Blood Canticle (The Vampire Chronicles 10)

Again, I let myself imagine we were in a dark bed, she and I together, and that nothing could part us, and in each other we had found sublime meaning, and all the cosmic troubles were gone from us like so many veils torn away.

But that was fantasy, and weak as it was beautiful.

She broke the silence.

"And so I make another sacrifice," she said, "or you make it for me, a sacrifice so great I hardly grasp it! Good God-. "

"No," I answered. "You make the sacrifice, Rowan. You've come to the brink but you move back from it. You've got to go back, you, yourself. "

Her fingers moved against my back, as though trying to find some human softness in it. Her head nestled against me. Her breath came choked as if in sobs.

"Rowan," I said. "It's not the time. "

She looked up at me.

"The time will come," I said. "I'll wait and I'll be there. "

"You mean this?" she asked.

"I mean it," I said. "You haven't lost what I have to give, Rowan. It's just not the time. "

A soft mauve light had come into the sky; the leaves were burning in my eyes. I hated it.

Lifting her gently with me, I sat up and helped her to sit beside me. Bits of grass clung to her, and her hair was prettily disheveled and her eyes glistened in the growing light.

"Of course a thousand things may happen," I said. "We both know it. But I'll be watching. I'll be watching, and waiting. And when the time comes, when you can really draw back from all of it, then I'll come. "

She looked down, and then up at me again. Her face was pensive and soft. "And will I lose all sight of you now?" she asked. "Will you go away beyond my reach?"

"From time to time, perhaps," I answered. "But never for very long. I'll be guarding you, Rowan. You can count on it. And the night will come when we'll share the Blood. I promise you. The Dark Gift will be yours. "

I rose to my feet. I took her hand and helped her to stand.

"I have to go now, beloved. The light's my mortal enemy. I wish I could watch the sunrise with you. But I can't. "

I clasped her to me suddenly, violently, kissing her as hungrily as I ever had. "I love you, Rowan Mayfair," I said. "I belong to you. I'll always belong to you. I'll never never be far away. "

"Good-bye, my love," she whispered. A faint smile appeared on her face. "You reall

y do love me, don't you?" she whispered.

"Oh, yes, with my whole heart," I said.

She turned from me quickly, as though that was the only way to do it, and she walked up the rise of the lawn and to the front drive. I heard the motor of her car, and then I went slowly back around to the rear door of the house, and into my room.

I was so utterly unhappy that I hardly knew what I was doing. And at one point it struck me that what I'd just done was mad. Then it hit me that it just couldn't have happened. A selfish fiend like me just would not have let her go!

Who said all those noble words!

She'd given me the moment, perhaps the only moment. And I'd tried to be Saint Lestat! I'd tried to be heroic. Dear God, what had I done! Now her wisdom and her strength would carry her far away from me. Age would only enlarge her soul and dwindle for her the glow of my enchantment. I had forfeited her forever. Oh, Lestat, how I do hate thee!

There was plenty enough time for the nightshirt ritual, and as I finished with it, torn with thirst and torn with grief for what I'd just refused and might lose forever, I realized I wasn't alone.

Ghosts again, I thought. Mon Dieu. I looked quite deliberately at the small table.

What a sight.

It was a grown woman, perhaps twenty, twenty-five. Glossy black hair in marcel waves. Flapper dress of layered silk, long string of pearls. Legs crossed, fancy heels.