Blackwood Farm (4 page)

“I've been in a human body and recovered this body you see before you. I've been the consort of a creature whom others called a goddess. And yes, I feed off my fellow human beings because it's my nature, and you know it, and you know what care I take with every mortal morsel, that it be tainted and vicious and unfit for human life. The point I was trying to make is that your declaration against us was ill conceived.”

“I agree with you; it was a foolish Declaration of Enmity. It should never have been put forth.”

“Declaration of Enmity, is that what you called it?” Lestat asked.

“I think those are the official words,” said Stirling. “We've always been an authoritarian order. In fact, we don't know much about democracy at all. When I spoke of my vote, I was speaking of a symbolic voice rather than a literal one. Declaration of Enmity, yes, those were the words. It was a rather misguided and naive thing.”

“Ah, misguided and naive,” Lestat repeated. “I like that. And it might do you good, all of you in the Talamasca, to remember that you're a pretentious bunch of meddlers, and your Elders are no better than the rest of you.”

Stirling seemed to be relaxing, mildly fascinated, but I couldn't relax. I was too afraid of what might happen at any moment.

“I have a theory about the Declaration of Enmity,” Stirling said.

“Which is?” asked Lestat.

“I think the Elders thought in their venerable minds, and God knows, I don't really know their venerable minds, that the Declaration would bring certain of our members back to us who had been inducted into your ranks.”

“Oh, that's lovely.” Lestat laughed. “Why are you mincing words like this? Is it on account of the boy?”

“Yes, perhaps I mince words because of him,” Stirling answered, “but honestly, we members of the Talamasca think in language such as this.”

“Well, for your records and your files,” Lestat said, “we don't have ranks. In fact, I'd say that as a species we are given to rigidly individual personalities and obdurate differences, and peculiar mobility as to matters of friendship and company and meeting of minds. We come together in small covens and then are driven wildly apart again. We know little lasting peace with each other. We have no ranks.”

This was intriguing and my fear melted just a little as Stirling came back in his careful polite voice.

“I understand that,” he said. “But to return to the question at hand, as to why the Elders made this warlike declaration, I think they honestly believed that those vampires who had once been part of us might come to try to reason with us, and we might benefit thereby in meeting with actual beings such as yourself. We might carry our knowledge of you to a higher realm.”

“It was all scholastic is what you're saying,” said Lestat.

“Yes. And surely you must realize what it has meant for us to lose three members to your collective power, whatever the cause of it, and no matter how it was accomplished. We were stunned by each defection, and mystified as to the dialogue, if any, that might have preceded what happened. We wanted to learn, you see. We wanted . . . to know.”

“Well, it didn't work, did it?” said Lestat, his calm demeanor unchanged. “And you weren't content with the Chronicles alone, were you? They told you all about the dialogue. But you and the Elders wanted this eye-to-eye view.”

“No, it didn't work,” said Stirling, and he seemed now to be possessed of his full dignity and strength. His gray eyes were clear. “On the contrary, we provoked from you more audacity. You dared to publish a Chronicle using the name Merrick Mayfair. You dared to do this even though a great family by the name of Mayfair lives in this city and its environs to this day. You had no care when you did that.”

I felt a sharp stab in my heart. My own beloved Mayfair flashed before my eyes. But here was Stirling being positively reckless again.

“Audacity!” said Lestat, his smile broadening as he glared at Stirling. “You accuse me of audacity! You're living and breathing now entirely because I want it.”

“No doubt of it, but you are audacious,” insisted Stirling.

I was about to faint.

“Audacious and proud of it,” Lestat fired back. “But let's get one thing straight. I am not the sole author of the Chronicles. Blame your own versatile David Talbot for the Chronicle of Merrick Mayfair. It was David's story to tell. Merrick wanted the Dark Gift. Merrick Mayfair was a witch before she was ever a vampire. Who should know that better than you? There was no lie there. And it was David's choice to use her name, as well as the name of the Talamasca, I might add. What is all of this to me?”

“He wouldn't have done it without your blessing,” said Stirling with astonishing confidence.

“You think not?” demanded Lestat. “And why should I care about some mortal family of witches? The Mayfairs, what are they to me? And what is a great family, pray tell, a rich family? Vampires loathe witches, whether they're rich or poor. Anyone who reads the story of Merrick Mayfair can see why. Not that Merrick isn't anything but a princess among us now. Besides, our eager readers think it's all fiction, and how do you know what's real and what's not?”

