Lasher

by Anne Rice

  "I will put an end to this man, whenever and wherever he's found. No one will keep him safe from me."

  Randall began to speak. So did Fielding. But Michael put up his hand.

  "I want to go back upstairs and be with my wife. I want my wife to recover. I want to be with her now."

  "Other business quickly and finally," said Ryan. He opened his large leather folder and removed several sheets of paper covered with typewritten words. "Ah, no blood or tissue of any sort was found in St. Martinville in the area where Rowan's unconscious body was discovered. If she did suffer a miscarriage there as the doctors believe, the evidence is long gone.

  "The area is public. And there had been at least two rainstorms during the day, while Rowan lay there, and another after she was found. We have sent two skilled detectives back to the site. But as of now, we have no clues from there as to what really happened to Rowan. We are combing the surrounding area thoroughly for anyone who might have seen Rowan, or heard or seen anything that can be of help."

  There were a few resigned nods.

  "Now, Michael, we are prepared to take the rest of this meeting downtown. It concerns the legacy, it concerns Mona. We'll leave you here now, with Aaron, and we'll be back later this evening, if you will allow."

  "Yes, of course," said Michael. "We're fine here. We have settled into a routine. Hamilton is upstairs with the nurses. Things are going as smoothly as one could expect."

  "Michael," said Lauren. "I know this is a difficult question. But I must ask it. Do you know the whereabouts of the Mayfair emerald?"

  "Oh, for god's sakes!" said Bea, "that cursed thing."

  "It's a legal matter," said Lauren frostily. "Legal. We must seek the emerald and place it around the neck of the designee."

  "Well, if it was up to me," said Fielding, "I'd go get a piece of green glass at Woolworth's. But I'm too old to go downtown."

  "Wasn't there a fake made of that thing by Stella?" asked Randall coldly, "so she could fling it from a Mardi Gras float?"

  "If there was," said Lauren, "she threw it from the float."

  "I don't know where it is," said Michael. "I think you asked me that when I was still sick, when I was in the hospital. I haven't seen it. I think you searched this house."

  "Yes, we did," said Ryan. "We thought perhaps we had overlooked something."

  "He probably has it," said Mona softly. No one responded.

  "That could be," said Michael. He gave a little smile. "He probably has it. Probably considered it his very own. But you never know..." He tried not to look like a lunatic, but it was suddenly very funny to him. The emerald! Did Lasher have it in his pocket? Would he try to sell it? That would be a hoot.

  The meeting had clearly come to an end. Bea would go up to Amelia Street. The others would go downtown.

  Mona threw her arms around Michael and kissed him and then ducked out as if she didn't want to see his anxious or reproving look. He was a bit stunned; it was like all her sweetness was clinging to him, and then there was this emptiness where she had just been.

  Beatrice gave Michael an urgent kiss, then took leave of her new husband, swearing to collect him later for supper and to make Michael eat something as well.

  "So many people are trying to make me eat something," Michael murmured at the sheer wonder of it. "Ever since Rowan left. Eat, Michael, eat."

  Within moments, they were gone. The big door had shut for the final time. There had been that faint vibration throughout the house that always sounded damaging, Michael thought, but probably wasn't.

  Aaron remained at the far end of the table, across from Michael, leaning on his elbows, his back to the windows.

  "I'm happy for you and Bea," Michael said. "You get the poem I sent to you with Yuri? The note?"

  "Yes, he gave it to me. You must tell me about Julien. Tell me what happened, not as some snoop from across the Atlantic, but as your friend, please."

  Michael smiled. "I want to tell you. I want to relive every second of it. I've been sort of jotting it down up there, you know, so I won't forget. But the truth is, Julien had one purpose. It was to tell me to kill this thing, to stop it. That I was the one who was counted upon for that."

  Aaron appeared to be intrigued.

  "Where's your friend Yuri?" asked Michael. "He's still on good terms with us, isn't he?"

  "Absolutely," said Aaron. "He's up at the Amelia Street house again. He's trying again, through Mona's computer. Mona said he could use her computer to contact the Elders, but the Elders are not acknowledging his pleas for clarification. It's all rather terrible for him, I think."

