The Witching Hour (Lives of the Mayfair Witches 1)

He made a sudden impatient motion for me to stop.

"Look, I came here because of Deirdre," I said. "I came because she's going mad. The girl I spoke to in Texas is on the edge of breakdown."

"Do you think you helped her?"

"No, and I deeply regret that I didn't. If you don't want contact with us, I understand. Why the hell should you? But we can help Deirdre. We really can."

No answer. He drank the sherry. I tried to see this from his point of view. I couldn't. I'd never tried to poison someone. I didn't have the faintest idea of who he really was. The man I'd known in the history wasn't this man.

"Would your father, Julien, have spoken to me?" I asked.

"Not a chance of it," he said, looking up as though awakening from his thoughts. For a moment he looked deeply distressed. "But don't you know from all your observations," he asked, "that he was one of them?" Again, he seemed completely earnest, his eyes searching my face as if to assure himself that I was earnest too.

"And you're not one of them?" I asked.

"No," he said with great quiet emphasis, slowly shaking his head. "Not really. Not ever!" He looked sad suddenly, and when he did he looked old. "Look, spy on us if you wish. Treat us as if we were a royal family ... "

"Exactly."

"You're historians, that's what my contacts in London tell me. Historians, scholars, utterly harmless, completely respectable ... "

"I'm honored."

"But leave my niece alone. My niece has a chance for happiness now. And this thing must come to an end, you see. It must. And perhaps she can see to it that it does."

"Is she one of them?" I asked, echoing his early intonation.

"Of course she isn't!" he said. "That's just the point! There is no one of them now! Don't you see that? What's been the theme of your study of us? Haven't you seen the disintegration of the power? Stella wasn't one of them either! The last one was Mary Beth. Julien--my father, that is--and then Mary Beth."

"I've seen it. But what about your spectral friend? Will he allow it to come to a finish?"

"You believe in him?" He cocked his head with a faint smile, his dark eyes creasing at the edges with silent laughter. "Really, now, Mr. Lightner? Do you believe in Lasher yourself?"

"I saw him," I said simply.

"Imagination, sir. My niece told me it was a very dark garden."

"Oh, please. Have we come this far to say such things to each other? I saw him, Cortland. He smiled when I saw him. He made himself very substantial and vivid indeed."

Cortland's smile became smaller, more ironic. He raised his eyebrows and gave a little sigh. "Oh, he would like your choice of words, Mr. Lightner."

"Can Deirdre make him go away and leave her alone?"

"Of course she can't. But she can ignore him. She can live her life as if he weren't there. Antha couldn't. Stella didn't want to. But Deirdre's stronger than Antha, and stronger than Stella too. Deirdre has a lot of Mary Beth in her. That's what the others often don't realize--" He appeared to catch himself suddenly in the act of saying more than he had ever intended to say.

He stared at me for a long moment, and then he gathered up his cigarette case and his lighter and slowly rose to his feet.

"Don't go yet," I said, imploringly.

"Send me your history. Send it to me and I'll read it. And then maybe we can talk again. But don't ever approach my niece again, Mr. Lightner. Understand that I would do anything to protect her from those who mean to exploit her or hurt her. Anything at all!"

He turned to go.

"What about the drink?" I asked, rising. I gestured to the bourbon. "Suppose I call the police and I offer the contaminated drink in evidence?"

"Mr. Lightner. This is New Orleans!" He smiled and winked at me in the most charming fashion. "Now please, go home to your watchtower and your telescope and gaze at us from afar!"

I watched him leave. He walked gracefully with very long, easy steps. He glanced back when he reached the doorway and gave me a quick, agreeable wave of his hand.

I sat down, ignoring the drugged bourbon, and wrote an account of the whole affair in my diary. I then took a small bottle of aspirin out of my pocket, emptied out the tablets, and poured some of the drugged bourbon into it, and capped it and put it away.

I was about to collect my diary and pen and make for the stairs when I looked up and saw the bellhop standing in the lobby just beyond the door. He came forward. "Your bags are ready, Mr. Lightner. Your car is here." Bright, agreeable face. Nobody had told him he was personally throwing me out of town.

"Is that so?" I said. "Well, and you packed everything?" I surveyed the two bags. My diary I had with me, of course. I went into the lobby. I could see a large old black limousine stopping up the narrow French Quarter street like a giant cork.

"That's my car?"

"Yes sir, Mr. Cortland said to see you made the ten o'clock flight to New York. Said he'd have someone meet you at the airport with the ticket. You ought to have plenty of time."

"Isn't that thoughtful?" I fished into my pocket for a couple of bills, but the boy refused them.

"Mr. Cortland's taken care of everything, sir. You'd better hurry. You don't want to miss your plane."

"That's true. But I have a superstition about big black cars. Get me a taxi, and do take this for it, please."

The taxi took me not to the airport but to the train. I managed to get a sleeper for St. Louis, and went on to New York from there. When I spoke to Scott he was adamant. This data required a reevaluation. Don't do any more research in New York. Come home.

Halfway across the Atlantic, I became ill. By the time I reached London I was running a high fever. An ambulance was waiting to take me to hospital, and Scott was there to ride with me. I was going in and out of consciousness. "Look for poison," I said.

Those were my last words for eight hours. When I finally came around, I was still feverish and uncomfortable, but much reassured to be alive and to discover Scott and two other good friends in the room.

"You've been poisoned all right, but the worst is over. Can you remember your last drink before you boarded the plane?"

"That woman," I said.

"Tell me."

"I was in the bar at the New York airport, had a Scotch and soda. She was stumbling alone with an impossible bag, then asked me if I'd fetch the skycap for her. She was coughing as if she were tubercular. Very unhealthy-looking creature. She sat at my table while I went for the skycap. Probably a hireling, off the streets."

"She slipped you a poison called ricin; its from the castor bean. Very powerful, and extremely common. Same thing Cortland put in your bourbon. You're out of the woods, but you're going to be sick for two more days."

"Good Lord." My stomach was cramping again.

"They aren't ever going to talk to us, Aaron," Scott said. "How could they? They kill people. It's over. At least for now."