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Her old religion is dead, abolished. She is reborn, the custodian ofthe Veil.""But we don't know!" I roared. "We'll never know. How can sheaccept it when we don't know and we can't know!" (He pushed meagainst the wall.) "I want to go back and get the books," I said.
"Of course, we will do this if you wish." How tired I was.
On the pavements the people sang: " 'And He walks with me, andHe talks with me, and lets me call Him by name.' "The apartment was undisturbed.
As far as I could tell, she had never returned. None of us had.
David had come to check, and David had been telling the truth. Allwas as it had been.
Except, in the tiny room where I had slept there stood only thechest. My clothes and the blanket on which they'd lain, covered withthe same dirt and pine needles from an ancient forest floor, were allgone.
"Did you take them?""No," he said. "I believe she did. They are the tattered relics ofthe angelic messenger. The Vatican officials have them, as far as Iknow."I laughed. "And they'll analyze all that material, the bits of organicmatter from the forest floor.""The clothes of the Messenger of God, it was already in thepapers," he said. "Lestat, you must come to your senses. You cannotblunder through the mortal world like this. You are a risk to yourself,to others. You are a risk to everything out there. You must containyour power.""Risk? After this, what I've done, creating a miracle, like this, anew infusion of blood into the very religion that Memnoch loathed.
Oh God!""Ssssshhhh. Quiet," he said. "The chest, there. The books are inthe chest."Ah, so the books had been in this little room, where I had slept. Iwas consoled, so consoled. I sat there, my legs crossed, rocking backand forth, crying. Oh, this is so weird to cry with one eye! God, aretears coming out of the left eye? I don't think so. I think he rippedaway the ducts, what do you think?
David stood in the hallway. The light from the distant glass wallmade his profile icy and calm.
I reached over and opened the lid of the chest. It was made ofwood, a Chinese chest, carved deep with many figures. And therewere the twelve books, each wrapped as we had wrapped them socarefully, and all padded and safe and dry. I didn't have to open themto know.
"I want us to leave now," David said. "If you begin crying outagain, if you begin trying to tell people again. . . .""Oh, I know how tired you are, my friend," I said. "I'm sorry. I'mso sorry." From riot after riot, he'd torn me and dragged me out ofthe sight of mortal eyes.
I thought about those policemen again. I hadn't even been resistingthem. I thought about the way they backed off one by one, as iffrom something so inherently unwholesome that their molecules toldthem to do it. Back off.
And she spoke of a Messenger from God. She was so certain.
"We have to leave it now," he said. "It's done. Others are coming.
I don't want to see the others. Do you? Do you want to answer thequestions of Santino or Pandora or Jesse or whoever might come!
What more can we do? I want to leave now.""You believe I was his fool, don't you?" I asked, looking up athim.
"Whose fool? God's or the Devil's?""That's just it," I said. "I don't know. You tell me what youbelieve.""I want to go," he said, "because if I do not go now, I will jointhem this morning on the church steps桵ael and whoever else isthere. And there are others coming. I know them. I see them.""No, you can't do that! What if every particle of it was a lie! Whatif Memnoch wasn't the Devil, and God wasn't God, and the wholething was some hideous hoax worked on us by monsters who are nobetter than we are! You can't ever think of joining them on thechurch steps! The earth is what we have! Cling to it! You don't know.
You don't know about the whirlwind and Hell. You don't know.
Only He knows the rules. Only He is supposed to speak the truth!
And Memnoch over and over described Him as if He were Mad, aMoral Idiot."He turned slowly, the light playing with the shadows of his face.
Softly he asked, "His blood, Lestat, could it truly be inside you?""Don't start believing it!" I said. "Not you! No. Don't believe. Irefuse to play. I refuse to take either side! I brought the Veil back soyou and she would believe what I said, that's all I did, and this, thismadness has happened!"I swooned.
I saw the Light of Heaven for an instant, or it seemed I did. I sawHim standing at the balustrade. I smelled that fierce horrid smell thathad arisen so often from the earth, from battlefields, from the floorsof Hell.
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