by Rice, Anne
She fled from me down the carriageway. “Quinn!” she wailed. “Quinn!” as if I was murdering her. “Quinn, Quinn,” she squealed.
He brushed against me as he passed me.
I turned around and went up the steps. I clung to the balcony railing for a long moment, forcing some calm upon myself, my hands trembling, but it did little good.
As soon as I’d closed the door I saw Julien out of the corner of my eye. I tried again to quell my pounding heart. I refused to tremble. I collected myself, eyes roving the ceiling, ready for the next cheap diatribe to be flung in my face.
“Eh bien,” he said, going on in French, his arms folded, his dinner jacket very black against the damask striped wallpaper. “You’ve done a fine job, Monsieur, haven’t you? You’ve fallen deep in love with a mortal who’ll never yield to you, only succeeding in driving a true rivet into her heart which her innocent husband won’t fail to detect sooner or later. And now my innocent niece, whom you’ve so cleverly brought over into your world, is running rampant through the streets with a boy lover who hasn’t a clue as to how to comfort her or contain her mounting madness. You are a fine example of the Ancien Régime, Monsieur, oh, but I should be calling you Chevalier, should I not? Or, what precisely was your title, anyway? Was there something lower?”
I sighed, and then slowly I smiled. I wasn’t shaking too badly.
“Les bourgeois have always disappointed me,” I said gently. “My father’s title means nothing to me. That it means so much to you is tiresome. Why don’t we let the matter drop?”
I took my chair at the desk, caught the heel of my shoe on the rung and just looked at the ghost admiringly. Flawless white shirt. Patent leather shoes. Now, he knows how to dress, doesn’t he? In my exhaustion and my grief for what had just taken place with Mona, I looked into his eyes and I prayed silently to Saint Juan Diego. What is there that can come of this that might be good?
“Oh?” he asked. “You’ve come to be fond of me?”
“Where’s Stella?” I asked. “I want to see Stella.”
“You do?” he asked, arching his eyebrows and tipping his forehead slightly.
“I don’t like to be alone,” I said, “as much as I give out. And I don’t want to be alone at this moment.”
He lost his look of resolute superiority. Grim gaze. He’d been a handsome man in his time, trim white curls, clever black eyes.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” I said. “But since you do go and come as you will, it seems I must get used to you.”
“You think I like what I do?” he asked with sudden bitterness.
“I don’t think you know much about what you do,” I replied. “Maybe we have that in common. I’ve been hearing about you. Rather ominous things, it seems.”
Blank expression, then a slow yield to appraisal.
I heard a skipping step in the hall, definitely a child skipping. And there she came into the room, in a snow white dress, with her white sox and her black Mary Janes, a darling girl.
“Hello, Ducky, you have the most amazing digs,” she said. “I simply love your paintings. This is the first time I’ve had a chance to look at them. I love the soft colors. I love the sailboats and all the agreeable people, people in lovely long dresses. There’s a sweetness to these paintings. If I weren’t a little girl, I’d suspect that they soothe people’s nerves.”
“I can’t claim to have chosen them myself,” I replied, “someone else did. But now and then I add one or more to the collection. I like the brighter, stronger colors. I like the greater, more savage force.”
“What do you intend to do about all this?” asked Julien, plainly irritated by this exchange.
My heart had begun to assume its normal rhythm.
“About all what?” I asked. “And let me assure you that your mixing in it isn’t a good omen, from what I’ve learnt. Seems some of your mortal descendants believe you’re doomed to failure in all your Earthly visitations, did you know that? It’s a special curse visited upon you, apparently, or so I’m told.”
Stella had plopped into a Louis XV chair, her white dress going poof all around her. She looked up at Julien with alarm.
“You do me a bitter injustice,” he said coldly. “You can’t know my accomplishments. And only very few of my descendants know them either. Now let’s get back to your present obligation. Certainly you don’t intend to let my niece run rampant with the powers you’ve given her.”
I laughed. “I told you before,” I said, “that if you want her, you will have to tell her. Why are you so afraid of her? Or is it that she won’t acknowledge you? That she’s completely unreceptive? That she’s off on a supernatural tear and you’re small potatoes to her now, hmmm?”