  "But not for you."

  Aaron was thoughtful for a moment, then he said, "No...Not as much..."

  "Good," said Michael. "Julien was suspicious of the Talamasca, I guess you got that from my note. Julien had more to say on it...but it all came down to the same thing--this creature is treacherous and deceitful; and it has to be destroyed. I'll kill it as soon as I can."

  Aaron seemed fascinated by this.

  "But what if you had it in your power? What if you had it contained where it couldn't..."

  "No. That's the mistake. Read the poem again. I'm to kill it. Go upstairs and look at my wife again, if you have any doubts. Go hold her hand. I'll kill it. And I will have a chance to do it. Evelyn's poem and Julien's visit have promised me that."

  "You're like a man who's experienced religious conversion," said Aaron. "A week ago you were philosophical, almost despairing. You were actually physically sick."

  "Well, I thought my wife had abandoned me. I was grieving for my wife and for my own courage, both of which had been lost. Now I know she didn't mean to abandon me.

  "And why wouldn't I be like St. Paul after his vision on the road to Damascus? You realize I'm the only one living who has seen and spoken to this thing?" He gave a little laugh. "Gifford, Edith, Alicia...I don't even remember their names. All dead. And Rowan mute now, just like Deirdre. But I'm not dead. I'm not mute. I know what it looks like. I know the sound of its voice. And I'm the one to whom Julien came. I guess I do have the conviction of a convert. Or maybe just the conviction of a saint."

  He reached into his jacket pocket, drew out the medal that Ryan had returned to him, the medal which Gifford had found Christmas Day by the pool. "You gave this to me, remember?" he said to Aaron. "What's it like when St. Michael sinks his trident into a demon? Does the demon wriggle and scream for its mother? Must be difficult to be St. Michael. This time, I will find out."

  "Julien was its enemy then? Of this you're sure."

  Michael sighed. Ought to go upstairs. "What would the nurses do if I got in bed with her? What would they do if I just snuggled up to her and held her in my arms?"

  "It's your house," said Aaron. "Lie beside her if you wish. Tell them to sit outside the door."

  Michael shook his head. "If only I knew she wanted me near her. If only I knew she wanted anything at all."

  He thought for a long moment.

  "Aaron," he said. "If you were he--Lasher--where would you be right now? What would you be doing?"

  Aaron shook his head. "I don't know. Michael, tell me why Julien was so sure Lasher was evil? Tell me what Julien knew."

  "Julien went after its origins. He went to Donnelaith to investigate the ruins. It wasn't the famous circle of stones that mattered to him. It was the Cathedral. A saint named Ashlar. An early Highlands saint. The thing had something to do with the Christian times in that glen. Something to do with the saint."

  "Ashlar, I've heard the story of St. Ashlar," said Aaron quietly. "It's in the Latin files in the archives. I remember reading it, but not in connection with this case. Oh, if only they hadn't locked Yuri out of the computers. What has Lasher to do with this saint?"

  "Julien never quite figured it out. He thought at first the thing was the saint--a vengeful ghost. But it wasn't that simple. Yet the thing did originate there, in that place. It didn't come from heaven or hell or all time or whatever lies it
always tells the witches. It started its dark destiny in the Glen of Donnelaith." He paused. "What do you know about Ashlar?"

  "It's an old Scottish legend. Very pagan actually," said Aaron. "Michael, why didn't you tell me these things?"

  "I am telling you, Aaron, but it doesn't matter. I'm going to kill it. We can find out all about its past after it's dead. So what do you know about Ashlar, the Scottish saint?"

  "Ah...something about the saint returning every so many hundred years. It's in books here and there. But I never realized it had to do with Donnelaith. There's another mystery for you. Why wasn't it in the files? We cross-reference. We are so careful. But I never saw a mention of any legends connected with Donnelaith. I assumed there was no relevant material."

  "But what story did you hear?"

  "The saint had special physical characteristics. From time to time someone would be born having those characteristics. And he would be declared the reincarnation of the saint. The new saint. All very pagan. Not Catholic at all. In the Catholic Church if you are a saint, it's because you are in heaven, not migrating into new flesh."

