Page 174

"Lestat, run!" he said again, without turning. And I obeyed.

Chapter 15

15

I was at the farthest corner of the terrace when Marius finally came into the lighted salon. There was a heat in all my veins still that breathed as if it had its own life. And I could see far beyond the dim hulking shapes of the islands. I could hear the progress of a ship along a distant coast. But all I kept thinking was that if Enkil came at me again, I could jump over this railing. I could get into the sea and swim. I kept feeling his hands on the sides of my head, his foot on my chest.

I stood against the stone railing, shivering, and there was blood all over my hands still from the bruises on my face which had already completely healed.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I did it," I said as soon as Marius came out of the salon. "I don't know why I did it. I shouldn't have done it. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I swear it, I'm sorry, Marius. I'll never never do anything you tell me not to do again. "

He stood with his arms folded looking at me. He was glowering.

"Lestat, what did I say last night?" he asked. "You are the damnedest creature!"

"Marius, forgive me. Please forgive me. I didn't think anything would happen. I was sure nothing would happen. . . "

He gestured for me to be quiet, for us to go down onto the rocks together, and he slipped over the railing and went first. I came behind him vaguely delighted with the ease of it, but too dazed still to care about things like that. Her presence was all over me like a fragrance, only she had had no fragrance, except that of the incense and the flowers that must have somehow managed to permeate her hard white skin. How strangely fragile she had seemed in spite of that hardness.

We went down over the slippery boulders until we reached the white beach and we walked together in silence, looking out over the snow-white froth that leapt against the rocks or streaked towards us on the smooth hard-packed white sand. The wind roared in my ears, and I felt the sense of solitude this always creates in me, the roaring wind that blots out all other sensations as well as sound.

And I was getting calmer and calmer, and more and more agitated and miserable at the same time.

Marius had slipped his arm around me the way Gabrielle used to do it, and I paid no attention to where we were going, quite surprised when I saw we'd come to a small inlet of the water where a longboat lay at anchor with only a single pair of oars.

When we stopped I said again, "I'm sorry I did it! I swear I am. I didn't believe. . . "

"Don't tell me you regret it," Marius said calmly. "You are not at all sorry that it occurred, and that you were the cause of it, now that you are safe, and not crushed like an eggshell on the chapel floor. "

"Oh, but that's not the point," I said. I started crying. I took out my handkerchief, grand accoutrement of an eighteenth century gentleman, and wiped the blood off my face. I could feel her holding me, feel her blood, feel his hands. The whole thing commenced to reenact itself. If Marius hadn't come in time. . .

"But what did happen, Marius? What did you see?"

"I wish we could get beyond his hearing," Marius said wearily. "It's madness to speak or think anything that could disturb him any further. I have to let him lapse back. "

And now he seemed truly furious and he turned his back on me.

But how could I not think about it? I wished I could open my head and pull the thoughts out of it. They were rocketing through me, like her blood. In her body was locked a mind still, an appetite, a blazing spiritual core whose heat had moved through me like liquid lightning, and without question Enkil had a deathhold upon her! I loathed him. I wanted to destroy him. And my brain seized upon all sorts of mad notions, that somehow he could be destroyed without endangering us as long as she remained!

But that made little sense. Hadn't the demons entered first into him? But what if that wasn't so . . .

"Stop it, young one!" Marius flashed.

I went to crying again. I felt my neck where she had touched it, and licked my lips and tasted her blood again. I looked at the scattered stars above and even these benign and eternal things seemed menacing and senseless and I felt a scream swelling dangerously in my throat.

The effects of her blood were waning already. The first clear vision was clouded, and my limbs were once again my limbs. They might be stronger, yes, but the magic was dying. The magic had left only something stronger than memory of the circuit of the blood through us both.

"Marius, what happened!" I said, shouting over the wind. "Don't be angry with me, don't turn away from me. I can't. . . "

"Shhh, Lestat," he said. He came back and took me by the arm. "Don't worry about my anger," he said. "It's unimportant, and it is not directed at you. Give me a little more time to collect myself. "

"But did you see what happened between her and me?"

He was looking out to sea. The water looked perfectly black and the foam perfectly white.

"Yes, I saw," he said.

"I took the violin and I wanted to play it for them, I was thinking -- "