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A figure stood in the vestibule. Scentless. Vampire. My fledgling.
Has to be. Young. Louis. Inevitable.
"Did you do all of this?" I asked. "Arrange things here in thechurch so beautifully?""It seemed the right thing to do," he said. He walked towards me.
I saw him clearly, though I had to turn my head to focus the one eyeon him, and stop trying to open a left eye which wasn't there.
Tall, pale, starved a bit. Black hair short. Green eyes very soft.
Graceful walk of one who does not like to make noise, or make a fuss,or be seen. Plain black clothes, clothes like the Jews in New Yorkwho had gathered outside the cathedral, watching the whole spectacle,and like the Amish who had come by train, plain and simple,like the expression on his face.
"Come home with me," he said. Such a human voice. So kind.
"There's time to come here and reflect. Wouldn't you rather behome, in the Quarter, amongst our things?"If anything in the world could have truly comforted me, he wouldhave been the thing梬ith just the beguiling tilt of his narrow heador the way that he kept looking at me, protecting me obviously with aconfidential calm from what he must have feared for me, and for him,and perhaps for all of us.
My old familiar gentleman friend, my tender enduring pupil, educatedas truly by Victorian ways of courtesy as ever by me in the waysof being a monster. What if Memnoch had called upon him? Whydidn't Memnoch do that!
"What have I done?" I asked. "Was it the will of God?""I don't know," he said. He laid his soft hand on mine. His slowvoice was a balm to my nerves. "Come home. I've listened for hours,to the radio, to the television, to the story of the angel of the nightwho brought the Veil. The Angel's tattered clothes have been givenover to the hands of priests and scientists. Dora is laying on hands.
The Veil has made cures. People are pouring into New York from allover the world. I'm glad you're back. I want you here.""Did I serve God? Is that possible? A God I still hate?""I haven't heard your tale," he said. "Will you tell me?" Just thatdirect, without emotion. "Or is it too much of an agony to say it allagain?""Let David write it down,".I said. "From memory." I tapped mytemple. "We have such good memories. I think some of the otherscan remember things that never actually happened."I looked around. "Where are we? Oh, my God, I forgot. We're inthe chapel. There's the angel with the basin in its hands, and thatCrucifix, that was there already."How stiff and lifeless it looked, how unlike the shining Veil.
"Do they show the Veil on the evening news?""Over and over." He smiled. No mockery. Only love.
"What did you think, Louis, when you saw the Veil?""That it was the Christ I once believed in. That it was the Son ofGod I knew when I was a boy and this was swampland." His voice waspatient. "Come home. Let's go. There are ... things in this place.""Are there?""Spirits? Ghosts?" He didn't seem afraid. "They're small, but Ifeel them, and you know, Lestat, I don't have your powers." Againcame his smile. "So you must know. Don't you feel them?"I shut my eyes. Or, rather, my eye. I heard a strange sound likemany, many children walking in ranks. "I think they're singing thetimes tables.""And what are those?" Louis asked. He squeezed my arm,bending close. "Lestat, what are the times tables?""Oh, you know, the way they used to teach them multiplication inthose days, they must have sung it in the classrooms, two times twomakes four, two times three makes six, two times four makes eight...
isn't that how it goes . . . They're singing it."I stopped. Someone was there, in the vestibule, right outside thechapel, between the doors to the hall and the doors to the chapel, inthe very shadows where I had hidden from Dora.
It was one of our kind. It had to be. And it was old, very old. Icould feel the power. Someone was there who was so ancient thatonly Memnoch and God Incarnate would have understood, or. ...
Louis, maybe, Louis, if he believed his memories, his brief glimpses,his brief shattering experiences with the very ancient, perhaps. . . .
Still, he wasn't afraid. He was watching me, on guard, but basicallyfearless.
"Come on, I'm not standing in dread of it!" I said. And I walkedtowards it. I had the two sacks of books slung over my right shoulder,the fabric tight in my left hand. That allowed my right hand to befree. And my right eye. I still had that. Who was this visitor?
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