Blood Communion

by Anne Rice

  “This is Rhoshamandes!” I cried out. Faces surrounded me, Cyril and Thorne, Gregory, Armand, Rose, Viktor, Benji, Sybelle, Pandora, Sevraine, Chrysanthe, Zenobia, Avicus, Flavius, and new faces, eager young faces and aged faces, washed by time of all warmth or expression, the crowd shifting and pulsing about me.

  There were cries of “Get back” and “Let him speak” and gasps and the hissing sound of some trying to hush others.

  The chandeliers were missing, but countless flickering candles crowded the mantelpieces, and electric sconces burned bright beside the fireplace mirrors, and iron candelabra had been pressed into service all along the walls. The fireplaces perfumed the air with the fragrance of burning oak and powerful sweet Indian incense. And a lovely warmth enveloped me and began slowly to dissolve the painful cold, the merciless cold that encased my whole frame.

  I stood rigid as if I were unable to collapse, my body coming alive to its aches and pains.

  I saw Seth, Fareed, Barbara, the bald and smiling Notker the Wise with his mossy brows lifted, and the eager round faces of his boy sopranos. Where was Antoine? Ah, there he was with bloodstained face, and Eleni and Allesandra—all of them, all of my precious Court, my kith and kin of the dark country of the night surrounding me, all except for those who most mattered, those who were gone forever, those for whom justice had been done, but no restoration could ever, ever be made.

  “Here is the burnt and blackened body of my enemy,” I cried. “And here his head, sliced from his shoulders, and there his heart cut from his breast by me.” A great new energy was born inside of me, as volcanic as their screams and cries. “Here, all that is left of the one who brought murder and ruin to this Court.”

  Cries, screams, shouts, and a storm of applause shook the very room.

  And how splendid the room appeared, even with its scorched walls and blackened ceiling, with the broken plaster torn from naked stone and charred rafters revealed overhead. The great breaches to the outside had been bricked up, shutting out the falling snow, but the stench of burnt timber and plaster dust lingered beneath the perfume of the fire, and the great crest of de Lioncourt on the shield above me was blackened with soot. But what did it matter? Because the room, quaking now with shouts and stomping feet, held the Court of my fellow blood drinkers, my own, in their macabre finery, each face a lamp illuminating this moment with more light than any other source might give.

  “Death to Rhoshamandes” came the shouts, and “Victory to the Prince,” and “Lestat, Lestat, Lestat” in a deafening chant.

  Something quickened in me, something that demanded understanding, something immense, but I was too weary at that moment to grasp it, too afraid perhaps to grasp something that would prompt retreat into the mind and heart where I was not willing to go. No, I wanted this, this which was happening now, this moment, I wanted it and I heard my own voice soaring above the throng.

  “I slaughtered Rhoshamandes,” I said. “Fortune was with me and the will to live, and with wit and speed, I brought him down.”

  The chanting soared in volume, but I went on.

  “I claim no great power for this mighty deed. I dealt him one fine blow to the face with the crown of my head and blinded him as he howled like a wounded beast. And then I sent the fire against him again and again. It was a prankster’s victory, the victory of your Brat Prince! But we are now saved.”

  The crowd was delirious, one wave of applause after another rolling towards me, and everywhere I saw fists raised in salute, and the tender young fledglings leaping up and down. Sybelle was embracing Benji, and Antoine had his arms around both of them. And Gregory held Sevraine to his breast, and everywhere I looked I saw these hasty couplings, and those pumping fists, and bloody tears. A memory came back, sharp and clear as a flash of lightning, of the crowd at that long-ago rock music concert when the mighty motorcycle men with their savage hair and leather armor had pumped their fists in that same manner, and the salutes had come from all around, reverberating off the walls and the high vaulted ceiling, under those merciless solar lights. Ah yes, it was so very like that moment, even to the kettledrums rolling now from the orchestra and from the crash of cymbals—that dizzying moment when, drunk with joy, I had sung from the stage…visible to all the mortal world.

