by Anne Rice
He tumbled gently back against the seat. He stared upwards now, past me, resisting the inevitable rocking of the car, and its sudden jerks as it slowed, perhaps blocked by the traffic. He stared and only slowly lowered his eyes to me in the most fearless and casual manner I have ever seen in a man.
Then, lifting his hand, he began to tremble. But it wasn't cowardice. It wasn't even shock. It was glee, the pure mad glee he'd felt when he looked at the skull.
He wanted to touch me. He rubbed his hands together, and he reached out and then he drew back.
"Go ahead," I said. "I don't care. Do it. I would like you to do it."
I reached forward and grabbed his right hand before he could stop me and I lifted it as he stared amazed. His mouth opened. I lifted his hand and pushed it against my thick hair, and laid it on my cheek, and then against my chest.
"You feel a heartbeat?" I asked. "There is none. Only a living pulse as if I were whole and entire a heart, made of a heart, when the very opposite is surely the truth. I feel your pulse, true enough, and it races. I feel your strength and you have much."
He tried to free his hand, but only politely, and I wouldn't let him do it; I held his hand now so that I could see the palm of it in the flashing light coming through the windows.
The car went very slowly.
I saw the lines in his palm, and then I opened my right hand which was free, and I saw the lines in my palm too. I had done well. No Master had ever done better. But I didn't know how to read these lines, only that they had come to me in glorious detail.
Then I made a decision to do something which I could not explain to myself. I kissed the palm of his hand. I kissed this tender flesh of his hand; I pressed my lips right against it and when I felt the shiver pass through him, I gloried in it, almost the way he was glorying in my presence.
I looked into his eyes and saw something of my own eyes in them, in their largeness, their darkness, even in the thick fringe of lashes of which I, once alive, had been so very proud.
I wanted to kiss his lips, to lock hold of them, and to kiss as enemies kiss before one tries to kill the other.
Indeed, if there had ever been a moment for the Servant of the Bones like this with any mortal, I didn't remember it. Not a wisp of such a memory remained; indeed, I felt nothing now except a fascination with him, and all that came to trouble it was her face, Esther's, and her lips and her dying words.
"And what makes you think that I am not Master!" he whispered. A shining smile spread on his lips, almost rapturous.
I released his hand and he slipped it away, and brought his own two hands together as if to protect them against me, but this was done with graceful composure.
"I'm the Master and you know it," he said it gently. But his voice was eager and loving. "Azriel! You're mine."
There wasn't even a sensible particle of fear in him. Indeed the wonder he knew now seemed the kernel of his person, the part of him which had always defied the Rebbe and had defied a legion of others, and would defy me. The wonder in him was...what? The monstrous arrogance of an Emperor?
"I am not the Master?" he asked me.
I looked at him calmly. I was thinking about him in wholly new ways, not ways of rage, but ways of wanting to know: who and what was he? Had he killed her? What if he had not?
"I say not, Gregory," I answered his question. "You're not the Master. But then I don't know everything. Ghosts must be forgiven that they know so much and so little at the same time."
"Rather like mortal men," he said with a delicate touch of sadness. "And were you ever one of them?"
A chill caught me off guard, rippling over new skin. Dimness. The cries of people echoing up glazed brick walls. I shook myself all over.
Certainly I had once been a mortal man! And so what.
I was here now in the car with him. The process of incarnation continued in me, with the thickening of the sinews and the deepening of the minerals within the new bones which were now in my fleshly body, and the hair that formed on the backs of my arms and on my fingers, and the soft remnant of beard on my cheek.
And this process had to be of my doing. He sang no songs to make it happen; he recited no chants. He didn't even know it was happening. If there was an alchemy coming from him, it was the alchemy of his expression, his wonder, his obvious love.
Again came the dimness. It came swift and titanic--a procession, a great street with high blue-glazed walls, and the scent of flowers everywhere, and people waving, and a dreadful sadness, so bitter, so total, that for one moment I felt myself begin to dissolve.
