The Witching Hour (Lives of the Mayfair Witches, #1)

by Anne Rice

He thought of the Englishman at the bar in the lobby again. That’s what had brought it all back—the Englishman remarking to the bartender that he’d just come from New Orleans, and that certainly was a haunted city. The Englishman, an affable man, a true Old World gentleman it seemed, in a narrow seersucker suit with a gold watch chain fixed to his vest pocket. Where did one see that kind of man these days?—a man with the sharp melodious inflection of a British stage actor, and brilliant, ageless blue eyes.

Dr. Petrie's chapter.

The doctor had turned to him and said: “Yes, you’re right about New Orleans, you certainly are. I saw a ghost myself in New Orleans, and not very long ago—” Then he had stopped, embarrassed.

New Orleans will forever be associated with the supernatural because, where there's smoke there is fire.

I glimpsed a man standing motionless and stiff, as it were, in a great clump of banana trees to the right of the gate. “As I drew closer, I glanced to the right, and into the man’s face. It was the spirit, visible to me once more, though for what reason under God I had no idea.

“But it was the face of the being which held me enthralled. It was monstrously transfigured by anguish, and his cheeks were wet with soundless crying as he looked into my eyes.

Though Ellie was supposed to be telepathic, it was a parlor-game type of thing. She knew who it was when the phone rang. She could tell you what playing card you were holding in your hand. Otherwise there was nothing unusual about this woman, except perhaps that she was very pretty, resembling many other descendants of Julien Mayfair, and had her great-grandfather’s ingratiating manner and seductive smile.

As I pondered all these things, I also found myself thinking often of Petyr van Abel—Petyr whose father had been a great surgeon and anatomist in Leiden, a name in the history books to this day. I longed to tell Rowan Mayfair: “See that name, that Dutch doctor who was famous for his study of anatomy. That is your ancestor. His blood and his skill perhaps have come down to you through all the generations and the years.”