Chapter 36 My way home in your Vampire eyes
I felt an overwhelming desire to speak to him of these things. Of her fear, no, not yet, though I couldn't believe when I looked into his eyes that he'd tried to wield this power over her: his eyes said, Live. His eyes said, Learn. And oh, how much I wanted to confide to him the breadth of what I didn't understand; how, searching all these years, I'd been astonished to discover those vampires above had made of immortality a club of fads and cheap conformity. And yet through this sadness, this confusion, came the clear realization: Why should it be otherwise? What had I expected? What right had I to be so bitterly disappointed in Lestat that I would let him diet Because he wouldn't show me what I must find in myself? Armand's words, what had they been? The only power that exists is inside ourselves . . . .
" \`Listen to me,' he said now. \`You must stay away from them. Your face hides nothing. You would yield to me now were I to question you. Look into my eyes'
"I didn't do this. I fined my eyes firmly on one of those small paintings above his desk until it ceased to be the Madonna and Child and became a harmony of line and color. Because I knew what he was saying to me was true.
" \`Stop them if you will, advise them that we don't mean any harm. Why can't you do this? You say yourself we're not your enemies, no matter what we've done. '
"I could hear him sigh, faintly. \`I have stopped them for the time being,' he said. \`But I don't want such power over them as would be necessary to stop them entirely.
Because if I exercise such power, then I must protect it. I will make enemies. And I would have forever to deal with my enemies when all I want here as a certain space, a certain peace. Or not to be here at all. I accept the scepter of sorts they've given me, but not to rule over them, only to keep them at a distance.'
" \`I should have known,' I said, my eyes still fired on that painting.
" \`Then, you must stay away. Celeste has a great deal of power, being one of the oldest, and she is jealous of the child's beauty. And Santiago, as you can see, is only waiting for a shred of
proof that you're outlaws.'
"I turned slowly and looked at him again where he sat with that eerie vampire stillness, as if he were in fact not alive at all. The moment lengthened. I heard his words just as if he were speaking them again: \`All I want here is a certain space, a certain peace. (r)r not to be here at all.' And I felt a longing for him so strong that it took all my strength to contain it, merely to sit there gazing at him, fighting it. I wanted it to be this way: Claudia safe amongst these vampires somehow, guilty of no crime they might ever discover from her or anyone else, so that I might be free, free to remain forever in this cell as long as I could be welcome, even tolerated, allowed here on any condition whatsoever.
"I could see that mortal boy again as if he were not asleep on the bed but kneeling at Armand's side with his arms around Armand's neck. It was an icon for me of love.
The love I felt. Not physical love, you must understand. I don't speak of that at all, though Armand was beautiful and simple, and no intimacy with him would ever have been repellent. For vampires, physical love culminates and is satisfied in one thing, the kill. I speak of another kind of love which drew me to him completely as the teacher which Lestat had never been. Knowledge would never be withheld by Armand, I knew it. I would pass through him as through a pane of glass so that I might bask in it and absorb it and grow. I shut my eyes. And I thought I heard him speak, so faintly I wasn't certain. It seemed he said, \`Bo you know why I am here?'
"I looked up at him again, wondering if he knew my thoughts, could actually read them, if such could conceivably be the extent of that power. Now after all these years I could forgive Lestat for being nothing but an ordinary creature who could riot show me the uses of my powers; and yet I still longed for this, could fall into it without resistance. A sadness pervaded it all, sadness for my own weakness and my own awful dilemma. Claudia waited for me. Claudia, who was my daughter and my love. " \`What am I to do?' I whispered. \`Go away from them, go away from you? After all these years . .
" \`They don't matter to you,' he said "I smiled and nodded.
" \`What is it you want to do?' he asked. And his voice assumed the most gentle, sympathetic tone.
" \`Don't you know, don't you have that power?' I asked. \`Can't you read my thoughts as if they were words?'
"He shook his head. \`Not the way you mean. I only know the danger to you and the child is real because it's real to you. And I know your loneliness even with her love is almost more terrible than you can bear.'
"I stood up then. It would seem a simple thing to do, to rise, to go to the door, to hurry quickly down that passage; and yet it took every ounce of strength, every smattering of that curious thing I've called my detachment.
" \`I ask you to keep them away from us,' I said at the door; but I couldn't look back at him, didn't even want the soft intrusion of his voice.
" \`Don't go,' he said. " \`I have no choice.'
"I was in the passage when I heard him so close to me that I started. He stood beside me, eye level with my eye, and in his hand he held a key which he pressed into mine. " \`There is a door there,' he said, gesturing to the dark end, which I'd thought to be merely a wall. \`And a stairs to the side street which no one uses but myself. Go this way now, so you can avoid the others. You are anxious and they will see it' I turned around to go at once, though every part of my being wanted to remain there. 'But let me tell you this,' he said, and lightly he pressed the back of his hand against my heart.
\`Use the power inside you. Don't abhor it anymore. Use that power! And when they see you in the streets above, use that power to make your face a mask and think as you gaze on them as on anyone: beware. Take that word as if it were an amulet rd given you to wear about your neck. And when your eyes meet Santiago's eyes, or the eyes of any other vampire, speak to them politely what you will, but think of that word and that word only.