10

I KNEW that Rowan Mayfair was in the Retreat House when I opened my eyes. Heavy. Somebody who loved her was with her, somebody who knew all about her too. Way heavy. And Stirling in a state of angst.

I went to the right front window and drew back the velvet drape. The sky was scarlet over the distant levee. Oak tree branches filled the top of my view. It would have been a cinch to open this window and slip out onto the porch and disappear from this place quietly.

But I wasn't going to do it. Why give up an opportunity to see her again? There wasn't any harm in just seeing her. Maybe I could figure out the source of her power over me. Maybe I could nullify it. And if nothing else, I could give them some platitudes about Mona.

I stopped in front of the old mirror over the dresser to comb my hair. My black frock coat looked all right. So did the lace at my collar and cuffs. More than a bit of vanity there, and I knew it. So what? Have I ever said I wasn't vain? I have lifted vanity to a poetical level, have I not? I have transmuted vanity into the spiritual, have I not?

My body had fully restored itself from bestowing the Dark Gift, but my thirst was strong, rather in the style of a craving than a physical need. Was that because of her? Certainly not! I would repair to the first floor to discover this woman was an ordinary woman and nothing more and I would then come to my senses! How's that for a stiff upper lip!

I paused to close in on New Orleans, scanning for the Romantic Couple. They were just rising, crawling out from among the velvet pillows, Long Tall Quinn still groggy, rambunctious Mona already on the

prowl. Caught clear images of her through Quinn's overprotective mind. She wasn't sobbing. She was taking stock of the paintings, still wearing that dashing feather-trimmed wrapper with flair. This augured very well for the next hundred years.

Suddenly they were both talking at each other in rapid rips and slashes of life story and love professions. Hunt and feed now or later? Little Drink or something serious. Where was the Boss? I sent a swift silent message to Quinn.

Yo, Little Brother. You're the teacher for now. The Little Drink is the name of the lesson. I'll be with you soon enough.

I went out into the hallway of the Retreat House, where the sconces were already lighted, and sweet yellow and red flowers adorned the demi-lune tables, and made my way slowly down the main stairs. Saint Juan Diego, please preserve the Mayfairs from me.

Hum of heavy anxious mortal conversation below. Deep scent of mortal blood. Worry about the mortal Mona. Stirling intensely miserable, struggling to veil his conflicted heart. It takes the skills of a priest and a lawyer to be an effective member of the Talamasca.

All this coming from a garden room on the back of the house, just off the dining room, on the right side proper.

I made my way there. Real Rembrandts on these walls. A Vermeer. I took my time. Temples throbbing. Mayfairs, yes, witches again, yes. Why walk right into it? Nothing could have stopped me.

The furnishings of the dining room were regal and faintly charming. I saw the fine leavings of a recent meal on the long black granite table, with a mess of linen and heavy old silver. I stopped to examine the silver carefully.

Flash of Julien opposite in his everyday gray suit, eyes black. Hadn't they been gray before? "Enjoyed your rest?" he asked. He vanished. I caught my breath. I  think you're a cowardly ghost. You can't handle a sustained discourse. I personally despise you.

Stirling called my name.

I moved towards the rear double doors.

The little conservatory was octagonal Victorian style, everything trimmed in white, and the wicker was white, and the floor was pink flagstone, and the whole was three steps down.

They were closely gathered at a round glass-top wicker table, far more cheerful than the dining room could ever have been, with lighted candles nestled among the countless flower pots, the sky already going

dark beyond the glass walls and glass roof.

A lovely place to be. Scent of blood and flowers. Scent of burning wax.

All three mortals, who sat in comfortable wicker chairs virtually surrounded by magnificent tropical plants, had known I was coming. Conversation had stopped. All three mortals were watching me with a wary politeness now.

Then the two men shot to their feet as if I were the Crown Prince of England, and Stirling, being one of them, presented me to Rowan Mayfair as if I'd never met her, and then to Michael Curry, "Rowan's husband," and gestured for me to take the empty wicker chair. I did.

Rowan struck me immediately as uncalculatedly lovely, colorless and svelte in a short skirted gray silk suit and leather pumps. There came the chills again as I looked at her, in fact, an utter weakness. I wondered if she knew her dress matched her eyes and even the gray streaks in her dark hair. She was positively ablaze with an inner concentration of power.

Stirling wore a white vintage linen jacket with faded blue jeans and his pale yellow shirt open at the neck. I sparked off the linen jacket suddenly. It had belonged to someone who died of old age. It had been worn in the South Seas. Packed away for years. Rediscovered, loved by Stirling.

