Blood and Gold - Anne Rice [20]
“I took him down to the underground shrine. I opened the door upon the two seated figures.
“For the first few moments, he believed the Sacred Parents were statues, but quite suddenly he became aware that both were alive. He realized in fact that they were blood drinkers, and that they were greatly advanced in age, and that in them, he could see his destiny were he to endure for so many thousands of years.
“This is a terrifying realization. Even to the young who look on me, it is a difficult realization that they might become as pale and hard as I am. With the Mother and Father, it was horrifying, and Lestat was overcome with fear.
“Nevertheless, he managed to bridle his fear and approach the Queen, and even to kiss her on the lips. It was a bold thing to do, but as I watched him I realized it was quite natural to him, and as he withdrew from her, he confessed to me that he knew her name.
“Akasha. It was as if she’d spoken it. And I could not deny that she had given it to him through his mind. Out of her centuries of silence had come her voice once more with this seductive confession.
“Understand how young he was. Given the blood at twenty, he had been a blood drinker for perhaps ten years, no more than that.
“What was I to make of this kiss and this secret revelation?
“I denied my love and my jealousy completely. I denied my crushing disappointment. I told myself, “You are too wise for such. Learn from what’s happened. Maybe this young one will bring something magnificent from her. Is she not a goddess?’
“I took Lestat to my salon, a room as comfortable as this, though in another style, and there we talked until early morn. I told him the tale of my making, of my journey to Egypt. I played the teacher with great earnestness and generosity, and something of pure self-indulgence. Was it for Lestat or for me that I wanted him to know everything? I don’t know. But those were splendid hours for me, I know that much.
“The following night, however, while I was about tending to the mortals who lived on my island and believed me to be their lord, Lestat did a dreadful thing.
“Taking from his own luggage a violin which was most precious to him—a musical instrument of uncanny power—he went down into the shrine.
“Now it is plain to me, as it was then, that he could not have done this without the aid of the Queen, who with the Mind Gift opened the many doors for him that lay between him and her.
“Indeed as Lestat tells it, she may have even put the very idea of playing the instrument into his mind. I don’t think so. I think she opened the doors and summoned him, but it was he who brought the violin.
“Calculating that it would make a sound totally unfamiliar and quite wonderful to her, he set out to mimic those he’d seen playing the instrument, because in fact he didn’t know how to play it.
“Within moments, my beautiful Queen had risen from the throne and was moving towards him. And he in his terror had dropped the violin which she crushed with her foot. No matter. She took him in her arms. She offered her blood to him, and then there happened something so remarkable that it’s painful for me to reveal it. Not only did she allow him to drink from her, she also drank from him.
“It seems a simple thing, but it is not. For in all my centuries of coming to her, of taking blood from her, I had never felt the press of her teeth against me.
“Indeed, I know of no supplicant whose blood she ever drank. Once there was a sacrifice, and yes, she drank from that victim, and that victim was destroyed. But from her supplicants? Never. She was the fount, the giver, the healer of blood gods, and burnt children, but she did not drink from them.
“Yet she drank from Lestat.
“What did she see in those moments? I cannot imagine, yet it must have been a glimpse into the years of that time. It must have been a glimpse into Lestat’s soul. Whatever it was, it was momentary,