Blood Canticle - Anne Rice [116]
He was easily seven feet tall, apparently male, though it was difficult for me to tell until I really caught the scent, thick and sweet, and his lustrous black hair was cut maybe shoulder length and brushed back and held away from his bone-hard face by the common red bandanna.
Sweet fragrance. Remarkable fragrance.
He had huge black eyes, enormous and beautiful cheekbones and baby fresh skin all over. Clothes? Sleeveless gleaming satin T, chocolate brown leather mock jeans exquisitely stitched up, enormous feet in open sandals. Spiderlike hands, and fingernails and toenails polished in shimmering metallic blue. Mouth baby soft and large.
He played delicately with the keys, oblivious to us, oblivious to all things, humming and turning his head from side to side as he wrote or calculated or sought or talked, and then—
—he rose up to his height of seven feet and pivoted and pointed to us, eyes wide, hostile, mouth open.
“Blood Hunters!” he cried out in a weary exasperated and disgusted voice. “Pass over me, you fools of the night, I assure you my blood is bitter to you. What do you want me to do? Cut my wrist and paint the door post? Pass over. Go feast on the humans on this island! Kindly don’t disturb me again.”
Mona darted across the courtyard and around the pool and we went after her.
“Taltos!” she said. “I’m Mona Mayfair, the mother of Morrigan! You came down from me! You have my genes in you! Where is Morrigan!”
Rocking back on his heels, he gazed upon her as though he pitied her.
“You’re a cute little pixie to be such a liar,” he said with withering scorn. “You never birthed a human being in your life,” he went on contemptuously and coldly. “You’re a Blood Hunter. You can’t birth. Why come into my room to lie to me about Mona Mayfair of all people, Morrigan’s mother? Who are you? Don’t you know where the party is, darling dear? Listen to the Bossa Nova, and go dance with the Drug Lord and his select minions. Drink their blood. It’s hot with evil, you ought to love it.”
The contrast between this large-boned baby fresh face and this dark free-flowing disdainful voice was shattering. But we were far from interesting to the creature, obviously, who was about to sit down again at the desk when Mona protested.
“I was human before this,” said Mona, reaching out to take the creature’s right arm. (He pulled back.) “I did birth Morrigan,” Mona said. “I love Morrigan. My love has crossed into the Blood. I’ve come to find out if Morrigan is well and happy. Ash Templeton took Morrigan from me. You’re descended from them. You have to be! Talk to me. Answer me! This is the goal of my life!”
The creature took the measure of each one of us. More easy scorn. A little amazed laugh. He slouched back with a gorgeous grace, the lids of his eyes coming just perfectly halfway over his big glistening eyes, and his baby mouth smiling brilliantly. He raised one eyebrow.
“Goal of your life?” he said mockingly. “Little redheaded Blood Hunter on stilts? Why should I care about the goal of your life? Ash Templeton, you said. Ash Templeton. Now that name is not known to me. Unless you refer to Ashlar, my father.”
“I do, yes, I do!” said Mona.
I was cautious in studying him, out of courtesy and full awareness that this was a Taltos, this was the mysterious being, and we had found at least one, but then my eyes saw what I should have seen before—the creature was shackled to the wall by his right leg.
He wore a cuff of steel connected to a very long chain that was hooked to the wall behind the desk. It was a chain long enough to allow him access to the pool in the courtyard behind us, and conceivably to the bath, which lay to the right of the immense bedroom.
“You know where Morrigan is, don’t you?” said Mona. She seemed suddenly so tragic as she spoke these words. She’d been asking them forever, and now even this being wouldn’t answer her.
I focused my force on the chain and broke it with a loud snap. I knelt on one knee and severed the cuff.
The creature jumped