“I’m going slightly mad,” I thought. But then I had come to Merrick to work magic, had I not? And I knew Merrick, didn’t I? But then, I had never expected these tricks!
I beheld in my mind the temple in Brazil once more, where I had trained for months learning the proper leaves for offering, learning the myths of the gods, learning finally, after months and months of struggle, to dance clockwise with the others, saluting each deity with our gestures and dance steps, until a frenzy was reached, until I myself felt the deity enter into me, possess me . . . and then there was the waking after, remembering nothing, being told I had been mightily possessed, the sublime exhaustion.
Of course . . . What had I thought we were doing here if not inviting those old powers? And Merrick knew my old strengths and weaknesses if anybody did. I could scarcely tear my gaze off the face of the statue of St. Peter. But I finally managed it.
I backed away as anyone might do when leaving a shrine, and darted silently into the bedroom.
Again, I breathed in the bright citrus fragrance of the Florida water, and also the scent of rum.
Where was her favorite perfume, the Chanel No. 22? Had she ceased to wear it? The Florida water was very strong.
Merrick lay asleep on the bed.
She looked as if she’d never moved. It struck me now and only now how much her white blouse and skirt resembled the classic dress of the Candomble women. All she needed was a turban for her head to make the image complete.
The new bottle of rum was open on the table beside her, and about a third of it consumed. Nothing else had changed that I could ascertain. The scent was powerful, which meant she might have sprayed it through her teeth into the air, an offering to the god.
In sleep she looked perfect, as people often do when they relax utterly; she seemed the girl of herself. And it struck me that were she to be made a vampire, she would have this flawless countenance.
I was filled with fear and abhorrence. I was filled also—for the first time in these many years—with the full realization that I, and I without the help of anyone else, could grant this magic, the transformation into a vampire, to her, or to any human. For the first time, I understood its monstrous temptation.
Of course nothing of this sort would befall Merrick. Merrick was my child. Merrick was my . . . daughter.
“Merrick, wake up!” I said sharply. I touched her shoulder. “You’re going to explain these visions to me. Wake up!”
No response. She appeared to be dead drunk.
“Merrick, wake up!” I said again, very crossly. And this time I lifted her shoulders with both hands, but her head tumbled back. The scent of the Chanel perfume rose from her. Ah, that was precisely what I so loved.
I became painfully conscious of her breasts, quite visible in the scoop neck of her cotton blouse. Down into the pillows I let her fall.
“Why did you do these things?” I demanded of the inert body of the beautiful woman lying on the bed. “What did you mean with all this? Do you think I’m to be frightened away?”
But it was useless. She wasn’t pretending. She was out cold. I could divine no dreams or subterranean thoughts in her. And quickly examining the little hotel wet bar, I saw that she’d drunk a couple of little bottles of gin.
“Typical Merrick,” I said with faint anger.
It had always been her way to drink to excess at specific times. She’d work very hard at her studies or in the field for months on end, and then announce that she was “going to the Moon,” as she called it, at which time she would lay in liquor and drink for several nights and days. Her favorite drinks were those with sweetness and flavor—sugercane rum, apricot brandy, Grand Marnier, ad infinitum.
She was introspective when drunk, did a lot of singing and writing and dancing about during such periods, and demanded to be left alone. If no one crossed her, she was all right. But an argument could produce hysterics, nausea, disorientation, an attempt to regain sobriety desperately, and finally, guilt. But this rarely happened. Usually, she just drank for a week, unmolested. Then she’d wake one morning, order breakfast with strong coffee, and within a matter of hours return to work, not to repeat her little vacation for perhaps another six to nine months.
But even on social occasions if she drank, she drank to get drunk. She’d swill her rum or sweet liquor in fancy mixed drinks. She had no desire for drink in moderation. If we had a great dinner at the Motherhouse, and we did have many, she either abstained or continued drinking on her own until she passed out. Wine made her impatient.
Well, she was passed out now. And even if I did succeed in waking her, there might be a pitched battle.
