Lasher by Anne Rice Read Free Book Online Page A

scientific research in Paris. She pictured herself wearing a cowboy hat when she did this. She didn’t actually have a cowboy hat right now. Her bow was her thing. But somehow or other she always had the hat on as she stepped off the imaginary plane. And all this was coming. She knew it.
    Maybe it was time she showed Uncle Ryan the printout ofthe stocks she’d tracked last year. If she’d really had money in them, she’d have her own fortune. Yes, got to boot that file and print that out.
    Ah, but she was wasting the moment.
    Tonight she was here, with her most important goal in mind. The conquest of the hunk known as Michael. And the finding of the mysterious Victrola.
    The gilt fauteuils gleamed in the shadows, graceful straight-backed chairs. Tapestried pillows lay higgledy-piggledy in the deep damask sofa. A veil of stillness lay over all, as if the world beyond had gone up in smoke. Dust on the piano. That poor old Eugenia, she wasn’t much good, was she? And Henri was probably
too
good to dust or mop or sweep. And in their midst was Michael, too sick and indifferent to care what they did.
    She left the double parlor, and moved to the foot of the stairs. Very dark up there, as it ought to be, like a ladder to a heaven of shadows. She touched the newel post, and then began her ascent. In the house, in it, wandering, free and in the dark alone! “Oncle Julien, I’m here,” she sang in a tiny whisper. When she reached the top she saw that Aunt Viv’s room stood empty, just as she had expected.
    “Poor Michael, you’re all mine,” she said softly. And when she turned she saw that the door of the master bedroom was open, and the weak illumination of a little night-lamp poured out into the high narrow hall.
    So you’re alone in there, big boy, she thought. Not scared to be in the very room where Deirdre died. And let’s not forget Great-aunt Mary Beth and all the people who saw the ghosts around her when she lay in that very same bed, and who knows what went on before that?
    Gifford had thought it a deplorable decision for Michael to move back into that accursed room. But Mona understood. Why would he want to stay in the bridal chamber after Rowan had left him? Besides, it was the prettiest and fanciest room in the house, the north master bedroom. He himself had restored the plaster ceiling and the medallion. He had polished the enormous half tester bed.
    Oh, she understood Michael. Michael liked darkness too, in his own way. Why else would anyone have married into this family? she thought. Something in him was seduced by darkness. He felt good in the twilight and good in the dark, just like she did. She knew that when she watched him walk in thenighttime garden. His thing. If he liked the early morning at all, which she doubted, it was only because it was dim and distorting.
    “He is simply too good.” Oncle Julien’s words came back to her. Well, we’ll see.
    She crept to the doorframe and saw the tiny night-light, plugged directly into the outlet over on the far wall. The light of the street lamps filtered softly through the lace curtains, and there lay Michael, his head turned away from her, in his immaculate white cotton pajamas, pressed so carefully by Henri that they had a perfect seam down the arm. Michael’s hand lay half open on the top of the comforter as though ready to accept a gift. She heard him take a long, raw and uneasy breath.
    But he hadn’t heard her. He was dreaming. He turned on his side away from her, and sank deeper into a murmuring sleep.
    She slipped into the room.
    His diary was on the bedside table.
    She knew it by the cover; she had seen him writing in it this very night. Oh, it was unconscionable to look into it. She couldn’t do it, but how she wanted just to glimpse a few words.
    What if she just took a little peek?
    Rowan, come back to me. I’m waiting
. With a silent sigh she let it close.
    Look at all the bottles of pills. They were bombing him with this stuff. She knew