by Anne Rice
He found himself turning slowly in the chair, and reaching for the button that would shut down all his computers simultaneously.
And when the screens went dark, he was peering through the immaculate glass wall at the great sweep of stars that hung over the distant mountains.
Stars over the desert; how bright and magnificent they look.
The ancient Akasha had seen such stars. The young and impulsive vampire Lestat had seen them the night he'd staggered into the Gobi Desert hoping in vain for the rising sun to destroy him.
It seemed horrible to him suddenly that he, Fareed, in any form was on this tiny bit of burnt rock in a system so vast and indifferent to all suffering.
All you can do, he thought, is fight to stay alive, to stay conscious, to remain a witness and hope somehow there is a meaning to it.
And Viktor, Viktor standing behind him had just begun his optimistic and promising journey. How would he and Rose escape whatever was to happen?
He rose to his feet.
"It's time," he said. "Viktor, take leave of your mother."
"I have," said Viktor. "I'm ready."
Fareed took a last look around the room, a last look at his own bookshelves, computers, papers strewn here and there, the tip of the iceberg of twenty years of research, and he realized coldly that he might never see this great research compound again, that he might not survive this crisis precipitated by the Voice, that perhaps he'd come too late with too little into this great realm where he had seen such wonder and promise.
But what was to be done?
He embraced Viktor now, holding him tight and close and listening to that marvelous young heart pounding away with such splendid vigor. He looked into Viktor's clear blue eyes.
"I love you," he said.
"And I love you," Viktor answered without hesitation, holding him tightly with both arms. In his ear he whispered, "Father. Maker."
17
Gregory
Trinity Gate
Shall We Dance?
"I KNOW," said Armand. "But why would a creature of your age and power want Lestat to exert some kind of leadership?"
He was talking to Gregory Duff Collingsworth as they sat in the long rear salon of Trinity Gate on the Upper East Side--a glass porch that in fact united all three townhouses along the back like the service galleries of old in southern mansions--the glass wall beside them open to a magically illuminated garden of slender oaks and masses of night-blooming flowers. Paradise in New York if ever Gregory had beheld one.
"If I wanted to lead our tribe, as Benji calls it, I would have done something about it long ago," said Gregory. "I would have come forward, identified myself, involved myself. It's never been my inclination. Look, I've been transformed by the last two millennia. I've chronicled for myself that transformation. But in a very real way, I'm still the young man who once slept in Akasha's bed fully expecting to be murdered at any time to satisfy the fears of her king, Enkil. I commanded blood drinkers later, yes, with the Queens Blood, but under her cruel hand. No, life has me at a fever pitch of involvement after all this time, and I cannot back away from the luxury of studying all this and take up the confines of leadership."
"But you think that Lestat will?" asked Armand.
It was unnerving, Gregory thought--this boyish face confronting him, this near-cherubic face, with its warm brown eyes and the soft waving auburn hair, unnerving that all this belonged to an immortal of five hundred years in the Blood who himself had become a leader twice in his existence because of something iron hard and ruthless of which the face reflected nothing.
"I know that Lestat will and that he can," said Gregory. "Lestat is the only blood drinker truly known, in one way or another, to the entire world of the Undead. The only one. If they haven't read his books, they've seen his little films, or heard his songs. They know him, his face, his voice--they feel they know the charismatic being himself. As soon as the crisis of the Voice is past, he will lead. He must lead. Benjamin has been right since the beginning. Why should we continue leaderless and disunited when so much is to be gained by establishing a hierarchy and pooling our resources?"
Armand shook his head.
They sat at a white-marble-top table in two white-painted Chinese Chippendale chairs in this glass garden room with its fragile white lilies and its exquisite wisteria. Gregory was dressed as always in his immaculate three-piece wool suit, hair very short, and Armand, the long-haired angel, wore a severe but beautifully colored dark burgundy jacket with bright gold buttons, and a white shirt that was almost luminous in its silk, with a thick white silk scarf for a tie wrapped around his neck and folded into the open shirt collar.
