by Rice, Anne
“Of course, the Talamasca has turned over all the computers from the morning raid to the Mayfair family. The computers are the property of Michael and Rowan by force of Ash’s will. We had no choice but to do it. Perhaps they’ll allow us to study the material later on.”
“Has Mayfair and Mayfair taken any action about the island itself, to keep off the drug people?”
“They’ve contacted every form of authority policing that part of the World, I believe, but I gather that it’s rather complicated. We offered to send back the soldiers of fortune. They may take us up on it. A private security force of some type has been sent there. Also some kind of cleanup crew. Apparently the cabin cruiser, the plane—these things were Ash’s property. This Rodrigo whom you so obligingly destroyed was a major DEA target. This was made known to the family when they asked for protection for the island. The family has not cooperated with the DEA or invited them in. It’s all being handled privately.”
“Hmmm.…” I felt uneasy about the island. All that jungle. I wish I had taken the time to walk through that jungle. “Where are the Taltos?”
“You want the short answer, or the story?”
“You kidding?”
“Well, Miravelle and Oberon spent the morning and early afternoon at the First Street house in the company of Dolly Jean and Tante Oscar,” said Stirling. “It was quite amazing. At times, I thought I was hallucinating. Apparently Tante Oscar has not left her French Quarter apartment in years. You remember, she wears three and four dresses at a time?”
“Yes indeed I remember,” I said. “She spreads evil rumors about me. I’d set her right, but if she’s really over a hundred years old, I might give her a heart attack.”
“Good point. When Dolly Jean called her on the famous refrigerated telephone, she agreed to come to First Street if the car were sent, and she spent the afternoon with Dolly Jean and Michael regaling ‘the Walking Babies’ with stories, or with Miravelle or Oberon regaling them, I’m not quite sure which, but all of it has been recorded for posterity by me and by Michael. Miravelle was shocked by a great deal that the two old women had to say, but Oberon was in hysterics. He thought them the funniest human beings he’d ever met, and he was stomping his foot and slamming the table.
“Naturally I was enthralled merely watching this entire collection of beings, including Tante Oscar.” He drew on his cigarette. “She was indeed wearing some three or four dresses under her maroon fox-trimmed coat, and a black hat with roses on it and a little face veil, and she does have eyes like eggs. She entered the house making the Sign of the Cross over and over again, rosary beads running through her right hand, a battalion of exquisite twelve-year-old boys accompanying her up the marble steps and into the dining room. The boys soon discovered the swimming pool and were invited to swim and went to it with gusto. They might be still swimming now. Apparently they’d never been swimming in their lives before.”
Stirling stopped.
The Dazzling Duo had appeared. Both were tricked out in safari jackets and khaki slacks, Quinn with an open shirt, Mona with an olive green turtleneck—a startling contrast to the formal clothes they’d always worn before.
They were both pale and a little gaunt. They had no need to feed, thanks to last night’s repast, but apparently the dark adventure had taken their energy. Quinn appeared to be fasting. Mona looked wounded and frail.
Just for a moment, I saw in her the gaunt dying girl she’d been when I first laid eyes on her. It frightened me.
Kisses and hugs for Stirling, who rose to his feet to receive them.
I clasped her hand and she bent low to kiss me on the mouth. I felt a fever in her, as though her body were consuming her past dreams. And an ashen sadness clouded her vision.
She came right to the point, even before she flopped into a wicker chair and put her feet up on the table.
“Rowan has to know whether they’re alive or dead by now,” she said.
“Darling, they’re dead,” said Stirling, “there’s no question. They’ve been brought up to a temperature of perhaps forty degrees, and connected to every sort of monitor known to Rowan. There’s no life in them whatsoever. Only a gold mine of tissue and blood and bone which Rowan wants to examine.”
“Oh, yeah, oh of course,” said Mona in a low fast-running voice. She closed her eyes. She seemed so lost. “So the Mad Scientist must be overjoyed.”
“What about the poison?” I asked. “Oberon said that Ash and Morrigan had been slowly poisoned by the rebel children.”
