The Tale of the Body Thief

THIRTY-ONE

I WAS sitting in the darkened cathedral. Hours ago it had been locked, and I had entered surreptitiously through one of the front doors, quieting the protective alarms. And left it open for him.

Five nights had passed since my return. Work was progressing wonderfully well on the flat in the Rue Royale, and of course he had not failed to notice it. I'd seen him standing under the porch opposite, staring up at the windows, and I'd appeared on the balcony above for only an instant-not even enough for a mortal eye to see.

I'd been playing cat and mouse with him since.

Tonight, I'd let him see me near the old French Market. And what a start it gave him, to actually lay eyes upon me, and to see Mojo with me, to realize as I gave him a little wink that it was truly Lestat whom he saw.

What had he thought in that first instant? That it was Raglan James in my body come to destroy him? That James was making a home for himself in the Rue Royale? No, he'd known it was Lestat all along.

Then I had walked slowly towards the church, Mojo coming along smartly at my side. Mojo, who kept me anchored to the good earth.

I wanted him to follow me. But I wouldn't so much as turn my head to see whether or not he was coming.

It was warm this night, and it had rained earlier enough to darken the rich, rose-colored walls of the old French Quarter buildings, to deepen the brown of the bricks, and to leave the flags and the cobblestones with a fine and lovely sheen. A perfect night for walking in New Orleans. Wet and fragrant, the flowers blooming over the garden walls.

But to meet with him again, I needed the quiet and silence of the darkened church.

My hands were shaking a little, as they had been off and on since I had come back into my old form. There was no physical cause for it, only my anger coming and going, and long spells of contentment, and then a terrifying emptiness which would open around me, and then the happiness coming again, quite complete, yet fragile, as though it were but a thin fine veneer. Was it fair to say I didn't know the full state of my soul? I thought of the unbridled rage with which I'd smashed the head of David Talbot's body, and I shuddered. Was I still afraid? Hmmm. Look at these dark sunburnt fingers with their gleaming nails. I felt the tremour as I pressed the tips of my right fingers to my lips.

I sat in the dark pew, several rows back from the railing before the altar, looking at the dark statues, and the paintings, and all the gilded ornament of this cold and empty place.

It was past midnight. The noise from the Rue Bourbon was as loud as ever. So much simmering mortal flesh there. I'd fed earlier. I would feed again.

But the sounds of the night were soothing. Throughout the narrow streets of the Quarter, in her small apartments, and atmospheric little taverns, in her fancy cocktail lounges, and in her restaurants, happy mortals laughed and talked, and kissed and embraced.

I slumped back comfortably in the pew, and stretched out my arms on the back of it as if it were a park bench. Mojo had already gone to sleep in the aisle near me, long nose resting on his paws.

Would that I were you, my friend. Looking like the very devil, and full of big lumbering goodness. Ah, yes, goodness. It was goodness that I felt when I locked my arms around him, and buried my face in his fur.

But now he had come into the church.

I sensed his presence though I could pick up no glimmer of thought or feeling from him, or even hear his step. I had not heard the outer door open or close. Somehow I knew he was there. Then I saw the shadow moving in the corner of my left eye. He came into the pew and sat beside me, a little distance away.

We sat there in silence for many long moments, and then he spoke.

"You burnt my little house, didn't you?" he asked in a small, vibrant voice.

"Can you blame me?" I asked with a smile, eyes still on the altar. "Besides, I was a human when I did that. It was human weakness. Want to come and live with me?"

"This means you've forgiven me?"

"No, it means I'm playing with you. I may even destroy you for what you did to me. I haven't made up my mind. Aren't you afraid?" "No. If you meant to do away with me, it would already be done."

"Don't be so certain. I'm not myself, and yet I am, and then I am not again."

Long silence, with only the sounds of Mojo breathing hoarsely and deeply in his sleep.

"I'm glad to see you," he said. "I knew you would win. But I didn't know how."

I didn't answer. But I was suddenly boiling inside. Why were both my virtues and my faults used against me?

But what was the use of it-to make accusations, to grab him and shake him and demand answers from him? Maybe it was better not to know.

"Tell me what happened," he said.

"I will not," I replied. "Why in the world do you want to know?"

Our hushed voices echoed softly in the nave of the church. The wavering light of the candles played upon the gilt on the tops of the columns, on the faces of the distant statues. Oh, I liked it here in this silence and coolness. And in my heart of hearts I had to admit I was so very glad that he had come. Sometimes hate and love serve exactly the same purpose.

