SOMEWHERE OV
ER THE North Atlantic, when I was riding the winds, Amel left me.
When I entered the carriageway of my old townhouse in the Rue Royale in New Orleans I was apparently alone. Had Louis come as I'd asked him to do? Very likely not. But how was I to know? Masters can't hear the thoughts of fledglings. Masters are forever locked out of the minds of their children. And for all I knew I was locked out of Louis's heart.
The back courtyard was luxuriantly overgrown the way I loved it, the bright magenta bougainvillea heaped over the high brick walls. The little common flowers of Louisiana, the yellow and the purple lantana, were huge and fragrant and softly beautiful with their dusty dark little leaves, and the oleander magnificent with its pink blooms. The giant banana trees were rustling and swaying in the cool breeze off the nearby river, and the new fountain, the splendid new fountain with its moss-covered cherubs, was filled with water singing in the lights of the lanterns along the back porch.
Did I feel an immediate sense of well-being? Well, no. This was as painful as it was sweet; this was honey with a bitter taste. I'd had my heart broken here more than once, almost died upstairs in this flat, hadn't I, and I'd come out of a deep sleep once not so long ago to find Louis in this very courtyard, in an open coffin, nearly burnt to death by the sun. I'd brought him back with my blood then. And my beloved fledgling David Talbot had helped me. Louis had been more powerful since then--thanks to that new infusion of my blood--and though at first he'd been happy, happy for a while with the love of David and a strange unearthly blood drinker named Merrick, he had come to hate me for the increased strength that took him even further away from the human he could never be again.
I knew what I was up against with Louis. I had to convince him that this time was different from the earlier times when we'd tried to come together--different from the brief coven of the old Night Island, different from the brief connection after he'd tried to destroy himself, different even from his time at Trinity Gate which was forever changed now by recent events--different because we were all different now and I, in my heart and soul, was different. And I needed him to help me write a new page in the history of our entire tribe.
But what was the point of pondering it further? Words wouldn't carry the motion. One way or other, he'd make a decision of the heart.
I hurried up the iron stairs to the door of the flat, ready to kick in a wall if the place was truly empty, ground the doorknob nearly to rusted powder as I turned it, and went inside.
The old back parlor looked splendid with its fresh burgundy velvet wallpaper, and a new Victorian couch of lacquered fruitwood with artful pillows plumped with modern chemical foam. Ah, I didn't care. What matters to me is how things look, and it all looked fine, the machine-made blue-and-beige Aubusson carpet as lovely as any ever made by human fingers. Same old gilded Louis XV desk and chairs, but all was shining, restored, pretty. A Chinese vase filled with fragrant leafy eucalyptus, and a small undoubtedly genuine French Impressionist painting on the wall of a woman in profile, a woman with long russet hair.
I breathed in the scent of furniture wax, the eucalyptus, and stronger blooms, roses perhaps in another room. The place felt tight, smaller than I remembered, but that was always the case when I first arrived.
There was someone here. And it was not Cyril or Thorne, who were now in the courtyard below, exploring the old slaves' quarters building and the concrete crypts recently created beneath them which could shield at least six of the Undead from sunshine or catastrophe during the hours of the day.
I stood for a moment in the hallway, peering towards the front parlor where the lights of the Rue Royale shone yellow in the lace curtains, and I closed my eyes.
For fifty years we'd lived here, Louis, Claudia, and I; and Claudia had put a match to it for all the inevitable reasons that Adam and Eve turn their backs on paradise every night or day. These boards, these very boards, once carpeted and now hard and gleaming with lacquer! How she loved to run the length of this hall, ribbons streaming, and leap into my arms! A shiver ran through me as if I were feeling her cold white cheek against mine, and her confidential husky voice in my ear.
Well, the place wasn't really empty, was it; it was haunted, and always would be haunted, and no new Chinese patterned wallpaper would change it, nor electric chandeliers replete with glistening crystal illuminating the rooms to the right and the left.
I went into his bedroom--the chamber that has always been for Louis, Louis sitting up against the back of his massive four-poster, reading Dickens, Louis writing at the desk in a diary I never read, Louis dozing there with his head on a pillow staring at the flowers above in the tester as if the flowers were alive.
Empty. Of course. A museum chamber, down to the old brass brackets of the gas lamps with their frosted globes, and the tall hulking armoire in which he'd once kept all of his simple black clothes. Well, what had I expected? Nothing personal marred the effect until I realized I was staring at a discarded pair of worn black shoes, shoes so thoroughly coated in dust they seemed made of it, and there on the chair beside the chest of drawers was a worn old shirt.
Could this possibly mean--?
I turned around.
Louis was standing in the door of the room opposite, across the hall.
I drew in my breath. I didn't say a word. I like to look at him through your eyes.
He was outfitted entirely in the new clothes I'd ordered for him, a long black riding jacket, sleek at the waist and flaring, and a pale pink European-linen handmade shirt. He wore a tie of green silk, almost exactly the color of his eyes, and there was an emerald ring on his finger of that very same green. Bit of handkerchief in his breast pocket to match the tie, and fine-cut trousers of black wool and sleek boots fitted to his calves like gloves.
I was unable to speak. He'd put on these clothes for me, and I knew it. Nothing else in this world would have prompted him to dress like this, or to have brushed all the dust out of his glistening black hair. And the hair he'd left long on rising so that it was full as it had been in the old days, wavy, a little unruly, curling just under his ears. Even his white skin looked polished. And a scent rose from him of a rare and expensive male cologne. That too, I had sent for. That too, servants had brought here along with my other gifts.
Silence. It was like when Gabrielle, my mother, undid her long braid and combed her free and luxuriant hair. I could scarcely breathe.
I sensed he understood. He crossed the hall and put his arms around me and kissed me on the lips.
"This is what you wanted, isn't it?" he asked. Nothing mocking or mean in the tone.
Shocked. Unable to respond.
"Well, I figured you could use some new clothes, that you always can." I was stammering, clinging to a shred of dignity, trivializing the moment with ridiculous words.
"A whole room full of clothes?" he asked. "Lestat, the century will be ended before I can wear all that."
"Come, let's hunt," I said. Which really meant, Let's get out of here, let's walk together and be quiet together and please let me see you drink. Let me see you draw the blood and the life out of a human being. Let me see you need it, and go for it, and have it, and be filled to the brim with it.
I slipped on my large violet-tinted sunglasses, so essential to helping me pass for human in crowded streets, and guided Louis to the door.