Page 142

Rowan dropped the gun. She was sobbing now, sobbing as the girl had been, and her left hand was up to gag her sobs as she slipped from the bed, and stood shakily, reaching out for the post.

"Close the door," she said in a rough, choking voice, her shoulders heaving. She seemed about to collapse.

Yet she stumbled forward, her entire body trembling with the effort, and then, beside the girl's body, she sank down on her knees.

"Oh, Emaleth, oh, baby, oh, little Emaleth," she sobbed.

The girl lay dead, her arms out, her shirt open, face a soft mass of blood. Once again, the hair was all tangled in it, fine and beautiful, as Lasher's h

air had been, and there was no face left. The long thin hands lay open like the thin delicate branches of a tree in winter, and the blood oozed down upon the floor.

"Oh, my baby, my poor darling," said Rowan.

And then she closed her mouth again on the girl's breast.

The room was still. No sound but the sound of suckling. Rowan drank from the left breast and then moved to the other, sucking as ravenously as before.

Michael stared, speechless.

At last she sat back, wiping her mouth, and a low sad groan came from her, and another deep sob.

Michael knelt down beside her. Rowan was staring at the dead girl. Then she deliberately blinked her eyes as if trying to clear her vision. A tiny bit of milk remained on the girl's right nipple. She reached out and took it on her fingertip and put it to her lips.

The tears came down from her eyes, but then she looked deliberately at Michael, deliberately as if she wanted him to know that she knew. She knew everything that had happened, she was here now. She was Rowan. She was healed.

And suddenly, the tears spilling down her face, she took his hands to try to comfort him, though her own hands were trembling and cold.

"Don't worry anymore, Michael," she said. "Don't worry. I'll take her out there under the tree. No one will ever think of it. I will do it. I'll put her with him. You've done enough, you leave my daughter to me."

She sat back crying in a soft, raw muffled way. Her eyes closed and her head slipped to the side. Fiercely she patted Michael's hands. "Don't worry," she said again. "My darling, my baby, my Emaleth. I'll take her down. I'll put her in the earth myself."

10 p.m.

August 5, 1992

BY ANNE RICE

Interview with the Vampire The Feast of All Saints Cry to Heaven The Vampire Lestat The Queen of the Damned The Mummy

The Witching Hour The Tale of the Body Thief Lasher

Taltos

Memnoch the Devil Servant of the Bones Violin

Pandora

The Vampire Armand Vittorio, The Vampire Merrick

Blood and Gold Blackwood Farm Blood Canticle Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt Christ the Lord: Road to Cana Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession Angel Time

A Ballantine Book

Published by The Random House Publishing Group