Stirling nodded. “There were several compounds in their blood and tissue. Apparently they’d been given arsenic, Coumadin and some other rare chemical that strikes at the musculature. The doses would have been fatal to human beings. But it’s a tricky matter. There might have been other poisons which didn’t survive in the bodies. There were also huge amounts of benzodiazepines.”
“Evil Silas,” whispered Mona.
“Has either Miravelle or Oberon said any more about the life of the Secret People?” Quinn asked. “I think the more Mona hears about that the better she will feel.”
“To Hell with it,” said Mona in a low voice.
Stirling went on gently.
“Yes, they’ve both talked a lot. So did some of the New York lawyers who represented Ash. Their life was very good, and it lasted some four years before this villainous Rodrigo took over the island. Oberon enjoys describing their trips and their studies very much. Miravelle has reverted more and more to a childlike state. Oberon becomes impatient with her.”
“Where are they now?” asked Quinn.
“At Mayfair Medical. Rowan had them both admitted for tests earlier this evening.”
“Oh, splendid, and they agreed to it!” Mona said. “How could I not know that? The two dead ones are not enough! Lorkyn isn’t enough. She has to have the live ones immediately as well! That’s Rowan. Did she say the poor children looked a bit peaked? Or did she just shoot something into their veins and then throw them on the stretchers? I wish I could mount a conscientious opposition, but I haven’t the spirit for it. So let them disappear into the laboratories and secret rooms of Mayfair Medical. Good-bye, sweet Miravelle! Will I ever lay eyes on you again? Farewell, oh, acid-tongued Oberon, may you not alienate too many of the nurses with your withering wit, for they can make your life miserable. And who am I, the Blood Child, to seek such a privilege as to see these odd, out-of-time beings, except perhaps to turn them loose into the workaday world where they’d undoubtedly fall victim to some insidious human equivalent to Rodrigo the Drug Lord!”
“Mona, Miravelle and Oberon won’t be kept there,” Quinn said. “We can see to it ourselves. Rowan won’t make them prisoners. You’re making Rowan the enemy again for no reason. We can go to Mayfair Medical now and see them, very likely, if you wish. Nobody can prevent us.”
“Listen to you!” Mona said, with a faint affectionate smile. “You think you know Rowan, and you don’t know Rowan. And Beloved Boss here has fallen under her dark spell same as Ash Templeton apparently, who forswore her for his species and failed to save them for Morrigan’s jealousy of her, Oh, Darkness, Oh, Piteous Darkness; Lestat, how can you find her glacial heart!”
“You’re using Rowan as a lightning rod,” said Quinn calmly. “What’s the excuse now for hating Rowan? Because she pronounced Ash and Morrigan dead? Lestat told you they were dead. Let it go. Let it all go.”
Mona shook her head, words rushing. “Where’s the wake? Where’s the funeral? Where are the flowers? Where is the family with everyone kissing? Will they put Ash and Morrigan in the family tomb?”
I reached over and took her hand. “Ophelia,” I said softly, “what need have they for flowers now, or kissing? ‘Is’t possible a young maid’s wits should be as mortal as an old man’s life?’ Be still, my beauty.”
She answered me with Shakespeare:
“ ‘Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself, She turns to favour and to prettiness.’ ”
“No, come back. Hold on.”
She shut her eyes. The silence lengthened. I felt her draw breath.
“Stirling, tell her how it went,” I said cautiously. “Tell her the comic parts.”
“If I may say so,” Stirling said, “after an afternoon with Tante Oscar and Dolly Jean, and all their stories of Walking Babies in the swamps, Miravelle and Oberon were ready for a hospital suite. And very likely Michael Curry was glad to see them go.”
“Did they never try to escape the house?” asked Mona.
“Guards all around it,” conceded Stirling. “But Mona, how can anyone let these two go unshepherded into a human world? Yes, the Secret People endured for some five years, it seems, and Oberon and Miravelle told the most wondrous tales of their life with Father and Mother, but the basic concept was falling apart from the start. The Silas Rebellion lasted two years. Rodrigo’s takeover another two, and that’s the story we have at this point.”
“Well, what’s going to happen to them?” Mona demanded.
