Blackwood Farm - Anne Rice [6]
Finally I got up from the leather-and-gold chair.
I went out of the splendid marble-floored house, and with no more than thought to direct me I let myself rise from the warm earth slowly, experiencing a delicious lightness, until I could see from the cool heights far above the huge long meandering black mass of the swamp, and the lights of the big house shining as if it were a lantern on the smooth grass.
Towards New Orleans I willed myself, using this strangest of powers, the Cloud Gift, traversing the waters of Lake Pontchartrain and moving towards the infamous town house in the Rue Royale, which all Blood Hunters knew was the house of the invincible Lestat.
“One hell of a devil,” my Maker had called him, “keeping his properties in his own name though the Talamasca is hounding him. He means to outlast them. He’s more merciful than I.”
Merciful; that was what I was counting on now. Lestat, wherever you are, be merciful. I don’t come with disrespect. I need you, as my letter will show.
Slowly I descended, down, down, into the balmy air again, a fleeting shadow to prying eyes if there were any, until I stood in the rear courtyard of the town house, near to the murmuring fountain, looking up at the curving iron stairs that led to Lestat’s rear door.
All right. I am here. So the rules have been broken. So I’m in the courtyard of the Brat Prince himself. Descriptions came to mind from the pages of the Chronicles, complex as the bougainvillea vine running rampant up the iron columns to the upstairs cast-iron railing. It was like being in a very shrine.
All around me I could hear the brash noises of the French Quarter: the clatter of restaurant kitchens, the happy voices of the inevitable tourists on the pavements. I heard the thinnest sound of the jazz blaring out of doors on Bourbon Street. I heard the creeping rumble of cars passing sluggishly in front.
The little courtyard itself was tight and beautiful; the sheer height of its brick walls caught me off guard. The glistening green banana trees were the biggest I’d ever seen, their waxy stalks buckling the purple flagstones here and there. But this was no abandoned place.
Someone had been here to clip the dead leaves from the banana groves. Someone had taken away the shriveled bananas that always wither in New Orleans before they ripen. Someone had cut back the abundant roses so that the patio itself was clear.
Even the water gurgling from the conch in the stone cherub’s hand down into the basin of the fountain was fresh and clean.
All these sweet little details made me feel all the more like a trespasser, but I was too damned foolishly passionate to be afraid.
Then I saw a light shining through the rear windows above, a very dim light, as if from a lamp deep in the flat.
That did frighten me, but again the all-possessing madness in me mounted. Would I get to speak to Lestat himself? And what if, catching sight of me, he sent out the Fire Gift without hesitating? The letter, the onyx cameo, my own bitter pleas wouldn’t have a chance.
I should have given Aunt Queen the new cameo. I should have grabbed her up and kissed her. I should have made a speech to her. I was about to die.
Only a perfect idiot could have been as exhilarated as I was. Lestat, I love you. Here comes Quinn to be your student and slave!
I hurried up the curving iron stairs, careful not to make a sound. And once I reached the rear balcony, I caught the distinct scent of a human being inside. A human being. What did this mean? I stopped and sent the Mind Gift before me to search out the rooms.
At once a confusing message reached me. There was a human there, no doubt of it, and he was furtive, this one, moving in haste, painfully conscious of the fact that he had no right to be where he was. And this someone, this human, knew that I was here as well.
For a moment, I didn’t know what to do. Trespassing, I had caught an intruder in the act. A strange protective feeling flooded me. This person had invaded