Page 31

Terrible thing to be cold and alone. The cup was cold. The marble top of the table was cold, and the wind was cold now thanks to the rain, and the fans were churning the cold air so slowly. I thought of King David lying there, as they brought the damsel to him to keep him warm. And the damsel was very fair, and cherished the king, and ministered to him; but the king knew her not.

Why didn't I hunt for the one thing that could make me warm, the blood of a victim coursing through my veins, a soul breathing its last in my arms? Because it wouldn't have made me any more warm than the damsel made King David. And I could not claim to have killed a single Goliath in my life, or...

A shadow fell over the table, over the bright white sugar on the beignets, and the white marble. Louis was sitting there. Calm, and collected, as they say, arms folded on his chest, very much clear of the sticky marble table, and his mellow green eyes fixed on me.

"Now why the Hell do you want me, of all people," he asked, "to come with you to France?"

Vaguely, I was aware that Thorne wanted me, that moving about restlessly in the crowd beyond the cafe he was signaling to me, something important, something, please attend now. I shut him out.

I looked squarely at Louis, who looked as splendidly human as he ever had. A rage of jealousy exploded in me against the blood in his veins that wasn't mine.

"You know why," I said turning my head and looking at the nearby crowds. Street performers were out there, dancing, singing, bringing big soft explosions of approval from the crowds. "You know damned good and well why. Because you were there when I was just Born to Darkness. You were there when I stumbled onto these shores and sought to find a companion, and found you; and you were there when we lived all those decades together, you and me and Claudia, and you are the only one living who remembers the sound of her happy voice, her young voice, or the ring of her laugh. And you were there when I almost died at her hands, and when the pair of you fought me again and left me in the flames. And

you were there when I was humiliated and ruined at the Theatre des Vampires, and they murdered her due to my crimes, my weakness, my blunder, my ignorance, my failure to steer one fragile little bark in the right direction, and you were there when I rose from the dead and had my shabby little moment of triumph on the rock music stage, my cheap little hour as Freddie Mercury before the footlights, you were there. You came. You were there. And you were there when I took the spirit of Amel into me, and when all around me were telling me I had to be the Prince whether I wanted to be or not, you were there. You were there when all these streets ran with mud and river water, and when you and I went to see Macbeth onstage, and I couldn't stop dancing under the streetlamps afterwards reciting the words, 'Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,' and Claudia thought I was so handsome and so witty and so clever, and we would all of us always be safe, you were there."

Silence, or the inevitable silence one enjoys in a crowded noisy cafe where someone is screaming with laughter at a nearby table, and someone else is arguing with the man beside him over who should pay the check.

I didn't dare to look at Louis. I shut my eyes and tried to listen to the river itself, the great broad Mississippi River only a matter of yards from us, running past the city of New Orleans and so deep that no one would ever find all the bodies committed to its depths, the great broad river that might swallow the city one night for reasons no one would ever be able to explain, and carry every particle of the city south into the Gulf of Mexico and the great ocean beyond...all that wallpaper, all those gas lamps, all the laughter and the purple flagstones and the shimmering green banana leaves like blades of a knife.

I could hear the water, hear the earth itself shifting and softening, and the plants themselves growing, and Thorne, Thorne insisting that I come out, that I talk to him, that I was needed, always needed, and Cyril saying, "Ah, leave the son of a bitch alone."

Now that's my kind of bodyguard! Leave the son of a bitch alone indeed.

I turned to see Louis was looking at me. The old familiar green eyes and the faint smile. Is Amel inside you? Is it you, Amel, looking through Louis's eyes?

"Very well," Louis said.

"What do you mean?"

He shrugged and smiled.

"I'll come if you want me. I'll come and I'll stay and I'll be your companion if you want. I don't know why you want this or how long you'll want it, or what it's going to be like, being with you and watching all your antics up close, and trying to be of help and not knowing how to be of help, but I'll come. I'm tired of fighting it; I give up; I'll come."

I couldn't believe I'd heard right. I stared at him as helplessly as I had in the hallway of the townhouse when I'd first seen him, trying to grasp what he had said.

He leaned close to me, and he put his hand on my arm. " 'Wither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people'; and because I have no other god and never will, you shall be my god."

Was it Amel speaking these words through him? Was it Amel touching my arm through his hand? Had Amel lied about not being able to find Louis? When I looked into these green eyes, I saw only Louis, and the words echoing in my mind were Louis's words.

"I know what you need," he said. "You need one person who is always on your side. Well, I'm ready to be that one now. I don't know why I tormented you, made you pay for asking, made you come all this way. I always knew I was going to come. Maybe I thought you'd lose interest because I never really understood why you wanted me in the first place. But you're not losing interest, not even with the whole Court, and so I'll come. And when you tire of me and want me gone, I'll hate you, of course."

"Trust me," I whispered. He was cutting me to the heart and making me happy, and this was pain.

"I do," he said.

"It's you, you saying these things, isn't it?"

"And who else would it be?" he asked.

"I don't know," I said. I sat back and looked around the cafe. The lights were too bright here and people were staring at the strange men with the luminescent skin. The violet sunglasses always distracted people, and helped to cover a face that was too white and eyes that were too bright. But it was never enough. And Louis had no such glasses. Time to move on.

"You'll enjoy the Court," I said. "There are beautiful things to hear and see."

5

Fareed

THEY WERE SEATED together in the "blue" salon of Armand's house in Saint-Germain-des-Pres, in the suite that Armand had given to Fareed for his private use. Fareed was at his desk, and Gregory sat opposite at a round table on which he had spread out a game of solitaire with gilt-edged playing cards.