by Anne Rice
"Lie down on that bed, and close your eyes. And listen to every word I say."
I did as I was told. And immediately felt a little sleepy. His voice became even more directive in its softness, rather like that of a hypnotist, bidding me to relax completely, and to visualize a spiritual double of this form.
"Must I visualize myself with this body?"
"No. Doesn't matter. What matters is that you-your mind, your soul, your sense of self- are linked to the form you envision. Now picture it as congruent with your body, and then imagine that you want to lift it up and out of the body-that you want to go up!"
For some thirty minutes David continued this unhurried instruction, reiterating in his own fashion the lessons which priests had taught to their initiates for thousands of years. I knew the old formula. But I also knew complete mortal vulnerability, and a crushing sense of my limitations, and a stiffening and debilitating fear.
We had been at it perhaps forty-five minutes when I finally sank into the requisite and lovely vibratory state on the very cusp of sleep. My body seemed in fact to have become this delicious vibratory feeling, and nothing more! And just when I realized this, and might have remarked upon it, I suddenly felt myself break loose and begin to rise.
I opened my eyes; or at least I thought I did. I saw I was floating directly above my body; in fact, I couldn't even see the real flesh-and-blood body at all. "Go up!" I said. And instantly I traveled to the ceiling with the exquisite lightness and speed of a helium balloon! It was nothing to turn completely over and look straight down into the room.
Why, I had passed through the blades of the ceiling fan! Indeed, it was in the very middle of my body, though I could feel nothing. And down there, under me, was the sleeping mortal form I had inhabited so miserably all of these strange days. Its eyes were closed, and so was its mouth.
I saw David sitting hi his wicker chair, right ankle on his left knee, hands relaxed on his thighs, as he looked at the sleeping man. Did he know I had succeeded? I couldn't hear a word he was speaking. Indeed, I seemed to be in a totally different sphere from these two solid figures, though I felt utterly complete and entire and real myself.
Oh, how lovely this was! This was so near to my freedom as a vampire that I almost began to weep again. I felt so sorry for the two solid and lonely beings down there. I wanted to pass up through the ceiling and into the night.
Slowly I went up, and then out over the roof of the hotel, until I was hovering above the white sand.
But this was enough, wasn't it? Fear gripped me, the fear I'd known when I did this little trick before. What hi the name of God was keeping me alive hi this state! I needed my body! At once I plummeted, blindly, back into the flesh. I woke up, tingling all over, and staring at David as he sat staring back at me.
"I did it," I said. I was shocked to feel these tubes of skin and bone enclosing me again, and to see my fingers moving when I told them to do it, to feel my toes come alive hi my shoes. Lord God, what an experience! And so many, many mortals had sought to describe it. And so many more, in their ignorance, did not believe that such a thing could be.
"Remember to veil your thoughts," David said suddenly. "No matter how exhilarated you become. Lock your mind up tight!"
"Yes, sir."
"Now let's do it all again."
By midnight-some two hours later-I had learned to rise at will. Indeed, it was becoming addictive-the feeling of lightness, the great swooshing ascent! The lovely ease of passing through walls and ceiling; and then the sudden and shocking return. There was a deep throbbing pleasure to it, pure and shining, like an eroticism of the mind.
"Why can't a man die in this fashion, David? I mean why can't one simply rise into the heavens and leave the earth?"
"Did you see an open doorway, Lestat?" he asked.
"No," I said sadly. "I saw this world. It was so clear, so beautiful. But it was this world." "Come now, you must learn to make the assault."
"But I thought you would do it, David. You'd jolt him and knock nun out of his body and–“
"Yes, and suppose he spots me before I can do it, and makes me into a nice little torch. What then? No, you must learn the trick as well."
This was far more difficult. Indeed it required the very opposite of the passivity and relaxation which we had employed and developed before. I had now to focus all my energy upon David with the avowed purpose of knocking him out of his body-a phenomenon which I could not hope to see in any real sense- and then go into his body myself. The concentration demanded of me was excruciating. The timing was critical. And the repeated efforts produced an intense and exhausting nervousness rather like that of a right-handed person trying to write perfectly with the left hand.
