Merrick - Anne Rice [146]
She sat back, a low sigh escaping her lips.
“So it’s come to this, has it?” Lestat asked. His voice was hoarse, as it had been when he was waked by Sybelle’s music, the very last time he’d abandoned his endless sleep.
He turned and looked to me, his smooth face devoid of warmth or expression, the thin light from the distant street illuminating his fierce eyes as he looked away and back to the body in the coffin on the stones. I think his eyes quivered. I think his whole body shivered ever so slightly as though the simplest movements were exhausting him, as if he longed to rub the backs of his own arms and beat a hasty retreat.
But he was not about to abandon us.
“Come here, David,” he said, appealing to me kindly in the same hoarse whisper. “Come, and listen. I can’t hear him. I made him. Listen, and tell me if he’s there.”
I obeyed him. I stood beside him.
“He’s like coal, Lestat,” I answered quickly. “I haven’t dared to touch him. Should we do it?”
Slowly, languidly, Lestat turned to look down again at the painful sight.
“His skin feels firm, I tell you,” Merrick said quickly. She rose to her feet and backed away from the coffin, inviting Lestat to take her place. “Test it yourself, Lestat,” she said. “Come, touch him.” Her voice was full of suppressed pain.
“And you?” Lestat asked reaching out for her, clasping her shoulder with his right hand. “What do you hear, chérie?” he asked in his raw whisper.
She shook her head. “Silence,” she said, her lips trembling, the blood tears having left their streaks on her pale cheeks. “But then he brought me over. I charmed him, I seduced him. He had no chance against my plan. And now this, this for my interference, this, and I can hear the mortals whispering in the houses near to us, but I hear nothing from him.”
“Merrick,” he pressed. “Listen as you’ve always been able to listen. Be the witch now, still, if you can’t be the vampire. Yes, I know, he made you. But a witch you were before that.” He looked from one to the other of us, some little visible emotion quickening in him. “Tell me if he wants to come back.”
The tears came to her eyes again. Grieving, miserable, she looked down at the seeming corpse.
“He could be crying for life,” she said, “but I can’t hear it. The witch in me hears nothing but silence. And the human being in me knows only remorse. Lestat, give your blood to him. Bring him back.”
Lestat turned from her to me.
She reached out for his arm, and forced him to look again at her.
“Work your magic,” she said in a low heated and insistent tone. “Work your magic and believe in it as I worked mine.”
He nodded, covering her hand gently as if to soothe her, most certainly to soothe her.
“Speak to me, David,” he said in his roughened voice. “What does he want, David? Did he do this thing because he made Merrick, and he thought for that he should pay with his life?”
How could I answer? How could I be faithful now to all my companion had confided over so many nights?
“I hear nothing,” I said. “But then it is an old habit, not spying on his thoughts, not ravaging his soul. It is an old habit letting him do what he wishes, only now and then offering him the strong blood, never challenging his weaknesses. I hear nothing. I hear nothing, but what does it mean that I hear nothing? I walk in the cemeteries of this city at night and I hear nothing. I walk among mortals and sometimes I hear nothing. I walk alone and I hear nothing, as if I myself had no inner voice.”
I looked down at his blackened face again. I could see the perfect image of his mouth there. And now I realized that even the hairs of his head remained intact.
“I hear nothing,” I said, “and yet I see spirits. Many a time I have seen spirits. Many a time they’ve come to me. Is there a spirit lurking there in those remains? I don’t know.”
Lestat appeared to stagger, as if from a constitutional weakness, then he forced himself to remain upright. I felt ashamed when I saw