by Anne Rice
“Julien never quite figured it out. He thought at first the thing was the saint-a vengeful ghost. But it wasn’t that simple. Yet the thing did originate there, in that place. It didn’t come from heaven or hell or all time or whatever lies it always tells the witches. It started its dark destiny in the Glen of Donnelaith.” He paused. “What do you know about Ashlar?”
“It’s an old Scottish legend. Very pagan actually,” said Aaron. “Michael, why didn’t you tell me these things?”
“I am telling you, Aaron, but it doesn’t matter. I’m going to kill it. We can find out all about its past after it’s dead. So what do you know about Ashlar, the Scottish saint?”
“Ah…something about the saint returning every so many hundred years. It’s in books here and there. But I never realized it had to do with Donnelaith. There’s another mystery for you. Why wasn’t it in the files? We cross-reference. We are so careful. But I never saw a mention of any legends connected with Donnelaith. I assumed there was no relevant material.”
“But what story did you hear?”
“The saint had special physical characteristics. From time to time someone would be born having those characteristics. And he would be declared the reincarnation of the saint. The new saint. All very pagan. Not Catholic at all. In the Catholic Church if you are a saint, it’s because you are in heaven, not migrating into new flesh.”
Michael nodded. Gave a little laugh.
“Write it down for me,” said Aaron. “Everything Julien told you. You must.”
“I will, but remember what I said. Julien only had one message. It was to kill the thing. Not to be ‘interested in it,’ but to wipe it out.” Michael sighed. “Should have done it at Christmas. Should have killed it. I could have, probably, but naturally Rowan didn’t want me to. How could she? This newborn thing, this mystery. That’s what always happens. It seduces people. And now it’s flesh, and what is the old prayer, ‘And the word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us.’ ”
Aaron nodded. “Let me say it once aloud to you,” he said in a low voice, “so I don’t say it over and over forever in my heart and soul. I should have come here with you on Christmas Eve. I should not have let you come up against it alone, come up against it and her.”
“Don’t condemn her.”
“I don’t. I don’t mean that. I mean I should have been here. That’s all I mean. If it matters, I don’t intend to desert you now.”
“It matters,” said Michael, with a shrug. “But you know, I have this curious feeling. It’s going to be easy now that I’ve made up my mind. Kill it.” He snapped his fingers. “That’s my problem. I was afraid to do that from the start.”
It was eight o’clock. Dark, cold. You could feel the cold if you put your hands on the panes.
Aaron had just come back for supper with Yuri. Yuri was returning to the Amelia Street house to talk to Mona. Yuri had blushed when he said he was going. Michael had realized the reason why. Yuri was taken with Mona. Then Yuri had stammered, “She reminds me of myself at her age. She is unusual. She said she would show me all her computer tricks. We will…talk.”
Flustered, stammering, blushing. Ah, the power of Mona, thought Michael. And now she had the legacy to contend with, as well as everything else.
But there was something pure about Yuri, pure and loyal and good.
“He can be trusted,” Aaron had said quietly. “He is a gentleman, and he is honorable. Mona will be quite safe in his company. Never fear.”
“No one has to fear for Mona,” said Michael, a little ashamed, and getting just a wisp again of those sensual moments, when he’d held her and knew it was wrong and that it was going to happen and so what?
There were so few times when Michael had done bad things and said, So what?
Aaron was asleep in the upstairs bedroom.
“Men of my age nap after meals,” he had said apologetically. He had gone to lie down. He was utterly exhausted, and Michael wouldn’t talk anymore about Julien just now, and maybe that was best because Aaron needed the rest.
Just you and me now, Julien, Michael thought.
It was quiet in the house.
Hamilton had gone home to pay some bills. Bea would return later. Only one nurse was on duty because all the money in the world could not procure another, such was the shortage. A nurse’s aide, very capable, was upstairs in Aunt Vivian’s room going into her third quarter hour on the phone.
He could hear the rise and fall of the woman’s voice.
