The Tale of the Body Thief tvc-4

by Anne Rice

  "Think of India," I whispered. "Think of the mangrove forest, and when you were most happy . .. "

  I wanted to say more, I wanted to say, no, not that, but I didn't know why! And the hunger surged in me, and the burning loneliness mingled with it, and once again I saw Gretchen, saw the pure horror in her face. I moved closer to him. David, David at last... Do it! and be done with talking, what do the images matter, do it! What's wrong with you that you fear to do it?

  And this time I caught him firmly in my embrace.

  There came his fear again, a spasm, but he did not truly struggle against me, and I savored it for one moment, this lush physical intimacy, the tall regal body hi my arms. I let my lips move over his dark gray hair, breathing in the familiar fragrance, I let my fingers cradle his head. And then my teeth broke through the surface of the skin before I meant to do it and the hot salted blood flowed over my tongue and filled my mouth.

  David, David at last.

  In a torrent the images came-the great forests of India, and the great gray elephants thundering past, knees lifted awkwardly, giant heads wagging, tiny ears flapping like loose leaves. Sunlight striking the forest. Where is the tiger? Oh, dear God, Lestat, you are the tiger! You've done it to him! That's why you didn't want him to think of this! And in a flash I saw him staring at me in the sunlit glade, David of years ago in splendid youth, smiling, and suddenly, for a split second, superimposed upon the image, or springing from within it like an unfolding flower, there appeared another figure, another man. It was a thin, emaciated creature with white hair, and cunning eyes. And I knew, before it vanished once more into the faltering and lifeless image of David, that it had been James!

  This man in my arms was James!

  I hurled him backwards, hand up to wipe the spilling blood from my lips.

  "James!" I roared.

  He fell against the side of the bed, eyes dazed, blood trickling onto his collar, one hand flung out against me. "Now don't be hasty!" he cried in that old familiar cadence of his own, chest heaving, sweat gleaming on his face.

  "Damn you into hell," I roared again, staring at those frenzied glittering eyes in David's face.

  I lunged at him, hearing a sudden spurt from him of desperate crazed laughter, and more slurred and hurried words.

  "You fool! It's Talbot's body! You don't want to hurt Talbot's-"

  But it was too late. I tried to stop myself but my hand had closed around his throat, and I'd already flung the body at the wall!

  In horror, I saw him slam into the plaster. I saw the blood splatter from the back of his head, and I heard the ugly crunch of the broken wall behind him, and when I reached out to catch him, he fell directly into my arms. In a wide bovine stare he looked at me, his mouth working desperately to make the words come out.

  "Look what you've done, you fool, you idiot. Look what... look what. . ."

  "Stay in that body, you little monster!" I said between my clenched teeth. "Keep it alive!"

  He was gasping. A thin tiny stream of blood poured out of his nose and down into his mouth. His eyes rolled. I held him up, but his feet were dangling as if he were paralyzed. "You . . . you fool . . . call Mother, call her ... Mother, Mother, Raglan needs you .. .

  Don't call Sarah. Don't tell Sarah. Call Mother-" And then, he lost consciousness, head flopping forward as I held him and then laid him down on the bed.

  I was frantic. What was I to do! Could I heal his wounds with my blood! No, the wound was inside, in his head, in his brain! Ah, God! The brain. David's brain!

  I grabbed up the telephone, stammered the number of the room and that there was an emergency. A man was badly hurt. A man had fallen. A man had had a stroke! They must get an ambulance for this man at once.

  Then I put down the phone and went back to him. David's face and body lying helplessly there! His eyelids were fluttering, and his left hand opened, and then closed, and opened again. "Mother," he whispered. "Get Mother. Tell her Raglan needs her ... Mother."

  "She's coming," I said, "you must wait for her!" Gently, I turned his head to the side. But in truth what did it matter? Let him fly up and out of it if he could! This body wasn't going to recover! This body could be no fit host to David ever again!

  And where the hell was David!

