The Tale of the Body Thief by Anne Rice Page A

darkness. They picked up the bed off the floor and dumped me out! They turned the taps in the shower so that I was nearly scalded. They filled my teacups with urine. After a full seven days, I thought I was going out of my mind. I’d gone from annoyance and incredulity to sheer terror. Dishes flew off the table in front of me. Bells rang in my ears. Bottles went crashing from the shelves. Wherever I went, I saw dark-faced individuals watching me.”
    “You knew it was this woman?”
    “Not at first. But Carlos finally broke down and confessed everything. His mother didn’t intend to remove the curse until I left. Well, I left that very night.
    “I came back to London, exhausted and half mad. But it didn’t do any good. They came with me. Same things started to happen right here in Talbot Manor. Doors slamming, furniture moving, the bells ringing all the time in the servants’ pantry belowstairs. Everyone was going mad. And my mother—my mother had been more or less of a spiritualist, always running to various mediums all over London. She brought in the Talamasca. I told them the whole story, and they started explaining Candomble and spiritism to me.”
    “They exorcised the demons?”
    “No. But after about a week’s intense study in the library of the Motherhouse and extensive interviews with the few members who had been to Rio, I was able to get the demons under control myself. Everyone was quite surprised. Then when I decided to go back to Brazil, I astonished them. They warned me this priestess was plenty powerful enough to kill me.
    “ ‘That’s exactly it,’ I said to them. ‘I want that sort of power myself. I’m going to become her pupil. She’s going to teach me.’ They begged me not to go. I told them I’d give them a written report on my return. You can understand how I felt. I’d seen the work of these invisible entities. I’d felt them touch me. I’d seen objects hurtling through the air. I thought the great world of the invisible was openingup to me. I
had
to go there. Why, nothing could have discouraged me from it. Nothing at all.”
    “Yes, I see,” I said. “It
was
as exciting as hunting big game.”
    “Precisely.” He shook his head. “Those were the days. I suppose I thought if the war hadn’t killed me, nothing could kill me.” He drifted off suddenly, into his memories, locking me out.
    “You confronted the woman?”
    He nodded.
    “Confronted her and impressed her, and then bribed her beyond her wildest dreams. I told her I wanted to become her apprentice. I swore on my knees to her that I wanted to learn, that I wouldn’t leave until I’d penetrated the mystery, and learned all that I could.” He gave a little laugh. “I’m not sure this woman had ever encountered an anthropologist, even an amateur, and I suppose that is what I might have been called. Whatever, I stayed a year in Rio. And believe you me, that was the most remarkable year of my life. I only left Rio finally, because I knew if I didn’t, I never would. David Talbot the Englishman would have been no more.”
    “You learned how to summon the spirits?”
    He nodded. Again, he was remembering, seeing images I couldn’t see. He was troubled, faintly sad. “I wrote it all down,” he said finally. “It’s in the files at the Motherhouse. Many, many have read the story over the years.”
    “Never tempted to publish it?”
    “Can’t do it. It’s part of being in the Talamasca. We never publish outside.”
    “You’re afraid you’ve wasted your life, aren’t you?”
    “No. I’m not, really … Though what I said earlier is true. I haven’t cracked the secrets of the universe. I’ve never even passed the point I reached in Brazil. Oh, there were shocking revelations afterwards. I remember the first night I read the files on the vampires, how incredulous I was, and then those strange moments when I went down into the vaults and picked through the evidence. But in the end it was like Candomble. I