"These have been good times for you and Louis, haven't they?" Gregory asked, taking a moment to breathe deeply, to sense the moment, to drink in the perfume of the lilies in their painted pots, to look at the shivering wisteria hanging down from the trellis that ran up the wall behind Armand, with its purple blossoms like an abstract painting of a cluster of grapes. That is what wisteria always made Gregory think of, of grapes....
"Yes, they've been good times," said Armand. He looked down at the marble black-and-white chess set between them. His right hand idly cradled the black queen on his side. "And it was a battle for us to achieve what we've achieved here. It's far easier to wander in despair, isn't it, to drift from place to place, never making a commitment. But I forced it. I brought Louis and Benji and Sybelle here. I insisted on it. And Antoine is now a vital part of us. I love Antoine. Benji and Sybelle love him too."
He gestured with his eyes to the open doors. Antoine and Sybelle had been playing together for over an hour, she at the piano as always and Antoine with his violin. It was a waltz from a twentieth-century musical they played now, something "popular" and not highly regarded perhaps in the world of classical music, but surprisingly dark and evocative.
"But there's no point in glorying in all of this just now, is there?" Armand asked. "Not with what we are facing." He sighed. His square face and rounded cheeks added to his childlike appearance. "The time will come when we can talk about all we've witnessed and what we have to offer to one another. But surely this isn't the time, not with the Voice turning blood drinkers against each other all over the American continent. And you know, of course, the young ones are pouring into New York, in spite of our warnings. Benji's told them over and over not to come, to let the elders gather, yet they come. You must hear them even more sharply than I do. They're out there in the park. They think the trees can hide them. They're hungry. And they know that if they trouble the innocent in my domain I'll destroy them. Yet still they're here, and I can smell their hunger."
Gregory didn't respond. There were perhaps fifty at most out there. That was all. Those were the only survivors who had made it this far in their desperation. Even now stragglers and survivors in various cities were turning on each other, battling as the Voice urged them to do, beheading their own former cohorts, cutting out their hearts, smashing their skulls. The cities of the world were filled with black stains upon the pavements where immortal lives had been snuffed out, and remains had been scorched by the sun.
Surely Armand knew that. Gregory did not conceal his own thoughts.
"I'm not sorry they're dying," Armand confessed.
"But the survivors, the survivors are what matter now," said Gregory, "and finding a leader. And if you won't be that leader, you, after all your experience ..."
"What experience?" asked Armand, his brown eyes brightening angrily. "You know what I was, a pawn, an executioner in the thrall of a cult." He paused, then he uttered the words, "The Children of Satan," with dark smoldering rage. "Well, I'm that no longer. Yes, I've driven them out of this city from time to time, and I once drove them all out of New Orleans when Lestat was suffering there and they were constantly trying to get a glimpse of him. But you'd be surprised if you knew how often I used the Mind Gift to terrify them, force them into retreat. I did that much more than ... than burn them.
" His voice trailed away. A blush appeared in his cheeks. "I never took any pleasure in killing any immortal."
"Well, maybe whoever leads today will not have to be a wanton executioner," said Gregory. "Maybe the old crude ways of the Children of Satan have absolutely nothing to do with this. But you don't want to lead. You know you don't. And Marius does not. Marius can hear us now. He's in there listening to the music. He came in half an hour ago. He has no taste to lead. No. Lestat is the logical one to be the anointed leader."
"Anointed?" Armand repeated the word with a slight raise of his eyebrows.
"A figure of speech, Armand," said Gregory. "Nothing more. We've waked from those nightmares of the Queens Blood cult and the later Children of Satan. We are finished with such things. We are in thrall to no belief now except what we can know from the physical world around us...."
"Lestat's 'Savage Garden,' " said Armand.
"Not so savage really," said Gregory. "There is not a single one of us, no matter how old, that does not have a moral heart, an educated heart, a heart that learned to love while human, and a heart that should have learned ever more deeply to love as preternatural."
Armand looked sad suddenly. "Why has it taken me so long?"
