Lasher (Lives of the Mayfair Witches 2)

"Then the battle isn't over."

"No, mon fils, not at all."

He seemed distracted suddenly, woefully sad, and searching, and for one second Michael was terrified the vision would fail. But it only grew stronger, more richly colored, as Julien gestured to the far corner, and smiled.

There the small wooden box of the gramophone stood on a table at the very foot of the brass bed!

"What is real in this room?" Michael demanded softly. "And what is a phantom?"

"Mon Dieu, if I only knew. I never knew." Julien's smile broadened, and once again he relaxed against the mantel shelf, eyes catching the light of the candles, as he looked from left to right, almost dreamily over the walls. "Oh for a cigarette, for a glass of red wine!" he whispered. "Michael, when you can't see me anymore, when we leave each other--Michael, play the waltz for me. I played it for you." His eyes moved imploringly across the ceiling. "Play it every day for fear that I am still here."

"I'll do it, Julien."

"Now listen well..."

Ten

NEW ORLEANS WAS very simply a fabulous place. Lark didn't care if he never left here. The Pontchartrain Hotel was small, but utterly comfortable. He had a spacious suite over the Avenue, with agreeable, traditional furnishings, and the food from the Caribbean Room kitchen was the best he'd ever tasted. They could keep San Francisco for a while. He'd slept till noon today, then eaten a fabulous southern breakfast. When he got home, he was going to learn how to make grits. And this coffee with chicory was a funny thing--tasted awful the first time, and then you couldn't do without it.

But these Mayfairs were driving him crazy. It was late afternoon of his second day in this town and he'd accomplished nothing. He sat on the long gold velvet couch, a very comfortable L-shaped affair, ankle on knee, scribbling away in his notebook, while Lightner made some call in the other room. Lightner had been really tired when he came back to the hotel. Lark figured he'd prefer to be upstairs asleep in his own room now. And a man that age ought to nap; he couldn't simply drive himself night and day as Lightner did.

Lark could hear Lightner's voice rising. Somebody on the other end of the line in London, or wherever it was, was exasperating him.

Of course it wasn't the family's fault that Gifford Mayfair had died unexpectedly in Destin, Florida, that the last two days had been entirely devoted to a wake and a funeral and a sustained pitch of grief which Lark had seldom witnessed in his lifetime. Lightner had been drawn away over and over again by the women of the family, sent on errands, called for consolation and advice. Lark had scarcely had two words with him.

Lark had gone to the wake last night out of prurient curiosity. He could not imagine Rowan Mayfair living with these strange garrulous southerners, who spoke of the living and the dead with equal enthusiasm. And what a handsome well-oiled crowd they were. Seems everybody drove a Beamer or Jag or Porsche. The jewels looked real. The genetic mix included good looks, whatever else came with it.

Then there was the husband; everybody was protecting this Michael Curry. The man looked ordinary enough; in fact, he looked as good as all the others. Well fed, well groomed. Certainly not like a man who'd just suffered a heart attack.

But Mitch Flanagan on the coast was breaking down Curry's DNA now and he'd said it was extremely strange, that he had as unusual a blueprint as Rowan. Flanagan had "managed," as the Keplinger Institute always did, to get the records on Michael Curry without the man's knowledge or permission. But now Lark couldn't get Flanagan!

Flanagan hadn't answered last night or this morning. Some sort of machine kept giving Lark some minimal song and dance with the customary invitation to leave a number.

Lark didn't like this at all. Why was Flanagan stalling him? Lark wanted to see Curry. He wanted to talk to him, ask him certain questions.

It was fun to party and all--he'd gotten much too drunk last night after the wake--and he was headed to Antoine's tonight for dinner with two doctor friends from Tulane, both of them roaring sots, but he had business to do here, and now that Mrs. Ryan Mayfair was buried perhaps they could get on with it.

He stopped his scribbling as Lightner came back into the room.

"Bad news?" he asked.

Lightner took his usual seat in the morris chair, and pondered, finger curled beneath his lip, before he answered. He was a pale man with rather attractive white hair, and a very disarming personal manner. He was also really fatigued. Lark thought this was the one with the heart to worry about.

"Well," said Lightner, "I'm in an awkward position. It seems Erich Stolov was the one who signed for Gifford's clothes in Florida. He was here. He picked up her old clothes at the funeral parlor. And now he's gone, and he and I have not consulted on all this with each other."