“Oberon’s placed his fate entirely in Rowan’s hands, and after meeting Michael and wandering about the First Street property, and his high comic rounds with Tante Oscar and Dolly Jean, I think he’s insisting that Miravelle do the same. You might say that Oberon committed himself to Mayfair Medical and committed his sister. That’s where things stand.”
“Any word on Lorkyn?” I asked.
“No,” said Stirling. “None at all. Only Rowan knows what’s happening with Lorkyn. Michael didn’t have a clue.”
“Ah, that’s marvelous!” said Mona bitterly, her lip quivering. “I wonder if she will cut her up alive.”
“Stop it,” I said softly. “Lorkyn’s filthy with the blood of others. She was the cohort of Rodrigo. Rodrigo slew Ash and Morrigan! Let it be.”
“Amen,” said Quinn. “I’ve seldom seen a more frightening creature than Lorkyn. What is Rowan supposed to do with her? Pass her over to the Drug Enforcement people? You think she wouldn’t give them the slip? Rowan has a jurisdiction beyond the law, as we do.”
Mona shook her head. She was becoming ever more fragile by the minute.
“And what about Michael?” she asked, with a note of hysteria in her voice, her face still pallid and her eyes hard with pain. “What’s happening to my beloved Michael in all of this? Does he guess that Rowan’s enchanted with the great Lestat behind his back!”
“Oh, so that’s it,” said Quinn gravely. “And you, the child that bedded him and bore Morrigan, are now coming down upon Rowan for a bevy of kisses. Mona, bear up!”
She shot him a deadly glance. “You’ve never said a mean thing to me, Quinn!” she whispered.
Stirling was quite taken aback by all this.
I spoke not one word.
“You sell the love of Michael and Rowan short and you know you do,” said Stirling with a bit of harshness. “Would that I could break all the confidences bestowed on me. I can’t. Suffice to say Rowan loves Michael with her entire soul. Yes, there were moments of extreme temptation in New York with Ash Templeton. She, no longer able to bear, and this wise immortal, who could so well understand her … but she never yielded. And she won’t break the foundations of her life for anyone else now.”
“That’s the truth,” I said quietly.
Quinn reached over and kissed Mona. She yielded to it forgivingly.
“Where is Michael now?” she asked, avoiding my glance.
“Sleeping,” said Stirling. “After Rowan rushed in and took Oberon and Miravelle away, a bit dramatically perhaps, Michael collapsed on his bed upstairs and fell into a deep slumber. I don’t think it helped his peace of mind one bit that Tante Oscar had looked deep into his eyes before she left and declared him ‘the father of doomed progeny.’ ”
Mona was immediately furious. (But it was better than being insane.) Her eyes were moist and rimmed in red. “That’s just what Michael needs! How dare this creature come making such predictions! I’ll bet Dolly Jean latched on to that too. Dolly Jean would never let an opportunity like that slip through her crafty little fingers.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Stirling. “She told Michael he had best sprinkle yellow powder all around his bed. I think that was the last straw for him.”
“You know,” said Mona, her hysteria cresting, her words racing again, “in my glory as Designée of the Mayfair Legacy, when I was going around in a cowboy hat and shorts and big-sleeve shirts, riding in the company plane, worth billions of dollars and eating all the ice cream I ever desired, I wanted to purchase a radio station. And one of my dreams was to give Dolly Jean her own show so that people could call in and chat with her about country ways and country wisdom. I was going to give Ancient Evelyn her own show—
“—you know Ancient Evelyn, don’t you, Stirling?
“—Lestat, Ancient Evelyn just whispers and whispers—
“—and I was going to give a prize to anyone who could actually understand her. I figured whisperers would call in, you know, who would whisper right back to her the way she whispered to them. We’d have an hour of whispering. I’d give them prizes too, Hell, why not? Then there would have been the Michael Curry Hour, when people could have called up with stories of the Irish Channel or Irish songs, and Michael and the callers could have sung them together. And of course I was going to have my own show, all about the world economy and world trends in architecture and art—(sigh). I had designs for every kook in the family. Never got to do that, got too sick. But Dolly Jean’s still jiving. And Michael—Michael’s wife cheating on him with you, and he’s got no one to defend him.”
