"Oh, well, then you do admit there is a crisis," David said with a trace of a smile.
I sighed. "All right. There's a crisis. What I don't understand is why, exactly. Oh, I know, I know. I woke up the Undead world with my songs and videos. And Akasha awoke and went on a rampage. All right. I get it. But why are all those mavericks everywhere now? They weren't before. And what's the impact of these ancient ones rising, and why do we need a Queen of the Damned in the first place? So Mekare and Maharet don't care to rule. So what? Akasha never ruled. Why didn't things simply lapse back to the way they'd always been?"
"Because the whole world was changing," said David impatiently. "Lestat, don't you see, what you did in 'coming out' as a vampire to the public was part of the zeitgeist. No, it didn't change the mortal world in any way, of course not, but how can you underestimate the effects of your books, your words, all of it on all the blood drinkers in existence? You gave the inchoate masses out there an origin story, a terminology, and a personal poetry! Of course this waked old ones. Of course this invigorated and charged apathetic ones. Of course this roused from torpor wanderers who'd given up on their own kind. Of course this emboldened mavericks to make other mavericks using the famous Dark Trick, Dark Gift, Dark Blood, etcetera!"
None of this was said with contempt, no, but it was said with a kind of scholar's fury.
"And yes, I did my part, I know that," David continued. "I published the stories of Armand, Pandora, and finally Marius. But the point I'm trying to make is this: you gave a legacy and a definition to a population of shrinking, self-loathing predators who had never dared to claim any such collective identity for themselves. So yes, it changed everything. It had to."
"And then the human world gave them computers," said Jesse, "and more and better planes, trains, and automobiles, and their numbers have grown exponentially and their voices have become a chorus heard by all from sea to shining sea."
I got up off the couch and went to the windows. I didn't bother to pull back the loose filmy curtains that covered them. The lights of all the surrounding towers were magnificently beautiful through this cloud of white gauze. And I could hear the fledglings out there, milling, pondering, covering the various entrances of the hotel, and reporting to one another, variations of "No action here. Keep watching."
"You know why this disconcerts you so very much?" David said. He drew up beside me. He was angry. I could feel the heat coming off him. In this strong, stout-chested young body he was my height, and those intense black eyes fixed me with David's soul. "I'll tell you why!" he said. "Because you never admitted to yourself that what you did in writing your books, in writing your songs, in singing your songs ... you never admitted that it was all for us. You always pretended it was some great gesture to humankind and for their benefit. 'Wipe us out.' Really! You never admitted that you were one of us, talking to the rest of us, and what you did, you did as part of us!"
I was suddenly furious. "It was for me that I did it!" I said. "All right. I admit it. It was a disaster, but it was for me that I did it. There was no 'us.' I didn't want the human race to wipe us out, that was a lie, I admit it. I wanted to see what would happen, who would show up for that rock concert. I wanted to find all those I'd lost ... Louis, and Gabrielle, and Armand and Marius, maybe Marius most of all. That's why I did it. Okay. I was alone! I didn't have any grand reason! I admit it. And so goddamned what!"
"Exactly," he said. "And you affected the entire tribe and you never took one ounce of responsibility for having done so."
"Oh, for the love of Hell, are you going to preach vampire ethics from a pulpit?" I said.
"We can have ethics and we can have honor and we can have loyalty," he insisted, "and every other key virtue we learned as humans." He was roaring at me under his breath, as the British so often do it, with a veneer of silvery politeness.
"Oh, preach it in the streets," I said disgustedly. "Go on Benji's radio show. Call in and tell him and all of them out there. And you wonder why I go into exile?"
"Gentlemen, please," said Jesse. She sat there still in her armchair looking small, fragile, shaken, shoulders hunched as if against the blast of our argument.
"Sorry, dearest," said David. He returned to his chair beside her.
"Look, I need the remaining time before dawn," she said. "Lestat, I want you to give me your iPhone, and you, David, let me give you all the numbers too. E-mail, mobile numbers, everything. We can stay connected with one another. You can e-mail Maharet and me. You can call us. Please, let's share all our numbers now."
"So what, the reigning Queen in hiding is willing to share her mobile number?" I asked. "And e-mails?"
"Yes," said Jesse. David had complied with her request and she was tapping away on the shiny little device, fingers fluttering over it with such speed they were a bit of a blur.
I came back, flopped heavily on the sofa, and threw down my iPhone as if it were a gauntlet on the coffee table. "Take that!"
"Now, please, share with me all the information you're willing to share," she said.
I told her again what I'd told Maharet years ago. Contact my attorneys in Paris. As for my e-mails, well, I changed them all the time as I forgot how to use them and tried to learn all over again with some new and superior service. And I always forgot or lost the old devices or the old computers and then had to begin again.
"All the info's in the phone," I said. I unlocked it for her and gave it to her.
I watched as she brought the devices up to date. I watched as she shared my information with David, and David's information with me, and I was ashamed to admit that I was glad I had these ephemeral numbers. I'd shoot a record of all this to my attorney and he'd keep it through thick and thin, even when I'd forgotten how to access it online myself.
"Now, please," Jes
se said finally. "Spread the word. Express my concerns to Marius, to Armand, to Louis, to Benji, to everyone."
"It will drive Benji out of his gourd to have 'secret intelligence' about the twins perhaps immolating themselves," David said. "That I will not do. But I will indeed try to find Marius."
"Surely there are old ones in Paris," I said, "old enough to have spied on us here tonight." I wasn't speaking of the riffraff.
Yet I had the feeling Jesse didn't care. Let the riffraff hear it, for all Jesse cared. Let the old ones hear it. Jesse was frayed from conflict and anxiety. And even confiding in us had not eased her pain.
"Were you ever happy in the Blood?" I asked suddenly.
She was startled. "What do you mean?"