The Vampire Armand - Anne Rice [186]
I looked about. It was a fine, expensive place, of old wainscoting and a few deep chairs, and door keys ranged up a wall in tiny dark-stained wooden boxes.
A great vase of flowers, the infallible trademark of the vintage New York hotel, stood boldly and magnificently in the middle of the space, atop a round black marble table. I skirted the bouquet, snapping off one big pink lily with a deep red throat and petals curling to yellow at the outside, and then I went silently up the fire stairs to find my children.
She did not stop her playing when Benji let me in.
“You’re looking really good, Angel,” he said.
On and on she went, her head moving unaffectedly and perfectly with the rhythm of the Sonata.
He led me through a chain of finely decorated plastered chambers. Mine was too sumptuous by far, I whispered, seeing the tapestry spread and pillows of old gracious threadbare gold. I needed only perfect darkness.
“But this is the least we have,” he said with a little shrug.
He had changed to a fresh white linen robe lined with a fine blue stripe, a kind I’d often seen in Arab lands. He wore white socks with his brown sandals. He puffed his little Turkish cigarette, and squinted up at me through the smoke.
“You brought me back the watch, didn’t you!” He nodded his head, all sarcasm and amusement.
“No,” I said. I reached into my pocket. “But you may have the money. Tell me, since your little mind is such a locket and I have no key, did anyone see you bring that badge-carrying, gun-toting villain up here?”
“I see him all the time,” he said with a little weary wave of his hand. “We left: the bar separately. I killed two birds with one stone. I’m very smart.”
“How so?” I asked. I put the lily in his little hand.
“Sybelle’s brother bought from him. That cop was the only guy ever missed him.” He gave a little laugh. He tucked the lily in the thick curls above his left ear, then pulled it down and twirled its tiny ciborium in his fingers. “Clever, no? Now nobody asks where he is.”
“Oh, indeed, two birds with one stone, you’re quite right,” I said. “Though I’m sure there’s a great deal more to it.”
“But you’ll help us now, won’t you?”
“I will indeed. I’m very rich, I told you. I’ll patch things up. I have an instinct for it. I owned a great playhouse in a faraway city, and after that an island of fancy shops, and other such things. I am a monster in many realms, it seems. You’ll never, ever have to fear again.”
“You’re truly beauty full, you know,” he said raising one eyebrow and then giving me a quick wink. He drew on his tasty-looking little cigarette and then offered it to me. His left hand kept the lily safe.
“Can’t. Only drink blood,” I said. “A regular vampire out of the book in the main. Need deep darkness in the light of day, which is coming very soon. You mustn’t touch this door.”
“Ha!” he laughed with impish delight. “That’s what I told her!” He rolled his eyes and glanced in the direction of the living room. “I said we had to steal a coffin for you right away, but she said, no, you’d think of that.”
“How right she was. The room will do, but I like coffins well enough. I really do.”
“And can you make us vampires too?”
“Oh, never. Absolutely not. You’re pure of heart and too alive, and I don’t have such a power. It’s never done. It can’t be.”
Again, he shrugged. “Then who made you?” he asked.
“I was born out of a black egg,” I said. “We all are.”
He gave a scoffing laugh.
“Well, you’ve seen all the rest,” I said. “Why not believe the best part of it?”
He only smiled and puffed his smoke, and looked at me most knavishly.
The piano sang on in crashing cascades, the rapid notes melting as fast as they were born, so like the last thin snowflakes of the winter, vanishing before they strike the pavements.
“May I kiss her before I go to sleep?” I asked.
He cocked his head, and shrugged. “If she doesn’t like it, she’ll never stop playing long enough to say so.”
I went back into the parlor. How clear it all was, the grand design of sumptuous French landscapes with their