by Anne Rice
The severed hand flew across the table. Rhoshamandes screamed in terror. Others around the table were gasping audibly, and shifting in their chairs.
Rhoshamandes stared at the hand, the blood pouring from his wrist, and tried to jerk himself free from me.
But just as I'd hoped, he couldn't do this. He couldn't move.
Marius and Seth and Sevraine and Gregory had all risen and were staring at him, pinning him there obviously with the Mind Gift as I knew they would.
The blood continued spurting out of his left arm, gushing on the table.
He tried to stifle another scream but he couldn't.
"Is there any place," I asked, "where we might burn that hand? I mean I can incinerate it here easily enough but I don't want to scorch the table."
"No!" he bellowed. He went mad trying to free himself from me, squirming, struggling against my hand and the invisible force that held him. I could see the preternatural flesh healing the breach at his wrist.
"You call that stupid little sorcerer's apprentice of yours now," I said, "and you tell him to free my son, or I'll hack you up piece by piece. And I'll burn each piece in front of you." I leaned down and looked into his eyes. "Don't think about trying to loose that fatal fire on me," I said. "Or they'll burn you black and dead at once."
He was frozen in rage and panic. Unfortunate for him.
I yanked his arm out and swung the ax again right below his shoulder, slicing the arm free.
The screams that erupted from him shook the chandeliers. He stared down at the stump.
I flung the arm down the length of the table to the middle. At once several of the others pushed away from it, with the scrape of their chairs on the boards, and shrank back.
He stared at his arm, unable to stop the screams ripping from him until he clamped his right hand over his mouth. A long ghastly moan came from him.
More of the others had risen and were backing away from the table, a reaction that didn't surprise me.
Seeing someone dismembered is difficult even for vampires of supreme detachment and self-control--even when they know that the limbs can be reattached and thrive again. And of course, speaking of burning the limbs, well ... that would take care of any future reattachment, wouldn't it?
"We need a brazier with coals," I said. "Or should we simply incinerate these fragments with the Fire Gift?" I glanced at the others, then back at Rhoshamandes "I'd tell the Voice to go to Hell, if I were you, and I'd call Benedict now and tell him to release my son."
I drew the phone out of my pocket.
"Benji, put the little thing on speaker, will you?" I slapped it down on the table.
Benji did as I had asked.
"I see your arm is already healing, friend," I said. "Maybe I should chop off both your legs at the same time."
With the greatest restraint, Rhoshamandes held back his sobs. I saw pure agony in his eyes as he looked at me, and then back at the severed arm and hand.
"I will command Benedict to kill the boy," said the Voice, filled with panic and rage as surely as Rhoshamandes was. "I will tell him now."
"No, you won't, Voice," I said under my breath. I looked down as I spoke to make it clear to everyone present that I was talking to the enemy himself. "Because if Benedict were like to do it, it would be done. He won't do any such thing until he knows his maker's safe. I'll wager his loyalty to his maker is a Hell of a lot stronger than his loyalty to you."
I turned to Rhoshamandes. "Now make us hear your fledgling Benedict talking through that phone now, clearly and distinctly, or I will chop off both your legs and split your breastbone with this ax."
Rhoshamandes put his right hand to his mouth now as if he were about to be sick. His face was blanched, and covered in a thin film of blood sweat. He was trembling violently. He reached for the phone and lifted it and struggled apparently to make his trembling fingers and thumb obey him.
He dropped the phone back onto the table, or it slipped out of his blood-tinged sweating hand.
All waited.
A voice came out of the phone, the voice of a blood drinker.
"Rhosh? Rhosh, I need you. Rhosh, everything has gone wrong!"
The Voice cursed me in French. Then in English. I was an abomination to it. Did I know that? I was anathema. I was all things foul and worthy of damnation.
"Benedict," I said coolly, "if you don't release my son unharmed, I'm going to chop your maker into pieces, do you understand? I've already chopped off his right hand and his arm. I'm going for his nose next, then his ears. And I'll burn these parts before I go for his legs. Do you want me to send you pictures of this?"
