The tale of the body thief - By Anne Rice Page 0,179

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The door swung back against me and then slammed as James all but staggered into the room. His arm was up to shade his eyes from the light coming through the glass wall, and he uttered a half-strangled curse, clearly damning the stewards for not having closed the draperies as they’d been told to do.

In the usual awkward fashion, he turned towards the steps, and then came to a halt. He saw David above, holding the gun on him, and then David cried out:

“Now!”

With my whole being, I made the assault upon him, the invisible part of me flying up and out of my mortal body and hurtling towards my old form with incalculable force. Instantly, I was thrown backwards! I went down into my mortal body again with such speed that the body itself was slammed in defeat against the wall.

“Again!” David shouted, but once more I was repelled with dizzying rapidity, struggling to regain control of my heavy mortal limbs and scramble to my feet.

I saw my old vampire face looming over me, blue eyes reddened and squinting as the light grew ever more bright throughout the room. Ah, I knew the pain he suffered! I knew the confusion. The sun was searing that tender skin, which had never completely healed from the Gobi! His limbs were probably already growing weak with the inevitable numbness of the coming day.

“All right, James, the game’s over,” David said in obvious fury. “Use your clever little brain!”

The creature turned as if jerked to attention by David’s voice, and then shrank back against the night table, crumpling the heavy plastic material with a loud ugly noise, his arm thrown up again to shield his eyes. In panic, he saw the destruction he’d wrought, and then tried to look again at David, who stood with his back to the coming sun.

“Now what do you mean to do?” demanded David. “Where can you go? Where can you hide? Harm us and the cabin will be searched as soon as the bodies are discovered. It’s over, my friend. Give it up now.”

A deep growl came from James. He ducked his head as if he were a blind bull about to charge. I felt absolutely desperate as I saw his hands curl into fists.

“Give it up, James,” David shouted.

And as a volley of oaths came from the being, I made for him once more, panic driving me as surely as courage and plain mortal will. The first hot ray of the sun cut across the water! Dear God, it was now or never and I couldn’t fail. I couldn’t. I collided with him full force, feeling a paralytic electric shock as I passed through him and then I could see nothing and I was being sucked as if by a giant vacuum down and down into the darkness, crying, “Yes, into him, into me! Into my body, yes!” Then I was staring directly into a blaze of golden light.

The pain in my eyes was unbearable. It was the heat of the Gobi. It was the great and final illumination of hell. But I’d done it! I was inside my own body! And that blaze was the sun rising, and it was scalding my lovely priceless preternatural face and my hands.

“David, we’ve won!” I shouted, and the words leapt out at freakish volume. I sprang up from the floor where I’d fallen, possessed once more of all my delicious and glorious quickness and strength. In a blind rush, I made for the door, catching one flickering glimpse of my old mortal body struggling on hands and knees towards the steps.

The room veritably exploded with heat and light as I gained the passage. I could not remain there one second longer, even though I heard the powerful gun go off with a deafening crack.

“God help you, David,” I whispered. I was instantly at the foot of the first flight of steps. No sunlight penetrated this inside passage, thank heaven, but my strong familiar limbs were already growing weak. By the time the second shot was fired, I’d vaulted the railing of Stairway A, and plunged all the way down to Five Deck, where I hit the carpet at a run.

I heard yet another shot before I reached the little cabin. But it was oh, so faint. The dark sunburnt hand which snatched open the door was almost incapable of turning the knob. I was struggling against a creeping cold again as surely as if I were wandering in