The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,547

truth and what you know to be right, and that you have the power, the simple human power …

“Yes, I will, I understand … ”

With a sudden violent motion he was jerked off his feet; he felt an arm around his waist, and a person of great strength dragging him backwards. Before he could reason or begin to resist, the bright red fender of a car bumped over the curb, smashing with a deafening crunch into the light pole. Someone screamed. The windshield of the car appeared to explode, silver nuggets of glass flying in all directions.

“Goddamn!” He couldn’t regain his balance. He tumbled back on top of the very guy who’d pulled him out of the way. People were running toward the car. Somebody was moving inside. The glass was still falling out all over the pavement.

“You OK?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m OK. There’s somebody trapped in there.”

The flashing light of a police car dazzled him suddenly. Someone shouted to the policeman to call an ambulance.

“Boy, she nearly got you,” said the one who’d pulled him away—big powerfully built black man in a leather coat, shaking his grizzled head. “Didn’t you see that car coming straight at you?”

“No. You saved my life, you know it?”

“Hell, I just pulled you out of the way. It was nothing. Didn’t even think about it.” Dismissive wave of his hand as he went on, eyes lingering for a moment on the red car, and on the two men trying to free the woman inside, who was screaming. The crowd was growing, and a policewoman was shouting for everyone to get back.

A bus was now blocking the intersection, and another police car had pulled up. Newspapers were lying all over the sidewalk from the overturned box, and the glass was sparkling in the rain like so many scattered diamonds.

“Look, I don’t know how to thank you.” Michael called out.

But the black man was already far away, loping up Castro, with just a glance over his shoulder and a last casual wave of his hand.

Michael stood shivering against the wall of the bar. People pushed past those who had stopped to stare. There was that squeezing in his chest, not quite a pain but a tightening, and the pounding pulse, and a numbness creeping through the fingers of his left hand.

Christ, what actually happened? He couldn’t get sick here, had to get back to the hotel.

He moved clumsily out into the street, and past the policewoman who asked him suddenly if he’d seen the car hit the light pole. No, he had to confess, he sure hadn’t. Cab over there. Get the cab.

The driver could get him out of here if he backed up on Eighteenth and made a sharp right onto Castro.

“Gotta get to the St. Francis, Union Square,” he said.

“You OK?”

“Yeah. Just barely.”

It had been Julien who had spoken to him, no doubt about it, Julien whom he’d seen through the bus window! But what about that damned car?

Ryan could not have been more obliging. “Of course, we could have helped you with all this before, Michael. That’s what we’re here for. I’ll have someone there tomorrow morning to inventory and crate the entire stock. I’ll find a qualified real estate agent and we can discuss the listing price when you get here.”

“I hate to bother you, but I can’t reach Rowan and I have this feeling that I have to get back.”

“Nonsense, we’re here to take care of things for you, large and small. Now, do you have your plane reservation? Why don’t you let me handle that? Stay right where you are and wait for my call.”

He lay on the bed afterwards, smoking his last Camel cigarette, staring at the ceiling. The numbness in his left hand was gone, and he felt all right now. No nausea or dizziness or anything major, as far as he was concerned. And he didn’t care. That part wasn’t real.

What was real was the face of Julien in the bus window. And then that fragment of the visions catching hold of him, as powerfully as ever.

But had it all been planned, just to get him to that dangerous corner? Just to dazzle him and plant him motionless in the path of that careening car? The way he’d been planted in the path of Rowan’s boat?

Oh, so engulfing that fragment of memory. He closed his eyes, saw their faces again, Deborah and Julien, heard their voices.

… that you have the power, the simple human power …

I do, I