Memnoch the Devil (The Vampire Chronicles 5)

I broke into weeping. I couldn't do such a thing. I couldn't do it. I didn't know for sure! I just didn't. And if I had been the dupe of God, was that God's will for all of us?

"Lestat!" He glared at me, or rather I should say, he fixed me with his authoritative gaze. "I'm telling you now, listen to what I say. Don't get that close to them again! Don't make any more miracles for them. There is nothing more that you can do. Let her tell the tale her way with her angel messenger. It's pa

ssed into history already. "

"I want to talk one more time to the reporters!"

"No!"

"This time I'll be soft-voiced, I promise, I won't frighten anyone, I swear I won't, David. . . . "

"In time, Lestat, if you still want. . . in time. . . . " He bent down and smoothed my hair. "Now come with me. We're going. "

Chapter 25

25

THE ORPHANAGE was cold. Its thick brick walls, bare of all insulation, held the cold, and made it colder within than the winter outside. Seems I remembered that from before. Why had she given it to me? Why? She had given over the deed to me, and all his relics. What did it mean? Only that she was gone like a comet across the sky.

Was there a country on earth where the news networks had not carried her face, her voice, her Veil, her story?

But we were home, this was our city, New Orleans, our little land, and there was no snow falling here, only the soft scent of the sweet olive trees, and the tulip magnolias in the old neglected convent garden throwing off their pink petals. Look at that, pink petals on the ground.

So quiet here. No one knew of this place. So now the Beast could have his palace and remember Beauty and ponder forever whether Memnoch was weeping in Hell, or whether both of them¡ªthe Sons of God¡ªwere laughing in Heaven!

I walked into the chapel.

I had thought to find drapery and heaps and cartons and crates. Rather, it was a completed sanctuary. Everything was placed properly as it should be, unwrapped, and dusted, and standing there in the gloom. Statues of St. Anthony, St. Lucy with her eyes on a plate, the Infant Jesus of Prague in his Spanish finery, and the icons hanging on the walls, between the windows, look, all neatly hung. "But who has done this?"

David was gone. Where? He'd be back. It didn't matter. I had the twelve books. I needed a warm place to sit, perhaps on the altar steps, and I needed light. With this one eye, I needed just a little more than the night's light leaking in through the tall stained-glass windows.

A figure stood in the vestibule. Scentless. Vampire. My fledgling.

Has to be. Young. Louis. Inevitable.

"Did you do all of this?" I asked. "Arrange things here in the church so beautifully?"

"It seemed the right thing to do," he said. He walked towards me. I saw him clearly, though I had to turn my head to focus the one eye on him, and stop trying to open a left eye which wasn't there.

Tall, pale, starved a bit. Black hair short. Green eyes very soft.

Graceful walk of one who does not like to make noise, or make a fuss, or be seen. Plain black clothes, clothes like the Jews in New York who had gathered outside the cathedral, watching the whole spectacle, and like the Amish who had come by train, plain and simple, like the expression on his face.

"Come home with me," he said. Such a human voice. So kind. "There's time to come here and reflect. Wouldn't you rather be home, in the Quarter, amongst our things?"

If anything in the world could have truly comforted me, he would have been the thing¡ªwith just the beguiling tilt of his narrow head or the way that he kept looking at me, protecting me obviously with a confidential calm from what he must have feared for me, and for him, and perhaps for all of us.

My old familiar gentleman friend, my tender enduring pupil, educated as truly by Victorian ways of courtesy as ever by me in the ways of being a monster. What if Memnoch had called upon him? Why didn't Memnoch do that!

"What have I done?" I asked. "Was it the will of God?"

"I don't know," he said. He laid his soft hand on mine. His slow voice was a balm to my nerves. "Come home. I've listened for hours, to the radio, to the television, to the story of the angel of the night who brought the Veil. The Angel's tattered clothes have been given over to the hands of priests and scientists. Dora is laying on hands. The Veil has made cures. People are pouring into New York from all over the world. I'm glad you're back. I want you here. " "Did I serve God? Is that possible? A God I still hate?"

"I haven't heard your tale," he said. "Will you tell me?" Just that direct, without emotion. "Or is it too much of an agony to say it all again?"

"Let David write it down," I said. "From memory. " I tapped my temple. "We have such good memories. I think some of the others can remember things that never actually happened. "

I looked around. "Where are we? Oh, my God, I forgot. We're in the chapel. There's the angel with the basin in its hands, and that Crucifix, that was there already. "