Taltos

by Anne Rice

  He sat still and he felt the anger leave him. He felt his body grow relaxed and almost tired. He sat back against the back of the seat. And then he looked at her again.

  She'd never turned away. She looked neither frightened nor sad. He wondered if, in her secret heart, she was bored and wishing him safe at home as she plotted the next steps she would take.

  Clear away these thoughts, man, because if you don't, you can't love her again, ever.

  And he did love her. There wasn't any doubt suddenly. He loved her strength, he loved her coldness. That's how it had been in her house on Tiburon, when they'd made it beneath the bare beam roof, when they had talked and talked, with no possible inkling of how they had, all their lives, been moving towards one another.

  He reached out and touched her cheek, very aware that her expression hadn't changed, that she seemed as totally in control as she ever had.

  "I do love you!" he whispered.

  "I know," she said.

  He laughed under his breath.

  "You do?" he asked. He felt himself smile, and it felt good. He laughed silently and shook his head. "You know it!" he said.

  "Yes," she said with a little nod. "I'm afraid for you, always have been. It's not because you aren't strong, aren't capable, aren't everything you ought to be. I'm afraid because there's a power in me that you don't have, and there's a power in these others--these enemies of ours who killed Aaron--a power that comes from a total lack of scruples." She flicked a bit of dust off the tight little skirt. When she sighed, the soft sound of it seemed to fill up the car, rather like her perfume.

  She lowered her head, a small gesture that made her hair go very soft and longish around her face. And as she looked up, her brows seemed especially long and her eyes both pretty and mysterious.

  "Call it witch power, if you will. Maybe it's as simple as that. Maybe it's in the genes. Maybe it's a physical capability to do things that normal people can't do."

  "Then I have it," he said.

  "No. Coincidentally, perhaps, you have the long helix," she said.

  "Coincidentally, like hell," he said. "He chose me for you, Rowan. Lasher did that. Years ago when I was a kid and I stopped at the gate of that house, he chose me. Why do you think he did that? Not because he ever thought I'd be a good man and destroy his hard-won flesh, no, that wasn't it. It was for the witch in me, Rowan. We come from the same Celtic root. You know we do. And I'm the worker's son and so I don't know my story. But it goes back to the same beginnings as yours. The power's there. It was there in my hands when I could read the past and the future in people's touch. It was there when I heard the music played by a ghost especially to lead me to Mona."

  She gave a small frown, and her eyes grew small for one tiny instant and then large again and wondering.

  "I didn't use that power to bring Lasher down," he said. "I was too scared to use it. I used my strength as a man, and the simple tools, as Julien had told me I would. But the power's there. It has to be. And if that's what it takes for you to love me, I mean really love me, then I can reach down inside me and find out just what that power can do. That has always been my option."

  "My innocent Michael," she said, but it had the tone of a query rather than a declaration.

  He shook his head. He leant forward and kissed her. It was not the best thing to do, perhaps, but he couldn't stop himself. He held her by the shoulders, and he did press her back against the seat and cover her mouth with his mouth. He felt her instant response, the way her body was united at once in passion, arms sliding up around his back, mouth kissing him back, back arching as if she would press her entire self against him.

  When he let her go, it was only because he had to.

  The car was moving swiftly along the freeway. The airport loomed ahead. And there was no time now for the passion he felt, for the consummation of anger and hurt and love that he needed so desperately.

  This time it was she who reached out for him, who clasped his head in her hands, and kissed him.

  "Michael, my love," she said, "my one and only love."

  "I'm with you, darling," he said. "And don't ever try to change it. What we have to do--for Aaron, for Mona, for the baby, for the family, for God knows what--we do together."

  It wasn't until they were over the Atlantic that he tried to sleep. They'd eaten their gluttonous fill, and drunk a little too much, and talked for an hour about Aaron. Now the cabin was dark and silent, and they bundled beneath a loose half-dozen blankets.

