by Rice, Anne
Blackness. It is done. I am separate. I am here. I feel the grass beneath me.
I whispered: “Laudamus te. Benedicimus te. Adoramus te. In Gloria Dei Patris!”
When I opened my eyes, I was lying on the ground, and except for Mona who cradled my head in her hands, and Quinn who knelt beside her, the night was quiet and empty.
23
Every now and then, I demand to be treated like the supernatural hero that I am.
I strode back to the house, ignoring Quinn and Mona (especially Mona), and opened the kitchen door, and told Jasmine that Patsy’s spirit was definitely gone from the Earth, and that I was spent and that I needed to sleep in Aunt Queen’s bed, no matter what anybody thought about it.
Obstreperous little Jerome jumped up from his tiny table and cried: “But I never got to see her! Mamma, I never got to see her.”
“I’ll draw you a picture, sit down!” said Jasmine and, with the incontestable authority of the lady with the keys, she led me across the hall and admitted me to the sacrosanct chamber at once, mumbling that Mona had made a mess of the closets only two hours before, but everything was now put right, and I flung myself theatrically upon the rose satin bed, beneath the rose satin canopy, nuzzled into the rose satin pillows and lay there, drenched in the scent of Chantilly, allowing Jasmine to pull off my dirty boots because it made her happy, and protected the bed, and I closed my eyes.
At once Quinn said in a soft, respectful voice, “Lestat, may Mona and I keep watch with you? We’re so grateful for what you did.”
“Out of my sight,” I said. “Jasmine, please light all the lamps and then make them get out of here. Patsy is gone, and my soul is weak! I have seen the feathered wings of angels. Don’t I deserve to sleep for this little while?”
“You get out of here, Tarquin Blackwood and Mona Mayfair!” Jasmine said. “Thank the Lawd that Patsy’s gone! I can feel it. That child was just lost and now she’s way up home and no more searching. I’m taking these boots to Allen. Allen’s the boot expert on this property. Allen can clean these boots. Now, you two go on, you heard what the man said. His soul is weak. Now let him be. Lestat, I’m getting you a blanket.”
Amen.
I drifted.
Julien was at my ear in heated French: “I’ll follow you to the ends of the Earth through all your endeavors until you are ruined in madness! Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. All that you do is vanity, and for your own pride and glory! You think the angels don’t know what you do and for whom you do it!”
“Aw, yeah!” I whispered, “you spiteful ghost, you thought you had me between the worlds, didn’t you? Is that where you live forever, watching them pass you by? You didn’t give a damn for Patsy’s soul, did you? And did she not descend from you as surely as Quinn? And Mona? You did the beast with two backs in this very house with Patsy’s ancestor too, did you not, you don’t know your own descendants when they’re not to your taste, you merciless astral panhandler.…”
I drifted deeper, brain descending into the sweetness of human exhaustion—far from the ring of the anvil between the worlds, far from the torrent of Heaven. Adieu, my poor doomed Patsy. Yes, and I had done it with a kiss, and yes, with a step, and yes, she had gone up, and wasn’t it good? Had I not done good? Could anybody deny it was good? Yo, Juanito, wasn’t it good? Wasn’t the exorcism of Goblin good? I sank back into the safety of know-nothing sleep. And round about, the golden lighted room protected me.
What could I do that was good for Mona and Quinn?
Two hours later I was awakened by the chiming of a clock. I didn’t know where in the house it was or what it looked like and I didn’t care. The room was wholesome and reassuring, as if the purity and generosity of Aunt Queen had totally infused it.
I was refreshed. The evil little cells in my body had done their dirty and inevitable work. And if I’d had any terrible dreams I didn’t remember them.
Lestat was Lestat again. As if anyone cared. Do you care?
I sat up.
Julien was sitting at Aunt Queen’s little round table, the table at which she had taken her meals, the table between the bed and the closet doors. He wore his fancy dinner jacket. He smoked a little black cigarette. Stella sat on the couch in her pretty white dress. She was playing with one of Aunt Queen’s floppy boudoir dolls.
