The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,565

he’d ever felt. Shocked and in a fury, he stared at her.

“It’s not you, Rowan!” he said. He reached out for her, and the hand came up and as he went to block it, he felt her shove him backwards against the wall. In rage and confusion, he looked at her. She came closer, her eyes firing in the glow from the parlor.

“Get out of here,” she whispered. “Do you hear what I’m saying?”

Stunned, he watched as her fingers dug into his arm. She shoved him to the left, towards the front door. Her strength was shocking to him, but physical strength had nothing to do with it. It was the malice emanating from her; it was the old mask of hate again covering her features.

“Get out of this house now, I’m ordering you out,” she said, her fingers releasing him, and grabbing at the doorknob and turning it and opening the door on the cold wind.

“How can you do this to me!” he asked her. “Rowan, answer me. How can you do it?”

In desperation, he reached for her and this time nothing stopped him. He caught her and shook her, and her head fell to the side for an instant and then she turned back, merely staring at him, daring him to continue, silently forcing him to let her go.

“What good are you to me dead, Michael?” she whispered. “If you love me, leave now. Come back when I call you. I must do this alone.”

“I can’t. I won’t do it.”

She turned her back on him and walked down the hall, and he went after her.

“Rowan, I’m not going, do you hear me? I don’t care what happens, I’m not leaving you. You can’t ask me to do that.”

“I knew you wouldn’t,” she said softly as he followed her into the dark library. The heavy velvet drapes were closed and he could barely see her figure as she moved towards the desk.

“Rowan, we can’t go on not talking about it. It’s destroying us. Rowan, listen to me.”

“Michael, my beautiful angel, my archangel,” she said, with her back turned to him, her words muffled. “You’d rather die, wouldn’t you, than trust in me?”

“Rowan, I’ll fight him with my bare hands if I have to.” He came towards her. Where were the lamps in this room? He reached out, trying to find the brass lamp beside the chair, and then she wheeled around and bore down on him.

He saw the syringe raised.

“No, Rowan!”

The needle sank into his arm in the same instant.

“Christ, what have you done to me!” But he was already falling to the side, just as if he had no legs, and then the lamp went over on the floor, and he was lying beside it, staring right at the pale sharp spike of the broken bulb.

He tried to say her name, but his lips wouldn’t move.

“Sleep, my darling,” she said. “I love you. I love you with my whole soul.”

Far far away he heard the sound of buttons on a phone. Her voice was so faint and the words … what was she saying? She was talking to Aaron. Yes, Aaron …

And when they lifted him, he said Aaron’s name.

“You’re going to Aaron, Michael,” she whispered. “He’s going to take care of you.”

Not without you, Rowan, he tried to say, but he was sinking down again, and the car was moving, and he heard a man’s voice: “You’ll be OK, Mr. Curry. We’re taking you to your friend. You just lie still back there. Dr. Mayfair said you’re going to be fine.”

Fine, fine, fine …

Hirelings. You don’t understand. She’s a witch, and she’s put me under a spell with her poison, the way Charlotte did it to Petyr, and she’s told you a damnable lie.

Fifty-one

ONLY THE TREE was lighted, and the whole house slumbered in warm darkness, except for that soft wreath of light. The cold tapped at the glass but couldn’t come inside.

She sat in the middle of the sofa, her legs crossed, her arms folded, staring down the length of the room at the long mirror, barely able to see the pale glow of the chandelier.

The hands of the grandfather clock moved slowly towards midnight.

And this was the night that meant so much to you, Michael. The night when you wanted us to be together. You couldn’t be farther from me now if you were on the other side of the world. All such simple and graceful things are far from me, and it is like