Indeed Benji was already snapping pictures with his own phone. The number from which Benedict was talking was plainly readable on Rhoshamandes's phone.
Benedict began weeping.
"But I can't," he said. "Please don't hurt him. I can't. I mean I ... I mean Viktor's free. He's free. Rhosh, let me speak to Rhosh, Rhosh, I need your help, Rhosh help me. She's come alive. She's woken up. She's broken out of her bonds. Rhosh, she's going to destroy me. Viktor's free. Viktor has run away. Rhosh, everything went wrong."
Rhosh sat back in the chair and looked at the dark glass ceiling. A long shudder passed through his body. The stump below his shoulder had sealed itself off and he was no longer bleeding.
"Oh, Benedict," he said with a long groan.
"Tell us exactly where you are!" said Benji. "Tell us now. You force me to trace this phone of yours, and I swear to you, Lestat will split this creature's tongue."
I laughed. I couldn't help it. The Voice had fallen into a nest of sighs, gasps, malicious whispers, and growls.
"You've got to come!" said Benedict. "She's after me. She's walking along the beach."
"Take to the air," said Rhoshamandes in a low groaning voice. "She doesn't know she has that gift."
"But I did," Benedict stammered. "I'm up here safe on this bluff, but Rhosh, if I leave here and if she wanders off, if I lose sight of her, if we lose her, Rhosh, help me. If she falls down somewhere in the sun, if the sun strikes her, if we lose her ..."
"You'll die," I said. "Where are you? Tell us now!"
"Montauk, the Atlantic coast, the tip of Long Island. Old Montauk Road. For God's sake, come."
At once Fareed and Seth made for the door.
"I want to come with you!" I shouted.
"No, stay here, please, and keep him here!" said Seth, with a nod to Sevraine and to Gregory. "Trust us to bring them back." He looked down at the phone. "Benedict, you harm that boy and we will kill you when we find you. And your maker will die here. You'll never see him again."
"I won't hurt him," Benedict said. "He's fine. I never wanted to hurt him. He's unharmed. He's walking inland towards the road. I didn't hurt him at all."
"I want to go with you," said Jesse, rising from her chair. David was right with her. "If anyone can calm Mekare, I can. Otherwise you might not be able to take her to safety. Let me come."
"Let us both come," said David.
"Of course, go," I said. "All of you, go."
Seth nodded, and they all left together.
The Voice was cursing me in some ancient language, promising to destroy me, promising me the most terrible reckoning, and I sat there at the end of the table, one knee up, the other leg dangling over the edge, the ax still in my right hand, and contemplated whether or not I wanted to go on chopping up this creature--well, just a little so that Benedict might hear him scream. I couldn't quite make up my mind.
And I could not stop thinking, This is the monster who murdered Maharet, the great Maharet who had never done him a particle of harm. This is the monster who attacked her as brutally as I am attacking him now.
I could hear Sybelle crying. I could hear a female voice, I think Bianca's voice, trying to quiet her. But she couldn't stop crying.
All the fight had gone out of Rhoshamandes. Sevraine was staring at him, fixedly, and so was Gregory--both clearly holding him there th
rough their power. But I wondered if it was even necessary now.
He was defeated, staring dully at the table before him, but he was no longer trembling, no longer sweating, and then that expression came over him again, that same look of cavalier dismissal, almost a facial shrug, and he seemed to collapse mentally into himself.
"This is not the finish," the Voice snarled at me. "This is only the beginning. I will drive you out of your mind before this is finished. You will beg me to leave you alone, on your knees. You think this is finished? Never."
I turned him off. Just like that. Turned him off. But it didn't last. He blasted through within a split second. It was as they had said. He was stronger. "I will make your existence miserable from now on and forever until I accomplish my purpose and then I will do to you all that you have done to him, and to me."
Allesandra walked slowly towards us and round in back of Rhoshamandes. She stood behind Rhoshamandes's chair and put her hands very lightly on his shoulders.
"Don't hurt him anymore, please," she said, appealing to me. "You have cut the Gordian knot, Lestat. Splendid. It is all splendid. But the Voice tricked him. The Voice duped him, as it duped me."
