Crónicas Vampíricas 10 Cántico de Sangre Read Online Free PDF Page B

heartbreaking. The girl was in more pain than Quinn could conceivably realize. Even his arm around her was hurting her. I calculated without wanting to do it that she should have died about two hours ago. Her kidneys had shut down, her heart was sputtering and she couldn't fill her lungs with enough air to take deep breaths.
    But her flawless green eyes were wide as she looked at me, and her fierce intellect understood on some complete mystical level, quite truly beyond words, what Quinn was trying to tell her: that the progress of her death could be utterly reversed, that she could join with us, that she could be ours forever. The vampiric state; the Undead. Immortal killer. Outside life for all time.
    I know you, Little Witch. We live forever. She almost smiled.
    Would the Dark Trick undo the damage which had been done to her miserable body? You betcha.
    Two hundred years ago in a bedroom on the Ile St.-Louis, I had seen old age and consumption drop away from the emaciated form of my own mother as the Dark Blood realized its full magic within her. And in those nights, I'd been a mere postulant, compelled by love and fear to do the transformation. It had been my first time. I hadn't even known its name.
    "Let me work the Dark Trick, Quinn," I said immediately.
    I saw the relief flood through him. He was so innocent, so confused. Of course, I didn't much like it that he was four inches taller than me, but it really didn't matter. I meant it when I called him my Little Brother. I would have done just about anything for him. And then there was Mona herself. Witch child, beauty, ferocious spirit, almost nothing but spirit with the body desperately trying to hold on.
    They drew closer to each other. I could see her hand clasping his. Could she feel the preternatural flesh? Her eyes were on me.
    I paced the room. I took over. I put it to her in grand style. We were vampires, yes, but she had a choice, precious darling that she was. Why hadn't Quinn told her about the Light? Quinn had seen the Light with his own eyes. He knew the measure of Celestial Forgiveness more truly than I did.
    "But you can choose the Light some other night, chérie, " I said. I laughed. I couldn't stop myself. It was too miraculous.
    She'd been sick for so long, suffered for so long. And that birth, that child she'd borne, it had been monstrous, taken from her, and I couldn't see to the core of it. But forget that. Her conception of eternity was to feel whole for one blessed hour, to breathe for one blessed hour without pain. How could she make this choice? No, there was no choice here for this girl. I saw the long corridor down which she'd traveled inexorably for so many years-the needles that had bruised her arms, and the bruises were all over her, the medicines that had sickened her, the half sleep in agony, the fevers, the shallow ruminating dreams, the loss of all blessed concentration when the books and films and letters had been put aside and even the deep darkness was gone in the seasonless glare of hospital lights and inescapable clatter and noise.
    She reached for me. She nodded. Dried cracked lips. Strands of red hair. "Yes, I want it," she said.
    And from Quinn's lips came the inevitable words: "Save her."
    Save her? Didn't Heaven want her?
    "They're coming for you," I said. "It's your family." I hadn't meant to blurt it. Was I under some sort of spell myself, looking into her eyes? But I could hear them clearly, the fast-approaching Mayfairs. Ambulance sans siren pulling into the pecan-tree drive, stretch limousine right behind it.
    "No, don't let them take me," she cried. "I want to be with you."
    "Honey bunch, this is for always," I said.
    "Yes!"
    Darkness eternal, yes, curse, grief, isolation, yes.
    Oh, and it's the same old beat with you, Lestat, you Devil, you want to do it, you want to, you want to see it, you greedy little beast, you can't give her over to the angels and you know they're waiting! You know the God who can sanctify her