  But this was now, and now was magnificent, and that memory suddenly faded and vanished with amazing speed in the blaze of preternatural eyes and preternatural voices signaling acclamation with blood tears. I raised my voice higher. “And now the great Maharet is avenged,” I cried, “and Marius and Louis and my mother, Gabrielle, they are avenged.”

  One single roar united all their voices, one immense roar that threatened to destroy my equilibrium, but I managed to reach down as I spoke and catch Rhoshamandes’s head and lift it high above the crowd.

  Ah, what a horror to behold, with hair clotted with blood and eye sockets empty and cheeks withered, and a mouth like the hideous dumb cry of the mask of tragedy.

  “He is dead and can harm us no more!”

  I could have fallen then. I was losing consciousness. But I forced myself to continue.

  “Step aside, open here so I might see the fireplace,” I cried. And as they scurried to obey, I pitched the head into the distant flames.

  Lost in the deafening ocean of sound, I bent down and picked up the remnant of the heart, ah, the poor shriveled and blackened and empty heart, and squeezing a last bit of blood from it, dark gleaming blood, I pitched it at the bricks behind the fire and saw it drop like nothing but a cinder in the greedy orange flames.

  Once more the roar rose and crested and throbbed with rampant cries, and I heard, as it rose and fell, the chorus of voices from other rooms, from rooms filled to capacity as this room was filled, and it seemed all the great Château was filled with triumphant voices, and they were supporting me in my sudden total exhaustion, my helpless loss of balance, my near collapse. Suddenly hands steadied me. Thorne and Cyril had ahold of me, Cyril petting me, petting my head and clutching to my neck like a motherly bear, and Barbara was holding me, sweet Barbara with her lips against my cheek. The crowd pressed in as voices everywhere shouted for others to get back.

  “Blood in the remains,” I said, crying out above the roar. I waited for silence, my hand raised. “Cold blood, but powerful blood,” I cried. “Take it and commit all of him to the fire when you are finished. Ashes to ashes for him who could not forgive himself for what he’d done to Maharet, who could not forgive me that I forgave him and invited him to live with us in peace, who could not love us for what we are, and saw no grand design in our hopes and dreams here. Ashes to ashes when you have taken the last of what he has to give.”

  Once again, the waves of sound washed over me, like the warmth washing over me, the warm air, the welcoming air stripping away the bruising chill of the winds, melting it as it melted all strength inside of me.

  I could say no more, do no more, stand no more.

  I saw the vampires closing in to lift the hideous white headless body with its ripped and burnt wrapping of woolen robes. I drew my ax out from under my coat and threw it down. Hands caught it up and I saw the first limb hacked from the body by Benji Mahmoud, that very arm that I had once thoughtlessly hacked away, and then the other arm, and then the crowd came between me and all the rest.

  I realized I was being carried by my blessed Barbara and Gregory to the dais and the throne. And for a split second I saw the throne, and realized it had been regilded and was shining as if it were new, the dust cleaned from its red velvet.

  How good it felt to rest against the velvet back, to lay my head to the side. Antoine had struck up a wild triumphant dance with the orchestra, and only now, as Barbara brushed my hair free of gouts of blood and Gregory removed my bloodstained coat, did I come to realize what a sight I must have been, barefoot and stained from the battle.

  My shirt was stripped away and a fresh
shirt put on me. Again and again, the brush sent ripples of delicious sensation through me as Barbara cleaned my hair. New socks and boots were put on my feet. I sat forward to receive a fresh velvet jacket. Ah, crimson velvet, the color so beloved by me and by Marius. Tears for Marius rose in my eyes. “But he’s dead, my friend, my beloved Marius,” I whispered. “The one who slew you is dead and gone, with all his misbegotten lethal power.”

  My helpers brought me to my feet, and I heard renewed cries from everywhere.

  “Long live the Prince. Long live Lestat.”

  Lestat, Lestat…like the rock concert crowd of long ago, creating one voice: Lestat, Lestat, Lestat.

  Once again I felt that quickening, that immense thought hovering just beyond my ken, that awesome revelation that eluded me. Grief interrupted it, pushed it away, grief for my Louis, and my Gabrielle, and my Marius. My hand went to conceal my eyes.

