The Vampire Chronicles Collection - Anne Rice [560]
Something touched her. Something hostile to her. Reluctantly she turned and saw a hulking figure at her side. What? She struggled to see it clearly.
Bony limbs, black hair slicked back, red paint on the twisted ugly mouth, but the skin, the same skin. And the fang teeth. Not human. One of them!
Talamasca?
It came at her like a hiss. It struck her in the chest. Instinctively her arms rose, crossing over her breasts, fingers locking on her shoulders.
Talamasca?
It was soundless yet deafening in its rage.
She moved to back away, but his hand caught her, fingers biting into her neck. She tried to scream as she was lifted off her feet.
Then she was flying across the lobby and she was screaming until her head slammed into the wall.
Blackness. She saw the pain. It flashed yellow and then white as it traveled down her backbone and then spread out as if into a million branches in her limbs. Her body went numb. She hit the floor with another shocking pain in her face and in the open palms of her hands and then she rolled over on her back.
She couldn’t see. Maybe her eyes were closed, but the funny thing was, if they were, she couldn’t open them. She heard voices, people shouting. A whistle blew, or was it the clang of a bell? There was a thunderous noise, but that was the crowd inside applauding. People near her argued.
Someone close to her ear said:
“Don’t touch her. Her neck’s broken!”
Broken? Can you live when your neck is broken?
Someone laid a hand on her forehead. But she couldn’t really feel it so much as a tingling sensation, as if she were very cold, walking in snow, and all real feeling had left her. Can’t see.
“Listen, honey.” A young man’s voice. One of those voices you could hear in Boston or New Orleans or New York City. Firefighter, cop, saver of the injured. “We’re taking care of you, honey. The ambulance is on its way. Now lie still, honey, don’t you worry.”
Someone touching her breast. No, taking the cards out of her pocket. Jessica Miriam Reeves. Yes.
She stood beside Maharet and they were looking up at the giant map with all the tiny lights. And she understood. Jesse born of Miriam, who was born of Alice, who was born of Carlotta, who was born of Jane Marie, who was born of Anne, who was born of Janet Belle, who was born of Elizabeth, who was born of Louise, who was born of Frances, who was born of Frieda, who was born of—
“If you will allow me, please, we are her friends—”
David.
They were lifting her; she heard herself scream, but she had not meant to scream. She saw the screen again and the great tree of names. “Frieda born of Dagmar, born of …”
“Steady now, steady! Goddamn it!”
The air changed; it went cool and moist; she felt the breeze moving over her face; then all feeling left her hands and feet completely. She could feel her eyelids but not move them.
Maharet was talking to her. “… came out of Palestine, down into Mesopotamia and then up slowly through Asia Minor and into Russia and then into Eastern Europe. Do you see?”
This was either a hearse or an ambulance and it seemed too quiet to be the latter, and the siren, though steady, was too far away. What had happened to David? He wouldn’t have let her go, unless she was dead. But then how could David have been there? David had told her nothing could induce him to come. David wasn’t here. She must have imagined it. And the odd thing was, Miriam wasn’t here either. “Holy Mary, Mother of God … now and at the hour of our death.…”
She listened: they were speeding through the city; she felt them turn the corner; but where was her