  Michael nodded. Gave a little laugh.

  "Write it down for me," said Aaron. "Everything Julien told you. You must."

  "I will, but remember what I said. Julien only had one message. It was to kill the thing. Not to be 'interested in it,' but to wipe it out." Michael sighed. "Should have done it at Christmas. Should have killed it. I could have, probably, but naturally Rowan didn't want me to. How could she? This newborn thing, this mystery. That's what always happens. It seduces people. And now it's flesh, and what is the old prayer, 'And the word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us.' "

  Aaron nodded. "Let me say it once aloud to you," he said in a low voice, "so I don't say it over and over forever in my heart and soul. I should have come here with you on Christmas Eve. I should not have let you come up against it alone, come up against it and her."

  "Don't condemn her."

  "I don't. I don't mean that. I mean I should have been here. That's all I mean. If it matters, I don't intend to desert you now."

  "It matters," said Michael, with a shrug. "But you know, I have this curious feeling. It's going to be easy now that I've made up my mind. Kill it." He snapped his fingers. "That's my problem. I was afraid to do that from the start."

  It was eight o'clock. Dark, cold. You could feel the cold if you put your hands on the panes.

  Aaron had just come back for supper with Yuri. Yuri was returning to the Amelia Street house to talk to Mona. Yuri had blushed when he said he was going. Michael had realized the reason why. Yuri was taken with Mona. Then Yuri had stammered, "She reminds me of myself at her age. She is unusual. She said she would show me all her computer tricks. We will...talk."

  Flustered, stammering, blushing. Ah, the power of Mona, thought Michael. And now she had the legacy to contend with, as well as everything else.

  But there was something pure about Yuri, pure and loyal and good.

  "He can be trusted," Aaron had said quietly. "He is a gentleman, and he is honorable. Mona will be quite safe in his company. Never fear."

  "No one has to fear for Mona," said Michael, a little ashamed, and getting just a wisp again of those sensual moments, when he'd held her and knew it was wrong and that it was going to happen and so what?

  There were so few times when Michael had done bad things and said, So what?

  Aaron was asleep in the upstairs bedroom.

  "Men of my age nap after meals," he had said apologetically. He had gone to lie down. He was utterly exhausted, and Michael wouldn't talk anymore about Julien just now, and maybe that was best because Aaron needed the rest.

  Just you and me now, Julien, Michael thought.

  It was quiet in the house.

  Hamilton had gone home to pay some bills. Bea would return later. Only one nurse was on duty because all the money in the world could not procure another, such was the shortage. A nurse's aide, very capable, was upstairs in Aunt Vivian's room going into her third quarter hour on the phone.

  He could hear the rise and fall of the woman's voice.

  He stood in the living room, looking out into the side yard. Darkness. Cold. Remembering. Drums of Comus. A man smiling in the darkness. Suddenly Michael was a small child again, and would never know what it meant to be strong or to be safe. Fear had kicked in the door of childhood. Fear had laid waste the safety that had been Mother.

  Drums and torches on Mardi Gras Night struck terror. We die when we get old. We are no more. No more. He tried to imagine himself dead. A skull in the earth. This thought had come to him often in his life. I will be that way someday, absolutely. It is a certainty, one of the few in my life. I will be dead. I may be a skull in the earth. I may be a skull in a coffin. I don't know. But I will die.

  It seemed the nurse's aide was crying. Not possible. There was the soft vibration of steps. The front door closed. That was all so far away from him, people coming, going. If she took a turn for the worse, they'd shout his name.

  And he'd run upstairs, but why? To be there when the breath left her. To hold her cold hand. To lay his head on her breast and feel the last of the warmth in her. How did he know it would be like that? Had anyone ever told him? Or was it just that her hands were getting colder and colder and suffer and suffer, and when he looked at her nails, her pretty clean nails, they were faintly blue.

  "We will not manicure them," the nurse had said. "You can scrap that part of the plan. We have to be able to see their color. It has to do with oxygen. She was a beautiful woman."

  Yes, you said that before. But she hadn't. It had been the other nurse who had said it. How many other insensitive things had they said?

