The tale of the body thief - By Anne Rice Page 0,36

very same book, and stood in the street reading it for half an hour without moving. Whitest skin the man had ever seen. Had to be you, of course.”

I shook my head and smiled. “I do these clumsy things. It’s a wonder some scientist hasn’t scooped me up in a net.”

“That’s no joke, my friend. You were very careless in Miami several nights ago. Two victims drained entirely of blood.”

This created such instant confusion in me that at first I said nothing, then only that it was a wonder the news had reached him on this side of the sea. I felt the old despair touch me with its black wing.

“Bizarre killings make international headlines,” he answered. “Besides, the Talamasca receives reports of all sorts of things. We have people who clip for us in cities everywhere, sending in items on all aspects of the paranormal for our files. ‘Vampire Killer Strikes Twice in Miami.’ Several sources sent it along.”

“But they don’t really believe it was a vampire, you know they don’t.”

“No, but you keep it up and they might come to believe it. That’s what you wanted to happen before with your little rock music career. You wanted them to catch on. It’s not inconceivable. And this sport of yours with the serial killers! You’re leaving quite a trail of those.”

This truly astonished me. My hunting of the killers had taken me back and forth across continents. I had never thought anyone would connect these widely scattered deaths, except Marius, of course.

“How did you come to figure it out?”

“I told you. Such stories always come into our hands. Satanism, vampirism, voodoo, witchcraft, sightings of werewolves; it all comes across my desk. Most of it goes into the trash, obviously. But I know the grain of truth when I see it. And your killings are very easy to spot.

“You’ve been going after these mass murderers for some time now. You leave their bodies in the open. You left this last one in a hotel, where he was found only an hour after his death. As for the old woman, you were equally careless! Her son found her the following day. No wounds for the coroner to find on either victim. You’re a nameless celebrity in Miami, quite overshadowing the notoriety of the poor dead man in the hotel.”

“I don’t give a damn,” I said angrily. But I did, of course. I deplored my own carelessness, yet I did nothing to correct it. Well, this must surely change. Tonight, had I done any better? It seemed cowardly to plead excuses for such things.

David was watching me carefully. If there was one dominant characteristic to David, it was his alertness. “It’s not inconceivable,” he said, “that you could be caught.”

I gave a scornful, dismissive laugh.

“They could lock you up in a laboratory, study you in a cage of space-age glass.”

“That’s impossible. But what an interesting thought.”

“I knew it! You want it to happen.”

I shrugged. “Might be fun for a little while. Look, it’s a sheer impossibility. The night of my one appearance as a rock singer, all manner of bizarre things happened. The mortal world merely swept up afterwards and closed its files. As for the old woman in Miami, that was a terrible mishap. Should never have happened—” I stopped. What about those who died in London this very night?

“But you enjoy taking life,” he said. “You said it was fun.”

I felt such pain suddenly I wanted to leave. But I’d promised I wouldn’t. I just sat there, staring into the fire, thinking about the Gobi Desert, and the bones of the big lizards and the way the light of the sun had filled up the entire world. I thought of Claudia. I smelled the wick of the lamp.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be cruel to you,” he said.

“Well, why the hell not? I can’t think of a finer choice for cruelty. Besides, I’m not always so kind to you.”

“What do you really want? What is your overriding passion?”

I thought of Marius, and Louis, who had both asked me that same question many a time.

“What could redeem what I’ve done?” I asked. “I meant to put an end to the killer. He was a man-eating tiger, my brother. I lay in wait for him. But the old woman—she was a child in the forest, nothing more. But what does it matter?” I thought of those wretched creatures whom I’d taken earlier this evening. I’d left such carnage in the back