Blackwood Farm - Anne Rice [232]
“My fevered mind said, You must escape here. You must go down the slope somehow. You have to drop to the roofs below. That this creature, Petronia, meant to murder me, I had no doubt.
“I felt unconsciousness creep over me again, hot and dark and full of desperation. Some drug was working in me still that I couldn’t fight.
“Then, against the blue sky I saw the shadowy outline of a woman and I heard her talking low and fast in Italian and I felt a sharp stab in my arm. I saw the outline of the syringe in her hand as she held it up with a dainty gesture, and I wanted to protest but I couldn’t. And next I knew, she was shaving my face with a small electric razor that was like a noisy little animal running all over my upper lip and my chin.
“She was speaking to another woman in Italian, and though I spoke a little Italian I couldn’t tell what it was she was saying, only that she complained. Finally she moved to one side, and I could see her, and she was young and brunette and with an upturn to her eyes.
“ ‘Why you, I would like to know,’ she said to me with a thick accent. ‘Why not me after all this time? I serve and I serve, and she brings you to me and says make him ready. I am nothing but a slave.’
“ ‘Help me to get out of here,’ I said, ‘and I’ll make you rich.’
“She laughed. ‘You don’t even want it, and they’re giving it to you!’ she said scoffing. ‘And why? Because she has a whim.’ Her voice was soft but insistent. ‘Everything is a whim with her. To come. To go. To live in this palazzo. To live in that palazzo.’ She laid down the syringe. I heard the clink of metal. She lifted a long scissors. She cut a lock from my hair.
“ ‘What did you put into me?’ I asked. ‘Why did you shave my face? Where is Petronia?’
“She laughed, and so did another young woman who appeared on the left side of me, opposite. She was also slender, fashionable-looking and pretty of face, just like the one who was trimming my hair. She stood with her back to the light, her shadow falling over me.
“ ‘We should kill you,’ said the other woman, the new one, ‘so that she can’t do it. We could tell her that you died.’
“They both laughed at this joke uproariously.
“ ‘Why do you wish me harm?’ I asked.
“ ‘Because she chose you instead of us!’ said the one who had injected me. She was angry but she didn’t raise her voice. ‘Do you know how long we’ve waited? We’ve been teased by her since we were children. Always she has an excuse, except when she is angry, and then she offers no excuse for anything, and God help those who ask her for one!’ She took a comb to my hair. ‘You’re ready as far as I can see.’
“ ‘Don’t worry,’ said the other one. She stood with folded arms. Her face was cold. She had beautiful sneering lips. ‘We won’t hurt you. She would know when she comes. And then she would kill us for certain.’
“ ‘Are you talking about Petronia?’
“ ‘You don’t know anything,’ said the one who had been combing my hair. ‘She’s just playing with you. She’s going to kill you like all the rest.’
“I could feel the drug working in me, or was it my imagination? I was so hot, so miserable. I was neither drugged nor conscious.
“ ‘Don’t try to get up,’ said the woman with the comb. But I did try and I pushed her away from me.
“She fell back, murmuring in Italian. I think she was cursing. ‘I hope she tortures you!’ she said.
“I was flat on my back. I imagined myself crawling to the balustrade. I should have dropped down, no matter how low it was. I had been a fool not to try it. My eyes closed. I could hear their voices, their cheap, cruel laughter. I hated them.
“ ‘Listen to me,’ I said. ‘Help me to the balustrade. I’ll go over it myself. You can tell her that I jumped. I’ll probably die, and you’ll be happy and free of me, just like . . . just like . . .’ I couldn’t make my mouth form the words. I wasn’t sure I had said even what I thought I had said.
“I was swooning. I