  They needed sleep, he figured. Aaron would advise them to sleep now, wouldn't he?

  They'd land in London after eight hours, and it would be early morning there, though it was really night to their bodies, and there would be Yuri, eager to hear and entitled to hear how Aaron had died. Pain. Grief. The inevitable.

  He was slipping off, not certain whether he was going right straight into a nightmare or into something as bright and meaningless as a bad cartoon, when he felt her touch his arm.

  He let his head roll on the leather seat as he turned to her. She lay back beside him, hand clasping his hand.

  "If we see this through," she whispered, "if you don't back off from what I do, if I don't shut you ..."

  "Yes ..."

  "Then nothing will ever come between us. Nobody ever will. And anything you might have with a girl bride will be forfeit."

  "I want no girl brides," he said. "I never did. I didn't dream of other women while you were gone from me. I love Mona in my own way, and always will, but that's part of who we are, all of us. I love her and I want the child. I want the child so much I don't even want to talk about it. It's too soon. I'm too desperate. But I want only you, and that's been true since the first day I was with you."

  She closed her eyes, her hand still warm and tight on his arm, and then it slipped away rather naturally, as if she'd gone to sleep. Her face looked serene and utterly perfect.

  "You know, I've taken life," he said in a whisper. But he wasn't sure she was awake still. "I've taken life three times, and I've walked away from those deeds without regret. That changes anyone."

  No answer from her lips.

  "I can do it again," he said, "if I have to."

  Her lips moved.

  "I know that you can," she said softly, not opening her eyes, still lying there as if in deep sleep. "But you see, I'm going to do it whether I have to or not. I have been mortally offended."

  She drew in close and kissed him again.

  "We're not going to make it to London," he said.

  "We're the only ones in the entire first-class cabin," she said, raising her eyebrows, and then kissing him again. "I was once riding on a plane when a certain sort of love was made known to me. It was Lasher's first kiss, you might say. It had a wild, electric quality to it. But I want your arms. I want your cock. I want your body! I can't wait until London. Give it to me."

  Enough said, he thought. Thank God she'd opened the blazer, or he might have torn the buttons in proverbial romantic fashion.

  Nine

  IT WAS NOT so changed. It stood in its forest or park, without locked gates or dogs to protect it, a great manor house of fine arched windows and myriad chimneys, luxuriously large and luxuriously well cared for. One could imagine those times, looking at it. Their brutality and darkness, their particular fire--all this drew breath and hissed in the empty night.

  Only the cars lining the gravel drive, the cars parked in the open garages in long rows, betrayed the modern age. Even the wires and cables ran underground.

  He walked through the trees, and then up close to the foundations and along the stones, searching for the doors he remembered. He wore no suit or coat now, but only simple clothes, long workman's pants of brown corduroy and a thick sweater made from wool, the favorite of seamen.

  The house seemed to grow to immense size as he approached it. Sprinkled throughout were weak and lonely lights, but lights nevertheless. Scholars in their cells.

  Through a series of small ba
rred windows he saw a cellar kitchen. Two lady cooks in white were setting aside the kneaded bread to let it rise. And white flour covered their hands and the pale wood of the counter. The smell of coffee came up to him from this room--very rich and fresh. There had been a door ... a door for deliveries and such. He walked along, out of the helpful illumination of the windows, feeling the stone wall with his hands, and then coming to a door, though it was one that had not been lately used, and it seemed quite impassable.

  It was worth a try. And he had come equipped. Perhaps it was not wired with alarms as any door of his own would have been. Indeed, it looked neglected and forlorn and when he studied it, he saw that it had no lock at all, but merely old hinges, very rusted, and a simple latch.

  To his amazement, it opened to his touch, and made a yawning creak that startled him and unnerved him. There was a stone passage and a small stairway leading upwards. Fresh foot tracks on the stairs. A gush of warm and faintly stale air, the indoor air of winter.

