Taltos (Lives of the Mayfair Witches 3)

There sat Joan Cross, in the first of the formal parlors, surrounded by faces unknown to Marklin, but all of them in serious conversation.

No Stuart.

"You see?" said Tommy, whispering in his ear. "They're doing what comes naturally after someone dies--gathering, talking, as if it were a party. Now that's what we have to do. What comes naturally. You understand?"

Marklin nodded, but he didn't like it, no, not at all. He glanced back once, trying to find the door, but the door had been closed, apparently, and the crowd blocked his view in any event. He could see nothing. Indeed, it struck him as strange that there were so many foreign faces, and he wanted to say something to Tommy, but Tommy had moved away.

Tommy was chatting with Elvera, nodding as Elvera explained something to him. She looked as dowdy as ever, with her dark gray hair knotted at the nape of her neck, and her rimless glasses halfway down her nose. Enzo stood beside her, that devious-looking Italian. Where the hell was his twin?

How dreadful to spend one's life in this place, he thought. Did he dare to ask about Stuart? Certainly he didn't dare to ask about Yuri, though of course he knew. Ansling and Perry had told him about Yuri's call. Oh God, what was he to do? And where were Ansling and Perry?

Galton Penn, one of the other novices, was pushing his way towards Marklin.

"Hey, there, Mark. What do you think of all this?"

"Well, I don't know that people are talking about it here," said Marklin. "But then I haven't really listened."

"Let's talk about it now, man, before they forbid all conversation on the subject. You know the Order. They haven't a clue as to who killed Marcus. Not a clue. You know what we're all thinking? There's something they don't want us to know."

"Like what?"

"That it was some supernatural agency, what else? Elvera saw something that horrified her. Something bad happened. You know, Mark, I'm very sorry for Marcus and all, but this is the most exciting thing that's ever happened since I was received."

"Yes, I know what you mean," Mark answered. "Haven't seen Stuart, have you?"

"No, not at all, not since this morning, when he declined to take charge. Were you here when that happened?"

"No. I mean yes," said Mark. "I was wondering if he went out or what."

Galton shook his head. "You hungry? I am. Let's get some chow."

This was going to be rough, very rough. But if the only people who spoke to him were bright-faced imbeciles like Galton, he would do just fine, just fine indeed.

Sixteen

THEY'D BEEN ON the road over an hour, and it was almost dark, the sky clabbering with silvery clouds, and a drowsy look coming over the great expanses of rolling hills and bright green farmland, neatly cut into patterns as if the landscape were covered with a great patchwork quilt.

They made a pit stop in a little one-street village with several black and white half-timbered houses and a small, overgrown cemetery. The pub was more than inviting. It even had the proverbial dart board and a couple of men playing darts, and the smell of the beer was wonderful.

But this was hardly the time to stop for a drink, thought Michael.

He stepped outside, lit a fresh cigarette, and watched with quiet fascination the formal gentleness with which Ash guided his prisoner into the pub and inevitably towards the bathroom.

Across the street, Yuri stood at a phone booth, talking rapidly, having made his connection to the Motherhouse, apparently, and Rowan stood beside him, arms folded, watching the sky or something in it, Michael couldn't be sure which. Yuri was upset again, wringing his right hand as he held the receiver with the left, nodding over and over again. It was plain that Rowan was listening to his words.

Michael leaned back against the plaster wall, and drew in on the smoke. It always amazed him how tiring it was to simply ride in a car.

Even this journey, with its agonizing suspense, was no different ultimately, and now that darkness had closed off the lovely countryside, he would grow more sleepy, he figured, no matter what was yet to come.

When Ash and his prisoner emerged from the pub, Gordon looked resentful and desperate. But obviously he'd been unable to solicit help, or had not dared to try.

Yuri hung up the phone. It was his turn to disappear into the pub now; he was still anxious, if not crazed. Rowan had been watching him attentively during the drive, that is, when she was not riveted to Ash.

