The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,228

that too had been illusion! It was as perfect as my reflection in a mirror. And the other demon follower whom I fought—his weight had been an illusion.

And of course the corpses had been real, and they were corpses and nothing more.

But this was no illusion, the man sitting on the fence. It was a body which this thing had made.

“Aye,” he said to me, and again his lips did not move. And I understand why. For he could not yet make them move. “But I shall,” he said. “I shall.”

I continued to peer at him. Perhaps in my exhaustion, I had lost my wits. But I knew no fear. And as the morning sun grew brighter, I saw it shine through him! I saw the particles of which he was made swirling in it, like so much dust.

“Dust thou art,” I whispered, thinking of the biblical phrase. But he had at that very instant begun to dissolve. He went pale and then was nothing, and the sun rose over the field, more beautiful than any morning sun that I have ever seen.

Had Charlotte waked? Did Charlotte stay his hand?

I cannot answer. I may never know. I reached my lodgings here less than an hour later, after meeting with the agent and speaking again to the innkeeper, as I related to you before.

And now it is long past midnight by my good watch, which I set by the clock in the inn at noon today. And the fiend has not left the room for some time.

For over an hour, he has come and gone in his manly shape, watching me. He sits in one corner and then in another; once I spied him in the looking glass peering out at me—Stefan, how does the spirit do such things? Does he trick my eyes? For surely he cannot be in the glass!—but I refused to raise my eyes to it, and finally the image faded away.

He has now begun to move the furniture about, and once again to make the sound of wings flapping, and I must flee this room. I go to send this letter with the rest.

Yours in the Talamasca,

Petyr

Stefan,

It is dawn, and all my letters are on their way to you, the ship having sailed an hour ago with them, and much as I would have gone with it, I knew that I must not. For if this thing means to destroy me, better he play with me here, whilst my letters be carried safely on.

I fear, too, that the thing may have the strength to sink a ship, for no sooner had I set foot on it, to speak with the captain and make certain that my letters would be safely conveyed, than a wind came up and rain struck the windows, and the boat itself began to move.

My reason told me the fiend does not have such strength as would be required to drown the vessel; but horror of horrors, what if I am wrong. I cannot be the cause of such harm to others.

So I remain, here in a crowded tavern in Port-au-Prince—the second to which I have gone this morning—and I fear to be alone.

A short while ago, as I returned from the docks, the thing so affrighted me with the image of a woman falling before a coach that I ran out into the path of the horses to save her, only to discover that there was no woman, and I myself was all but trampled. How the coachman did curse me, calling me a madman.

And that is surely how I seem. In the first tavern, I fell asleep for perhaps a quarter of an hour, and was waked by flames around me, only to discover that the candle had been overturned into the spilt brandy. I was blamed for it, and told to take my money elsewhere. And there the thing stood, in the shadows behind the chimney piece. It would have smiled if it could make its waxy face move.

Mark what I say now about its power. When it would be itself, it is a made-up body over which it has scant control.

Nevertheless my understanding of its art is imperfect. And I am so weary, Stefan. I went again to my room and tried to sleep, but it flung me from my bed.

Even here in this public room full of late night drinkers and early morning travelers, it plays its tricks with me, and no one is the wiser, for they