  He entered and pushed the door closed. A light leaked down the stairs from above, illuminating a carefully written sign that said DO NOT LEAVE THIS DOOR OPEN.

  Obediently, he made sure that it was shut and then turned and made his way upwards, emerging into a large, darkly paneled corridor.

  This was the hall he remembered. He walked along, not trying to hide the sound of his tennis shoes or to conceal himself in the shadows. Here was the formal library he remembered--not the deep archive of priceless and crumbling records, but the daily reading room, with long oak tables and comfortable chairs, and heaps of magazines from throughout the world, and a dead fireplace, still warm beneath his foot, with a few scattered embers still glowing among its charred logs and ashes.

  He had thought the room was empty, but on closer inspection he saw an old man dozing in a chair, a heavyset individual with a bald head and small glasses on the end of his nose, a handsome robe over his shirt and trousers.

  It would not do to begin here. An alarm could be too easily sounded. He backed out of the room, careful to be silent this time and feeling lucky that he had not waked this man, and then he went on to a large stairway.

  Bedchambers began on the third floor in olden times. Would it be the same now? He went all the way up. It was certainly likely.

  When he reached the end of the corridor on the third floor, he turned down another small hall and spied light beneath a door, and decided upon that as his beginning.

  Without knocking, he turned the knob and let himself into a small but elegant bedroom. The sole occupant was a woman with gray hair, who looked up from her desk with obvious but fearless amazement.

  This was just what he had hoped for. He approached the desk.

  There was a book open there under her left hand, and with her right she'd been underlining words in it.

  It was Boethius. De topicis differentiis. And she had underlined the sentence, "Syllogism is discourse in which, when certain things have been laid down and agreed to, something other than the things agreed to must result by means of the things agreed to."

  He laughed. "Excuse me," he said to the woman.

  She was looking up at him, and had not moved at all since he entered.

  "It's true but it's funny, isn't it? I had forgotten."

  "Who are you?" she asked.

  The gravel in her voice, the age of it perhaps, startled him. Her gray hair was heavy and worn in an old-fashioned bun on the back of her head rather than the sexless bob of the present fashion.

  "I'm being rude, I know," he said. "I always know when I'm being rude, and I beg your pardon."

  "Who are you?" she asked again in almost precisely the same tone of voice as before, except that she put a space after each word for emphasis.

  "What am I?" he asked. "That's the more important question. Do you know what I am?"

  "No," she said. "Should I?"

  "I don't know. Look at my hands. See how long and thin they are."

  "Delicate," she said in the same gravelly voice, her eyes moving only very quickly to his hands and then back to his face. "Why have you come in here?"

  "My methods are those of a child," he said. "That is my only way of operating."

  "So?"

  "Did you know that Aaron Lightner was dead?"

  She held his gaze for a moment and then slipped back in her chair, her right hand releasing the green marker. She looked away. It was a dreadful revelation to her.

  "Who told you?" she asked. "Does everyone know?"

  "Apparently not," he said.

  "I knew he wouldn't come back," she said. She pursed her mouth so that the heavy lines above her lips were very defined and dark for a moment. "Why have you come here to tell me this?"

  "To see what you would say. To know whether or not you had a hand in killing him."

  "What?"

  "You heard what I said, did you not?"

  "Killing him?" She rose slowly from her chair and gave him a cruel look, especially now that she realized how very tall he was. She looked to the door--indeed, she seemed about ready to move towards it--but he lifted his hand, gently, asking for her patience.

  She weighed this gesture.

  "You're saying Aaron was killed by someone?" she asked. Her brows grew heavy and wrinkled over the silver frames of her glasses.

  "Yes. Killed. Deliberately run over by a car. Dead."

  The woman closed her eyes this time, as if, unable to leave, she would allow herself to feel this appropriately. She looked straight ahead, dully, with no thought of him standing there, apparently, and then she looked up.

  "The Mayfair witches!" she said in a harsh, deep whisper. "God, why did he go there?"

