Taltos (Lives of the Mayfair Witches #3)(93)
Author: Anne Rice

“I am no enemy to Mona Mayfair,” said Ash, apparently catching on easily. “You have been wrong on this from the beginning. I would not endanger the life of a child. I would force myself upon no woman. You have worries enough. Leave Mona Mayfair to these two witches who love her and will take care of her. Leave the family to them. That is what the Elders will tell you, no doubt, when you do reach them. Let the family heal the family. Let the Order cleanse itself.”

Yuri wanted to answer. But he didn’t know what to say. I want this so much to be true?

Suddenly Ash came towards him, and covered Yuri’s face gently in kisses. Yuri looked up, overcome with love, and then, clamping his hand behind Ash’s neck, he put his lips to Ash’s mouth.

The kiss was firm and chaste.

Somewhere in the back of his mind were Samuel’s careless words, that he had fallen in love with Ash. He didn’t care. That was the thing about trust. Trust brought such a relief to one, such a lovely feeling of being connected, and that is how you let down your guard, and you can be destroyed.

“I’ll take the body now,” Ash said. “I’ll put it somewhere where men aren’t likely to find it.”

“No,” said Yuri. He was looking right into Ash’s large, calm eyes. “I’ve already spoken to the Motherhouse, as I said. When you’re a few miles away, call them. Here, I’ll get the number for you. Tell them to come here. We will take care of the body of Stuart Gordon, along with everything else.”

He moved away from Ash and stood at the foot of the crumpled body. How puny in death Gordon looked, Gordon the scholar whom everyone had so admired, the friend of Aaron, and the mentor to the boys. Yuri bent down, and without disturbing anything else about the body, slipped his hand in the inside pocket of Gordon’s jacket, and found there the inevitable stash of small white cards.

“Here, this is the number of the Motherhouse,” he said to Ash as he righted himself, and put a single card in Ash’s hand. He looked back at the body. “There’s nothing to connect anyone to this dead man,” he said. And, realizing it suddenly, the wonderful truth of it, he almost laughed.

“How marvelous,” he announced. “He is simply dead, with no mark on him of violence. Yes, call the number and they will come. They’ll take us all home.”

He turned and looked at Rowan and Michael. “I’ll contact you soon.”

Rowan’s face was sad and unreadable. Michael was plainly anxious.

“And if you don’t,” said Michael, “then we’ll know that we were wrong.”

Yuri smiled and shook his head. “I understand now, I understand how it could happen; I see the weaknesses, the charm.” He looked about the tower room. Part of him hated it so much; part of him saw it as a sanctuary to deadly romanticism; part of him could not endure the thought of waiting for rescue. But he was too tired, really, to think of anything else, or to do it in any other way.

“I’ll go talk to Tessa,” said Rowan. “I’ll explain that Stuart is very very ill, and that you’re going to stay with her until help comes.”

“Oh, that would be too good of you,” said Yuri. And then, for the first time, he felt his full exhaustion. He sat down on the chair at the table.

His eyes fell on the book or codex, as Stuart had called it so properly or so pedantically, he wasn’t sure which.

He saw the long fingers of Ash close on either side of it, picking it up. And then Ash held it again to his chest.

“How can I reach you?” Yuri asked him.

“You can’t,” said Ash. “But in the days that follow, I promise, I will contact you.”

“Please don’t forget your promise,” said Yuri wearily.

“I must warn you about something,” said Ash softly, thoughtfully, holding the book as if it were some sort of sacred shield. “In the months and years to come,” he continued, “you may see my likeness here and there, in the normal course of your life, as you happen to pick up a newspaper or a magazine. Don’t ever try to come to me. Don’t ever try to call me. I am well guarded in ways you cannot dream of. You will not succeed in reaching me. Tell the same to your Order. I will never acknowledge, to any one of them, the things I’ve told you. And for the love of God, please warn them not to go to the glen. The Little People are dying out, but until they do, they can be most dangerous. Warn them all: stay away from the glen.”

“Then you are saying that I can tell them what I’ve seen.”

“Yes, you’ll have to do that, you’ll have to be utterly open with them. Otherwise you can’t go home.”

Yuri looked up at Rowan and then at Michael. They drew close, one on either side of him. He felt Rowan’s hand touch his face as she kissed him. He felt Michael’s hand on his arm.

He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. He had no more words. Perhaps he had no more tears.

But the joy in him was so alien to his expectations, it was so wondrous that he longed to tell them, to let them know. The Order would come to get him. The disastrous treachery was finished. They were coming, his brothers and sisters, and he could lay bare the horrors and the mysteries he’d seen.

He didn’t look up as they left him. He heard them descending the winding staircase. He heard the distant sound of the front door. He also heard soft voices just beneath him.

Slowly he climbed to his feet. He went down the steps to the second floor.

Beside the loom, in the shadows, Tessa stood like a great sapling, her hands pressed together, nodding her head as Rowan spoke too softly for Yuri to hear. Then Rowan gave the woman her kisses of parting, and quickly walked towards the stairs.

“Goodbye, Yuri,” she said gently as she passed him, and she turned with her hand on the rail. “Yuri, tell them everything. Make sure the file on the Mayfair witches is finished, just as it should be.”

“Everything?” he asked.

“Why not?” she asked with a strange smile. And then she disappeared. Quickly he looked to Tessa. He’d forgotten about Tessa for those few moments. And Tessa was bound to be miserable when she saw Stuart. Dear God, how would he stop her from going upstairs?

But Tessa was at her loom again, or her tapestry frame, perhaps that’s what it was, and she was sewing and singing a little to herself, or making of her normal respiration a little song.

He drew close to her, afraid of disturbing her.

“I know,” she said now, looking up at him, smiling sweetly and brightly, with a round and radiant face. “Stuart’s died now, and gone, perhaps to heaven.”