Blood Canticle - Anne Rice [144]
We had to withdraw.
Why had I not seen it? Why had I not felt the entirety of it? Mona had known last night, and the night before, when she’d stood on the island looking out to sea.
But I had not known. Not known at all.
I turned and followed my companions.
Down we went through the Sacred Mountain of Mayfair Medical in the shining glass elevator and through the wondrous lobby with its mystifying modern sculptures and richly tiled floors, out into the warm air.
Clem ready with the limousine door.
“You sure you wanna go to that part of town?”
“Just drop us off, we’re expected.”
Silence in the car as we move steadily on, as if we are not with one another.
We are not Taltos. We are not innocent. We do not belong on God’s Holy Mountain. We are not protected and redeemed by those whom we have served. They cannot thank us with grace, can they? They cannot open the doors of the tabernacle.
Give us the underbelly of the city, let us spread out, where the cheapest killers come to us in the wild tangled thickets of the empty lots, ready to sink a blade for a twenty-dollar bill, and the corpses rot for weeks in the weeds amid the charred wood and the heaps of brick, and I was ravenous.
Rampant moonflower, chimney stack tall as a tree, didn’t they make this place for me? Whiff of evil. Crunch of broken boards. Morthadie. Cohorts behind the jagged wall. Whisper in my ear: “Ya’ll lookin for a good time?” You couldn’t have said it better.
29
I WOKE with a start. The sun had set a long while ago. I’d been so comfortable in Aunt Queen’s bed. I’d even done the strangest thing before retiring. I’d yielded to Jasmine’s lectures about my fine linen suit, and hung up all my clothes, and put on a long flannel nightshirt.
What was this mad pretense? I, who had slept in velvet and lace when coffined in the dirt, yielding to these encumbering pleasures? I’d fled the sun into the raw earth itself. I’d bedded down once in the crypt beneath a church altar.
Julien sat at the table. He packed a small thin black cigarette on his gold case, then lighted it. Flash on his cool elegant face. Perfume of smoke.
“Ah, now that is something.”
“So you’re drawing more and more energy from me, I see,” I said. “Do you draw it from me even when I sleep?”
“You’re stone-cold dead by the light of day,” he remarked. “However, you’ve dreamed a pretty dream in the past hour. I rather like your dream.”
“I know what I dreamt. What can I give you to make you go away, forever?”
“I thought you were fond of me. Was that all banter?”
“And so you failed,” I said. “You aided Mona to couple with Michael, and the birth of Morrigan destroyed her. How could you have known? And as to Merrick Mayfair becoming one of us, that wasn’t your fault. You merely entrusted her to the Talamasca. Don’t you see you have to go on? You can’t keep meddling and making mistakes. Lasher’s dead. Morrigan’s dead. You have to let them go, your adorable Mayfairs. You’re playing at being a saint. It isn’t gentlemanly.”
“And will you let them go?” he asked. “Oh, I don’t speak of my treasure, my Mona. She’s lost. I concede that. You know what concerns me now.” His voice was thick with emotion. “Is not the destiny of the entire clan at stake?”
“What are you talking about?” I said.
“Hasn’t the one you covet redeemed the family’s unseemly wealth? Hasn’t she sanctified the family’s incalculable power?”
“What do the angels tell you?” I replied. “Pray to Saint Juan Diego for your answer.”
“Answer me!” he pressed.
“What answer can I give that you’ll accept?” I asked. “Go to Tante Oscar, she’ll know who you are. Or seek out Fr. Kevin Mayfair in his rectory. Put your questions to them. But go away from me.”
“I beg you!” he said.
We stared at each other. He was amazed at his own words. So was I.
“What if I beg you,” I asked, “to interfere no more! To leave them to conscience and fortune?”
“Do we strike a bargain then?” he asked.
I turned away from him. The chills had me. Do we strike a bargain then?
“Damn you!”
I got up, pulled off the nightshirt and put on my clothes.