  The movement of the dark trees outside chilled him. Chilled him to look at it. He didn't want to be here, staring out the window in the cold empty side yard. He wanted to be warm and be with her.

  He turned around and walked slowly back across the double parlor, beneath the cypress arch, a beautiful ornamental thing. Maybe he should read to her, softly, so that she could tune it out if she hated it. Maybe play the radio for a while. Maybe play Julien's Victrola. That mean nurse who didn't like the Victrola was no longer here.

  He could send the nurses out of the room, couldn't he? Gradually it had been penetrating to him. Do we need these nurses?

  He saw her dead. He saw her gray and cold and finished. He saw her buried, more or less. Not the whole detailed picture, step by step, and strewn over time. Just the concept, in a flashing light--a coffin sliding into a vault. Like Gifford. Only it was here, their cemetery on the edge of the Garden District, and he could walk over there any day, and lay his hand on the slab of marble that was only four or five inches from her soft dark blond hair. Rowan, Rowan.

  Remember, mon fils.

  He turned. Who had said this? The great long hall was hollow and empty and slightly cold. The dining room was altogether dark. He listened, not for real sounds, but for supernatural ones, for the voice again. Remember, yes, I will.

  "Yes, I will," he said.

  Silence. All around him silence, wrapping up his spoken words and making them loud. Making them sharp in the stillness, like a movement, like a drop in temperature. Silence.

  There was absolutely no one about. No one in the dining room. No one visible at the top of the stairs. He could see Aunt Vivian's room was no longer lighted. No one talking on the phone. Empty. Darkness.

  And then it penetrated to him. He was alone.

  No, couldn't be. He walked to the front door and opened it. For one moment, he could not take it in. No one at the black iron gate. No one on the porch. No one across the street. Just the solemn empty silence of the Garden District, deserted as a ruined city beneath the motionless street light, the soft clumps of oak leaves. The house as still and undisturbed as it had ever been the first time he saw it.

  "Where are they?" He felt the sudden thrust of panic. "Christ, what's going on?"

  "Michael Curry?"
>
  The man was standing to his left. In the shadows, almost invisible, except for his blond hair. He came forward. He must have been two inches taller than Michael. Michael looked into his pale eyes.

  "You sent for me?" the man asked softly, respectfully. He extended his hand. "I'm sorry, Mr. Curry."

  "Sent for you? What do you mean?"

  "You had the priest call the hotel for me, you asked that I come. I'm sorry it is over."

  "I don't know what you're talking about. Where are the guards who were here? Where is the watchman who was at the gate? What happened to everybody?"

  "The priest sent them away," said the man gently. "As soon as she died. He told me on the phone that he was sending them away. That I was to come and wait here, by the door, for you. I'm sorry she's dead. I hope she knew no pain or fear."

  "Oh no, I'm dreaming. She's not dead! She's upstairs. What priest? There's no priest here! Aaron!"

  He turned, staring into the deep darkness of the hallway, for a moment unable to make out the red carpet of the stairs. Then he bolted, taking the flight in one bound after another, and rushing to her closed door.

  "Goddamnit, she didn't die. She didn't. They would have told me."

  When he felt the knob, and realized he couldn't open it, he was about to ram it with his shoulder. "Aaron!" he shouted again.

  A click inside. The little lock turning. The door popping back, just a little as if of its own accord. Doors all have their own pace and rhythm, their own way of opening or closing. Doors in New Orleans are never neat or efficient about it. In summer this door would swell up and scarcely close. Now it danced open.

  He stared at it, at the white wooden panels. Inside the candles gleamed as before. Flicker on the silk of the tester, on the marble fireplace.

  Aaron was speaking to him. Aaron said a name behind him. It sounded Russian. And the blond man said softly:

  "But he asked for me, Aaron. He called me. The priest told me. He asked that I come."

  He walked into the room. The candles were the only light. They were blazing on the little altar, and the Virgin's shadow rose up the wall, jittering and dancing as before. Rowan lay in the bed; her breasts rose and fell beneath the pink satin of the new gown they'd put on her. Her hands curled inward. Her mouth was open. He could hear her breathing. She was alive. Unchanged.