The car around me seemed insubstantial, which meant that I was leaving it.
In the memory I raised my arm and voices cried in praise.
My god wouldn't look at me. My god turned his back on me and on the procession, and he wept.
I shook my head. Gregory Belkin was watching all this, keenly sensing it.
"Something troubles you, Spirit," he said gently. "Or is it merely so hard to become flesh again?"
I took hold of the door handle. I looked at the glass and at my face.
I was the one who made myself stay.
The car shuddered and rumbled as it moved over the roughened street. He took no notice. But new light had come in from both sides, penetrating even the black glaze of the windows, and it showed how jubilant he was, and how easy, and how young he looked in his wonder and joy.
"Very well," he said with charm, eyebrows lifted, "so I am not the Master. Then tell me, beautiful one, and you are quite the handsome Spirit, why have you come to me?"
Once again, his teeth flashed white and there seemed a moment near magical when the various ornaments he wore--small and made of gold, at his wrists, on his tie--flickered as if struck by a note of music, and he looked very good, as good perhaps as he thought I looked.
Masters....Who were masters to me? Old men?
I spoke before I thought.
"There was never a Master as brave as you, Gregory," I said, "not that I can remember, though so much lies beyond my reach. No, your bravery is different, and fresh. And you are not the Master. It seems, like it or not, that I have come to you on my own and for my reasons."
This pleased him immensely.
I grew warmer and I felt the fibers of my clothes against me, I felt the snug certainty of being there. My foot flexed in my shoe.
"I like that you're not afraid of me," I said. "I like that you know what I am from the start as any Master might, but you're not the Master. I've been watching you. I've been learning things from you."
"Have you?" he said. He did not so much as flinch. He was in near ecstasy. "Tell me what you've seen." At the moment it seemed there was only one thing he found more fascinating than me, and that was himself.
I smiled at him.
He wasn't a man unused to happiness. He knew well how to enjoy things, both minute and momentous. And though nothing like this had ever happened to him, his life had educated him to enjoy this too.
"Yes," he said, smiling broadly. "Yes!"
I hadn't spoken. We both knew it. Yet he had read my thoughts? What else is in there to read, I wonder?
The big car slid to a stop.
I was glad. I was frightened by his charm, frightened by the fact that I warmed to him, frightened that somehow in talking to him I gained strength. He didn't have to want it or wish it, only perhaps to witness it. But this I couldn't tolerate. I had been there when Esther died and he had not. He had not been there to see me, yet I had been strong enough to take the lives of her killers each in turn.
He stared out the windows, to the right and left. An immense crowd surrounded us, roaring, shouting, pushing up against the car so that it rocked suddenly on its wheels as a boat in water.
He was not concerned. He turned and looked at me. I felt that dimness come again, because this crowd reminded me of that old crowd, the crowd attending the procession, and the petals falling in the light, the incense rising, and people on the flat rooftop
s, standing at the very edge, with their arms outstretched.
Jonathan, you know now what I remembered, but I didn't remember then, you see. It was confusion. It was as if something were trying to force me to see my existence as a continuum. But I didn't trust it. I must have been very close to Zurvan's teachings a thousand times over the years and never knew it, never remembering Zurvan. Why else did I want to avenge this girl? Why else did I despise the Rebbe for his lack of mercy on me? Why else was this man's evil fascinating me so much that I hadn't already killed him?
He broke in with his gentle, beguiling voice.
"And so we're here, at my home, Azriel," he said.
He pulled me back fast.
"We are at my very door." He made a dreamy, weary gesture towards the people on either side of us. "Don't let them frighten you. I must invite you, please, to come in."
I saw rows of lighted windows high above.
The doors of the car had been unlocked with a loud distinct click. Now someone meant to open the door to my right and his left. In a split second, I saw a pathway made for him, beneath an awning. Ropes hung from bronze stanchions held back the multitude. There were television cameras bearing down upon us. I saw men in uniforms restraining those who screamed and cheered.