Michael watched Ash as he returned Gordon to the backseat. He didn't try to disguise the fact that he was staring. That seemed unnecessarily cumbersome. The thing about the tall man was this: he did not in any way appear hideous, as Yuri had averred. The beauty was there, and rather spectacular, but the hideousness? Michael couldn't see it. He saw only a graceful frame, and easy, efficient movements that indicated both alertness and strength. The man's reflexes were amazing. He'd proved that when Stuart Gordon had reached again for the lock of the door when they were stopped at a crossroads about a half hour back.

The man's soft black hair reminded him all too much of Lasher; too silky, too fine, too much body to it, he didn't know for certain. The white streaks added a kind of high luster to the whole figure. The face was far too big-boned to be feminine in any conventional sense, but it was delicate, the long nose redeemed perhaps by the fact that the eyes were so large and set so wide apart. The skin was mature skin and not baby-fine. But the real allure of the man was mixed up with his voice and his eyes. His voice could have talked you into anything, Michael thought, and the eyes were highly persuasive as well.

Both bordered on a childlike simplicity, but were not ultimately simple. The effect? The man seemed some sort of angelic being, infinitely wise and patient and yet resolved, without question, to murder Stuart Gordon exactly as he had said that he would.

Of course, Michael wasn't assuming anything about the age of this creature. It was pretty hard not to think he was human, just different, unaccountably strange. Of course, Michael knew he wasn't. He knew it by a hundred little details--the size of Ash's knuckles, the curious way he widened his eyes now and then so that he looked awestruck, and above all perhaps by the absolute perfection of his mouth and teeth. The mouth was baby-soft, impossible for a man with that skin, really, or at least highly improbable, and the teeth were as white as some sort of flashing advertisement that had been shamelessly retouched.

Michael didn't for a moment believe this creature was ancient, or that he was the great Saint Ashlar of the Donnelaith legends, the ancient king who had converted to Christianity in the last days of the Roman Empire in Britain, and allowed his pagan spouse, Janet, to be burnt at the stake.

But the grim tale he had believed when Julien had told it to him. And this was one of the many Ashlars, no doubt--one of the mighty Taltos from the glen--a being of the very same ilk as the one that Michael had slaughtered.

These things were not disputed by any part of his mind.

He had experienced too much for him to doubt, It was only that he couldn't believe the tall, beautiful man was that old St. Ashlar himself. Perhaps he just didn't want it to be so, for very good reasons that made sense within these elaborate frameworks which he'd now totally accepted.

Yes, you are living now with a whole series of completely new realities, he thought. Maybe this is why you're taking it all calmly. You've seen a ghost; you've listened to him; you know he was there. He told you things you could have never manufactured or imagined. And you've seen Lasher and you've heard his long plea for sympathy, and that was also something completely unimaginable for you, something filled with new information and strange details that you can still remember with puzzlement, now that the misery you were feeling when Lasher told it is over, and Lasher lies buried under the tree.

Oh yeah, don't forget, the burying of the body, dropping the head down in the hole beside it, and then finding the emerald, picking it up, and holding it in the dark while the decapitated body lay down there in the wet earth, ready to be covered up.

Perhaps you can

become accustomed to anything, he figured. And he wondered if that was what had happened to Stuart Gordon. He had no doubt that Stuart Gordon was guilty, dreadfully and inexcusably guilty of everything. Yuri had no doubt. But how had the man managed to betray his values?

Michael had to admit he himself had always had a susceptibility to this very kind of Celtic darkness and mystery. His very love of Christmas had its roots in some irrational longing for rituals born in these isles, perhaps. And the tiny Christmas ornaments he had so lovingly collected over the years were all in some way emblematic of old Celtic gods, and a worship overlaid on pagan secrets.

His love of the houses he'd restored had brought him at times as close to this atmosphere of old secrets, old designs, and a dormant knowledge to be revealed as one could ever get in America.

He realized he understood Stuart Gordon in a way. And very soon the figure of Tessa would explain Gordon's sacrifices and terrible mistakes, very clearly.

Whatever, Michael had been through so much that his calm now was only inevitable.