Taltos (Lives of the Mayfair Witches 3)

"Tell me now, neither of you will hurt her."

"Hurt her? How could I do that?" Michael said.

And then Rowan began to cry, blubbering hopelessly against her clasped hands. "Oh God."

The tall girl had taken a shaky step and then another. And now would that helpless voice come out, the child voice he'd heard from the other before the shot was fired? He felt dizzy. The sun was dying as if on cue, the house returning to its natural darkness.

"Michael, sit down, sit down there on the step," said Mona.

"Dear God, he's sick," said Mary Jane. And Rowan, snapping to, wrapped her long wet fingers around his neck.

And the tall one said:

"Well, I know this is a dreadful shock for you both, and Mother and Mary Jane have worried for days, but I myself am relieved to see you at last, and force a decision as to whether I can remain beneath this roof, as they say, your child as well as Mona's child. As you can see here, she has placed the emerald around my neck, but I bow to your decision."

Rowan was speechless. So was he. It would have been Mona's voice except it sounded older, and a little less strong, as though chastened already by the world.

He looked up to see her standing there, big spill of vivid red locks, woman's breasts and long curved legs, and her eyes, her eyes like green fire.

"Father," she whispered, dropping to her knees. Her long fingers shot out and clasped his face.

He closed his eyes.

"Rowan," she said. "Love me, please, and then maybe he will."

Rowan cried, her fingers tightening on his neck. His heart was thudding in his ears, thudding as if it were growing bigger and bigger.

"Morrigan is my name," she said.

"She's mine, my child," Mona said, "and yours, Michael."

"And I think it's time that you let me speak," said Morrigan, "that I take the burden of decision from both of you."

"Honey, slow down," he said. He blinked his eyes slowly, trying to clear his vision.

But something had disturbed this long nymph. Something had made her draw back her hands and then sniff at her fingers. Her eyes flashed to Rowan and then to him. She rose, rushing close to Rowan, before Rowan could possibly move away, sniffing at Rowan's cheeks, and then standing back.

"What is that scent?" she said. "What is it! I know that scent!"

"Listen to me," Rowan said. "We'll talk. That's what you said. Now come." She moved forward, releasing him to die of a heart attack entirely by himself, and she put her arms around the girl's waist, the girl staring down at her with comically frightened eyes.

"The scent's all over you."

"What do you think it is?" Mona asked. "What could it be?"

"A male," the girl whispered. "They've been with him, these two."

"No, he's dead," said Mona, "you're picking it up again from the floorboards, from the walls."

"Oh no," she whispered. "This is a living male." Suddenly she grabbed Rowan by the shoulders. Mona and Mary Jane sped to her side, gently tugging her arms away. Michael was on his feet. God, the creature was the same height as he was. Mona's face, but not Mona, no, not Mona at all.

"The smell is driving me mad," she whispered. "You keep this secret from me? Why?"

"Give them time to explain," Mona pleaded. "Morrigan, stop it, listen to me." And then she had the girl's hands in hers, holding them tight. And Mary Jane was standing on tiptoe.

"Now just you simmer down, long tall Sally, and let them tell us the scoop."

"You don't understand," Morrigan said, voice suddenly thick and tears gathering in her huge green eyes, as she looked again to Michael, to Rowan. "There's a male, don't you see? There's a male of me! Mother, you can smell the scent. Mother, tell the truth!" It was a scream. "Mother, please, I can't stand it!" And her sobs came like something tumbling downstairs, her face clenched in pain, her tall angular body wobbling, and bending gently as she let the other two embrace her and keep her from falling.

"Let us take her now," said Mary Jane.

"Just don't do anything, you have to swear," Mona pleaded.

"And we'll meet and we'll talk, and we'll ..."

"Tell me," the stricken girl whispered. "Tell me, where is he?"

Rowan pushed Michael towards the elevator, pulling open the old wooden door. "Get in."

And the last thing he saw, as he leaned against the back wall of the elevator, was those pretty cotton dresses, as the three of them fled up the stairs together.

He lay on the bed.

"Now, don't think of it now. Don't think," Rowan said.

The wet rag felt exactly like a wet rag. He didn't like it.

"I'm not going to die," he said quietly. And what an effort, the words. Was it defeat again, was it a great ghastly defeat, and the scaffolding of the normal world buckling beneath its weight, and the future forecast once more in the colors of death and Lent, or was it something that they could embrace and contain, something that they could somehow accept without the mind shattering?

"What do we do?" she whispered.

"You are asking me this, you? What do we do?" He rolled over on his side. The pain was a little less. He was sweating all over and despised it, the feel of it, the inevitable smell. And where were they, the three beauties? "I don't know what we do," he answered.

She sat still on the side of the bed, her shoulders slightly hunched, her hair falling down against her cheek, her eyes gazing off.

"Will he know what to do?" Michael asked. Her head turned as if pulled sharply by a string. "Him? You can't tell him. You can't expect him to learn some hing like that and not ... not go as crazy as she's gone. Do you want that to happen? Do you want him to come? Nobody and nothing will stand between them."

"And what happens then?" he asked, trying to make his voice sound strong, firm, when the firmest thing he knew to do was to ask questions.

"What happens! I don't know. I don't know any more than you do! Dear God, there are two of them and they are alive and they're not ... they're not ..."

"What?"

"Not some evil that stole its way in, some lying, deceiving thing that nourished alienation, madness. They're not that."

"Keep talking," he said. "Keep saying those things. Not evil."

"No, not evil, only another form of natural." She stared off, her voice dropping low, her hand resting warmly on his arm.

If only he wasn't so tired. And Mona, Mona for how long had she been alone with this creature, this firstborn thing, this long-necked heron of a girl with Mona's features stamped on her face. And Mary Jane, the two witches together.

And all the time they had been so dedicated to their tasks, to save Yuri, to weed out the traitors, to comfort Ash, the tall being who was no one's enemy and never had been and never would be.

"What can we do?" she whispered. "What right have we to do anything?"

He turned his head, trying to see her clearly. He sat up, slowly, feeling the bite beneath his ribs, small now, unimportant. He wondered vaguely how long one could hang on with a heart that winced so quickly, so easily. Hell, not easily. It had taken Morrigan, hadn't it? His daughter, Morrigan. His daughter crying somewhere in the house with her childmother, Mona.

"Rowan," he said. "Rowan, what if this is Lasher's triumph? What if this was the plan all along?"

"How can we know that?" she whispered. Her fingers had gone to her lips, the sure sign that she was in mental pain and trying to think her way through it. "I can't kill again!" she said, so soft it was like a sigh.

"No, no ... not that, no, I don't mean that. I can't do that! I ..."

"I know. You didn't kill Emaleth. I did."

"That's not what we have to think about now. What we have to think about is--do we handle this alone? Do we try? Do we bring together others?"

"As if she were an invading organism," Rowan murmured, eyes wide, "and the other cells came to surround her, contain her."