The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,355

suppose that’s all true.”

“However we can make you and your representatives uncomfortable, very uncomfortable; and we can make it legally impossible for you to come within so many feet of us and our property. But that would be costly to us, and wouldn’t really stop you, at least not if you are what you say you are.”

He paused, took a draw off his thin dark cigarette, and glanced at the bourbon and water. “Did I order the wrong drink for you, Mr. Lightner?”

“You didn’t order any drink,” I said. “The waiter brought another of what I had been drinking all afternoon. I should have stopped you. I’ve had quite enough.”

His eyes hardened for a moment as he looked at me. In fact, his mask of a smile vanished completely. And in a moment of blankness and lack of contrivance he looked almost young.

“You shouldn’t have made that trip to Texas, Mr. Lightner,” he said coldly. “You should never have upset my niece.”

“I agree with you. I shouldn’t have upset her. I was concerned about her. I wanted to offer my help.”

“That’s very presumptuous of you, you and your London friends.” Touch of anger. Or was it simply annoyance that I wasn’t going to drink the bourbon. I looked at him for a long moment, my mind emptying itself until there was no sound intruding, no movement, no color—only his face there, and a small voice in my head telling me what I wanted to know.

“Yes, it is presumptuous, isn’t it?” I said. “But you see, it was our representative Petyr van Abel who was the father of Charlotte Mayfair, born in France in 1664. When he later journeyed to Saint-Domingue to see his daughter, he was imprisoned by her. And before your spirit, Lasher, drove him to his death on a lonely road outside of Port-au-Prince, he coupled with his own daughter Charlotte, and thereby became the father of her daughter, Jeanne Louise. That means he was grandfather of Angélique and the great-grandfather of Marie Claudette, who built Riverbend, and created the legacy which you administer for Deirdre now. Do you follow my tale?”

Clearly he was utterly incapable of a response. He sat still looking at me, the cigarette smoking in his hand. I caught no emanation of malice or anger. Watching him keenly, I went on:

“Your ancestors are the descendants of our representative, Petyr van Abel. We are linked, the Mayfair Witches and the Talamasca. And then there are other matters which bring us together after all these years. Stuart Townsend, our representative who disappeared here in New Orleans after he visited Stella in 1929. Do you remember Stuart Townsend? The case of his disappearance was never solved.”

“You are mad, Mr. Lightner,” he said with no perceptible change of expression. He drew on his cigarette and crushed it out though it was not half spent.

“That spirit of yours, Lasher—he killed Petyr van Abel,” I said calmly. “Was it Lasher whom I saw only a moment ago? Over there?” I gestured to the distant garden. “He is driving your niece out of her mind, isn’t he?” I asked.

A remarkable change had now come over Cortland. His face, beautifully framed by his dark hair, looked totally innocent in its bewilderment.

“You’re perfectly serious, aren’t you?” he asked. These were the first honest words he’d spoken since he came into the bar.

“Of course I am,” I said. “Why would I try to deceive people who can read other people’s thoughts? That would be stupid, wouldn’t it?” I looked at the glass. “Rather like you expecting me to drink this bourbon and succumb to the drug you put into it, the way Stuart Townsend did, or Cornell Mayfair after that.”

He tried to shroud his shock behind a blank, dull look. “You are making a very serious accusation,” he said under his breath.

“All this time, I thought it was Carlotta. It was never Carlotta, was it? It was you.”

“Who cares what you think!” he whispered. “How dare you say such things to me.” Then he checked his anger. He shifted slightly in his chair, his eyes holding me as he opened the cigarette case and withdrew another cigarette. His whole demeanor changed suddenly to one of honest inquiry. “What the hell do you want, Mr. Lightner!” he asked, dropping his voice earnestly. “Seriously now, sir, what do you want?”

I reflected for a moment. I had been asking myself this very question for weeks on end. What did I mean to accomplish when I went to