“We have wealth from Father,” said Lorkyn. “Great wealth. The Mayfair family discovered it. That’s no longer a problem. You need not feel beholden. We’re quite free.”
“No, never feel beholden,” said Rowan softly.
“Very well. I feel this discussion has come to an end,” said Lorkyn.
She rose. She looked at Rowan and something silent passed between the two women, some exchange of approval and confidence and belief.
Oberon rose to his feet and took Miravelle by the hand.
“Come, my blessed little idiot,” he said to Miravelle, “we’ll go back to my suite and continue watching
The Lord of the Rings.
By now they’ll have the white chocolate candy for us and the cold cold milk.”
“Oh, everyone’s so good to us,” said Miravelle, “I love you all, I want you to know. And I’m so glad all the bad men died and Rodrigo fell off the balcony. It was just the best of luck.”
“Isn’t it uplifting, the way she describes it?” asked Oberon archly. “And to think I get to listen to this eighteen hours a day. What about you, Lorkyn? You ever going to drop in to see your brother and sister and indulge in a little intelligent discourse about your medical studies? I might go simply mad if I don’t speak to someone from time to time who can use four-syllable words.”
“Yes, Oberon,” she said. “I’ll come to you more than you might think.”
She came round the table and stood before him. A great relaxation came over him, and he took Lorkyn in his arms. There was an ardent kiss and a slow moving away, with reverence and a locking of thin delicate fingers.
“Oh, I am so happy,” said Miravelle. She kissed Lorkyn on the cheek.
Oberon and Miravelle left.
Lorkyn gave formal nods to all the company, gesturing for the men to take their seats again, and she too went out the door.
The room fell quiet.
Then Rowan spoke: “She’s incomparably brilliant,” she said.
“I understand,” I responded.
No one else spoke.
Mona sat there still for a long time, her eyes every so often engaging Rowan.
Then very softly, Mona said, “It’s over.”
Rowan didn’t answer.
Mona stood up, and so did Quinn. Finally I did also. Michael rose out of courtesy, and Rowan remained in her chair, thoughtful, remote.
For a moment it seemed Mona was going to leave without another word, but just as she reached the door, she looked back, and she said to Rowan:
“I don’t think you’ll see me much anymore.”
“I understand,” said Rowan.
“I love you, sweetheart,” said Michael.
Mona stopped, her head bowed. She didn’t turn around.
“I’ll never forget you,” she said.
I was stunned. I was caught completely off guard.
Michael’s face crumpled as though he’d been hit by a heavy blow. But he said nothing.
“Farewell, my beauteous mortal friends,” I said. “You need me, you know how to find me.”
Indescribable expression on Rowan’s face as she turned and looked up at me.
And so I realized it. It came over me slowly. It was like a chill.
The cause that had bound us together was no more. It wasn’t only Mona’s turning away. We had no more reason to come to one another. No more mystery to justify our intimacy. And honor and virtue, of which I’d spoken so surely, demanded we cease to interfere with one another, cease to learn about each other. We couldn’t walk the same paths.
The Taltos had been discovered, recovered and would be safe within Mayfair Medical. Lorkyn’s speech had been the epilogue.
We had to withdraw.
Why had I not seen it? Why had I not felt the entirety of it? Mona had known last night, and the night before, when she’d stood on the island looking out to sea.
But I had not known. Not known at all.
I turned and followed my companions.
Down we went through the Sacred Mountain of Mayfair Medical in the shining glass elevator and through the wondrous lobby with its mystifying modern sculptures and richly tiled floors, out into the warm air.
Clem ready with the limousine door.
“You sure you wanna go to
that
part of town?”
“Just drop us off, we’re expected.”
Silence in the car as we move steadily on, as if we are not with one another.
We are not Taltos. We are not innocent. We do not belong on God’s Holy Mountain. We are not protected and redeemed by those whom we have served. They cannot thank us with grace, can they? They cannot open the doors of the tabernacle.
Give us the underbelly of the city, let us spread out, where the cheapest killers come to us in the wild tangled thickets of the empty lots, ready to sink a blade for a twenty-dollar bill, and the corpses rot for weeks in the weeds amid the charred wood and the heaps of brick, and I was ravenous.
Rampant moonflower, chimney stack tall as a tree, didn’t they make this place for me? Whiff of evil. Crunch of broken boards. Morthadie. Cohorts behind the jagged wall. Whisper in my ear: “Ya’ll lookin for a good time?” You couldn’t have said it better.
29
I
WOKE
with a start. The sun had set a long while ago. I’d been so comfortable in Aunt Queen’s bed. I’d even done the strangest thing before retiring. I’d yielded to Jasmine’s lectures about my fine linen suit, and hung up all my clothes, and put on a long flannel nightshirt.
What was this mad pretense? I, who had slept in velvet and lace when coffined in the dirt, yielding to these encumbering pleasures? I’d fled the sun into the raw earth itself. I’d bedded down once in the crypt beneath a church altar.
Julien sat at the table. He packed a small thin black cigarette on his gold case, then lighted it. Flash on his cool elegant face. Perfume of smoke.
“Ah, now that is something.”
