The Witching Hour (Lives of the Mayfair Witches 1)

"No, don't speak these words to me. You hurt me. You wound me."

"If you kill Aaron, I will never be your doorway."

"Such a small thing to affect so much."

"Lasher, kill him and I will not be the doorway."

"Rowan, I am at your command. I would have killed him already were I not."

"Same with Michael."

"Very well, Rowan."

"Why did you tell Michael that he couldn't stop me?"

"Because I hoped that he could not and I wanted to frighten him. He is under the spell of Aaron."

"Lasher, how am I to help you come through?"

"I will know when you know, Rowan. And you know. Aaron knows."

"Lasher, we don't know what life is. Not with all our science and all our definitions do we know what life is, or how it began. The moment when it sprang into existence from inert materials is a complete mystery."

"I am already alive, Rowan."

"And how can I make you flesh? You've gone into the bodies of the living and the dead. You can't anchor there."

"It can be done, Rowan." His voice had become as soft as a whisper. "With my power and your power, and with my faith, for I must yield to achieve the bond, and only in your hands is the full merging possible."

She narrowed her eyes, trying to see shapes, patterns in the airy dark.

"I love you, Rowan," he said. "You are weary now. Let me soothe you, Rowan. Let me touch you." The resonance of the voice deepened.

"I want--I want a happy life with Michael and our child."

Turbulence in the air, something collecting, intensifying. She felt the air grow warmer.

"I have infinite patience. I see far. I can wait. But you will lose your taste for others now that you have seen and spoken to me."

"Don't be so certain, Lasher. I'm stronger than the others. I know much more."

"Yes, Rowan." The shadowy turbulence was growing denser, like a great wreath of smoke, only there was no smoke, circling the chandelier, moving out. Like cobwebs caught in a draft.

"Can I destroy you?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Rowan, you torture me."

"Why can't I destroy you?"

"Rowan, your gift is to transmute matter. I have no matter in me for you to attack. You may destroy the matter I bring into organization to make my image, but then I do this myself when I disintegrate. You have seen it. You could hurt my transitory image at such a moment of materialization, and you have already done so. When I first appeared to you. When I came to you near the water. But you cannot destroy me. I have always been here. I am eternal, Rowan."

"And suppose I told you it was finished now, Lasher, that I would never recognize you again. That I would not be the doorway. That I am the doorway for the Mayfairs into the future centuries, the doorway for my unborn child, and for things of which I dream with my ambition."

"Small things, Rowan. Nothing compared to the mysteries and possibilities which I offer you. Imagine, Rowan, when the mutation is complete and I have a body, infused with my timeless spirit, what you can learn from this."

"And if it's done, Lasher, if the doorway is opened, and the fusion is effected, and you stand before me, flesh and blood, how will you treat me then?"

"I would love you beyond all human reason, Rowan, for you would be my mother and my creator, and my teacher. How could I not love you? And how tragic my need of you will be. I will cleave to you to learn how to move with my new limbs, how to see, how to speak and laugh. I will be as a helpless infant in your hands. Can't you see? I would worship you, my beloved Rowan. I would be your instrument in anything that you wished, and twenty times as strong as I am now. Why do you cry? Why are there tears in your eyes?"

"It's a trick, it's a trick of sound and light, the spell you induce."

"No. I am what I am, Rowan. It's your reason which weakens you. You see far. You always have. Twelve crypts and one doorway, Rowan."

"I don't understand. You play with me. You confuse me. I can't follow anymore."

Silence and that sound again, as if the whole air were sighing. Sadness, sadness enveloping her like a cloud, and the undulating layers of smoky shadow moving the length of the room, weaving through and around the chandeliers, filling the mirrors with darkness.

"You're all around me, aren't you?"

"I love you," he said, and his voice was low again as a whisper and close to her. She thought she felt lips touch her cheek. She stiffened, but she had become so drowsy.

"Move away from me," she said. "I want to be left alone now. I have no obligation to love you."

"Rowan, what can I give you, what gift can I bring?"