I went again to look at St. Peter, or Papa Legba, in the makeshift Voodoo shrine. I had to eliminate my fear of this little entity or graven image or whatever I perceived to be there.
Ah, I was stunned as I considered the statue for a second time. My pocket handkerchief was spread out beneath the statue and the candle, and beside it lay my own old-fashioned fountain pen! I hadn’t even seen them before.
“Merrick!” I swore furiously.
And hadn’t she wiped my forehead in the car? I glared at the handkerchief. Sure enough there were tiny smears of blood—the sweat from my forehead! And she had it for her spell.
“Ah, not merely satisfied with an article of my clothing, my handkerchief, but you had to take the fluids from my skin.”
Marching back into the bedroom, I made another very ungentlemanly attempt to rouse her from her torpor, ready for a brawl, but it was no good. I laid her back down tenderly, brushing her hair with my fingers, and observed, in spite of my anger, how truly pretty she was.
Her creamy tan skin was beautifully molded over her cheekbones and her eyelashes were so long that they made distinct tiny shadows on her face. Her lips were dark, without rouge. I took off her plain leather sandals and laid them beside the bed, but this was just another excuse to touch her, not something generous.
Then, backing away from the bed, with a glance through the door to the shrine in the parlor, I looked about for her purse, her large canvas bag.
It had been flung on a chair and it gaped open, revealing, as I had hoped, a bulging envelope with Aaron’s unmistakable writing on the outside.
Well, she’d stolen my handkerchief and my pen, hadn’t she? She’d retrieved my blood, my very blood, which must never fall into the hands of the Talamasca, hadn’t she? Oh, it wasn’t for the Order, no. She stole it for herself and her charms, but she stole it, didn’t she? And I’d been kissing her all the while like a schoolboy.
So I had every right to inspect this envelope in her purse. Besides, she had asked me if I wanted these papers. So I would take them. It was her intention to give them to me, was it not?
At once I snatched up the envelope, opened it, confirmed that it was all Aaron’s papers concerning me and my adventures, and resolved to take it with me. As for the rest of the contents of Merrick’s bag, it contained her own journal, which I had no right to read, and which would most likely be written in impossible French code, a handgun with a pearl handle, a wallet full of money, an expensive cigar labeled Montecristo, and a thin small bottle of the Florida water cologne.
The cigar gave me pause. Certainly it was not for her. It was for that little Papa Legba, that cigar. She had brought with her the statue, the Florida water, and the cigar. She had come prepared for some sort of conjuring. Ah, it infuriated me, but what right had I to preach against it?
I went back into the parlor, and, avoiding the eyes of the statue and its seeming expression, snatched up my fountain pen from the makeshift altar. I located the hotel stationery in the middle drawer of a fancy French desk, sat down, and wrote a note:
All right, my dear, I’m impressed. You’ve learnt even more tricks since last we met. But you must explain the reasons for this spell. I’ve taken the pages written by Aaron. I’ve retrieved my handkerchief and fountain pen as well. Stay in the hotel as long as you like.
David.
It was short, but I did not feel particularly effusive after this little misadventure. Also, I had the unpleasant sensation that Papa Legba was glaring at me from the violated shrine. In a fit of pique, I added a postscript.
“It was Aaron who gave me this pen!” Enough said.
Now, with considerable apprehension, I went back to the altar.
I spoke rapidly in Portuguese first, and then in Latin, once again greeting the spirit in the statue, the opener of the spiritual realm. Open my understanding, I prayed, and take no offense at what I do, for I want only knowledge, and mean no disrespect. Be assured of my understanding of your power. Be assured that I am a sincere soul.
I dug deep into my memory now for sensation as well as fact. I told the spirit in the statue that I was dedicated to the orisha, or god, called Oxalá, lord of creation. I explained that I had been faithful in my own way always to that deity, though I had not done all the little things that others had prescribed to be done. Nevertheless, I loved this god, I loved his stories, and his personality, I loved all I could know of him.
