Taltos

by Anne Rice

  Yuri wanted to answer. But he didn't know what to say. I want this so much to be true?

  Suddenly Ash came towards him, and covered Yuri's face gently in kisses. Yuri looked up, overcome with love, and then, clamping his hand behind Ash's neck, he put his lips to Ash's mouth.

  The kiss was firm and chaste.

  Somewhere in the back of his mind were Samuel's careless words, that he had fallen in love with Ash. He didn't care. That was the thing about trust. Trust brought such a relief to one, such a lovely feeling of being connected, and that is how you let down your guard, and you can be destroyed.

  "I'll take the body now," Ash said. "I'll put it somewhere where men aren't likely to find it."

  "No," said Yuri. He was looking right into Ash's large, calm eyes. "I've already spoken to the Motherhouse, as I said. When you're a few miles away, call them. Here, I'll get the number for you. Tell them to come here. We will take care of the body of Stuart Gordon, along with everything else."

  He moved away from Ash and stood at the foot of the crumpled body. How puny in death Gordon looked, Gordon the scholar whom everyone had so admired, the friend of Aaron, and the mentor to the boys. Yuri bent down, and without disturbing anything else about the body, slipped his hand in the inside pocket of Gordon's jacket, and found there the inevitable stash of small white cards.

  "Here, this is the number of the Motherhouse," he said to Ash as he righted himself, and put a single card in Ash's hand. He looked back at the body. "There's nothing to connect anyone to this dead man," he said. And, realizing it suddenly, the wonderful truth of it, he almost laughed.

  "How marvelous," he announced. "He is simply dead, with no mark on him of violence. Yes, call the number and they will come. They'll take us all home."

  He turned and looked at Rowan and Michael. "I'll contact you soon."

  Rowan's face was sad and unreadable. Michael was plainly anxious.

  "And if you don't," said Michael, "then we'll know that we were wrong."

  Yuri smiled and shook his head. "I understand now, I understand how it could happen; I see the weaknesses, the charm." He looked about the tower room. Part of him hated it so much; part of him saw it as a sanctuary to deadly romanticism; part of him could not endure the thought of waiting for rescue. But he was too tired, really, to think of anything else, or to do it in any other way.

  "I'll go talk to Tessa," said Rowan. "I'll explain that Stuart is very very ill, and that you're going to stay with her until help comes."

  "Oh, that would be too good of you," said Yuri. And then, for the first time, he felt his full exhaustion. He sat down on the chair at the table.

  His eyes fell on the book or codex, as Stuart had called it so properly or so pedantically, he wasn't sure which.

  He saw the long fingers of Ash close on either side of it, picking it up. And then Ash held it again to his chest.

  "How can I reach you?" Yuri asked him.

  "You can't," said Ash. "But in the days that follow, I promise, I will contact you."

  "Please don't forget your promise," said Yuri wearily.

  "I must warn you about something," said Ash softly, thoughtfully, holding the book as if it were some sort of sacred shield. "In the months and years to come," he continued, "you may see my likeness here and there, in the normal course of your life, as you happen to pick up a newspaper or a magazine. Don't ever try to come to me. Don't ever try to call me. I am well guarded in ways you cannot dream of. You will not succeed in reaching me. Tell the same to your Order. I will never acknowledge, to any one of them, the things I've told you. And for the love of God, please warn them not to go to the glen. The Little People are dying out, but until they do, they can be most dangerous. Warn them all: stay away from the glen."

  "Then you are saying that I can tell them what I've seen."

  "Yes, you'll have to do that, you'll have to be utterly open with them. Otherwise you can't go home."

  Yuri looked up at Rowan and then at Michael. They drew close, one on either side of him. He felt Rowan's hand touch his face as she kissed him. He felt Michael's hand on his arm.

  He didn't say anything. He couldn't. He had no more words. Perhaps he had no more tears.

  But the joy in him was so alien to his expectations, it was so wondrous that he longed to tell them, to let them know. The Order would come to get him. The disastrous treachery was finished. They were coming, his brothers and sisters, and he could lay bare the horrors and the mysteries he'd seen.

