Merrick - Anne Rice [43]
“Surely you don’t take that as a bad omen,” said Louis, smiling at me, almost teasing me. “David, you’re not superstitious, as mortals would say.”
I loved the bit of levity in his voice. I loved seeing him so full of the warm blood that he might have been human. But I couldn’t respond to the words.
I didn’t like the cat at all. I was furious at Merrick. I could have blamed the rain on Merrick had it started to pour. I felt challenged by Merrick. I was working myself up to a little fit of pique. I didn’t say a word.
“When will you let me meet Merrick?” he asked.
“First her story,” I said, “or that part of it which I know. Tomorrow, feed early, and when I come to the flat I’ll tell you the things you need to know.”
“And then we speak of a meeting?”
“Then you can make up your mind.”
7
THE FOLLOWING NIGHT, I rose to find the sky uncommonly clear and full of visible stars. A good omen to all those in a state of grace. This is not the normal thing for New Orleans, as the air is very filled with moisture, and frequently the sky has a veiled appearance and little spectacle of cloud and light.
Having no need to feed, I went directly to the Windsor Court Hotel, once again entering its very lovely modern lobby, a space which has all the usual elegance of an older establishment, and went up to Merrick’s suite.
She had only just left, I was informed, and a maid was engaged in preparing the rooms for a next guest.
Ah, she had stayed longer than I had expected, but not as long as I’d hoped. However, imagining her to be safely on her way back to Oak Haven, I checked with the desk to see if she had left any message for me. She had.
I waited until I was alone outside to read the short note:
“Have gone to London to retrieve from the vault those few items which we know are connected with the child.”
So things had progressed so far!
Of course, she was referring to a rosary and a diary which our field-worker Jesse Reeves had found in the flat in the Rue Royale over ten years before. And if memory served me correctly, there were a few other things which had been collected a century earlier from an abandoned hotel room in Paris where rumor had led us to believe that vampires had lodged.
I was alarmed.
But what had I expected? That Merrick would resist my request? Nevertheless, I’d never anticipated that she would act so quickly. Of course I knew that she could obtain the items in question. She was quite powerful within the Talamasca. She had unlimited access to the vaults.
It occurred to me to try to call her at Oak Haven, to tell her that we must discuss the matter a little further. But I couldn’t risk it.
The members of the Talamasca there were only a small number, but each was gifted psychically and in a different way. The phone can be a powerful connecter between souls, and I simply could not have someone there sensing something “strange” about the voice on the other end of the line.
There I left the matter, and I set out for our flat in the Rue Royale.
As I entered the carriageway, something soft moved past my leg. I stopped and searched the darkness until I made out the shape of another giant black cat. Surely it had to be another. I couldn’t imagine the creature I had seen the night before having followed us home with no incentive of food or milk.
The cat vanished in the rear courtyard garden and was gone when I reached the back iron stairs. But I didn’t like this. I didn’t like this cat. No, not at all. I took my time in the garden. I walked about the fountain, which had recently been cleaned and stocked with large goldfish, and I spent more than a few moments gazing at the faces of the stone cherubs, with their conches held high, now quite overrun with lichen, and then looking about at the overgrown flower patches along the brick walls.
The yard was kept, yet out of hand, its flagstones