by Anne Rice
He headed for the door.
"Wait," I whispered. What was I thinking of in my greed? I looked up at her mute smiling face, and then at him, the little engine puffing away on the black cigarette, with nothing on for the fierce winter outside but the damned djellaba.
"No, it has to be done," said Sybelle with wide eyes. "And Benji will choose a very bad man, won't you, Benji? An evil man who wants to rob and kill you."
"I know where to go," said Benji with a little twisted smile. "Just play your cards when I come back, both of you. Cover him up, Sybelle. Don't look at the clock. Don't worry about me!"
Off he went with the slam of the door, the big heavy lock slipping shut behind him automatically.
So it was coming. Blood, thick red blood. It was coming. It was coming, and it would be hot and delicious, and there would a manful of it, and it was coming, it was coming within seconds.
I closed my eyes, and opening them, I let the room take shape again with its sky-blue draperies on every window, hanging down in rich folds to the floor, and the carpet a great writhing oval of cabbage roses. And she, this stalk of a girl staring at me and smiling her simple sweet smile, as if the crime of the night would be nothing to her.
She came down on her knees next to me, perilously close, and again she touched my hair with delicate hand. Her soft unfettered breasts touched my arm. I read her thoughts as if I read her palm, pushing back through layer after layer of her conscious, seeing the dark winding road again whipping and turning through the Jordan Valley, and the parents driving too fast for the pitch dark and the hairpin curves and the Arab drivers who came on plunging at even greater speed so that each meeting of headlamps became a grueling contest.
"To eat the fish from the Sea of Galilee," she said, her eyes drifting away from me. "I wanted it. It was my idea we go there. We had one more day in the Holy Land, and they said it's a long drive from Jerusalem to Nazareth, and I said, 'But He walked on the water.' It was to me always the strangest tale. You know it?"
"I do," I said.
"That He was walking right on the water, as if He'd forgotten the Apostles were there or that anyone might see Him, and they from the boat, said, 'Lord!' and He was startled. Such a strange miracle, as if it was all ... accidental. I was the one who wanted to go. I was the one who wanted to eat the fresh fish right out of the sea, the same water that Peter and the others had fished. It was my doing. Oh, I don't say it was my fault that they died. It was my doing. And we were all headed home for my big night at Carnegie Hall, and the record company was set up to record it, live. I'd made a recording before, you know. It had done much better than anyone ever expected. But that night . . . this night that never happened, that is, I was going to play the Appassionata.
It was all that mattered to me. The other sonatas I love, the Moonlight, the Pathetique, but really for me ... it was the Appassionata. My Father and Mother were so proud. But my brother, he was the one who always fought, always got me the time, the space, the good piano, the teachers I needed. He was the one who made them see, but then of course, he didn't have any life at all, and all of us saw what was coming. We'd talk about it round the table at night, that he had to get a life of his own, it was no good his working for me, but then he'd say that I would need him for years to come, I couldn't even imagine. He'd manage the recordings and the performances and the repertoire, and the fees we asked. The agents couldn't be trusted. I had no idea, he said, of how high I'd rise."
She paused, cocking her head to one side, her face earnest yet still simple.
"It wasn't a decision I made, you understand," she said. "I just wouldn't do anything else. They were dead. I just wouldn't go out. I just wouldn't answer the phone. I just wouldn't play anything else. I just wouldn't listen to what he said. I just wouldn't plan. I just wouldn't eat. I just wouldn't change my clothes. I just played the Appassionata."
"I understand," I said softly.
"He brought Benji back with us to take care of me. I always wondered how. I think Benji was bought, you know, bought with cold cash?"
"I know."
"I think that's what happened. He couldn't leave me alone, he said, not even at the King David, that was the hotel-."
"Yes."
"-because he said I'd stand in the window without my clothes, or I wouldn't let the maid come in, and I'd play the piano in the middle of the night and he couldn't sleep. So he got Benji. I love Benji."
"I know."