  He didn't look up as they left him. He heard them descending the winding staircase. He heard the distant sound of the front door. He also heard soft voices just beneath him.

  Slowly he climbed to his feet. He went down the steps to the second floor.

  Beside the loom, in the shadows, Tessa stood like a great sapling, her hands pressed together, nodding her head as Rowan spoke too softly for Yuri to hear. Then Rowan gave the woman her kisses of parting, and quickly walked towards the stairs.

  "Goodbye, Yuri," she said gently as she passed him, and she turned with her hand on the rail. "Yuri, tell them everything. Make sure the file on the Mayfair witches is finished, just as it should be."

  "Everything?" he asked.

  "Why not?" she asked with a strange smile. And then she disappeared. Quickly he looked to Tessa. He'd forgotten about Tessa for those few moments. And Tessa was bound to be miserable when she saw Stuart. Dear God, how would he stop her from going upstairs?

  But Tessa was at her loom again, or her tapestry frame, perhaps that's what it was, and she was sewing and singing a little to herself, or making of her normal respiration a little song.

  He drew close to her, afraid of disturbing her.

  "I know," she said now, looking up at him, smiling sweetly and brightly, with a round and radiant face. "Stuart's died now, and gone, perhaps to heaven."

  "She told you?"

  "Yes, she did."

  Yuri looked out the window. He did not know what he actually saw in the darkness. Was it the gleaming water of the lake? He couldn't tell.

  But then, without mistake, he saw the headlights of a car moving away. Through the dark pockets of forest, the lights flashed and then the car disappeared.

  For a moment he felt deserted, and horribly exposed. But they would make the call for him, of course they would. They were probably making the call right now. Then there would be no record on the phone here, connecting those who were to come, and those with whom he and the woman would go.

  Suddenly he was so tired. Where was the bed in this place? He wanted to ask, but he didn't. He stood merely watching her at her sewing, listening to her humming, and when finally she looked up, she smiled again.

  "Oh, I knew it was coming," she said. "I knew it every time I looked at him. I've never known it to fail with your kind. Sooner or later, you all grow weak and small and you die. It took me years to realize it, to realize that no one escaped it. And Stuart, poor dear, he was so very weak, I knew the death would come for him at any time."

  Yuri said nothing. He felt a powerful aversion to her, so powerful that he struggled with all his being to disguise it, lest she feel some chill, lest she be hurt. Dimly he thought of his Mona; he saw her aflame with human life, fragrant and warm and continuously surprising. He wondered, did the Taltos see humans that way? Rougher? Wilder? Were we coarse animals to them, animals perhaps of volatile and dangerous charm? Rather like lions and tigers are to us?

  Mona. In his mind, he caught a handful of Mona's hair. He saw her turn to look at him, green eyes, lips smiling, words coming rapidly with a lovely American vulgarity and charm.

  He felt more certain than ever that he would never see Mona again.

  He knew that that was what was meant for her, that her family enfold her, that someone of her own mettle, within her own clan, should be her inevitable love.

  "Let's not go upstairs," Tessa said now in a confidential whisper. "Let's let Stuart be dead by himself. It's all right, don't you think? After they
're dead, I don't think they mind what you do."

  Slowly Yuri nodded, and looked back out into the secretive night beyond the glass.

  Twenty

  SHE STOOD IN the dark kitchen, deliciously full. All the milk was gone, every single drop of it, and the cream cheese, and the cottage cheese, and butter too. That's what you call a clean sweep. Oops, forgot something, thin slices of yellow processed cheese, gag me with a spoon, full of chemicals and dye. Ugh, yuk. She chewed them up, gone, thank you.

  "You know, darling, if you had turned out to be an idiot ..." she said.

  That was never a possibility, Mother, I am you and I am Michael. And in a very real way, I am everyone who has been speaking to you from the beginning, and I am Mary Jane.

  She burst into laughter, all alone, in the dark kitchen, leaning against the refrigerator. What about ice cream! Shit, she almost forgot!

  "Well, honey, you drew a good hand," she said. "You couldn't have drawn better. And am I to presume you did not miss a single syllable...."

