Servant of the Bones

by Anne Rice

"Yes. Now tell me our destination in Miami. What is Miami? I'll meet you at the door of your home in Miami."

  "Don't try this," she said.

  "I have to. We can't go on with your suspicions. I see now Esther is like a diamond herself in the middle of a huge necklace, and the necklace is intricate. Where are we going? Where do I find Miami?"

  "Tip end of the East Coast of the United States. My home is in a tower at the very end of the town called Miami Beach. It's in a high-rise. I'm on the top floor. There is a pink beacon on the tower above my apartment. Further south are the islands called the Florida Keys and then the Caribbean."

  "That's enough; I'll see you there."

  I looked down at the spilled droplets of water, at the horrifying picture of Esther on the stretcher and then in absolute shock I saw that I was in the picture! I was there! I had been caught by the camera as I had raised my hands to my head and howled in grief for Esther. This was before the stretcher had been put inside the ambulance.

  "Look," I said. "That's me."

  She picked up the magazine, stared at the picture and at me.

  "Now I'm going to prove to you that I'm on your side, and I want to give that devil Gregory a good scare. You want something from your house? I'll bring it to you."

  She couldn't speak.

  I realized that I had frightened her and silenced her. She was merely watching me. I pictured her body without clothing. The shape of her limbs was pleasing and firm. Her legs in particular had a muscularity to them in their slender form which was graceful. I wanted to touch the backs of her legs, her calves, and squeeze them.

  This was quite a lot of strength for me, a lot, and I had to resolve the issue of my freedom now.

  "You're changing," she said in a suspicious voice, "but you're certainly not disappearing."

  "Oh? What do you see?" I asked. I wanted to add with pride that I hadn't tried to disappear yet, but this was obvious.

  "Your skin; the sweat's drying. Oh, it isn't much sweat. It's on your hands and your face and it's gone and you look, you look different. I could swear that there's more dark hair on your hands, you know, just the normal hair of a hirsute man."

  "That I am," I said. I lifted my hand, looking at the black hairs on my fingers, and I reached down into my shirt and felt the thick curls on my chest. I pulled at them, pulled them again and again. That was my chest, the rough scratchiness of the hair when it was flat, the silkiness of it when I tugged on it, and played with it. "I am alive," I whispered. "Listen to me," I said.

  "I'm listening. I couldn't be more attentive. What is it you see--about Esther's death and this necklace? You were saying something--"

  "Your daughter. She touched a scarf before she died. Do you want it? It was beautiful. She reached out for it right at the moment that the Evals surrounded her, the killers, I mean. She wanted it, and she died with it in her hand."

  "How do you know this!"

  "I saw it!"

  "I have that scarf," she said. She went white with shock. "The saleswoman brought it to me. She said that Esther had reached for it, that Esther said she wanted it! How could you know this?"

  "I didn't know that part. I just saw Esther reach for the scarf. I was going to ask you if you wanted the scarf. I was going to bring it to you for the same reasons as this merchant woman."

  "I do want it!" she said. "It's in my room, the room I was in when you first saw me. It...no. It's in Esther's room. It's lying on her bed. Yes, that's where I left it."

  "Okay, when I see you in Miami I will have it."

  The look on her face was a terrible thing to see.

  In a whisper she said, "She went there to get that scarf!" Her voice was so small. "She told me she had seen it and couldn't forget it. She had told me she wanted that scarf."

  "In a gesture of love, I'll bring it to you."

  "Yes, I want to die holding it."

  "You don't think I'm going to disappear, do you?"

  "No, not at all."

  "Keep yourself in check. I am. Whether I come back, that's the question." I said something under my breath. "But I'll try, try with all my might. This must be tested now."

  I leaned over and took with her the liberty she'd taken with me. I kissed her. Her passion passed through me completely. It burned in me.

  Now in my heart I spoke the requisite words, Depart from me, all particles of this earthly body, yet do not return to where you belong, but await my command that you come together instantly when I would have you.

  I vanished.

