Chapter 44 Do you got it? On your feet
"And she who had been advancing towards the foot lights, saw him suddenly and came to a halt, making a moan like a child. Indeed, she was very like a child, though clearly a full-grown woman. Only a slight wrinkling of the tender flesh around her eyes betrayed her age. Her breasts though small were beautifully shaped beneath her blouse, and her hips though narrow gave her long, dusty skirt a sharp, sensual angularity. As she moved back from the vampire, I saw the tears standing in her eyes like glass in the flicker of the lights, and I felt my spirit contract in fear for her, and in longing. Her beauty was heartbreaking.
"Behind her, a number of painted skulls suddenly moved against the blackness, the figures that carried the masks invisible in their black clothes, except for free white hands that clasped the edge of a cape, the folds of a skirt. Vampire women were there, moving in with the men towards the victim, and now they all, one by one, thrust the masks away -so they fell in an artful pile, the sticks like bones, the skulls grinning into the darkness above. And there they stood, seven vampires, the women vampires three in number, their molded white breasts shining over the tight black bodices of their gowns, their hard luminescent faces staring with dark eyes beneath curls of black hair. Starkly beautiful, as they seemed to float close around that florid human figure, yet pale and cold compared to that sparkling golden hair, that petal-pink skin. I could hear the breath of the audience, the halting, the soft sighs. It was a spectacle, that circle of white faces pressing closer and closer, and that leading figure, that Gentleman Death, turning to the audience now with his hands crossed over his heart, his head bent in longing to elicit their sympathy: was she not irresistible! A murmur of accenting laughter, of sighs.
"But it was she who broke the magic silence.
" \`I don't want to die . . : she whispered. Her voice was like a bell.
" \`We are death,' he answered her; and from around her came the whisper, \`Death.' She turned, tossing her hair so it became a veritable shower of gold, a rich and living thing over the dust off her poor clothing. \`Help me?' she cried out softly, as if afraid even to raise her voice. \`Someone . . .' she said to the crowd she knew must tae there. A soft laughter cane from Claudia. The girl on stage only vaguely understood where
she was, what was happening, but knew infinitely more than this house of people that gaped at her.
" \`I don't want to die! I don't want to!' Her delicate voice broke, her eyes fixed on the tall, malevolent leader vampire, that demon trickster who now stepped out of the circle of the others towards her.
" \`We all die,' he answered her. \`The one thing you share with every mortal is death.' His hand took in the orchestra, the distant faces of the balcony, the boxes.
" \`No,' she protested in disbelief. \`I have so many years, so many ' Her voice was
light, lilting in her pain. It made her irresistible, just as did the movement of her naked throat and the hand that fluttered there.
" \`Years!' said the master vampire. \`How do you know you have so many years? Death is no respecter of age! There could be a sickness in your body now, already devouring you from within. or, outside, a man might be waiting to kill you simply for your yellow hair!' And his fingers reached for it, the sound of his deep, preternatural voice sonorous. \`Need I tell what fate may have in store for you?'
" \`I don't care I'm not afraid,' she protested, her clarion voice so fragile after him.
\`I would take my chance. '
" \`And if you do take that chance and live, live for years, what would be your heritage? The humpbacked, toothless visage of old age?' And now he lifted her hair behind her back, exposing her pale throat. And slowly he drew the string from the loose gathers of her blouse. The cheap fabric opened, the sleeves slipping off her narrow, pink shoulders; and she clasped it, only to have him take her wrists and thrust them sharply away. The audience seemed to sigh in a body, the women behind their opera glasses, the men leaning forward in their chairs. I could see the cloth falling, see the pale, flawless skin pulsing with her heart and the tiny nipples letting the cloth slip precariously, the vampire holding her right wrist tightly at her side, the tears coarsing down her blushing cheeks, her teeth biting into the flesh of her lip. \`Just as sure as this flesh is pink, it will turn gray, wrinkled with age,' he said.
" \`Let me live, please,' she begged, her face turning away from him. \`I don't care I
don't care.'