His face became hard.
“You’re not fooling me, not for a moment,” he said. “You’re cut to the quick by Mona’s words, you’re cut to the quick by Rowan, that you can’t have her, no matter how much harm you try to do to her. You’re paying for your sins. You’re paying now as we speak. You’re terrified you’ll never see either of them again. And maybe you won’t. And maybe if you do, they’ll show you a defiance that will demoralize you even more truly than you’re demoralized now. Come, Stella. Let’s leave this mountebank to his nightmares. I tire of his company.”
“Oncle Julien, I don’t want to leave!” she said. “These are new shoes and I love them. Besides, I find Lestat charming. Ducky, you must forgive Oncle Julien. Death has had the most oppressive effect upon him. When he was alive, he would never have said such things!”
She bounced to the floor, ran to me and threw her soft little arms around me and kissed my cheek.
“Bye, Lestat,” she said.
“Au revoir, Stella.”
And then the room was empty.
Perfectly empty.
I turned, disconsolate and shuddering, and put my head down on my arm, as if I could go to sleep on my desk.
“Ah, Maharet,” I said, naming again our great ancestor, our mother, one who was for all I knew on the opposite side of the globe. “Ah, Maharet, what have I done and what can I do? Help me! Let my voice reach you over the miles.” I closed my eyes. Once again, I used the very strongest of my telepathic power. I have such need of you. I come to you ashamed of my failures. I come to you as the Brat Prince of the Blood Drinkers. I don’t claim to be anything better or worse. Listen to me. Help me. Help me for the sake of others. I beg you. Hear my prayer.
I was in this dark frame of mind, alone with this message, which engaged my soul completely, when I heard a step on the iron stairs outside.
Knock at the door.
My guard from the gate: “It’s Clem from Blackwood Farm out front.”
“How in the world did he find this address?” I asked.
“Well, he’s looking for Quinn, says they need Quinn back there right away. Seems he’s been up to the Mayfair house looking for Quinn and they sent him over here.”
I might as well hang out a tasteful neon sign.
Now I had an immediate and mundane use for my telepathy: scan the blocks around for the Dazzling Duo and relay this message to Quinn.
Zap: nothing to it.
Quinn and Mona were in a small café on Jackson Square, Mona sobbing into an immense heap of paper napkins, Quinn enfolding her and hiding her from the world.
Gotcha. Tell Clem to meet me at Chartres and St. Ann. And please, Lestat, I beg you, come with me.
Meet you at Blackwood Farm, sweet boy.
Eh bien, so after the proper messages were conveyed to Clem, who was presiding over the choking, wheezing, seething limousine outside in the Rue Royale, at least I had a moment of stillness in which to think, and then a destination.
And I was NOT riding over the lake in the car with that unforgivable Valkyrie in her sequined chemise! I would take to the clouds, thank you.
I went outside.
That twinge of autumn again in my beloved heat. I didn’t so much like it. I fretted the winter coming on. But what
was all this to me with my broken heart, and illegitimate soul, and what had I done to Rowan with my furtive, disgraceful whispers? And Michael, that powerful and soft-spoken Michael, who had trusted me with his wife’s heart, what had I done to him?
And how could Mona say such hurtful things, how could she? And how could I have behaved so childishly in response?
I closed my eyes.
I cleared my mind of all distractions and random images.
Again I spoke only to Maharet. Wherever you are, I need you.
And now came some artifice—to describe once more my needs without casting to the winds unnecessary details for every other immortal who might pick up my message and ponder the precise nature of what I sought. To find a tribe of tall beings, tender of bone, ancient, simple, tangled with my fledgling, unknown to the world of records, history and location essential to the sanity of those I love. Guidance. Mistakes I’ve made with my fledgling, spiraling out of control. Give to me your wisdom, your keen hearing, your vision. Where are the tall creatures? I am your loyal subject. More or less. I send my love.