"But can they see you?" Gregory asked now, confidentially, as if we shared a secret.
It was a break in an almost perfect chain of gestures for him. Out of generosity I was tempted to let it go. But I didn't.
"See for yourself whether or not they can see me, Gregory," I answered. I reached down and gathered up the casket, and holding it firmly under my left arm, I took a grip of the door handle and stepped over him and out of the car before him onto the sidewalk in the blazing electric light.
I stood on the sidewalk. A great building rose before me. I held the casket of the bones tight to my chest. I could barely see the top of this building.
Everywhere I looked were shouting faces. Everywhere I looked, I looked at those who looked at me. It was a babble of people calling for Gregory, and others calling for blood for Esther, and I couldn't untangle the prayers.
Cameras and microphones descended; a woman shouted questions furiously at me and far too rapidly for me to understand. The crowd almost broke the ropes, but more uniformed men came to restore order. The people were both the young and the old.
The television lights gave off a powerful heat that hurt the skin of my face. I raised my hand to shield my eyes.
A thunderous and united cry rose as Gregory appeared now, with the helping hand of his driver, brushing his coat that was covered with dust from the casket, and he took his place at my side.
His lips came close to my ear.
"Indeed, they do see you," he said.
The dimness hovered, cries in other tongues deafened me, and I shook away again the mantle of sadness and looked right into the blaring lights and screaming faces that were here.
"Gregory, Gregory, Gregory," the people chanted. "One Temple, One God, One Mind."
First it overlapped, prayer atop prayer, as if it were meant to do so, coming at us in waves, but then the crowd brought their voices together:
"Gregory, Gregory, Gregory. One Temple, One God, One Mind."
He lifted his hand and waved, turning from left to right and all around, nodding and smiling and waving to those who stood behind him, and to those far off, and he kissed his hand, the very hand I'd kissed, and threw this kiss and a thousand other such kisses to the people who shrieked and called his name in delight.
"Blood, blood, blood for Esther!" someone screamed.
"Yes, blood for her! Who killed her!"
The prayer came roaring over it, but others had taken it up, "Blood for Esther," stamping their feet in time with their words.
"Blood, blood, blood for Esther."
Those with cameras and microphones broke through the ropes, pressing against us.
"Gregory, who killed her?"
"Gregory who is this with you?"
"Gregory, who is your friend?"
"Sir, are you a member of the Temple?"
They were talking to me!
"Sir, tell us who you are!"
"Sir, what is in the box you're carrying?"
"Gregory, tell us what the church will do?"
He turned and faced the cameras.
A trained squadron of dark-dressed men rushed to surround us and separate us from those questioning us, and en masse they pushed us gently up the lighted path, past the throng.
But Gregory spoke loudly:
"Esther was the lamb! The lamb was slain by our enemies. Esther was the lamb!"
The crowd went into a frenzy of approbation and applause.
Beside him, I stared right at the cameras, at the lights beaming down, at the flash of thousands of small hand-held cameras snapping out still pictures.
He drew in his breath to speak, in full command, as any ruler might, standing before his own throne. Loudly, he intoned his words:
"The murder of Esther was only their warning; they have let us know that the time is come when any righteous person will be destroyed!"
Again, the crowd screamed and cheered, vows were declared, chants were taken up.
"Don't give them an excuse!" Gregory declared. "No excuse to enter our churches or our homes. They come clothed in many disguises!"
The crowd pressed in on us in a dangerous surge.
Gregory's arm closed around me, caressingly.
I looked up. The building pierced the sky.
"Azriel, come inside," he said, again speaking close to my ear.
There came the loud sound of shattering glass. An alarm bell clanged. The crowd had pushed in one of the lower windows of the tower. Attendants rushed to the spot. Whistles sounded. I could see garbed police on horseback in the street.
We were drawn in through the doors across a floor of shimmering marble. Others held back the crowd. But still others surrounded us, making it near impossible for us to do anything but go where they forced us to go.
