Merrick (29 page)

Merrick laid aside the cursed skull and the perforator.

From the table she lifted the gold pitcher of honey, and poured it into the jeweled chalice. This she lifted with her bloody right hand as she went on:

“Ah, yes, all you lonely spirits, and you, Honey, and you, Claudia, smell this sweet offering—Honey, the very substance after which you in your beauty were named.” Into the cauldron she poured the thick sparkling liquid.

Then she lifted the pitcher of milk. Into the chalice it went, and then she lifted the chalice, gathering up the deadly perforator again in her left hand.

“And this, too, I offer you, so delicious to your desperate senses, come here and breathe this sacrifice, drink of this milk and honey, drink it from the smoke that rises from my cauldron. Here, it comes to you through this chalice which once contained The Blood of Our Lord. Here, partake of it. Do not refuse me. I am Merrick, daughter of Cold Sandra. Come, Honey, I command you, and bring Claudia to me. I will not be denied.”

A loud breath came from Louis.

In the circle before the statues, something amorphous and dark had taken shape. I felt my heart skipping as my eyes strained to make it out. It was the form of Honey, it was the very figure which I had seen many years before. It flickered and wavered in the heat as Merrick chanted:

“Come, Honey, come closer, come in answer to me. Where is Claudia, daughter of Agatha? Bring her here to Louis de Pointe du Lac, I command you. I cannot be denied.”

The figure was almost solid! I saw the familiar yellow hair, the candlelight behind it rendering it transparent, the white dress more spectral than the solid outline of the body itself. I was too stunned to utter the prayers that Merrick had forbidden. The words never formed on my lips.

Suddenly Merrick laid down the skull. She turned and caught Louis’s left arm with her bloodstained hand.

I saw his white wrist above the cauldron. With a swift movement, she slashed at his wrist. I heard him gasp again, and I saw the glittering vampiric blood gushing from the veins into the rising smoke. Again she gashed the white flesh and again the blood flowed, thickly, freely, and more abundantly than her own blood before.

In no way did Louis resist her. Mute, he stared at the figure of Honey.

“Honey, my beloved sister,” said Merrick, “bring Claudia. Bring Claudia to Louis de Pointe du Lac. I am Merrick, your sister. I command you. Honey, show your power!” Her voice became low, crooning. “Honey, show your immense strength! Bring Claudia here now.”

Again, she cut the wrist, for the preternatural flesh was healing just as soon as she opened it, and she again made the blood flow.

“Savor this blood which is shed for you, Claudia. I call your name and your name only now, Claudia. I would have you here!” Once more the wound was opened.

But now she gave over the perforator to Louis, and she lifted the doll in both her hands.

I glanced from Merrick to the solid image of Honey, so dark, so distant, so seemingly without human movement.

“Your possessions, my sweet Claudia,” Merrick called out, snatching up a twig from the fire and lighting the clothes of the unfortunate doll, which all but exploded in a draught of flames. The little face turned black in the blaze. Still Merrick held it with both hands.

The figure of Honey suddenly began to dissolve.

Into the cauldron Merrick dropped the burning object, and then lifted the page of the diary, as she continued to speak.

“Your words, my sweet Claudia, accept this offering, accept this acknowledgment, accept this devotion.” She dipped the page into the fire of the brazier, then held it aloft as it was consumed.

The ashes fell into the cauldron. She took up the perforator once again.

The form of Honey lingered only in shape and then appeared to be blown away by the natural breeze. Again the candles blazed violently before the statues.

“Claudia, daughter of Agatha,” said Merrick, “I command you, come forward, become material, answer me from the whirlwind, answer your servant Merrick—all you angels and saints, and Blessed Mother Ever Virgin compel Claudia, compel her to answer my command.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off the smoky darkness. Honey was gone but something else had taken her place. The very gloom seemed to shape itself into a smaller figure, indistinct but gathering strength as it appeared to extend its small arms and move towards the table behind which we stood. It was above the ground, this small being, the sudden glint of its eye on our level and its feet walking on nothing as it proceeded towards us, its hands becoming clearly visible, as well as its shining golden hair.