The Voice said, "You think you can shut me out! You think it's so easy? You think it's easy now that I'm stronger? You think you can do it now that I've recovered so much strength?"
"Voice," I said with a sigh. "Maybe we both have much to learn."
He began to weep. It was as loud and clear in my head as if he was in the very room. Again, I tried to shut him out. Again, I could not.
I opened my coat, wiped the blood off my ax on the lining of it, such pretty brown silk lining, and then I hooked the handle back in there under my arm.
"Give me back my arm and my hand, please," said Rhoshamandes.
"I will when my son is restored to me," I said.
To my astonishment, the sound of weeping came from the phone.
The Voice was quiet, but I could hear a low hiss that told me he was still here.
"Rhosh, are you there?" Benedict asked in a ragged aching tone.
"Yes, Benedict, I am. Are you watching her?"
"She's just walking along the sand. She sees me. She knows where I am. She's moving slowly towards me. Rhosh, this is horrible. Rhosh, talk to me."
"I'm listening, Benedict," said Rhosh wearily.
"She knows I'm the one who struck the fatal blow," Benedict cried. "Rhosh, it's all my fault. I kept thinking about it. I couldn't stop thinking about it, because I got this flash from her when I was binding her up. This flash, that she was with her sister, and her sister Maharet was alive and sitting beside her there and staring at me, and that's what I saw from her mind. And after you left, Rhosh, there was another one of those flashes from her, of the two of them together, and I knew she was awake down there, and I didn't know what to do, and then Viktor, Viktor set the house on fire."
We sat listening to this, all of us, without a word. Even the Voice was listening, I was sure of it. In the far corner, my beloved Rose was sitting against the wall, her knees drawn up, her fingers splayed in front of her eyes.
"He lit a fire in there, Rhosh. There were all these scented candles, matches, I didn't think, I never thought. He set a bundle of towels on fire in the shower stall. He set a towel on fire under the door, the wooden door...."
"I understand Benedict," Rhosh said with a long sigh. His eyes were wearily fastened on his severed arm and hand.
"I went up there to put the fire out, and to try to make him stop it, to make him be patient. I told him no one was really going to hurt him! And then I heard sounds from the cellar. She was coming. I knew it. She was coming after me. I was talking to Viktor and she was there, Rhosh, in the door. I was terrified, Rhosh. Terrified and I couldn't get that image out of my head of bringing that blade down to kill Maharet. She knew. She saw it. She knew. And I thought, She's going to destroy me now, crush me with those white hands. But she just moved right past me and she went up to Viktor. She went to Viktor and, Rhosh, she started stroking his face and kissing him. And I ran."
He broke down in sobs.
Rhosh raised his eyebrows in the most bitter ironical expression, and perhaps this was far more indicative of his true heart than that cavalier dismissive expression that kept competing with it as he continued to look at his severed parts.
"I have to go now," said Benedict miserably. "They're down there on the beach with her. They have Viktor. But where should I go?"
"Come here," I said, "and collect your maker because as soon as my son is safe in my arms, I'll give him back what I've taken from him." I promised nothing else.
I stood up and turned and faced the others. I wondered how many of them wanted me to be their leader now. Well, I had given them a gruesome taste of what I was capable of, acts that were far more difficult to perform for anyone with a drop of humanity in him than simply blasting others away with invisible force or exterminating heat. I'd given them a really good taste of what sort of ruler I might be.
I expected a certain amount of contempt with an equal measure, I hoped, of grudging sympathy, but I saw nothing but simple expressions, eyes fixed on me as agreeably and even generously as ever. True, Sybelle was crying and Bianca was trying to comfort her, but I sensed no hostility from any of them.
Flavius was actually smiling at me. And Zenobia and Avicus were entirely calm. Pandora seemed lost in her own thoughts, and Arjun merely gazed at me with obvious admiration.