I wept inside thinking of my red-haired Mayfair! And on they talked.

“Thank God your readers think it's fiction,” said Stirling, becoming faintly more heated, “and the Mayfair family is unaware of the truths you told; and a great family is one that has survived the ages, and treasures bonds of love. What else? You seek a family, always and everywhere. I see it in your Chronicles.”

“Stop, I won't listen to you,” said Lestat sharply but without raising his voice. “I'm not here to be judged by you. You've had corruption in your ranks. You know you have. And I know full well myself. And now I find that you're corrupt, disobeying your Elders to come here. You think I'd give you the Dark Blood?”

“I don't want it,” said Stirling in suppressed amazement. “I don't seek it. I wanted to see you, and hear your voice.”

“And now you have, and what will you do?”

“I told you. Write about it. Confess to the Elders. Describe it all.”

“Oh, no you won't,” said Lestat. “You'll leave out one key part.”

“And what is that?” asked Stirling.

“You're such an admirable bunch,” said Lestat, shaking his head. “You can't guess what part?”

“We try to be admirable,” said Stirling. “I'll be condemned by the Elders. I might even be removed from Louisiana, though I doubt it. I have other important work to do.”

Again, there came that stab in my heart. I thought of the “great family of Mayfair.” I thought of my red-haired love, my Mayfair witch, whom I would never see again. Was that his important work? I wished with all my heart I could ask him.

Lestat appeared to be studying Stirling, who had fallen silent, staring at Lestat, perhaps doing that little mental trick of memorizing all the details about which he would write later on. Members of the Talamasca were especially trained to do it.

I tried to scan his mind, but I couldn't get in, and I didn't dare to try with Lestat. Lestat would know.

Lestat broke the silence.

“Revoke it, this Declaration of Enmity,” he said.

Stirling was startled. He thought for a moment and then he said:

“I can't do that. I'm not one of the Elders. I can tell them that you asked me to revoke the Declaration. That's all I can do.”

Lestat's eyes softened. They drifted over Stirling and then to me. For a long moment Lestat and I looked at each other, and then I weakened and looked politely away.

I had glimpsed something as we looked at each other.

It was something I'd never heard mentioned in the Chronicles—a shade of difference between Lestat's eyes. One eye was almost imperceptibly larger than the other, and colored by a little blood. I'm not sure that as a mortal I could have detected such a small difference. I was confused by having seen it now. If Lestat counted it as a flaw, he would hate me for seeing it.

Lestat was gazing at Stirling.

“We'll make a deal, you and I,” he said.

“I'm relieved to hear it,” Stirling said. It had the same gentle arrogance of his earlier remarks.

“It's a simple bargain,” said Lestat, “but if you refuse me, or if you go against me, I'll go against you. I could have done that before now, I'm sure you know.”

“David Talbot won't let you hurt us,” said Stirling with quiet spunk. “And there's an old one, an ancient one, one of the grandest in your tales, and she, the great authority, won't let you harm us either, isn't that so?”

“Stirling!” I whispered before I could stop myself.

But Lestat seemed only to weigh this for a moment. Then:

“I could still hurt you,” he said. “I don't play by anybody's rules but my own. As for the ancient ones, don't be so sure they want to govern. I think they want utter privacy and complete peace.”

Stirling reflected, then said quickly, “I see your point.”

“You despise me now, don't you?” Lestat asked with engaging sincerity.

“Not at all,” was Stirling's quick reply. “On the contrary, I see your charm. You know I do. Tell me about this bargain. What do you want me to do?”

“First off, go back to your Elders and tell them that this Declaration of Enmity must be officially withdrawn. It doesn't matter that much to me but it matters to others, and besides, I know that if you swear honorably to be no more than observers in the future, then you won't annoy us, and with me that counts for a lot. I loathe being annoyed. It makes me feel angry and malicious.”

“Very well.”

“The second request stems from the first. Leave this boy completely alone. This boy is the key point which you must leave out of your report. Of course you can say that a nameless Blood Drinker assaulted you. You know, have it all make sense and do justice to whatever you think you may have learned here. I anticipate your inevitable fascination with all that. But this boy's anonymity must become a point of honor . . . and there's more.”

Stirling was silent.

“You know his name,” said Lestat, “you know where he lives, you know his family. All that was plain to me before I interrupted him in his bumbling attack on you. Now you know that he's one of us, as the expression goes. You must not only leave him out of your records, you must leave him completely and utterly alone.”

