"-Lestat, Ancient Evelyn just whispers and whispers-
"-and I was going to give a prize to anyone who could actually understand her. I figured whisperers
would call in, you know, who would whisper right back to her the way she whispered to them. We'd have an hour of whispering. I'd give them prizes too, Hell, why not? Then there would have been the Michael Curry Hour, when people could have called up with stories of the Irish Channel or Irish songs, and Michael and the callers could have sung them together. And of course I was going to have my own show, all about the world economy and world trends in architecture and art-(sigh). I had designs for every kook in the family. Never got to do that, got too sick. But Dolly Jean's still jiving. And Michael-Michael's wife cheating on him with you, and he's got no one to defend him. "
"Oh, Mona let it go," said Quinn.
My pain was no one's concern but my own.
She collapsed back into a pale, glazed-eyed trance, but only for a moment:
"And you know the damnedest thing," she said, squinting as though she couldn't quite recall her theme. "Oh yeah, vampires, I mean, real vampires, they don't have any websites. "
"Let's keep it that way," said Quinn. "They shouldn't have any websites. "
"It's time for you to hunt," I said. "You're both thirsting. Make a night of it. Head up north. Hit the beer joints along the roads. Beat the hours down with hunting. By tomorrow, it's my guess Rowan will be ready to let us see the remains of Ash and Morrigan. And we can see Miravelle and Oberon too. "
She gave me a dazed look. "Yeah, that sounds great," she whispered. "A regular sideshow. There's a part of me that never wants to see Rowan or Michael again. There's a part of me that never wants to see Miravelle and Oberon ever again. As for Morrigan-. "
"Come on, my precious Ophelia," said Quinn. "We're going to take to the air, baby, we're going to do what the Beloved Boss said. I know that jukebox, pool table route. We go for the Little Drink with the truckers and the cowboys, and maybe we stop to dance to the Dixie Chicks now and then, and along comes some guy with a conscience full of pure coal and we lure him out to where the parking lot falls into the trees and we fight over him. "
She laughed in spite of herself. "Sounds brutal and basic," she sighed.
He pulled her up out of the chair. She turned, and reached down to give me a warm hug and a kiss.
I was happily surprised. I held her tight. "My pixie," I said. "You've only begun on the Devil's Road. You have such wonders yet to discover. Be clever. Be swift. "
"But how do real vampires connect on the World Wide Web?" she asked with painful seriousness.
"Beats me, sweetheart," I said. "I've never sufficiently recovered from my first sight of a steam locomotive. I almost got run over. What makes you think real vampires want to connect?"
"Stop putting me on," she said dreamily. "But you don't want me to create my own web page?"
"Absolutely not," I said somberly.
"But you published the Chronicles!" she protested. "Now what about that?" She put her hands on her hips. "How do you defend that, I'd like to know?"
"An age-old form of public confession," I said, "sacrosanct. Goes back to ancient Egypt. A book goes forth quietly into the world, labeled fiction, to be perused, pondered, passed from one to another, perhaps put aside for the future, to perish if unwanted, to endure if valued, to work its way into trunks and vaults and junk heaps, who knows? I don't defend myself to anybody anyway. Stay off the World Wide Web!"
"Sounds positively dusty to me," she said. "But I love you just the same. Now think about this radio station idea. Maybe it's not too late. You could have your own show. "
"AAAAAAHHHHH!" I cried. "I can't bear it! You think Blackwood Farm's the World. It's not, Mona! There's just Blackwood Farm, and all the rest is Sugar Devil Swamp, trust me. And how long do you think we'll have Blackwood Farm, you, me or Quinn? My Lord, you've got a direct connection to the one who told you where to find the Secret People, you're E-mailing Wisdom Central, and you're carrying on about websites! Be gone from me, now! Save thyself from my wrath!"
I think I scared her just a little. She was so tired and gaunt that she fell back from the sound of my voice. "We're not finished with this discussion, Beloved Boss," she said. "Trouble with you is you get too emotional. I question anything and you just blow your stack. "
Quinn picked her up and carried her off, making huge circles on the terrace as he went, singing to her, and so they disappeared from sight and her laughter rang out in the softly purring evening.
A warm breeze came to fill the silence. The distant trees were doing their subtle dance. My heart was suddenly beating too hard and a cold anxiety crept over me. I picked up the statue of Saint Juan Diego from the flagstones and set him properly on the table where he belonged. I said nothing about him. Ah, tacky little dude with thy paper roses, thou art surely destined for better representations.
I was in the depths. The pulsing night sang to me of the nothingness. The stars spread out to prove the horror of our universe-bits and pieces of the body of no one flying at monstrous speed away from the meaningless, uncomprehending source.
Saint Juan Diego, make it go away. Work another miracle!
"What is it?" Stirling asked softly.
I sighed. In the distance the white fence of the pasture looked pretty, and the smell of the grass was good.
"I've failed at something here," I said, "and it's a major failure. " I studied the man to whom I'd just spoken.