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"She never spoke the name?"
"She spoke of Mother; she was a little girl."
"Think again," she said. "Go back, go back to those earliest nights with her; go back to when she babbled as children
babble, before her womanly voice replaced those memories in your heart. Go back. What is the name of her mother? I
need it."
"I don't know it," he confessed. "I don't think she ever . But I didn't listen, you see, the woman was dead. That's how I
found her, alive, clinging to the corpse of her mother." I could see that he was defeated. Rather helplessly he looked at
Merrick.
Merrick nodded. She looked down and then she looked to him again, and her voice was especially kind as she spoke.
"There is something else," she said. "You're holding something back."
Again, he seemed exceedingly distressed.
"How so?" he asked abjectly. "What can you mean?"
"I have her written page," said Merrick. "I have the doll she kept when she might have destroyed it. But you hold on to
something else."
"Oh, but I can't," he said, his dark brows knotting. He reached into his coat and brought out the small daguerreotype in
its gutter perche case. "I can't give it over to be destroyed, I can't," he whispered.
"You think you'll cherish it afterwards?" asked Merrick in a consoling voice. "Or you think our magic fire will fail?"
"I don't know," he confessed. "I know only that I want it." He moved the tiny clasp and opened the small case and
looked down until he seemed unable to bear what he saw, and then he closed his eyes.
"Give it to me for my altar," said Merrick. "I promise it will not be destroyed."
He didn't move or answer. He simply allowed her to take the picture from his hands. I watched her. She was amazed by
it, the ancient image of a vampire, captured forever so dimly in the fragile silver and glass.
"Ah, but she was lovely, wasn't she?" asked Louis.
"She was many things," said Merrick. She shut the little gutter perche case, but she did not move the small gold clasp.
She laid the daguerreotype in her lap with the doll and the page from the diary, and with both hands reached for Louis's
right hand again.
She opened his palm beneath the lamplight.
She drew up as if she was shocked.
"Never have I seen a life line such as this," she whispered. "It's deeply graven, look at it, there is no end to it really," she
turned his hand this way and that, "and all the small lines have long ago melted away."
"I can die," he answered with a polite defiance. "I know I can," he said sadly. "I shall when I've got the courage. My
eyes will close forever, like those of every mortal of my time who ever lived."
She didn't answer. She looked down into his open palm again. She felt of the hand, and I could see her loving its silky
skin.
"I see three great loves," she whispered, as if she needed his permission to say it aloud. "Three deep loves in all this
time. Lestat? Yes. Claudia. Most assuredly. And who is the other? Can you tell me that?"
He was in a state of complete confusion as he looked at her, but he hadn't the strength to answer. The color flared in his
cheeks and his eyes seemed to flash as if a light inside them had increased its incandescence.
She let his hand go, and she blushed.
Quite suddenly, he looked to me, exactly as if he'd suddenly remembered me again and he needed me desperately. I had
never seen him so agitated or seemingly vital. No one entering the room would have known him to be anything but a
compelling young man.
"Are you for it, old friend?" he asked. "Are you ready for it to begin?"
She looked up, her own eyes watering faintly, and she seemed to pick me out of the shadows and then to give the
smallest, most trusting smile.
"What's your counsel, Superior General?" she asked in a muted voice, filled with conviction.
"Don't mock me," I said, because it made me feel good to say it. I was not surprised to see the quick flash of pain in her
eyes.
"I don't mock you, David. I ask if you're ready."
"I'm ready, Merrick," I said, "as ready as I ever was in all my life to call a spirit in whom I scarcely believe, in whom I
have no trust."
She held the page in both hands and studied it, perhaps reading the words herself, for her lips moved.
Then she looked at me again, and then at Louis.
"One hour. Come back to me. I'll be ready by that time. We'll meet in the rear of the house. The old altar's been restored
for our purpose. The candles are already lighted. The coals will soon be ready. It's there that we will execute this plan."
I started to rise.
"But you must go now," she said, "and bring a sacrifice, because we cannot proceed without that."
"A sacrifice?" I asked. "Good Lord, what manner of sacrifice?" I was on my feet.
"A human sacrifice," she answered, her eyes sharpening as she glanced up at me, and then back to Louis, who remained
in his chair. "This spirit won't come for anything less than human blood."
"You don't mean it, Merrick," I said furiously, my voice rising. "Good Lord, woman, would you make yourself a party
to murder?"
"Am I not that already?" she answered, her eyes full of honesty and fierce will. "David, how many human beings have
you killed since Lestat brought you over? And you, Louis, they're beyond count. I sit with you and plot with you to
attempt this thing. I'm a party to your crimes, am I not? And for this spell, I tell you I need blood. I need to brew a far
greater magic than anything I've ever attempted before. I need a burnt offering; I need the smoke to rise from heated
blood."
"I won't do it," I said. "I won't bring some mortal here to be slaughtered. You're being foolish and naive if you think you
could tolerate such a spectacle. You'll be changed forever. What, do you think because we're pretty to look at that this
murder will be fancy and clean?"
"David, do as I say," she replied, "or I won't do this thing."
"I will not," I responded. "You've overreached yourself. A murder there will not be."
"Let me be the sacrifice," said Louis suddenly. He rose to his feet and looked down upon her. "I don't mean that I shall
die to do it," he said compassionately. "I mean, let the blood that flows be mine." He took her hand again, locking his
fingers around her wrist. He bent and kissed her hand, then stood erect, his eyes lovingly fastened to her own.
"Years ago," he said, "you used your own blood, did you not, in this very house, to call your sister, Honey in the
Sunshine. Let us use my blood to call Claudia tonight. I have blood enough for a burnt offering; I have blood enough for a
cauldron or a fire." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]