  At once the body dispersed, sending out a fine mist to all the inner surfaces of the plane, leaving a shimmering spray upon the leather, the windows, the ceiling.

  I floated above, free, fully shaped and strong, and I looked down at the empty seat, and I saw the top of Rachel's head, and I heard her scream.

  I rose up, through the plane. It was no harder than passing through anything else. But I felt the passing, I felt the shivering energy and heat of the plane, and then the plane shot onwards at such terrific velocity that I fell towards the earth as if I had weight. Down, down, through the dark until I swung free, spreading my arms, and moving towards:

  Gregory. Find the Bones, Servant. Find your Bones. Look after the Bones.

  In the wind, as always I glimpsed other souls. I saw them struggling to see me and to make themselves visible. I knew they sensed my vigor, my direction, and for a moment they flashed and glittered and blinked, and then they were gone. I had passed through them and their world, their horrid layer of smoke that surrounded the earth like the filth hanging over burning dung, and I sped forward, like singing, towards the Bones. Towards Gregory.

  "The Bones," I said. "The Bones," I said into the wind.

  The lights of the city of New York spread out in all directions, more magnificent and tremendous than the lights of Rome at its greatest, or of Calcutta now full of millions upon millions of lamps. I could hear Gregory's voice.

  And then before me in the dark, there appeared the Bones, tiny, distant, certain, and golden.

  20

  It was a large room, not in the apartments of Gregory and Rachel, but higher in the building. I realized for the first time that the building itself was the Temple of the Mind of God and it throbbed throughout its many floors with people.

  The room itself glistened with steel and glass and tables made of manipulated stone, hard as anything mined from the earth; machines lined the walls, and cameras which moved as the inhabitants of the room moved. There were plenty of inhabitants.

  I entered invisible, easily passing through all barriers, as if I were made of tiny fish and the walls were nets. I wandered among the tables, eyeing the video screens in rows on the walls, the computers set into niches, and other devices which I couldn't understand.

  Silently, broadcasts from all over the planet came in on these video screens. Some of them showed the news that all people can receive. Others were obviously monitoring particular and private places. The spy monitors were the most dull, greenish, murky.

  The Bones lay in the very middle of the room on a sterile table. The casket, empty, lay to the side. The men surrounding Gregory were obviously physicians. They had the poise and attitude of learned men.

  Gregory was in mid-conversation, describing the Bones as a relic, which must be analyzed in every conceivable way without bringing harm to it, X-rayed, carbon-dated, minute scrapings made for contents. Attempt at aspiration if anything inside were liquid.

  Gregory was shaken, disheveled. He wore the same clothes as before but he was not the same man.

  "You're not listening to me!" he said fiercely to these his loyal court physicians. "Treat this as priceless," he said. "I want no mishaps. I want no leaks to the press. I want no leaks within this building. Do this work yourself. Keep the jabber-mouth technicians away from it."

  The men took all this in stride. Not fawning like lackeys, they wrote notes on their clipboards, exchanged glances of agreement with one another, and nodded with dig
nity to the man who paid the bills.

  I knew their kind. Very modern scientists who are just learned enough to be certain that nothing spiritual exists, that the world is completely material, self-created, or the result of some "big bang," and that ghosts, spells, God, and the Devil were useless concepts.

  They weren't by nature kind. In fact, there was a peculiar hardness which they all shared, not a sinister quality so much as a moral deformity. It was in their demeanor, but I caught it merely from scanning them carefully. All these men had committed crimes of some kind, with medicine, and their status was entirely dependent upon the protection of Gregory Belkin.

  In other words, this was a gang of fugitive doctors hand-picked to do special jobs for Gregory.

  It struck me as marvelously good luck that he had committed the Bones to this pack of fools, rather than to magicians. But then where would he find a magician?

  What a different scene this might have been if he had called upon the Hasidim--zaddiks who didn't hate or fear him--or on Buddhists or Zoroastrians. Even a Hindu doctor of Western mind might have been a danger.