  “Our Prince…our ruler…our champion.”

  Gregory’s voice rose above the chorus. “Long live our lord of the Blood Communion.” Roars and cheers greeted his words, and then came the chants repeating it: Lord of the Blood Communion.

  True lord of the Blood Communion.

  Don’t see your mother’s face. Don’t feel her hand reaching for yours. Don’t see Louis’s sorrowful eyes. Don’t hear Marius’s voice in your ear, giving you counsel and strength, giving you the fortitude to do what was expected of you.

  I collapsed into the chair again. I sat back too tired in mind and body to move. The clocks throughout the Château were heralding the hour of midnight with their singsong melody. Through this din, I picked out their synchronized prelude, and then came the deep heavy chimes that followed. I smiled to think that it was only the very middle of the night since I had left them.

  I had circled the globe with the night and come to them at the very midpoint of their first night mourning me, my victory achieved while they’d slept, and I’d caught them before they could do little more than sweep up the broken crystal, rebuild the broken wall, clean away ashes. It seemed terribly amusing to me suddenly, and as I closed my eyes and lay my head against the red velvet padding of the chair, I did what I always do at such times. I laughed. I laughed softly but on and on and I heard someone laughing with me.

  Ah, you, you lifted me when I almost hit the desert floor! Yes, well, laugh, because it is too much to do anything else, laugh, let’s speak in our laughter, our eloquent laughter.

  Where was he, the one who’d lifted me—the one who was laughing with me now? I sat up and looked about the room. The last of Rhoshamandes’s limbs had been thrown into the fire, and the crowd was facing me, facing the orchestra.

  “Baudwin!” cried a voice.

  “Give us Baudwin!” came another cry, and another, “Yes, Baudwin, give us Baudwin, give us Baudwin now to celebrate the victory of the Prince. We want Baudwin.” The whole assembly was alive with calls for Baudwin. “Give us Baudwin who tried to slay the Prince. Give us Baudwin who tried to slay Fontayne and burned his refuge.”

  The orchestra stopped. Only the drums continued, the kettledrums, beating underneath the chorus of cries that grew louder and louder.

  “Do as they ask,” said Gregory. “He repents nothing.” For the first time I really saw him, beside me in his common modern clothes, with his hair shaved and clipped away, my tall elegant counselor with his quick dark eyes fixed on me, waiting for me to give the word.

  “Yes, please do it, sire,” came the tender voice beside me of Fontayne. I groped for his hand, found it, and clasped it. “Do it.” He was dressed in some of my very own clothes, a narrow-waisted frock coat of green silk, and a shirt of layered lace, and lace fell over his narrow hands with their jeweled rings, his pale eyes entreating me.

  And what would Marius say, what would he do, I thought vainly, stupidly. Would Marius give his blessing to all this? And then Marius’s voice came back to me confidentially and softly telling me of what I refused to understand, yes, of course—the crowd screaming now for Baudwin, for his blood, for his public execution. You cannot make angels of us, Lestat. Angels we are not. We are killers.

  “Yes, we are what we are,” I whispered, but I don’t think anyone heard me.

  “Boss, don’t hesitate this time,” said Cyril. He stood over me with his arm around the back of the chair. “Boss, let them have him.”

  The drums beat only in a slow insistent rhythm.

  “Very well,” I said. “Give them Baudwin.”

  Now you are a true prince.

  “Who said that?”

  I sat forward oblivious to the restless crowd that was chanting to be given Baudwin, and far off against the patched and restored wall, in a chair by himself, sat a hooded figure, hardly visible in the shadows, but I could make out his green eyes, and a shock of blond hair beneath his dark hood.

  “Who are you?”

  Chapter 19

  No answer came from him.

  The drums went into a long roll, the crowd went quiet, as if on a command, and the prisoner, Baudwin, clad in iron was dragged into the center of the ballroom by Cyril and Thorne. The vampire crowd pushed back to make an arena open to the dais. I had to rise to my feet. There was no escaping my duty. I stood uneasily, with my sweet Barbara beside me, and, facing the prisoner, I spoke in a loud clear voice.

