Dr. Rowan Mayfair, founder and head of Mayfair Medical, was seated in one of the mahogany chairs (picture nineteenth-century Rococo, black lacquer and velvet), and her head turned sharply as if jerked by a cord when I entered.
Now, we had seen each other before, as I noted, at Aunt Queen's funeral Mass in St. Mary's Assumption Church. In fact, I'd sat dangerously close to her, being in the pew right in front of her. But I'd been better camouflaged at the time by ordinary clothes and sunglasses. What she saw now was the Brat Prince in his frock coat and handmade lace, and I'd forgotten to put on my sunglasses, which was just a stupid mistake.
I hadn't had a really good look at her at all. Now I found myself instantly fascinated, which wasn't too comfortable since it was my role to fascinate as our conversation went on.
Her lean oval face was delicately sculpted and as clean as a little girl's and needed nothing in the way of paint to make it remarkable, with its huge gray eyes and cold flawless mouth. She wore a severe, gray wool pants suit, with a red scarf wrapped around her neck and tucked down into her lapels, and her short ash blond hair appeared to curl under naturally just below the soft line of her jaw.
Her expression was intensely dramatic, and I sensed an immediate and sweeping probe of my mind, which I locked up tight. I felt chills down my backbone. She was creating this.
She had fully expected to read my thoughts and she couldn't. And she was blocked from knowing what was going on upstairs. She didn't like it. But to put it more Biblically, she was deeply grieved.
And being shut out, she tried to make sense of my appearance, not at all concerned with the superficial eccentricity of the frock coat and my messy hair, but of elements which were more purely vampiric-the subtle sheen of my skin and the electric blue of my eyes.
I had to start talking quickly, but let me fill you in first on my instantaneous take on the other Mayfair-Fr. Kevin-who was standing at the far mantel, the only other occupant of the room.
Nature had dealt him the same cards as Mona-deep green eyes and red hair. In fact, he could have been her big brother, the genes were so close, and he was my height, six feet, and well built. He wore clerical black with the white Roman collar. And he was not the witch Rowan was, but he was more than slightly
psychic, and I could read him easily: he thought I was weird and he was hoping Mona was already dead.
I sparked off the memory of him at Mass in his Gothic robes holding the chalice in his hands. This is my blood. And for reasons I couldn't possibly explain, I was taken slap back to my village childhood in France, to the ancient church and the village priest saying those very same words, chalice in hand, and for a moment I lost my perspective on everything. Other mortal memories threatened, perfected in color and lucidity. I saw the monastery where I'd studied, so happy, where I'd so wanted to be a monk. Oh, this was sickening.
And with another decided chill, I realized that Dr. Mayfair had caught these images out of my mind before I closed it up again.
I shook it off, annoyed for a moment that the double parlor was so crowded with shadow. Then my eyes latched on to the stark, don't belong, figure of Oncle Julien, three-dimensional and exquisitely solid in a slim gray suit, standing in the far corner, arms folded, eying me with calculating opposition. He was fiercely actual, and fiercely bright.
"What's wrong with you?" Dr. Rowan Mayfair asked. Her voice was deep, husky and sensual. Her eyes were still picking me apart.
"You don't see any ghost in here, do you?" I blurted out without thinking, the ghost just standing there all the while as it came clear to me that of course they didn't, neither of them. This shining and self- contained menace had it in for me.
"No, I don't see anything," Rowan answered promptly. "There's a ghost in this room that I ought to see?"
Women with these husky voices have a miraculous advantage.
"You do have your ghosts here," Fr. Kevin said acceptingly. Yankee accent. Boston. "As Quinn's friend, I thought you'd know. "
"Oh, I do, yes," I said. "But I never get used to them. Ghosts scare me. So do angels. "
"And didn't you hold an exorcism to get rid of Goblin?" asked the priest, throwing me off guard.
"Yes, and it worked," I said, glad of the distraction. "Goblin's gone from this house, and Quinn's free of him for the first time in his life. I wonder what
it will mean to him. "
Oncle Julien didn't budge.
"Where is she?" asked Rowan, meaning Mona, who else?
"She wants to stay here," I said. "You know, it's simple. " I crossed in front of her and sat down in a chair with its back to the floor lamp, putting myself in a bit of shadow, and so I could see everyone, even my nemesis. "She doesn't want to die at Mayfair Medical. She managed to drive the limousine all the way over here. You know Mona. And she's with Quinn upstairs. I want you to trust us. Leave her with us. We'll take care of her. We can call Aunt Queen's old nurse to help us. "
Rowan was staring at me as if I'd lost my mind.
"Do you realize how difficult it's going to be?" she asked. She sighed and a great weariness showed itself in her, but only for an instant. "Do you realize how difficult it can get?"
"You've brought the oxygen and morphine, haven't you?" I glanced over my shoulder in the direction of the ambulance out front. "Leave them. Cindy, the nurse, will know how to use them. "
Rowan raised her eyebrows. Same weariness again, but her strength was greater. She was trying to figure me out. Absolutely nothing about me frightened her or repelled her. I found her beautiful. There was a limitless intelligence behind her eyes.
"Quinn can't possibly understand what he's taking on," she said gently. "I don't want him to be hurt. I don't want her to die in pain. Do you follow me?"