[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
The cold had begun to annoy me. To be almost humanly painful.
I wanted to go inside.
3
I WALKED on only a few steps, saw revolving doors, pushed
into the lobby of someplace or other, a restaurant I think, and
found myself sitting at the bar. Just what I wanted, half empty,
very dark, too warm, bottles glittering in the center of the circular
counter. Some comforting noise from the diners beyond the open
doors.
I put my elbows on the bar, my heels hooked on the brass rail. I sat
there on die stool shivering, listening to mortals talk, listening to
nothing, listening to the inevitable sloth and stupidity of a bar, head
down, sunglasses gone damn, I had lost my violet glasses! yes,
nice and dark here, very, very dark, a kind of late-night languor lying
over everything, a club of some sort? I didn't know, didn't care.
"Drink, sir?" Lazy, arrogant face.
I named a mineral water. And as soon as he set down the glass, I
dipped my fingers into it and washed them. He was gone already.
Wouldn't have cared if I had started baptizing babies with the water.
Other customers were scattered at tables in the darkness ... a woman
crying in some far-off corner and a man telling her harshly that she
was attracting attention. She wasn't. Nobody gave a damn.
I washed my mouth off with the napkin and water.
"More water," I said. I pushed the polluted glass away from me.
Sluggishly, he acknowledged my request, young blood, bland
personality, ambitionless life, then drifted off.
I heard a little laugh nearby . . . the man to my right, two stools
away, perhaps, who'd been there when I came in, youngish, scentless.
Utterly scentless, which was most strange.
In annoyance I turned and looked at him.
"Going to run again?" he whispered. It was the Victim.
It was Roger, sitting there on the stool.
He wasn't broken or battered or dead. He was complete with his
head and his hands. He wasn't there. He only appeared to be there,
very solid and very quiet, and he smiled at me, thrilled by my terror.
"What's the matter, Lestat?" he asked in that voice I so loved
after six months of listening to it. "No one in all these centuries has
ever come back to haunt you?"
I said nothing. Not there. No, not there. Material, but not the
same material as anything else. David's word. Different fabric. I
stiffened. That's a pathetic understatement. I was rigid with incredulity
and rage.
He got up and moved over onto the stool close to me. He was
getting more distinct and detailed by the second. Now I could catch
something like a sound coming from him, a sound of something alive,
or organized, but certainly no breathing human being.
"And in a few minutes more I'll be strong enough perhaps to ask
for a cigarette or a glass of wine," he said.
He reached into his coat, a favorite coat, not the one in which I'd
killed him, another coat made for him in Paris, that he liked, and he
drew out his flashy little gold lighter and made the flame shoot up,
very blue and dangerous, butane.
He looked at me. I could see that his black curly hair was combed,
his eyes very clear. Handsome Roger. His voice sounded exactly the
way it had when he was alive: international, originless, New Orleans-
born and world-traveled. No British fastidiousness, and no Southern
patience. His precise, quick voice.
"I'm quite serious," he said. "You mean in all these years, not one
single victim has ever come back to haunt you?"
"No," I said.
"You're amazing. You really won't tolerate being afraid for a
moment, will you?"
"No."
Now he appeared completely solid. I had no idea whether anyone
else could see him. No idea, but I suspected they could. He looked
like anyone might look. I could see the buttons on his white cuffs,
and the soft white flash of his collar at the back of the neck, where the
fine hair came down over it. I could see his eyelashes, which had
always been extraordinarily long.
The bartender returned and set down the water glass for me,
without looking at him. I still wasn't sure. The kid was too rude for
that to be proof of anything except that I was in New York.
"How are you doing this?" I asked.
"The same way any other ghost does it," he said. "I'm dead. I've
been dead for over an hour and a half now, and I have to talk to you!
I don't know how long I can stay here, I don't know when I'll start
to ... God knows what, but you have to listen to me."
"Why?" I demanded.
"Don't be so nasty," he whispered, appearing truly hurt. "You
murdered me."
"And you? The people you've killed, Dora's mother? She ever
come back to demand an audience with you?"
"Ooh, I knew it. I knew it!" he said. He was visibly shaken. "You
know about Dora! God in Heaven, take my soul to Hell, but don't let
him hurt Dora."
"Stop being absurd. I wouldn't hurt Dora. It was you I was after.
I've followed you around the world. If it hadn't been for a passing
respect for Dora, I would have killed you long before now."
The bartender had reappeared. This brought the most ecstatic
smile to my companion's lips. He looked right at the kid.
"Yes, my dear boy, let me see, the very last drink unless I'm very
badly mistaken, make it bourbon. I grew up in the South. What do
you have? No, I'll tell you what, son, just make it Southern
Comfort." His laugh was private and convivial and soft.
