The Witching Hour (Lives of the Mayfair Witches 1)

He must have looked like a drunk now, for sure stranded there, staring at the firehouse, with all the fire fighters having sense enough to be inside where it was warm. All those years ago, at Christmas, his father dying in that fire.

When he looked up at the sky, he realized it was the color of slate now, and the daylight was dying. Christmas Eve and absolutely everything had gone wrong.

No one answered his call when he came in the door. Only the tree gave off a soft glow in the parlor. He wiped his feet on the that and walked back through the long hallway, his hands and face hurting from the cold. He unpacked the bag and put the turkey out, thinking that he would go through with all the steps, he'd do it the way he'd always done it--and tonight, at midnight, the feast would be ready, just at that hour when in the old days they'd be crowded into the church for Midnight Mass.

It wasn't Holy Communion, but it was their meal together, and this was Christmas and the house wasn't haunted and ruined and dark.

Go through the motions.

Like a priest who's sold his soul to the devil, going to the altar of God to say Mass.

He put the packages in the cupboard. It wasn't too soon to begin. He laid out the candles. Have to find the candlesticks for them. And surely she was around here somewhere. She'd gone out walking too perhaps and now she was home.

The kitchen was dark. The snow was falling again. He wanted to turn on the lights. In fact, he wanted to turn them on everywhere, to fill the house with light. But he didn't move. He stood very still in the kitchen, looking out through the French doors over the back garden, watching the snow melt as it struck the surface of the pool. A rim of ice had formed around the edges of the blue water. He saw it glistening and he thought how cold that water must be, so awfully hurtfully cold.

Cold like the Pacific on that summer Sunday when he'd been standing there, empty and slightly afraid. The path from that moment seemed infinitely long. And it was as if all energy or will had left him now, and the cold room held him prisoner, and he could not move a finger to make himself comfortable or safe or warm.

A long time passed. He sat down at the table, lighted a cigarette and watched the darkness come down. The snow had stopped, but the ground was covered in a fresh clean whiteness again.

Time to do something, time to begin the dinner. He knew it, yet he couldn't move. He smoked another cigarette, comforted by the sight of the tiny burning red flame, and then as he crushed it out, he merely sat still, doing nothing, the way he had for hours in his room on Liberty Street, drifting in and out of a silent panic, unable to think or move.

He didn't know how long he sat there. But at some time or other, the pool lights came on, shining brilliantly up through the blackness of the night, making a great piece of blue glass of the pool. The dark foliage came alive around it, spattered with the whiteness. And the ground took on a ghostly lunar glow.

He wasn't alone. He knew it, and as the knowledge penetrated, he realized he had only to turn his head and see her standing there, in the far doorway to the pantry, with her arms folded, her head and shoulders outlined against the pale cabinets behind her, her breath making only the smallest, the most subtle sound.

This was the purest dread he'd ever known. He stood up, slipped the pack of cigarettes into his pocket, and when he looked up she was gone.

He went after her, moving swiftly through the darkened dining room and into the hallway again, and then he saw her all the way at the far end, in the light from the tree, standing against the high white front door.

He saw the keyhole shape perfect and distinct around her, and how small she looked in it, and as he came closer and closer, her stillness shocked him. He was terrified of what he'd see when he finally drew close enough to make out the features of her face in the airy dark.

But it wasn't that awful marble face he'd seen last night. She was merely looking at him, and the soft colored illumination from the tree filled her eyes with dim reflected light.

"I was going to fix our supper. I bought everything. It's back there." How uncertain he sounded. How miserable. He tried to pull himself together. He took a deep breath and hooked his thumbs in the pockets of his jeans. "Look, I can start it now. It's just a small turkey. It will be done in a few hours, and I have everything. It's all there. We'll set the table with the pretty china. We've never used any of the china. We've never had a meal on the table. This is ... this is Christmas Eve."

"You have to go," she said.

"I ... I don't understand you."

"You have to get out of here now."

"Rowan?"

"You have to leave, Michael. I have to be alone here now."

"Honey, I don't understand what you're telling me."

"Get out, Michael." Her voice dropped lower, becoming harder. "I want you to go."

"It's Christmas Eve, Rowan. I don't want to go."

"It's my house, Michael, I'm telling you to leave it. I'm telling you to get out."

He stared at her for a moment, stared at the way her face was changing, at the twist of her drawn lips, at the way her eyes had narrowed and she had lowered her head slightly and was looking up at him from under her brows.

"You ... you're not making any sense, Rowan. Do you realize what you're saying?"

She took several steps towards him. He braced himself, refusing to be frightened. In fact his fear was alchemizing into anger.

"Get out, Michael," she hissed at him. "Get out of this house and leave me here to do what I must do."

Suddenly her hand swung up and forward, and before he realized what was happening, he felt the shocking slap across his face.

The pain stung him. The anger crested; but it was more bitter and painful than any anger he'd ever felt. Shocked and in a fury, he stared at her.

"It's not you, Rowan!" he said. He reached out for her, and the hand came up and as he went to block it, he felt her shove him backwards against the wall. In rage and confusion, he looked at her. She came closer, her eyes firing in the glow from the parlor.

"Get out of here," she whispered. "Do you hear what I'm saying?"

Stunned, he watched as her fingers dug into his arm. She shoved him to the left, towards the front door. Her strength was shocking to him, but physical strength had nothing to do with it. It was the malice emanating from her; it was the old mask of hate again covering her features.

"Get out of this house now, I'm ordering you out," she said, her fingers releasing him, and grabbing at the doorknob and turning it and opening the door on the cold wind.

"How can you do this to me!" he asked her. "Rowan, answer me. How can you do it?"

In desperation, he reached for her and this time nothing stopped him. He caught her and shook her, and her head fell to the side for an instant and then she turned back, merely staring at him, daring him to continue, silently forcing him to let her go.

"What good are you to me dead, Michael?" she whispered. "If you love me, leave now. Come back when I call you. I must do this alone."

"I can't. I won't do it."

She turned her back on him and walked down the hall, and he went after her.

"Rowan, I'm not going, do you hear me? I don't care what happens, I'm not leaving you. You can't ask me to do that."

"I knew you wouldn't," she said softly as he followed her into the dark library. The heavy velvet drapes were closed and he could barely see her figure as she moved towards the desk.

"Rowan, we can't go on not talking about it. It's destroying us. Rowan, listen to me."

"Michael, my beautiful angel, my archangel," she said, with her back turned to him, her words muffled. "You'd rather die, wouldn't you, than trust in me?"

"Rowan, I'll fight him with my bare hands if I have to." He came towards her. Where were the lamps in this room? He reached out, trying to find the brass lamp beside the chair, and then she wheeled around and bore down on him.

He saw the syringe raised.

"No, Rowan!"

The needle sank into his arm in the same

instant.

"Christ, what have you done to me!" But he was already falling to the side, just as if he had no legs, and then the lamp went over on the floor, and he was lying beside it, staring right at the pale sharp spike of the broken bulb.

He tried to say her name, but his lips wouldn't move.