by Anne Rice
There was an interval of silence and the Voice railed at me that I’d better enjoy this little cozy tête-à-tête with my son because it might well be my last. But he was dispirited. This was all halfhearted.
Viktor had questions for me then about what happened, and when he started to talk again, the Voice went quiet.
I was rather reluctant to tell him what I’d done, but Rose had witnessed it so I did. “We’re all human and preternatural,” I said. “No matter how long we live. And few humans can bear seeing a hand or an arm chopped off. It was the best way to paralyze him, to shift the power in the room with one or two strokes. And frankly I suspect most blood drinkers aren’t able to do that sort of chopping unless it’s in the heat of battle when we’re all butchers and fighting for our lives. I knew it would be a stalemate. It was a gamble, of course, but one I had to take. If Rhosh had fled …”
“I understand,” said Viktor.
He was in complete agreement. He had not wanted to play any role in the Voice’s game.
The Voice was listening quite attentively. I knew this. How I knew, I wasn’t certain, but I could feel the intensity of his engagement.
Viktor and I talked on a long time after that. He told me about his studies at Oxford and later in Italy and how he had fallen in love with Rose.
They were well matched when it came to gifts, Viktor and Rose. Rose had bloomed into a graceful and striking young woman. Her black hair and her blue eyes were not the sum of it. She had a delicacy of form and feature that I found irresistible, and her face was stamped with a mysterious expression that elevated her from the merely beautiful to a different and very seductive realm. But Rose had a vulnerability to her that shocked Viktor. Rose had been wounded and defeated in ways Viktor scarcely understood. This had apparently sharpened his attraction to Rose, his desperate need to be with her and protect her and make her part of himself.
It struck me how very strange it all was that she should come to be the mortal in this world that Viktor, given his origins, should love. I’d sought to protect her from myself, and my secrets. But this never really works. And I should have known that it would not. In the last two years, I’d kept away from her with the best of intentions, certain she must meet her challenges without me, and disaster had nearly destroyed her, yet she’d found herself in the arms of my son. I knew how it had happened, beat by beat, yet it still amazed me.
I knew what he wanted. I knew what she wanted. This Romeo and Juliet, so bright and filled with human promise, were dreaming of Death, certain that in Death they would be reborn.
Rose was cuddled up beside Viktor in the big leather wing chair by that time, and he was holding her with obvious affection and her face was white with exhaustion. She seemed about to faint. I knew she had to rest.
But I had more to say. And why should it be delayed?
I stood up, stretched, feeling something like a silent nudge from the Voice, but no annoying nonsense, and I went to the mantel and placed my hands on it, and looked down in the dancing gas fire.
It was almost dawn.
I tried to think, for decency’s sake, of what life might be for these two if we denied them the Dark Gift. But this was pointless. Really pointless. I didn’t know that I could live with such a decision, and I was certain that they could not mentally or spiritually survive such a denial.
Yet I felt compelled to ponder. And ponder I did. I knew what Rose was suffering now, blaming herself for all her many misfortunes, none of which had ever been her doing. And I knew how much she loved Viktor and how much he loved her. Such a bond would strengthen both of them through the centuries, and I had to think now in terms of our tribe, our species, being something not accursed, no, never accursed—a tribe that must no longer be left to sink or swim in a sea of self-loathing and haphazard depravity and aimless struggle. I had to think of us as these two young ones saw us—as living an exalted existence that they wanted to share.
In sum, my change of heart towards my own nature, and the nature I shared with all the Undead, had to begin in earnest right now.
I turned to face them.
Rose was quite awake now, and they looked at me not with desperation but with a quiet trusting resignation.
“Very well then,” I said. “If you would accept the Dark Blood, so be it. I don’t oppose it. No. I do ask that the one who gives it to you be skilled at the giving. And Marius would be my choice for this, if he is willing, as he knows how to do it, passing the blood back and forth over and over, creating the most nearly perfect effects.”
An immense change came over them silently, as they appeared to realize the import of my words. I could see that Viktor had a multitude of questions to ask me, but Rose had a quiet dignified expression on her face that I hadn’t seen in her since I’d arrived. This was the old Rose, the Rose who knew how to be happy, not the quivering battered one making her way through the events of the last months with fragile and desperate faith.
“I say Marius as well for other reasons,” I explained. “He has two thousand years and he is very strong. True there are others here who are infinitely stronger, but with their blood will come almost a monstrous power that is better understood when it is accrued over time. Believe me, I know, because I’ve drunk the Mother’s Blood and I have far too much power for my own good.” I paused. “Let it be Marius,” I said. “And those who are older can share their blood with you and you will share some of their strength and that will be a great gift as well.”
Viktor seemed deeply impressed with these thoughts, and I could see it was with difficulty that he questioned me.
“But, Father,” he said. “All my life I’ve loved Fareed, and Fareed was made by Akasha’s son.”
“Yes, Viktor,” I said. “This is true, but Fareed was a man of forty-five when he received Seth’s blood. You’re a boy and Rose is a girl. Take my advice in this, but I’m not unshakable on this point. Tomorrow we can make this decision, if you like, and it can be done at any time.”
