The Vampire Chronicles Collection - Anne Rice [124]
“ ‘Oh, but tell us about the old days,’ said Celeste, her voice shrill, at human pitch. There was something vicious in her tone.
“And now Santiago took up the same baiting manner. ‘Yes, tell us of the covens, and the herbs that would render us invisible.’ He smiled. ‘And the burnings at the stake!’
“Armand fixed his eyes on Claudia. ‘Beware those monsters,’ he said, and calculatedly his eyes passed over Santiago and then Celeste. ‘Those revenants. They will attack you as if you were human.’
“Celeste shuddered, uttering something in contempt, an aristocrat speaking of vulgar cousins who bear the same name. But I was watching Claudia because it seemed her eyes were misted again as before. She looked away from Armand suddenly.
“The voices of the others rose again, affected party voices, as they conferred with one another on the night’s kills, describing this or that encounter without a smattering of emotion, challenges to cruelty erupting from time to time like flashes of white lightning: a tall, thin vampire being accosted in one corner for a needless romanticizing of mortal life, a lack of spirit, a refusal to do the most entertaining thing at the moment it was available to him. He was simple, shrugging, slow at words, and would fall for long periods into a stupefied silence, as if, near-choked with blood, he would as soon have gone to his coffin as remained here. And yet he remained, held by the pressure of this unnatural group who had made of immortality a conformist’s club. How would Lestat have found it? Had he been here? What had caused him to leave? No one had dictated to Lestat—he was master of his small circle; but how they would have praised his inventiveness, his catlike toying with his victims. And waste … that word, that value which had been all-important to me as a fledgling vampire, was spoken of often. You ‘wasted’ the opportunity to kill this child. You ‘wasted’ the opportunity to frighten this poor woman or drive that man to madness, which only a little prestidigitation would have accomplished.
“My head was spinning. A common mortal headache. I longed to get away from these vampires, and only the distant figure of Armand held me, despite his warnings. He seemed remote from the others now, though he nodded often enough and uttered a few words here and there so that he seemed a part of them, his hand only occasionally rising from the lion’s paw of his chair. And my heart expanded when I saw him this way, saw that no one amongst the small throng caught his glance as I caught his glance, and no one held it from time to time as I held it. Yet he remained aloof from me, his eyes alone returning to me. His warning echoed in my ears, yet I disregarded it. I longed to get away from the theater altogether and stood listlessly, garnering information at last that was useless and infinitely dull.
“ ‘But is there no crime amongst you, no cardinal crime?’ Claudia asked. Her violet eyes seemed fixed on me, even in the mirror, as I stood with my back to her.
“ ‘Crime! Boredom!’ cried out Estelle, and she pointed a white finger at Armand. He laughed softly with her from his distant position at the end of the room. ‘Boredom is death!’ she cried and bared her vampire fangs, so that Armand put a languid hand to his forehead in a stage gesture of fear and falling.
“But Santiago, who was watching with his hands behind his back, intervened. ‘Crime!’ he said. ‘Yes, there is a crime. A crime for which we would hunt another vampire down until we destroyed him. Can you guess what that is?’ He glanced from Claudia to me and back again to her masklike face. ‘You should know, who are so secretive about the vampire that made you.’
“ ‘And why is that?’ she asked, her eyes widening ever so slightly, her hands resting still in her lap.
“A hush fell over the room, gradually, then completely, all those white faces turned to face Santiago as he stood there, one foot forward, his hands clasped behind his back, towering over Claudia. His eyes gleamed as he saw he had the floor. And then he broke away and crept up behind me, putting his