A bad feeling crept over me. How could a blood drinker be faithful to the lord of creation? Was not every act of blood drinking a sin against Oxalá? I pondered this. But I didn’t retreat. My emotions belonged to Oxalá, just as they had many many decades ago in Rio de Janeiro. Oxalá was mine, and I was his.
“Protect us in what we mean to do,” I whispered.
Then, before I could lose heart, I snuffed out the candle, lifted the statue, and, retrieving the handkerchief, set the statue back with care. I said, “Goodbye Papa Legba” to the statue and prepared to leave the suite.
I found myself quite motionless, my back to the altar, facing the door to the corridor outside. I couldn’t move. Or rather it seemed I shouldn’t move.
Very slowly, my mind became rather empty. Focused upon my physical senses, if anything, I turned and looked towards the bedroom doorway through which I’d only just come.
It was the old woman, of course, the wizened little Great Nananne, with her fingers on the doorjamb, staring at me, and her thin lipless mouth working as if she were whispering to herself or to someone unseen, her head tilted just a little to one side.
I sucked in my breath and stared at her. She showed no signs of weakening, this wee apparition, this tiny old woman who regarded me rather directly in spite of moving lips. She was clothed in a faintly flowered nightgown of flannel that was stained all over with coffee, perhaps, or long-faded blood. Indeed, I became intensely conscious that her image was becoming all the more solid and detailed.
Her feet were bare and her toenails the color of yellowed bone. Her gray hair was now quite visible and distinct, as if a light were being brightened upon her, and I saw the veins moving up the sides of her head, and the veins on the back of the one hand which dangled at her side. Only very old people looked as she looked. And of course this woman looked exactly as she had when I’d seen her ghost in the carriageway earlier this evening, and exactly as she had on the day of her death. Indeed, I remembered the nightgown. I remembered the stains upon it. I remembered that on her dying body it had been stained but fresh and clean.
I broke into a true sweat as I stared at her, and I could not move a muscle, except to speak.
“You think I’ll harm her?” I whispered.
The figure did not change. The little mouth continued to work, but I could hear only a faint dry rustling noise, as from an old woman telling her rosary in church.
“You think I mean to do something wrong?” I said.
The figure was gone. It was gone past tense. I was talking to no one.
I turned on my heel and glared at the statue of the saint. It seemed to be material and nothing more. I seriously considered smashing it, but my mind was full of confusion as to my intentions and their implications, when quite suddenly there came a deafening knock on the hallway door.
Well, it seemed to be deafening. I suspect it was ordinary. I was violently startled. Regardless I opened the door and said crossly:
“What in hell do you want?”
To my astonishment and his astonishment also, I was addressing one of the ordinary and innocent attendants who worked in the hotel.
“Nothing, Sir, excuse me,” he said in his slow southern manner, “just this for the lady.” He lifted a small plain white envelope and I took it out of his hand.
“Oh, wait, please,” I said, as I fumbled to retrieve a ten-dollar bill from my pocket. I had put several in my suit just for this purpose and gave one over to him, with which he seemed pleased.
I shut the door. The envelope contained the two-piece leather hair barrette which I had taken off Merrick so carelessly in the cab. There was an oval of leather, and then a long pin covered with leather with which she gathered and fixed her hair in place.
I was trembling all over. This was too dreadful.
How in the hell had this come to be here? It seemed quite impossible that the cabby had retrieved it. But then how was I to know? At the time, I’d been aware that I ought to pick it up and pocket it, but I’d fancied myself to be under duress.
I went to the altar, laid the barrette in front of Papa Legba, avoiding his eyes as I did so, and I went straight out of the suite, down the stairs and out of the lobby, and out of the hotel.
This time, I vowed to observe nothing, to look for nothing, and I went directly to our home.
If there were spirits along the way, I did not see them, keeping my eyes on the ground, moving as swiftly as I could safely move without causing a stir among mortals, and going directly through the carriageway, back to the courtyard, and then up the iron steps into the flat.
