Taltos by Anne Rice Page B

every little movement pulls it. Will you forgive me that I slouch back on this sofa, and try to remain like this, looking lazy? My mind is racing. Will you tell me who you are?”
    “I’ve done that, have I not?” asked the tall one. “You speak. What happened to you?”
    “Yuri, I told you,” said the dwarf, with rather good-natured impatience, “that this is my oldest confidant and friend in the world. I told you that he knew the Talamasca. That he knows more about it than any living being. Please trust him. Tell him what he wants to know.”
    “I trust you,” said Yuri. “But to what purpose do I tell you my business, or of my adventures? What will you do with this knowledge?”
    “Help you, of course,” said the tall one slowly, with a gentle nod of his head. “Samuel says the men in the Talamasca are trying to kill you. This is hard for me to accept. I have always, in my own way, loved the Order of the Talamasca. I protect myself from it, as I do from anything which would constrict me in any way. But the men of the Talamasca have seldom been my enemies … at least not for very long. Who tried to hurt you? Are you sure these evil people came from the Order itself?”
    “No, I’m not sure,” said Yuri. “This is what happened, more or less. When I was an orphan boy, the Talamasca took me in. Aaron Lightner was the man who did it. Samuel knows who this man is.”
    “So do I,” said the tall one.
    “All my adult life I’ve served the Order, in a traveling capacity mostly, often performing tasks which I myself don’t fully understand. Apparently, unbeknownst to me, my vows rested upon a loyalty to Aaron Lightner. When he went to New Orleans to investigate a family of witches, things somehow went wrong. This family was the Mayfair family, this family of witches. I read their history in old records of the Order before these records were closed to me. It was from Rowan Mayfair that the Taltos was born.”
    “Who or what was the father?” asked the tall one.
    “It was a man.”
    “A mortal man. You’re certain of this?”
    “Without question, but there were other considerations. This family had been haunted for many, many generations by a spirit, both evil and good. This spirit took hold of the infant inside Rowan Mayfair, took possession of it and assisted its unusual birth. The Taltos, springing up full-grown from this woman, possessed the soul of the haunting spirit complete and entire. They called this creature Lasher in the family. I’ve never known any other name for him. Now this creature is dead, as I’ve told you.”
    The tall man was frankly amazed. He gave a little sympathetic shake of his head. He walked to the nearby armchair and sat down, turning politely towards Yuri, and crossing his long legs and ankles very much as Yuri had done. He sat very straight, as though never ashamed or uneasy about his height.
    “From two witches!” said the tall one in a whisper.
    “Absolutely,” said Yuri.
    “You say absolutely,” said the tall one. “What can this mean?”
    “There is genetic evidence, an abundance of it. The Talamasca has this evidence. The witch family carries an extraordinary set of genes within its various lines. Genes of the Taltos, which under the ordinary circumstances are never switched on by nature, but which in this case—either through witchcraft or possession—did indeed do their work to make the Taltos come into the world.”
    The tall man smiled. It surprised Yuri, because the smileso fired the face with expression and affection and simple delight.
    “You speak like all the men from the Talamasca,” said the tall one. “You speak like a priest in Rome. You speak as if you weren’t born in these times.”
    “Well, I was educated on their documents in Latin,” said Yuri. “Their story of this creature, Lasher, it went back to the sixteen hundreds. I read all of it, along with the story of this family—its rise to great wealth and power, its secret doings