I tried the little psychic trick. I let my mind sink almost to the edge of dreams. I felt the low delicious vibratory warning that often precedes the rise of the spirit body. But nothing of an unusual nature happened. Again, I tried. "Go up," I said. I tried to picture the ethereal shape of myself tearing loose and rising unfettered to the ceiling. No luck. Might as well try to sprout feathered wings. And I was so tired, so full of pain. Indeed, I lay anchored in these hopeless limbs, fastened to this aching chest, scarce able to take a breath without a struggle.

  But James would soon be here. The sorcerer, the one who knew the trick. Yes, James, greedy for his twenty million, would surely guide the whole process.

  When I opened my eyes again, it was to the light of day.

  I sat bolt upright, staring before me. There could be no mistake. The sun was high in the heavens and spilling in a riot" of light through the front windows and onto the lacquered floor. I could hear the sounds of traffic outside.

  "My God," I whispered in English, for Mon Dieu simply doesn't mean the same thing. "My God, my God, my God."

  I lay back down again, chest heaving, an£ too stunned for the moment to form a coherent thought or attitude, or to decide whether it was rage I felt or blind fear. Then slowly I lifted my wrist so that I might read the watch. Eleven forty-seven in the a.m.

  Within less than fifteen minutes the fortune of twenty million dollars, held in trust at the downtown bank, would revert once more to Lestan Gregor, my pseudonymous self, who had been left here in this body by Raglan James, who had obviously not returned to this town house before morning to effect the switch which was part of our bargain and now, having forfeited that immense fortune, was very likely never to come back.

  "Oh, God help me," I said aloud, the phlegm at once coming up in my throat, and the coughs sending deep stabs of pain into my chest. "I knew it," I whispered. "I knew it." What a fool I'd been, what an extraordinary fool.

  You miserable wretch, I thought, you despicable Body Thief, you will not get away with it, damn you! How dare you do this to me, how dare you! And this body! This body in which you've left me, which is all I have with which to hunt you down, is truly truly sick.

  By the time I staggered out into the street, it was twelve noon on the dot. But what did it matter? I couldn't remember the name or the location of the bank. I couldn't have given a good reason for going there anyway. Why should I claim the twenty million which in forty-five seconds would revert to me anyway? Indeed where was I to take this shivering mass of flesh?

  To the hotel to reclaim my money and my clothing?

  To the hospital for the medicine of which I was sorely in need?

  Or to New Orleans to Louis, Louis who had to help me, Louis who was perhaps the only one who really could. And how was I to locate that miserable conniving self-destructive Body Thief if I did not have the help of Louis! Oh, but what would Louis do when I approached him? What would his judgment be when he realized what I'd done?

  I was falling. I'd lost my balance. I reached for the iron railing too late. A man was rushing towards me. Pain exploded in the back of my head as it struck the step. I closed my eyes, clenching my teeth not to cry out. Then opened them again, and I saw above me the most serene blue sky.

  "Call an ambulance," said the man to another beside him. Just dark featureless shapes against the glaring sky, the bright and wholesome sky.

  "No!" I struggled to shout, but it came out a hoarse whisper. "I have to get to New Orleans!" In a rush of words I tried to explain about the hotel, the money, the clothing, would someone help me up, would someone call a taxi, I had to leave Georgetown for New Orleans at once.

  Then I was lying very quietly in the snow. And I thought how lovely was the sky overhead, with the thin white clouds racing across it, and even these dim shadows that surrounded me, these people who whispered to one another so softly and furtively that I couldn't hear. And Mojo barking, Mojo barking and barking. I tried, but I couldn't speak, not even to tell him that everything would be fine, just perfectly fine.

  A little girl came up. I could make out her long hair, and her little puff sleeves and a bit of ribbon blowing in the wind. She was looking down at me like the others, her face all shadows and the sky behind her gleaming frightfully, dangerously.

  "Good Lord, Claudia, the sunlight, get out of it!" I cried.

  "Lie still, mister, they're coming for you."

  "Just lie quiet, buddy."

  Where was she? Where had she gone? I shut my eyes, listening for the click of her heels on the pavement. Was that laughter I heard?

  The ambulance. Oxygen mask. Needle. And I understood.

  I was going to die in this body, and it would be so simple! Like a billion other mortals, I was going to die. Ah, this was the reason for all of it, the reason the Body Thief had come to me, the Angel of Death to give me the means which I had sought with lies and pride and self-deception. I was going to die.

  And I didn't want to die!

  "God, please, not like this, not in this body." I closed my eyes as I whispered. "Not yet, not now. Oh, please, I don't want to! I don't want to die. Don't let me die." I was crying, I was broken and terrified and crying. Oh, but it was perfect, wasn't it? Lord God, had a more perfect pattern ever revealed itself to me - the craven monster who had gone into the Gobi not to seek the fire from heaven but for pride, for pride, for pride.