I turned and looked at him. He was facing me, one knee drawn up on the pew and his arm resting on the back of it. He was pale as always, an artful glimmer in the dark.

"You were right about the whole experiment," I said. At least my voice was steady, I thought.

"How so?" No meanness in his tone, no challenge, only the subtle desire to know. And what a comfort it was-the sight of his face, and the faint dusty scent of his worn garments, and the breath of fresh rain still clinging to his dark hair.

"What you told me, my dear old friend and lover," I said. "That I didn't really want to be human. That it was a dream, and a dream built upon falsehood and fatuous illusion and pride."

"I can't claim that I understood it," he said. "I don't understand it now."

"Oh, yes, you did. You understand very well. You always have. Maybe you lived long enough; maybe you have always been the stronger one. But you knew. I didn't want the weakness; I didn't want the limitations; I didn't want the revolting needs and the endless vulnerability; I didn't want the drenching sweat or the searing cold. I didn't want the blinding darkness, or the noises that walled up my hearing, or the quick, frantic culmination of erotic passion; I didn't want the trivia; I didn't want the ugliness. I didn't want the isolation; I didn't want the constant fatigue."

"You explained this to me before. There must have been something . . . however small. . . that was good!"

"What do you think?"

"The light of the sun."

"Precisely. The light of the sun on snow; the light of the sun on water; the light of the sun... on one's hands and one's face, and opening up all the secret folds of the entire world as if it were a flower, as if we were all part of one great sighing organism. The light of the sun ... on snow."

I stopped. I really didn't want to tell him. I felt I had betrayed myself.

"There were other things," I said. "Oh, there were many things. Only a fool would not have seen them. Some night, perhaps, when we're warm and comfortable together again as if this never happened, I'll tell you."

"But they were not enough."

"Not for me. Not now."

Silence.

"Maybe that was the best part," I said, "the discovery. And that I no longer entertain a deception. That I know now I truly love being the little devil that I am."

I turned and gave him my prettiest, most malignant smile.

He was far too wise to fall for it. He gave a long near-silent sigh, his lids lowered for a moment, and then he looked at me again.

"Only you could have gone there," he said. "And come back."

I wanted to say this wasn't true. But who else would have been fool enough to trust the Body Thief? Who else would have plunged into the venture with such sheer recklessness? And as I thought this over, I realized what ought to have been plain to me already. That I'd known the risk I was taking. I'd seen it as the price. The fiend told me he was a liar; he told me he was a cheat. But I had done it because there was simply no other way.

Of course this wasn't really what Louis meant by his words; but in a way it was. It was the deeper truth.

"Have you suffered in my absence?" I asked, looking back at the altar.

Very soberly he answered, "It was pure hell."

I didn't reply.

"Each risk you take hurts me," he said. "But that is my concern and my fault."

"Why do you love me?" I asked.

"You know, you've always known. I wish I could be you. I wish I could know the joy you know all the time."

"And the pain, you want that as well?"

"Your pain?" He smiled. "Certainly. I'll take your brand of pain anytime, as they say."

"You smug, cynical lying bastard," I whispered, the anger cresting in me suddenly, the blood even rushing into my face. "I needed you and you turned me away! Out in the mortal night you locked me. You refused me. You turned your back!"

The heat in my voice startled him. It startled me. But it was there and I couldn't deny it, and once again my hands were trembling, these hands that had leapt out and away from me at the false David, even when all the other lethal power in me was kept in check.

He didn't utter a word. His face registered those small changes which shock produces-the slight quiver of an eyelid, the mouth lengthening and then softening, a subtle clabbering look, vanishing as quickly as it appeared. He held my accusing glance all through it, and then slowly looked away.

"It was David Talbot, your mortal friend, who helped you, wasn't it?" he asked.

I nodded.

But at the mere mention of the name, it was as if all my nerves had been touched by the tip of a heated bit of wire. There was enough suffering here as it was. I couldn't speak anymore of David. I wouldn't speak of Gretchen. And I suddenly realized that what I wanted to do most in the world was to turn to him and put my arms around him and weep on his shoulder as I'd never done.

How shameful. How predictable! How insipid. And how sweet.

I didn't do it.

We sat there in silence. The soft cacophony of the city rose and fell beyond the stained- glass windows, which caught the faint glow from the street lamps outside. The rain had come again, the gentle warm rain of New Orleans, in which one can walk so easily as if it were nothing but the gentlest mist.

"I want you to forgive me," he said. "I want you to understand that it wasn't cowardice; it wasn't weakness. What I said to you at the time was the truth. I couldn't do it. I can't bring someone into this! Not even if that someone is a mortal man with you inside him. I simply could not."