4
T
HE FLAT WAS DARK
, which I hadn’t expected, and I did not find Louis in either the front parlor or the back, or in his room. As for Lestat, the door of his room was closed, and the harpsichord music, very rapid and very beautiful, seemed to emanate from the very walls, as is so often the case with modern compact disc recordings.
I lighted all the lamps in the front parlor and settled on the couch, with Aaron’s pages in hand. I told myself I had important business.
It was no good thinking about Merrick and her charms and her spirits, and no good at all dwelling upon the old woman with her unintelligible whispers and her small wrinkled face.
As for my thoughts on my orisha, Oxalá, they were grim. The long ago years I had spent in Rio were ones of severe dedication. I had believed in Candomble insofar as I, David Talbot, could believe in anything. I had given myself over to the religion insofar as I could be abandoned to anything. And I had become Oxalá’s follower and worshiper. I had been possessed by him many a time with little or no memory of the trance, and I had scrupulously followed his rules.
But all that had been a detour in my life, an intermezzo. I was, after all, a British scholar, before and after. And once I had entered the Talamasca, the power of Oxalá or any orisha over me had been broken forever. Nevertheless, I felt confusion and guilt now. I had come to Merrick to discuss magic, imagining that I could control what happened! And the very first night had been chastening, indeed.
However, I had to get my mind clear. Indeed, I owed it to Aaron, my old friend, to pull myself together at once and look at his papers. Everything else could wait, I told myself.
However, I couldn’t get the old woman out of my head. I longed for Louis to come. I wanted to discuss these matters. It was important that Louis understand things about Merrick, but where Louis might be at this hour, I had no idea.
The harpsichord music was something of a comfort, as Mozart always is, with his merriment, no matter what the composition, but nevertheless, I felt restless and unsafe in these warm rooms where I was accustomed to spend many hours in comfort alone or with Louis or Louis and Lestat.
I determined to shrug it off.
Indeed, it was absolutely the best time to read Aaron’s pages.
I took off my jacket, seated myself at the large writing desk which faced into the room quite conveniently (as none of us liked to work with our back to the room), and opened the envelope and drew out the pages that I meant to read.
There wasn’t very much at all, and a quick perusal indicated that Merrick had given me a complete picture of Aaron’s thoughts at the end. Nevertheless, I owed it to Aaron to read these writings, word by word.
It took me only a few moments to forget everything about me, as I found myself hearing Aaron’s familiar voice in English in spite of the fact that all he’d written was in Latin. It was as if he were there, reviewing it all with me, or reading me his report so that I might comment before he sent it on to the Elders.
Aaron described how he had come to meet me in Florida, where he had found the aged body of his friend David Talbot dead and in need of proper burial, while the soul of David was firmly ensconced in the body of an anonymous young man.
The young man was Anglo-Indian in background, six feet four in height, had wavy dark-brown hair, bronze skin, and extremely large sympathetic dark-brown eyes. The young man was in excellent health and physical condition. The young man had very acute hearing and a good sense of balance. The young man seemed devoid of any spirit whatsoever save that of David Talbot.
Aaron went on to describe our days together in Miami, during which time I had frequently projected my spirit out of the host body, only to recapture the body perfectly with no unseen resistance from any known or unknown realm.
Finally, after a month or so of such experiments, I’d been convinced that I could remain in the youthful body and I had set about gathering what information I could about the soul which had previously reigned within it.
Those particulars I will not relate here insofar as they have to do with persons in no way connected with this narrative. It is sufficient to say that Aaron and I were satisfied that the soul which had once governed my new body was gone beyond reprieve. Hospital records pertaining to the last months of that soul’s life on earth made it more than clear that “the mind” of the individual had been destroyed by psychological disasters and the bizarre chemistry of certain drugs which the man had ingested, though there had been no damage to the cells of the brain.
I, David Talbot, in full possession of the body, sensed no damage to the brain.
