Page 17 (2/2)
“Lestat, meantime, hired a butler and reat fountain in the courtyard with a stone nyoldfish brought and boxes of rooted water lilies set into the fountain so their blosso water
“A woman had seen him kill on the Nyades Road, which ran to the town of Carrolton, and there were stories of it in the papers, associating him with a haunted house near Nyades and Melpohost for soes; and then he perforrisly ination of New Orleans to working But all this had about it some quality of fear He was pensive, suspicious, drew close to one, and what she was doing
“ ‘She’ll be all right,’ I assured hiony, as if she’d been my bride She hardly saw ht walk ahile I spoke to her
“ ‘She had better be all right!’ he said nastily
“ ‘And ill you do if she’s not?’ I asked, more in fear than accusation
“He looked up at ray eyes ‘You take care of her, Louis You talk to her!’ he said ‘Everything was perfect, and now this There’s no need for it’
“But it was my choice to let her co when I’d just awakened The house was dark I saw her standing by the French s; she wore puffed sleeves and a pink sash, and atching with lowered lashes the evening rush in the Rue Royale I could hear Lestat in his roo frone came and went like the sound of music fro,’ she said softly I hadn’t realized she knew that I had opened my eyes I came towards her and knelt beside her ‘You’ll tell me, won’t you? Hoas done’
“ ‘Is this what you truly want to know?’ I asked, searching her face ‘Or is it why it was done to you… and what you were before? I don’t understand what you mean by “how,” for if you mean hoas it done so that you in turn may do it…’
“ ‘I don’t even knohat it is What you’re saying,’ she said with a touch of coldness Then she turned full around and put her hands on ht,’ she whispered as sensuously as a lover ‘And tell me all that you know What are we? Why are we not like them?’ She looked down into the street
“ ‘I don’t know the answers to your questions,’ I said to her Her face contorted suddenly, as if she were straining to hear me over a sudden noise And then she shook her head But I went on ‘I wonder the sas you wonder I do not knoas made, I’ll tell you that… that Lestat did it to me But the real “how” of it, I don’t know!’ Her face had that sa in it the first traces of fear, or so worse and deeper than fear ‘Claudia,’ I said to her, putting ainstto tell you Don’t ask these questions You’ve been my companion for countless years in my search for all that I could learn of mortal life and mortal creation Don’t be ive us the answers And I have none’
“I could see she could not accept this, but I hadn’t expected the convulsive turning away, the violence hich she tore at her own hair for an instant and then stopped as if the gesture were useless, stupid It filledat the sky It was s fast from the direction of the river She made a sudden movement of her lips as if she’d bitten into the, she said, ‘Then heso dreadful about her expression, I’d left her before Ia single candle in front of the tallwhich startled loo its three-dimensional reality: a weathered skull I stared at it It smelled faintly of the earth still, but had been scrubbed ‘Why don’t you answer o out to kill at once, at least to find the kill I would not
“I would let the first hours of the evening accurew alive myself to it all the ain clearly, as though it had been floating in the air like the reverberation of a bell… and felt‘He didfro he hints at when I question him He says that it could not have been done without you!’
“I foundher as if the words were lashinght went throughshould remain of ht from the street her eyes, like two dark flames in her white face A doll from whom someone had cruelly ripped the eyes and replaced the towards her, whispering her na towards her, then away frolove on the door which was phosphorescent in the shadows, and for just a ht it a tiny, severed hand
“ ‘What’s theup into my face ‘What has always been the love?’ She asked this gently, but… not gently enough
“There was a slight calculation in her voice, an unreachable detachment