Anne Rice: Servant of the Bones

Nobody noticed me much—just a crazy man in velvet robes, I suppose. There were Minders everywhere weeping and crying.

I went into the park where the Minders lay weeping on the grass and under the trees and singing hymns and declaring they didn’t believe it was all a lie. They couldn’t. The message of the Temple had been love, be kind, be good.

I stood still for a moment, and then using all my power I changed my shape into Gregory.

I found this surprisingly difficult to do, and difficult to sustain.

I walked towards them and as they stood up, I told them to be quiet.

In Gregory’s voice I told them that I was a messenger sent to tell them their leader had been deranged, but the age-old message of love still had its full truth.

There was soon a huge crowd around me. I talked on and on answering simple questions about their platitudes, love, sharing, the planet’s health, all of this, confirming that this was good. Then finally I spoke Zurvan’s words.

“To love and to learn and to be kind,” I said.

I was exhausted.

I vanished.

I drifted invisible up past the windows of the Temple of the Mind. “The Bones,” I whispered. “Take me to the Bones.”

I found myself in a room with a kiln. But it was empty and unmonitored now, for the whole system seemed to have been arrested. I opened the door of the kiln and I saw the Bones unharmed. Just the old skeleton.

I pulled the skeleton out, letting it flip and flop about on its new wires as I did so, and then I called for the strength I needed to make my hands like steel and I crushed the skull to pieces, rubbing the pieces harder and harder together till it was powder dropping from my hands, gold powder.

All this I did invisibly, and to each and every bone, grinding it between my hands until there was only dust left, a glittering tiny scattering of golden dust, I saw it swirl up into the ventilating system. I opened the window to the street, and it flew out, this dust, on a great gust of fresh air.

I stood watching until I could see no more dust, only tiny points here and there of gold, and I called down a wind to cleanse the room, to carry it all away into the world, and soon there was not one tiny pinpoint of gold remaining.

I stood thinking, studying.

Then I discovered that I was visible, whole, dressed.

I walked out of the room. But there were so many police now. There were lots of people from the Centers for Disease Control here, and members of the army. No use to parade through these panic-stricken men.

Besides, I had work to do. I felt no taste for it. But I had to do it. Too much poison was stashed in too many vulnerable places. Too many madmen had a head start upon the officials and soldiers who were coming after them.

I threw off the body—again the effort surprised me—and went up and out of the building and high over the world, and then descended to the Temple of the Mind in Tel Aviv.

Soldiers had it surrounded. I entered invisibly and slew every last follower of Gregory who resisted. I slew the doctors who guarded the toxic weapons. I moved fast with swift and certain blows. I made no noise. Death lay in my wake. It was wearisome and sad, but done well and completely.

At once I moved on to Jerusalem and there found that Gregory’s followers had all surrendered. The city was safe.

Not so in Tehran. Once again, I slew the resisters, and here I must confess to an evil indulgence. I took lavish and splashy physical form to kill, so that some of the more superstitious Persian Minders—converts of Gregory’s from desert religions—would be especially affrighted. Vanity, ah, vanity. I disgusted myself with this fancy show. Blood had lost the shine of rubies. Fear in the eyes of my victims wasn’t so pretty.

So I suppose my games were instructive to me, and therefore had benefit. Whatever, I slew everyone in the Tehran Temple who did not bow down and beg for mercy, who did not throw down a weapon and crawl towards surrender.

There were other temples which required my intervention.

But I am not going to give you this litany of slaughter.

Let me say only that I assessed each Temple, whether or not it had been “neutralized,” as modern military men would say, and I gave my assistance where I thought it was imperative. I grew more and more tired.

I knew the modern world must complete this work. I knew that it must appear as if the world itself had conquered Gregory Belkin and the Temple of the Mind. I left the certain victories to the human beings.

I learnt from this rampage. I learnt that I did not love at all to kill anymore. Nothing of the Mal’ak remained in me.

My fascination was with love, my obsession was with love.

And the truth is, that the very last of these murderous tasks—the killing of a few very dangerous Minders in Berlin and in Spain—I did with weariness and no small demand on my own endurance and fortitude.

Temple battles would continue.

I was finished.

A great relaxation overcame me. It was easy to return to my own fleshly form. It was the natural result of preoccupation or distraction—to become physical, the creature you see and hear, to feel and smell, and to walk in the world. Invisibility became a feat. I found this compelling.

For a week I wandered the Earth.

I wandered and wandered.

I went into the lonely sands of Iraq. I went to the ruins of the Greek cities. I went to the museums which held the finest of the art of my times and gazed on these things in quiet.

It took energy to move from place to place in spirit form, but in either state I was quite strong. Indeed to take on any other form than my own became harder.

And as you know—as you saw yourself earlier—when I called back the body of Nathan to me, there was no wedding of my cells with his cells. His flesh was putrid and from the grave, and I sent it back, humbled, and ashamed that I had troubled it.

I studied all the time I wandered. I went into the bookstores and the libraries. I read through many nights, without sleep. I watched the television endlessly as the Temples were contained and destroyed in various countries. I heard of the mass suicides. I saw it all blended finally with the other news all over the world. It was headlines at the beginning of the week. By the end it was still first page of The New York Times but much further down.

And the magazines burst forth with their great flower-colored covers, and then a new issue came out and it was another story.

The world went on. I knew your books. I read them in the night. I went to your home in New York City.

I came here after you, to find you. You remember. You had a deep fever.

All the rest you know. I can still change my shape. I can still travel invisibly. But it gets harder and harder to change into anyone else. You see?

You understand? I’m not human. I am the full spirit that I dreamed I would be—in those dark terrible moments when rebellion and hate seemed my only source of vitality.

I don’t know what will happen now. You have the tale. I could tell you more, about those bad masters, about little things I saw, but all will be revealed in God’s good time.

That’s the end of my adventure. That’s the end. And I am not dead. I am strong, I am seemingly without flaw. I am perhaps immortal. Why do you think? What more does God want of me?

Will Rachel and Esther and Nathan forget me? Is that the nature of the bliss that lies beyond the light, that you forget and only come when you are called?

I’ve called. I called and called and called. But they don’t answer. I know they are safe. I know someday I may see that light. Beyond that, the purpose of life is to learn to love and that is all I intend to do now.

Is it the blood of Gregory himself that keeps me the wanderer? I don’t know. I only know I am whole and that this time I served myself as best I could.