Blood Canticle - Anne Rice [104]
“Can we talk now?” Quinn asked in a very polite tone. He looked at Mona with great concern, then his eyes returned to me.
I realized that Quinn had been quite right in his early description to me of his love for Mona. Mona’s unhappiness—indeed Mona herself, whether happy or sad—continued to supplant all Quinn’s own woes and griefs in his own heart. She continued to deliver him mercifully, at least for now, from the loss of Aunt Queen, and the loss of his doppelganger, Goblin. Whatever the little scorpion did to me, his love for her was a blessing.
How else explain the ease with which he accepted me usurping Aunt Queen’s magnificent bed in my, how shall we put it, vanity?
I pushed back against the pillows until I was firmly planted in an upright position, with legs comfortably stretched out and ankles crossed, and I nodded.
Seldom did I see my feet in black socks. I knew almost nothing personally about my feet. They looked rather small for the twenty-first century. Bad luck. But six feet was still a good height.
“I want you to know that I adored Aunt Queen,” I muttered. “I slept on top of the counterpane. I was shaken.”
“Beloved Boss, you make a picture there,” Quinn said kindly. “Make this your place here. You know my aunt. She slept all day. Every window’s fitted with a black-out blind beneath the fancy velvet.”
These words had an immensely soothing effect. I gave him to know that silently.
He sat on the bench before Aunt Queen’s dressing table, with his back to the big round mirror and the soft lamplight. Mona sat on the couch, very near to the doll that the ghost of Stella had just left there.
“Are you rested now?” Mona asked, pretending to be a decently behaved creature.
“Do something useful,” I said disdainfully to Mona. “Pick up that boudoir doll and set it down properly, so it doesn’t look so lost.”
“Oh, yes, certainly,” she said, as if she wasn’t a roaring revenant from Hell. She set the doll against the padded arm of the chair, crossed its legs and put its little hands in its lap. It stared at me gratefully.
“What happened to you out there, Lestat?” Quinn asked. His manner was very solicitous.
“Not certain,” I replied. “Some force wanting to take me with her, maybe. We were connected as she started to rise. But I managed to get away. Not sure. I see angels sometimes. It’s frightening. Can’t talk about it. Don’t want to relive it. But Patsy is gone on. That’s what’s important.”
“I saw the Light,” said Quinn. “I saw it without mistake, but I never saw the spirit of Patsy.” He had such a sincere manner about him, nothing fanciful.
“I saw it too,” said the banshee. “And you were fighting with someone, and you were cursing in French, and you cried out something about Oncle Julien.”
“Doesn’t matter now,” I said, eyes on Quinn. “As I said, I’d rather not relive it.”
“Why did you do it?” Quinn asked, respectfully.
“What on Earth do you mean?” I asked. “It had to be done, didn’t it?”
“I realize that,” said Quinn. “But why you? I’m the one who murdered Patsy. And you went out there alone and drew her spirit to you. You brought the Light down for her. There was a struggle. Why did you do it?”
“For you, I suppose,” I said with a shrug. “Maybe I didn’t think anybody else could do it. Or I did it for Jasmine, because I’d promised her the ghost wouldn’t get her. Or for Patsy. Yes, for Patsy.” I brooded. I said, “You’re both so young in the Blood. You’ve seen so little. I’ve seen the howling wind of the Earthbound Dead. I’ve seen their souls in the void between the realms. When Mona said that Patsy didn’t know she was dead, that settled it for me. So I went out there and I did it.”
“And then there was the song,” said the little harpy, looking at Quinn. “Tommy played the Irish song and