Merrick (The Vampire Chronicles 7)

"Wouldn't think of going on without seeing you," she said. She was about to ring off when I stopped her.

"Merrick, the gold pocket watch is yours now. Clean it. Repair it. Keep it. No one can deny it to you now. "

There was a disturbing silence on the other end.

"I told you, David, Oncle Vervain always said I didn't need it," she replied. "He said it ticked for Cold Sandra and Honey. Not for me. "

I found those words a little frightening.

"Honor their

memories, Merrick, and honor your wishes," I insisted. "But life, and its treasures, belong to those who are alive. "

A week later, we had lunch together. She looked as fresh and inviting as ever, her brown hair drawn back in the leather barrette that I'd come to love.

"I didn't use the mask to find those bodies," she explained at once. "I want you to know that. " She continued on. "I went out to Lafayette and I went on instinct and prayers. We dredged in several areas before we got lucky. Or you might say Great Nananne helped me find the bodies. Great Nananne knew how much I wanted to find them. As for Honey, I can still feel her near me. Sometimes I feel so sad for her, sometimes I get weak¡ª. "

"No, you're talking about a spirit," I interjected, "and a spirit is not necessarily the person you knew or loved. "

After that, she spoke of nothing but her work in Egypt. She was happy to be headed back there. There had been some new discoveries in the desert, due to aerial photography, and she had a meeting scheduled which might lead to her seeing a new, previously undocumented tomb.

It was marvelous to see her in such fine form. As I paid the check, she brought out Oncle Vervain's gold pocket watch.

"I almost forgot about this," she said. It was quite well polished and it opened at the touch of her finger with an audible snap. "It can't really be repaired, of course," she explained as she held it lovingly. "But I like having it. See? Its hands are fixed at ten minutes before eight. "

"Do you think it has some connection," I asked gingerly, "I mean, to the time that they met their deaths?"

"I don't think so," she said with a light shrug. "I don't think Cold Sandra ever remembered to wind it. I think she carried it in her purse for sentimental reasons. It's a wonder she didn't pawn it. She pawned other things. " She put it back into her purse and gave me a reassuring smile.

I took the long drive with her out to the airport and walked her to the plane.

Everything was calm until the final moments. We were two civilized human beings, saying goodbye, who meant to see each other soon again.

Then something broke inside me. It was sweet and terrible and too immense for me. I took her in my arms.

"My darling, my love," I said to her, feeling the fool dreadfully, and wanting her youth and her devotion with my whole soul. She was utterly unresisting, giving way to kisses that broke my heart.

"There never will be anyone else," she whispered in my ear.

I remember pushing her aside and holding her by her shoulders, and then I turned, without so much as a backwards glance, and I walked swiftly away.

What was I doing to this young woman? I had just passed my seventieth birthday. And she had not yet reached her twentyfifth.

But on the long drive back to the Motherhouse, I realized that, try as I might I could not plunge myself into the requisite state of guilt.

I had loved Merrick the way I had once loved Joshua, the young boy who had thought me the most marvelous lover in the world. I had loved her through temptation and through giving in to that temptation, and nothing would ever make me deny that love to myself, to her, or to God.

For all the remaining years that I knew her, Merrick remained in Egypt, going home via London to New Orleans perhaps twice a year.

Once I dared to ask her boldly why she was not interested in Maya lore.

I think the question irritated her. She didn't like to think of those jungles, let alone speak of them. She thought I ought to know that, but she answered me in a civil manner nevertheless.

She explained clearly that she met with too many obstacles in studying Mesoamerica, in particular the question of the dialects, of which she knew nothing, and of archaeological experience in the field, of which she had none. Her learning had led her to Egypt, where she knew the writing, knew the story, knew the history. It was where she meant to stay.

"Magic is the same everywhere," she said more than often. But that didn't deter her from making it her life's work.

There is one more piece to the puzzle of Merrick which I possess.