Would she answer? I didn’t know. In all honesty (yeah, like all the rest of this is a pack of lies?), I had only once, years ago, called out to her for help, and she had not answered me. However, I’d been guilty of the most ridiculous blunder at the time. I’d switched bodies with a mortal, and been abandoned by him. Idiocy. I had to go after my own supernatural body and recover it. And on my own—well, almost on my own—I’d found a solution to my problem. And so it had ended well.
But I had seen her since, this mysterious ancestor, when she did come to my aid of her own volition, and she had taken great pains with me. She’d forgiven my ranting and raving and my temper. I’d described her in my writings, and she had borne it. From me, she’d borne many things.
Perhaps she had heard me last night. Perhaps she would hear me now.
If nothing came of the call, I would try again. And again. And if her silence continued, I would call to others. I would enlist Marius, my sometime mentor, and wise Child of the Millennia. And if that failed, I would scan the Earth on my own for the Taltos, be they one or many.
I knew I had to make good on my promise to find the Taltos—for Michael and for Rowan, my precious Rowan, even if Mona utterly deserted me, which was most likely the case.
Yes, I felt my heart shrinking. I had already somehow lost Mona. And soon Quinn would follow. And precisely how I’d done it, I really didn’t grasp.
Somewhere in the back of my conscious was taking shape the horrid realization that a modern-minded fledgling was as complex as a nuclear reactor, a communications satellite, a Pentium 4 computer, a microwave oven, a cell phone and all the other intricate overarching newfangled creations I couldn’t understand. Of course, it was all a matter of exploding sophistication.
Or mystification.
Vixen. I hated her. That’s why I was crying my own blood tears, wasn’t it? Well, there was nobody to see it.
Eh bien, it was on to Blackwood Farm, and as I ascended I prayed to Maharet. Maharet was my prayer of the winds all the way there.
21
Blackwood Manor was lit up like a lantern in the rural dark, doors thrown open on the front porch, floodlights on, Jasmine sitting on the steps crying with a white handkerchief, knees up, black heels, navy blue sheath, chocolate skin and bleached curls looking lovely as was routine, her crying brokenhearted and exhausting and terribly sad.
“Oh, Les-Dot, help me, help me!” she cried. “Where is Quinn? Where is Little Boss? I need him. I’m going out of my mind! And that boy’s running rampant. Nash doesn’t believe in ghosts, Tommy’s scared to death of them, and Grandma’s sending for the priest to drive the Devil out of me! As if it was my doing!”
I walked up to her, picked her up, with her utter soft silky willingness, and carried her inside. She lay her head against my chest.
The front room was full of people.
“The car’s turning into the drive,” I said, “what’s wrong?”
We sat down on the living room couch, me with her in my lap. I patted her. She was really drained and miserable.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” she cried, “we’ve been so alone out here.”
Little Tommy Blackwood, aged thirteen, Quinn’s uncle by blood, sat in one of the chairs opposite and watched me in a really formal sort of way, his fingers on one arm of the chair. He was a truly marvelous young man, much as Quinn had described, and from his travels with Aunt Queen and the all too human Quinn in Europe, he had imbibed an entire attitude towards life which would stand him in good stead always.
Cool to see him again.
Nash Penfield, his tutor, was there also, attired in an impeccable herringbone suit, a man who seemed born to have a calming effect on others, though why he could not calm Jasmine I wasn’t certain. He seemed puzzled as he stood near to Tommy’s chair, eying Jasmine with profound concern, and nodding to me respectfully.
Big Ramona, Jasmine’s grandmother, sat glowering near the couch, in a somber wine-colored gabardine dress with an ornate diamond pin just below her right shoulder. Big Ramona’s hair was brushed back artfully to a twist on the back of her head, and she was wearing stockings and fancy black shoes.
“Oh hush up, girl,” Big Ramona said at once to Jasmine, “you’re just drawing attention to yourself. Sit up straight! Stop talking like a fool!”
Two of the Shed Men, still in their work clothes, were standing awkwardly behind her. One of them was cheerful Allen, with the round face and white hair. I didn’t know the name of the other one. Correct. Yes I did. Joel.
