Prince Lestat by Anne Rice Read Free Book Online Page A

answered quietly. He raised his eyebrows. He looked elegant in the long white
thawb
with its neat collar, rather priestly in it in fact. “And I can protect Fareed from them.”
    He seemed completely sure of it.
    “Long centuries ago,” he said, “there were two warring camps, as the Queen told you. The twins and their friend Khayman, they were known as the First Brood, and they fought the cult of the Mother. But I was made by her to fight the First Brood, and I have more of her blood in me than they ever had. Queens Blood, that is what we were aptly called, and she brought me for one very important reason: I was her son, born to her when she was human.”
    A dark chill ran through me. For a long time I couldn’t speak, couldn’t think.
    “Her son?” I finally whispered.
    “I do not hate them,” he said. “I never wanted even in those times to fight them, really. I was a healer. I did not ask for the Blood. Indeed I begged my mother to spare me, but you know what she was. You know how she would be obeyed. You know as well as anyone from those times knows those things. And she brought me into the Blood. And as I said, I do not fear those who fought against her. I am as strong as they are.”
    I remained in awe. I could see in him now a resemblance to her, see it in the symmetry of his features, the special curve of his lips. But I couldn’t sense
her
in him at all.
    “As a healer, I traveled the world in my human life,” he said, responding to me, to my thoughts. His eyes were gentle. “I soughtto learn all I could in the cities of the two rivers; I went far into the northern forests. I wanted to learn, to understand, to know, to bring back with me great healers to Egypt. My mother had no use for such things. She was convinced of her own divinity and blind to the miracles of the natural world.”
    How well I understood.
    It was time for me to be taking my leave. How long he could withstand the coming dawn, I didn’t know. But I was about spent, and it was time to seek shelter.
    “I thank you for welcoming me here,” I said.
    “You come to us anytime that you wish,” he said. He gave me his hand. I stared into his eyes, and I felt strongly again that I did see his resemblance to Akasha, though she had been far more delicate, far more conventionally beautiful. He had a fierce and cold light in his eyes.
    He smiled.
    “I wish I had something to give you,” I said. “I wish I had something to offer you in return.”
    “Oh, but you gave us much.”
    “What? Those samples?” I scoffed. “I meant hospitality, warmth, something. I am passing through. I’ve been passing through for the longest time.”
    “You did give us both something else,” he said. “Though you do not know it.”
    “What?”
    “From your mind we learned that what you wrote of the Queen of the Damned was true. We had to know if you described truthfully what you saw when my mother died. You see, we could not entirely fathom it. It is not so easy to decapitate one so powerful. We are so strong. Surely you know this.”
    “Well, yes, but even the oldest flesh can be pierced, sliced.” I stopped. I swallowed. I couldn’t speak of this in such a crude and unfeeling way. I couldn’t think of that spectacle again—her severed head, and the body, the body struggling to get to the head, arms reaching.
    “And now you do know,” I said. I took a deep breath and banished all that from my mind. “I described it precisely.”
    He nodded. A dark shadow passed over his face. “We can always be dispatched in that way,” he said. He narrowed his eyes as if reflecting.“Decapitation. Surer than immolation when we’re speaking of the ancient ones, of the most ancient.…”
    A silence fell between us.
    “I loved her, you know,” I said. “I
loved
her.”
    “Yes, I do know,” he said, “and, you see, I did not. And so this doesn’t matter to me very much. What matters much more is that I love you.”
    I was deeply moved. But I