8

SO, NOBODY EVER ACCUSED ME of acquiring any real wisdom in my two hundred years on this Earth. I know only one way to proceed.

Clem let us out in front of the hotel, a new one, quite luxurious, and most expensive, and in the thick of things, so to speak, with an address on Canal Street, the great shabby divide of New Orleans, and an

entrance out back to the French Quarter, the little world I preferred.

Mona was in such a trance that we had to propel her to the elevator, I on her left and Quinn on her right. Naturally everyone in the lobby took note of us-not because we were blood-sucking immortals bent on destroying two of our kind on the fifteenth floor, but because we were exceedingly and severely gorgeous, especially Mona, wrapped in feathers and shimmering fabric and poised atop a pair of breakneck heels.

Quinn was thirsting now as strongly as Mona was, and it would see him through what we had to do.

But I wasn't immune to the questions he'd raised in the car. Poetry, love. And me secretly aspiring to sanctity! What an everlasting life! And remember, honorary Children of the Night, what I said about telepathy. It ain't the real thing, no matter how good it is.

As soon as we reached the suite, I pushed the door in fairly quietly, without breaking its hinges, since I intended to close it again, and the spectacle into which I plunged on feline feet astonished me.

Ah, the Savage Garden of this Earth that hath such creatures in it!

The mavericks were dancing in dim light to the most intense music-a Bart¨®k concerto for violin and orchestra flooding the room at max volume. The music was sad, ripping, overpowering-a command to abandon all things cheap and tawdry, a full-blown engulfing majesty.

And though they themselves were infinitely more arresting than I had ever anticipated, these two, I spied beyond them on the long deep burgundy-colored couch a cluster of mortal children, bruised, unconscious and obviously being used at random as blood victims.

All three of us were in the room with the door closed, and the insurgents danced oblivious to us, their senses drenched in lustrous sound and rhythm.

They were absolutely spectacular in appearance, with tanned skin, rippling jet black hair to the waist- being both of Semitic or Arabic descent-very tall and with large facial features, including magnificent mouths, and they were inherently graceful. They danced with closed eyes, oval faces serene, in huge swaying and arching gestures, humming through closed lips to the music, and the male, who was on the surface almost indistinguishable from the female, every now and then shook out his immense veil of hair and swung it rapidly around him in a circle.

Their sleek black leather clothes were stunning and unisexual. Supple pants, sleeveless and collarless tops. They wore gold bracelets on their naked upper and lower arms. They embraced each other now and then and let each other go, and as we watched, the female dipped down into the cluster of mortal children and brought up to her lips a limp little boy, and drank from him.

Mona let out a scream at the sight of this, and at once the two vampires froze, staring at us. So similar were their movements, one would have thought they were grand automatons operated by a central system. The unconscious child was dropped to the couch.

My heart became a little knot inside me. I could scarcely breathe. The music flooded my brain, the ripping, sad, compelling voice of the violin.

"Quinn, shut it off," I said, and scarcely had I spoken when the music stopped. The parlor was plunged into a ringing vibrant silence.

The pair drew together. The figure they made was statuesque.

They had exquisite arched black eyebrows, heavily lidded eyes with thick eyelashes. Arabic, yes, from the streets of New York. Brother and sister, petty merchant class, real hard work, sixteen when made. It came flooding out of them, and also a torrent of worship for me, a torrent of exuberant happiness that I had "appeared." Oh, God help me. Juan Diego stand by me.

"We didn't dream we'd see you, actually see you!" said the female, with heavily accented words, voice rich and beguiling and reverent. "We hoped and prayed, and here you are and it is really you." Her lovely hands unfolded and reached out to me.

"Why did you kill innocent victims in my town," I whispered. "Where did you get these innocent children?"

"But you, you drank from children yourself, it's in the pages of the Chronicles," the male said. Same accented words, courteous, gentle tone. "We were imitating you! What have we done that you have not done!"

The knot in my heart grew tighter. Those accursed deeds, those accursed confessions. Oh God, forgive me.

"You know my warnings," I said. "Everyone knows. Stay out of New Orleans, New Orleans belongs to me. Who doesn't know those warnings?"

"But we came to worship you!" said the male. "We've been here before. You never cared. It was as if you were a legend."

Suddenly they realized their immense miscalculation. The male raced for the door, but Quinn caught his arm effortlessly and swung him around.

The female stood shocked in the center of the room, her jet black eyes staring at me, then silently moving over Mona.

"No," she said, "no, you can't simply destroy us, you won't do it. You won't take from us our immortal souls, you will not. You are our dream, you are our model in all things. You cannot do this to us. Oh, I beg you, make of us your servants, teach us all things. We'll never disobey! We'll learn everything from you."

"You knew the law," I said. "You chose to break it. You thought you'd slip in and out, leaving your sins behind you. And you murder children in my name? You do this in my city? You never learned from my pages. Don't throw them in my face." I began to tremble. "You think I confessed what I did for you to follow my example? My faults were no template for your abominations."

"But we adore you!" said the male. "We come in pilgrimage to you. Bind us to yourself and we'll be filled with your grace, we'll be perfected in you."

"I have no absolution for you," I said. "You stand condemned. It's finished."

I heard Mona let out a little moan. I could see the struggle in Quinn's face.

The male tensed his entire body trying to get loose. Quinn held him with one hand wrapped around his upper arm.

