"You couldn't even be quiet of mind on the porch the other night," she scolded. "You woke me. I heard you, just as if you'd been tapping on the panes. You said, 'Merrick, can you do it? Can you bring up the dead for Louis de Pointe du Lac?' And do you know what I heard underneath it? I heard 'Merrick, I need you. I need to talk to you. Merrick, my destiny is shattered. Merrick, I reach for understanding. Don't turn me aside. '"
I felt an acute pain in my heart.
"It's true what you're saying," I confessed.
She drank another big swallow of the rum, and the heat danced in her cheeks.
"But you want this thing for Louis," she said. "You want it enough to overcome your own scruples and come to my window. Why? You, I understand. Of him, I know other people's stories and just the little I've seen with my own eyes. He's a dashing young man, that one, isn't he?"
I was too confused to answer, too confused to will courtesy to build a temporary bridge of polite lies.
"David, give me your hand, please," she asked suddenly. "I have to touch you. I have to feel this strange skin. "
"Oh, darling, if only you could forego that," I murmured.
Her large golden earrings moved against the nest of her black hair and the long line of her beautiful neck. All the promise of the child had been fulfilled in her. Men admired her enormously. I had known that a long time ago.
She reached out to me gracefully. Boldly, hopelessly, I gave her my hand.
I wanted the contact. I wanted the intimacy. I was powerfully stimulated. And treasuring the sensation, I let her fingers linger as she looked into my palm.
"Why read this palm, Merrick?" I asked. "What can it tell you? This body belonged to another man. Do you want to read the map of his broken fate? Can you see there that he was murdered and the body stolen? Can you see there my own selfish invasion of a body that ought to have died?"
"I know the story, David," she answered. "I found it all in Aaron's papers. Body switching. Highly theoretical as regards the official position of the Order. But you were a grand success. "
Her fingers sent the thrills up my spine and through the roots of my hair.
"After Aaron's death, I read the whole thing," she said, as she moved her fingertips across the pattern of deeply etched lines. She recited it:
"'David Talbot is no longer in his body. During an ill fated experiment with astral projection he was ousted from his own form by a practiced Body Thief and forced to claim the youthful trophy of his opponent, a body stolen from a shattered soul which has, as far as we can know, moved on. '"
I winced at the old familiar Talamasca style.
"I wasn't meant to find those papers," she continued, her eyes still fixed on my palm. "But Aaron died here, in New Orleans, and I had them in my hands before anyone else. They're still in my possession, David; they have never been filed with the Elders and maybe they never will be filed. I don't know. "
I was amazed at her audacity, to have held back such secrets from the Order to which she still devoted her life. When had I ever had such independence, except perhaps at the very end?
Her eyes moved quickly back and forth as she examined my palm. She pressed her thumb softly against my flesh. The chills were unbearably enticing. I wanted to take her in my arms, not feed from her, no, not harm her, only kiss her, only sink my fangs a very little, only taste her blood and her secrets, but this was dreadful and I wouldn't let it go on.
I withdrew my outstretched hand.
"What did you see, Merrick?" I asked quickly, swallowing the hunger of body and mind.
"Disasters large and small, my friend, a life line that goes on as long as any, stars of strength, and a brood of offspring. "
"Stop it, I don't accept it. The hand's not mine. "
"You have no other body now," she countered. "Don't you think the body will conform to its new soul? The palm of a hand changes over time. But I don't want to make you angry. I didn't come here to study you. I didn't come here to stare in cold fascination at a vampire. I've glimpsed vampires. I've even been close to them, in these very streets. I came because you asked me and because I wanted . . . to be with you. "
I nodded, overcome and unable for the moment to speak. With quick gestures I pleaded for her silence.
She waited.
Then at last:
"Did you ask permission of the Elders for this meeting?"
She laughed but it wasn't cruel. "Of course I did not. "