Blood Canticle (The Vampire Chronicles 10)

And so the tall graceful long-haired dancers would dance no more.

I felt slightly dizzy. I shrank back into myself. I felt sick. I moved away from my own power. I collected all my force into my human-shaped self.

In the parlor, in the gentle manner of a human, I examined the children. There were four of them, and they had been beaten as well as bled. They were lying in a heap. All were unconscious, but I detected no

blows to the head, no rushing of blood within the skulls, no permanent damage. Boys in shorts and skivy shirts and tennis shoes. No familial resemblance. How their parents must have been weeping. All could survive. I was certain of it.

The sins of my past rose up to taunt me. All my own excesses mocked me.

I made the requisite call to see to their care. I told the astonished clerk what I had discovered.

In the hallway, Mona was crying. Quinn held her.

"Come on, we're headed for my flat now. So it wasn't perfect, Quinn, you were right. But it's over. "

"Lestat," he said, his eyes glittering as we pulled the weeping Mona into the elevator. "I thought it was nothing short of magnificent. "

Chapter 9

9

WE HAD TO DRAG MONA through the French Quarter streets. She fell in love with the colors made by spilt gasoline in mud puddles, with exotic furniture in the store windows of Hurwitz Mintz, with antique shop displays of threadbare gilded chairs and lacquered square grand pianos and idling trucks belching white smoke from their upturned exhaust pipes and laughing mortals passing us on the narrow sidewalks carrying adorable babies, who twisted their little necks to peer at us-

-and an old black man playing a tenor saxophone for money, which we gave him in abundance, and a hat- wearing hot dog vender from which Mona could not buy a hot dog now save to stare at it and sniff it and heave it into a trash bin, which gave her staggering pause-

-and of course we attracted attention everywhere, in very unvampirelike fashion, Quinn being taller than anyone we passed and perhaps four times as handsome, with his porcelain face, and all the rest you know, and every now and then Mona with hair flying broke from us and ran ahead frantically, the lazy evening crowds opening and closing for her as though she were on a Heavenly errand, thank God, and then she'd circle back-

-dancing and clicking and stomping like a flamenco dancer, letting the feather wrapper fly out, trail, sag, and then gathering it in again, and crying to see her reflection in shop glass, and darting down side streets until we grabbed ahold of her and claimed custody of her and wouldn't let her go.

When we got to my town house I gave two hundred dollars to my two mortal guards who were happily

astonished, and as Quinn and I started back the open carriageway, Mona gave us the slip.

We didn't realize it until we'd reached the courtyard garden, and just when I was about to exclaim about the ancient cherub fountain and all the tropical wonders blooming against my much cherished brick walls, I sensed that she was totally gone.

Now, that is no easy feat. I may not be able to read the child's mind, but I have the senses of a god, do I not?

"We have to find her!" Quinn said. He was instantly thrown into protective overdrive.

"Nonsense," I said. "She knows where we are. She wants to be alone. Let her. Come on. Let's go upstairs. I'm exhausted. I should have fed. And now I don't have the spirit for it, which is a Hell of a situation. I have to rest. "

"You're serious?" he asked as he followed me up the iron stairway. "What if she gets into some sort of jam?"

"She won't. She knows what she's doing. I told you. I have to crash. This is no selfish secret, Little Brother. I worked the Dark Trick tonight, and forgot to feed. I'm tired. "

"You really believe she's all right?" he demanded. "I didn't realize you were tired. I should have realized. I'll go and look for her. "

"No, you won't. Come on with me. "

The flat was empty. No otherworldly bodies hovering about. No ghosts, either.

The back parlor had been cleaned and dusted earlier this very day and I could smell the cleaning lady's distant perfume. I could smell her lingering blood scent too. Of course I had never laid eyes on the woman. She came by the light of the sun, but she did her job well enough for me to leave her big bills. I loved giving away money. I carried it for no other purpose. I slapped a hundred on the desk for her. We have desks everywhere in this flat, I thought. Too many desks. Didn't every bedroom have a little desk? Why so many?

Quinn had only been here once and only under the most lamentable circumstances, and he was suddenly enthralled by the Impressionist paintings, which were quite divine. But it was the new and slightly somber Gauguin which caught my eye for a moment. Now, that was my purchase and had only been delivered in the last few days. Quinn hooked into that one too.

I made my usual beeline for the front parlor over the street, peeking into each and every bedroom on the way, as though I really needed to, in order to know that no one was home. The place had too much

furniture. Not enough paintings. Too many books. What the hallway needed was Emile Nolde. How could I get my hands on the German Expressionists?