"People are dying here, aren't they? That's why the corridors are crowded. I hear people crying. It's an epidemic, isn't it?"
"It's a bad time," she said, her virginal lips barely moving. "But you'll be all right. I'm here."
Louis -was so angry.
"But why, Lestat?"
Because she was beautiful, because she was dying, because I wanted to see if it would work. Because nobody wanted her and she was there, and I picked her up and held her in my arms. Because it was something I could accomplish, like the little candle flame in the church making another flame and still retaining its own light-my way of creating, my only way, don't you see? One moment there were two of us, and then we were three.
He was so heartbroken, standing there in his long black cloak, yet he could not stop looking at her, at her polished ivory cheeks, her tiny wrists. Imagine it, a child vampire! One of us.
"I understand."
Who spoke? I was startled, but it wasn't Louis, it was David, David standing near with his copy of the Bible. Louis looked up slowly. He didn 't know who David was.
"Are we close to God when we create something out of nothing? When we pretend we are the tiny flame and we make other flames?"
David shook his head. "A bad mistake."
"And so is the whole world, then. She's our daughter-"
"I'm not your daughter. I'm my mama's daughter."
"No, dear, not anymore." I looked up at David. "Well, answer me."
"Why do you claim such high aims for what you did?" he asked, but he was so compassionate, so gentle. Louis was still horrified, staring at her, at her small white feet. Such seductive little feet.
"And then I decided to do it, I didn't care what he did with my body if he could put me into this human form for twenty-four hours so that I could see the sunlight, feel what mortals feel, know their weakness and their pain." I pressed her hand as I spoke.
She nodded, wiping my forehead again, feeling my pulse with her firm warm fingers.
"... and I decided to do it, simply do it. Oh, I know it was wrong, wrong to let him go with all the power, but can you imagine, and now you see, I can't die hi this body. The others won't even know what's happened to me. If they knew, they'd come. . ."
"The other vampires," she whispered.
"Yes." And then I was telling her all about them, about my search so long ago to find the others, thinking that if I only knew the history of things, it would explain the mystery... On and on I talked to her, explaining us, what we were, all about my trek through the centuries, and then the lure of the rock music, the perfect theatre for me, and what I'd wanted to do, about David and God and the Devil in the Paris cafe, and David by the fire with the Bible in his hand, saying God is not perfect. Sometimes my eyes were closed; sometimes they were open. She was holding my hand all the while.
People came and went. Doctors argued. A woman was cry-nig. Outside it was light again. I saw it when the door opened, and that cruel blast of cold air swept through the corridor. "How are we going to bathe all these patients?" a nurse asked. "That woman should be in isolation. Call the doctor. Tell him we have a case of meningitis on the floor."
"It's morning again, isn't it? You must be so tired, you've been with me all through the afternoon and the night. I'm so scared, but I know you have to go."
They were bringing hi more sick people. The doctor came to her and told her they would have to turn all these gurneys so that their heads were against the wall.
The doctor told her she ought to go home. Several new nurses had just come on duty. She ought to rest.
Was I crying? The little needle hurt my arm, and how dry my throat was, how dry my lips.
"We can't even officially admit all these patients."
"Can you hear me, Gretchen?" I asked. "Can you follow what I'm saying?"
"You've asked me that over and over again," she said, "and each time I've told you that I can hear, that I can understand. I'm listening to you. I won't leave you."
"Sweet Gretchen; Sister Gretchen."
"I want to take you out of here with me."
"What did you say?"
"To my house, with me. You're much better now, your fever's way down. But if you stay here . . ." Confusion hi her face. She put the cup to my lips again and I drank several gulps. "I understand. Yes, please take me, please." I tried to sit up. "I'm afraid to stay."
"Not just yet," she said, coaxing me back down on the gurney. Then she pulled the tape off my arm and extracted that vicious little needle. Lord God, I had to piss! Was there no end to these revolting physical necessities? What in the hell was mortality? Shitting, pissing, eating, and then the same cycle all over again! Is this worth the vision of the sunshine? It wasn't enough to be dying. I had to piss. But I couldn't bear using that bottle again, even though I could scarce remember it.
"Why aren't you afraid of me?" I asked. "Don't you think I'm insane?"
"You only hurt people when you're a vampire," she said simply, "when you're in your rightful body. Isn't that true?"
"Yes," I said. "That's true. But you're like Claudia. You're not afraid of anything."
"You are playing her for a fool," said Claudia. "You 're going to hurt her too."
"Nonsense, she doesn't believe it," I said. I sat down on the couch in the parlour of the little hotel, surveying the small fancy room, feeling very at home with these delicate old gilded furnishings. The eighteenth century, my century. Century of the rogue and the rational man. My most perfect time.
Petit-point flowers. Brocade. Gilded swords and the laughter of drunken men in the street below.
David was standing at the window, looking out over the low roofs of the colonial city. Had he ever been in this century before?
"No, never!" he said in awe. "Every surface is worked by hand, every measurement is irregular. How tenuous the hold of created things upon nature, as if it could slide back to the earth so easily."
"Leave, David," said Louis, "you don't belong here. We have to remain. There's nothing we can do."
"Now, that's a bit melodramatic," said Claudia. "Really." She wore that soiled little gown from the hospital. Well, I would soon fix that. I would sack the shops of laces and ribbons for her. I would buy silks for her, and tiny bracelets of silver, and rings set with pearls.
I put my arm around her. "Ah, how nice to hear someone speak the truth, "I said. "Such fine hair, and now it will be fine forever."
I tried to sit up again, but it seemed impossible. They were rushing an emergency case through the corridor, two nurses on either side, and someone struck the gurney and the vibration moved through me. Then it was quiet, and the hands on the big clock moved with a little jerk. The man next to me moaned, and turned his head. There was a huge white bandage over his eyes. How naked his mouth looked.
"We have to get these people into isolation," said a voice.
"Come on, now, I'm taking you home."
And Mojo, what had become of Mojo? Suppose they'd come to take him away? This was a century in which they incarcerated dogs, simply for being dogs. I had to explain this to her. She was lifting me, or trying to do it, slipping her arm around my shoulders. Mojo barking in the town house. Was he trapped?
Louis was sad. "There's plague out there in the city."
"But that can't hurt you, David," I said.
"You're right," he said. "But there are other things ..."
Claudia laughed. "She's in love with you, you know."
"You would have died of the plague," I said.
"Maybe it was not my time."
"Do you believe that, that we have our time?"
"No, actually I don't," she said. "Maybe it was just easier to blame you for everything. I never really knew right from wrong, you see."
"You had time to learn," I said.
"So have you, much more time than I ever had."