"I'd always do what Benji said. He never dared to hit Benji. Only towards the end he started to really hurt me. Before that it was slaps, you know, and kicks. Or he'd pull my hair. He'd grab me by the hair, all my hair in one hand, and he'd throw me down on the floor. He did that often. But he didn't dare to hit Benji. He knew if he hit Benji I'd scream and scream. But then sometimes, when Benji would try to make him stop-. But I'm not so sure about that because I would be so dizzy. My head would ache."
"I understand," I said. Of course, he had hit Benji.
She mused, quietly, her eyes large still, and so bright without tears or puckering.
"We're alike, you and I," she whispered, looking down at me. Her hand lay close to my cheek, and she very lightly pressed the soft upper part of her forefinger against me.
"Alike?" I asked. "What in the world can you be thinking of?"
"Monsters," she said. "Children."
I smiled. But she didn't smile. She looked dreamy.
"I was so glad when you came," she said. "I knew he was dead. I knew when you stood at the end of the piano and you looked at me. I knew when you stood there listening to me. I was so happy that there was someone who could kill him."
"Do this for me," I said.
"What?" she asked. "Armand, I'll do anything."
"Go to the piano now. Play it for me. Play the Appassionata"
"But the plan," she asked in a small wondering voice. "The evil man, he's coming."
"Leave this to Benji and me. Don't turn around to look. Just play the Appassionata."
"No, please," she asked gently.
"But why not?" I said. "Why must you put yourself through such an ordeal?"
"You don't understand," she said with the widest eyes. "I want to see it!"
6
BENJI HAD JUST RETURNED below. The distant sound of his voice, quite inaudible to Sybelle, instantly drove back the pain from all the surfaces of my limbs.
"That's what I mean, you see," he was talking away, "it's all underneath the dead body, and we don't wanna lift it, the dead body, and you being a cop, you know, you being Drug Enforcement, they said you would know how to take care of it... "
I started to laugh. He had really done himself proud. I looked again at Sybelle, who was staring at me with a quiet resolute expression, one of profound intelligence and reflection.
"Push this cover up over my face," I said, "and move away, far away. He's bringing us a regular prince of rogues. Hurry."
She snapped into action. I could smell the blood of this victim already, though he was still in the ascending elevator, talking to Benji in low guarded terms.
"And all this you just happen to have in this apartment, you and she, and there's nobody else in on this?"
Oh, he was a beauty. I heard the murderer in his voice.
"I told you everything," Benji said in the most natural of little voices. "You just help with this, you know, I can't have the police coming in here!" Whisper. "This is a fine hotel. How did I know this guy was going to die here! We don't use this stuff, you take the stuff, just get the body out of here. Now let me tell you-."
The elevator opened to our floor.
"-this body is pretty messed up, so don't go all slobbering on me when you see it."
"Slobbering on you," growled the victim under his breath. Their shoes made soft hastening sounds on the carpet.
Benji fumbled with his keys, pretending to be mixed up.
"Sybelle," he called out in warning. "Sybelle, open the door."
"Don't do it,
" I said in a low voice.
"Of course not," came her velvety answer.
The barrels of the big lock turned.
"And this guy just happens to come up here and die on you with all this stuff."
"Well, not exactly," said Benji, "but you made a bargain with me, no, I expect you to stick to it."
"Look, you little guttersnipe, I didn't make any bargain with you."
"Okay, then maybe I call the regular police then. I know you. Everybody in the bar knows you, who you are, you're always around. What are you going to do, big shot? Kill me?"
The door closed behind them. The smell of the man's blood flooded the apartment. He was besotted with brandy and had the poison cocaine in his veins as well, but none of this would make a particle of difference to my cleansing thirst. I could scarce contain myself. I felt my limbs tighten and try to flex beneath the coverlet.
"Well, isn't she the perfect princess," he said, his eyes obviously having fallen on Sybelle. Sybelle made no answer.
"Never mind her, you look there, under the covers. Sybelle, you come here by me. Come on, Sybelle."
"Under there? You're telling me the body's under there, and the cocaine is under the body?"