  Blood was spreading all over the coverlet of the bed. I bit into my wrist. I let the drops fall on the puncture wounds in the neck. Maybe a few drops on the lips would help somehow. But what could I do about the brain! Oh, God, how could I have done it...

  "Foolish," he whispered, "so foolish. Mother!"

  The left hand began to flop from side to side on the bed. Then I saw that his entire left arm was jerking, and indeed, the left side of his mouth was pulling to the side over and over again in the same repetitive pattern, as his eyes stared upwards and pupils ceased to move. The blood continued to flow from the nose and down into the mouth and over the white teeth.

  "Oh, David, I didn't mean to do it," I whispered. "Oh, Lord God, he's going to die!"

  I think he said the word "Mother" once more.

  But I could hear the sirens now, screaming towards Ocean Drive. Someone was pounding on the door. I slipped to the side as it was flung open, and I darted from the room, unseen. Other mortals were rushing up the stairway. They saw no more than a quick shadow as I passed. I stopped once in the lobby, and in a daze I watched the clerks scurrying about. The awful scream of the siren grew louder. I turned and all but stumbled out the doors and down into the street.

  "Oh, Lord God, David, what have I done?"

  A car horn startled me, then another blast jogged me loose from my stupor. I was standing in the very middle of the traffic. I backed away, and up onto the sand.

  Suddenly a large stubby white ambulance came rattling to a halt directly before the hotel. One hulking young man jumped from the front seat and rushed into the lobby, while the other went to throw open the rear doors. Someone was shouting inside the building. I saw a figure at the window of my room above.

  I backed further away, my legs trembling as if I were mortal, my hands clutching stupidly at my head as I peered at the horrid little scene through the dim sunglasses, watching the inevitable crowd gather as people stopped in their meandering, as they rose from the tables of the nearby restaurants and approached the hotel doors.

  Now it was quite impossible to see anything in normal fashion, but the scene materialized before me as I snatched the images from mortal minds-the heavy gurney being carried through the lobby, with David's helpless body strapped to it, the attendants forcing people to the side.

  The doors of the ambulance were slammed shut. Again the siren began its frightful peal, and off the vehicle sped, carrying David's body inside it to God only knows where!

  I had to do something! But what could I do? Get into that hospital; work the change upon the body! What else can save it? And then you have James inside it? Where is David? Dear God, help me. But why should You?

  At last I sprang into action. I hurried up the street, sprinting easily past the mortals who could scarcely see me, and found a glass-walled phone booth and slipped into it and slammed the door.

  "I have to reach London," I told the operator, spilling out the information: the Talamasca, collect. Why was it taking so long! I pounded upon the glass with my right fist in my impatience, the receiver pressed to my ear. At last one of those kindly patient Talamasca voices accepted the call.

  "Listen to me," I said, blurting out my name in full as I began. "This isn't going to make sense to you, but it's dreadfully important. The body of David Talbot has just been rushed to a hospital in the city of Miami. I don't even know which hospital! But the body is badly wounded. The body may die. But you must understand. David is not inside this body. Are you listening? David is someplace . . ."

  I stopped.

  A dark shape had appeared in front of me on the other side of the glass. And as my eyes fell on it, fully prepared to dismiss it-for what did I care if some mortal man were pressing
me to hurry?-I realized it was my old mortal body standing there, my tall young brown-haired mortal body, in which I had lived long enough to know every small particular, every weakness and strength. I was staring into the very face I had seen in the mirror only two days ago! Only it was now two inches taller than 1.1 was looking up into those familiar brown eyes.

  The body wore the same seersucker suit with which I had last clothed it. Indeed, there was the same white turtleneck shirt that I had pulled over its head. And one of those familiar hands was lifted now in a calm gesture, calm as the expression on the face, giving me the unmistakable command to hang up the phone.

  I put the receiver back into its hook.

  In a quiet fluid movement, the body came around to the front of the booth and opened the door. The right hand closed on my arm, drawing me out with my full cooperation onto the sidewalk and into the gentle wind.

  "David," I said. "Do you know what I've done?"

