The Vampire Chronicles Collection - Anne Rice [164]
“ ‘So you’re Louis,’ said the young vampire. This seemed to increase Lestat’s inexpressible excitement, and he wiped frantically at his tears with the hem of his robe.
“A fly lit on the baby’s forehead, and involuntarily I gasped as I pressed it between two fingers and dropped it dead to the floor. The child was no longer crying. It was looking up at me with extraordinary blue eyes, dark-blue eyes, its round face glistening from the heat, and a smile played on its lips, a smile that grew brighter like a flame. I had never brought death to anything so young, so innocent, and I was aware of this now as I held the child with an odd feeling of sorrow, stronger even than that feeling which had come over me in the Rue Royale. And, rocking the child gently, I pulled the young vampire’s chair to the fire and sat down.
“ ‘Don’t try to speak … it’s all right,’ I said to Lestat, who dropped down gratefully into his chair and reached out to stroke the lapels of my coat with both hands.
“ ‘But I’m so glad to see you,’ he stammered through his tears. ‘I’ve dreamed of your coming … coming …’ he said. And then he grimaced, as if he were feeling a pain he couldn’t identify, and again the fine map of scars appeared for an instant. He was looking off, his hand up to his ear, as if he meant to cover it to defend himself from some terrible sound. ‘I didn’t …’ he started; and then he shook his head, his eyes clouding as he opened them wide, strained to focus them. ‘I didn’t mean to let them do it, Louis … I mean that Santiago … that one, you know, he didn’t tell me what they planned to do.’
“ ‘That’s all past, Lestat,’ I said.
“ ‘Yes, yes,’ he nodded vigorously. ‘Past. She should never … why, Louis, you know.…’ And he was shaking his head, his voice seeming to gain in strength, to gain a little in resonance with his effort. ‘She should have never been one of us, Louis.’ And he rapped his sunken chest with his fist as he said ‘Us’ again softly.
“She. It seemed then that she had never existed. That she had been some illogical, fantastical dream that was too precious and too personal for me ever to confide in anyone. And too long gone. I looked at him. I stared at him. And tried to think, Yes, the three of us together.
“ ‘Don’t fear me, Lestat,’ I said, as though talking to myself. ‘I bring you no harm.’
“ ‘You’ve come back to me, Louis,’ he whispered in that thin, high-pitched voice. ‘You’ve come home again to me, Louis, haven’t you?’ And again he bit his lip and looked at me desperately.
“ ‘No, Lestat.’ I shook my head. He was frantic for a moment, and again he commenced one gesture and then another and finally sat there with his hands over his face in a paroxysm of distress. The other vampire, who was studying me coldly, asked:
“ ‘Are you … have you come back to him?’
“ ‘No, of course not,’ I answered. And he smirked, as if this was as he expected, that everything fell to him again, and he walked out onto the porch. I could hear him there very near, waiting.
“ ‘I only wanted to see you, Lestat,’ I said. But Lestat didn’t seem to hear me. Something else had distracted him. And he was gazing off, his eyes wide, his hands hovering near his ears. Then I heard it also. It was a siren. And as it grew louder, his eyes shut tight against it and his fingers covered his ears. And it grew louder and louder, coming up the street from downtown. ‘Lestat!’ I said to him, over the baby’s cries, which rose now in the same terrible fear of the siren. But his agony obliterated me. His lips were drawn back from his teeth in a terrible grimace of pain. ‘Lestat, it’s only a siren!’ I said to him stupidly. And then he came forward out of the chair and took hold of me and held tight to me, and, despite myself, I took his hand. He bent down, pressing his head against my chest and holding my hand so tight that he caused me pain. The room was filled with the flashing red light of the siren, and then it was going away.
“ ‘Louis, I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it,’ he growled through his tears. ‘Help me, Louis, stay