“So you’re drawing more and more energy from me, I see,” I said. “Do you draw it from me even when I sleep?”
“You’re stone-cold dead by the light of day,” he remarked. “However, you’ve dreamed a pretty dream in the past hour. I rather like your dream.”
“I know what I dreamt. What can I give you to make you go away, forever?”
“I thought you were fond of me. Was that all banter?”
“And so you failed,” I said. “You aided Mona to couple with Michael, and the birth of Morrigan destroyed her. How could you have known? And as to Merrick Mayfair becoming one of us, that wasn’t your fault. You merely entrusted her to the Talamasca. Don’t you see you have to go on? You can’t keep meddling and making mistakes. Lasher’s dead. Morrigan’s dead. You have to let them go, your adorable Mayfairs. You’re playing at being a saint. It isn’t gentlemanly.”
“And will
you
let them go?” he asked. “Oh, I don’t speak of my treasure, my Mona. She’s lost. I concede that. You know what concerns me now.” His voice was thick with emotion. “Is not the destiny of the entire clan at stake?”
“What are you talking about?” I said.
“Hasn’t the one you covet redeemed the family’s unseemly wealth? Hasn’t she sanctified the family’s incalculable power?”
“What do the angels tell you?” I replied. “Pray to Saint Juan Diego for your answer.”
“Answer me!” he pressed.
“What answer can I give that you’ll accept?” I asked. “Go to Tante Oscar, she’ll know who you are. Or seek out Fr. Kevin Mayfair in his rectory. Put your questions to them. But go away from me.”
“I beg you!” he said.
We stared at each other. He was amazed at his own words. So was I.
“What if I beg you,” I asked, “to interfere no more! To leave them to conscience and fortune?”
“Do we strike a bargain then?” he asked.
I turned away from him. The chills had me.
Do we strike a bargain then?
“Damn you!”
I got up, pulled off the nightshirt and put on my clothes. Too many buttons to a three-piece suit. I straightened my purple tie. I combed out my hair. And then there were my boots, outside the door, of course.
There was a master switch for the lights. I hit it. I turned around. He was gone. The little table was untouched. But the smoke lingered. And the perfume of the cigarette with it.
I beg you!
As soon as I slipped on the boots, I left the house by the rear door, walking fast over the wet grass, along the edge of the swamp. I knew where I had to go.
It was the city.
It was the downtown streets.
Just walking, walking and thinking, on the bum, walking. Forget the blood. Blood forget me.
And from downtown I walked uptown, faster and faster, beating the pavements, until it loomed before me on the outskirts of the city, Mayfair Medical, sprawling grid of lights against the close clouded nighttime sky.
What was I doing?
This was the Patients’ Garden, wasn’t it?
Empty at this hour of the night, a wilderness of ligustrum and roses and gravel paths. Harmless to wander here. No hope of seeing anyone in particular. No hope of mischief. No hope of—.
It was Julien before me, blocking the way.
“Ah, you devil!” I said.
“Now what are you up to? What goes on in your crafty mind?” he demanded. “Finding her in her midnight laboratory and offering her your blood again? Asking her to analyze it beneath her microscope, you trickster devil? Any cheap excuse to draw close?”
“Will you never understand? You can’t sway me, man! Seek the Light. Your curses betray your origin. Now take my curse from me!”
I reached for him—I shut my eyes. I saw the spirit in me, the goading vampiric spirit that animated my flesh, that craved the blood that kept me alive, the spirit in my two hands as I caught him by the throat, and the spirit in him, the animus that sought to project the image of the man that was no man, and I opened my mouth over his, as I had done to Patsy, and I sent the wind into him, the fierce wind of rejection, not love, of renunciation, of repudiation.
Be gone from me, you evil thing, be gone, you twisted, worldly spirit, be gone to whatever realm in which you belong. If I can free you from the Earth, I will it.
He blazed before me, solid, in a fury. I struck him with the full strength of my arm, shattering him, sending him so far from me, I couldn’t see him anymore, and an anguished cry rang out from him that seemed to fill the night.
I was alone.
I gazed up at the huge facade of the Medical Center. I turned around and I walked, and the night was simple and noisy and warm around me.
I walked all the way back downtown.
I sang a little song to myself:
“You have the whole world. You have till the end of time. You have everything you could ever want. Mona and Quinn are with you. And there are so many others in the Blood who love you. It is truly complete now, and you must go your way. . . .
“Yes, you must go your way and return to the fold of those whom you cannot harm. . . .”
30
I
T WAS AN HOUR
before dawn when I returned to Blackwood Farm, a weary soul for my bloodless wanderings, and bound for bed. The Kitchen Committee, as Quinn calls it, was already having coffee and setting the dough to rise.
I had missed Tommy’s departure. He had left me a note—very kind and somewhat unique—thanking me for helping Patsy’s spirit go into the Light. Ah, yes.
I at once sat down at the haunted desk, and, finding the central drawer to contain Blackwood Farm notepaper as I knew it would now that the key was lost, I wrote a note to Tommy saying that I thought he would become an extraordinary man and do great things that would make everyone proud of him.