  "I think so," he said with a little lift to the eyebrows, the familiar English voice issuing confidently from the young mouth. "I saw the ambulance at the hotel."

  "David, it was a mistake, a horrible, horrible mistake!"

  "Come on, let's get away from here," he said. And this was the voice I remembered, truly comforting and commanding and soft.

  "But, David, you don't understand, your body . . ."

  "Come, you can tell me all about it," he said.

  "It's dying, David."

  "Well, there isn't much we can do about it, then, is there?"

  And to my utter amazement, he put his arm around me, and leant forward in his characteristic authoritative manner, and pressed me to come along with him, down the pavement to the corner, where he put up his hand to signal a cab.

  "I don't know which hospital," I confessed. I was still shaking violently all over. I couldn't control the tremours in my hands. And the sight of him looking down at me so serenely was shocking me beyond endurance, especially when the old familiar voice came again from the taut, tanned face.

  "We're not going to the hospital," he said, as if deliberately trying to calm a hysterical child. He gestured to the taxi. "Please get in."

  Sliding onto the leather seat beside me, he gave the driver the address of Grand Bay Hotel in Coconut Grove.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  I WAS still in a pure mortal state of shock as we entered the large marble-tiled lobby. In a haze, I saw the sumptuous furnishings, the immense vases of flowers, and the smartly dressed tourists drifting past. Patiently, the tall brown-haired man who had been my former self guided me to the elevator, and we went up in swooshing silence to a high floor.

  I was unable to tear my eyes off him, yet my heart was throbbing from what had only just taken place. I could still taste the blood of the wounded body in my mouth!

  The suite we entered now was spacious and full of muted colors, and open to the night through a great wall of floor-length windows which looked out upon the many lighted towers along the shores of dark serene Biscayne Bay.

  "You do understand what I've been trying to tell you," I said, glad to be alone with him at last, and staring at him as he .. settled opposite me at the small round wooden table. "I hurt him, David, I hurt him in a rage. I... I flung him at the wall."

  "You and your dreadful temper, Lestat," he said, but again it was the voice one uses to calm an overwrought child.

  A great warm smile fired the beautifully molded face with its clear graceful bones, and broad serene mouth-David's unmistakable smile.

  I couldn't respond. Slowly, I lowered my eyes from the radiant face to the powerful straight shoulders settling against the back of the chair, and the entire relaxed form.

  "He led me to believe he was you!" I said, trying to focus again. "He pretended to be you. Oh, God, I poured out all my woe to him, David. He sat there listening to me, suckering me on. And then he asked for the Dark Gift. He told me he'd changed his mind. He lured me up to the rooms to give it to him, David! It was ghastly. It was everything I had wanted, and yet I knew something wasn'l right! Something about him was so sinister. Oh, and there were clues, and I didn't see them! What a fool I was."

  "Body and soul," said the smooth-skinned, poised young man opposite. He removed the seersucker jacket, tossing it on the nearby chair, and sat back again, folding his arms across his chest. The fabric of the turtleneck shirt showed his muscles to great advantage, and the clean white cotton made his skin seem all the more richly colored, almost a dark golden brown.

  "Yes, I know," he said, the lovely British voice flowing naturally. "It's quite shocking. I had the very same experience, only a few days ago in New Orleans, when the only friend I have in the world appeared before me in this body! I sympathize completely. And I do understand-you needn't ask me again- that my old body is probably dying. It's just I don't know what either of us can do."

  "Well, we can't go near it, that's certain! If you were to come within a few feet of it,

  James might sense your presence and focus sufficiently to get out."

  "You think James is still in the body?" he asked, the eyebrows lifting again, precisely as David always lifted them when he spoke, the head tipping forward ever so slightly, and the mouth on the edge of a smile.

  David in that face! The timbre of the voice was almost exactly the same.

  "Ah ... what... oh, yes, James. Yes, James is in the body! David, it was a blow to the head! You remember our discussion. If I was to kill him, it ought to be a swift blow to the head. He was stammering something about his mother. He wanted her. He kept saying to tell her that Raglan needed her. He was in that body when I left the room."

