Taltos (Lives of the Mayfair Witches #3)(97)
Author: Anne Rice

Marklin sat up, straightened his clothes as best he could. He climbed off the bed.

He shook Tommy by the shoulder.

For one moment Tommy had that baffled, annoyed look of the just-awakened, and then the common sense returned.

“Yes, the bell,” he said calmly. He ran his hands over his sloppy red hair. “At last, the bell.”

They took turns washing their faces. Marklin took a bit of Kleenex, smeared it with Tommy’s toothpaste, and cleaned his teeth by hand. He needed to shave, but there was no time for it. They’d go to Regent’s Park, get everything, and leave for America on the first flight out.

“Leave of absence, hell,” he said now. “I’m for leaving, just going. I don’t want to go back to my own room to pack. I’m for heading out of here immediately. The hell with the ceremony.”

“Don’t be so foolish,” Tommy murmured. “We’ll say what we have to say. And we’ll learn what we can learn. And then we’ll leave at the appropriate and less conspicuous time.”

Damn!

A knock sounded at the door.

“We’re coming!” Tommy said, with a little raising of his eyebrows. He straightened his tweed jacket. He looked both mussed and hot.

Marklin’s own wool blazer was badly rumpled. And he’d lost his tie. Well, the shirt looked all right with the sweater. Would have to do, wouldn’t it? The tie was in the car, perhaps. He’d ripped it off when he was driving away the first time. He should never, never have come back.

“Three minutes,” came the voice through the door. One of the old ones. The place was going to be choked with them.

“You know,” said Marklin, “none of this was bearable even when I thought of myself as a dedicated novice. Now I find it simply outrageous. Being awakened at four in the morning … Good God, it’s actually five … for a mourning ceremony. It’s as stupid as those modern-day Druids, dressed up in sheets, who carry on at Stonehenge on the summer solstice, or whenever the hell they do it. I may let you say the appropriate words for us. I may wait in the car.”

“The hell you will,” said Tommy. He took several swipes at his dry hair with the comb. Useless.

They went out of the room together, Tommy stopping to lock the door. The hall was predictably cold.

“Well, you can do that if you wish,” said Marklin, “but I’m not coming back up to this floor. They can have whatever I’ve left in my room.”

“That would be perfectly stupid. You’ll pack as if you were leaving for normal reasons. Why the hell not?”

“I can’t stay here, I tell you.”

“And what if you’ve overlooked something in your room, something that would blow the lid off the entire affair?”

“I haven’t. I know I haven’t.”

The corridors and the staircase were empty. Possibly they were the last of the novices to hear the bell.

A soft whisper of voices rose from the first floor. As they came to the foot of the steps, Marklin saw it was worse than he could have imagined.

Look at the candles everywhere. Everyone, absolutely everyone, dressed in black! All the electric lights had been put out. A sickening gush of warm air surrounded them. Both fires were blazing. Good heavens! And they had draped every window in the house with crepe.

“Oh, this is too rich!” Tommy whispered. “Why didn’t someone tell us to dress?”

“It’s positively nauseating,” said Marklin. “Look, I’m giving it five minutes.”

“Don’t be a blasted fool,” said Tommy. “Where are the other novices? I see old people, everywhere, old people.”

There must have been a hundred in small groups, or simply standing alone against the dark oak-paneled walls. Gray hair everywhere. Well, surely the younger members were here somewhere.

“Come on,” said Tommy, pinching Marklin’s arm and pushing him into the hall.

A great supper was spread on the banquet table.

“Good Lord, it’s a goddamned feast,” Marklin said. It made him sick to look at it—roast lamb and beef, and bowls of steaming potatoes, and piles of shiny plates, and silver forks. “Yes, they’re eating, they’re actually eating!” he whispered to Tommy.

A whole string of elderly men and women were quietly and slowly filling their plates. Joan Cross was there in her wheelchair. Joan had been crying. And there was the formidable Timothy Hollingshed, wearing his innumerable titles on his face as he always did, arrogant bastard, and not a penny to his name.

Elvera passed through the crowd with a decanter of red wine. The glasses stood on the sideboard. Now that is something I can use, thought Marklin, I can use that wine.

A sudden thought came to him of being free from here, on the plane to America, relaxed, his shoes kicked off, the stewardess plying him with liquor and delicious food. Only a matter of hours.

The bell was still tolling. How long was that going to go on? Several men near him were speaking Italian, all of them on the short side. There were the old grumbly British ones, the friends of Aaron’s, most of them now retired. And there was a young woman—well, at least she seemed young. Black hair and heavily made-up eyes. Yes, when you looked you saw they were senior members, but not merely the decrepit class. There stood Bryan Holloway, from Amsterdam. And there, those anemic and pop-eyed male twins who worked out of Rome.

No one was really looking at anyone, though people did talk to each other. Indeed, the air was solemn but convivial. From all around came soft murmurs of Aaron this, and Aaron that … always loved Aaron, adored Aaron. Seems they had forgotten Marcus entirely, and well they should, thought Marklin, if only they knew how cheaply Marcus had been bought out.

“Have some wine, please, gentlemen,” said Elvera softly. She gestured to the rows and rows of crystal glasses. Old stemware. All the old finery. Look at the antique silver forks with their deep encrustations. Look at the old dishes, dragged from some vault somewhere perhaps, to be loaded with fudge and iced cakes.

“No, thank you,” said Tommy, tersely. “Can’t eat with a plate and a glass in my hands.”

Someone laughed in the low roar of whispers and murmurs. Another voice rose above the others. Joan Cross sat solitary in the midst of the gathering, her forehead resting in her hand.

“But who are we mourning?” asked Marklin in a whisper. “Is it Marcus or Aaron?” He had to say something. The candles made an irritating glare, for all the swimming darkness around him. He blinked. He had always loved this scent of pure wax, but this was overpowering, absurd.