The bartender moved on, and Roger turned his furious eyes on
me. "You have to listen to me, whatever the Hell you are, vampire,
demon, devil, I don't care, you cannot hurt my daughter."
"I don't intend to hurt her. I would never hurt her. Go on to hell,
you'll feel better. Good night."
"You smug son of a bitch. How many years do you think I had?"
Droplets of sweat were breaking out on his face. His hair was moving
a little in the natural draft through the room.
"I couldn't give less of a damn!" I said. "You were a meal worth
waiting for."
"You've got quite a swagger, don't you?" he said acidly. "But
you're nothing as shallow as you pretend to be."
"Oh, you don't think so? Try me. You may find me 'as sounding
brass or a tinkling cymbal.' "
That gave him pause.
It gave me pause too. Where did those words come from? Why
did they roll off my tongue like that? I was not likely to use that sort
of imagery!
He was absorbing all this, my preoccupation, my obvious self-
doubt. How did it manifest itself, I wonder? Did I sag or fade slightly
as some mortals do, or did I merely look confused?
The bartender gave him the drink. Very tentatively now, he was
trying to put his fingers around it and lift it. He managed and got it to
his lips and took a taste. He was amazed, and thankful, and suddenly
so full of fear that he almost disintegrated. The illusion was almost
completely dispersed.
But he held firm. This was so obviously the person I had just
killed, hacked to pieces and buried all over Manhattan, that I felt
physically sick staring at him. I realized only one thing was saving me
from panic. He was talking to me. What had David said once, when
he was alive, about talking to me? That he wouldn't kill a vampire
because the vampire could talk to him? And this damned ghost was
talking to me.
"I have to talk to you about Dora," he said.
"I told you I will never hurt her, or anyone like her," I said.
"Look, what are you doing here with me! When you appeared, you
didn't even know that I knew about Dora! You wanted to tell me
about Dora?"
"Depth, I've been murdered by a being with depth, how
fortunate, someone who actually keenly appreciated my death, no?" He
drank more of the sweet-smelling Southern Comfort. "This was
Janis Joplin's drink, you know," he said, referring to the dead singer
whom I, too, had loved. "Look, listen to me out of curiosity, I don't [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl rafalstec.xlx.pl
The cold had begun to annoy me. To be almost humanly painful.
I wanted to go inside.
3
I WALKED on only a few steps, saw revolving doors, pushed
into the lobby of someplace or other, a restaurant I think, and
found myself sitting at the bar. Just what I wanted, half empty,
very dark, too warm, bottles glittering in the center of the circular
counter. Some comforting noise from the diners beyond the open
doors.
I put my elbows on the bar, my heels hooked on the brass rail. I sat
there on die stool shivering, listening to mortals talk, listening to
nothing, listening to the inevitable sloth and stupidity of a bar, head
down, sunglasses gone damn, I had lost my violet glasses! yes,
nice and dark here, very, very dark, a kind of late-night languor lying
over everything, a club of some sort? I didn't know, didn't care.
"Drink, sir?" Lazy, arrogant face.
I named a mineral water. And as soon as he set down the glass, I
dipped my fingers into it and washed them. He was gone already.
Wouldn't have cared if I had started baptizing babies with the water.
Other customers were scattered at tables in the darkness ... a woman
crying in some far-off corner and a man telling her harshly that she
was attracting attention. She wasn't. Nobody gave a damn.
I washed my mouth off with the napkin and water.
"More water," I said. I pushed the polluted glass away from me.
Sluggishly, he acknowledged my request, young blood, bland
personality, ambitionless life, then drifted off.
I heard a little laugh nearby . . . the man to my right, two stools
away, perhaps, who'd been there when I came in, youngish, scentless.
Utterly scentless, which was most strange.
In annoyance I turned and looked at him.
"Going to run again?" he whispered. It was the Victim.
It was Roger, sitting there on the stool.
He wasn't broken or battered or dead. He was complete with his
head and his hands. He wasn't there. He only appeared to be there,
very solid and very quiet, and he smiled at me, thrilled by my terror.
"What's the matter, Lestat?" he asked in that voice I so loved
after six months of listening to it. "No one in all these centuries has
ever come back to haunt you?"
I said nothing. Not there. No, not there. Material, but not the
same material as anything else. David's word. Different fabric. I
stiffened. That's a pathetic understatement. I was rigid with incredulity
and rage.
He got up and moved over onto the stool close to me. He was
getting more distinct and detailed by the second. Now I could catch
something like a sound coming from him, a sound of something alive,
or organized, but certainly no breathing human being.