  "I don't think it was the witches who did it," he said.

  "Then who?"

  "Someone from here, from the Order."

  "You don't mean what you're saying! You don't know what you're saying. No one of us would do such a thing."

  "Indeed I do know what I'm saying," he said. "Yuri, the gypsy, said it was one of you, and Yuri wouldn't lie in such a matter. Yuri tells no lies as far as I can tell, none whatsoever."

  "Yuri. You've seen Yuri. You know where he is?"

  "Don't you?"

  "No. One night he left, that's all anyone knows. Where is he?"

  "He is safe, though only by accident. The same villains who killed Aaron have tried to kill him. They had to."

  "Why?"

  "You're innocent of all this?" He was satisfied.

  "Yes! Wait, where are you going?"

  "Out, to find the killers. Show me the way to the Superior General. I used to know the way, but things change. I must see him."

  She didn't wait to be asked twice. She sped past him and beckoned for him to follow. Her thick heels made a loud sound on the polished floor as she marched down the corridor, her gray head bowed, and her hands swinging naturally at her sides.

  It seemed forever that they walked, until they had reached the very opposite end of the main corridor. The double doors. He remembered them. Only in former times they had not been cleaned and polished to such a luster. They'd been layered with old oil.

  She pounded on the door. She might wake the entire house. But he knew no other way to do this.

  When the door opened, she went inside, and then turned very pointedly to reveal to the man within that she was with another.

  The man within looked out warily, and when he saw Ash, his face was transformed from amazement to shock and immediate secrecy.

  "You know what I am, don't you?" said Ash softly.

  He quickly forced his way into the room and closed the doors behind him. It was a large office with an adjoining bedroom. Things were vaguely messy, lamps scattered and dim, fireplace empty.

  The woman was watching him with the same ferocious look. The man had backed up as if to get clear of something dangerous.

  "Yes, you know," said Ash. "And you know that they killed Aaron Lightner."

  The man was not surprised, only deeply alarmed
. He was large and heavily built, but in good health, and he had the air of an outraged general who knows that he is in danger. He did not even try to pretend to be surprised. The woman saw it.

  "I didn't know they were going to do it. They said you were dead, you'd been destroyed."

  "I?"

  The man backed up. The man was now in terror. "I was not the one who gave the order to kill Aaron. I don't even know the purpose of the order, or why they wanted you here. I know next to nothing."

  "What does all this mean, Anton?" the woman asked. "Who is this person?"

  "Person. Person. What an inappropriate word," said the man called Anton. "You're looking at something that ..."

  "Tell me what part you played in it," Ash said.

  "None!" he said. "I'm the Superior General here. I was sent here to see that the wishes of the Elders were carried out."

  "Regardless of what those wishes were?"

  "Who are you to question me?"

  "Did you tell your men to bring the Taltos back to you?"

  "Yes, but that's what the Elders told me to do!" said the man. "What are you accusing me of? What have I done that you should come here, demanding answers of me? The Elders picked those men, not I." The man took a deep breath, all the while studying Ash, studying the small details of his body. "Don't you realize my position?" the man asked. "If Aaron Lightner's been harmed, don't you realize it's the will of the Elders?"

  "You accept this. Does anyone else?"

  "No one else knows, and no one is meant to know," said the man indignantly.

  The woman let out a small gasp. Perhaps she hoped that Aaron was not dead after all. Now she knew.

  "I have to tell the Elders you're here," said the man. "I must report your appearance at once."

  "How will you do that?"

  The man gestured to the fax machine on the desk. The office was large. Ash had scarcely noticed. The fax was a plain-paper fax, replete with many glowing lights and trays for paper. The desk was full of drawers. Probably one of these harbored a gun.

  "I'm to notify them immediately," said the man. "You'll have to excuse me now."

  "I don't think so," said Ash. "You are corrupt. You are no good. I can see this. You sent men from the Order to do harm."