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led. "I wouldn't know your Christ if He were inside Lestat," she said gently.
"You don't understand," I said. "Something happened, something happened to him when we went with this spirit called Memnoch, and he came back with that Veil. I saw it. I saw the . . . power in it. "
"You saw the illusion," said Louis kindly.
"No, I saw the power," I answered. Then in a moment I totally doubted myself. The long corridors of history wound back and away from me, and I saw myself plunged into darkness, carrying a single candle, searching for the ikons I had painted. And the pity of it, the triviality, the sheer hopelessness of it crushed my soul.
I realized I had frightened Sybelle and Benji. They had their eyes fastened on me. They had never seen me as I was now.
I closed my arms around them both and pulled them towards me. I had hunted before I'd come to them tonight, to be at my strongest, and I knew my skin was pleasingly warm. I kissed Sybelle on her pale pink lips, and then kissed Benji's head.
"Armand, you vex me, truly you do," said Benji. "You never told me that you believed in this Veil. "
"And you, little man," I said in a hushed voice, not wishing to make a spectacle of us to the others. "Did you ever go into the Cathedral and look at it when it was on display there?"
"Yes, and I say to you what this great lady said. " He shrugged, of course. "He was never my god. "
"Look at them, prowling," said Louis softly. He was emaciated and shivering a little. He had neglected his own hunger to be here on guard. "I should throw them out now, Pandora," he said in a voice that couldn't have threatened the most timid soul.
"Let them see what they came for," she said coolly under her breath. "They may not have so long to enjoy their satisfaction. They make the world harder for us, and disgrace us, and do nothing for anything living or dead. "
I thought it a lovely threat. I hoped she would clean out the lot of them, but I knew of course that many a Child of the Millennia thought the very same thing about those such as me. And what an impertinent creature I was to bring, without anyone's permission, my children to see my friend who lay on the floor.
"These two are safe with us," Pandora said, obviously reading my fretting mind. "You realize they are glad to see you, young and old," she said making a small gesture to include the entire room. "There are some who don't want to step out from the shadows, but they know of you. They didn't want for you to be gone. "
"No, no one wanted it," said Louis rather emotionally. "And like a dream, you've come back. We all had inklings of it, wild whispers that you'd been seen in New York, as handsome and vigorous as you ever were. But I had to lay eyes on you to believe it. "
I nodded in thanks for these kind words. But I was thinking of the Veil. I looked up at the wooden Christ on the tree again, and then down at the slumbering figure of Lestat.
It was then that Marius came. He was trembling. "Unburnt, whole," he whispered. "My son. "
He had that wretched neglected old gray cloak over his shoulders, but I didn't notice then. He embraced me at once, which forced my girl and my boy to step away. They didn't go far, however. I think they were reassured when they saw me put my arms around him and kiss him several times on the face and mouth, as we had always done so many years ago. He was so splendid, so softly full of love.
"I'll keep these mortals safe if you're determined to try," he said. He had read the whole script from my heart. He knew I was bound to do it. "What can I say to prevent you?" he asked.
I only shook my head. Haste and anticipation wouldn't let me do anything else. I gave Benji and Sybelle to his care.
I went over to Lestat and I walked up in front of him, that is, on the left side of him as he lay there to my right. I knelt down quickly, surprised at how cold the marble was, forgetting, I suppose, how very damp it is here in New Orleans and how stealthy the chills can be.
I knelt with my hands before me on the floor and I looked at him. He was placid, still, both blue eyes equally clear as if one had never been torn from his face. He stared through me, as we say, and on and on, and out of a mind that seemed as empty as a dead chrysalis.
His hair was mussed and fall of dust. Not even his cold, hateful Mother had combed it, I supposed, and it infuriated me, but then in a frosty flash of emotion, she said hissingly:
"He will not let anyone touch him, Armand. " Her distant voice echoed deeply in the hollow of the chapel. "If you try it, you will soon find out for yourself. "
I looked up at her. She had her knees drawn up in a careless clasp of her arms, and her back against the wall. She wore her usual thick and frayed khaki, the narrow pants and the British safari coat for which she was more or less famous, stained from the wild outdoors, her blond hair as yellow and bright as his, braided and lying down her back.
She got up suddenly, angrily, and she came towards me letting her plain leather boots echo sharply and disrespectfully on the floor.
"What makes you think the spirits he saw were gods?" she demanded. "What makes you think the pranks of any of those lofty beings who play with us are any more than capers, and we no more than beasts, from the lowest to the very highest that walk the Earth?" She stood a few feet from him. She folded her arms. "He tempted something or something. That entity could not resist him. And what was the sum of it? Tell me. You ought to know. "
"I don't," I said in a soft voice. "I wish you would leave me alone. "
"Oh, do you, well, let me tell you what was the sum of it. A young woman, Dora by name, a leader of souls as they call it, who preached for the good that comes of tending to the weak who need it, was thrown off course! That was the sum of it-her preachings, grounded in charity and sung to a new tune so that people could hear them, were obliterated by the bloody face of a bloody god. "
My eyes filled with tears. I hated that she saw it so clearly, but I couldn't answer her and I couldn't shut her up. I rose to my feet.
"Back to the cathedrals they flocked," she said scornfully, "the lot of them, and back to an archaic and ludicrous and utterly useless theology which it seems that you have plainly forgot. "