  "I see. This means the brain is functioning but the brain is severely impaired."

  "Exactly! Don't you see? He thought he would stop me from hurting him because it was your body. He had taken refuge in your body! Oh, he figured wrong! Wrong! And to try to lure me into the Dark Trick! What vanity! He should have known better. He should have confessed his little scheme the moment he saw me. Damn him. David, if I haven't killed your body, I've wounded it beyond repair."

  He had drifted into his thoughts precisely the way he always did in the midst of conversation, the eyes soft and wide and looking off into the distance through the floor- length windows, and over the dark bay.

  "I must go to the hospital, mustn't I?" he whispered.

  "For God's sakes, no. Do you want to be plunged into that body as it dies! You can't be serious."

  He climbed to his feet with an easy grace, and moved to the windows. He stood there staring out into the night, and I saw the characteristic posture in him, I saw the unmistakable expression of David in troubled reflection in the new face.

  What absolute magic it was to see this being with all his poise and wisdom shining from within this young form. To see the soft intelligence behind the clear young eyes as he looked down at me again.

  "My death's waiting for me, isn't it?" he whispered.

  "Let it wait. It was an accident, David. It's not an inevitable death. Of course there is one alternative. We both know what.”

  "What?" he asked.

  "We go there together. We get into the room somehow by bewitching a few medical persons of various rank. You push him out of the body, and you go into it, and then I give you the blood. I bring you to me. There is no conceivable injury that the full infusion of blood won't heal."

  "No, my friend. You should know better by now than to suggest it. That I cannot do."

  "I knew you'd say it," I said. "Then don't go near the hospital. Don't do anything to rouse him from his stupor!"

  And then we both fell silent, looking at one another. The alarm was fast draining out of me. I was no longer trembling. And I realized quite suddenly that he had never been alarmed.

  He wasn't alarmed now. He did not even look sad. He was looking at me, as if asking me silently to understand. Or perhaps he wasn't thinking of me at all.

  Seventy-four years old he was! And he had gone out of a body full of
predictable aches and pains and dulling vision and into this hardy and beautiful form.

  Why, I could have no idea at all of what he was really feeling! I'd swapped a god's body for those limbs! He had swapped the body of an aged being, with death ever present at his shoulder, a man for whom youth was a collection of painful and tormenting memories, a man so shaken by those memories that his peace of mind was fast crumbling away entirely, threatening to leave him bitter and discouraged in the few years he had left.

  Now he had been given back his youth! He might live another whole lifetime! And it was a body that he himself had found enticing, beautiful, even magnificent-a body for which he himself had felt carnal desire.

  And here I'd been crying anxiously about the aged body, battered and losing its life drop by drop, in a hospital bed.

  "Yes," he said, "I'd say that is the situation, exactly. And yet I know that I should go to that body! I know that it is the proper home of this soul. I know that every moment I wait, I risk the unimaginable-that it will expire, and I will have to remain in this body. Yet I brought you here. And here is exactly where I intend to remain."

  I shuddered all over, staring at him, blinking as if to wake myself from a dream, and then shuddering again. Finally I laughed, a crazed ironic laugh. And then I said:

  "Sit down, pour yourself some of your bloody miserable Scotch and tell me how this came about."

  He wasn't ready to laugh. He appeared mystified, or merely in a great state of passivity, peering at me and at the problem and at the whole world from within that marvelous frame.

  He stood a moment longer at the windows, eyes moving over the distant high-rises, so very white and clean looking with their hundreds of little balconies, and then at the water stretching on to the bright sky.

  Then he went to the small bar in the corner, without the slightest awkwardness, and picked up the bottle of Scotch, along with a glass, and brought these back to the table. He poured himself a good thick swallow of the stinking stuff, and drank half of it, making that lovely little grimace with his tight new facial skin, exactly the way he had with the older, softer face, and then he flashed his irresistible eyes on me again.