The Vampire Armand - Anne Rice [57]
“Eyes, eyes, eyes,” said the elderly man. “Your Father must have been a peacock to have had so many eyes!”
“Shut up or I’ll slit your throat,” said the red-haired man. “Look what you did to Francisco, knocking him over like that. Good God!” He made the Sign of the Cross rather lazily. “There’s blood coming from the back of his head.”
My Master turned and, leaning down, swept up five fingerfuls of this blood. He turned to me slowly and then to the redhead. He sucked the blood off one finger. “Dead,” he said with a little smile. “But it’s plenty warm and thick.” He smiled slowly.
The red-haired man was as fascinated as a child at a puppet show.
My Master extended his bloody fingers, palm up, and made a smile as if to say, “You want to taste it?”
The red-haired man grabbed Marius’s wrist and licked the blood off his forefinger and thumb. “Hmmm, very good,” he said. “All my companions are of the best blood.”
“You’re telling me,” said my Master. I couldn’t rip my eyes off him, off his changing face. It seemed now his cheeks did darken, or maybe it was only their curve as he smiled. His lips were rosy.
“And I’m not finished, Amadeo,” he whispered. “I’ve only begun.”
“He’s not bad hurt!” insisted the elderly man. He studied the victim on the floor. He was worried. Had he killed him? “It’s just a mere cut on the back of his head, that’s all. Isn’t it?”
“Yes, a tiny cut,” said Marius. “What’s this secret, my dear friend?” He had his back to the gray-haired man, speaking to the redhead with much more interest as he had been all along.
“Yes, please,” I said. “What’s the secret, Sir?” I asked. “Is that the secret, that the priests ran?”
“No, child, don’t be dense!” said the red-haired man looking across the table at me. He was powerfully beautiful. Had Bianca loved him? She never said.
“The secret, the secret,” he said. “If you don’t believe in this secret, then you’ll believe nothing, nothing sacred or otherwise.”
He lifted his goblet. It was empty. I picked up the pitcher and filled it with the dark lovely-smelling red wine. I considered taking a taste of it, then a revulsion filled me.
“Nonsense,” whispered my Master. “Drink to their passing. Go ahead. There’s a clean goblet.”
“Oh, yes, forgive me,” said the redhead. “I haven’t even offered you a cup. Good God, to think I threw a mere table diamond on the board for you, when I would have your love.” He picked up the goblet, a rich fancy thing of inlaid silver with tiny stones. I saw now that all the goblets were a set, all carved with tiny delicate figures and set with these same bright little stones. He set down this goblet for me with a clonk. He took the pitcher from me and filled the goblet and then thrust it at me.
I thought I would become so sick I’d vomit on the floor. I looked up at him, at his near sweet face and his pretty blazing red hair. He gave a boyish smile, showing small but perfect white teeth, very pearly, and he seemed to dote on me and to drift, not uttering a word.
“Take it, drink,” said my Master. “Yours is a dangerous road, Amadeo, drink for knowledge and drink for strength.”
“You don’t mock me now, Sir, do you?” I asked, staring at the red-haired man though I spoke to Marius.
“I love you, Sir, as I always have,” said my Master, “but you do see something in what I say, for I’m coarsened by human blood. It’s always the fact. Only in starvation do I find an ethereal purity.”
“Ah, and you turn me from penance at every juncture,” I said, “towards the senses, towards pleasure.”
The red-haired man and I had locked eyes. Yet I heard Marius answer me.
“It’s a penance to kill, Amadeo, that’s the rub. It’s a penance to slay for nothing, nothing, not ‘honor, not valor, not decency,’ as our friend says here.”
“Yes!” said “our friend,” who turned to Marius and then back to me. “Drink!” He thrust the goblet at me.
“And when it’s all done, Amadeo, gather up these goblets for me and bring them home so I might have a trophy of my failure and my defeat,