I was near to tears of rage and frustration more than once. But David was absolutely adamant that we must continue and that this could be done. No, a stiff drink of Scotch wouldn't help. No, we couldn't eat until later. No, we couldn't break for a walk on the beach or a late swim.
The first time I succeeded, I was absolutely aghast. I went speeding towards David, and felt the impact in the same purely mental fashion in which I felt the freedom of the flight. Then I was inside David, and for one split second saw myself-slack-jawed and staring dully-through the dun lenses of David's eyes.
Then I felt a dark shuddering disorientation, and an invisible blow as if someone had placed a huge hand on my chest. I realized that he had returned and pushed me out. I was hovering in the air, and then back in my own sweat-drenched body, laughing near hysterically from mad excitement and sheer fatigue.
"That's all we need," he said. "Now I know we can pull this off. Come, once again! We're going to do it twenty times if we have to, until we know that we can achieve it without fail."
On the fifth successful assault, I remained in his body for a full thirty seconds, absolutely mesmerized by the different feelings attendant to it-the lighter limbs, the poorer vision, and the peculiar sound of my voice coming out of his throat. I looked down and saw his hands-thin, corded with blood vessels, and touched on the backs of the fingers with dark hair-and they were my hands! How hard it was to control them. Why, one of them had a pronounced tremour which I had never noticed before.
Then came the jolt again, and I was flying upwards, and then the plummet, back into the twenty-six-year-old body once more.
We must have done it twelve times before the slave driver of a Candomble priest said it was time for him to really fight my assault.
"Now, you must come at me with much greater determination. Your goal is to claim the body! And you expect a fight."
For an hour we battled. Finally, when I was able to jolt him out and keep him out for the space of ten seconds, he declared that this would be enough.
"He told you the truth about your cells. They will know you. They will receive you and strive to keep you. Any adult human knows how to use his own body much better than the intruder. And of course you know how to use those preternatural gifts in ways of which he can't possibly even dream. I think we can do it. In fact, I'm certain now that we can."
"But tell me something," I said. "Before we stop, don't you want to jolt me out of this body and go into it? I mean, just to see what it's like?"
"No," he said quietly. "I don't."
"But aren't you curious?" I asked him. "Don't you want to know . . ."
I could see that I was taxing his patience.
"Look, the real truth is, we don't have time for that experience. And maybe I don't want to know. I can remember my youth well enough. Too well, in fact. We aren't playing little games here. You can make the assault now. That's what counts." He looked at his watch. "It's almost three. We'll have some supper and then we'll sleep. We've a full day ahead, exploring the ship and confirming our plans. We must be rested and in full control of our faculties. Come, let's see what we can rustle up in the way of food or drink."
We went outside and along the walk until we reached the little kitchen-a funny, damp, and somewhat cl
uttered room. The kindly proprietor had left two plates for us in the rusted, groaning refrigerator, along with a bottle of white wine. We sat down at the table and commenced to devour every morsel of rice, yams, and spiced meat, not caring at all that it was very cold.
"Can you read my thoughts?" I asked, after I'd consumed two glasses of wine.
"Nothing, you've got the trick."
"So how do I do it in my sleep? The Queen Elizabeth 2 can't be more than a hundred miles out now. She's to dock in two hours."
"Same way you do it when you're awake. You shut down. You close up. Because, you see, no one is ever completely asleep. Not even those in a coma are completely asleep. Will is always operative. And will is what this is about."
I looked at him as we sat there. He was obviously tired, but he did not look haggard or in any way debilitated. His thick dark hair obviously added to the impression of vigor; and his large dark eyes had the same fierce light in them which they always had.