"How many times I have to tell you?" asked Benji, no doubt with his characteristic shrug. "Look, what part don't you understand, I'd like to know. You don't want this cocaine? I give it away. I'll be very popular in your favorite bar. Come on, Sybelle, this man says he will help, then he won't help, talk, talk, talk, typical government sleaze."
"Who are you calling a sleaze, kid?" demanded the man with mock gentleness, the fragrance of the brandy thickening. "That's some big vocabulary you have for such a little body. How old are you, kid? How the Hell did you get into this country? You go around in that nightgown all the time?"
"Yeah, sure, just call me Lawrence of Arabia," said Benji. "Sybelle, come over here."
I didn't want her to come. I wanted her as far away from this as possible. She didn't move, and I was very glad of it.
"I like my clothes," Benji chattered on. Puff of sweet cigarette smoke.
"I should dress like kids in this place, I suppose, in blue jeans? As if. My people dressed like this when Mohammed was in the desert."
"Nothing like progress," said the man with a deep throaty laugh.
He approached the bed with quick crisp steps. The scent of blood was so rich I could feel the pores of my burnt skin opening for it.
I used the tiniest part of my strength to form a telepathic picture of him through their eyes-a tall brown-eyed man, sallow white skin, gaunt cheeks, receding brown hair, in a handmade Italian suit of shining black silk with flashing diamond cufflinks on his rich linen. He was antsy, fingers working at his sides, almost unable to stand still, his brain a riot of dizzy humor, cynicism and crazed curiosity. His eyes were greedy and playful. The ruthlessness underscored all, and there seemed in him a strong streak of genuine drug-nourished insanity. He wore his murders as proudly as he wore his princely suit and the shiny brown boots on his feet.
Sybelle came near the bed, the sharp sweet scent of her pure flesh mingling with the heavier richer scent of the man. But it was his blood I savored, his blood that brought the juices up into my parched mouth. I could barely keep from making a sigh beneath the covers. I felt my limbs about to dance right out of their painful paralysis.
The villain was sizing up the place, glancing left and right through open doors, listening for other voices, debating whether he should search this fancy overstuffed and rambling hotel apartment before he did anything else. His fingers would not be still. In a flash of wordless thought, I caught the quick realization that he'd snorted the cocaine Benji had brought, and he wanted more immediately.
"My, but you are a beautiful young lady," he said to Sybelle.
"Do you want me to lift the cover?" she asked.
I could smell the small handgun that was jammed in his high black leather boot, and the other gun, very fancy and modern, a distinctly different collection of metallic scents, in the holster under his arm. I could smell cash on him too, that unmistakable stale smell of filthy paper money.
"Come on, you chicken, buster?" asked Benji. "You want me to pull back the cover? Say when. You're gonna be real surprised, believe me!"
"There's no body under there," he said with a sneer. "Why don't we sit down and have a little talk? This isn't really your place, is it? I think you children need a little paternal guidance."
"The body's all burnt up," said Benji. "Don't get sick now."
"Burnt up!" said the man.
It was Sybelle's long hand that suddenly whipped the coverlet back. The cool air skidded across my skin. I stared up at the man who drew back, a half-strangled growl caught in his throat.
"For the love of God!"
My body sprang up, drawn by the plump fountain of blood like a hideous puppet on a score of whipping strings. I flailed against him, then anchored my burnt fingernails hard into his neck and wrapped the other arm around him in an agonizing embrace, my tongue flashing at the blood that spilled from the claw marks as I drew in and, ignoring the blazing pain in my face, opened my mouth wide and sank my fangs.
Now I had him.
His height, his strength, his powerful shoulders, his huge hands clamping to my hurt flesh, none of this could help him. I had him. I drew up the first thick swallow of blood and thought I would swoon. But my body wasn't about to allow it. My body had locked to him as if I were a thing of voracious tentacles.
At once, his crazed and luminous thoughts drew me down into a glitzy swirl of New York images, of careless cruelty and grotesque horror, of rampant drug-driven energy and sinister hilarity. I let the images flood me. I couldn't go for the quick death. I had to have every drop of blood inside him, and for that the heart must pump and pump; the heart must not give up.