Viktor rose to his feet and Rose stood straight and confidently beside him.
“Thank you, Father,” said Viktor.
“Now, it’s almost dawn. I want you safely in the cellars.”
“But why? Why must we be in the cellars now?” Viktor asked. He obviously didn’t like the idea of being in a cellar.
“Because it’s safest. You can’t know what the Voice has done.”
“That’s very true,” the Voice said in me with a laugh, a positive cackle.
“It might well have incited other blood drinkers to incite mortals against us,” I said. “I want you in the cellar until sunset. This compound has a great staff of mortal guards, and that is good but I must take every precaution. Please do as I say. I’ll be in this room for the time being. That’s already been arranged. And I will see you both very soon indeed.”
I held them both to me for a long moment before they left.
The door had the usual ornate little brass keys and a big brass bolt. I locked it up.
I fully expected the Voice to start ranting. But there was only silence and a dim little sound, almost a comforting sound, from the play of the gas flames on the porcelain logs. They had a rhythm all their own, these gas flames, a dance of their own. When I turned out the lights the room was pleasingly shadowy and dim.
I was steeling myself for the Voice.
Then the inevitable paralysis started to come over me. The sun rising over Manhattan. I kicked off my shoes and lay down on the long damask couch with a plump little needlepoint pillow for my head and closed my eyes.
There came a flash of the twins again. It was just as if I was there with them in that grassy place in the warm sunshine. I could hear the insects swarming in the fields nearby, swarming in the green shade beneath the nearby trees. And the twins were smiling and talking to me, and it felt we’d been talking forever, and then came the sound of the Voice weeping, and I said, “But what do you want me to call you! What is your true name?”
An
d in a tearful tone, he said, “It’s what she always called me. She knew. My name is Amel.”
27
Lestat
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
AFTER SUNSET, I went on the air immediately with Benji. The Voice had whispered hateful words in my ear when I awakened, but it was completely quiet now.
We were in the fourth-floor studio with its microphones, phone banks, and computers, and Antoine and Sybelle were with us, Antoine to man the phones.
I was very proud of my handsome Antoine, proud of his composing, his piano playing, his violin playing, proud of his expertise with all this modern equipment, but there was not time now for any real reunion with him. That would have to wait. That I’d keep him close after this was a foregone conclusion. He was my fledgling and I would assume full responsibility for him.
But the broadcast was on my mind now. Benji reminded me that vampires all over the world were listening, that even the fledglings crowding the street below could hear the broadcast through their cell phones, and that my remarks would be recorded, and replayed all through the next day. When Benji gave me the signal, I started to speak in a low voice well below the frequency that mortal ears could hear.
I explained that Viktor, the unfortunate victim of a blood drinker kidnapping, had been returned safely and order in our world was being restored. I told the young vampires of the world who the Voice was and explained various ways of defending oneself against the Voice. I explained this was Amel, the spirit that animated all of us and had only just come to consciousness. I explained I was in direct communication with the Voice and would do my best to quiet him and discourage him from attempting any more mischief. I assured them finally that I felt the Burnings were over for the most part—we had had no word of the Burnings in two nights, according to Benji—and that the Voice was now occupied in other ways. Then I made them a promise. Within a few nights, I would come to speak to them at some place where we might gather unseen. I did not know yet where that was to be. But I would give them the location when I did know and I would give them time to assemble.
When I said those words, I heard them roaring with approval in the street below, a ghost of a sound rolling up the walls and penetrating this studio. Benji smiled triumphantly, gazing at me as if I were a god.
“For now, you must do as I say,” I said into the microphone. “You know what I am going to explain to you. But you must hear it again. No quarreling whatsoever amongst yourselves. No one, but no one, must strike out at another blood drinker. This is forbidden! And you must hunt the evildoer, never the innocent. There are to be no exceptions. And you are to have honor! You must have honor. If you do not know what honor is, then look it up in your online dictionaries and memorize the definition. Because if we do not have honor, we are lost.”
I sat there in silence for a moment. Again, they were roaring and cheering in the street below. I was gazing off and into my thoughts. I knew the lights were flashing as calls were coming in from all over the world. Through Antoine’s earphones I could hear him greeting each caller, and stabbing the lighted button to put each caller on hold.
The Voice had not said a word. And I wanted to say more as to the Voice, and so I did.
I was brief on this. But I said it.
“Understand, Children of the Night, that the Voice may have knowledge to share with us. The Voice may have gifts to give to us! The Voice may well become a precious gift to us in himself. The Voice is after all the fount of all we are; and the Voice has only just begun to express himself, to tell us what he wants us to know. No, we must not allow ourselves to be duped by the Voice into destroying one another. Never. But we must have patience with the Voice. We must have respect, and I mean this, we must have respect for who and what the Voice is.”
I hesitated. I wanted to say more.
“The Voice is a mystery,” I said, “and this mystery must not be treated by us with hasty and foolish contempt.”