  Haagen-Dazs vanilla! Pints! Pints!

  "Mona Mayfair!"

  Who was that calling? Eugenia? Don't want to talk to her. Don't want her to disturb me or Mary Jane.

  Mary Jane was still in the library, with the papers she'd sneaked out of Michael's desk, or was it Rowan's, now that Rowan was back in circulation? Never mind, it was all kinds of medical stuff and lawyer business, and papers relating to things that had happened only three weeks ago. Mary Jane, once introduced to the various files and histories, had proved insatiable. The history of the family was now her ice cream, so to speak.

  "Now, the question is, do we share this ice cream with Mary Jane, in cousinly fashion, or do we gobble it?"

  Gobble it.

  It was time to tell Mary Jane! The time had come. When she'd passed the door just a few minutes ago, before the final raid on the kitchen, Mary Jane had been mumbling things about those dead doctors, God help them, Dr. Larkin and the one out in California, and the chemical autopsies on the dead women. The key thing was to remember to put that stuff back so that neither Rowan nor Michael was unduly alarmed. After all, these things were not being done casually, there was a purpose, Mary Jane was the one upon whom she had fully to depend!

  "Mona Mayfair."

  It was Eugenia calling, what a nuisance. "Mona Mayfair, it's Rowan Mayfair on the phone, all the way from England, calling you!"

  Scold, scold. What she needed was a tablespoon for this ice cream, even if she had almost finished the entire pint. There was one more pint to go.

  Now, whose were those little feet coming tippy-tap in the dark, someone running through the dining room? Morrigan clicked her tiny tongue in time with the tippy-tapping.

  "Why, it's my beloved cousin, Mary Jane Mayfair."

  "Shhhh." Mary Jane put a finger to her lips. "She's looking for you. She's got Rowan on the phone. Rowan wants to talk to you, she said for us to wake you up."

  "Pick it up in the library and take the message, I can't risk talking to her. You've got to fool her. Tell her we're fine, I'm in the bathtub or something, and ask about everybody. Like how's Yuri and how's Michael and is she all right?"

  "Got it." And off went the teeny tiny feet, tippy-tapping on the floor.

  She scraped up the last of that pint and threw the container in the sink. What a messy kitchen! And all my life I have been so neat, and now look, I'm corrupted by money. She tore open the next pint.

  Once again came the magic feet. Mary Jane, ripping into the butler's pantry, and flying around the edge of the door, with her corn-yellow hair and her long thin brown legs, and her teensy waist and her white lace skirts swinging like a bell.

  "Mona!" she said in a whisper.

  "Yeah!" Mona whispered back. What the hell. She ate another big spoon of the ice cream.

  "Yes, but Rowan said she had momentous news for us," said Mary Jane, very obviously aware of the import of this message. "That she would tell us all when she saw us, but that right now she had something she had to do. Same for Michael. Yuri's okay."

  "You did a splendid job. What about the guards outside?"

  "She said to keep them, not to change anything. Said she'd already called Ryan and told him. Said for you to stay inside and rest, and do whatever your doctor tells you."

  "Practical woman, intelligent woman. Hmmmmm ..." Well, this second carton was empty already. Enough is enough. She started to shiver all over. So coooold! Why hadn't she gotten rid of those guards?

  Mary Jane reached out and rubbed Mona's arms. "You okay, darlin'?" Then Mary Jane's eyes dropped to Mona's stomach and her face went blank with fear. She lowered her right hand, wanting to touch Mona's stomach, but she didn't dare.

  "Listen, it's time to tell you everything," said Mona. "To give you your choice right now. I was going to lead you into it step by step, but that's not fair and it's not necessary. I can do what I have to do, even if you don't want to help me, and maybe you'd be better off not helping. Either we go now and you help me, or I go alone."

  "Go where?"

  "That's just it. We're clearing out of here, right now. Guards or no guards. You can drive, can't you?"

