Page 193

"Yes, and each time is stronger than the one before it," I added. "The last time -- it came last night -- there was a tug on my heart as well as tiny slashing wounds, much worse than I've felt before, and he exited through the window, shattering all the glass much the same as he did tonight. He's never been so destructive before. "

"He has to be destructive now," she said. "He's foolishly increased the material makeup of his being. Whereas once he was almost entirely energy, he now has considerable matter as well, and he can't pass through solid walls as he once did. On the contrary, he needs a doorway or a window. "

"That's exactly right," I said. "I've been witnessing it. I've been feeling the air change, feeling him leave. "

She nodded. "It's in our favor that he's subject to gravity, but it's always so with ghosts. It's only more so now with him because he's developed an appetite for blood, and so encumbered himself. Can you tell me anything else about this fusion?"

I hesitated, then confessed. "It's very pleasurable. It's like. . . like an orgasm. It's like. . . it's like our contact with our victims. It's like the fusion with them, only it's much much milder. "

"Milder?" she asked. "Do you lose your equilibrium when you take your victims?"

"No, no I don't," I answered. "I see your point. But the pleasure isn't as strong with Goblin. I'd admit it if it was. It's confusion I feel, along with mild pleasure. "

"Very well. Is there anything more that you can tell me?"

I thought for a long time. "I feel sad," I said, "terribly sad because he's my brother, and he died, and he never had any life except the life I gave him. And now this has occurred, and he can't go on. And I think -- I know -- I should die with him. "

She studied me for several minutes, and so did Lestat, and then Lestat spoke up, his French accen

t rather sharp as he looked at me:

"That's not required, Quinn, and besides, even if you did try to take him with you into death, there's no guarantee that he would go. "

"Precisely," said Merrick. "He might well let you go on and remain here to plague someone else. After all, he chose to be with you because you were his brother. But he could move to someone else. As you told Lestat, he's very cunning and he learns quickly. "

Lestat said,

"I don't want you to die, Little Brother. "

Merrick smiled. She said,

"The Coven Master won't let you die, Little Brother. "

"So what do we do?" I asked. I sighed. "What is to be the fate of Little Brother's Little Brother?"

"In a moment I'll explain that," she said, "but let me explain what is happening now when you fuse with him. He is binding not just with you but with the spirit of the vampire inside you. Now, you know the old tales, that we are all the descendants of one parent in whom a pure spirit fused with a mortal, and that all of us to this very day are part of that one pure spirit, carrying in our preternatural bodies the immortal spirit which animates us and gives us our thirst for blood and our ability to live on it. "

"Yes," I said.

"Well, your demon brother, being a ghost himself, is very like a spirit, and when he fuses with you now, he fuses with that spirit in you, and he knows a pleasure far greater than any he knew when you were mortal. "

"Ah, I see," I said. "Of course. "

"He doesn't understand it. He only knows it's like a sweet drug to him, and he drinks of the vampiric blood to experience the supernatural as long and as completely as he can, and only when his endurance is at an end does he release you and vanish into invisibility and weakness again, lulled and dreaming with the blood he's taken. "

"Where does he go?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. He spreads out, losing his shape and his organization. Compare him to a great sea creature who is composed largely of seawater, only with him it's air, and he enjoys the blood as best he can until his energy burns it off, and he must wait for another opportunity, and all this takes time for him, just as appearances and communication have always taken time, as is so with all spirits. "

She stopped for a moment and watched me closely, as if to see if I understood. Then she continued.

"The better you understand him, the better it will be for us when I try to send him out of the Earthly Realm, because I can't do it, I don't think, without your full cooperation. "

"You have my cooperation," I said. "As for my understanding, I'm trying. "

"Are you ready to let him go?" she asked.

"Let him go! Merrick, he killed Aunt Queen. I loathe and despise him! I hate him! I hate myself that I ever nourished him and fostered him! He's betrayed the womb we shared!"