  “Do you know where you are, Baudwin?”

  “Yes, I know where I am” came his muffled but audible reply. “And I curse you and I curse your Court and your house, and I call on my maker Gundesanth to avenge me.”

  I was about to respond when a voice rang out from the far corner of the room, from the hooded figure.

  “No, I shall not avenge you!”

  He too had risen, and he pushed his hood back on his shoulders. He was taller than I was tall, with a large handsome face and deep-set vibrant green eyes, and shaggy tangled blond hair to his shoulders. It had the look of straw to it, but it was handsome spilling all over the thin, supple leather of his long cloak. He spoke in perfect English without a trace of an accent.

  “Baudwin,” he said as he advanced towards the prisoner, “what wisdom did you ever have from me to set you against your fellows?”

  The crowd made way for him.

  “When did I counsel you to destroy other blood drinkers on a whim, and to use my name as your talisman? I will not avenge you. I will see you executed here, and your blood given to the young as the Court decrees.”

  He reached the center of the room, the long full leather cloak floating about him, and took his stand beside Baudwin. Now with horrifying ease, he stripped the iron bounds away from Baudwin’s head as if they were ribbons, letting the coils fall with a clatter, revealing the mop of unruly hair, and a face red and filled with malice.

  There were gasps of amazement from the younger ones.

  “I curse you,” said Baudwin to him. “I curse you that you let this happen to me, you evil, treacherous maker. Did I ever question you when you burnt the colonies of humans and blood drinkers alike? And now you become a lackey to this Court, another enchanted fool amongst this ludicrous multitude.”

  The tall blond one, who was most certainly Gundesanth, continued to strip away the iron until the prisoner was now entirely free, a robust figure in leather and dungarees, rubbing his aching arms and hands feverishly.

  “What authority have they to do what they do!” Baudwin demanded of his maker. “And how can you, you who broke free of the Queens Blood priesthood, bend the knee to such a Court as this? I curse you! I curse you all”—he looked about himself, at me, at the others—“with your velvet and your satin and your lace and your foolish dances and your poetry and your rules and inane dreams of ‘Blood Communion.’ I demand you free me, all of you, and you, you cowardly maker.”

  “Oh, you of such little imagination,” said Gundesanth. “Oh, you who have wasted a gift that might
have made a hero or a pilgrim of another. Oh, what you have failed to see here.”

  The word “pilgrim” struck me. But I was eager for him to go on.

  He turned and looked at me, his handsome and animated face smiling. His eyes were pale, green in the light and then hazel, but filled with easy goodwill and excitement. It was a face made for conviviality just as much as the face of Baudwin was made for rage.

  “Such a place as this has never existed before in all our long bloody history,” Gundesanth declared. He looked about him at the others as he went on, his voice ringing clear in the silence. “Never such a place as this—free of all mythologies of dead gods and lexicons of evil and demons invented by aggrieved souls. This is a place existing only for the benefit of all of us gathered here—and all the lost blood drinkers of the world who will come to be one with us. Hail the Prince. Hail the Court. Hail a new revelation—not from the blind stars or the oracles of madness—but a revelation that comes to us out of our minds and our souls, wed as they are to flesh, living flesh, a revelation rising out of our pain and our thirst and our hearts!”

  I felt a great shudder pass through me at these words. It was almost, almost, the very concept that hovered so close to me, wanting me to receive it so that for me, and me alone, it would change virtually everything.

  Another immense cry came from the crowd and the room shook with the stamping of feet and the sounds of clapping and more random oaths of faith and loyalty.

  But the speaker cried out again and at once the room went silent.

  “We have found in our souls a better purpose than any ever given us by gods or demons.” He struck his breast with his right fist. “We have found inside of ourselves wisdom that surpasses that of ancient kings or queens, and we, we hold the key to our own survival. And those who would reduce us once more to a rabble of monsters inflicting our worst cruelties on one another have no place in this new world that is ours. I say I condemn you, Baudwin. With a maker’s authority, I condemn you to death here.”