Stirling held Lestat's gaze for a moment and then he nodded.

“You move against this boy,” said Lestat, “you try to take up your combative posture where he is concerned, and as God is my witness, I'll wipe you out. I'll kill all of you. I'll leave you nothing but your empty libraries and your overflowing vaults. I'll start in the Motherhouse in Louisiana and then I'll move to the Motherhouses all over the world. It's a cinch for me to do it. I'll pick you off one at a time. Even if the ancients do rise to protect you, it won't happen immediately, and what I can do immediately is an enormous amount of harm.”

I went from fear to astonishment.

“I understand you,” said Stirling. “Of course you want him protected. Thank heaven for that.”

“I pray that you do understand me,” said Lestat. He glanced at me again. “This is a young one, an innocent one, and I'll make the decision as to whether he survives or not.”

I think Stirling let out a little gasp.

As for me there came a flood of relief again, and then another wave of intelligent fear.

Lestat gestured to Stirling.

“Need I add that you're to get out of here now and never trespass on my property again?” he asked.

Stirling rose at once, and so did I. Stirling looked at me, and there came over me again the total realization that I'd almost ended his life tonight, and a recurrence of terrible shame.

“Good-bye, my friend,” I said in as strong a voice as I could muster. I reached awkwardly for his hand and held it firmly. He looked at me and his face softened.

“Quinn,” he said, “my brave Quinn.”

He turned.

“Farewell, Lestat de Lioncourt,” he said. “I think I understate my case when I say I'm deeply in your debt.”

“You do but I find ingrates all around me eternally,” said Lestat, smiling slyly. “Go on, Mr. Oliver. It's a good thing you have one of your prowling limousines waiting for you only a couple of blocks from here. I don't think you're up to walking far or driving a car by yourself.”

“Right you are,” said Stirling, and then with no further words he hurried down the hallway and out the back door, and I heard his heavy rapid steps on the iron stairs.

Lestat had also risen, and he came towards me and gestured for me to sit down again. He took my head in both his hands. There was no dreadful pressure; there was no pain. It was gentle, the manner in which he was holding me.

But I was too afraid to do anything but look up into his eyes quietly, and again I saw that small difference, that one eye was larger than the other by not even a fraction of an inch. I tried to repress the mere thought of it. I tried only to think
I will do whatever you want of me,
and without meaning for it to happen, I closed my eyes as if someone were about to hit me in the face.

“You think I'm going to kill you, don't you?” I heard him say.

“I hope not,” I said shakily.

“Come on, Little Brother,” he said, “it's time to leave this pretty little place to those who know so much about it. And you, my young friend, have to feed.”

And then I felt his arm tight around me. The air was rushing past me. I was clinging to him, though I don't think I needed to, and we were out in the night, and we were moving towards the clouds.

4

IT WAS LIKE TRAVELING
with my Maker—the speed, the altitude and the strong arms holding me. I gave it all of my trust.

And then came the sudden plunge.

I was shaken as he let me go, and I had to stop myself from stumbling until the dizziness passed.

We stood on a terrace. A partially open glass door separated us from a lighted room. It was tastefully furnished in rather routine modern furniture—beige velvet chairs and couches, with the inevitable large television, muted lamps and scattered tables of iron and glass.

Two very pretty young brunette women were inside, one busy with a suitcase on the coffee table, and the other in front of a nearby mirror, brushing her long hair. They wore skimpy silk dresses, both pretty fashionable, revealing a great deal of their dark olive skin.

Lestat put his arm around me again and gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze.

“What does your mind tell you?” he whispered.

I let the Mind Gift loose, casting for the one at the mirror, and caught the whisper of murder at once. The other was even more accustomed to it, and it seemed that both of the women were party to a crime that was actually happening now somewhere at a distance from this place.

It was an elegant hotel, this building. Through a door I saw the bedroom. I caught the scent from a gin drink on one of the tables, I caught the scent of fresh flowers, and of course I caught the overwhelming scent of Fair Game.

The thirst rose in me. The thirst clouded my eyes. I tasted blood as though I were already drinking it, and I felt the abysmal and desperate emptiness that I always feel before I feast.
Nothing will ever fill you. Nothing will ever make this abominable hunger go away.

“Fair Game exactly,” said Lestat in a low voice. “But we don't let them suffer, no matter how rough we want to get.”

“No, Sir,” I answered deferentially. “May I have the one in front of the mirror?”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because I can see her face in the mirror, and she's cruel.”