“Bonjour, Lestat,” said Stella. “At last you wake, you handsome Endymion.”
“Everything you do,” Julien said in French, “you do for your own selfish aims. You want these mortals to love you. You bask in their blind adoration. You devour it like blood. Are you tired of killing and destroying?”
“You’re not making sense,” I replied. “Being dead, you should know better. The dead should have an edge. You don’t have one. You hang out in the alleyways of the other world. I saw you for what you are.”
He smiled a wicked little smile.
“Exactly what is your paltry plan?” he asked in French, “to send me through the cloudy Heavens the way you did Patsy Blackwood?”
“Hmmm. Why should I bother with your salvation?” I asked. “As I told you before, I’m getting used to you. I feel privileged, having these little tête-à-têtes, no matter where you come from. And then there’s Stella. Stella is a delight always.”
“Oh, you’re so sweet,” said little Stella. She held the doll up by the arms. “You know, Ducky, you present the most bizarre problem.”
“Do explain,” I said. “Nothing delights me more than children who spout philosophy.”
“Don’t be sure that I’m capable of a philosophical observation,” she replied, frowning and smiling at me at the same time. She let the doll flop in her lap. She lifted her shoulders, then slowly relaxed. “This is what I think about you, Ducky. You have a conscience without a soul to back it up. Quite unique, I should say.”
A dark shiver passed through me. “Where is my soul, Stella?” I asked.
She seemed at a loss, but then she spoke: “Entangled!” she said. “Caught in a web! But your conscience flies free of your soul. It’s simply marvelous.”
Julien smiled. “We’ll find a way to cut that web,” he said.
“Oh, so you mean to save my soul?” I asked.
“I don’t care where it goes once it leaves this Earth,” Julien replied. “Haven’t I told you that? It’s the fleshly shell I detest, the evil blood that enlivens it, the appetite that drives it, and the consuming pride that motivated it to take my niece.”
“You’re overwrought,” I said. “Remember the child. You must have had some purpose in bringing her with you as a witness. Behave decently in her presence.”
The knob on the hall door turned.
They vanished. Such shy retiring individuals.
The doll fell over on the couch, and, having no elbows or knees, looked most bereft as it stared with its big painted eyes at the room around it.
Quinn and Mona entered. Quinn had changed into a big cable knit sweater and simple slacks, for the air-conditioning at Blackwood Farm was a force to be reckoned with, and Mona was still in her gorgeous black dress, her pale face and hands glowing. A cameo was now fixed at her neck, a very large and beautiful one of white and blue sardonyx.
“Can we talk now?” Quinn asked in a very polite tone. He looked at Mona with great concern, then his eyes returned to me.
I realized that Quinn had been quite right in his early description to me of his love for Mona. Mona’s unhappiness—indeed Mona herself, whether happy or sad—continued to supplant all Quinn’s own woes and griefs in his own heart. She continued to deliver him mercifully, at least for now, from the loss of Aunt Queen, and the loss of his doppelganger, Goblin. Whatever the little scorpion did to me, his love for her was a blessing.
How else explain the ease with which he accepted me usurping Aunt Queen’s magnificent bed in my, how shall we put it, vanity?
I pushed back against the pillows until I was firmly planted in an upright position, with legs comfortably stretched out and an
kles crossed, and I nodded.
Seldom did I see my feet in black socks. I knew almost nothing personally about my feet. They looked rather small for the twenty-first century. Bad luck. But six feet was still a good height.
“I want you to know that I adored Aunt Queen,” I muttered. “I slept on top of the counterpane. I was shaken.”
“Beloved Boss, you make a picture there,” Quinn said kindly. “Make this your place here. You know my aunt. She slept all day. Every window’s fitted with a black-out blind beneath the fancy velvet.”
These words had an immensely soothing effect. I gave him to know that silently.
He sat on the bench before Aunt Queen’s dressing table, with his back to the big round mirror and the soft lamplight. Mona sat on the couch, very near to the doll that the ghost of Stella had just left there.