It was Claudia, it was the child of the daguerreotype, it was white-faced and delicate, its eyes wide and brilliant, its skin luminous, its loose and flowing white garments soft and ruffled by the wind.

I stepped backwards. I couldn’t stop myself, but the figure had stopped; it remained suspended above the ground and its pale arms relaxed and fell naturally at its sides. It was as solid in the dim light as Honey had been so many years before.

Its small stunning features were filled with a look of love and quickening sensibility. It was a child, a living child. It was undeniable. It was there.

A voice came out of it, fresh and sweet, a girl’s natural treble:

“Why have you called me, Louis?” it asked with heartbreaking sincerity. “Why have you roused me from my wandering sleep for your own consolation? Why wasn’t memory enough?”

I was weak almost to fainting.

The child’s eyes flashed suddenly on Merrick. The voice came again with its tender clarity:

“Stop now with your chants and commands. I do not answer to you, Merrick Mayfair. I come for the one who stands to the right of you. I come demanding why you’ve called me, Louis; what is it that you would have me give you now? In life did I not give you all my love?”

“Claudia,” Louis murmured in a tortured voice. “Where is your spirit? Is it at rest or does it wander? Would you have me come to you? Claudia, I’m ready to do it. Claudia I’m ready to be at your side.”

“You? Come to me?” the child asked. The little voice had taken on a dark deliberate coloration. “You, after all those many years of evil tutelage, you think that I in death would be united with you?” The voice went on, its timbre sweet as if saying words of love. “I loathe you, evil Father,” it confided. A dark laughter came from the small lips.

“Father, understand me,” she whispered, her face infected with the tenderest expression. “I never could find words to tell you truths when I was living.” There was the sound of breath, and a visible despair seemed to wrap itself about the creature. “In this measureless place I have no use for such curses,” said the voice, with touching simplicity. “What is it to me, the love you lavished on me once in a vibrant and feverish world?”

On she went as if consoling him.

“You want vows from me,” she said with seeming wonder, her whisper growing softer. “And from the coldest heart imaginable I condemn you—condemn you that you took my life—” the voice was fatigued, defeated “—condemn you that you had no charity for the mortal I once was, condemn you that you saw in me only what filled your eyes and insatiable veins . . . condemn you that you brought me over into the lively Hell which you and Lestat so richly shared.”

The small solid figure moved closer, the luminous face of plump cheeks and lustrous eyes now directly before the cauldron, the tiny hands curled but not raised. I lifted my hand. I wanted to touch this shape, so vivid was it. Yet I wanted to back away from it, shield myself somehow from it, shield Louis, as if such a thing could be done.

“Take your life, yes,” she said with her relentless tenderness, her eyes large and wondering—“give it up in memory of me, yes, I would have you do it, I would have you give over to me your last breath. Do it with pain for me, Louis, do it with pain that I may see your spirit through the whirlwind, struggling to free itself from your tormented flesh.”

Louis reached out for her, but Merrick caught his wrist and pushed him back.

The child continued, her words unhurried, her tone solicitous as she went on:

“Oh, how it will warm my soul to see you suffer, oh, how it will speed me on my endless wanderings. Never would I linger to be with you here. Never would I wish for it. Never would I seek you out in the abyss.”

Her face was stamped with the purest curiosity as she looked at him. There was nothing of visible hatred in her expression at all.

“Such pride,” she whispered, smiling, “that you would call me out of your habitual misery. Such pride that you would bring me here to answer your common prayers.” There came a small chilling laughter.

“How immense is your self-pity,” she said, “that you don’t fear me, when I—had I the power from this witch or any other—would take your life with my own hands.” She lifted her little hands to her face as if she would weep in them, and then let them drop to her sides again.

“Die for me, my doting one,” she said tremulously. “I think I shall like it. I shall like it as much as I liked the sufferings of Lestat, which I can scarce remember. I think, yes, that I might know pleasure once again, briefly, in your pain. Now, if you are done with me, done with my toys and your memories, release me that I may return to forgetfulness. I cannot recall the terms of my perdition. I fear I understand eternity. Let me go.”

All at once, she moved forward, her small right hand snatching up the jade perforator from the iron table, and with a great lunge, she flew at Louis, thrusting the perforator into his chest.