He nodded.

He slipped the door open and we came into the cool refreshing air of the room. The thirst was too hot for it. The thirst was hopeless.

At once, the women cried out in protest. Where had we come from? Who were we? Vulgar words, threats.

With a remnant of my rational mind, I saw that the suitcase was filled with money, but what did it matter? How much more interesting was a huge vase of flowers near the far window, bursting with color. How much more interesting the blood.

Lestat drifted past me and caught the woman who ran to the right with both his arms. The rush of furious words from her came to an abrupt stop.

The other woman darted to the sofa, and I saw the gun there that she wanted so desperately to reach. I had her before she could lay her hand on it, and I crushed her against me, looking into her black eyes.

She gave me a string of curses in Spanish, and the thirst in me rose even more violently, as if her curses had drawn it out. I brushed her thick black hair back from her neck and ran my thumb over the artery. She was maddened, full of hatred.

Slowly, I bit into the fount of blood.

My Maker's lessons came back to me.
Love her sins, follow the path with her, make her evil your evil and you will do no evil.
I struggled to obey as her mind was broken open. I probed for the murders and I found them, rampant, savage and always over the white powder; and the wealth that had drawn her out of the deep filthy slums of her birth to finery and fortune, to those who toasted her beauty and her cunning; and murder after murder of those as covered in blood as herself.
Yes, love you,
I whispered, love the sheer will and the ever present anger; yes, give it to me, the rage in the warm sweet blood flowing, and suddenly there came, towards me, her unbounded love.

Without language, she said,
Surrender.
Without language, she said,
I see it!,
and
it
was all of her life, without pagination, and her ripened soul expanded, and there was a terrifying recognition of circumstance and inevitability, her crimes pulled up by the roots from her heart as though by the hand of Heaven.

But the hunger in me was sated, I was filled by her, I had had her, and I drew back, kissing the puncture wounds, lapping the tiny trickles of blood that I'd spilled, healing the evidence, even as the drowsiness overcame me and then gently, gently I set her down on one of the indifferent chairs. I kissed her lips.

I knelt down before her. I forced my tongue between her lips and, opening her mouth, I sucked on her tongue and sank my teeth into it delicately, and there came again a small rush of blood.

Finally there was no more.

I closed her large empty eyes with my left fingers. I felt her eyes through their lids as her blood washed through me. I bent and kissed her breasts. The blood sent shock after shock through me. I let her go.

In the usual daze, I turned and saw Lestat waiting, the royal figure, studying me, musing it seemed, his yellow hair looking almost white in the lamplight, his violet eyes wide.

“You did it right that time, Little Brother,” he said. “You spilled not a single drop.”

There was so much I wanted to say. I wanted to talk of her life, the great overreaching scope of it that I had so deeply tasted, the score she kept with fate; and how hard I'd tried to do what my Maker had told me to do, not merely to devour the blood but devour the evil, dip my tongue deep down into the evil, but she was beside the point.

She was a victim. She who had never been a Subject was now Past Tense.

The blood had me. The warmth had me. The room was a phantasm. Lestat's woman lay dead on the floor. And there was the suitcase of money, and it meant nothing, could buy nothing, could change nothing, could save no one. The flowers were bold and brilliant, pink lilies dripping with pollen, and dark red roses. The room was complete and final and still.

“No one will mourn them,” said Lestat softly. His voice seemed distant, beyond my reach. “No need to find a hasty grave.”

I thought of my Maker. I thought of the dark waters of Sugar Devil Swamp, the thick duckweed, the voice of the owls.

Something changed in the room, but Lestat didn't know it.

“Come back to me,” said Lestat. “It's important, Little Brother, not to let the blood weaken you afterwards, no matter how sweet it is.”

I nodded. But something was happening. We weren't alone.

I could see the dim figure of my double forming behind Lestat. I could see Goblin, designed as I was designed. I could see the crazed smile on his face.

Lestat pivoted. “Where is he?” he whispered.

“No, Goblin, I forbid it,” I said. But there was no stopping him. The figure moved towards me with lightning speed, yet held itself together in human form. Right before my eyes he was seemingly as solid as I was; and then I felt the tingling all through my limbs as he merged with me, and the tiny stabs on my hands and my neck and my face. I struggled as if I were caught in a perfect net.

From deep inside me there came that orgasmic palpitation, that walloping sensation that I was one with him and nothing could part us, that I wanted it suddenly, yes, wanted him and me to be together always, yet I was saying something different.

