Blackwood Farm - Anne Rice [261]
Lestat, who had been quiet this whole time, waited for a long moment in silence. Then he spoke up.
“Your epilogue was very thorough, but you haven’t mentioned one person. What has become of Mona Mayfair?”
I winced.
“I have never received another E-mail or phone call from Mona, and for that I thank God. However, periodically Michael or Rowan will call. I find myself trembling as I listen. Will these powerful witches pick up something from the timbre of my voice? But it doesn’t seem so. They tell me the latest. Mona is in isolation. Mona is on dialysis. Mona is not in any pain.
“About six months ago, maybe more, I received a typewritten letter from Rowan, written on behalf of Mona, explaining that Mona had had a hysterectomy, and that Mona wanted me to know. ‘Beloved Abelard, I release you from any and all promises,’ Mona had dictated to Rowan. They had hoped the operation would help Mona, but it hadn’t. Mona needed dialysis more and more often. There were still medications they could try.
“My answer was to raid every flower shop in New Orleans, sending sprays and baskets and vases of flowers with notes that pledged my undying love, notes which I could dictate over the phone. I didn’t dare to send anything touched by my own hands. Mona could lay her hands on such a note and sense the evil in me. Just couldn’t take such a risk.
“As it stands now, I still send the flowers almost daily. Now and then I break down and call. It’s always the same. Mona can’t see anyone just now. Mona is holding her own.
“I think I actually dread the moment when they might say, ‘Come see her.’ I’m afraid I won’t be able to resist it and I won’t be able to fool Mona, and in those precious moments, perhaps our last precious moments, Mona’s mind will be clouded with some dim fear of what I’ve become. At the very least I’ll seem cold and passionless though my heart’s breaking. I dread it. I dread it with my whole soul.
“But more than anything I dread the final call—the message that Mona has lost the fight, the word that Mona is gone.”
Lestat nodded. He leaned on his elbow, his hair somewhat mussed, his large blue eyes looking at me compassionately as they had throughout the long hours of my storytelling.
“What do you think is the point of the tale you’ve told?” he asked. “Aside from the fact that we must protect Aunt Queen from all harmful knowledge of what’s happened to you, and we must destroy Goblin?”
“That I had a rich life,” I said. “As Petronia herself said it. And she didn’t care about that life. She took it capriciously and viciously.”
Again he nodded. “But Quinn, immortality, no matter how one comes by it, is a gift, and you must lose your hatred of her. It poisons you.”
“It’s like my hatred of Patsy,” I said quietly. “I need to lose my hatred of both of them. I need to lose all hatred, but right now it’s Goblin who needs destroying, and I’ve tried, out of fairness to him, to make it plain to you how much I’m responsible for what he is, and even for the vengeance he wishes on me.”
“That’s clear,” said Lestat, “but I don’t know that I alone can help stop him. I may need help. In fact, I think I do. I think I need it from a Blood Drinker whose prowess with spirits is a legend.” He raked his hair back from his forehead. “I think I can persuade her to come and help me with this. I’m speaking of Merrick Mayfair. She doesn’t know your fair Mona, at least not as far as I know, and even if she did at one time there’s no connection now in any event. But Merrick knows spirits in a way that most vampires don’t. She was a powerful witch before she ever became a vampire.”
“Then the Dark Blood didn’t take away her powers with spirits?” I asked.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “She’s far too complex for that. And besides, it’s a lie that spirits shun us. As you said yourself, I’m a seer of spirits. I wish to God I weren’t. I’ll need tomorrow evening to find Merrick Mayfair. Merrick is almost as young in the Blood as you are. She’s suffering.