The queen of the damned - Anne Rice [104]
Armand had stopped, at once surrounded by tiny upturned faces covered in store-bought masks, plastic spooks, ghouls, witches; a lovely warm light had filled his brown eyes; with both hands he’d dropped shiny silver dollars in their little candy sacks, then taken Daniel by the arm and led him on.
“I love it well enough the way you turned out,” he had whispered with a sudden irrepressible smile, the warmth still there. “You’re my firstborn,” he’d said. Was there a catch in his throat, a sudden glancing from right to left as if he’d found himself cornered? Back to the business at hand. “Be patient. I am being afraid for us both, remember?”
Oh, we shall go to the stars together! Nothing can stop us. All the ghosts running through these streets are mortal!
Then the coven house had blown up.
He’d heard the blast before he saw it—and a sudden rolling plume of flame and smoke, accompanied by a shrill sound he would never before have detected: preternatural screams like silver paper curling in the heat. Sudden scatter of shaggy-haired humans running to see the blaze.
Armand had shoved Daniel off the street, into the stagnant air of a narrow liquor store. Bilious glare; sweat and reek of tobacco; mortals, oblivious to the nearby conflagration, reading the big glossy girlie magazines. Armand had pushed him to the very rear of the tiny corridor. Old lady buying tiny carton of milk and two cans of cat food out of the icebox. No way out of here.
But how could one hide from the thing that was passing over, from the deafening sound that mortals could not even hear? He’d lifted his hands to his ears, but that was foolish, useless. Death out there in alleyways. Things like him running through the debris of backyards, caught, burnt in their tracks. He saw it in sputtering flashes. Then nothing. Ringing silence. The clanging bells and squealing tires of the mortal world.
Vet he’d been too enthralled still to be afraid. Every second was eternal, the frost on the icebox door beautiful. The old lady with the milk in her hand, eyes like two small cobalt stones.
Armand’s face had gone blank beneath the mask of his dark glasses, hands slipped into his tight pants pockets. The tiny bell on the door jangled as a young man entered, bought a single bottle of German beer, and went out.
“It’s over, isn’t it?”
“For now,” Armand had answered.
Not until they’d gotten in the cab did he say more.
“It knew we were there; it heard us.”
“Then why didn’t it—?”
“I don’t know. I only know it knew we were there. It knew before we found shelter.”
AND now, push and shove inside the hall, and he loved it, the crowd carrying them closer and closer to the inner doors. He could not even raise his arms, so tight was the press; yet young men and women elbowed past him, buffeted him with delicious shocks; he laughed again as he saw the life-sized posters of Lestat plastered to the walls.
He felt Armand’s fingers against his back; he felt a subtle change in Armand’s whole body. A red-haired woman up ahead had turned around and was facing them as she was moved along towards the open door.
A soft warm shock passed through Daniel. “Armand, the red hair.” So like the twins in the dream! It seemed her green eyes locked on him as he said, “Armand, the twins!”
Then her face vanished as she turned away again and disappeared inside the hall.
“No,” Armand whispered. Small shake of his head. He was in a silent fury, Daniel could feel it. He had the rigid glassy look he always got when profoundly offended. “Talamasca,” he whispered, with a faint uncharacteristic sneer.
“Talamasca.” The word struck Daniel suddenly as beautiful. Talamasca. He broke it down from the Latin, understood its parts. Somewhere out of his memory bank it came: animal mask. Old