  My eyes were squeezed shut. I could feel the tears running down my face. "Don't let me die, please, please, don't let me die. Not now, not like this, not in this body! Help me!"

  A small hand touched me, struggling to slip into mine, and then it was done, holding tight to me, tender and warm. Ah, so soft. So very little. And you know whose hand it is, you know, but you're too scared to open your eyes.

  If she's there, then you are really dying. I can't open my eyes. I'm afraid, oh, so afraid. Shivering and sobbing, I held her little hand so tight that surely I was crushing
it, but I wouldn't open my eyes.

  Louis, she's here. She's come for me. Help me, Louis, please. I can't look at her. I won't. I can't get my hand loose from her!

  And where are you? Asleep in the earth, deep beneath your wild and neglected garden, with the winter sun pouring down on the flowers, asleep until the night comes again.

  "Marius, help me. Pandora, wherever you are, help me. Khayman, come and help me. Armand, no hatred between us now. I need you! Jesse, don't let this happen to me."

  Oh, the low and sorry murmur of a demon's prayer beneath the wailing of the siren. Don't open your eyes. Don't look at her. If you do, it's finished.

  Did you call out for help in the last moments, Claudia? Were you afraid? Did you see the light like the fire of hell filling the air well, or was it the great and beautiful light filling the entire world with love?

  We stood in the graveyard together, in the warm fragrant evening, full of distant stars and soft purple light. Yes, all the many colors of darkness. Look at her shining skin, the dark blood bruise of her lips, and deep color of her eyes. She was holding her bouquet of yellow and white chrysanthemums. I shall never forget that fragrance.

  "Is my mother buried here?"

  "I don't know, petite cherie. I never even knew her name." She was all rotted and stinking when I came upon her, the ants were crawling all over her eyes and into her open mouth.

  "You should have found out her name. You should have done that for me. I would like to know where she is buried."

  "That was half a century ago, cherie. Hate me for the larger things. Hate me, if you will, because you don't lie now at her side. Would she keep you warm if you did? Blood is warm, cherie. Come with me, and drink blood, as you and I know how to do. We can drink blood together unto the end of the world."

  "Ah, you have an answer for everything." How cold her smile. In these shadows one can almost see the woman in her, defying the permanent stamp of child sweetness, with the inevitable enticement to kiss, to hold, to love.

  "We are death, ma cherie, death is the final answer." I gathered her up in my arms, felt her tucked against me, kissed her, kissed her, and kissed her vampire skin. "There are no questions after that."

  Her hand touched my forehead.

  The ambulance was speeding, as if the siren were chasing it, as if the siren were the force driving it on. Her hand touched my eyelids. I won't look at you!

  Oh, please, help me ... the dreary prayer of the devil to his cohorts, as he tumbles deeper and deeper towards hell.

  THIRTEEN

  YES, I know where we are. You've been trying to bring me back here from the beginning, to the little hospital." How forlorn it looked now, so crude with its clay walls, and wooden shuttered windows, and the little beds lashed together out of barely finished wood. Yet she was there in the bed, wasn't she? I know the nurse, yes, and the old round-shouldered doctor, and I see you there in the bed-that's you, the little one with the curls on the top of the blanket, and Louis there . ..

  All right, why am I here? I know this is a dream. It's not death. Death has no particular regard for people.

  "Are you sure?" she said. She sat on the straight-back chair, golden hair done up in a blue ribbon, and there were blue satin slippers on her small feet. So that meant she was there in the bed, and there on the chair, my little French doll, my beauty, with the high rounded insteps, and the perfectly shaped little hands.

  "And you, you're here with us and you're in a bed in the Washington, D.C., emergency room. You know you're dying down there, don't you?"

  "Severe hypothermia, very possibly pneumonia. But how do we know what infections we've got? Hit him with antibiotics. There's no way we can get this man on oxygen now. If we send him to University, he'd end up in the hall there too."

  "Don't let me die. Please . . . I'm so afraid."

  "We're here with you, we're taking care of you. Can you tell me your name? Is there some family whom we can notify?"

  "Go ahead, tell them who you really are," she said with a little silvery laugh, her voice always so delicate, so very pretty. I can feel her tender little lips, just to look at them. I used to like to press my finger against her lower lip, playfully, when I kissed her eyelids, and her smooth forehead.

  "Don't be such a little smarty!" I said between my teeth. "Besides, who am I down there?"

  "Not a human being, if that's what you mean. Nothing could make you human."

