Blood Canticle (The Vampire Chronicles 10)

Rowan nodded. She opened her eyes and looked at me with a steady gaze. There might as well have been no one else there.

"The male was an atrocity," she said. "A spiritual monster. It had two goals-to remember what it had been, as Taltos memories inundated it-and to father a female with which to breed. I lost control of it almost immediately. I miscarried again and again as it drank my breasts dry. Only in the very beginning could I lure it into laboratories or hospitals, where, using my authority, I managed to accomplish some tests and secretly forward the material on to a laboratory in San Francisco.

"As the Heiress of the Legacy, I could draw all the money we needed from our foreign accounts, as long as I stayed one jump ahead of the family, which was searching for me. So the creature had the funds to drag me on a world odyssey. In the glen of Donnelaith, a torrent of memories came back to it. But it was soon desperate to get back to the States.

"I chose Houston as a city where we might settle and I could study it. Among hospitals and medical centers, I thought I could order the equipment for a laboratory and not be discovered. Unbeknownst to me this was perfect for the fiend. Having no luck with me, he was soon leaving me tied up, starved and near insane. Only much later did I learn that he was making the short journey to New Orleans to mate with random female Mayfairs. Of course his victims fatally miscarried, and were found dead in their own blood.

"The family was in a panic.

"Mayfair women began dying one after another. And they couldn't trace Rowan who had abandoned Michael for the fiend. And Rowan was now a prisoner. Soon Mayfair women everywhere were surrounded by armed guards. The creature came to First Street and almost gained access to Mona.

"But Mona, in the time of my desertion, had made love with Michael and was already carrying a Taltos child, though she didn't know it.

"At last, when I'd almost given up hope of life, I conceived another child of my own. And the child spoke to me. It said the very word 'Taltos. ' It told me its name: Emaleth. It spoke of times its father couldn't remember. In the secret telepathic voice, I told it that when it was born it was to go to Michael in New Orleans. I told it about the house on First Street. If I should die, it must reach Michael with word of my death. We talked to each other in silence.

"Lasher was jubilant when he heard the child's voice! He would soon have his bride. It was then, as he softened to me, that I managed to escape. With the filthy clothes on my back I made for the highway.

"I never made it home. They found me comatose in a roadside park, bleeding from an apparent miscarriage. No one dreamed I'd given birth to Emaleth, and she, poor orphan, unable to rouse me or draw more milk from me, had started her long trek to New Orleans on foot.

"I was rushed home. In the hospital they had to remove my organs to stop the hemorrhaging. It probably saved me from the wasting sickness that later almost destroyed Mona. But my brain had been severely damaged. I remained in a deep coma.

"I was unconscious upstairs when Lasher, dressed as a priest, slipped past the guards and into this house, and appealed to the Talamasca and to Michael to let him live. After all, was he not a priceless specimen? He counted on the Talamasca to save him. He poured out a tale of his former life. It's a fascinating study of the innocence of the Taltos. But Lasher wasn't innocent. Lasher had brought death. Michael fought him and killed him. And so his long rule of the Mayfair family came to an end. I was still comatose when Emaleth came and bent to give me her healing milk.

"When I woke and saw the Taltos daughter I had birthed, and realized I was drinking from her breast, I was horrified. This gangly creature with a baby face terrified me. It was a moment of dislocated lucidity. And here I was nursing from the creature as if I were a helpless baby. I grabbed the bedside gun. I killed her. I did that. I destroyed her. That quick and she was no more. "

She shook her head. She looked away as we do when we sink into the past. Guilt, loss . . . her pain seemed beyond these words.

"It didn't have to happen," she murmured. "What had she done but make her way to the house as I had taught her? What had she done but brought me back to consciousness with her plentiful milk? One lone female Taltos. How could she hurt me? It was the loathing of Lasher that warped my mind. It was the revulsion at this alien species and my own atavistic behavior.

"And so she died, my girl. And there were two graves beneath this oak. And I, risen from the coma, a monster now myself, buried her. " She sighed. "My lost girl," she said. "I had betrayed her. "

Quiet. Even the garde

n was hushed. The low roar of a passing car seemed as natural as a breeze stirring the trees.

I was suspended in Rowan's sadness.

Stirling's eyes were moist and aglow in the shadows as he studied Rowan. Michael said not a word.

Then Mona spoke very gently.

"There was trouble in the Talamasca," she said. "It all had to do with the Taltos. Some members had tried to get control of Lasher. They'd even done murder. Michael and Rowan took off for Europe to try to investigate the corruption inside the Order. They felt a familial tie with the Talamasca. We all did. And during that time, I realized I was pregnant. My child began to grow out of control. It began to speak to me. It told me its name was Morrigan. " Her voice broke. "I was enchanted, crazed. "

"I went south to Fontevrault plantation house where Dolly Jean was living, and she and Mary Jane Mayfair, my cousin, my friend who later ran away, she and Dolly Jean, they helped me to give birth to Morrigan. It was really, really painful. And beyond scary. But Morrigan was tall and beautiful. No one could look at Morrigan and not say she was beautiful. She was shining and fresh and magical. "

Dolly Jean gave a little cackle in her half sleep. "She knew a whole jumble of human things," she said. "Just a real beastie!"

"You loved her at the time," said Mona, "you know you did. "

"I'm not saying I didn't," said Dolly Jean, squinting at Mona, "but what do you make of somebody who tells you she's going to take over the whole family and make it a clan of Walking Babies? Was I supposed to be tickled at that?"

"She was just born!" said Mona softly. "She didn't know what she meant. She had my ambition, my dreams. "

"I don't know where she is," said Rowan in her deep heartfelt voice. "I don't know whether she's alive or dead. "

Mona was deeply miserable, but I had so shamed her over her tears that she held them back painfully. I tried to take her hand. She drew away.

"But you knew the Taltos who came and took her!" Mona said to Rowan. "You had met him in Europe. He had heard the story of you and Lasher in your wanderings. " She turned to me. "That's what happened. He had found them. Yes, another one, an ancient survivor. He was their friend. Of course, they didn't tell me and they didn't tell Morrigan. Oh no, we were children! They kept it to themselves! Imagine. An ancient one. Hadn't I suffered enough to be told about him? And when he came here, they let him take my daughter away. "