He fell forward over the makeshift altar, his right hand clutching at the wound in which she ground the jade pick, the cauldron spilling over onto the stones beneath her, Merrick backing up in seeming horror, and I unable to move.

The blood gushed out of Louis’s heart. His face was knotted, his mouth open, his eyes shut.

“Forgive me,” he whispered. He gave a soft groan of pure and terrible pain.

“Go back to Hell!” cried Merrick, suddenly. She ran at the floating image, arms out to reach over the cauldron, but the child withdrew with the ease of vapor, and, still clutching the jade pick, she lifted her right hand and knocked Merrick back with it, the frigid little face all the while quite still.

Merrick stumbled on the back steps of the house. I caught her arm and lifted her back on her feet.

Again, the child turned to Louis as she held the dangerous pick in both her small hands. Down the front of her sheer white dress was the dark stain from the boiling fluids of the cauldron. It meant nothing to her.

The cauldron, on its side, poured forth its contents onto the stones.

“Did you think I wasn’t suffering, Father?” she asked softly in the same small girlish voice. “Did you think that death had freed me from all my pain?” Her small finger touched the point of the jade instrument. “That’s what you thought, wasn’t it, Father,” she spoke slowly, “and that, if this woman did your will, you’d take away some precious consolation from my very lips. You believed that God would give you that, didn’t you? It seemed so very right for you after all your penitential years.”

Louis still held his wound, though his flesh was healing and the blood oozed more slowly out of his splayed hand.

“The gates can’t be locked to you, Claudia,” he said, the tears rising in his eyes. His voice was strong and sure. “That would be too monstrous a cruelty—.”

“To whom, Father?” she answered, cutting off his words. “Too monstrous a cruelty to you? I suffer, Father, I suffer and I wander; I know nothing, and all I once knew seems illusory! I have nothing, Father. My senses are not even a memory. I have nothing here at all.”

The voice grew weaker, yet it was clearly audible. Her exquisite face was infused with a look of discovery.

“Did you think I’d tell you nursery stories about Lestat’s angels?” she asked with a low kindly tone. “Did you think I’d paint a picture of the glassy heavens with palaces and mansions? Did you think I’d sing to you some song learnt from the Morning Stars? No, Father, you will not draw such ethereal comfort from me.”

On went her subdued voice:

“And when you come following me I shall be lost again, Father. How can I promise that I shall be there to witness your cries or tears?”

The image had begun to waver. Her large dark eyes fixed upon Merrick, and then on me. Back to Louis she looked. She was fading. The perforator fell from her white hand and struck the stones, breaking in two.

“Come, Louis,” she said faintly, the sound of her invitation mingling with the softly stirring trees, “come into this dreary place with me, and leave behind your comforts—leave behind your wealth, your dreams, your blood-soaked pleasures. Leave behind your ever hungry eyes. Leave it all, my beloved, leave it for this dim and insubstantial realm.”

The figure was rigid and flat, the light barely shining upon its uncertain contours. I could scarcely see the small mouth as it smiled.

“Claudia, please, I beg you,” said Louis. “Merrick, don’t let her go into uncertain darkness. Merrick, guide her!”

But Merrick did not move.

Louis turned frantically from Merrick to the fading image.

“Claudia!” he cried out. With all his soul he wanted to say more, but there was no conviction in him. All was despair. I could feel it. I could read it on his stricken face.

Merrick stood back, staring through the gleaming jade mask, her left hand poised in the air as if to fend off the ghost if it should strike again.

“Come to me, Father,” said the child, the voice toneless now, devoid of feeling. The image was transparent, dim.

The outline of the small face slowly evaporated. Only the eyes held their luster.

“Come to me,” she whispered, her voice dry and thin. “Come, do it with deep pain, as your offering. You’ll never find me. Come.”

Only a dark shape remained for a few moments, and then the space was empty, and the yard with its shrine and with its tall forbidding trees was still.

I could see no more of her. The candles, what had happened to them? They had all gone out. The burning incense was so much soot on the flagstones. The breeze had scattered it. A great shower of tiny leaves came down languidly from the branches, and the air was full of a subtle yet biting cold.