"But he's a member of your gang."

"Yes," Aaron answered with a slight sarcastic grimace. "A member of my gang. And the advice from the Elders according to the new Superior General is that I am not to question 'that part' of the investigation."

"So what does all this mean?"

Lightner grew quiet before answering. Then he looked up.

"You said something earlier to me about genetic testing of this entire family. You want to try to broach that subject with Ryan? I think tomorrow morning would not be too early to do it."

"Oh, I'm for it. But you do realize what they'd be getting into. I mean they are the ones taking the risk, essentially. If we turn up congenital diseases, if we turn up predispositions to certain conditions--well, this information might affect everything from insurance eligibility to qualifying for the military. Yes, I want to do it, but I'd much rather concentrate on Curry right now. And this woman Gifford. No way we can get records on Gifford? I mean, let's take our time with this. This Ryan Mayfair is a pretty smart lawyer, as I see it. He won't go for wholesale genetic testing of his entire family. He'd be a fool if he consented or encouraged it."

"And I am not in his good graces just now. If it weren't for my friendship with Beatrice Mayfair, he'd be far more suspicious than he is, and with reason."

Lark had seen the woman in question. She'd come to the hotel yesterday with the news of the tragic death in Destin--a comely small-waisted woman, with upswept gray hair, and one of the most successful face-lifts he'd seen in recent years, though he figured it was probably not her first one. Eyes bright, cheeks perfectly sculpted, only a little telltale indentation beneath the chin and neck smooth as a young woman's neck. So--it was she and Lightner. He should have figured from the wake; she had clung to Lightner desperately, and several times Lark had seen Lightner kiss her. Lark hoped he'd have that kind of luck when he reached eighty, assuming he would. If he didn't stop hitting the booze, he might not make it.

"Look," he said now, "if Gifford Mayfair has medical records in this city, I think I can access them through Keplinger, confidentially, without disturbing or alerting anyone."

Lightner frowned and shook his head as if he thought this most distasteful. "Not again without consent," he said.

"Ryan Mayfair will never know. You leave that to us, the Medical Secret Service

or whatever you want to call it. But I want to see Curry."

"I understand. We can arrange that tomorrow as well. Maybe even later this evening. I have to think."

"About what?"

"All of this. Why the Elders would permit Stolov to come here and to interfere this way, to risk the displeasure of the family." The man seemed to be thinking aloud, not really directing his comments to Lark for an answer. "You know, I've spent all my life in psychic investigation. I've never become so involved with a family before. I feel increasing loyalty to them, and increasing concern. I'm rather ashamed I didn't interfere before Rowan left, but the Elders had given me a very specific directive."

"Well, obviously they too think there is something genetically strange about this family," said Lark. "They too are looking for hereditary traits. Good Lord, at least six people at the wake last night told me Gifford was psychic. They said she'd seen 'the man,' some sort of family ghost. They said she was more powerful than she ever let on. I think your friends in the Talamasca are simply on the same track."

Lightner wasn't quick to respond. Then he said, "But that's just it. We should be on the same track, and I'm not sure we are. It's all rather...puzzling."

The phone interrupted, a low pulsing ring from the handset beside the couch, which looked rather crudely modern among all the mahogany and velvet furniture.

Lark picked it up. "Dr. Larkin," he said, as he always had wherever he answered a phone, even one time a ringing pay phone in an airport, which had jerked him suddenly from his reverie.

"This is Ryan Mayfair," said the man on the other end. "You're the doctor from California?"

"Yes, glad to talk to you, Mr. Mayfair, didn't want to bother you on this of all days. I can hang in here until tomorrow."

"Is Aaron Lightner with you, Doctor?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact he is. Do you want to speak to him?"

"No. Please listen. Edith Mayfair died early today from a uterine hemorrhage. Edith Mayfair was Lauren Mayfair's granddaughter by Jacques Mayfair, my cousin and Gifford's cousin. And Rowan's cousin. Same exact thing which had happened to my wife. Edith apparently bled to death alone in her apartment on Esplanade Avenue. Her grandmother found her this afternoon after the funeral. I think we should talk about this question of genetic testing. There may be problems...coming to the surface in this family."