"Let us go," said the male. "We'll leave your city. We'll warn others never to come. We'll testify. We'll be your holy witnesses. Everywhere we go, we will tell others that we've seen you, heard the warning from your own lips."

"Drink," I said to Quinn. "Drink till there's no more to drink. Drink as you've never done it before."

"I begrudge nothing!" whispered the male and he closed his eyes. All the struggling left him. "I am your fount in love."

Without hesitation, Quinn put his right hand on the huge mass of springy hair of the male and brought the head to the proper position, twisting it until the neck was bared, and then, closing his eyes, he sank his teeth.

Mona stared enthralled, then turned sharply to the female. The thirst transformed Mona's face. She appeared half asleep, eyes fastened to the female.

"Take her," I said.

The female gazed fearlessly on Mona. "And you, so beautiful," the vagrant said in her sharpened words, "you so beautiful, you come to take my blood, I give my blood, here, I give it to you. Only spare me for eternity." She opened her arms, these arms with gold bracelets, long fingers beckoning.

Mona moved as if in a trance. She embraced the sleek body of the female with her left arm, and pushed the hair away from the right side of the female's face, and bent her supple body down and took her.

I watched Mona. It was always a spectacle-the vampire feeding, a seeming human with her teeth locked to another, eyes closed as if in deep sleep, no sound, only the victim shuddering and twisting, even her fingers motionless as she drank deeply, savoring the drug of the blood.

And so she was launched on the Devil's Road with this wretched sacrament, without the need of prodding, letting the thirst carry her through it.

The male collapsed at Quinn's feet. Quinn was dazed. He staggered backwards. "So far away," Quinn whispered. "An ancient one, from Jericho, can you imagine it, and he made them, and taught them nothing? What am I to do with this treasure of images? What am I to do with this curious intimacy?"

"Keep it close," I said. "Store it where the finer things are stored until such time as you need it."

I moved towards him slowly, then took the limp, soft victim from the floor and brought him into the tiled bathroom of the suite, a palatial marvel with a spacious tub completely surrounded by steps of green marble, and I threw the unfortunate one into the tub where he tumbled like a marionette without strings, settling silently. His eyes had rolled up into his head. He was murmuring in his native tongue, a fine collection of bronzed limbs and glints of gold, and the massive hair nesting beneath him.

In the parlor, I found Mona with her victim on their knees, and then Mona drew back, and for a moment it seemed she would lose consciousness herself, and they would be together in this, these two, their hair intermingling, but Mona rose and lifted the female.

I beckoned.

She carried the female, as a man would carry a woman, arm under her knees, arm around her shoulder. Dark hair streaming down.

"There in the tub, with her companion," I said.

Mona heaved her over with a sure gesture, letting her tumble in beside him.

The female was silent, unconscious, dreaming.

"Their Maker was old," Mona whispered, as if not to wake either of them. "He was tramping through eternity. Sometimes he knew who and what he was. And other times he didn't. He made the pair of them to run his errands. They found out everything on their own. They were so cruel. They were cruel for pleasure. They would have killed the children in the other room. They would have left them here."

"You want to kiss them good-bye?" I asked.

"I loathe them," she responded. She sounded so sleepy. "But why are they so lovely? Their hair so fine? It wasn't their fault. Their souls might have been beautiful."

"You think so? You really think so? You didn't taste their free will when you drank from them? You didn't taste an immense sweep of modern knowledge when you drank from them? And what was the summit of their existence, may I ask, other than bashing innocent souls; was it dancing and listening to fine music?"

Quinn came up behind her, keen for my words, and wrapped his arms around her. She raised her eyebrows and nodded.

"Watch what I do," I said. "Remember it."

I let loose the Fire with all my consuming power. Let it be merciful, Saint Lestat. I saw the outline of their black bones in the flames for a second, the heat blasting my face, and it was in that second, and that second only, that the bones moved.

The fire flashed to the ceiling, scorched it, and then shrank to nothingness. A tracery of the bones vanished. All that remained was black grease in the spacious tub.

Mona gasped. Her cheeks were beating with the blood she'd drunk. She stepped forward and peered down at the black bubbling grease. Quinn was speechless and plainly horrified.

"And so you can do that to me when I want to go, can't you?" Mona said, her voice raw.

I was shocked.

"No, dolly dear," I said. "I couldn't. Not if my life depended on it."

I let loose the Fire again. I sent it into the oily residue until there was nothing left.

And so the tall graceful long-haired dancers would dance no more.

I felt slightly dizzy. I shrank back into myself. I felt sick. I moved away from my own power. I collected all my force into my human-shaped self.

In the parlor, in the gentle manner of a human, I examined the children. There were four of them, and they had been beaten as well as bled. They were lying in a heap. All were unconscious, but I detected no

blows to the head, no rushing of blood within the skulls, no permanent damage. Boys in shorts and skivy shirts and tennis shoes. No familial resemblance. How their parents must have been weeping. All could survive. I was certain of it.

The sins of my past rose up to taunt me. All my own excesses mocked me.

I made the requisite call to see to their care. I told the astonished clerk what I had discovered.

In the hallway, Mona was crying. Quinn held her.

"Come on, we're headed for my flat now. So it wasn't perfect, Quinn, you were right. But it's over."

"Lestat," he said, his eyes glittering as we pulled the weeping Mona into the elevator. "I thought it was nothing short of magnificent."