I finished quickly, shoved the dishes into the sink, and went out on the beach without bothering to say what I meant to do. I knew he would say we had to rest now, and I didn't want to be deprived of this last night as a human being under the stars.
Going down to the lip of the water, I peeled off the cotton clothes, and went into the waves. They were cool but inviting, and then I stretched out my arms and began to swim. It was not easy, of course. But it wasn't hard either, once I resigned myself to the fact that humans did it this way-stroke by stroke against the force of the water, and letting the water buoy the cumbersome body, which it was entirely willing to do.
I swam out quite far, and then rolled over on my back and looked at the sky. It was still full of fleecy white clouds. A moment of peace came over me, in spite of the chill on my exposed skin, and the dimness all around me, and the strange feeling of vulnerability I experienced as I floated on this dark treacherous sea. When I thought of being back in my old body, I could only be happy, and once again, I knew that in my human adventure, I had failed.
I had not been the hero of my own dreams. I had found human life too hard.
Finally I swam back into the shallows and then walked up onto the beach. I picked up my clothes, shook off the sand, slung them over my shoulder, and walked back to the little room.
Only one lamp burned on the dressing table. David was sitting on his bed, closest to the door, and dressed only in a long white pajama shirt and smoking one of those little cigars. I liked the scent of it, dark and sweet.
He looked his usual dignified self, arms folded, eyes full of normal curiosity as he watched me take a towel from the bath and dry off my hair and my skin.
"Just called London," he said.
"What's the news?" I wiped my face with the towel, then slung it over the back of the chair. The air felt so good on my naked skin, now that it was dry.
"Robbery in the hills above Caracas. Very similar to the crimes in Curacao. A large villa full of artifacts, jewels, paintings. Much was smashed; only small portables were stolen; three people dead. We should thank the gods for the poverty of the human imagination- for the sheer meanness of this man's ambitions-and that our opportunity to stop him has come so soon. In time, he would have wakened to his monstrous potential. As it is, he is our predictable fool."
"Does any being use what he possesses?" I asked. "Perhaps a few brave geniuses know their true limits. What do the rest of us do but complain?"
"I don't know," he said, a sad little smile passing over his face. He shook his head and looked away. "Some night, when this is all over, tell me again how it was for you. How you could be in that beautiful young body and hate this world so much." "I'll tell you, but you'll never understand. You're on the wrong side of the dark glass. Only the dead know how terrible it is to be alive."
I pulled a loose cotton T-shirt out of my little suitcase, but I didn't put it on. I sat down on the bed beside him. And then I bent down and kissed his face again gently, as I had in New Orleans, liking the feel of his roughly shaven beard, just as I liked that sort of thing when I was really Lestat and I would soon have that strong masculine blood inside.
I moved closer to him, when suddenly he grasped my hand, and I felt him gently push me away.
"Why, David?" I asked him.
He didn't answer. He lifted his right hand and brushed my hair back out of my eyes.
"I don't know," he whispered. "I can't. I simply can't."
He got up gracefully, and went outside into the night.
I was too furious with pure stymied passion to do anything for a moment. Then I followed him out. He had gone down on the sand a ways and he stood there alone, as I had done before.
I came up behind him.
"Tell me, please, why not?"
"I don't know," he said again. "I only know I can't. I want to. Believe me, I do. But I can't. My past is ... so close to me." He let out a long sigh, and for a while was silent again. Then he went on. "My memories of those days are so clear. It's as if I'm in India again, or Rio. Ah, yes, Rio. It's as if I am that young man again."
I knew I was to blame for this. I knew it, and that it was useless to say apologetic words.
I also sensed something else. I was an evil being, and even when I was in this body, David .could sense that evil. He could sense the powerful vampiric 'greed. It was an old evil, brooding and terrible. Gretchen hadn't sensed it. I had deceived her with this warm and smiling body. But when David looked at me, he saw that blond blue-eyed demon whom he knew very well.