He stood in the living room, looking out into the side yard. Darkness. Cold. Remembering. Drums of Comus. A man smiling in the darkness. Suddenly Michael was a small child again, and would never know what it meant to be strong or to be safe. Fear had kicked in the door of childhood. Fear had laid waste the safety that had been Mother.
Drums and torches on Mardi Gras Night struck terror. We die when we get old. We are no more. No more. He tried to imagine himself dead. A skull in the earth. This thought had come to him often in his life. I will be that way someday, absolutely. It is a certainty, one of the few in my life. I will be dead. I may be a skull in the earth. I may be a skull in a coffin. I don’t know. But I will die.
It seemed the nurse’s aide was crying. Not possible. There was the soft vibration of steps. The front door closed. That was all so far away from him, people coming, going. If she took a turn for the worse, they’d shout his name.
And he’d run upstairs, but why? To be there when the breath left her. To hold her cold hand. To lay his head on her breast and feel the last of the warmth in her. How did he know it would be like that? Had anyone ever told him? Or was it just that her hands were getting colder and colder and suffer and suffer, and when he looked at her nails, her pretty clean nails, they were faintly blue.
“We will not manicure them,” the nurse had said. “You can scrap that part of the plan. We have to be able to see their color. It has to do with oxygen. She was a beautiful woman.”
Yes, you said that before. But she hadn’t. It had been the other nurse who had said it. How many other insensitive things had they said?
The movement of the dark trees outside chilled him. Chilled him to look at it. He didn’t want to be here, staring out the window in the cold empty side yard. He wanted to be warm and be with her.
He turned around and walked slowly back across the double parlor, beneath the cypress arch, a beautiful ornamental thing. Maybe he should read to her, softly, so that she could tune it out if she hated it. Maybe play the radio for a while. Maybe play Julien’s Victrola. That mean nurse who didn’t like the Victrola was no longer here.
He could send the nurses out of the room, couldn’t he? Gradually it had been penetrating to him. Do we need these nurses?
He saw her dead. He saw her gray and cold and finished. He saw her buried, more or less. Not the whole detailed picture, step by step, and strewn over time. Just the concept, in a flashing light-a coffin sliding into a vault. Like Gifford. Only it was here, their cemetery on the edge of the Garden District, and he could walk over there any day, and lay his hand on the slab of marble that was only four or five inches from her soft dark blond hair. Rowan, Rowan.
Remember, mon fils.
He turned. Who had said this? The great long hall was hollow and empty and slightly cold. The dining room was altogether dark. He listened, not for real sounds, but for supernatural ones, for the voice again. Remember, yes, I will.
“Yes, I will,” he said.
Silence. All around him silence, wrapping up his spoken words and making them loud. Making them sharp in the stillness, like a movement, like a drop in temperature. Silence.
There was absolutely no one about. No one in the dining room. No one visible at the top of the stairs. He could see Aunt Vivian’s room was no longer lighted. No one talking on the phone. Empty. Darkness.
And then it penetrated to him. He was alone.
No, couldn’t be. He walked to the front door and opened it. For one moment, he could not t
ake it in. No one at the black iron gate. No one on the porch. No one across the street. Just the solemn empty silence of the Garden District, deserted as a ruined city beneath the motionless street light, the soft clumps of oak leaves. The house as still and undisturbed as it had ever been the first time he saw it.
“Where are they?” He felt the sudden thrust of panic. “Christ, what’s going on?”
“Michael Curry?”
The man was standing to his left. In the shadows, almost invisible, except for his blond hair. He came forward. He must have been two inches taller than Michael. Michael looked into his pale eyes.
“You sent for me?” the man asked softly, respectfully. He extended his hand. “I’m sorry, Mr. Curry.”
“Sent for you? What do you mean?”
“You had the priest call the hotel for me, you asked that I come. I’m sorry it is over.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Where are the guards who were here? Where is the watchman who was at the gate? What happened to everybody?”
