The Vampire Chronicles Collection - Anne Rice [97]
“From above him, a sharp stone fell full on his forehead, and a fount of blood gushed from between his eyes. He struggled, but another stone crashed with such force I heard the bones shatter. Blood seeped out beneath the matted hair, soaking into the stones and grass. The chest throbbed beneath me, but the arms shuddered and grew still. I drew up, my throat knotted, my heart burning, every fiber of my body aching from the struggle. For a moment the great tower seemed to tilt, but then it righted itself. I lay against the wall, staring at the thing, the blood rushing in my ears. Gradually I realized that Claudia knelt on his chest, that she was probing the mass of hair and bone that had been his head. She was scattering the fragments of his skull. We had met the European vampire, the creature of the Old World. He was dead.”
“For a long time I lay on the broad stairway, oblivious to the thick earth that covered it, my head feeling very cool against the earth, just looking at him. Claudia stood at his feet, hands hanging limply at her sides. I saw her eyes close for an instant, two tiny lids that made her face like a small, moonlit white statue as she stood there. And then her body began to rock very slowly. ‘Claudia,’ I called to her. She awakened. She was gaunt such as I had seldom seen her. She pointed to the human who lay far across the floor of the tower near the wall. He was still motionless, but I knew that he was not dead. I’d forgotten him completely, my body aching as it was, my senses still clouded with the stench of the bleeding corpse. But now I saw the man. And in some part of my mind I knew what his fate would be, and I cared nothing for it. I knew it was only an hour at most before dawn.
“ ‘He’s moving,’ she said to me. And I tried to rise off the steps. Better that he not wake, better that he never wake at all, I wanted to say; she was walking towards him, passing indifferently the dead thing that had nearly killed us both. I saw her back and the man stirring in front of her, his foot twisting in the grass. I don’t know what I expected to see as I drew nearer, what terrified peasant or farmer, what miserable wretch that had already seen the face of that thing that had brought it here. And for a moment I did not realize who it was that lay there, that it was Morgan, whose pale face showed now in the moon, the marks of the vampire on his throat, his blue eyes staring mute and expressionless before him.
“Suddenly they widened as I drew close to him. ‘Louis!’ he whispered in astonishment, his lips moving as if he were trying to frame words but could not. ‘Louis …’ he said again; and then I saw he was smiling. A dry, rasping sound came from him as he struggled to his knees, and he reached out for me. His blanched, contorted face strained as the sound died in his throat, and he nodded desperately, his red hair loose and dishevelled, falling into his eyes. I turned and ran from him. Claudia shot past me, gripping me by the arm. ‘Do you see the color of the sky!’ she hissed at me. Morgan fell forward on his hands behind her. ‘Louis,’ he called out again, the light gleaming in his eyes. He seemed blind to the ruins, blind to the night, blind to everything but a face he recognized, that one word again issuing from his lips. I put my hands to my ears, backing away from him. His hand was bloody now as he lifted it. I could smell the blood as well as see it. And Claudia could smell it, too.
“Swiftly she descended on him, pushing him down against the stones, her white fingers moving through his red hair. He tried to raise his head. His outstretched hands made a frame about her face, and then suddenly he began to stroke her yellow curls. She sank her teeth, and the hands dropped helpless at his side.
“I was at the edge of the