![]() In his arms, to his chest he clutched a flat bundle of folded cloth as if it carried the whole fate of the world embroidered on it.Īs I sank down that morning into my own resting place, secure in clean modern darkness, I cried and cried like a child on account of the sight of him. ![]() ![]() He pushed back the Chinese chair, and wringing his hands he began to pace, the inevitable prelude to his tale telling. Please.īut what I'd seen now was a devastation of the soul in his anguished face, and the vision of the one blue eye, shining so vividly in his streaked and wretched face, had been unbearable. It won't take me but a moment, and then I'll have the eye in my hand and be the doctor myself and place it here. In a low voice I whispered to him my plan.Let me go down into the streets, let me steal from some mortal, some evil being who has wasted every physical gift that God ever gave, an eye for you I'll do it. He was washed and dressed, his torn and bleeding foot no doubt healed. He came quietly into the parlor of the apartment as the darkness clambered down, starry for a few precious moments before the dreary descent of snow. Once before, a hundred years ago, he'd come stumbling into the Theatre des Vampires on the trail of his renegade fledglings, sweet gentle Louis and the doomed child, and I hadn't pitied him then, his skin scored with scars from Claudia's foolish and clumsy attempt to kill him. He was handsome and radiant, a darkish ruddy glow coming from his face as though he'd seen some powerful mystery. There was no denying the beauty of his smooth poreless sun-darkened skin, and even as the dark slit of the empty socket seemed to peer at me with some secret power to relay its vision to his heart. Why do you love me after all I've done to you? he asked. She teaches doctrines with every step that would make the pagan gods of lust canonize her with glee. Ah, what an angel of the Lord, this, I thought musing, this heiress of the druglord Father's severed head. Let me return to the scene, the three of us gathered in the black-lacquered Chinese chairs around the thick glass table, and Dora coming in, at once struck by the presence of him, of which her mortal senses hadn't given her a clue, a pretty picture with her short gleaming knavish black hair, cut high to show the fragile nape of her swanlike neck, her long supple body clad in a loose ungirdled gown of purple red tissue that folded itself about her small breasts and slender thighs exquisitely. As for the bundle he had carried in his arms, what could it have possibly been? I do not even think I thought of it. I remember only that the morning hastened us away, and if you cried too, I never heard you, I never thought to listen. Believe me, as you believe what you saw last night, the wildflowers clinging still to my hair, the cuts-look, my hands, they heal but not fast enough-believe me. Yes, but I have, he said, and now began to cry.I have, and I must tell you everything. ![]() We had to seek our dark corners away from the prying sun, we had to wait until the following night when he would come out to us and tell us what had happened.īut the worst, the very worst horror of all, was that one eye had been torn from his beautiful face, and the socket of vampiric lids puckered and shuddered, seeking to close, refusing to acknowledge this horrid disfigurement to the body rendered perfect for all time when he'd been made immortal. A deep exhaustion saved us all from the inevitable tale.
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