“The priest sent them away,” said the man gently. “As soon as she died. He told me on the phone that he was sending them away. That I was to come and wait here, by the door, for you. I’m sorry she’s dead. I hope she knew no pain or fear.”
“Oh no, I’m dreaming. She’s not dead! She’s upstairs. What priest? There’s no priest here! Aaron!”
He turned, staring into the deep darkness of the hallway, for a moment unable to make out the red carpet of the stairs. Then he bolted, taking the flight in one bound after another, and rushing to her closed door.
“Goddamnit, she didn’t die. She didn’t. They would have told me.”
When he felt the knob, and realized he couldn’t open it, he was about to ram it with his shoulder. “Aaron!” he shouted again.
A click inside. The little lock turning. The door popping back, just a little as if of its own accord. Doors all have their own pace and rhythm, their own way of opening or closing. Doors in New Orleans are never neat or efficient about it. In summer this door would swell up and scarcely close. Now it danced open.
He stared at it, at the white wooden panels. Inside the candles gleamed as before. Flicker on the silk of the tester, on the marble fireplace.
Aaron was speaking to him. Aaron said a name behind him. It sounded Russian. And the blond man said softly:
“But he asked for me, Aaron. He called me. The priest told me. He asked that I come.”
He walked into the room. The candles were the only light. They were blazing on the little altar, and the Virgin’s shadow rose up the wall, jittering and dancing as before. Rowan lay in the bed; her breasts rose and fell beneath the pink satin of the new gown they’d put on her. Her hands curled inward. Her mouth was open. He could hear her breathing. She was alive. Unchanged.
He fell on his knees next to the bed; he laid his head down on it, and he cried. He took her cold hand and squeezed it, and felt its pliancy, and what tiny bit of human warmth was actually there. She was alive.
“Oh, Rowan, my darling, my darling,” he said. “I thought…” And then he sobbed like a child.
He just let the sobs come out slowly. He knew Aaron was near him. And he knew the other man was there too. And then slowly he looked up and he saw the figure standing at the foot of the bed.
The priest. The thought sprang from him instantly when he saw the old-fashioned cassock of black wool, and the white Roman collar, but it was no priest.
“Hello, Michael.”
Soft voice. Tall as they had said he was. Hair long and black and over his shoulders, beard and mustache beautifully groomed and gleaming, a sort of horrid Christ or Rasputin, with his blanched and tearstained face.
“I too have been weeping for her,” the man said in a whisper. “She is near death now; she will bear no more; she will love no more; only a little milk was left in her; she is all but gone.”
He was holding to the bedpost with his left hand.
“Lasher!”
Perfectly monstrous suddenly-a man who was taller than an ordinary man. A slight figure, but the perfect incarnation of menace with its blue eyes fixed on him intently, mouth vivid beneath the black gleam of the mustache, white fingers long and bony and almost twined around the bedpost. Monstrous. Kill it. Now.
He was on his feet in an instant, but Stolov had him around the waist. “No, Michael, no, don’t hurt him. You can’t do it!” And then another man, a stranger, was grabbing him around the neck, and Aaron was begging Michael to hold off, to wait.
The figure by the bed remained motionless, secure. It wiped at its tears with a slow languid right hand.
“Hold on, Michael. Hold on,” said Aaron. “Stolov, I want you to let him go. You too, Norgan. Step back, Michael, we have it surrounded.”
“Only if he will not kill it,” said Stolov. “He must not kill it.”
“The hell I won’t,” said Michael. He arched his back, trying to throw off Stolov, but the other man had his arm too tightly around Michael’s neck. Stolov loosened his grip, catching his breath.
The creature looked at him. The tears continued to move, silent, eloquent.
“I’m in your hands, Mr. Stolov,” Lasher said. “I’m all yours.”
Michael jammed his elbow into the gut of the man behind him, then flung him backwards against the wall. He threw Stolov to the side. He was on Lasher in an instant, hands locked around his neck, the creature drawing in his breath in ragged terror, and grasping at Michael’s hair. Down they went onto the carpet. But the two other men had Michael, they were pulling him loose, wrenching him with all their strength, and Aaron, even Aaron was pulling his fingers off the creature. Aaron. Dear God.
