Memnoch the Devil (The Vampire Chronicles 5)

Only now did the full goodness of Dora take a contained shape in my mind, that is, only now did I get a full impression of her, untangled from the blood smell between her legs and her owl-like face peering at me. Mortals tumble through life, from cradle to grave. Once in a century or two perhaps, one crosses the path of a being like Dora. An elegant intelligence and concept of goodness, precisely, and the other thing Roger had struggled to describe, the magnetism which had not burst free as yet from the tangle of faith and scripture.

The night was warm and receptive.

My courtyard banana trees had not been touched by a freeze this winter, and grew thick and drowsing as ever against the brick walls.

The wild impatiens and lantana were glowing in the overgrown beds, and the fountain, the fountain with its cherub, was making its crystalline music as the water splashed from the cherub's horn into the basin.

New Orleans, scents of the Quarter.

I ran up the back steps from the courtyard to the rear door of my flat.

I went inside, pounding down the hall, a man in a state of visible and ostentatious confusion. I saw a shadow cross the living room.

"David!"

"He's not here. "

I came to a halt in the doorframe.

It was the Ordinary Man.

He stood with his back to Louis's desk between the two front windows, arms folded loosely, face evincing a patient intellect and a sort of unbreakable poise.

"Don't run again," he said without rancour. "I'll go after you. I asked you to please leave that girl out of it. Didn't I? I was only trying to get you to cut it short. "

"I've never run from you!" I said, quite unsure of myself and determined to make that the truth from this moment on. "Well, not really! I didn't want you near Dora. What do you want?"

"What do you think?"

"I told you," I said, gathering all my strength, "if you are here to take me, I am ready to go to Hell. "

"You're drenched in blood sweat," he said, "look at you, you're so afraid. You know, this is what it takes for me to get through to someone like you. " His voice was reasonable, easy to hear. "Now a mortal?" he asked. "I could have simply appeared once and said what I had to say. But you, no, that's a different matter, you've already transcended too many stages, you've got too much to bargain with, that's why you're worth everything to me just now. "

"Bargain? You mean I can get out of this? We are not going to Hell? We can have a trial of some sort? I can find a modern Daniel Webster to plead for me?" There was mockery and impatience in all of this, and yet it was the logical question to which I wanted the logical answer at once.

"Lestat," he said with characteristic forbearance, loosening his folded arms and taking a leisurely step towards me. "It goes back to David and his vision in the cafe. The little story he told you. I am the Devil. And I need you. I am not here to take you by force to Hell, and you don't know the slightest thing about Hell anyway. Hell isn't what you imagine. I am here to ask your help! I'm tired and I need you. And I'm winning the battle, and it's crucial that I don't lose. "

I was dumbstruck.

For a long moment he regarded me and then deliberately began to change; his form appeared to swell in size, to darken, the wings to rise once more like smoke curling towards the ceiling, and the din of voices to begin and fast grow deafening, and the light suddenly rose behind him. I saw the hairy goat legs move towards me. My feet had no place to stand, my hands nothing to touch but him as I screamed.

I could see the gleam of the black feathers, the arch of the wings rising higher and higher! And the din seemed a mixture of almost exquisite music with the voices!

"No, not this time, no!" I hurled myself right at him. I grabbed for him and saw my fingers wrap around his jet-black wrist. I stared right into his immense face, the face of the granite statue, only fully animate and magnificently expressive, the horrific noise of chant and song and howl swelling and drowning out my words. I saw his mouth open, the great eyebrows scowl, the huge innocent almond-shaped eyes grow immense and fill with light.

I held fast with my left hand clutching at his powerful arm, certain he was trying to get away from me and he couldn't! Aha! He couldn't! And then I slammed my right fist into his face. I felt the hardness, preternatural hardness, as if striking another of my own kind. But this was no solid vampiric form.

The entire figure blinked even in its density and defensiveness; the image recoiled and redressed itself and began to grow again; I gave him one last full shove in the chest with every bit of strength I had in me, my fingers splayed out against his black armour, the shimmering ornamented breastplate, my eyes so close in the first instant that I saw the carvings on it, the writing in the metal, and then the wings flapped above me as if to terrify me. He was far from me, suddenly, gigantic, yes, still, but I'd thrown him back, damn him. One fine blow that had been. I gave a war cry before I could stop myself and flew at him, though propelling myself from what base and by what force I couldn't have said.

There came a swirl of black feathers, sleek and shining, and then I was falling; I wouldn't scream, I didn't give a damn, I wouldn't. Falling.

Plummeting. As if through a depth that only nightmare can fathom. An emptiness so perfect we can't conceive of it. And falling fast.

Only the Light remained. The Light obliterated everything visible and was so beautiful suddenly that I lost all sense of my own limbs or parts or organs or whatever I am created of. I had no shape or weight. Only the momentum of my fall continued to terrify, as though gravity remained to ensure utter ruin. There was one great surge of the voices.

"They are singing!" I cried out.

Then I lay still.