Lasher by Anne Rice Read Free Book Online Page B

most of the names because they were common and other old Mayfairs had taken them often enough. Blood pressure medicines mostly, and then Lasix, that evil diuretic which probably pulled all the potassium out of him the way it had out of Alicia, when she’d straightened up and tried to lose weight, and three other dangerous-sounding potions that were probably what made him look all the time like he was trying to wake up.
    Ought to do you a big favor and throw this junk in the garbage for you, she thought. What you need is Mayfair Witches’ Brew. When she got home, she’d look up all these drugs in one of the big pharmaceutical books she had in her library. Ah, look, Xanax. That could make anyone into a zombie. Why give him that four times a day? They’d taken Xanax away from her mother, because Alicia took it in handfuls with her wine and her beer.
    Hmmm, this did feel like a very unlucky room. She liked the fancy decorative work above the windows, and the chandelier,but it was an unlucky room. And that smell was in here too.
    Very faint, but it was here, the delicious smell, the smell that didn’t belong in the house, and had something to do with Christmas.
    She came close to the bed, which was very high like so many old-fashioned beds, and she looked at Uncle Michael lying there, his profile deep in the snow-white cotton cover of the down pillow, dark lashes and eyebrows surprisingly distinct. Very much a man, just a smidgen more testosterone and you would have had a barrel-chested ape with bushy eyebrows. But there had not been the smidgen. Perfection had been the result.
    “ ‘O brave new world,’ ” she whispered, “ ‘that has such people in’t!’ ”
    He was drugged, all right. Totally out of it.
    That was probably why he’d lost that gift with his hands. He’d worn gloves most of the time up till Christmas, telling people his hands were very sensitive. Oh, Mona had tried hard to get to talk to him about that! And tonight, he’d remarked several times he didn’t need the gloves anymore at all. Well, of course not if you were taking two milligrams of Xanax every four hours on top of all this other crap! That’s how they’d shut down Deirdre’s powers, drugging her. Oh, so many opportunities had passed by. Well, this opportunity wouldn’t.
    And what was this cute little bottle, Elavil? That had a sedative effect too, didn’t it? And wow, what a dose. It’s a wonder Michael had been able to come downstairs tonight. And to think he’d held her on his shoulders for Comus. Poor guy. This was damn near sadistic.
    She touched his cheek lightly. Very clean-shaven. He didn’t wake. Another long deep breath came out of him, almost a yawn, sounding very male.
    She knew she could wake him, however, he wasn’t in a coma after all, and then the most disturbing thought came to her! She’d been with David already tonight! Damn! It had been safe, sanitary but still messy. She couldn’t wake Michael, not till she’d sunk down into a nice warm bath.
    Hmmm. And she hadn’t even thought of that till now. Her clothes were still soiled. That was the whole trouble with being thirteen. Your brilliance was uneven. You forgot enormous things! Even Alicia had told her that.
    “One minute, dear, you are a little computer whiz, and thenext moment, you’re screaming ’cause you can’t find your dolls. I told you your dolls are in the cabinet. Nobody took your damned dolls! Oh, I’m so glad I don’t ever have to be thirteen again! You know I was thirteen when you were born!”
    Tell me about it. And you were sixteen when I was three and you left me downtown in Maison Blanche and I was lost there for two hours! “I forgot, OK! Like I don’t take her downtown that much!” Who else but a sixteen-year-old mother would give an excuse like that? It wasn’t so bad. Mona had ridden the escalators up and down to her heart’s content.
    “Take me in your arms,” she prayed, looking down at Michael. “I’ve had a