" \`But then, why should you care if you die now? If these things don't frighten you . . .
these horrors?'
"She shook her head, baffled, outsmarted, helpless. I felt the anger in my veins, as sure as the passion. With a bowed head she bore the whole responsibility for defending life, and it was unfair, monstrously unfair that she should have to pit logic against his for what was obvious and sacred and so beautifully embodied in her. But he made her speechless, made her overwhelming instinct seem petty, confused. I could feel her dying inside, weakening, and I hated him.
"The blouse slipped to her waist. A murmur moved through the titillated crowd as her small, round breasts stood exposed. She struggled to free her wrist, but he held it fast. " \`And suppose we were to let you go suppose the Grim Reaper had a heart that
could resist your beauty to whom would he turn his passion? Someone must die in
your place. Would you pick the person for us? The person to stand here and suffer as yoga suffer now?' He gestured to the audience. Her confusion was terrible. \`Have you a sister . . . a mother. a child?'
" \`No,' she gasped. \`No . . : shaking the mane of hair.
" \`Surely someone could take your place, a friend? Choose!'
" \`I can't. I wouldn't. She writhed in his tight grasp. The vampires around her
looked on, still, their faces evincing no emotion, as if the preternatural flesh were masks. \`Can't you do it?' he taunted her. And I knew, if she said she could, how he
would only condemn her, say she was as evil as he for marking someone for death, say that she deserved her fate.
" \`Death waits for you everywhere,' he sighed now as if he were suddenly frustrated. The audience could not perceive it, I could. I could see the muscles of his smooth face tightening. He was trying to keep her gray eyes on his eyes, but she looked desperately, hopefully away from him. On the warm, rising air I could smell the dust and perfume of her skin, hear the soft beating of her heart. \`Unconscious death . . . the fate of all mortals.' He bent closer to her, musing, infatuated with her, but struggling.
\`Hmmm. but we are conscious death! That would make you a bride. Do you know
what it means to be loved by Death?' He all but kissed her face, the brilliant stain of her tears. \`Do you know what it means to have Death know your name?'
"She looked at him, overcome with fear. And then her eyes seemed to mist over, her lips to go slack. She was staring past him at the figure of another vampire who had emerged slowly from the shadows. For a long time he had stood on the periphery of the gathering, his hands clasped, his large, dark eyes very still. His attitude was not the attitude of hunger. He did not appear rapt. But she was looking into his eyes row, and her pain bathed her in a beauteous light, a light which made her irresistibly alluring. It was 'his that held the jaded audience, this terrible pain. I could feel her skin, feel the small, pointed breasts, feel my arms caressing her. I shut my eyes against it and saw her starkly against that private darkness. It was what they felt all around her, this community of vampires. She had no chance.
"And, looking up again, I saw her shimmering in the smoky light of the footlamps, saw her tears like gold as soft from that other vampire who stood at a distance came the words \`No pain.'
"I could see the trickster stiffen, but no one else would see it. They would see only the girl's smooth, childlike face, those parted lips, slack with innocent wonder as she gazed at that distant vampire, hear her soft voice repeat after him, 'No pain?'
" \`Your beauty is a gift to us.' Iris rich voice effortlessly filled the house, seemed to fix and subdue the mounting wave of excitement. And slightly, almost imperceptibly, his hand moved. The trickster was receding, becoming one of those patient, white faces, whose hunger and equanimity were strangely one. And slowly, gracefully, the other moved towards her. She was languid, her nakedness forgotten, those lids fluttering, a sigh escaping her moist lips. 'No pain,' she accented. I could hardly bear it, the sight of her yearning towards him, seeing her dying now, under this vampire's power. I wanted to cry out to her, to break her swoon. And I wanted her. Wanted her, as he was moving in on her, his hand out now for the drawstring of her skirt as she inclined towards him, her head back, the black cloth slipping over her hips, over the golden gleam of the hair between her legs-a child's down, that delicate curl-the skirt dropping to her feet.