“Are you rested now?” Mona asked, pretending to be a decently behaved creature.
“Do something useful,” I said disdainfully to Mona. “Pick up that boudoir doll and set it down properly, so it doesn’t look so lost.”
“Oh, yes, certainly,” she said, as if she wasn’t a roaring revenant from Hell. She set the doll against the padded arm of the chair, crossed its legs and put its little hands in its lap. It stared at me gratefully.
“What happened to you out there, Lestat?” Quinn asked. His manner was very solicitous.
“Not certain,” I replied. “Some force wanting to take me with her, maybe. We were connected as she started to rise. But I managed to get away. Not sure. I see angels sometimes. It’s frightening. Can’t talk about it. Don’t want to relive it. But Patsy is gone on. That’s what’s important.”
“I saw the Light,” said Quinn. “I saw it without mistake, but I never saw the spirit of Patsy.” He had such a sincere manner about him, nothing fanciful.
“I saw it too,” said the banshee. “And you were fighting with someone, and you were cursing in French, and you cried out something about Oncle Julien.”
“Doesn’t matter now,” I said, eyes on Quinn. “As I said, I’d rather not relive it.”
“Why did you do it?” Quinn asked, respectfully.
“What on Earth do you mean?” I asked. “It had to be done, didn’t it?”
“I realize that,” said Quinn. “But why you? I’m the one who murdered Patsy. And you went out there alone and drew her spirit to you. You brought the Light down for her. There was a struggle. Why did you do it?”
“For you, I suppose,” I said with a shrug. “Maybe I didn’t think anybody else could do it. Or I did it for Jasmine, because I’d promised her the ghost wouldn’t get her. Or for Patsy. Yes, for Patsy.” I brooded. I said, “You’re both so young in the Blood. You’ve seen so little. I’ve seen the howling wind of the Earthbound Dead. I’ve seen their souls in the void between the realms. When Mona said that Patsy didn’t know she was dead, that settled it for me. So I went out there and I did it.”
“And then there was the song,” said the little harpy, looking at Quinn. “Tommy played the Irish song and it was so mournful.”
“Speaking of her songs, I made good on the promise,” said Quinn. “Or at least I’ve started. I called Patsy’s agent, got him out of bed. We’re going to reissue all her recordings, do a special publicity release—all that she could ever have wanted. Her agent’s so thrilled that she’s dead, he could hardly contain himself.”
“What!” said Mona.
“Oh, you know, dead recording stars make plenty of money,” Quinn replied with a little shrug. “He’ll publicize her tragic demise. Bracket her career. Package it.”
“I knew you would make good on the promise,” I said. “And I would have seen to it, if you hadn’t—that is, if you had given me leave. Now it’s over, isn’t it?”
“Her voice was marvelous,” Quinn said. “If only I could have murdered her and not her voice.”
“Quinn!” said Mona.
“Well, I think that’s what you’ve done, Little Brother,” I remarked.
He laughed softly. “I suppose you’re right, Beloved Boss,” he said. He smiled at Mona and her innocent shock. “Some night I’ll tell you all about her. When I was little, I thought she was made of plastic and glue. She was always screaming. Enough about her.”
Mona shook her head. She loved him much too much to press. Besides, she had other things on her mind.
“But Lestat, what did you see out there?” she asked me.
“You are not listening to me,” I said with exasperation. “I told you, you maddening little miscreant, I won’t relive it. It’s closed for me. Besides, give me one good reason why I should even speak to you. Why are we in the same room?”
“Lestat,” said Quinn, “please give Mona another chance.”
I got furious—not at Mona, I wasn’t going to fall into that trap again—but simply furious. They were such beautiful children, these two. And—.
“Very well,” I said, thinking as I spoke. “I’m going to lay down the law to you. If I am to remain with you, I am the Master here. And I refuse to prove myself to you. I won’t spend my tenure with you being constantly questioned as to the virtue of my authority!”
“I understand,” said Mona. “I really, really do!” So seemingly heartfelt.