If I had ever tasted blood this strong, this sweet and salty, I had no memory of it; there was no way in which memory could record such deliciousness, the absolute rapture of thirst slaked, of hunger cured, of loneliness dissolved in this hot and intimate embrace, in which the sound of my own seething, straining breath would have horrified me if I had cared about it.
Such a noise I made, such a dreadful feasting noise. My fingers massaged his thick muscles, my nostrils were pressed into his pampered soap-scented skin.
"Hmmm, love you, wouldn't hurt you for the world, you feel it, it's sweet, isn't it?" I whispered to him over the shallows of gorgeous blood. "Hmmm, yes, so sweet, better than the finest brandy, hmmm..."
In his shock and disbelief, he suddenly let go utterly, surrendering to the delirium that I stoked with each word. I ripped at his neck, widening the wound, rupturing the artery more fully. The blood gushed anew.
An exquisite shiver ran down my back; it ran down the backs of my arms, and down my buttocks and legs. It was pain and pleasure commingled as the hot and lively blood forced itself into the microfibers of my shriveled flesh, as it plumped the muscles beneath the roasted skin, as it sank into the very marrow of my bones. More, I had to have more.
"Stay alive, you don't want to die, no, stay alive," I crooned, rubbing my fingers up through his hair, feeling that they were fingers now, not the pterodactyl digits they'd been moments before. Oh, they were hot; it was the fire all over again, it was the fire blazing in my scorched limbs, this time death had to come, I couldn't bear this any longer, but a pinnacle had been reached, and now it was past and a great soothing ache rushed through me.
My face was pumped and teeming, my mouth fall again and again, and my throat now swallowing without effort.
"Ah, yes, alive, you're so strong, so wonderfully strong ... " I whispered. "Hmmm, no, don't go ... not yet, it's not time."
His knees buckled. He sank slowly to the carpet, and I with him, pulling him gently over with me against the side of the bed, and then letting him fall beside me, so that we lay like lovers entangled. There was more, much more, more than ever I could have drunk in my regular
state, more than ever I could have wanted.
Even on those rare occasions when I was a fledgling and greedy and new, and had taken two or three victims a night, I had never drunk so deeply from any one of them. I was now into the dark tasty dregs, pulling out the very vessels themselves in sweet clots that dissolved on my tongue.
"Oh, you are so precious, yes, yes."
But his heart could take no more. It was slowing to a lethal irretrievable pace. I closed my teeth on the skin of his face and ripped it open over his forehead, lapping at the rich tangle of bleeding vessels that covered his skull. There was so much blood here, so much blood behind the tissues of the face. I sucked up the fibers, and then spit them out bloodless and white, watching them drop to the floor like so much slop.
I wanted the heart and the brain. I had seen the ancients take it. I knew how. I'd seen the Roman Pandora once reach right into the chest.
I went for it. Astonished to see my hand fully formed though dark brown in color, I made my fingers rigid like a deadly spade and drove it into him, tearing linen and cracking breastbone, and then reaching his soft entrails until I had the heart and held it as I'd seen Pandora hold it. I drank from it. Oh, it had plenty of blood. This was magnificent. I sucked it to pulp and then let it fall.
I lay as still as he, at his side, my right hand on the back of his neck, my head bowed against his chest, my breath coming in heavy sighs. The blood danced in me. I felt my arms and legs jerking. Spasms ran through me, so that the sight of his white dead carcass blinkered in my gaze. The room flashed on and off.
"Oh, what a sweet brother," I whispered. "Sweet, sweet brother." I rolled on my back. I could hear the roar of his blood in my very ears, feel it moving over my scalp, feel it tingling in my cheeks and in the palms of my hands. Oh, good, too good, too lusciously good.
"Bad guy, hmmm?" It was Benji's voice, far away in the world of the living.
Far away in another realm where pianos ought to be played, and little boys should dance, they stood, the two like painted cutout figures against the swimming light of the room, merely gazing at me, he the little desert rogue with his fancy black cigarette, puffing away and smacking his lips and raising his eyebrows, and she merely floating it seemed, resolute and thoughtful as before, unshocked, untouched perhaps.
