Taltos (Lives of the Mayfair Witches #3)(101)
Author: Anne Rice

He was drifting. How stupid of Tommy to have utterly alienated his stepmother, to have told her he wanted no further contact. Why it would be six months, a year even … No, the bank would be looking for them, Tommy’s bank, his bank, when he didn’t draw his quarterly check, and when was that? No, this couldn’t be their final decision, to bury them alive in this awful place!

He was startled wide awake by a strange noise.

Again came the noise, and then again. He knew what that was, but he couldn’t identify it. Damn, in utter darkness, he could not identify even the direction. He must listen. There was a series of sounds, actually, picture it, try to picture it, and then he did.

Bricks being fitted into place, and mortar troweled over them. Bricks and mortar, high above.

“But that’s absurd, absolutely absurd. It’s medieval, it’s utterly outrageous. Tommy, wake up. Tommy!” He would have screamed again, but it was too humiliating, that those bastards up there would hear him, that they’d hear him roaring as they bricked up the bloody door.

Softly, he cried against Tommy’s arm. No, this was temporary, a contrivance to make them miserable, contrite, before turning them over to the authorities. They didn’t mean for them to remain here, to die here! It was some sort of ritual punishment and only meant to frighten him. But of course, the awful part was that Tommy was dead! But still, he’d be glad to say that this had been an accident. When they came, he’d be entirely cooperative. The point was to get out! That’s what he’d wanted to do all along, get out!

I can’t die like this, it’s unthinkable that I should die like this, it’s impossible, all my life forfeit, my dreams taken from me, the greatness I only glimpsed with Stuart and with Tessa …

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew there were awful flaws in his logic, fatal flaws, but he continued, constructing the future, their coming, telling him they had only meant to scare him, and that it had been an accident, Tommy’s dying, they hadn’t known the drop was so dangerous, foolish of them, murderous, vengeful liars and fools. The thing was to be ready, to be calm, to sleep perhaps, sleep, listening to the sounds of the brick and the mortar. No, these sounds have stopped. The door is sealed, perhaps, but that doesn’t matter. There have to be other ways into this dungeon, and other ways out. Later he’d find them.

For now, best to cling to Tommy, just to snuggle close to him and wait till the initial panic was gone, and he could think what to do next.

Oh, how foolish of him to have forgotten Tommy’s lighter. Tommy never smoked any more than he did, but Tommy always carried that fancy lighter, and would snap it for pretty girls lifting cigarettes to their lips.

He felt in Tommy’s pockets, pants, no, jacket, yes. He had it, the little gold lighter. Pray it had fluid or a cartridge of butane, or whatever the hell made it burn.

He sat up slowly, hurting the palm of his left hand on something rough. He snapped the light. The little flame sputtered and then grew long. The illumination swelled around him, revealing the small chamber, cut deep, deep into the earth.

And the jagged things, the crumbling things, were bones, human bones. There lay a skull beside him, sockets staring at him, and there another, oh God! Bones so old, some had turned to ashes, bones! And Tommy’s dead, staring face, red blood drying on the side of his mouth and on his neck, where it had run down into his collar. And before him and beside him and behind him, bones!

He dropped, the lighter, his hands flying to his head, his eyes closing, his mouth opening in an uncontrollable and deafening scream. There was nothing but the sound and the darkness, the sound emptying from him, carrying all his fear and his horror heavenward, and he knew in his soul he would be all right, he would be all right, if only he did not stop screaming, but let the scream pour forth from him, louder and louder, and forever, without cease.

Twenty-two

A PLANE RARELY ever fully insulated you. Even in this plane, so lavishly upholstered, with its deep chairs and large table, you knew you were in a plane. You knew you were thirty-eight thousand feet over the Atlantic, and you could feel the small ups and downs as the plane rode the wind, rather like a great vessel rides the sea.

They sat in the three chairs grouped around the table. At the three points of an invisible equilateral triangle. One chair had been specially made for Ash, that was obvious, and he’d been standing by that chair when he had gestured for Rowan and Michael to take the other two.

Other chairs, along the windowed walls of the cabin, were empty, big upturned gloved hands waiting to hold you firm and tight, One of them was larger than the others. For Ash, no doubt.

The colors were caramel, gold. Everything streamlined and near perfect. The young American woman who had served the drinks, perfect. The music, for the little while it had played, Vivaldi, perfect.

Samuel, the astonishing little man, slept in a rear cabin, curled up in bed, holding tight to the bottle he’d brought from the flat in Belgravia, and demanding a bulldog which Ash’s servants had not procured for him. “You said, Ash, that I was to have anything I wanted. I heard you tell them. Well, I wanted a bulldog! And I want a bulldog now.”

Rowan lay back in the chair, holding the backs of her arms.

She didn’t know how long it had been since she’d slept. Sometime before they reached New York, she’d have to sleep. Right now she was curiously electrified, staring at the two men opposite her—at Michael, who smoked his little stub of a cigarette, holding it in two fingers, the red brand of the lighted end facing inwards.

And Ash, in another one of those long, full-cut, double-breasted silk coats, all the rage, with sleeves turned up carelessly, white shirt cuffs adorned with gold and stone cuff links that made her think of opals, though she realized she was not much of an expert on precious or semiprecious stones or anything of that sort. Opals. His eyes had a rather opalescent quality, or so she had thought several times. His pants were loose, rather like pajamas, but that too was fashionable. He had brought up his foot, disrespectfully, on the edge of the leather, his leather, and on his right wrist he wore a thin gold bracelet without any obvious use, a thin band of metal, glittering and looking maddeningly sexual to her, though why she couldn’t explain.

He lifted his hand, ran it back through his dark hair, running the little finger through the white streak as if he didn’t want to forget it, leave it out, but collect it with all the other dark waves. It made his face come alive for her again, just this little movement, and the way his eyes scanned the room and then stopped on her.