Taltos (Lives of the Mayfair Witches #3)(95)
Author: Anne Rice

“Practical woman, intelligent woman. Hmmmmm …” Well, this second carton was empty already. Enough is enough. She started to shiver all over. So coooold! Why hadn’t she gotten rid of those guards?

Mary Jane reached out and rubbed Mona’s arms. “You okay, darlin’?” Then Mary Jane’s eyes dropped to Mona’s stomach and her face went blank with fear. She lowered her right hand, wanting to touch Mona’s stomach, but she didn’t dare.

“Listen, it’s time to tell you everything,” said Mona. “To give you your choice right now. I was going to lead you into it step by step, but that’s not fair and it’s not necessary. I can do what I have to do, even if you don’t want to help me, and maybe you’d be better off not helping. Either we go now and you help me, or I go alone.”

“Go where?”

“That’s just it. We’re clearing out of here, right now. Guards or no guards. You can drive, can’t you?”

She pushed past Mary Jane and into the butler’s pantry. She opened the key cabinet. Look for the Lincoln insignia. The limo was a Lincoln, wasn’t it? When Ryan had bought it for her, he’d said she should never be in a limousine that was not black and was not a Lincoln. Sure enough, there were the keys! Michael had his keys and the keys to Rowan’s Mercedes, but the keys to the limo were right here, where Clem was supposed to leave them.

“Well, sure, I can drive,” said Mary Jane, “but whose car are we taking?”

“Mine. The limousine. Only we’re not taking the driver with it. You ready? We’re counting on the driver being fast asleep out back. Now, what do we need?”

“You’re supposed to tell me everything, and give me my choice.”

Mona stopped. They were both in the shadows. The house was dark all around them, light pouring in from the garden, from the big zone of blue illumination that was the pool. Mary Jane’s eyes were huge and round, making her nose look tiny and her cheeks very smooth. Tendrils of her hair moved behind her shoulders, but mostly it was corn silk. The light struck the cleft of her br**sts.

“Why don’t you tell me?” said Mona.

“OK,” said Mary Jane. “You’re going to have it, no matter what it is.”

“Right you are.”

“And you’re not lettin’ Rowan and Michael kill it, no matter what it is.”

“Right you are!”

“And the best place for us to go is where nobody will be able to find us.”

“Right you are!”

“Only the only place I know is Fontevrault. And if we cut loose every skiff at the landing, the only way they can get out there into the basin after us is to bring in their own boat, if they even think of coming down that way.”

“Oh, Mary Jane, you genius! Right you are!”

Mama, I love you, Mama.

And I love you too, my little Morrigan. Trust in me. Trust in Mary Jane.

“Hey, don’t faint on me! Lissen, I’m going to go get pillows, blankets, stuff like that. You got any cash?”

“Heaps, twenty-dollar bills in the drawer by the bed.”

“You sit down, come in here with me, and sit down.” Mary Jane led her through the kitchen and to the table. “Put your head down.”

“Mary Jane, don’t freak out on me, don’t, no matter what it looks like.”

“Just you rest till I come back.”

And away went the clicky high heels, running through the house.

The song started again, so sweet, so pretty, the song of flowers and the glen.

Stop, Morrigan.

Talk to me, Mother, and Oncle Julien brought you here to sleep with my father, but he didn’t know what would happen, but you understand, Mother, you said you understood, that the giant helix was in this case not allied to any ancient evil, but was purely an expression of a genetic potential in you and in Father that had always been there ….

Mona tried to answer, but it wasn’t necessary, the voice went on and on, singsong and soft and very rapid.

Hey, slow down. You sound like a bumblebee when you do that.

“… immense responsibility, to survive and to give birth, and to love me, Mother, don’t forget to love me, I need you, your love, above all things, without which I may lose in my frailty the very will to live….”

They were all gathered together in the stone circle, shivering, crying, the tall dark-haired one had come, trying to quiet them. They drew in close to the fire.

“But why? Why do they want to kill us?”

And Ashlar said, “It is their way. They are warlike people. They kill those who are not of their clan. It is as important as eating or drinking or making love is to us. They feast on death.”

“Look,” she said aloud. The kitchen door had just slammed. Be quiet, Mary Jane! Don’t bring Eugenia down here. But we’ve got to be scientific about this, I should have been recording all this on the computer, typing it in as I see it, but it’s almost impossible to accurately record when surrendering to a trance. When we reach Fontevrault, we will have Mary Jane’s computer. Mary Jane, the godsend.

Mary Jane had come back, shutting the kitchen door quietly this time, thank heaven.

“That is what the others have to understand,” said Mona, “that this is not from hell, but from God. Lasher was from hell, one could say that, you know, speaking metaphysically or metaphorically, I mean religiously or poetically, but when a creature is born this way of two human beings, both of whom contain a mysterious genome, then it’s from God. Who else but God? Emaleth was the child of rape, but not this child. Well, at least the mother wasn’t the one who got raped.”

“Shhh, let’s us get out of here. I told the guards that I’d seen somebody funny out front, and that I was driving you up to your house to get you some clothes and then to the doctor. Come on!”

“Mary Jane, you are a genius.”

But when she stood up, the world swam. “Holy God.”

“I have you, now you hold on to me. Are you in pain?”

“Well, no more than anybody would be, with a nuclear explosion going on in her womb. Let’s get out of here!”

They crept out down the alley, Mary Jane steadying her when she needed it, but she was doing all right hanging on to the gate and to the fence, and then they were in the carport. And there was the big sleek limousine, and bless her heart, Mary Jane had started the engine, and the door was open. Here we go.

“Morrigan, stop singing! I have to think, tell her about the gate-opener. You have to press the little magic twanger.”