“Case in point,” I said. “Whatever I saw out there, I choose to forget. And you have to forget it too.”
“Yes, Beloved Boss,” said Mona eagerly.
Pause.
I wasn’t buying it.
Quinn was not looking at her. He was looking attentively at me.
“You know how much I love you,” he said.
“I love you too, Little Brother,” I said. “I’m sorry that my disagreements with Mona have put a distance between us.”
He turned to Mona. “Say what you have to say,” he told her.
Mona looked down. Her hands were folded one on top of the other in her lap and she looked abruptly forlorn and full of warmth, her coloring all the more intense on account of the black dress, her hair quite incidentally magnificent.
(Big deal! So what!)
“I showered you with abuse,” she confessed. Her voice was smoother and richer than it had been before now: “I was so very wrong.” She looked up at me. I had never seen her green eyes so placid. “I was wrong to speak of your other fledglings the way I did, to speak of your long-ago tragedies with such coarseness and attempted cruelty. I should have never spoken to anyone with such callousness, let alone to you. It was spiritually and morally crude. And it was not my nature. Please trust me when I say that. It was not my nature. It was downright hateful.”
I shrugged, but I was secretly impressed. Good command of the English language. “So why did you do it?” I asked, feigning detachment.
She appeared to be thinking about it, during which time Quinn looked at her with obvious concern. Then she said:
“You’re in love with Rowan. I saw it. It frightened me, really, really frightened me.”
Silence.
Inexpressible pain. No image of Rowan in my heart. Simply an emptiness, an acknowledgement that she was far, far away. Maybe forever. “Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken.”
“Frightened?” I asked. “How so?”
“I wanted you to love me,” Mona said. “I wanted you to remain interested in me. I wanted you to be on my side. I … I didn’t want you to be swept away by her.” She faltered. “I was jealous. I was like a prisoner let out of a solitary confinement cell after two years, and having found riches all around me, I feared losing everything.”
Again I was secretly impressed.
“Nothing was at risk,” I responded. “Absolutely nothing.”
“But surely you understand,” said Quinn, “what it means for Mona to be deluged with our gifts and unable to modulate her feelings. There we were in that very garden behind the First Street house, the very place where the Taltos bodies had been buried.”
“Yes,” Mona said. “We were talking of things w
hich had tortured me for years and I … I.…”
“Mona, you must trust in me,” I said. “You must trust in my principles. That’s our paradox. We do not leave behind the Natural Law when we receive the Blood. We are principled creatures. I never stopped loving you, not for an instant. Whatever I felt for Rowan at the family gathering in no way affected my feelings for you. How could it? I warned you twice to be patient with your family because I knew it was right for you to do so. Then the third time, all right, I went too far with a little mockery. But I was trying to curb your insults, and your abuse of those you loved! But you wouldn’t listen to me.”
“I will now, I swear it,” she said. Again, the assured voice, a voice I’d not heard last night or tonight earlier. “Quinn’s been instructing me for hours. He’s been cautioning me about the way I treat Rowan and Michael and Dolly Jean. He’s told me I can’t just blithely call them ‘human beings’ right in front of them. It’s ill-mannered for a vampire to do that.”
“Indeed,” I said witheringly. (You gotta be kidding.)
“He’s explained that we have to be patient with their ways, and I see that now, and I understand why Rowan had to talk as she did. Or that it wasn’t my place to interrupt her. I see it. I won’t make those blundering remarks anymore. I have to find my … my maturity in the Blood.” She paused and then: “A place where serenity and courtesy connect. Yes, that’s what it is. And I’m far from it.”
“True,” I said. I studied her, the picture she made. I wasn’t quite convinced by this perfect Act of Contrition. And how lovely her little wrists looked in the tight black cuffs, and of course the shoes, with their wicked heels and winding snakelike straps. But I liked her words: “A place where serenity and courtesy connect.” I liked them a lot, and I knew they’d come from her. All she had said had come from her, no matter what Quinn had taught her. I could tell by the way that Quinn responded to her.