Gregory had a subtle smile on his face. And Armand's expression was very nearly the same. There was even the faintest smile on Louis's face, and that amazed me, though there was some other element in it, which I couldn't define. Notker was gazing at me with an open, affable expression, and Sevraine was looking coldly at Rhoshamandes without the slightest apparent emotion, while Eleni was looking up with frank admiration and Eugenie merely watched without obvious concern.
Armand stood up, his eyes as innocent and submissive as they always appeared.
"They'll be coming into the back garden," he said. "Let me show you the way."
"I think you should destroy this one," said Benji with a serious frown as he looked at Rhoshamandes. "He cares nothing about any of us. He cares only for his Benedict and himself."
Rhoshamandes showed no sign that this surprised him or even that he'd heard.
"Lestat," said Benji. "You are our prince now. Destroy him."
"He was tricked," said Allesandra again softly.
"They killed the great Maharet," said Notker under his breath. He gave a little shrug, one eyebrow raised eloquently. "They killed her. They took counsel from no one. They should have come to you, to the others here, to us."
"Except the Voice bewitched them," said Allesandra, "and the Voice lies and the Voice is treacherous."
I could hear the Voice snickering and murmuring and then he cried out, startling me, positively screaming in my head, exploding all rational thought, but I quickly regained my poise. "Destroy him," said the Voice. "He bungled everything."
I almost laughed out loud, but pressed my lips together in a bitter smile.
But Rhoshamandes knew what the Voice had just said to me. Rhoshamandes had picked it up from my mind.
He looked at me, but nothing changed in his calm face, and then slowly he looked away.
"I gave my word," I said to Benji. "When Viktor comes, we'll give him back these fragments. I can't break my word."
I went round the table and towards Rose.
She lay pale and shuddering against the satin pillows. I collected her in my arms and carried her out of the ballroom behind Armand.
25
Lestat
The Garden of Love
IT WAS a vast space, walled in brick, and lined with young oak trees rising some three stories with bright green leaves. There were banks of flowers, and pathways winding through patches of flowers, and all of this artfully lighted with electric bulbs concealed at the roots of the trees and the shrubbery, and little J
apanese stone lanterns here and there on patches of grass with flickering flames.
The dull soothing roar of Manhattan seemed to enfold it as surely as the dim hulking outline of tall buildings behind it and on either side. Three townhouse gardens had been joined, obviously, to make this little paradise, this lovingly tended place that seemed as verdant and vital as an old New Orleans courtyard, safe from the throbbing world around it, and existing only for those who knew its secret or had the keys to its formidable gates.
Rose and I sat on the bench together. She was dazed, silent. I said nothing. What was there to say? She was a nymph beside me in her white silk dress, and I could feel her heart beating rapidly, hear the anguished thoughts struggling to achieve some coherence in her feverish mind.
I held her firmly with my right arm.
We were gazing on this little wilderness of thick pink hydrangea and luminous calla lilies, of creeping moonflowers on tree trunks and glistening white gardenias that gave off the most intoxicating scent. High above, the sky shone with reflected light.
They appeared as if out of nowhere. Fareed, with this radiant mortal boy in his arms. One moment we were alone, and then we saw them standing against the back wall, before the stately promenade of trees, and the boy--the young man--came towards us ahead of the dark hesitating figure of Fareed.
Rose ran to him. She rushed towards him and he took her at once in his arms.
Had I met him anywhere in this world, I would have been staggered by his resemblance to me, the bright golden hair, the way my hair had once been before the Dark Blood had lightened it and the repeated burnings had lightened it so that it shone almost white. That was how it had once looked, full and natural, like that, and this was a face I knew that looked at me now, a face that so resembled the boy I myself had once been.
I could see my brothers in him, my long-forgotten brothers who'd died unmourned in the mountains of the Auvergne, bodies left to rot by a mob of peasants in those awful days of revolution and destruction and competing visions for a brand-new world. A raft of sensations caught me off guard--smell of sunshine on the haystacks, and the straw bed in the sunlit room of the inn, taste of wine, sour and acidic, and the dreamy drunken vision from the inn window of that ruined chateau rising out of the very rocks, it seemed, a monstrous yet natural excrescence, in which I'd been born.