Aaron had been very full in his descriptions of things, explaining how clumsy I’d been with my new height for the first few days, and how he had watched this “strange body” gradually “become” his old friend David, as I took to sitting in chairs with my legs crossed, or to folding my arms across my chest, or to hunching over my writing or reading materials in familiar fashion.
Aaron remarked that the improved vision of the new eyes had been a great blessing to David Talbot, as David had suffered poor vision in his last years. Ah, that was so true, and I hadn’t even thought of it. And now of course, I saw as a vampire and could not even remember those key gradations of mortal vision in my brief Faustian youth.
Aaron then laid down his feelings that the full report on this incident must not be placed in the Files of the Talamasca, which were open to all.
“It is plain to see from David’s transformation,” he wrote in so many words, “that body switching is entirely possible when one is dealing with skilled individuals, and what arouses my horror is not David’s present occupation of this splendid young body, but the manner in which the body was stolen from its original owner by that one whom we shall call the Body Thief, for sinister purposes of the thief’s own.”
Aaron went on to explain that he would endeavor to put these pages directly into the hands of the Elders of the Talamasca.
But for tragic reasons, obviously, this had never been done.
There came a final series of paragraphs comprising about three pages, handwritten a little more formally than what had gone before.
David’s Disappearance was written at the top. Lestat was referred to merely as TVL. And this time, Aaron’s phrasing reflected considerably more caution and some sadness.
He described how I had vanished on the island of Barbados, without leaving any message for anyone, abandoning my suitcases, typewriter, books, and pages, which he, Aaron, had gone to retrieve.
How dreadful that must have been for Aaron, picking up the trash of my life, with no word of apology from me.
“Were I not so busy with the matters of the Mayfair Witches,” he wrote, “perhaps this disappearance would never have occurred. I might have been more attentive to D. during his time of transition. I might have held him more firmly in my affections and thereby earned more surely his complete trust. As it is, I can only surmise what has become of him, and I fear that he has met with spiritual catastrophe quite against his will.
“Undoubtedly he will contact me. I know him too well to think otherwise. He will come to me. He will—whatever his state of mind, and I cannot possibly imagine it—come to me to give me some solace, if nothing else.”
It hurt me so deeply to read this that I stopped and put the pages aside. For a moment, I was aware only of my own failing, my own terrible failing, my own cruel failing.
But there were two more pages, and I had to read them. Finally I picked them up and read Aaron’s last notes.
I wish that I could appeal to the Elders directly for help. I wish that after my many years in the Talamasca I had complete faith in our Order, and complete faith that the authority of the Elders is for the best. However, our Order, insofar as I know, is made up of fallible mortal men and women. And I cannot appeal to anyone without placing in his or her hands knowledge which I do not want to share.
The Talamasca in recent months has had its internal troubles aplenty. And until the whole question of the identity of the Elders, and the certainty of communication with them, has been resolved, this report must remain in my hands.
Meanwhile nothing can shake my faith in D., or my belief in his basic goodness. Whatever corruption we might have suffered in the Talamasca never tainted David’s ethics, or those of many like him, and though I cannot yet confide in them, I do take comfort from the fact that David may appear to them if not to me.
Indeed, my faith in David is so great that sometimes my mind plays tricks on me, and I think I see him though I soon realize I am wrong. I search crowds for him in the evening. I have gone back to Miami to look for him. I have sent out my call to him telepathically. And I have no doubt that one night very soon, David will respond, if only to say farewell.
The pain I felt was crushing. Moments passed in which I did nothing but allow myself to feel the immensity of the injustice done to Aaron.
At last, I forced myself to move my limbs.
I folded up the pages properly, put them back into the envelope, and sat quiet again for a long time, my elbows on the desk, my head bowed.
The harpsichord music had stopped some time ago, and much as I’d loved it, it did interfere with my thoughts somewhat, so I treasured the quiet.
I was as bitterly sad as I have ever been. I was as without hope as I have ever been. The mortality of Aaron seemed as real to me as his life had ever seemed. And indeed both seemed miraculous in the extreme.