My eyes settled on Michael Curry. This was simply one of the most alluring mortal males whom I have ever struggled to describe.

First off, he was reacting powerfully to my own apparent physical gifts without even being aware of that dimension of himself, which always confuses and excites me, and secondly he had the exact attributes of Quinn-black curly hair and vivid blue eyes-in a heavier, stronger, more physically comfortable frame. Of course he was much older than Quinn. He was in fact much older than Rowan. But age doesn't really mean anything to me. I found him irresistible. Whereas Quinn's features were elegant, this man's were large and almost Graeco-Roman. The gray hair at his temples drove me crazy. The sunburnt tan of his skin was wonderful. And then there was the easy smile on his lips.

He was wearing something, I suppose. What was it? Oh, yeah, the de rigueur New Orleans white linen three-piece suit.

Suspicion. I caught it from both Michael and Rowan. And I knew that Michael was as strong a witch as she was, though in wholly different ways. I knew too that he had taken life. She'd done it with the force of her mind. He'd done it with the strength of his fist. It seemed that other invaluable secrets were going to slip right through his gaze when suddenly he closed himself off from me artfully yet completely naturally. And he began to speak.

"I saw you at the funeral for Miss McQueen," he said. New Orleans Irish voice. "You were with Quinn

and Merrick Mayfair. You're Quinn's friend. You have a beautiful name. It was a lovely service, wasn't it?"

"Yes," I said. "And I met Rowan yesterday at Blackwood Manor. I have news for you both. Mona's doing well, but she doesn't want to come home."

"That's not possible," said Rowan before she could stop herself. "That simply can't be."

She was beyond exhaustion. She'd been crying and crying for Mona. I didn't dare try to draw her in as I'd done yesterday, not in front of this man. The chills came again. A wild vision possessed me of snatching her up and away from this place, my teeth pressed to her tender neck, her blood mine, all the chambers of her soul yielding to me. I banished it. Michael Curry was watching me, but the man's mind was on Mona.

"I'm happy for Mona," he volunteered now, putting his hand over Rowan's hand on the arm of the wicker chair. "Mona's where she wants to be. Quinn's strong. He always was. When that kid was eighteen, he had the poise of a full-grown man." He laughed softly. "He wanted to marry Mona the first time he saw her."

"She is doing better," I insisted. "I swore I'd tell you if she needed you." I gave Rowan my level gaze. "I will tell you. It makes her happy to be with Quinn."

"I knew it would," said Rowan, "but she can't survive off dialysis."

I didn't answer. I didn't know what dialysis was. Oh, I'd heard the word, but I really didn't know enough about it to bluff.

Standing behind her, indeed behind the cluster of flowers just over her shoulder, was the figure of Julien, with a grim smile on his lips, taking visible pleasure in my confusion.

A little shock went through me when my eyes met his, and suddenly Michael Curry turned and looked in that direction, but the figure had vanished. Hmmm. So this mortal sees ghosts. Rowan was unchanged. Rowan was examining me all too closely.

"Who is Stella?" I asked, looking again into Rowan's eyes. My only hope was to keep her talking. She was staring at my hand. I didn't like it.

"Stella? You mean Stella Mayfair?" she asked. Her low voice was sultry in spite of herself. She was feverish. She needed sleep in a cold room. Involuntary flash of the sorrow inside her, the knot of secrets. "What do you want to know about Stella Mayfair?"

Stirling was very uneasy. He felt deceitful but there was nothing I could do about it. So he was the confidant of the family, of course.

"A little girl," I said, "who calls people Ducky, and has black wavy hair. Picture her in a little white sailor dress trimmed in blue, with high socks and Mary Janes. Does it ring a bell?"

Michael Curry let out a genial laugh. I looked at him.

"You're describing Stella Mayfair all right. One time Julien Mayfair told me this story-Julien was one of the mentors of the Mayfair family-the story was all about Julien taking little Stella downtown with him, Stella and her brother Lionel Mayfair-he's the one who shot and killed Stella-but in the story Stella was wearing a sailor dress and Mary Janes. Oncle Julien described it. At least I think he did. No. He didn't describe it. But I saw her that way. Yeah, I saw her that way. Why in the world would you ask such a question? Of course I'm not referring to the living breathing Julien. But that's another tale."

"Oh, I know you're not. You're referring to his ghost," I answered. "But tell me, I'm just curious, I don't mean any disrespect, but what sort of ghost was Julien? Can you interpret? Was he good or was he bad?"