  "All right, I'll give you five minutes. Why did you bring me here? What do you want me to say-that I'm sorry about what I did, taking you out of that bed and making you a vampire? Well, do you want the truth, the rock-bottom deathbed truth? I don't know if I am. I'm sorry you suffered. I'm sorry anybody has to suffer. But I can't say for certain that I'm sorry for that little trick."

  "Aren't you the least little bit afraid of standing by yourself like this?"

  "If the truth can't save me, nothing can." How I hated the smell of sickness around me, of all those little bodies, feverish and wet beneath their drab coverings, the entire dingy and hopeless little hospital of so many decades ago.

  "My father who art in hell, Lestat be your name."

  "And you? After the sun burnt you up in the air well in the Theatre of the Vampires, did you go to hell?"

  Laughter, such high pure laughter, like glittering coins shaken loose from a purse.

  "I'll never tell!"

  "Now, I know this is a dream. That's all it's been from the beginning. Why would someone come back from the dead to say such trivial and inane things."

  "Happens all the time, Lestat. Don't get so worked up. I want you to pay attention now. Look at these little beds, look at these children suffering."

  "Aye, the way that Magnus took you away from your life, and gave you something monstrous and evil in return. You made me a slayer of my brothers and my sisters. All my sins have their origin in that moment, when you reached for me and lifted me from that bed."

  "No, you can't blame it all on me. I won't accept it. Is the father parent to the crimes of his child? All right, so what if it is true. Who is there to keep count? That's the problem, don't you see? There is no one."

  "So is it right, therefore, that we kill?"

  "I gave you life, Claudia. It wasn't for all time, no, but it was life, and even our life is better than death."

  "How you lie, Lestat. 'Even our life,' you say. The truth is, you think our accursed life is better than life itself. Admit it. Look at you down there in your human body. How you've hated it."

  "It's true. I do admit it. But now, let's hear you speak from your heart, my little beauty, my little enchantress. Would you really have chosen death in that tiny bed rather than the life I gave you? Come now, tell me. Or is this like a mortal courtroom, where the judge can lie and the lawyers can lie, and only those on the stand must tell the truth?"

  So thoughtfully she looked at me, one chubby hand playing with the embroidered hem of her gown. When she lowered her gaze the light shone exquisitely on her cheeks, on her small dark mouth. Ah, such a creation. The vampire doll.

  "What did I know of choices?" she said, staring forward, eyes big and glassy and full of light. "I hadn't reached the age of reason when you did your filthy work, and by the way, Father, I've always wanted to know: Did you enjoy letting me suck the blood from your wrist?"

  "That doesn't matter," I whispered. I looked away from her to the dying waif beneath the blanket. I saw the nurse in a ragged dress, hair pinned to the back of her neck, moving listlessly from bed to bed. "Mortal children are conceived in pleasure," I said, but I didn't know anymore if she was listening. I didn't want to look at her. "I can't lie. It doesn't matter if there is a judge or jury. I..."

  "Don't try to talk. I've given you a combination of drugs that will help you. Your fever's going down already. We're drying up the congestion in your lungs."

  "Don't let me die, please don't. It's all unfinished and it's monstrous. I'll go to hell if there is one, but I don't think there is. If the
re is, it's a hospital like this one, only it's filled with sick children, dying children. But I think there's just death."

  "A hospital full of children?"

  "Ah, look at the way she's smiling at you, the way she puts her hand on your forehead. Women love you, Lestat. She loves you, even in that body, look at her. Such love."

  "Why shouldn't she care about me? She's a nurse, isn't she? And I'm a dying man."

  "And such a beautiful dying man. I should have known you wouldn't do this switch unless someone offered you a beautiful body. What a vain, superficial being you are! Look at that face. Better looking than your own face."

  "I wouldn't go that far!"

  She gave me the most sly smile, her face glowing in the dim, dreary room.

  "Don't worry, I'm with you. I'll sit right here with you until you're better."

  "I've seen so many humans die. I've caused their deaths. It's so simple and treacherous, the moment when life goes out of the body. They simply slip away."

  "You're saying crazy things."

  "No, I'm telling you the truth, and you know it. I can't say I'll make amends if Hive. I don't think it's possible. Yet I'm scared to death of dying. Don't let go my hand."

  "Lestat, why are we here?"

  Louis?

  I looked up. He was standing in the door of the crude little hospital, confused, faintly disheveled, the way he'd looked from the night I'd made him, not the wrathful blinded young mortal anymore, but the dark gentleman with the quiet in his eyes, with the infinite patience of a saint in his soul.

  "Help me up," I said, "I have to get her from the little bed."

  He put out his hand, but he was so confused. Didn't he share in that sin? No, of course not, because he was forever blundering and suffering, atoning for it all even as he did it. I was the devil. I was the only one who could gather her from the little bed.