Blood Canticle (The Vampire Chronicles 10)

"And your own mother, you give her the Dark Gift, and then you try to stop her from cutting her long hair or wearing men's clothes, and this in the eighteenth century, when women have to go around looking like wedding cakes, you're an autocratic monster!"

"You insult me, you abuse me! If you don't stop-. "

"And I know why you're so fired up over Rowan, she's the first adult female other than your own mother who's ever caught your attention for more than five minutes, and Hello! Lestat Discovers The Opposite Sex! Yeah, females do come in grown-up sizes! And I happen to be one of them, and this is not the Garden of Eden, and I am not taking off this dress!"

Quinn got to his feet. "Lestat, wait, please!"

"Get out!" I roared. I stood up. My heart was cut so deep I could hardly talk. I felt that stinging hurt again all over my skin, the hurt I'd felt when Rowan had been railing at me at the Retreat House, an enervating, crippling pain.

"Out of my house, you wretched little ingrate," I shouted, "get out now before I throw you down the steps! You're a Power Slut, that's what you are, using every edge your sex or youth can give you, a moral lilliputian in grown-up shoes, a career adolescent, a professional child! You don't know the meaning of philosophical insight, or spiritual engagement, or true growth-. Out, out of here now, Heiress to the Mayfair Legacy, what a fiasco that must have been, go beat up on your mortal family at First Street, rave at them until you drive them out of their minds and they crack you over the head with their shovel and bury you alive in the backyard!"

"Lestat, I beg you-. " Quinn put his hands out.

I was too angry. "Take her to Blackwood Farm!"

"Nobody's taking me anywhere!" she cried. She ran out the door, hair whirling, sequins sparkling, slamming the door shut. Clatter down the iron steps.

Quinn shook his head. He was in silent tears. "This just shouldn't have happened," he whispered. "It was entirely avoidable. You don't understand, she's not even accustomed to being out of a sickbed, to putting one foot in front of the other, to putting one word after another-. "

"It was inevitable," I said. I was shaking. "It's why I gave her the Dark Gift instead of you, so the anger would come at me, don't you see? But how could she attack so violently the things that have happened to me! She has no moral modulation, no moral rhythm, no moral patience, no moral kindness. She's a pitiless little hellion! I don't know what I'm saying. Go after her. She's so blatantly and arrogantly careless! Just go. "

"Please, please," he said, "don't let this be a split between us. "

"Not between you and me," I said, "no, never. Just go. "

I could hear her sobs from the courtyard.

I stormed out onto the balcony. "You get off my property!" I shouted down to her. She was glowing in the dark. "Don't you dare stand there weeping in my courtyard. I won't have it! Get out!" I came down the steps.

She fled from me down the carriageway. "Quinn!" she wailed. "Quinn!" as if I was murdering her. "Quinn, Quinn," she squealed.

He brushed against me as he passed me.

I turned around and went up the steps. I clung to the balcony railing for a long moment, forcing some calm upon myself, my hands trembling, but it did little good.

As soon as I'd closed the door I saw Julien out of the corner of my eye. I tried again to quell my pounding heart. I refused to tremble. I collected myself, eyes roving the ceiling, ready for the next cheap diatribe to be flung in my face.

"Eh bien," he said, going on in French, his arms folded, his dinner jacket very black against the damask striped wallpaper. "You've done a fine job, Monsieur, haven't you? You've fallen deep in love with a mortal who'll never yield to you, only succeeding in driving a true rivet into her heart which her innocent husband won't fail to detect sooner or later. And now my innocent niece, whom you've so cleverly brought over into your world, is running rampant through the streets with a boy lover who hasn't a clue as to how to comfort her or contain her mounting madness. You are a fine example of the Ancien R¨¦gime, Monsieur, oh, but I should be calling you Chevalier, should I not? Or, what precisely was your title, anyway? Was there something lower?"

I sighed, and then slowly I smiled. I wasn't shaking too badly.

"Les bourgeois have always disappointed me," I said gently. "My father's title means nothing to me. That it means so much to you is tiresome. Why don't we let the matter drop?"

I took my chair at the desk, caught the heel

of my shoe on the rung and just looked at the ghost admiringly. Flawless white shirt. Patent leather shoes. Now, he knows how to dress, doesn't he? In my exhaustion and my grief for what had just taken place with Mona, I looked into his eyes and I prayed silently to Saint Juan Diego. What is there that can come of this that might be good?

"Oh?" he asked. "You've come to be fond of me?"

"Where's Stella?" I asked. "I want to see Stella. "

"You do?" he asked, arching his eyebrows and tipping his forehead slightly.

"I don't like to be alone," I said, "as much as I give out. And I don't want to be alone at this moment. "

He lost his look of resolute superiority. Grim gaze. He'd been a handsome man in his time, trim white curls, clever black eyes.

"Sorry to disappoint you," I said. "But since you do go and come as you will, it seems I must get used to you. "