"My God, that's a strange question," said Michael. "Everybody idolizes Oncle Julien. Everybody takes him so for granted."

"I know Quinn saw Oncle Julien's ghost," I went on. "Quinn told me all about it. He'd come to see you and Rowan and Mona, and Oncle Julien let him in to the First Street property, or whatever you call it, and Quinn talked with Oncle Julien for a long time. They drank hot chocolate together. They sat in a rear garden. He thought Oncle Julien was alive, naturally, and then you guys discovered him back there all alone and there was no hot chocolate. Not that the absence of hot chocolate means anything metaphysically, of course."

Michael laughed. "Yeah, Oncle Julien's big on long conversations. And he really outdid himself with the hot chocolate. But a ghost can't do something like that unless you give him the strength to do it. Quinn's a natural medium. Oncle Julien was playing off Quinn." He went sad. "Now, when the time comes, for Mona I mean, well, Oncle Julien will come and take her to the other side."

"You believe in that?" I asked. "You believe in the other side?"

"You mean you don't?" asked Michael. "Where do you think Oncle Julien comes from? Look, I've seen too many ghosts not to believe in it. They have to come from somewhere, don't they?"

"I don't know," I said. "There's something wrong with the way ghosts act. And the same holds true for angels. I'm not saying there isn't an afterlife. I'm only maintaining that those entities who come down here so beneficently to meddle with us are more than a little cracked." I was really getting heated. "You're not really sure, yourself, are you?"

"You've seen angels?" asked Michael.

"Well, let's just say, they claimed to be angels," I responded.

Rowan's eyes were moving sluggishly and rudely over me. She didn't care what I asked about Julien or what Michael said. She was back in that terrible moment when she'd come into the hospital room, the death room, to bring death, and Mona had been frightened. Back there and here studying me. Why couldn't I just hold her for a moment, comfort her, vanish with her into a bedroom upstairs, tear this house apart, fly with her to another part of the world, build her a palace deep in the Amazon jungles?

"Why don't you try!" said Oncle Julien. He stood behind her again, arms folded, sneering insofar as it didn't mar his charm. "You'd like nothing better than to get your hands on her. She'd be such a prize!"

"Kindly go to Hell!" I said. And to myself, Snap out of it.

"Who are you talking to?" asked Michael, turning in his chair as before. "What are you seeing?"

Julien was gone.

"Why are you asking about Stella?" Rowan murmured, but she was hardly thinking of it. She was thinking only of Mona and of me, and of that ghastly moment. She was noticing my hair and the way that it curled, and the way that the candlelight played on it. And then the grief over Mona again, almost killed her.

Michael fell into deep absorption, as if nobody was there. There was something defenseless about the guy. Stirling was studying me with a sharp angry expression on his face. So what?

Michael was plainly much more forthright than Rowan, more conventionally innocent. A woman like Rowan had to have a husband like Michael. If he'd known how I'd kissed her yesterday in that greedy fashion he'd be wounded. She hadn't told him. Not even he could roll with a punch like that. When a woman of that age lets you kiss her it means something entirely different from what it means with a young girl. Even I knew that and I'm not human.

"You can't figure it with Julien," Michael said, suddenly emerging from his thought. "He makes mistakes- sometimes absolutely awful mistakes."

"How do you mean?" I asked.

"Julien appeared once, trying to help me, I think, yes, it had to be," said Michael. "But it didn't work out. It led to a disaster. A total disaster. But he had no way of knowing. Absolutely no way at all. I suppose that's what I'm trying to say, that ghosts don't know everything. Of course, Mona has that old saying that a ghost just knows his own business, you know-and I guess that covers it, but there's more to it than that. Don't speak of it to Mona. Whatever you do, don't ask Mona these questions. I wouldn't . . . I mean,

Julien made a dreadful mistake."

Well, now that's fascinating! So this dapper dude doesn't always know what he's doing. My thesis is correct! Why don't you appear now so that I can laugh at you, you impotent jerk?

I tried desperately to read the thoughts behind Michael's words, but I couldn't. These Mayfairs were so casually and maddeningly gifted. Maybe the man wasn't defenseless. He was just so strong he didn't bother to put up any defenses.

I glanced at Rowan. She was staring at my hand again. How could she not notice the sheen of my fingernails? All vampires have lustrous fingernails. Mine are like glass. She reached out, then drew back.

I had only moments here.

"Can you tell me what kind of mistake Julien made?" I asked.