“Beware of ordinary life,” I wrote. “Reach for something finer, greater. I believe that is the message of Blackwood Farm.”
Jasmine, who was already fully dressed at that hour, with a white apron over her blue suit and silk blouse, went into ecstasies over my handwriting. Where did I get all these curlicues, these flourishes and this swift perfect use of the pen?
Why was I too tired to answer? Tired as the night that Patsy had crossed over? Was Julien really gone for good?
She took the note, slid it into an envelope and said it would go out with the first package of fudge which they were already cooking for Tommy.
“You know Quinn and Mona won’t be back for a week,” she said. “You and Nash are the only two in this great big house, and you won’t touch a morsel of food we cook, you’re so particular, and if you leave, there’s just going be Nash and I’ll cry my eyes out.”
“What?” I asked. “Where did Mona and Quinn go?”
“Who am I that I should know?” she asked with exaggerated gestures. “They didn’t even tell us good-bye. It was another gentleman came here to tell us they’d be gone for a while. And he was the strangest man I’ve ever seen in my life, skin so white it looked like a mask. Hair jet black and long to his shoulders, and such a smile. It almost gave me a fright. Check in Aunt Queen’s room when you go to bed. He left a note in there on the table for you.”
“That man’s name is Khayman. He’s kindly. I know where they went.” I sighed. “You going to let me stay in Aunt Queen’s room while they’re gone?”
“Oh, bite your tongue,” she said. “It’s where you belong. You think I’m bubbling over with joy that Miss Mona is raiding Aunt Queen’s closets like the Queen of Sheba, just leaving fox furs and rhinestone shoes all over the floor? I am not. Never mind, I straightened it all up. You go on to bed.”
We went back the hallway together. I went into the room, found it softly lighted with only the dressing-table lamps, and stood there for a moment, just breathing in the perfume and wondering how long I could play out this spectacular hand.
The bed was already turned down for me. And a fresh flannel nightshirt was laid out, and sure enough, as they say on Blackwood Farm, there was a letter on the little table.
I sat down, tore open the parchment envelope and discovered the letter printed in a graceful cursive font.
My dearest rebel,
Your darlings want badly to be received by me and so I have granted their request. It is highly unusual, as you know, for me to bring ones so young to my compound. But there are excellent reasons for both Quinn and Mona spending some time here with me, acquainting themselves with the archives, meeting some of the others who go and come, and perhaps gaining some perspective on the gifts which they have been given and the existence which lies before them.
It is my strong feeling that their entrenchment in mortal life is not altogether wise, and this visit with me, this retreat among the immortals, will serve to insulate them against the shocks which may come. You are right in fearing that Mona does not grasp the full sacramental power of the Blood. But Quinn does not either, having been made against his will. Another reason for my bringing them here is simply that I have become quite real to Mona and Quinn, as the result of our communication regarding the Taltos, and I want to dispel any harmful mythmaking which might surround my person in their young minds.
Here they will come to know me as I am. They will perhaps appreciate that at the root of our lineage there exists not a great goddess but a fairly simple personality, honed by time, and linked to her own mortal visions and desires.
Both children seem to be exceptionally gifted, and I am in awe of your accomplishments with them, as well as your patience.
I know what you are suffering at present. Only too well, I understand. But I have every confidence that you will behave according to the highest standards which you have set for yourself. Your moral evolution simply doesn’t allow for anything else.
Let me assure you that you are welcome here. And I could easily have arranged for you to be brought to me with Quinn and Mona. But I know that you don’t want to come.
You are now free to spend weeks in mortal peace, lying in Aunt Queen’s bed, reading the novels of Dickens over again. You are entitled to that rest.
Maharet
There it was, the evidence of my failure with Quinn and Mona, and the revelation of Maharet’s marvelous generosity in bringing them to herself. What finer teacher could they have in all the wide world than Maharet?
I’d given Mona and Quinn all I could in my own fashion. And that wasn’t enough. No, it simply wasn’t enough. The problem was probably what Maharet had called my “moral evolution.” But I wasn’t so sure.
I’d wanted to make “the perfect vampire” in Mona. But my plan had been quickly swallowed by forces which had taught me more than I could ever teach anybody else.
And Maharet was so right that I did not want to be taken to her famous jungle compound. No, not for me that fabled place of stone rooms and screened enclosures, where she the ancient lady who looked more like a statue in alabaster than a living thing held quiet court with her mute twin sister. And as for the legendary archives with their ancient tablets, scrolls and codices of unimaginable revelations, I could wait forever for those treasures as well. What can’t be revealed to the world of men and women can’t be revealed to me. I had no taste or patience for it.
I was going in quite the other direction—caught in the thrall of Blackwood Farm—this lost corner of the South where things more mundane were far more precious to me.
I was at peace with it. I was also weak in my soul, without doubt. And it was from my battle with Julien, and sure enough, he was nowhere about.
I folded the letter.
I got undressed.
I put all my clothes properly on hangers like a decent mortal individual, put on the flannel nightshirt, pulled out the copy of “Little Nell” from under the pillow and read until the sun came creeping over the horizon and over my consciousness, locking me down into emptiness and peace.