Blood Canticle - Anne Rice [152]
And so the morning dew covered the grass on that day at Blackwood Farm like any other, and I dreamt before the sun rose that:
I wanna be a saint, I wanna save souls by the millions, I wanna look like an angel, but I don’t wanna talk like a gangster, I don’t want to do bad things even to bad guys, I wanna be Saint Juan Diego. . . .
. . . But you know me, and come sunset, maybe it will be time to hunt the back roads, and those little out-of-the-way beer joints, sure enough, smell the malt and the sawdust, and yeah, right on, dance to the Dixie Chicks on the jukebox, and maybe crush a couple of heavy-duty Evil Doers, guys who are just waiting for me, and when I’m flush with blood, and sick of the smack and roll of the pool balls and that warm light on the green felt, who knows, yeah, who knows just how glorious the firmament with all its breaking clouds and lost little stars will appear as I rise above this Earth and spread out my arms as though there was no want in me for anything warm or good.
Be gone from me, oh mortals who are pure of heart. Be gone from my thoughts, oh souls that dream great dreams. Be gone from me, all hymns of glory. I am the magnet for the damned. At least for a little while. And then my heart cries out, my heart will not be still, my heart will not give up, my heart will not give in—
—the blood that teaches life will not teach lies, and love becomes again my reprimand, my goad, my song.
THE END
Anne Rice
October 5, 2002
New Orleans
ALSO BY ANNE RICE
Interview with the Vampire
The Feast of All Saints
Cry to Heaven
The Vampire Lestat
The Queen of the Damned
The Mummy
The Witching Hour
The Tale of the Body Thief
Lasher
Taltos
Memnoch the Devil
Servant of the Bones
Violin
Pandora
The Vampire Armand
Vittorio, The Vampire
Merrick
Blood and Gold
Blackwood Farm
UNDER THE NAME ANNE RAMPLING
Exit to Eden
Belinda
UNDER THE NAME A. N. ROQUELAURE
The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty
Beauty’s Punishment
Beauty’s Release
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
AND ALFRED A. KNOPF CANADA
Copyright © 2003 by Anne O’Brien Rice
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by
Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and distributed by Random House, Inc., New York.
www.aaknopf.com
www.randomhouse.ca
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Knopf Canada and colophon are trademarks.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rice, Anne, [date]
Blood canticle / Anne Rice.
p. cm.—(The vampire chronicles)
1. Lestat (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Mayfair family (Fictitious characters)—Fiction. 3. Vampires—Fiction.
4. Witches—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3568.I265 B63 2003
813′.54—dc21
2002192475
National Library of Canada Cataloging in Publication
Rice, Anne,
Blood canticle / Anne Rice.
I. Title.
PS3568.I22B63 2003 813’.54 C2003-901782-6
eISBN: 978-1-4000-4194-7
v3.0