"I know all that," I said.

I tried to leave it there. But I couldn't. My temper wouldn't cool, my wondrous temper, the temper which had caused me to smash David Talbot's head into a plaster wall.

He spoke again. "I deserve whatever you have to say."

"Ah, more than that!" I said. "But this is what I want to know." I turned and faced him, speaking through my clenched teeth. "Would you have refused me forever? If they'd destroyed my body, the others-Marius, whoever knew of it-if I'd been trapped in that mortal form, if I'd come to you over and over and over again, begging you and pleading with you, would you have shut me out forever! Would you have held fast?"

"I don't know."

"Don't answer so quickly. Look for the truth inside yourself. You do know. Use your filthy imagination. You do know. Would you have turned me away?"

"I don't know the answer!"

"I despise you!" I said in a bitter, harsh whisper. "I ought to destroy you-finish what I started when I made you. Turn you into ashes and sift them through my hands. You know that I could do it! Like that! Like the snap of mortal fingers, I could do it. Burn you as I burnt your little house. And nothing could save you, nothing at all."

I glared at him, at the sharp graceful angles of his imperturbable face, faintly phosphorescent against the deeper shadows of the church. How beautiful the shape of his wide-set eyes, with their fine rich black lashes. How perfect the tender indentation of his upper lip.

The anger was acid inside me, destroying the very veins through which it flowed, and burning away the preternatural blood.

Yet I couldn't hurt him. I couldn't even conceive of carrying out such awful, cowardly threats. I could never have brought harm to Claudia. Ah, to make something out of nothing, yes. To throw up the pieces to see how they will fall, yes. But vengeance. Ah, arid awful distasteful vengeance. What is it tome?

"Think on it," he whispered. "Could you make another, after all that's passed?" Gently he pushed it further. "Could you work the Dark Trick again? Ah-you take your time before answering. Look deep inside you for the truth as you just told me to do. And when you know it, you needn't tell it to me."

Then he leant forward, closing the distance between us, and pressed his smooth silken lips against the side of my face. I meant to pull away, but he used all his strength to hold me still, and I allowed it, this cold, passionless kiss, and he was the one who finally drew back like a collection of shadows collapsing into one another, with only his hand still on my shoulder, as I sat with my eyes on the altar still.

Finally I rose slowly, stepping past him, and motioned for Mojo to wake and come.

I moved down the length of the nave to the front doors of the church. I found that shadowy nook where the vigil candles burn beneath the statue of the Virgin, an alcove full of wavering and pretty light.

The scent and sound of the rain forest came back to me, the great enclosing darkness of those powerful trees. And then the vision of the little whitewashed chapel in the clearing with its doors thrown open, and the eerie muted sound of the bell in the vagrant breeze. And the scent of blood coming from the wounds in Gretchen's hands.

I lifted the long wick that lay there for the lighting of candles, and I dipped it into an old flame, and made a new one burst into being, hot and yellow and finally steady, giving off the sharp perfume of burnt wax.

I was about to say the words "For Gretchen," when I realized that it was not for her at all that I had lighted the candle. I looked up at the face of the Virgin. I saw the crucifix above Gretchen's altar. Again, I felt the peace of the rain forest around me, and I saw that little ward with those small beds. For Claudia, my precious beautiful Claudia? No, not for her either, much as I loved her . . .

I knew the candle was for me.

It was for the brown-haired man who had loved Gretchen in Georgetown. It was for the sad lost blue-eyed demon I had been before I became that man. It was for the mortal boy of centuries ago who went off to Paris with his mother's jewels in his pocket, and only the clothes on his back. It was for the wicked impulsive creature who had held the dying Claudia in his arms.

It was for all those beings, and for the devil who stood here now, because he loved candles, and he loved the making of light from light. Because there was no God in whom he believed, and no saints, and no Queen of Heaven.

Because he had kept his bitter temper and he had not destroyed his friend.

Because he was alone, no matter how near to him that friend. And because happiness had returned to nun, as if it were an affliction he'd never fully conquer, the impish smile already spreading on his lips, the thirst leaping inside him, and the desire in him rising just to step outside again and wander in the slick and shining city streets.

Yes. For the Vampire Lestat, that little candle, that miraculous tiny candle, increasing by that small amount all the light in the universe! And burning in an empty church the night long among those other little flames. It would be burning on the morrow when the faithful came; when the sun shone through these doors.

Keep your vigil, little candle, in darkness and in sunshine.

Yes, for me.