Lasher (Lives of the Mayfair Witches 2)

"How dare you play with me in this way!" I said, and I threw her back on the bed. Her dressing gown opened and there were her breasts, a luscious enticement.

Within seconds, I was ripping open my own clothes. She had begun to scream. She was terrified.

"No, no Julien, don't!" she cried.

But I was on top of her, and spreading her legs, and ripping what cloth was left out of my way.

"Oh Julien, please, please, don't," she cried in the most heartbreaking voice. "It's me, it's Katherine."

But it was done. I had raped her and I took my time in finishing it and then climbed off the bed and went to the window. I thought my heart would burst. And I could not believe what I had done.

Meantime, she had gone from a little curl of a sobbing woman in the bed, to rushing to me, and suddenly flinging her arms around me and crying again my name, "Julien, Julien!"

What did this mean? That she wanted me to protect her from myself?

"Oh, darling child," I said. And I broke down utterly, kissing her.

And then we did it again, and again, and again.

And Mary Beth was born to us nine months after.

By then we had been at Riverbend all that time, and I could scarcely stand the sight of Katherine.

I had not dared to trouble her under our own roof, and I doubt she would have received me anyway. She had blotted the truth from her mind. She thought the thing in her belly was Darcy's baby. She said her rosary all the time, for Darcy's unborn child.

And everyone, everyone knew what I had done to her. Julien the evil one. Julien had got his sister with child. The cousins stared at me as if I were anathema. Out of Fontevrault, Augustin's son Tobias came especially to curse me and tell me I was the Devil. Far and wide people knew who did not dare to show their displeasure.

And then there were all my gambling, whoring friends, who thought it strange and unmanly, but when I did not falter a step in my usual dance, they merely gave a shrug and accepted it. That's one thing I found out, you can carry off most any sin, if you just do nothing.

Ah, but the baby was coming. Once again, the whole family held its breath.

And Lasher? When I saw him at all, he was as impassive as he had ever been. He hovered near Katherine all the time, unseen by her.

"It was his doing," my mother said. "He pushed you into her arms. Stop fretting. She has to have more babies, everyone knows, she has to have a daughter. Why not you for the father, a powerful witch? I think it's a fine idea."

I didn't bother to talk about it again with her.

And I didn't know if it had been his doing. I don't know now. All I knew was it was the most expensive pleasure I'd ever bought, this rape, and that I, Julien, who could kill men at any time without a qualm, felt filthy and acquainted with cruelty and with evil.

Katherine really lost her mind before Mary Beth was born. But nobody knew it.

From the time of the rape, really, she was never anything any more than a mumbling woman saying her beads, and talking about angels and saints, good for playing with little children.

But then came the night of Mary Beth's birth; Katherine was huge with the child, and screaming in agony. I was in the room, with the black midwives and the white doctor, and with Marguerite and all those who were to attend and help. You never saw such a committee assembled.

And finally with her last and most wrenching scream, Katherine pushed Mary Beth forth into the world, and here it came, this beautiful and perfect child, resembling more a small female than an infant. By that I mean that though its head was a baby's head, it had rich black curls already, and one shining tooth flashed beneath the baby's upper lip, and its arms and legs were exquisite. It writhed with life and gave forth the most soft and beautiful and lustful cries.

They put it into my arms.

"Eh bien, Monsieur, this is your niece," said the old doctor with great ceremony.

And I looked down at this daughter of mine, and then in the corner of my eye saw the devil come in vapor form, my Lasher, not in the solid way so that others in this room might see, but merely an apparition, soft as silk brushing my shoulder. And the child's eyes had seen it too! The child was making its tiny precocious mouth into a smile for it.

Her cries grew quiet; her tiny hands opened and closed. I planted my kiss on her forehead. A witch, a witch through and through; the scent of power rose from her like perfume.

And then came the most ominous words I had ever heard, confidential from the fiend to me:

"Well done, Julien. You have served your purpose!"

I was thunderstruck. Every silent and deafening syllable sank in slowly.

I let my right hand slip up and around the baby's throat, beneath its covers of white linen and lace, and closed my thumb and my forefinger tightly against the pale flesh, though no one in the room took notice.

"Julien, no!" came his whisper in my head.

"Oh, come now," I asked in my secret voice, "you need me to protect it for a little while longer, don't you? Look around you, spirit. Look with a human's cunning, for once, and not the addled brains of an angel. What do you see? An old hag and a mumbling madwoman, and a baby girl. Who will teach it what it needs to know? Who will be there to protect it when it begins to show its gifts?"

"Julien, I never meant that I would harm you."

I laughed and everyone thought I was laughing at the wriggling child, which did certainly seem to have its little eyes focused tight upon something which no one else could now see, just over my shoulder, and now I gave it over to the nurses, and they bathed it again to make it ready for its mother.

I withdrew from the room. I was steaming with rage. You have served your purpose! Indeed, had that been it from the very first? More than likely. And all the rest was games and I knew it.

But I knew this too. Around me in all directions, there thrived an immense and prosperous family, a family of people I loved, who had once loved me before this abominable act, and stood to love me still if I could earn their forgiveness. And in that room behind me was a darling child who touched my heart as all children always have--and this child was mine, my firstborn!

All the good things, I thought, the good things which are li

fe itself! And damn this daemon to hell that I cannot get rid of it!

But what right had I to complain? What right had I to regret? What right had I to be ashamed? I'd let the thing enslave me from my earliest years, when I knew it was treacherous and fanciful and pompous and selfish. I'd known. I'd played into its hands as all the witches had, as the whole family had.

And now, if it was to let me live, I had to be of some clear use to it. I had to think of something. Teaching Mary Beth wouldn't be enough. No, not nearly enough. After all the thing itself was a damned good teacher. No, I had to think of something quick, and it was going to take all my witches' gifts to do it.

Even as I brooded, the family gathered. Cousins came running, shouting and waving and clapping their hands.

"It's a girl, it's a girl! At last, Katherine has given birth to a girl!"

And suddenly I was surrounded by loving hands, and loving kisses. It was perfectly fine that I'd raped my sister; or I'd done penance enough; whatever, I didn't know. But Riverbend was filled with cheering voices. Champagne corks popped; musicians played. The baby was held aloft from the gallery. Ships on the river began to blow their whistles to honor our visible and obvious festivity.

Oh God in heaven! What will you do now, I thought, you evil evil man? What will you do merely to keep yourself alive and to save that tiny baby from utter destruction?

Fifteen

THE WORLD SHOOK with Father's song and Father's laughter. Father said, in his fast high-pitched voice, "Emaleth, be strong; take what you must; Mother may try to harm you. Fight, Emaleth, fight to be with me. Think of the glen and the sunshine and of all our children."

Emaleth saw children--thousands and thousands of people like Father, and like Emaleth herself, for she did see herself now, her own long fingers, and long limbs, and hair swimming in the water of the world that was Mother. The world that was already too small for her.

How Father laughed. She saw him dance; she saw him dance as Mother saw him. His song to her was long and beautiful.

Flowers were in the room. Lots and lots of flowers. The scent was everywhere mingled with the scent of Father. Mother cried and cried and Father tied her hands to the bed. Mother kicked him and Father cursed; and there was thunder in heaven.