  She pushed past Mary Jane and into the butler's pantry. She opened the key cabinet. Look for the Lincoln insignia. The limo was a Lincoln, wasn't it? When Ryan had bought it for her, he'd said she should never be in a limousine that was not black and was not a Lincoln. Sure enough, there were the keys! Michael had his keys and the keys to Rowan's Mercedes, but the keys to the limo were right here, where Clem was supposed to leave them.

  "Well, sure, I can drive," said Mary Jane, "but whose car are we taking?"

  "Mine. The limousine. Only we're not taking the driver with it. You ready? We're counting on the driver being fast asleep out back. Now, what do we need?"

  "You're supposed to tell me everything, and give me my choice."

  Mona stopped. They were both in the shadows. The house was dark all around them, light pouring in from the garden, from the big zone of blue illumination that was the pool. Mary Jane's eyes were huge and round, making her nose look tiny and her cheeks very smooth. Tendrils of her hair moved behind her shoulders, but mostly it was corn silk. The light struck the cleft of her breasts.

  "Why don't you tell me?" said Mona.

  "OK," said Mary Jane. "You're going to have it, no matter what it is."

  "Right you are."

  "And you're not lettin' Rowan and Michael kill it, no matter what it is."

  "Right you are!"

  "And the best place for us to go is where nobody will be able to find us."

  "Right you are!"

  "Only the only place I know is Fontevrault. And if we cut loose every skiff at the landing, the only way they can get out there into the basin after us is to bring in their own boat, if they even think of coming down that way."

  "Oh, Mary Jane, you genius! Right you are!"

  Mama, I love you, Mama.

  And I love you too, my little Morrigan. Trust in me. Trust in Mary Jane.

  "Hey, don't faint on me! Lissen, I'm going to go get pillows, blankets, stuff like that. You got any cash?"

  "Heaps, twenty-dollar bills in the drawer by the bed."

  "You sit down, come in here with me, and sit down." Mary Jane led her through the kitchen and to the table. "Put your head down."

  "Mary Jane, don't freak out on me, don't, no matter what it looks like."

  "Just you rest till I come back."

  And away went the clicky high heels, running through the house.

  The song started again, so sweet, so pretty, the song of flowers and the glen.

  Stop, Morrigan.

  Talk to me, Mother, and Oncle Julien brought you here to sleep with my father, but he didn't know what would happen, but you understand, Mother, you said you understood, that the giant helix was in this case not allied to any ancient evil, but was purely an expression of a genetic potential in you and in Father that had always been there ....

&nbs
p; Mona tried to answer, but it wasn't necessary, the voice went on and on, singsong and soft and very rapid.

  Hey, slow down. You sound like a bumblebee when you do that.

  "... immense responsibility, to survive and to give birth, and to love me, Mother, don't forget to love me, I need you, your love, above all things, without which I may lose in my frailty the very will to live...."

  They were all gathered together in the stone circle, shivering, crying, the tall dark-haired one had come, trying to quiet them. They drew in close to the fire.

  "But why? Why do they want to kill us?"

  And Ashlar said, "It is their way. They are warlike people. They kill those who are not of their clan. It is as important as eating or drinking or making love is to us. They feast on death."

  "Look," she said aloud. The kitchen door had just slammed. Be quiet, Mary Jane! Don't bring Eugenia down here. But we've got to be scientific about this, I should have been recording all this on the computer, typing it in as I see it, but it's almost impossible to accurately record when surrendering to a trance. When we reach Fontevrault, we will have Mary Jane's computer. Mary Jane, the godsend.

  Mary Jane had come back, shutting the kitchen door quietly this time, thank heaven.

  "That is what the others have to understand," said Mona, "that this is not from hell, but from God. Lasher was from hell, one could say that, you know, speaking metaphysically or metaphorically, I mean religiously or poetically, but when a creature is born this way of two human beings, both of whom contain a mysterious genome, then it's from God. Who else but God? Emaleth was the child of rape, but not this child. Well, at least the mother wasn't the one who got raped."

  "Shhh, let's us get out of here. I told the guards that I'd seen somebody funny out front, and that I was driving you up to your house to get you some clothes and then to the doctor. Come on!"

  "Mary Jane, you are a genius."

  But when she stood up, the world swam. "Holy God."