And nobody said anything after Big Ramona bawled out Jasmine.
Before I could begin a mind search, Quinn came into the room, and Mona, the sequined harpy, went on back the hall like a streak of silver light, and into Aunt Queen’s bedroom. Aunt Queen’s bedroom was the only bedroom on the main floor.
A ripple of interest and wonder went through the assembly as to Mona’s presence and Mona’s appearance, but nobody had gotten a really good look at her. The insolent little monster.
It was Quinn who mattered here. He sat opposite me just inside the huge hallway door. His characteristic innocence slowly alchemized into a gentlemanly air of command as he scanned the gathering. Then he rose to his feet quickly as Cyndy, the Nurse, came in, looking quite lovely in her starched white uniform, also quite tearful and sad, and took a chair far away, by the piano.
Next there appeared the sheriff, a rotund and jocular human being whom I’d met the night of Aunt Queen’s death, followed by a person whom I identified at once as Grady Breen, the family lawyer, aged, portly and stuffed into a three-piece pinstriped suit, whom Quinn had described to me when he’d been telling me his life story.
“Whoa, this is quite serious,” I said under my breath.
Jasmine was shuddering against me, and clinging to me. “Don’t you let me go, Lestat,” she said. “Don’t you let me go. You don’t know what’s after me.”
“Honey bunch, nothing can get you when you’re with me,” I whispered. With loving hands I tried to distract her from the fact that my body feels like a chunk of marble.
“Jasmine, get off that man’s lap,” whispered Big Ramona, “and start behaving like the Head Housekeeper here, where you are supposed to be! I tell you, the only thing holding some people back is their own selves!”
Jasmine did not obey.
The two official gentlemen found chairs in the shadows rather close to Cyndy, the Nurse, as though they didn’t want to invade the family circle. The sheriff’s belly poured over his belt, which was laden with weapons and a crackling walkie-talkie, which he silenced with embarrassed suddenness.
Jasmine put her left arm around me and hung on as though I were trying to release her, which I wasn’t. I stroked her back and kissed her head. She was a delicious little person. Her long silky legs were stretched out to my left.
The fact that Quinn had once made love to her, fathered little Jero
me by her, was suddenly uppermost in my heated evil ever-churning half-human half-vampiric mind. Indeed people’s charms should not go to waste, that is my motto, may it never have dire consequences for the mortal world.
“If only I hadn’t been so mean to her,” Jasmine said. “She’s never going to leave me alone.” She ground her forehead against my chest. She tightened her grip. I closed my arm completely around her.
“You’re just fine, honey bunch,” I said.
“What in the world do you mean?” asked Quinn. He was deeply distressed to see Jasmine suffering. “Jasmine, what’s going on? Somebody please bring me up to speed.”
“So there’s news of Patsy?” I asked. For that was clearly everybody’s concern, and I was getting it in sputters and waves, whether I searched for it or not.
“Well, seems so,” said Grady Breen. “But it seems to me that Big Ramona, well, what with Jasmine unable to talk, maybe you should tell the story.”
“Who says I’m unable to talk!” Jasmine cried, head still bowed, body shuddering. “You think I can’t tell you what I saw with my own eyes, coming right to the window of my bedroom, all soaked and wet and streaming with duckweed and swamp water; you think I don’t know what I saw, that it was Patsy, you think I don’t know Patsy’s voice, when she said, ‘Jasmine, Jasmine,’ over and over again? You think I don’t know it was a dead person who said, ‘Jasmine, Jasmine,’ over and over again? And me in that bed with little Jerome, and me scared to death he would wake up, and her clawing at the window with her red fingernails, saying, ‘Jasmine, Jasmine,’ in that pitiful voice?”
Quinn went bloodless with shock.
Cyndy, the Nurse, burst into tears. “She has to be buried in consecrated ground, I don’t care what anyone says.”
“Buried in consecrated ground!” said Big Ramona. “All we have of her is some of her hair pulled out of her hairbrush, what are you talking about, Cyndy? Are we going to bury a hairbrush, for the love of Heaven?”
