Merrick - Anne Rice [120]
Of course I didn’t leave him.
“And what about your emotions, Louis?” I walked beside him, determined he wouldn’t leave me behind. “Can you tell me you’re not completely taken by her?”
“And what if I am, David?” he responded, never slacking in his pace. “David, you didn’t describe her truly. You told me how strong she was, how wily, and how clever. But you didn’t do justice to her.” He gave me a shy passing glance. “You never talked about her simplicity or her sweetness. You didn’t tell me she was so inherently kind.”
“That’s how you see her?”
“That’s how she is, my friend.” Now he wouldn’t look at me. “Some school, the Talamasca, that it produced both of you. She has a patient soul and a knowing heart.”
“I want this broken off now,” I insisted. “I don’t trust either of you. Louis, listen to me.”
“David, do you really believe I would hurt her?” he asked sharply. He continued walking. “Do I seek out for my victims those whom I believe to be gentle by nature, humans I believe to be both good and uncommonly strong? She’ll be safe with me forever, David, don’t you understand that? Only once in my wretched life did I make a fledging and that was over a century ago. Merrick couldn’t be safer from any of us than she is from me. Bind me to protect her till the day she dies and I’ll probably do it! I’ll slip away from her after this is done, I promise you.” On he walked. He continued to speak: “I’ll find a way to thank her, to satisfy her, to leave her at peace. We’ll do that together, David, you and I. Don’t harry me now in this matter. I can’t be stopped. It’s gone too far.”
I believed him. I believed him completely. “What am I to do?” I asked dejectedly. “I don’t even know my own heart in the matter. I’m afraid for hers.”
“You’re to do nothing,” he said, his voice a little more calm than before. “Let it happen as planned.”
We walked on through the ruined neighborhood together.
At last the bent red neon sign of a barroom appeared, blinkering under the rangy branches of an ancient and dying tree. There were hand-painted words of advertisement all over the boarded-up facade, and the light inside was so feeble that scarcely anything could be seen through the dirty glass of the door.
Louis went inside and I followed him, quite amazed at the large crowd of Anglo-Saxon males that chattered and drank at the long mahogany bar, and the myriad dirty little tables. Here and there were denim-clad women, young and old, as were their gentlemen companions. A garish red light shone from covered bulbs near the ceiling. Everywhere I saw naked arms and dirty sleeveless shirts, secretive faces, and cynicism beneath a veil of smiles and flashing teeth.
Louis made his way to the corner of the room, and took the wooden chair beside a large unshaven and bushy-haired man who sat at a table alone and morosely over his stagnant bottle of beer.
I followed, my nostrils assailed by the stench of sweat and the thick cigarette smoke. The volume of the voices was harsh, and the beat of music beneath it ugly, ugly in words and rhythm, ugly in its hostile chant.
I sat down opposite the same poor degenerate mortal who cast his pale failing eyes on Louis and then on me, as though he were about to have some sport.
“So what do you want, gentlemen,” he said in a deep voice. His huge chest heaved under the worn shirt that covered it. He lifted his brown bottle and let the golden beer slide down his throat.
“Come on, gentlemen, tell me,” he said thickly, drunkenly. “When men dressed like you come downtown, you want something. Now what is it? Am I saying that you came to the wrong place? Hell no, gentlemen. Somebody else might say so. Somebody else might say