Blood Canticle (The Vampire Chronicles 10)

A pair of huge doors. Refrigerator? Freezer? One was laden with locks.

I broke them off immediately.

As soon as the white mist cleared I stepped inside and I saw in the light over my shoulder the bodies frozen on the floor.

The tall black-haired man with the white hair above his ears, and the red-haired woman, both with their eyes closed, serene, tender to behold in each other's arms, white cotton garments, bare feet, angels sleeping together. Covered with frost, as if in the deep claw of intentional winter.

Scattered end to end on them, but not on their faces, were frozen yet once beautiful flowers.

I stood to one side gazing down at them, as the others peered through the door. I gazed at the frozen fluids on the floor, at the discoloration of their skin here and there, at the perfection of their embrace and their utter stillness.

Miravelle let out a high-pitched scream: "Mother. Father. "

Oberon sighed and turned away. "And so down the long centuries he comes to this," he murmured, "at the hands of his own sons and daughters, and she the mother of us all who might have lived a millennium. And who put the flowers here, may I ask? Was it you, Lorkyn, you traitor to everything they believed? It had to be, did it not? You petty deserter. May God forgive you that you made peace with our enemy. Did you lead them here by the hand yourself?"

Mona stepped into the lighted rectangle of the door. "That's my daughter," she whispered. No tears. No sobs.

I felt the immense falling off in her of hope, of dreams, of love itself. I saw the bitter acceptance in her face, the deep drifting.

Miravelle was crying. "So he made them hard as ice, that's what he did," she cried. She put her hands to her face and cried and cried.

I knelt down beside the pair, and I laid my hand on the man's head. Frozen solid. If there was a soul in there,

I couldn't feel it. But what did I know? Same with the red-haired woman, so resembling Mona in her fresh Nordic beauty.

I walked carefully out of the freezer until I reached the warm air, and I took Mona in my arms. She was shaking all over but her eyes were dry and squinting in the white mist. Then she roused herself as best she could.

"Come on, Miravelle, my dear," she said. "Let's close the door. Let's wait for help to come. "

"But who can help?" said Miravelle. "Lorkyn will make us do what she wants us to do. And all the others are gone. "

"Don't worry about Lorkyn," said Quinn.

Oberon wiped away his tears disgustedly, and once again he took Miravelle in his arms and embraced her warmly. He reached out his right hand, with its long delicate fingers, and stroked Mona's bowed head, and drew her close to him.

We closed the freezer door.

"Quinn," I said, "punch in First Street for me, then give me the little phone. "

He obliged with one-handed dexterity, still keeping Lorkyn prisoner with a left-handed grip.

Lorkyn's face was sweet and musing, revealing nothing. Oberon, though he held Miravelle and Mona both, was glaring at Lorkyn with undisguised malice.

"Watch," I whispered to Mona.

Then I was on the phone:

"Lestat to speak to Rowan about Morrigan. "

Her low husky voice came on the line: "What have you got for me, Lestat?"

I told her everything. "How fast can you get here?"

Mona took the phone from me. "Rowan, they could be alive! They could be in suspended animation!"

"They're dead," said Lorkyn.

Mona surrendered the phone.