"And in a few minutes more I'll be strong enough perhaps to ask
for a cigarette or a glass of wine," he said.
He reached into his coat, a favorite coat, not the one in which I'd
killed him, another coat made for him in Paris, that he liked, and he
drew out his flashy little gold lighter and made the flame shoot up,
very blue and dangerous, butane.
He looked at me. I could see that his black curly hair was combed,
his eyes very clear. Handsome Roger. His voice sounded exactly the
way it had when he was alive: international, originless, New Orleans-
born and world-traveled. No British fastidiousness, and no Southern
patience. His precise, quick voice.
"I'm quite serious," he said. "You mean in all these years, not one
single victim has ever come back to haunt you?"
"No," I said.
"You're amazing. You really won't tolerate being afraid for a
moment, will you?"
"No."
Now he appeared completely solid. I had no idea whether anyone
else could see him. No idea, but I suspected they could. He looked
like anyone might look. I could see the buttons on his white cuffs,
and the soft white flash of his collar at the back of the neck, where the
fine hair came down over it. I could see his eyelashes, which had
always been extraordinarily long.
The bartender returned and set down the water glass for me,
without looking at him. I still wasn't sure. The kid was too rude for
that to be proof of anything except that I was in New York.
"How are you doing this?" I asked.
"The same way any other ghost does it," he said. "I'm dead. I've
been dead for over an hour and a half now, and I have to talk to you!
I don't know how long I can stay here, I don't know when I'll start
to ... God knows what, but you have to listen to me."
"Why?" I demanded.
"Don't be so nasty," he whispered, appearing truly hurt. "You
murdered me."
"And you? The people you've killed, Dora's mother? She ever
come back to demand an audience with you?"
"Ooh, I knew it. I knew it!" he said. He was visibly shaken. "You
know about Dora! God in Heaven, take my soul to Hell, but don't let
him hurt Dora."
"Stop being absurd. I wouldn't hurt Dora. It was you I was after.
I've followed you around the world. If it hadn't been for a passing
respect for Dora, I would have killed you long before now."
The bartender had reappeared. This brought the most ecstatic
smile to my companion's lips. He looked right at the kid.
"Yes, my dear boy, let me see, the very last drink unless I'm very
badly mistaken, make it bourbon. I grew up in the South. What do
you have? No, I'll tell you what, son, just make it Southern
Comfort." His laugh was private and convivial and soft.
The bartender moved on, and Roger turned his furious eyes on
me. "You have to listen to me, whatever the Hell you are, vampire,
demon, devil, I don't care, you cannot hurt my daughter."
"I don't intend to hurt her. I would never hurt her. Go on to hell,
you'll feel better. Good night."
"You smug son of a bitch. How many years do you think I had?"
Droplets of sweat were breaking out on his face. His hair was moving
a little in the natural draft through the room.
"I couldn't give less of a damn!" I said. "You were a meal worth
waiting for."
"You've got quite a swagger, don't you?" he said acidly. "But
you're nothing as shallow as you pretend to be."
"Oh, you don't think so? Try me. You may find me 'as sounding
brass or a tinkling cymbal.' "
That gave him pause.
It gave me pause too. Where did those words come from? Why
did they roll off my tongue like that? I was not likely to use that sort
of imagery!
He was absorbing all this, my preoccupation, my obvious self-
doubt. How did it manifest itself, I wonder? Did I sag or fade slightly
as some mortals do, or did I merely look confused?
The bartender gave him the drink. Very tentatively now, he was
trying to put his fingers around it and lift it. He managed and got it to
his lips and took a taste. He was amazed, and thankful, and suddenly
so full of fear that he almost disintegrated. The illusion was almost
completely dispersed.
But he held firm. This was so obviously the person I had just
killed, hacked to pieces and buried all over Manhattan, that I felt
physically sick staring at him. I realized only one thing was saving me
from panic. He was talking to me. What had David said once, when
he was alive, about talking to me? That he wouldn't kill a vampire
because the vampire could talk to him? And this damned ghost was
talking to me.
"I have to talk to you about Dora," he said.
"I told you I will never hurt her, or anyone like her," I said.
"Look, what are you doing here with me! When you appeared, you
didn't even know that I knew about Dora! You wanted to tell me
about Dora?"
"Depth, I've been murdered by a being with depth, how
fortunate, someone who actually keenly appreciated my death, no?" He
drank more of the sweet-smelling Southern Comfort. "This was
Janis Joplin's drink, you know," he said, referring to the dead singer
whom I, too, had loved. "Look, listen to me out of curiosity, I don't [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]