I was madly exhilarated, alive in the midst of this. Astonished and invigorated. Something told me that my former masters had been men of stealth, wise, keeping their power to themselves.
Here we stood in the capital of the world: Gregory sparkled with the surety of his power, and I walked beside him, drunk on being alive, drunk on all the eyes turned to us.
At last a pair of bronze doors rose up before us, carved with angels, and when they parted we were thrust together inside a mirrored chamber, and Gregory gestured for all the others to remain outside.
The doors swept closed. It was an elevator. It began to rise. I saw myself in the mirrors, shocked by my long and thick hair and the seeming ferocity of my expression, and I saw him, cold and commanding as ever, watching me, and watching himself. I appeared years younger than him, and just as human--but we might have been brothers, both of us swarthy, with sun-darkened skin.
His features were finer, eyebrows thinner and combed; I saw the prominent bones of my forehead and my jaw. But still, it was as if we were of the same tribe.
As the elevator moved higher and higher, I realized we were now completely alone, staring at one another, in a floating cabin of mirrored light.
But no sooner had I absorbed this little shock, this one of many, and no sooner had I righted myself and anchored my weight against the slight swaying of the elevator, than the doors were opened again upon a large sanctuary that appeared both splendid and private: a demilune entranceway of inlaid marble, doorways opening to left and right, and just before us a broad corridor leading to a distant chamber whose windows were wide open to the twinkling night.
We were higher than the mightiest ziggurat, castle, or forest. We were in the realm of the airy spirits.
"My humble abode," Gregory murmured. He had to rip his eyes from me. But he recovered.
From the doorways came the sounds of voices, and padded feet. A woman cried somewhere in agony. Doors were shut. No one appeared.
"It's the mother crying, isn't it?" I said. "The mother of Esther."
Gregory's face went blank then grew sad. No, it was something more painful than sadness, something he had never revealed in the presence of the Rebbe when they spoke of the dead daughter. He hesitated, seemed on the verge of saying something and then merely nodded. The sadness consumed him, his face, his body, even his hand, which hung limp at his side.
He nodded.
"We should go to her, should we not?" I said.
"And why would we do that?" he asked patiently.
"Because she's crying. She's sad. Listen to the voices. Someone is being unkind to her--"
"No, only trying to give her medicine that she needs--"
"I want to tell her that Esther didn't suffer, that I was there, and Esther's spirit went up so light it was like air itself in the Pathway of Heaven. I want to tell her."
He pondered this. The voices died down somewhat. I couldn't hear the woman crying anymore.
"Heed my advice," he said, reaching out for me and taking a firm grip of my arm. "Come into my parlor first and talk to me. Your words won't mean anything to her anyway."
I didn't like this. But I knew we must talk, he and I.
"Still, later at your leisure," I said, "I want to see her and comfort her. I want to--"
No words. No human cunning, suddenly, nothing but the crashing realization that I was on my own. Why in the name of Heaven had I been allowed to return with the full strength of a man? Or strength even greater.
Gregory studied me.
In a thinly lighted anteroom, I saw two women clothed in white. A man's voice rose husky and angry behind a door.
"The casket," said Gregory, pointing to the golden box in my arms. "Don't let her see such a thing. It would alarm her. Come with me first."
"Yes, it's a strange thing, this," I said, looking at the casket, at the gold flaking from it.
Dimness. Grief. The light changed just a fraction.
Go away from me, all doubt, and worry, and fear of failure, I said in a whisper in a tongue that he could not possibly understand.
There came the familiar reek of boiling liquid, of a golden mist rising. You know why. But I didn't. I turned and shut my eyes, and then looked again down the hallway, to the far window open to the night sky.
"Look at that," I said. I had only a vague point in mind, something to do with the raiment of Heaven being as beautiful as the marble that surrounded us, the archways above us, the pilasters flanking every door. "The stars beyond, look," I said again, "the stars."