"You're so young yet, you know that," said Gregory. "For a thousand years I served that wretched Queen. I suffered under her mythologies. You haven't even been alive that long in any form. That's what you have to grasp, what all the others have to grasp. You are on the threshold of a great journey, and you must begin to think in terms of what you can do as a powerful spiritual and biological being. Stop with the self-loathing. Stop with imagery of 'the damned' this and 'the damned' that! We are not damned. We never were. Who under the sun has the right to damn any living breathing creature?"
Armand smiled. "That's what they all love about Lestat," he said. "He says we're damned and then he behaves as if Hell has no dominion over him."
"It should have no dominion over any of us ever," said Gregory. "Now we must all talk of these things, all of us, not just you and I, but all of us. And something must be forged here that will transcend the crisis that's brought us together."
A noise from the front of the house suddenly distracted them. They stood and walked swiftly together down the long hallway and towards the open front doors. The music had broken off.
Louis was greeting two blood drinkers who had just arrived, and Gregory saw with relief that these were Fareed and Seth. Louis had taken their heavy coats, coats for the wind and cold altitudes, and was passing them on now to a quiet, obedient mortal servant who slunk away as if he were invisible.
How handsome Louis looked, with his ivory-colored skin and deep green eyes, this somewhat humble and self-effacing being who had given birth to the books of the Coven of the Articulate. Lestat might be the hero of the Vampire Chronicles, but this one, Louis, was the tragic heart. Yet he seemed at long last to have achieved a kind of peace with the ghastly realities of his existence and the existence of all those around him who outranked him in power but not necessarily in insight or wisdom.
Fareed and Seth were robust and vital as ever, mussed, and even flushed from the journey, but obviously glad to be under this roof.
Armand came forward with the deliberate dignity of the receiving master of the house and embraced Fareed and then Seth in the French manner with a kiss on both cheeks. Were they distracted by that angelic face? Probably.
"Welcome to our house," Armand said. "We are so glad you've come."
"Unfortunately the plane's been delayed," said Fareed. He was referring to the plane carrying Rose and Viktor. "I am very unhappy. It won't land before sunrise."
"We have people who can meet the plane," said Armand, "trusted people. They will take care of Rose and Viktor. Now come in and rest awhile."
"Ah, but we have such people too," Fareed said quickly, but not disagreeably. "And please understand, I don't want them under this roof. We'll keep them in our apartments in Midtown for a while."
"This is a secret location?" asked Armand. "We have deep cellars here, inaccessible to mortals and most immortals."
"The boy has a horror of basements and enclosed spaces," said Fareed. "I've promised he won't be locked in a crypt. He'll feel much safer in our Midtown rooms."
"And the girl. How much does she know?"
"Everything really," said Fareed. "There was no point in tormenting her with lies."
Armand nodded.
"We'll bring them here," said Seth. "We will allow them to meet everyone."
Fareed was obviously shocked. He looked helplessly and a little angrily at Seth.
"If they are to go their own way after this, better they remember us for what we were."
Armand nodded. "We want to make all of you comfortable in any way that we can."
They passed into the parlor. Sybelle's greeting was a quick nod, but Antoine came up with the violin and bow in his left hand to offer his right. Every new encounter with his own kind was treasured by Antoine.
Gregory watched as Marius came forward to embrace the two doctors. Ah, so powerful, this commanding Roman who had kept the Mother and Father safe and secret for two thousand years. If Marius experienced the slightest fear of his elders gathering here he showed not the slightest sign.
His beloved Chrysanthe, in her white-and-silver gown, who had been sitting with Marius--in deep conversation with him as far as Gregory could divine--also came forward and gave her tender, most gracious greeting to the newcomers.
Far off in rooms throughout the three townhouses others were coming to awareness of the latest arrival--Daniel and Arjun and Pandora who'd been talking together somewhere. And Thorne, redheaded Thorne, who had only arrived the night before, and had been in fast conversation with David and Jesse.
