Taltos (Lives of the Mayfair Witches 3)

"From the same line as the Mother?" said Ash softly.

Suddenly Yuri pulled in the photograph and crushed it flat to his chest. He pitched forward, sick again, the pain in his shoulder immediately paralyzing him.

Ash politely withdrew and went to the mantel. The fire had gone down somewhat. Ash stood with his hands on the mantel shelf. His back was very straight, his bearing almost military, his full dark hair curling against his collar, completely covering his neck. From this vantage point, Yuri could see no white in his hair, only the deep dark locks, brownish black.

"So they'll try to get her," said Ash, with his back turned still, raising his voice as needed. "Or they will try to get her or some other witch in this family."

"Yes," said Yuri. He was dazed, yet maddened. How could he have thought that he did not love her? How could she have been so distant from him so suddenly? "They'll try to get her. Oh, my God, but we've given them an advantage," he said, only just realizing it, and realizing it completely. "Good God, we have played into their hands. Computers! Records! It's just what happened with the Order!"

He stood up. The shoulder was throbbing. He didn't care. He was still holding the picture, tight, under the cover of his palm, and pressed to the shirt.

"How so, played into their hands?" asked Ash, turning, the firelight flashing up on his face so that his eyes looked almost as green as Mona's and his tie looked like a deep stain of blood.

"The genetic testing!" Yuri said. "The whole family is going through the testing, so as never to match again a witch to a witch that might make the Taltos. Don't you see? There are records being compiled, genetic, genealogical, medical. It will be in these records who is a powerful witch and who is not. Dear God, they will know whom to single out. They'll know better than the foolish Taltos! They'll have a weapon in this knowledge he never had. Oh, he tried to mate with so many of them. He killed them. Each died without giving him what he wanted--the female child. But ..."

"May I see the picture of the young red-haired witch again?" Ash asked timidly.

"No," said Yuri. "You may not."

The blood was throbbing in his face. He felt a wetness on his shoulder. He had torn the wound. He had a fever.

"You may not," he said again, staring at Ash.

Ash said nothing.

"Please don't ask me," Yuri said. "I need you, I need you very much to help me, but don't ask me to see her face, not now."

The two looked at each other. Then Ash nodded.

"Very well," he said. "Of course, I won't ask to see it. But to love a witch that strong is very dangerous. You know this, don't you?"

Yuri didn't answer. For one moment he knew everything--that Aaron was dead, that Mona might soon come to harm, that almost all that he had ever loved or cherished had been taken from him, almost all, that only a scant hope of happiness or satisfaction or joy remained to him, and that he was too weak and tired and hurt to think anymore, that he had to lie in the bed in the next room, which he had not even dared to glance at, the first bed he had seen in all this time since the bullet hit him and nearly killed him. He knew that never, never, should he have shown Mona's picture to this being who stood looking at him with deceptive softness and seemingly sublime patience. He knew that he, Yuri, might suddenly drop where he stood.

"Come on, Yuri," said Samuel to him with gruff gentleness, coming towards him with the usual swaggering walk. The thick, gnarled hand was reaching out for his. "I want you to go to bed now, Yuri. Sleep now. We'll be here with some hot supper for you when you wake up."

He let himself be led towards the door. Yet something stopped him, caused him to resist the little man, who was as strong as any full-sized man Yuri had ever known. Yuri found himself looking back at the tall one by the mantel.

Then he went into the bedroom and, to his own surprise, fell dazed upon the bed. The little man pulled off his shoes. "I'm sorry," said Yuri.

"It's no bother," said the little man. "Shall I cover you?"

"No, it's warm in here, and it's safe."

He heard the door close, but he didn't open his eyes. He was already sliding away from here, away from everything, and in a spike of dream reality which caught him and shocked him awake, he saw Mona sitting on the side of her bed and telling him to come. The hair between her legs was red, but darker than the hair of her head.

He opened his eyes. For a moment he was only aware of a close darkness, a disturbing absence of light that ought to be there. Then gradually he realized Ash was standing beside him, and looking down at him. In instinctive fear and revulsion, Yuri lay still, not moving, eyes fixed forward on the wool of Ash's long coat.

"I won't take the picture while you sleep," said Ash in a whisper. "Don't worry. I came to tell you that I must go north tonight, and visit the glen. I'll come back tomorrow and must find you here when I come."

"I haven't been very clever, have I?" asked Yuri. "Showing you her picture. I was a fool."

He was still staring at the dark wool. Then, right before his face, he saw the white fingers of Ash's right hand. Slowly he turned and looked up, and the nearness of the man's large face horrified him, but he made no sound. He merely peered up into the eyes that were fixed on him with a glassy curiosity, and then looked at the voluptuous mouth.

"I think I'm going mad now," said Yuri.

"No, you are not," said Ash, "but you must begin to be clever from now on. Sleep. Don't fear me. And remain here safe with Samuel until I return."

Four

THE MORGUE WAS small, filthy, made of little rooms with old white tile on the walls and on the floor, and rusted drains and creaking iron tables.

Only in New Orleans, she thought, could it be like this. Only here would they let a thirteen-year-old girl step up to the body and see it and start to cry.

"Go out, Mona," she said. "Let me examine Aaron." Her legs were shaky, her hands worse. It was like the old joke: you sit there palsied and twisting and someone says, "What do you do for a living?" and you say, "I'm a ba-ba-ba-rain surgeon!"

She steadied herself with her left hand and lifted the bloody sheet. The car had not hurt his face; it w

as Aaron.

This was not the place to pay him reverence, to remember his multiple kindnesses and his vain attempts to help her. One image perhaps flared brightly enough to obscure the dirt, the stench, the ignominy of the once-dignified body in a heap on the soiled table.

Aaron Lightner at the funeral of her mother; Aaron Lightner taking her arm and helping her to move through the crowd of utter strangers who were her kin, to approach her mother's coffin; Aaron knowing that that was exactly what Rowan wanted to do, and had to do--look upon the lovely rouged and perfumed body of Deirdre Mayfair.

No cosmetic had touched this man who lay here beyond distinction and in profound indifference, his white hair lustrous as it had always been, the badge of wisdom side by side with uncommon vitality. His pale eyes were unclosed, yet unmistakably dead. His mouth had relaxed perhaps into its more familiar and agreeable shape, evidence of a life lived with amazingly little bitterness, rage, or sinister humor.

She laid her hand on his forehead, and she moved his head just a little to one side and then back again. She figured the time of death at less than two hours ago.

The chest was crushed. Blood soaked the shirt and the coat. No doubt the lungs had instantly collapsed, and even before that, the heart might have been ruptured.

Gently she touched his lips, prying them apart as if she were a lover teasing him, preparing to kiss him, she thought. Her eyes were moist, and the feeling of sadness was so deep suddenly that scents of Deirdre's funeral returned, the engulfing presence of perfumed white flowers. His mouth was full of blood.

She looked at the eyes, which did not look back at her. Know you, love you! She bent close. Yes, he had died instantly. He had died from the heart, not the brain. She smoothed his lids closed and let her fingers rest there.

Who in this dungeon would do a proper autopsy? Look at the stains on the wall. Smell the stench from the drawers.

She lifted the sheet back farther, and then ripped it aside, clumsily or impatiently, she wasn't sure which. The right leg was crushed. Obviously the lower portion and the foot had been detached and put back into the wool trouser. The right hand had only three fingers. The other two had been severed brutally and totally. Had someone collected the fingers?