The Witching Hour (Lives of the Mayfair Witches 1)

God! This was living! He plunged down until his hands touched the deep blue bottom, then turned over so that he could see the light glittering on the surface above.

Then he shot upwards, letting his natural buoyancy carry him right through that surface, shaking his head and treading water, as he looked up at the stars. There was noise all around him! Laughter, chatter, people talking in loud, animated voices to one another, and underneath it all, the fast-paced wail of a Dixieland band.

He turned, astonished, and saw the lawn strung with lanterns and filled with people; everywhere young couples were dancing on the flagstones or even right on the grass. Every window in the house was lighted. A young man in a black dinner jacket suddenly dove into the pool right in front of him, blinding him with a violent splash of water.

The water suddenly filled his mouth. The noise was now deafening. At the far end of the pool stood an old man in a tailcoat and white tie, beckoning to him.

"Michael!" he shouted. "Come away at once, man, before it's too late!"

A British accent; it was Arthur Langtry. He broke into a rapid swim for the far end. But before he'd taken three strokes, he lost his wind. A sharp pain caught him in the ribs, and he veered for the side.

As he caught hold of the lip of the pool and pulled himself up again, the night around him was empty and quiet.

For a second he did nothing. He remained there, panting, trying to control the beating of his heart, and waiting for the pain in his lungs to go away. His eyes moved all the while over the empty patio, over the barren windows, over the emptiness of the lawn.

Then he tried to climb up and out of the pool. His body felt impossibly heavy, and even in the heat he was cold. He stood there shivering for a moment, then he went into the cabana and picked up one of the soiled towels he used in the day, when he came in here to wash his hands. He toweled dry with it, and went back out and looked again at the empty garden and the darkened house. The freshly painted violet walls were now exactly the color of the twilight sky.

His own noisy breathing was the only sound in the quiet. But the pain was gone from his chest, and slowly he forced himself to breathe deeply several times.

Was he frightened? Was he angry? He honestly didn't know. He was in a state of shock maybe. He wasn't sure on that score either. He felt he'd run the four-minute mile again, that was certain, and his head was beginning to hurt. He picked up his clothes and dressed, refusing to hurry, refusing to be driven away.

Then for a long moment he sat on the curved iron bench, smoking a cigarette and studying things around him, trying to remember exactly what he'd seen. Stella's last party. Arthur Langtry.

Another one of Lasher's tricks?

Far away, over the lawn, all the way at the front fence, among the camellias, he thought he saw someone moving. He heard steps echoing. But it was only an evening stroller, someone peeping perhaps through the leaves.

He listened until he could no longer hear the distant footsteps, and he realized he was hearing the click of the riverfront train passing, just the way he'd heard it on Annunciation Street when he was a boy. And that sound again, the sound of a baby crying, that was just a train whistle.

He rose to his feet, stubbed out the cigarette, and went back into the house.

"You don't scare me," he said, offhandedly. "And I don't believe it was Arthur Langtry."

Had someone sighed in the darkness? He turned around. Nothing but the empty dining room around him. Nothing but the high keyhole door to the hallway. He walked on, not bothering to soften his footfalls, letting them echo loudly and obtrusively.

There was a faint clicking. A door closing? And the sound a window makes when it is raised--a vibration of wood and panes of glass.

He turned and went up the stairway. He went to the front and then through every empty room. He didn't bother with the lights. He knew his way around the old furniture, ghostly under its plastic drapery. The pale light from the street lamp floating through the doorways was plenty enough for him.

Finally he had covered every foot of it. He went back down to the first floor and out the door.

When he got back to the hotel, he called Aaron from the lobby and asked him to come down to the bar for a drink. It was a pleasant little place, right in the front, small, with a few cozy tables in a dim light, and seldom crowded.

They took a table in the corner. Swallowing half a beer in record time, he told Aaron what had happened. He described the gray-haired man.

"You know, I don't even want to tell Rowan," he said.

"Why not?" Aaron asked.

"Because she doesn't want to know. She doesn't want to see me upset again. It drives her nuts. She tries to be understanding, but things just don't affect her the same way. I go crazy. She gets angry."

"I think you must tell her."

"She'll tell me to ignore it, and to go on doing what makes me happy. And sometimes I wonder if we shouldn't get the hell out of here, Aaron, if somebody shouldn't ... " He stopped.

"What, Michael?"

"Ah, it's crazy. I'd kill anybody who tried to hurt that house."

"Tell her. Just tell her simply and quietly what happened. Don't give her the reaction which will upset her, unless of course she asks for it. But don't keep any secrets, Michael, especially not a secret like that."

He was quiet for a long time. Aaron had almost finished his drink.

"Aaron, the power she has. Is there any way to test it, or work with it, or learn what it can do?"

Aaron nodded. "Yes, but she feels she's worked with it all her life in her healing. And she's right. As for the negative potential, she doesn't want to develop it; she wants to rein it in completely."

"Yes, but you'd think she'd want to play with it once in a while, in a laboratory situation."

"In time, perhaps. Right now I think she's focused completely upon the idea of the medical center. As you said, she wants to be with the family and realize these plans. And I have to admit this Mayfair Medical is a magnificent conception. I think Mayfair and Mayfair are impressed, though they're reluctant to say so." Aaron finished his wine. "What about you?" Aaron gestured to Michael's hands.

"Oh, it's getting better. I take the gloves off more and more often. I don't know ... "

"And when you were swimming?"

"Well, I took them off, I guess. God, I didn't even think about it. I ... You don't think it had to do with that, do you?"

"No, I don't think so. But I think you're very right to assume it might not have been Langtry. It's no more than a feeling perhaps, but I don't think Langtry would try to come through in that way. But do te

ll Rowan. You want Rowan to be perfectly honest with you in return, don't you? Tell her the whole thing."

He knew Aaron was right. He was dressed for dinner and waiting in the living room of the suite when Rowan came in. He fixed her a club soda with ice, and explained the whole incident as briefly and concisely as he could.

At once, he saw the anxiety in her face. It was almost a disappointment, that something ugly and dark and awful had once again blighted her stubborn sense that everything was going well. She seemed incapable of saying anything. She merely sat on the couch, beside the heap of packages she'd brought home with her. She did not touch the drink.

"I think it was one of his tricks," said Michael. "That was my feeling. The lily, that was some kind of trick. I think we should just go right on."

That's what she wanted to hear, wasn't it?

"Yes, that's exactly what we should do," she said, with slight irritation. "Did it ... shake you up?" she asked. "I think I might have gone crazy seeing something like that."

"No," he said. "It was shocking. But it was sort of fascinating. I guess it made me angry. I kind of ... well, had one of those attacks, sort of ... "

"Oh, Christ, Michael."

"No, no! Sit back down, Dr. Mayfair. I'm fine. It's just that when these things happen, there's an exertion, an overall systemic reaction or something. I don't know. Maybe I'm scared and I don't know it. That's probably what it is. One time when I was a kid, I was riding the roller coaster at Pontchartrain Beach. We got right to the top and I figured, well, I won't brace myself for once. I'll just go down the big dip completely relaxed. Well, the strangest thing happened. I felt these cramps in my stomach and my chest. Painful! It was like my body tensed for me, without permission. It was sort of like that. In fact, it was exactly like that."

She was really losing it. She sat there with her arms folded, and her lips pressed together, and she was losing it. Finally in a low voice she said, "People die of heart attacks on roller coasters. Just the way they die from other forms of stress."

"I'm not going to die."

"What makes you so sure?"