Blood Canticle by Anne Rice Page A

loose and shimmering and gaudy and glorious.
    She ran all about the room in little and big circles. One of those things guys can’t do????? Her balance was perfect. Just the beginning of her strength, and so some sense of frivolity inside of her wanted these impossible torturous slippers. Round and around, and then she froze against the far window:
    “Why on earth did you kill your mother?” she asked.
    Quinn stared at her. He seemed at a total loss. He went towards her in a great fluid gesture. He took her in his arms and pressed her to him as he’d done before and said nothing. Momentary fear. The mention of Patsy had enveloped him in darkness. Or maybe it was Aunt Queen’s finery.
    There came a loud rapping at the door. Jasmine’s voice followed:
    “You open up, Little Boss, and let me see that child, or I swear to God I’ll get the sheriff.”
    Cyndy’s sweet voice followed, so reasonable and kind. “Quinn? Quinn, please let me have a look at Mona?”
    “Pick her up,” I said to Quinn. “Carry her through them, past them, down the stairs and out the front door and into the car. I’m right with you.”

6
    W E WERE OUT OF THE HOUSE and on the road within three minutes, maybe less, moving on mortal time so as not to alarm any further the full chorus of those shouting at us. Mona had sense enough to pull up the shivering feathers of the wrapper over her face so that nothing could be seen of her but heaps of red hair and dangling bejeweled feet, and we made our exit with polished polite assurances to the clamoring herd, directing the profoundly indifferent Clem to head for New Orleans “immediately.”
    It was I who gave the command with a quick smile that elicited the driver’s sarcastic expression and shrug, but the mammoth limousine was soon rocking down the gravel drive, and Mona was between me and Quinn in the back seat, and then and only then did I begin to scan the city of New Orleans for possible victims.
    “I can hear the voices like the din from Hell,” I said. “Toughen up, baby. I’m looking for the eternal scum. Call them grim soulless mortals feeding off the downtrodden or the downtrodden feeding off each other. I always wonder—and never learn—whether or not the genuine Power Thugs ever stop to look at the violet evening sky or the overhead branches of an oak. Crack peddlers, child killers, teenaged gangsters for a fatal fifteen minutes, the morgue’s never empty in our town, it’s an eternal brew of calculated malice mixed with moral ignorance.”
    Mona dreamed, staring out the windows, caught up in every shift of the landscape. Quinn could hear the distant voices. Quinn could tune in from afar. Quinn was anxious, so in love with her, but far from happy.
    The car gained speed as it took to the highway.
    Mona gasped. She slipped her fingers around my left arm. You can never tell just what a fledgling will do. It’s all so intoxicating.
    “Listen,” I said. “Quinn and I are listening.”
    “I hear them,” she said. “I can’t take one thread from the knots, I can’t. But look at the trees. There’s no tint on these windows. Mayfairs always tint their limousine windows.”
    “That was not Aunt Queen’s way,” said Quinn, staring forward, washed in the voices. “She wanted the clear glass so she could see out. She didn’t care if people looked in.”
    “I keep waiting for it all to settle,” Mona whispered.
    “It never will,” said Quinn. “It only gets better and better.”
    “Then trust me,” she said to him, her fingers tightening on my arm. “Don’t be so afraid for me. I have requests.”
    “Hit me with them, go on,” I said.
    “I want to go past my house—I mean the Mayfair house on First and Chestnut. I’ve been in te hospital for two years. I haven’t seen it.”
    “No,” I said. “Rowan will sense your presence. She won’t know what you are any more than she knew at Blackwood Manor. But she’ll know you’re close. We’re not going there.