For a moment Michael almost blacked out. The pain in his chest was sharp and relentless. He felt it in his shoulder and then going down his left arm. They had let him go because he was sitting back against the fireplace, unable now to hurt anybody, and Lasher, still struggling for breath, was climbing slowly, groggily to his feet. A lean figure in the flowing black cassock. The men stood on either side of Michael.
“Wait, Michael!” pleaded Aaron. “There are four of us against it.”
“Don’t hurt it, Michael,” said Stolov, tone as gentle as before.
“You’re letting it get away,” said Michael in a hoarse whisper. But when he looked up he saw the tall willowy figure peering down at him, the blue eyes still filled with tears, and the tears running down the smooth white cheeks. If Christ came to you, Michael thought, you would want him to look like this. This was the way painters had rendered him.
“I am not escaping,” said Lasher calmly. “I will go when they take me, Michael. The men from the Talamasca. I need them now. And they know it. And they will not let you hurt me again.” He turned towards the figure in the bed. “I came to see my beloved. I had to see her before they took me away.”
Michael tried to get to his feet. He was dizzy and the pain came again. Goddamnit, Julien, give me the strength to do it. Damnation. The gun, the gun is there by the bed. It’s right on top of the table, that big gun! He tried to say it out loud to Aaron. Shoot it. Pull the trigger and blow a hole in its head as big as an eye!
Stolov knelt in front of him. Stolov said: “Be calm, Michael, be calm. Just don’t try to hurt him. We will not allow him to leave this place, until we ourselves take him away.”
“I am ready,” said Lasher.
“Michael,” said Stolov. “Look at him. He is helpless now. He is in our power. Please be calm.”
Aaron stared at the creature as if spellbound.
“I warned you,” said Michael softly.
“Do you really want to kill me?” asked Lasher, tears welling continuously as if he had as many of them as a little child. “Do you hate me so very much? Just for trying to be alive?”
“You killed her,” Michael whispered. It was such a small, insignificant sound. “You did that to her. You killed our child.”
“Don’t you want to know my side o
f it, Father?” said the creature.
“I want to kill you,” said Michael.
“Oh, come now. Can you be so cold and unfeeling? Can you not care what was done to me? Can you not care why I am here? Do you think I meant to hurt her?”
Grasping the mantelpiece with one hand and Aaron’s hand with the other, Michael finally managed to get to his feet. He was weak all over, almost nauseated. He stood there, breathing slowly, thankful that the pain was gone, and staring at Lasher.
How beautiful the smooth face, how beautiful the soft black mustache and the close-cut beard. The Jesus of Dürer’s painting. And the deepest most exquisite blue eyes, mirrors to some unfathomable and seemingly wondrous soul.
“Oh yes, Michael, you want to know. You want to hear everything. And they will not let you kill me, will you, gentlemen? Not even Aaron will allow it. Not until I’ve said all I have to say.”
“Lies,” whispered Michael.
The creature swallowed as if struck by the condemnation, and then once again he wiped his eye with the back of his right hand. He did it as a child would, on the playground, and then he pressed his lips together and took a deep breath as if he would give way, as Michael had before-to sobs as well as tears.
Behind him, on the bed, Rowan lay oblivious, eyes staring into space, undisturbed, protected perhaps-unreachable as before.
“No, Michael,” he said. “No lies. That I promise you. We know better, don’t we, than to believe the truth will excuse anything. But lies you will not hear.”
Once again, the dining room. Only this time the light coming through the windows was the dim golden light of the lamps in the yard.
They sat around the table in the shadows. Both the doors were closed. Lasher sat in the place of authority, at the head of the table, one great white hand splayed on the wood before him, staring down at it as if he were dazed.
He raised his head and looked about him. He looked at the murals as though taking up one detail after another and releasing it again to the gloom. He looked at their faces. He looked at Michael, who sat near him just to his right.