"I think there's a photograph of little Stella in a sailor dress," Michael said, drifting off into his thoughts again. He didn't notice anything about me. He just alternated between intense thought and looking directly into my eyes. "Yeah, I'm sure there is."

"Did you say that Stella's brother shot her?" I asked.

"Oh, she was a woman by that time," Michael said, half dreaming. "She'd given birth to Antha. Antha was six years old. Stella nearly ran off with a man from the Talamasca. She wanted to escape the family and the ghost that went with it. Stirling knows all about it, of course." He looked at me as if startled. "But don't ask Mona. Don't say anything about all this to Mona."

"I won't say a word about it to Mona," I answered.

Rowan was sensing things about me, sensing that my heart rate was far too slow for a functioning mortal. Sensing things about the way that candlelight reflected off my face.

"I'll tell you what I think happens," said Michael. "When they come on an errand, they leave behind the totality of salvation."

"Ghosts, you mean," I said.

"What was that?" Stirling asked.

"Of course, the Totality of Salvation," I whispered. I smiled. I loved it. "Of course, they have to, don't they? Or every haunting would be a theophany, wouldn't it?" I flashed on Julien last night in my clutches,

my questions to him coming angrily as accusations. He knew nothing about any Totality of Salvation, did he? Why, I'd already figured that out, hadn't I? That when I'd drifted to Earth in my fantasy as Saint Lestat I had to leave behind a certain Heavenly knowledge.

"I wouldn't trust any ghost, really," Michael said. "I think you're right about all that. But Julien tries to do good. He has the family's welfare in mind when he appears. If only-."

"If only what?" I pressed.

"Why did you ask that question about Stella?" Rowan asked. Her voice was rich yet sharp. "Where did you see Stella?" Her voice rose. "What do you know about Stella?"

"You don't mean the ghosts have already come for Mona, do you?" asked Michael. "You realize what that means, of course. Shouldn't we be there? Shouldn't we be near at hand?"

"No, they haven't come for her," I replied. "She'll tell us when that happens, I know she will." But I felt the lie catch in me. They were trying to come for her, weren't they, in some sort of grim game, or was it my soul they wanted?

I stood up.

"I'll let you know when she needs you," I said. "I promise you."

"Don't go," said Rowan crossly but under her breath.

"Why, so you can keep studying me?" I said. I was suddenly trembling again. I didn't know what I meant to say. "Would you like it if I gave you a sample of my blood? Is that why you're staring at me?"

"Lestat, do be careful," said Stirling.

"What would I do with a sample of your blood?" Rowan asked, eyes moving up and down my figure. "Do you want me to study you?" she asked coldly. "Do you want me to ask questions about you? Who you are, where you come from? I have the feeling you do. I have the feeling you'd like nothing better than to let me take a sample of your skin, your hair, your blood, everything you have to give. I see that," she said, tapping the side of her forehead.

"Do you really?" I asked. "And you'd analyze all this in Mayfair Medical in some secret laboratory." My heart was pumping. My brain was on overdrive. "You're some genius doctor, aren't you? That's what's behind those gray eyes, those enormous gray eyes. Not the ordinary surgeon or oncologist, not you-." I broke off. What was I doing?

Julien's laughter. "Yes, isn't she a wonder? Play into her hands." Julien near the back door of the

conservatory, deep in shadow, laughing: "You're no match for her, you impudent fiend. Maybe she'll construct a glass enclosure for you. They have such marvelous materials in this new century. Even such exotica as you-."

"Shut up, you miserable bastard," I whispered in French. "It sounds to me like you're far more fallible than you let on. What was your disastrous mistake, would you like to tell me?"

"Are you talking to Julien?" asked Michael. He glanced to the very spot. But there was nothing there.

"Detestable coward," I said in French. "He's gone. He won't let anyone else see him."

"Come, Lestat," said Stirling, tugging at me. "It's really time for you to go. You have Mona waiting for you."

Rowan never once turned to look at the ghost. She was angry. She rose to her feet. I felt that push again, just as if she'd laid her two hands on my chest. Yet her face was radiant with a complex of anguish behind it that not even anger could mask.

"Where is Mona!" she demanded. Her husky voice had never been more effective. "You think I don't know you took her away from Blackwood Manor? I was there first thing this morning, as soon as I could get away from the Medical Center. Clem drove the three of you to the Ritz Hotel last night. I went to the Ritz Hotel. No Mona. No Quinn either. And no Lestat de Lioncourt. That's the name you signed in Aunt Queen's funeral book, isn't it? I checked the spelling and your flamboyant handwriting. You like signing your name, don't you?-

"-And you have such a lovely French accent, oh, yes. Where is Mona right now, Monsieur de Lioncourt? What in the name of Heaven is going on? Why are you asking questions about Stella? You think I don't know that you're behind everything that's happening? Jasmine and Big Ramona think you're some sort of foreign prince, with your melodious French accent and your mind reading gifts and your exorcism to rid the house of ghosts and spirits. And oh, yes, Aunt Queen absolutely adored you! But you sound more like Rasputin to me! You can't just steal Mona from me! You can't!"