Inside me there was a silent convulsing as if Amel were responding and wanted me to know he was responding, but he didn’t speak.
I went on talking again. I spoke of many things. I spoke softly into the microphone and spoke into a great silence—I spoke of the Little Drink and the art of it, to feed without taking life, I spoke of the elegance of compassion, to feed without cruelty. “Even mortals follow such rules when they hunt game,” I said. “Are we not better than they are?” I spoke of territories where the evildoers still congregated, places of violence and want where humans were driven to cruelty and murder. I spoke of great communities devoid of such desperate villains, which could not become the hunting grounds of the Undead.
“This is the beginning,” I said. “We will survive; we will define ourselves.”
A deep conviction of all this had rooted itself in me. Or rather I was finding it within me, because perhaps it had always been there. “We will not behave as things to be despised simply because we are despised!” I said. “We must emerge from this crisis with a new will to prosper.” I paused. Then I repeated the word “prosper.” And I said again, because I couldn’t stop myself. “Hell shall have no dominion over us. Hell shall have no dominion.”
There came again that low rumbling explosion of applause and cheering from the streets around us, like a great sigh as it expanded and then began to die away.
I pushed the microphone back and in a silent passion left the studio as Benji began to answer the calls.
When I came down into the drawing room on the first floor, I saw that Rhoshamandes and Benedict were there surrounded by Sevraine, Gregory, Seth, and Fareed and others, and they were all in fast conversation with one another. Nobody, not even Rhoshamandes or Benedict themselves, asked if they might now be released.
There was so much more to be done, to be decided, so much more that the blood drinkers around the world could not fully understand. But for now, all was well under this roof. I sensed this. I felt it.
Rhoshamandes, dressed in fresh clothes, his arm and hand restored to him, was actually telling Eleni and Eugénie and Allesandra about his life after he’d left France centuries ago, and Gregory was asking him small rather interesting questions, and this proceeded, all of this, as if we’d never been at war the night before, and I’d never acted like the monster I was. And it was certainly proceeding as if he’d never murdered the great Maharet.
When he saw me in the door, Rhoshamandes only nodded at me and, after a respectful second or two, went back to what he’d been saying, about this place he’d built for himself, this castle in the northern seas. He appeared indifferent to me. But I secretly loathed the sight of him. And I could not stop myself from imagining what it had been like when he slaughtered Maharet. I could not forgive him for having done this. I was offended by this entire civilized gathering. I was deeply offended. But what did that matter? I had to think now not merely for myself but on behalf of everyone else.
There would come a time perhaps to reckon with him, I figured. And very likely he harbored a hatred for me on account of what I’d done that would bring about a time of reckoning for both of us much sooner than I desired.
On the other hand, perhaps the secret of his brutality was a shallowness, a resilience born out of cosmic indifference to what he’d done.
There was another blood drinker staring at him coldly from a distance, and that was Everard, the spiffy black-haired fledgling of Rhoshamandes now making his home in Italy, who sat silently in one of the corners of the room. His eyes were fixed on Rhoshamandes with cold contempt, but I caught glimpses of a mind there that was seething and making no effort to conceal its torment. Ancient fires, rituals, eerie singing in Latin, all this drifted through his consciousness as he stared at Rhoshamandes, quite aware of my presence and yet allowing me to glimpse these thoughts.
And so this fledgling hates his maker and why? Was it on behalf of Maharet?
Slowly, without turning his head Everard looked up at me and his mind went quiet and I caught from him the distinct respon
se that he did indeed hate Rhoshamandes but for more reasons than he could say.
How in the world could any prince keep order amongst these powerful beings, I thought. Indeed the sheer impossibility of it rather crushed me.
I turned and left them all that way.
Way upstairs, Sybelle was playing her music. This must have been in the studio. Possibly Benji was breaking up the broadcast with it. It was comforting, the melody. I listened with all my being, and I heard only gentle voices all through the various chambers that made up this great and glorious house.
I was tired all over, dreadfully tired. I wanted to see Rose and Viktor, but not before I’d spoken to Marius.
I found him now in a library very much different from the one I’d come to love, a more dusty and crowded affair in the middle townhouse of the Trinity Gate complex, a room full of maps and world globes, and stacks of periodicals and newspapers as well as books climbing the walls, where he was at a battered old oak table spotted with ink, poring over a huge book on the history of India and Sanskrit.
He’d put on one of those cassocks that Seth and Fareed obviously favored, but his choice had been for a deep red-velvet fabric, and where he’d gotten it I had no idea, but it was Marius through and through. His long full hair was loose on his shoulders. No disguises or subtle accommodation of the modern world required under this roof.
“Yes, they have the right idea, surely,” he said to me, “when it comes to clothing. Why I have ever bothered with barbarian garb, I’ll never know.”
He was talking like a Roman. By barbarian garb he meant trousers.
“Listen to me,” I said. “Viktor and Rose must be given the Blood. I am hoping that you will do this. I have my reasons, but where do you stand with being the one?”
“I’ve already spoken to them,” he said. “I’m honored and willing. I told them as much.”