Anne Rice - Servant of the Bones

That is not delicate, but the direct arousal of passion I felt for this woman—the strengthening that came to me from this water—this was new.

It struck me with total clarity that I had to find out just how strong I was on my own, and I hadn’t taken any serious steps to do so. I felt as strong in the presence of this woman’s carnal attraction to me as I had in Gregory’s fascination.

As I put the bottle down, I realized I had let drops of water fall on the papers and magazines. I looked at them.

Then I saw what had so concerned the others about these magazines. The pictures on them were of Esther at the worst moment. There were pictures of Esther almost dead!

Yes, there on the cover of one newsmagazine was the picture of Esther on her stretcher, and the crowds around her.

Someone said we were on course for Miami and cleared for an immediate landing when we got there.

“Miami.” The sound made me laugh. “Miami.” It was like a joke word you say to little children to make them laugh. “Miami.”

The plane was bouncing along. But the pale-eyed girl came with another bottle of water. It was cold. It didn’t need the ice. I took it and drank it in easy patient swallows.

I sat back, filling with the water. Oh, this was the most divine moment, a moment almost on a par with kissing Rachel, to feel this water move down my throat and through the coils inside of me made by will and by magic. I breathed deep.

I opened my eyes, and saw that Rachel was watching me. The girl was gone. The glasses were gone. The only water that remained was the bottle I clutched in my hands.

A great pressure bore down on me, fondling me, pushing me against the leather, and teasing me almost with a sweet strength that was mysterious.

The plane was rising fast into the sky, very fast. The pressure increased and my head suddenly ached, but this I sent away from me. I looked at her. She sat still as if praying, as if this were a ceremonial moment, and she did not speak or move until the plane had found some comfortable height and ceased to rise.

I knew the moment by the way she relaxed, and by the sounds of the engines. I didn’t much like this plane. Yet the experience was thrilling.

You’re alive, Azriel, you are alive! I must have laughed. Or maybe I wept. I needed more water. No, I would have liked to have more water. I needed nothing.

But I had to know what Gregory was doing with my bones. Was he trying at this very moment to call me back? He had to be doing something, though I felt no reverberations. I wanted to know. And I also wanted to know if, strong as this body was, I could at will dissolve it and recall it. I wanted badly to know.

I ran my tongue on my lips, which were cold from the water. I realized that my attraction to this woman, this delicate pale creature, had brought my anger and my confusion to the limit. I had to stop wondering about this and that and simply declare myself master. That’s what I had to do. I wanted her. It was all connected in a human way—the carnal desire for her, and the desire to strive against Gregory and defy him, prove to myself he did not control me merely because the bones were now in his possession.

“You’re frightened,” Rachel said. “Don’t be frightened of the plane. The plane is routine.” Then a mischievous smile came on her again, and she said, “Of course it could explode at any minute, but, well, so far, it never has.” She gave an easy bitter laugh.

“Listen, you have an expression in English, kill two birds with one stone?” I said. “I’m going to do it. I’m going to leave you now, and come back. That will prove to you that I’m a spirit and you’ll stop worrying that you’re consorting in desperation with a madman, and also I’ll find out what Gregory is up to. Because he does have those bones, and he is a strange, strange man.”

“You’re going to disappear from here? Inside this plane?”

“Yes. Now tell me our destination in Miami. What is Miami? I’ll meet you at the door of your home in Miami.”

“Don’t try this,” she said.

“I have to. We can’t go on with your suspicions. I see now Esther is like a diamond herself in the middle of a huge necklace, and the necklace is intricate. Where are we going? Where do I find Miami?”

“Tip end of the East Coast of the United States. My home is in a tower at the very end of the town called Miami Beach. It’s in a high-rise. I’m on the top floor. There is a pink beacon on the tower above my apartment. Further south are the islands called the Florida Keys and then the Caribbean.”

“That’s enough; I’ll see you there.”

I looked down at the spilled droplets of water, at the horrifying picture of Esther on the stretcher and then in absolute shock I saw that I was in the picture! I was there! I had been caught by the camera as I had raised my hands to my head and howled in grief for Esther. This was before the stretcher had been put inside the ambulance.

“Look,” I said. “That’s me.”

She picked up the magazine, stared at the picture and at me.

“Now I’m going to prove to you that I’m on your side, and I want to give that devil Gregory a good scare. You want something from your house? I’ll bring it to you.”

She couldn’t speak.

I realized that I had frightened her and silenced her. She was merely watching me. I pictured her body without clothing. The shape of her limbs was pleasing and firm. Her legs in particular had a muscularity to them in their slender form which was graceful. I wanted to touch the backs of her legs, her calves, and squeeze them.

This was quite a lot of strength for me, a lot, and I had to resolve the issue of my freedom now.

“You’re changing,” she said in a suspicious voice, “but you’re certainly not disappearing.”

“Oh? What do you see?” I asked. I wanted to add with pride that I hadn’t tried to disappear yet, but this was obvious.

“Your skin; the sweat’s drying. Oh, it isn’t much sweat. It’s on your hands and your face and it’s gone and you look, you look different. I could swear that there’s more dark hair on your hands, you know, just the normal hair of a hirsute man.”

“That I am,” I said. I lifted my hand, looking at the black hairs on my fingers, and I reached down into my shirt and felt the thick curls on my chest. I pulled at them, pulled them again and again. That was my chest, the rough scratchiness of the hair when it was flat, the silkiness of it when I tugged on it, and played with it. “I am alive,” I whispered. “Listen to me,” I said.

“I’m listening. I couldn’t be more attentive. What is it you see—about Esther’s death and this necklace? You were saying something—”

“Your daughter. She touched a scarf before she died. Do you want it? It was beautiful. She reached out for it right at the moment that the Evals surrounded her, the killers, I mean. She wanted it, and she died with it in her hand.”

“How do you know this!”

“I saw it!”

“I have that scarf,” she said. She went white with shock. “The saleswoman brought it to me. She said that Esther had reached for it, that Esther said she wanted it! How could you know this?”

“I didn’t know that part. I just saw Esther reach for the scarf. I was going to ask you if you wanted the scarf. I was going to bring it to you for the same reasons as this merchant woman.”

“I do want it!” she said. “It’s in my room, the room I was in when you first saw me. It…no. It’s in Esther’s room. It’s lying on her bed. Yes, that’s where I left it.”

“Okay, when I see you in Miami I will have it.”

The look on her face was a terrible thing to see.

In a whisper she said, “She went there to get that scarf!” Her voice was so small. “She told me she had seen it and couldn’t forget it. She had told me she wanted that scarf.”