The Vampires by John Rechy

Author:John Rechy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

14

Savannah retreated. She had needed a test of her iron stance: to perfect it. Passed, it would have ultimately choked the brutal scene of painful initiation rendering the imitation purity “real.” But she had not prepared for a confrontation with the recorded reality of the slaughter. Now, in sudden recognition, she stared at Tor: They were shells, magnificent, empty bodies.

“You can have her for yourself, pimp!” Bravo turned on Malissa.

“I never wanted her,” Malissa said quickly. Now Savannah would be spoken of as if she had once existed in sharp focus—but no more. “Nor anyone else!”

Bravo’s husky voice became a deliberate, mocking simper aimed at Malissa: “Someone to love, Malissa! Why not? It’s obvious she needs someone—finally; and you need someone too, Malissa.”

“No one,” Malissa rejected in a controlled voice. “No one. Ever.” The long fingers were like jeweled daggers.

“Everyone needs love,” la Duquesa asserted.

Bravo moved in on Malissa. “Everyone loves you, Malissa! Nobody hates you!” she roared. “Love, love, love, love!” she spewed the repeated word like poison in the woman’s ear, to kill.

Malissa pushed the word away. The purple-shaded eyes murdered Bravo.

Now Bravo’s voice broke into a roar of contempt. Again to feel out the potential for insurrection, she spun about toward Albert: “Why do you stay with her?”

“Because— . . .” he began with difficulty.

“Because he’s a fat little man!” said Topaze peremptorily, stretching his own small body as if his assertive words would enlarge it. “Without Miss Malissa there would be no entourage, and that’s why he stays!” It was his overt bid for a permanent place in the retinue.

Bravo ignored the midget. “Tell us, Albert! Why?”

“He has nothing to tell,” Malissa declared.

“Why don’t you want him to speak, Lady Cobra?” Bravo questioned.

“Why don’t we hear from you, Bravo?” Malissa spat. “Tell us about the man you had prepare your women for you.”

“Only at first—and then they wanted only me.”

“But there was the exception, wasn’t there, Bravo?” Malissa shifted the tide of battle.

Bravo winced, barely but perceptibly.

“A man, Bravo!” Malissa used the word “man” as Bravo had used the word “love” against her.

“I coiled my whip about their fucking necks, and I made them kneel before me—the man and the bitch,” said Bravo. “Okay. That was the one exception. I’ve confessed. Now you tell us, Malissa: Why don’t you let Albert speak? Are you afraid he’ll tell us what becomes of the people you collect? Is it true, Malissa, that you’re hundreds of years old and need regular transfusions of fresh young blood!” Then, aiming indiscriminately, striking in every direction: “Was Albert your lover once? Were you always sexless?”

“Speak, Albert,” came Mark’s voice, unexpectedly.

Malissa’s face expressed rage. Her eyes shifted quickly from Mark to Richard, exhorting him to chastise his son.

But Richard said nothing.

Topaze mirrored Malissa’s expression of rage.

“Yes, speak, Albert!” la Duquesa proclaimed her own rebellion against Malissa. “If you do, you may be free of her!”

Malissa’s purple-glassed eyes swallowed the queen.

“Tell about the pain of the humiliations, the taunts— . . .” the voice behind the black veils exhorted.

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