The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,535

You can’t anchor there.”

“It can be done, Rowan.” His voice had become as soft as a whisper. “With my power and your power, and with my faith, for I must yield to achieve the bond, and only in your hands is the full merging possible.”

She narrowed her eyes, trying to see shapes, patterns in the airy dark.

“I love you, Rowan,” he said. “You are weary now. Let me soothe you, Rowan. Let me touch you.” The resonance of the voice deepened.

“I want—I want a happy life with Michael and our child.”

Turbulence in the air, something collecting, intensifying. She felt the air grow warmer.

“I have infinite patience. I see far. I can wait. But you will lose your taste for others now that you have seen and spoken to me.”

“Don’t be so certain, Lasher. I’m stronger than the others. I know much more.”

“Yes, Rowan.” The shadowy turbulence was growing denser, like a great wreath of smoke, only there was no smoke, circling the chandelier, moving out. Like cobwebs caught in a draft.

“Can I destroy you?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Rowan, you torture me.”

“Why can’t I destroy you?”

“Rowan, your gift is to transmute matter. I have no matter in me for you to attack. You may destroy the matter I bring into organization to make my image, but then I do this myself when I disintegrate. You have seen it. You could hurt my transitory image at such a moment of materialization, and you have already done so. When I first appeared to you. When I came to you near the water. But you cannot destroy me. I have always been here. I am eternal, Rowan.”

“And suppose I told you it was finished now, Lasher, that I would never recognize you again. That I would not be the doorway. That I am the doorway for the Mayfairs into the future centuries, the doorway for my unborn child, and for things of which I dream with my ambition.”

“Small things, Rowan. Nothing compared to the mysteries and possibilities which I offer you. Imagine, Rowan, when the mutation is complete and I have a body, infused with my timeless spirit, what you can learn from this.”

“And if it’s done, Lasher, if the doorway is opened, and the fusion is effected, and you stand before me, flesh and blood, how will you treat me then?”

“I would love you beyond all human reason, Rowan, for you would be my mother and my creator, and my teacher. How could I not love you? And how tragic my need of you will be. I will cleave to you to learn how to move with my new limbs, how to see, how to speak and laugh. I will be as a helpless infant in your hands. Can’t you see? I would worship you, my beloved Rowan. I would be your instrument in anything that you wished, and twenty times as strong as I am now. Why do you cry? Why are there tears in your eyes?”

“It’s a trick, it’s a trick of sound and light, the spell you induce.”

“No. I am what I am, Rowan. It’s your reason which weakens you. You see far. You always have. Twelve crypts and one doorway, Rowan.”

“I don’t understand. You play with me. You confuse me. I can’t follow anymore.”

Silence and that sound again, as if the whole air were sighing. Sadness, sadness enveloping her like a cloud, and the undulating layers of smoky shadow moving the length of the room, weaving through and around the chandeliers, filling the mirrors with darkness.

“You’re all around me, aren’t you?”

“I love you,” he said, and his voice was low again as a whisper and close to her. She thought she felt lips touch her cheek. She stiffened, but she had become so drowsy.

“Move away from me,” she said. “I want to be left alone now. I have no obligation to love you.”

“Rowan, what can I give you, what gift can I bring?”

Again, something brushed her face, something touched her, bringing the chills up over her body. Her nipples were hard beneath the silk of the nightgown, and a low throbbing had started inside her, a hunger she could feel all through her throat and her chest.

She tried to clear her vision. It was dark in here now. The fire had burnt down. But only moments ago it had been a blaze.

“You’re playing tricks on me.” The air seemed to be touching her all over. “You’ve played tricks on Michael.”

“No.” It was a soft kiss against her ear.

“When he was drowned, the visions.