Again, something brushed her face, something touched her, bringing the chills up over her body. Her nipples were hard beneath the silk of the nightgown, and a low throbbing had started inside her, a hunger she could feel all through her throat and her chest.

She tried to clear her vision. It was dark in here now. The fire had burnt down. But only moments ago it had been a blaze.

"You're playing tricks on me." The air seemed to be touching her all over. "You've played tricks on Michael."

"No." It was a soft kiss against her ear.

"When he was drowned, the visions. You made them!"

"No, Rowan. He was not here. I could not follow him to where he went. I am of the living only."

"Did you make the ghosts he saw when he was alone here that night, when he went alone into the pool?"

"No."

She shivered all over, her hands up to brush away the sensations as if she'd been caught in cobwebs.

"Did you see the ghosts Michael saw?"

"Yes, but through Michael's eyes, I saw them."

"What were they?"

"I don't know."

"Why don't you know?"

"They were images of the dead, Rowan. I am of this earth. I do not know the dead. Do not talk to me of the dead. I do not know of God or of anything which is not of the earth."

"God! But what is this earth?" Something touching the back of her neck, gently lifting the tendrils of her hair.

"Here, Rowan, the realm in which you exist and the realm in which I exist, parallel and intermingled yet separate, in the physical world. I am physical, Rowan--natural as anything else which is of the earth. I burn for you, Rowan, in a purity in which fire has no end, in this our world."

"The ghosts Michael saw on our wedding night," she said, "in this very room. You made him see them."

"No."

"Did you see them?" Like a feather stroking her cheek.

"Through Michael's eyes. I do not have all the answers you demand of me."

Something touching her breasts, something stroking her breasts and her thighs. She curled her legs back under her. The hearth was cold now.

"Get away from me!" she whispered. "You are evil."

&nb

sp; "No."

"Do you come from hell?"

"You play with me. I am in hell, desiring to give you pleasure."

"Stop. I want to get up now. I'm sleepy. I don't want to stay here."

She turned and looked at the blackened fireplace. There were no embers anymore. Her eyes were heavy and so were her limbs. She struggled to her feet, clinging to the mantel. But she knew she could not possibly reach the steps. She turned, and sank down again on her knees and stretched out on the soft Chinese rug. Like silk beneath her, and the hardness and the cool air felt so good to her. She felt she was dreaming when she looked up into the chandelier. The white plaster medallion appeared to be moving, its acanthus leaves curling and writhing.

All the words she'd heard were suddenly swimming in her brain. Something touching her face. Her nipples throbbed and her sex throbbed. She thought of Michael miles and miles away from her, and she felt anguish. She had been so wrong to underestimate this being.

"I love you, Rowan."

"You're above me, aren't you?" She stared up into the shadows, thankful for the coolness, because she was burning as if she'd absorbed all the heat of the fire. She could feel the moisture pumping between her legs, and her body was opening like a flower. Stroking the inside of her thighs where the skin was always softest and had no down, and her legs were turning outward like petals opening.

"I'm telling you to stop, that I'll hate it."

"Love you, my darling." Kissing her ears, and her lips, and then her breasts. The sucking came hard, rhythmic, teeth grazing her nipples.

"I can't stand it," she whispered, but she meant the very opposite, that she would cry out in agony if it stopped.

Her arms were flung out, and the nightgown was being lifted off her. She heard the silk tearing and then the cloth was loose and she was sweetly, deliciously naked lying there, the hands stroking her sex, only they weren't hands. It was Lasher, Lasher sucking her and stroking her, lips on her ears, on her eyelids, all of his immense presence wrapped around her, even under her, stroking the small of her back, and parting her backside and stroking the nether mouth.

Yes, opening, like the dark purple iris in the garden. Like the roses exploding on the ends of their coarsened and darkened stems and the leaves with so many points and tiny veins to them. She tossed and twisted on the carpet.

And when she writhed like a cat in heat ... Go away, old woman, you are not here! This is my time now.

"Yes, your time, our time."

Tongues licked her nipples, lips closing on them, pulling them, teeth scratching her nipples.