Page 148
She extended to me a gloved hand, a hand covered in soft gray kid leather, and of course it felt as vital as a human hand. I could feel the deceptive pulse in it. Why did they make themselves so perfectly physical? Her eyes were arresting, not only because they were such a dark shade of gray but because they were a little wider apart than most people's eyes, and that gave her face a certain mystery. All the details of her, eyelashes, eyebrows, succulent lips--were exquisitely convincing and fetching. I had to wonder precisely what accounted for this and the other gorgeous illusions I was seeing here. Was it skill, magnetism, aesthetic depth, genius? Was it the soul?
The other ghosts hung back. And one of them, a very personable young male, rather husky, with dark olive skin and curling black hair, appeared to have been weeping. I couldn't help notice that Armand was almost directly behind him and rather close to him. But there was no time for me to be noticing all these things, or puzzling over them.
"What makes us the physical beings we are? It is all of those things," said Gremt responding directly to my thoughts and of course reminding me that he could do this. "Oh, we have so much to tell you, so much to ... And we will come to you in France as soon as you tell us to come. We have a house there not very far at all from yours, a very old house that goes back to our earliest times together." He was cheerful suddenly and almost excited. "This has been our wish for so long." He stopped as if he'd said too much but his expression never really changed.
The ghost of Magnus, as solid as before, hung back, but there came from his face a look of love, of doting love.
This caught me off guard.
"Listen, my friends," I said. "There are important things happening under this roof tonight and I cannot invite you to remain and to sit down with us just now. You must trust me, and trust in my goodwill. But soon, under my roof in France, it's agreed, we will indeed come together." We were repeating ourselves, weren't we? This was like a dance.
"Yes," said Gremt, but his eyes were almost glazed, as though his physicality was as much at the mercy of his emotions and obsessions as that of a human.
Yet he didn't move to take his leave. None of them did. And suddenly I caught on. They were deliberately biding their time, drawing out the essentially formal and meaningless conversation because they were studying me at close hand. They were likely monitoring countless aspects of my physicality of which I was totally unaware.
They knew Amel was inside me. They knew that Amel and I were one. They knew that Amel was studying them, too, just as I was studying them, and as they were studying me.
I think something dark and slightly ominous must have appeared in my expression or my demeanor because all at once they seemed to react, to gather themselves up, to exchange infinitesimal signals and to look to Teskhamen for a decisive gesture or word.
"You will excuse me now, won't you?" I said, striving to be gracious, as gracious as I could. "There are others waiting for me. I'm leaving for home in a matter of nights to prepare a place for a wholly new--." I stopped. A wholly new what?
"A wholly new reign," said Magnus gently. There was the same loving smile on his lips.
"A wholly new era will suffice," I said. "I'm not sure I want it to be called a reign."
He smiled at this as though he found it not only impressive but somehow endearing. I didn't know whether I was feeling love or hatred for him. Well, it certainly couldn't be hatred. I was too completely happy to be alive.
I had the sense again that they were studying me in ways I couldn't fathom, searching my face and form for signs of what was within. Yet Amel was silent. Amel was not helping me with them. Amel was there, yes, but utterly quiet.
Teskhamen caught my hand. His was far colder than mine. It had the hard icy texture of the Children of the Millennia. But his face was very warm and he said, "Forgive us for troubling you on this night, and so soon. But we were eager to see you with our own eyes. And we will go now, yes. I give you my apologies for our conduct. I think we are more impetuous and perh
aps more excited than you can know."
"I understand," I said. "Thank you, my friends." But I couldn't repress my suspicions as they took their leave now, moving in a small loose body past me out of the drawing room into the hall and through the front door.
Armand went with them, his arm around the dark-haired ghost, the ghost who had been weeping, and the door was closed.
I realized that I was alone with Louis in the empty hallway. The others had gone.
"You know who they are?" I whispered.
"I know what they told me," he said, walking along with me. "And I know what they told you. And the others obviously know who they are and they're not afraid of them. Yet all wait for you to take command, you to come, you to greet them and invite them to your home in France. You are the leader, Lestat, no doubt about it. All know it. And these ghosts and spirits or whoever they are--they know it too."
I stopped. I put my arm around him. I held him close to me.
"I'm Lestat," I said in a low voice. "Your Lestat. I'm the same Lestat you've always known, and no matter how I'm changed, I'm still that same being."
"I know," he said warmly.
I kissed him. I pressed my lips to his and I held this kiss for a long silent moment. And then I gave in to a silent wave of feeling, and I took him in my arms. I held him tight against me. I felt his unmistakable silken skin, his soft shining black hair. I heard the blood throbbing in him, and time dissolved, and it seemed I was in some old and secret place, some warm tropical grotto we'd once shared, ours alone in some way, with the scent of sweet olive blossoms and the whisper of moist breeze. "I love you," I whispered.
In a low intimate voice, he answered: "My heart is yours."
I wanted to weep.
But there was no time.
At that moment, Gregory and Seth reappeared with Sevraine, and Sevraine told me that they had seen to the ballroom and all was in readiness. Marius and Pandora were prepared. The candles had been lighted.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 145
- Page 146
- Page 147
- Page 148 (Reading here)
- Page 149
- Page 150
- Page 151
- Page 152
- Page 153
- Page 154
- Page 155
- Page 156