“Get away from me, Goblin. Goblin, you must listen. I was the one, the one who brought you into being. Listen to me.”

But it was useless. The electric shivers wouldn't stop, and I saw only images of the two of us as children, as boys, as men, all of it moving too fast for me to focus, to repudiate or confirm. Sunlight poured through an open doorway; I saw the flowered pattern of linoleum. I heard the laughter of toddlers, and I tasted milk.

I knew I was falling or about to fall, that Lestat's firm hands were holding me, because I wasn't in the room with the sunlight, but it was all that I could see, and there was Goblin, little Goblin frolicking and laughing, and I too was laughing.
Love you, all right, need you, of course, yours, us together.
I looked down and saw my chubby childish left hand, and I held a spoon in it and was banging with the spoon. And there was Goblin's hand on top of mine. And over and over came that bang of the spoon against wood, and the sunlight, how beautifully it came in the door, but the flowers on the linoleum were worn.

Then, as violently as Goblin had come, he withdrew. I glimpsed the humanoid shape for no more than a second, the eyes huge, the mouth open; then his image expanded, lost its conformity and vanished.

The draperies of the room swayed, and the vase of flowers suddenly toppled, and I heard dimly the dripping of the water, and then the vase itself hit the soft rug.

In a fog, I stared at the wounded bouquet of flowers. Pink-throated lilies. I wanted to pick them up. The tiny wounds all over me stung me and hurt me. I hated him that he had made the vase fall over, that the lilies were spilt now on the floor.

I looked at the women, first one and then the other. They appeared to be sleeping. There was no death.

My Goblin, my very own Goblin. That verbless thought stayed with me. My familiar spirit, my partner in all of life; you belong to me and I belong to you.

Lestat was holding me by the shoulders. I could barely stand. In fact, if he had let me go I would have fallen. I couldn't take my eyes off the pink-throated lilies.

“He didn't have to make the flowers fall,” I said. “I taught him not to hurt things that were pretty. I taught him that when we were small.”

“Quinn,” said Lestat, “come back to me! I'm talking to you. Quinn!”

“You didn't see him,” I said. I was shaking all over. I stared at the tiny wounds on my hands, but they were already healing. It was the same way with the pinpricks on my face. I wiped at my face. Faint traces of blood on my fingers.

“I saw the blood,” said Lestat.

“How did you see it?” I asked. I was growing stronger. I struggled to clear my mind.

“In the shape of a man,” Lestat said, “a man faintly sketched in blood, sketched in the air, just for an instant, and then there was a swirling cloud of tiny drops, and I saw it pass through the open door as rapidly as if it were being sucked out.”

“Then you know why I came looking for you,” I said. But I realized he couldn't really see the spirit that Goblin was. He'd seen the blood, yes, because the blood was visible, but the spirit who had always appeared to me was invisible to him.

“It can't really hurt you,” he said, his voice tender and kind. “It can't take any real volume of blood from you. It took just a tiny taste of what you took from the woman.”

“But he'll come again whenever he wants, and I can't fight him, and each time, I could swear, it's a little more.”

I steadied myself, and he released me, stroking my hair with his right hand. That casual gesture of affection coupled with his dazzling appearance—the vibrant eyes, the exquisitely proportioned features—entranced me even as the trance induced by Goblin slowly wore away.

“He found me here,” I said, “and I don't even know where I am. He found me here, and he can find me anywhere, and each time, as I told you, he takes a little more blood.”

“Surely you can fight him,” Lestat said, encouragingly.

His expression was concerned and protective, and I felt such an overwhelming need of him and love for him that I was about to cry. I held it back.

“Maybe I can learn to fight him,” I said, “but is that enough?”

“Come, let's leave this graveyard,” he answered. “You have to tell me about him. You have to tell me how this came about.”

“I don't know that I have all the answers,” I said. “But I have a story to tell.”

I followed him out onto the terrace into the fresh air.

“Let's go to Blackwood Manor,” I said. “I don't know of another place where we can talk in such peace. Only my aunt is there tonight and her lovable entourage, and maybe my mother, and they'll all leave us completely alone. They're utterly used to me.”

“And Goblin?” he asked. “Will he be stronger there if he does come back?”

“He was as strong as ever only moments ago,” I responded. “I think that I'll be stronger.”

“Then Blackwood Manor it is,” he said.

Again there came his firm arm around me and we were traveling upwards. The sky spread out, full of clouds, and then we broke through to the very stars.