A stinging hurt spread through me, over my face, my skin. I'd never felt anything quite like it.

Julien was back there, in the shadows, laughing cruelly, collecting just a seam of the light along the edge of his face and form.

Michael was on his feet and so was Stirling.

"Rowan, please, honey," Michael said, trying to calm her. He seemed hesitant to touch her, hesitant to enclose her with his arms, though this might have been welcomed by her.

"I've told you all I know," I said. I stammered.

"Let me see you out," said Stirling. I felt his hand on my arm.

"You tell Mona we love her," said Michael.

"Is Mona afraid of us?" Rowan whispered. The anguish inside her defeated her anger. She drew close to me. "She's afraid of us now, isn't she?" She and Mona, a shared history of horrors. Yes, an unbreakable link. Child. Woman Child. Morrigan. No admissions and explanations. Just an image. The same image I'd seen in the Blood. Woman Child. "I demand that you tell me! Is she afraid!"

"No," I said. I reached forward right through the aura of palpable power that surrounded her. I put my hands on her arms. Vague binding shock. To Hell with Michael. But Michael didn't stop me. "Not anymore," I said, peering into Rowan's eyes. "Mona's not afraid of anything. Oh, if only I could give you some peace of mind. I wish I could. Please, please wait for her to call you, and don't think about her anymore."

I felt her strength recede, and her eyes misted. A great glowing fire was quelled, and I had done it, and an ever present grief enfolded it. A protective surge rose in me and the wild fantasies reigned again inside of me as if no one else was present.

I let her go.

I turned and I left the company.

Behind me the ghost whispered contemptuously, "You're not a gentleman, you never were!"

I muttered all the obscenities I knew in French and English in a tight whisper.

I walked a little too fast for Stirling. But we came together at the front doors of the house.

Rush of sweet warm air. The night was purring and grinding with the tree frogs and the cicadas. I defy a ghost to distract me from this! The sky was rosey and it would be all night. I closed my eyes and let the warm air hold me close and lovingly and totally.

The warm air didn't care whether or not I was a gentleman, which I was not.

"What are you doing with Rowan?" Stirling demanded.

"What are you, her older brother?" I shot back.

We walked across the paved porch and onto the drive. Fragrance of grass. Roar of the River Road traffic as sweet as the roar of water.

"Perhaps I am her brother," he said shortly, "but I mean it. What are you doing?"

"Good God, man," I replied. "Night before last you told Quinn that Mona was dying. What was your motive? Weren't you tempting him to go to her? He didn't, as it turned out, but you were tempting him, goading him to use his power, to bring her over. Don't deny it. You provoked him. You with all your records. Your volumes. Your studies. Quinn had fed on you, almost taken you. I saved your life, man. You who knew. And now you question me for a little word game with a mortal who detests me?"

"All right," he said, "so in the back of my mind I abhorred the fact that Mona was dying, that Mona was desperate, and that Mona was so young, and I believed in sinister fairy tales and magic blood! But that woman is not dying. She is the magnate of her family. And she knows something's profoundly wrong with you. And you're playing with her."

"Not so! Leave me alone!"

"I will not. You can't entice her-."

"I'm not enticing her!"

"Did you see Stella?" he asked. "Is that who's haunting you?"

"Don't go back to a civil tone with me," I scolded. "Yes, I saw Stella. Did you think that was all part of a game? I saw her in the little sailor dress and she jumped into my lap. They were in my town house in the Rue Royale, both of them, Julien and Stella, with a whole crowd of people. Julien was out there in your fine little conservatory, taunting me. But in my flat last night, they said threatening things to me. Threatening things! Oh, I don't know why I'm telling you."

"Yes, you do," he answered.

"I've got to get back to the intrepid wanderers," I said. I took a deep breath.

"Threatening things?" he asked. "What threatening things did they say to you?"

"Oh, God in Heaven!" I said. "If only I were Juan Diego."

"Who is Juan Diego?" he asked.

"Maybe nobody," I said sadly. "But then again, maybe somebody, maybe somebody very very

important!" and I went away.