As for the Talamasca, I knew it would heal its wounds by itself. I had no real fear for it, though Aaron had been right to be suspicious of things with the Elders until questions of their identity and authority had been resolved.
When I had left the Order, the question of the identity of the Elders had been hotly debated. And incidents pertaining to secrets had caused corruption and betrayal. Aaron’s murder had become part of it. The famous Body Thief who seduced Lestat had been one of our own.
Who were the Elders? Were they themselves corrupt? I hardly thought so. The Talamasca was ancient, and authoritarian, and it moved slowly on eternal matters, rather on a Vatican clock. But it was all quite closed to me now. Human beings had to go on cleansing and reforming the Talamasca, as they had already begun to do. I could do nothing to help in such an endeavor.
But to the best of my knowledge, internal difficulties had been solved. How precisely, and by whom, I did not know and really didn’t want to know.
I knew only that those I loved, including Merrick, seemed at peace within the Order, though it did seem to me that Merrick, and those upon whom I’d spied now and then in other places, had a more “realistic” view of the Order and its problems than I had ever had.
And of course, what I’d done in speaking to Merrick, that had to remain secret between Merrick and me.
But how was I to have a secret with a witch who’d cast a spell on me with such promptness, effectiveness, and abandon? It made me cross again to think of it. I wish I’d taken the statue of St. Peter with me. That would have served her right.
But what had been Merrick’s purpose in the whole affair—to warn me of her power, to impress upon me the realization that Louis and I, as earthbound creatures, were hardly immune to her, or that our plan was indeed a dangerous plan?
I felt sleepy suddenly. As I’ve already mentioned, I’d fed before I ever met with Merrick, and I had no need of blood. But I had a great desire for it, kindled by the physical touch of Merrick, and very much caught up with wordless fantasies of her, and now I felt drowsy from the struggle, drowsy from my grief for Aaron, who had gone to the grave with no words of comfort at all from me.
I was about to lie down on the couch, when I heard a very pleasant sound which I at once recognized, though I hadn’t heard it at close range for years. It was the sound of a canary, singing, and making a little bit of a metallic ruckus in a cage. I heard the motion of the wings, the creak of the little trapeze or swing or whatever you call it, the creak of the cage on its hinge.
And there came the harpsichord music again, very rapid, indeed far more rapid than any human could possibly desire. It was rippling and mad, and full of magic, this music, as though a preternatural being had set upon the keys.
I realized at once that Lestat was not in the flat, and had never been, and these sounds—this music and the gentle commotion of the birds—were not coming from his closed room.
Nevertheless, I had to make a check.
Lestat, being as powerful as he is, can mask his presence almost completely, and I, being his fledgling, can pick up nothing from his mind.
I rose to my feet, heavily, sleepily, amazed at my exhaustion, and made my way down the passage to his room. I knocked respectfully, waited a decent interval, and then opened his door.
All was as it should be. There stood the giant plantation-style four-poster of tropical mahogany with its dusty canopy of rose garlands and the drapery of dark-red velvet, the color which Lestat prefers above all else. Dust overlay the bedside table and the nearby desk and the books in the bookshelf. And there was no machine for making music in sight.
I turned, meaning to go back to the parlor, to write down all of this in my diary, if I could find it, but I felt so heavy and so drowsy and it seemed a better idea to sleep. Then there was the matter of the music and the birds. Something about the birds struck me. What was it? Something Jesse Reeves had written in her report of being haunted decades ago in the ruin of this very house. Little birds.
“Then it’s begun?” I whispered. I felt so weak, so deliciously weak, actually. I wondered if Lestat would mind so very terribly if I were to lie down for a little while on his bed? He might yet come this evening. We never knew, did we? It wasn’t very proper to do such a thing. And drowsy as I was, I was moving my right hand rapidly with the music. I knew this sonata by Mozart, it was lovely, it was the first one that the boy genius had ever written, and how excellent it was. No wonder the birds were so happy, it must have been a kindred sound to them, but it was important that this music not speed on so precipitously, no matter how clever the performer, no matter how clever the child.