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I thought of Merrick. I couldn't know what the coming day would be like for her. I feared for her. I despised myself. And I wanted Merrick terribly. I wanted Louis. I wanted them as my companions, and it was utterly selfish, and yet it seemed a creature could not live without the simple companionship which I had in mind.
At last I went in the great white walled chapel. All the stained glass windows were still draped in black serge, as was required now, for Lestat could no longer easily be moved to shelter with the rising sun.
No candles burnt before these random and stately saints.
I found Lestat as he always was, on his left side, a man resting, his violet eyes open, the lovely piano music pouring out of the black machine which had been set to play the small disc recording over and over without end.
The usual dust had settled on Lestat's hair and shoulders. It horrified me to see the dust, even on his face. But would I disturb him if I sought to clean it away? I didn't know, and my sorrow was leaden and terrible.
I sat down beside him.
I sat where he might see me. And then boldly I turned off the music. And in a hurried voice, a voice more full of agitation than ever I imagined it would be, I poured out the tale.
I told him all of it¡ªof my love for Merrick and of her powers. I told him of Louis's request. I told him of the phantom that had come to us. I told him of Louis, listening to Claudia's music. I told him of Louis's resolve to leave us in a matter of nights.
"What can stop him now I don't know," I said. "He won't wait for you to wake, my dearest friend. He's going. And there's nothing I can do really to change his mind. I can plead that he must wait until you've recovered, but I don't think he wants to lose his nerve again. That's what it's all about, you see, his nerve. He has the nerve to end it. And that is what's been lacking for so long. "
I went back over the details. I described Louis as he listened to the music that I couldn't hear. I described the seance once more. Perhaps I told things now which I'd left out before.
"Was it really Claudia?" I asked. "Who can tell us whether or not it was?"
And then I leant over and I kissed Lestat and I said to him:
"I need you so much now. I need you if only to say farewell to him. "
I drew back and inspected the sleeping body. There was no change in awareness or posture that I could detect.
"You woke once," I declared. "You woke when Sybelle played her music for you, but then, taking the music back with you, you returned to your selfish sleep. That's what it is, Lestat, selfish, because you've left behind those you made¡ªLouis and me. You've left us, and it's not fair of you to do it. You must come out of it, my beloved Master, you must rouse yourself for Louis and for me. "
No change in the expression on his smooth face. His large violet eyes were too open for those of a dead man. But the body gave no other sign of life.
I leant down. I pressed my ear to his cold cheek. Though I couldn't read his thoughts as a fledging, surely I could divine something of what went on in his soul.
But nothing came to me. I turned on the music once more.
I kissed him and left him there, and went to my lair, more ready for oblivion perhaps than I had ever been before.
Chapter 22
22
THE FOLLOWING NIGHT, I went in search of Merrick.
Her home in the derelict neighborhood was dark and uninhabited. Only the caretaker remained on the property. And it was no problem for me to climb up to the second story window over the shed to see that the old fellow was contentedly inside, drinking his beer and watching his monstrous color TV.
I was dreadfully disconcerted. I felt that Merrick had all but promised to meet me, and where else if not in the old house?
I had to find her. I searched the city for her tirelessly, using every ounce of telepathic ability which I possessed.
As for Louis, he was also absent. I returned to the flat in the Rue Royale more than four times during my search for Merrick. And at no time did I find Louis or the simplest evidence that he'd been there.
At last, very much against my better judgment, but desperate, I approached Oak Haven, the Motherhouse, to see if I could spy Merrick within.
The discovery took only a matter of minutes. As I stood in the thick oak forest to the far north of the building, I could see her tiny figure in the library.
Indeed Merrick sat in the very oxblood leather chair which she'd claimed for her own as a child when we first met. Nestled in the cracked old leather, she appeared to be sleeping, but as I drew closer my fine vampiric senses confirmed that she was drunk. I could make out the bottle of Flor de Ca?a rum beside her, and the glass. Both were empty.
As for the other members, one was busy in the very same room, going over the shelves for some seemingly routine matter, and several others were at home upstairs.
