Merrick Page 0,153

it out of her canvas bag, I saw it was a handdelivered missive from the Elders. It was written on a true parchment meant to stand the test of centuries, though a machine had no doubt printed it for when did the Elders ever put their own hands to what they wrote?

"Merrick,

We have learnt with great dismay about your recent experiments in the old house in which you were born. We order you to leave New Orleans as soon as you possibly can. Have no further discourse with your fellow members in the Talamasca, or with that select and dangerous company which has so obviously seduced you, and come to us in Amsterdam directly.

Your room is already prepared for you in the Motherhouse, and we expect these instructions to be obeyed.

Please understand that we want, as always, to learn with you from your recent and illadvised experiences, but there can be no miscalculation as to our admonitions. You are to break off your relations with those who can never have our sanction and you are to come to us at once."

She laid it down in her lap.

"It bears the seal of the Elders," she said.

I could see this wax stamp plainly.

"Why are we to care that it bears their seal," demanded Lestat, "or the seal of anyone else? They can't force you to come to Amsterdam. Why do you even entertain such an idea?"

"Be patient with me," she spoke up immediately. "I'm not entertaining any such idea. What I'm saying is that we've been carefully watched."

Lestat shook his head. "We've always been carefully watched. I've masqueraded as one of my own fictions for over a decade. What do I care if I'm carefully watched? I defy anyone to harm me. I always have in my fashion. I've rarely ... rarely ... been wrong."

"But Lestat," said Louis, leaning forward and looking him directly in the eyes. "This means the Talamasca has made what they believe to be a sighting of us - David and me - on Merrick's premises. And that's dangerous, dangerous because it can make enemies for us among those who truly believe in what we are."

"They don't believe it," declared Lestat. "No one believes it. That's what always protects us. No one believes in what we are but us."

"You're wrong," said Merrick before I could speak up. "They do believe in you - ."

"And so 'they watch and they are always here,'" said Lestat, mocking the old motto of the Order, the very motto printed on the calling cards I once carried when I walked the earth as a regular man.

"Nevertheless," I said quickly, "we should leave for now. We cannot go back to Merrick's house, any of us. As for here in the Rue Royale, we cannot remain."

"I won't give in to them," said Lestat. "They won't order me about in this city which belongs to me. By day we sleep in hiding - at least the three of you choose to sleep in hiding - but the night and the city belong to us."

"How so does the city belong to us?" asked Louis with near touching innocence.

Lestat cut him off with a contemptuous gesture. "For two hundred years I've lived here," he said in a passionate low voice. "I won't leave because of an Order of scholars. How many years ago was it, David, that I came to visit you in the Motherhouse in London? I was never afraid of you. I challenged you with my questions. I demanded you make a separate file for me among your voluminous records."

"Yes, Lestat, but I think now things might be different." I was looking intently at Merrick. "Have you told us everything, darling?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, staring before her as if at the workings of the very problem. "I've told you everything, but you see, this was written some days ago. And now everything's changed." She looked up at me, finally. "If we're being watched, as I suspect we are, then they know just how much everything has changed."

Lestat rose to his feet.

"I don't fear the Talamasca," he declared with heavy emphasis. "I don't fear anyone. If the Talamasca had wanted me it might have come for me during all the years I've slept in the dust at St. Elizabeth's."

"But you see, that's just it," said Merrick. "They didn't want you. They wanted to watch you. They wanted to be close, as always, privy to knowledge which no one else possessed, but they didn't want to touch