  I took an upright stance, still invisible, then drew close, until I was touching Gregory's shoulder. I smelled his perfumed skin, his fine silken face. His voice was crisp and angry, concealing all his anxiety as if it were a cloud that he could collect and swallow and let out only in a perfect narrow stream of fluid speech.

  The Bones. I felt nothing as I saw them. Do some good mischief here, get the scarf and get back to Rachel. Obviously the moving of the Bones had no effect on me; neither did the prying eyes of these doctors.

  Am I finished with you now? I spoke to the Bones, but the Bones gave no answer.

  They were not in order. They were a haphazardly gathered skeleton, tumbled, their gold brilliant under the electric lights. Flecks of cloth clung to them, like bits of leaves or dirt. Ashes clung to them, but they seemed as solid as ever, as enduring. For all time.

  Was my soul, my tzelem, locked within them?

  Do I need you anymore? Can you hurt me, Master?

  Gregory knew I was there! He turned from right to left, but he couldn't see me. The others--and there were six--noted his agitation, questioned him.

  One man touched the casket.

  "Don't do it!" said Gregory. He was wonderfully afraid. I loved this too much!

  There is always an element of pride in tormenting the solid and the living, but really, it was so easy, I had to restrain myself.

  To test him and to test myself--that was my mission here, and I must not play games.

  "We'll handle them with extreme care, Gregory," said a young doctor amongst them. "But we're going to have to take some substantial scrapings; we've been through that. In order to get carbon dating and DNA, we may have to take--"

  "And you want full DNA, don't you," asked another, eager for the eye and the favor of the leader. "You want everything we can come up with about this skeleton--gender, age, cause of death, anything that might be locked inside there--"

  "--You're going to be amazed what we can find out."

  "--the Mummy project in Manchester, you saw all that?"

  Gregory gave them nods and stiff affirmations in silence because he knew I was there. I was invisible still, but now formed in all my parts and wearing my garments of choice, fluid enough to pass through him if I wanted to, which would have sickened him and hurt him and made him fall.

  I touched Gregory's cheek. He felt it, and he was petrified. I pushed my fingers into his hair. He drew in his breath.

  On and on came the science babble--

  "Size of the skull, a male, and the pelvis, probably, you realize..."

  "Be careful with them!" Gregory burst out suddenly. The scientists were silenced. "I mean, treat them like a relic, you hear me?"

  "Yes, sir, we understand, sir."

  "Look, the scientists who do this work on Egyptian and--"

  "Don't tell me how. Just tell me what! Keep it secret. We don't have many days left, gentlemen."

  What could this mean?

  "I don't like stopping work for this, so do it at once."

  "Everything's going splendidly," said an older doctor. "Don't worry about time. A day or two won't matter."

  "I suppose you're right," Gregory said, crestfallen. "But something can still go wrong, very wrong."

  They nodded only because they feared to lose his favor. They debated now, speak, don't speak, nod, bow, do what?

  I drew in my breath and resolved to be visible; the air moved; there was a faint noise. The room felt a vague commotion as the particles gathered with tremendous force, yet I was taking no more than the first stage, the airy form.

  The doctors looked about in confusion; the first to see me pointed. I was transparent, but vividly colored, and perfectly detailed.

  Then the others saw me.

  Gregory spun around to his right and looked at me.

  I gave him my soft evil smile. I think it was evil anyway. I floated. In airy form, I had no need to stand, or to anchor. I was a thousand degrees from the density that obeys gravity. I stood on the ground, but I didn't need to. This was a choice, like the position of a flower in a painting.

  He glared at me, seeing the thin mirage of a long-haired man, clothed as I had been when I left him, but thinner than glass.

  "This is a holograph, Gregory," said one of the doctors.

  "It's being projected from somewhere," said another. The men began to look around the room. "Yeah, it's one of those cameras up there."

  "...it's some sort of trick."

  "Well, who the hell would dare pull a thing like this in your own..."

  "Quiet!" Gregory said.