Jesse was in no state to be with the entire company. Rather she was someone in deep anxiety, and she had related in a trembling voice to Gregory all that Lestat had told her about the images he had caught from Maharet about the Guatemalan volcano, Pacaya. "But my aunt would never doom the entire tribe to extinction no matter how great her pain," she'd averred. Then she'd given way to tears. Thorne was a friend to her, an old friend, as was David, and they remained closeted away.
"I can show you to your rooms now, if you like," said Louis to Fareed and Seth. "Rooms where you might be alone and rest." He still spoke with a faint French accent, and looked relaxed yet formal in his black wool suit with a flash of green silk at the neck, a shade of green that exactly matched the emerald ring on his left hand.
"In time," said Fareed gratefully with a sigh. "Let us stay here with you, if we might. I heard the music when we were approaching."
"And you shall hear it again," said Sybelle, and with a nod she began again that same vigorous and dark waltz, "The Carousel Waltz." Tall, lanky Antoine had taken his place beside her again, his long black hair loose and unkempt yet not unattractive, certainly not unattractive for a fiddler, and he began to accompany Sybelle, obviously waiting for her to initiate the variations.
Flavius and Davis appeared in the doorway. At once the doctor, Fareed, greeted Flavius and began asking as to the leg, the miracle leg, and they were lost now in conversation. But Seth had taken one of the many small gold music chairs against the wall and was staring at Sybelle and Antoine as they played together. He seemed oblivious to everyone else. Davis too had been distracted and drawn by the music.
Chrysanthe suddenly asked Marius if he cared to dance, and he, quite surprised, immediately accepted.
This startled Gregory. Indeed it shocked him.
"If you don't know how to waltz," Chrysanthe was saying, in her naive and innocent fashion, "I'll teach you."
But Marius did know how, he confessed with a playful smile, and suddenly they were dancing in wide circles across the hardwood floor in the vast empty room, two stately and charming figures--Chrysanthe with her shimmering bronze hair threaded with pearls and spilling down her back in waves, and Marius staring right into her eyes as he
guided her effortlessly in time with the music. He had cut his pale-blond hair short for this evening, and wore the simplest of male attire, a dark dinner jacket and trousers with a white turtleneck sweater.
He is the most impressive immortal here, Gregory thought, and my Chrysanthe is as beautiful as any, as beautiful as Pandora who is just now coming into the room. I don't like it, their dancing. I don't like it at all.
When had he ever seen blood drinkers dancing? He and Chrysanthe went out into human society frequently and always had, and they had danced, yes, on many a polished dance floor, passing for mortal, but this was wholly different. This was a gathering of immortals, and the dancing of immortals was different.
Suddenly the music was too loud for him, and he felt his pulse in his veins, and he didn't want to watch Marius with his Blood Wife, Chrysanthe. But he didn't want to walk away either.
From far beyond these walls there came voices in the night, the young blood drinkers out there arguing with one another in the park, and suddenly one of them was fleeing from another in terror.
The tempo of the music became ever more rapid. Pandora had begun to dance with Louis, the ancient one with the inevitable living-marble demeanor and the younger, more human Louis beaming down at her as if she were in fact an ingenue in his care. Recent infusions of ancient blood had not entirely altered Louis. He was still perhaps the most human-appearing immortal in the house.
Davis moved out onto the dance floor, alone, his head slightly bowed, left arm raised in an arc, right hand on his waist making his own little private dance to the waltz music with exquisite feline ease. His heavy-lidded eyes were dreamy, and his dark brown skin gorgeous in the light of the chandelier.
Fareed had taken his place beside Seth and appeared to be enraptured now with these goings-on. Vampire musicians were such curiosities and had appeared so seldom in the history of the Undead. What they did with their instruments was always so difficult to analyze. But Gregory was convinced it had to do with the changelessness of the vampiric body and the ever-shifting changes all around them; they did not yield to tempo as did human musicians, but kept rebelling against it, playing with it, threatening to destroy it, yet snapping back into it with surprising suddenness, which gave the music a friable and almost tragic sound.
