The Vampire Lestat - By Anne Rice Page 0,86

wanted,” I said.

“Then conscience played no role in it?”

“If you follow your conscience, you do what you want,” I said. “But it was simpler than that. I wanted you to have the wealth I gave you. I wanted you . . . to be happy.”

She reflected for a long time.

“Would you have had me forget you?” I demanded. It sounded spiteful, angry.

She didn’t answer immediately.

“No, of course not,” she said. “And had it been the other way around, I would never have forgotten you either. I’m sure of it. But the rest of them? I don’t give a damn about them. I shall never exchange words with them again. I shall never lay eyes on them.”

I nodded. But I hated what she was saying. She frightened me.

“I cannot overcome this notion that I’ve died,” she said. “That I am utterly cut off from all living creatures. I can taste, I can see, I can feel. I can drink blood. But I am like something that cannot be seen, cannot affect things.”

“It’s not so,” I said. “And how long do you think it will sustain you, feeling and seeing and touching and tasting, if there is no love? No one with you?”

The same uncomprehending expression.

“Oh, why do I bother to tell you this?” I said. “I am with you. We’re together. You don’t know what it was like when I was alone. You can’t imagine it.”

“I trouble you and I don’t mean to,” she said. “Tell them what you will. Maybe you can somehow make up a palatable story. I don’t know. If you want me to go with you, I’ll go. I’ll do what you ask of me. But I have one more question for you.” She dropped her voice. “Surely you don’t mean to share this power with them!”

“No, never.” I shook my head as if to say the thought was incredible. I was looking at the jewels, thinking of all the gifts I’d sent, thinking of the dollhouse. I had sent them a dollhouse. I thought of Renaud’s players safely across the Channel.

“Not even with Nicolas?”

“No, God, no!” I looked at her.

She nodded slightly as if she approved of this answer. And she pushed at her hair again in a distracted way.

“Why not with Nicolas?” she asked. I wanted this to stop.

“Because he’s young,” I said, “and he has life before him. He’s not on the brink of death.” Now I was more than uneasy. I was miserable. “In time, he’ll forget about us . . . ” I wanted to say “about our conversation.”

“He could die tomorrow,” she said. “A carriage could crush him in the streets . . . ”

“Do you want me to do it!” I glared at her.

“No. I don’t want you to do it. But who am I to tell you what to do? I am trying to understand you.”

Her long heavy hair had slipped over her shoulders again, and exasperated, she took hold of it in both hands.

Then suddenly she made a low hissing sound, and her body went rigid. She was holding her long tresses and staring at them.

“My God,” she whispered. And then in a spasm, she let go of her hair and screamed.

The sound paralyzed me. It sent a flash of white pain through my head. I had never heard her scream. And she screamed again as if she were on fire. She had fallen back against the window and she was screaming louder as she looked at her hair. She went to touch it and then pulled her fingers back from it as if it were blazing. And she struggled against the window, screaming and twisting from side to side, as if she were trying to get away from her own hair.

“Stop it!” I shouted. I grabbed hold of her shoulders and shook her. She was gasping. I realized instantly what it was. Her hair had grown back! It had grown back as she slept until it was as long as it had been before. And it was thicker even, more lustrous. That is what was wrong with the way she looked, what I had noticed and not noticed! And what she herself had just seen.

“Stop it, stop it now!” I shouted louder, her body shaking so violently I could hardly keep her in my arms. “It’s grown back, that’s all!” I insisted. “It’s natural to you, don’t you see? It’s nothing!”

She was choking, trying to calm herself, touching it and then screaming as if her fingertips were