  He raised his hand for absolute obedience and he got it. His face was locked with fear and despair.

  "Remember," I said aloud, "I'm watching you."

  The cohorts heard me and commenced whispering and shuffling.

  "Put your hand through it," said the white-coated one closest to me. When Gregory failed to obey, the young man approached and moved to do it, and I merely looked at him and watched him and wondered what he felt, if it was a chill, or electric. His hand penetrated me, easily, causing no seam in the vision.

  He drew back his hand.

  "Somebody's gotten into security," he said quickly, looking me directly in the eyes. They were all babbling again, that someone was controlling the image, that someone somehow had figured a way to do this, and that it was probably--

  Gregory couldn't bring himself to answer.

  I had accomplished my purpose.

  He struggled desperately for some command, some powerful verbal weapon against me that wouldn't make him the fool in the eyes of the others. Then he spoke in a cold voice.

  "When you give me your reports, tell me exactly how these bones could be destroyed," he said.

  "Gregory, this is a holograph, this thing. I want to call security..."

  "No," he declared. "I know who is responsible for this little trick. I have it covered. It merely caught me off guard. There's no breach. Get to work."

  His self-confidence and quiet air of command really were kingly.

  I laughed softly. I kissed his cheek. It was rough and he drew back. But he faced me. The men were astonished by the gesture.

  The men merely came closer, surrounding me, absolutely certain in their incredible ignorance and bigotry that I was an apparition being made electrically by someone else. For a moment, I scanned their faces. I saw wickedness in their faces, but it was a brand of wickedness I didn't fully understand. It was too connected with power. These men loved their power. They loved their purpose, but what exactly was it that they did when they weren't analyzing relics?

  I let them study me, looking from face to face. Then I struck upon the mastermind. The tall emaciated doctor, who in fact blackened his hair with dye, and who looked older than he was on account of his thinness. He was the brilliant one; his gaze was far more critical and suspicious than that of the others. And he mo
nitored Gregory's responses with a cold calculation.

  "Look, this is all very fancy," said this one, "this holograph, but we can get on this analysis tonight. You realize we can give you an image like this, this holograph, of the man who once had these bones?"

  "Can you really do that?" I asked.

  "Yes, of course--" He stopped, realizing he was talking to me. He began to make gestures all around me. So did the others. They were trying to interrupt the projection of the beam that they thought had created me.

  "Simple forensic procedure," said another, boldly ignoring the continuing strangeness of all this.

  "And we'll get on this security thing immediately."

  Others continued to search the ceilings and the walls.

  A man moved to a telephone.

  "No!" Gregory said. He stared at the Bones.

  "...permeated with something, some chemical obviously; well, we can have all of that analyzed, I mean, we'll be able to tell you--"

  Gregory turned and looked at me. A clearer comprehension of him came to me.

  This was a man who could only use everything that came to him; he was not passive in any meaning of that word. The frustration he felt now would fuel his rage and his invention; it would drive him to greater lengths; he was only holding firm now, biding his time. And what he learned now would enhance his cunning and his capacity to surprise.

  I turned to the doctors. "Let me know the outcome of your tests, will you?" I said, being a deliberately dreadful devil.

  This caused quite a flurry.

  I dissolved. I did it instantly.

  The heat passed out of me, and the particles swarmed, too tiny no doubt for them to see. But the men felt the change in temperature; they felt the movement of the air. They were in confusion, looking around for another projected figure, perhaps, among them, for a switch in the direction of the light beam which they thought had made me appear.

  I understood something further about them. They regarded their science as omnipotent. Science was the explanation not only for me but for anything and everything. In other words, they were materialists who beheld their science as magic.

  The irony of this was very funny to me. Anything I did they would perceive to be science beyond their understanding. And I had been made by those who had been convinced that magic had the power of "science," if you just knew all the right words!

  I went up and up, through the ceiling and the floor above it, rising through the shiny, bustling, crowded layers of the building, until I could not see the Bones any longer. The golden glimmer was gone.