I said nothing. I merely looked out over the sea. Give me back my body. Let me be that devil, I thought. Take me away from this paltry brand of desire and this weakness. Take me back into the dark heavens where I belong. And it seemed suddenly that my loneliness and my misery were as terrible as they had ever been before this experiment, before this little sojourn into more vulnerable flesh. Yes, let me be outside it again, please. Let me be a watcher. How could I have been such a fool?
I heard David say something to me, but I didn't really catch the words. I looked up slowly, pulling myself out of my thoughts, and I saw that he had turned to face me, and I realized that his hand was resting gently on my neck. I wanted to say something angry- Take your hand away, don't torment me-but I didn't speak.
"No, you're not evil, that's not it," he whispered. "It's me, don't you understand. It's my fear! You don't know what this adventure has meant to me! To be here again in this part of the great world-and with you! I love you. I love you desperately and insanely, I love the soul inside you, and don't you see, it's not evil. It's not greedy. But it's immense. It overpowers even this youthful body because it is your soul, fierce and indomitable and outside time-the soul of the true Lestat. I can't give in to it. I can't... do it. I'll lose myself forever if I do it, as surely as if. . . as if. . ."
He broke off, too shaken obviously to go on. I'd hated the pain in his voice, the faint tremour undermining its deep firmness. How could I ever forgive myself? I stood still, staring past him into the darkness. The lovely pounding of the surf and the faint clacking of the coconut palms were the only sounds. How vast were the heavens; how lovely and deep and calm these hours just before dawn. I saw Gretchen's face. I heard her voice. There was a moment this morning when I thought I could throw up everything-just to be with you... I could feel it sweeping me away, the way the music once did. And if you were to say "Come with me," even now, I might go... The meaning of chastity is not to fall in love ... I could fall in love with you. I know I could. And then beyond this burning image, fault yet undeniable, I saw the face of Louis, and I heard words spoken in his voice that I wanted to forget.
Where was David? Let me wake from these memories. I don't want them. I looked up and I saw him again, and in him the old familiar dignity, the restraint, the imperturbable strength. But I saw the pain too.
"Forgive me," he whispered. His voice was still unsteady, as he struggled to preserve the beautiful and elegant facade. "You drank from the fountain of youth when you
drank the blood of Magnus. Really you did. You'll never know what it means to be the old man that I am now. God help me, I loathe the word, but it's true. I'm old."
"I understand," I said. "Don't worry." I leant forward and kissed him again. "I'll leave you alone. Come on, we should sleep. I promise. I'll leave you alone."
TWENTY-ONE
GOOD Lord, look at it, David." I had just stepped out of the taxi onto the crowded quai. The great blue and white Queen Elizabeth 2 was far too big to come into the little harbour. She rested at anchor a mile or two out-I could not gauge-so monstrously large that she seemed the ship out of a nightmare, frozen upon the motionless bay. Only her row upon row of myriad tiny windows prevented her from seeming the ship of a giant.
The quaint little island with its green hills and curved shore reached out towards her, as if trying to shrink her and draw her nearer, all in vain.
I felt a spasm of excitement as I looked at her. I had never been aboard a modern vessel. This part was going to be fun.
A small wooden launch, bearing her name in bold painted letters, and obviously laden with but one load of her many passengers, made its way to the concrete dock as we watched.
"There's Jake in the prow of the launch," said David. "Come on, let's go into the cafe."
We walked slowly under the hot sun, comfortable in our short-sleeve shirts and dungarees-a couple of tourists-past the dark-skinned vendors with their seashells for sale, and rag dolls, and tiny steel drums, and other souvenirs. How pretty the island appeared. Its forested hills were dotted with tiny dwellings, and the more solid buildings of the town of St. George's were massed together on the steep cliff to the far left beyond the turn of the quai. The whole prospect had almost an Italian hue to it, what with so many dark and stained reddish walls and the rusted roofs of corrugated tin which in the burning sun looked deceptively like roofs of baked tile. It seemed a lovely place to go exploring- at some other time.