“Oh, Mona let it go,” said Quinn.
My pain was no one’s concern but my own.
She collapsed back into a pale, glazed-eyed trance, but only for a moment:
“And you know the damnedest thing,” she said, squinting as though she couldn’t quite recall her theme. “Oh yeah, vampires, I mean, real vampires, they don’t have any websites.”
“Let’s keep it that way,” said Quinn. “They shouldn’t have any websites.”
“It’s time for you to hunt,” I said. “You’re both thirsting. Make a night of it. Head up north. Hit the beer joints along the roads. Beat the hours down with hunting. By tomorrow, it’s my guess Rowan will be ready to let us see the remains of Ash and Morrigan. And we can see Miravelle and Oberon too.”
She gave me a dazed look. “Yeah, that sounds great,” she whispered. “A regular sideshow. There’s a part of me that never wants to see Rowan or Michael again. There’s a part of me that never wants to see Miravelle and Oberon ever again. As for Morrigan—.”
“Come on, my precious Ophelia,” said Quinn. “We’re going to take to the air, baby, we’re going to do what the Beloved Boss said. I know that jukebox, pool table route. We go for the Little Drink with the truckers and the cowboys, and maybe we stop to dance to the Dixie Chicks now and then, and along comes some guy with a conscience full of pure coal and we lure him out to where the parking lot falls into the trees and we fight over him.”
She laughed in spite of herself. “Sounds brutal and basic,” she sighed.
He pulled her up out of the chair. She turned, and reached down to give me a warm hug and a kiss.
I was happily surprised. I held her tight. “My pixie,” I said. “You’ve only begun on the Devil’s Road. You have such wonders yet to discover. Be clever. Be swift.”
“But how do real vampires connect on the World Wide Web?” she asked with painful seriousness.
“Beats me, sweetheart,” I said. “I’ve never sufficiently recovered from my first sight of a steam locomotive. I almost got run over. What makes you think real vampires want to connect?”
“Stop putting me on,” she said dreamily. “But you don’t want me to create my own web page?”
“Absolutely not,” I said somberly.
“But you published the Chronicles!” she protested. “Now what about that?” She put her hands on her hips. “How do you defend that, I’d like t
o know?”
“An age-old form of public confession,” I said, “sacrosanct. Goes back to ancient Egypt. A book goes forth quietly into the world, labeled fiction, to be perused, pondered, passed from one to another, perhaps put aside for the future, to perish if unwanted, to endure if valued, to work its way into trunks and vaults and junk heaps, who knows? I don’t defend myself to anybody anyway. Stay off the World Wide Web!”
“Sounds positively dusty to me,” she said. “But I love you just the same. Now think about this radio station idea. Maybe it’s not too late. You could have your own show.”
“AAAAAAHHHHH!” I cried. “I can’t bear it! You think Blackwood Farm’s the World. It’s not, Mona! There’s just Blackwood Farm, and all the rest is Sugar Devil Swamp, trust me. And how long do you think we’ll have Blackwood Farm, you, me or Quinn? My Lord, you’ve got a direct connection to the one who told you where to find the Secret People, you’re E-mailing Wisdom Central, and you’re carrying on about websites! Be gone from me, now! Save thyself from my wrath!”
I think I scared her just a little. She was so tired and gaunt that she fell back from the sound of my voice. “We’re not finished with this discussion, Beloved Boss,” she said. “Trouble with you is you get too emotional. I question anything and you just blow your stack.”
Quinn picked her up and carried her off, making huge circles on the terrace as he went, singing to her, and so they disappeared from sight and her laughter rang out in the softly purring evening.
A warm breeze came to fill the silence. The distant trees were doing their subtle dance. My heart was suddenly beating too hard and a cold anxiety crept over me. I picked up the statue of Saint Juan Diego from the flagstones and set him properly on the table where he belonged. I said nothing about him. Ah, tacky little dude with thy paper roses, thou art surely destined for better representations.
I was in the depths. The pulsing night sang to me of the nothingness. The stars spread out to prove the horror of our universe—bits and pieces of the body of no one flying at monstrous speed away from the meaningless, uncomprehending source.
