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the train were racing onto the stage. Every other sound in the
auditorium was swallowed by it. In blaring silence the crowd danced
and bobbed before me. Then came the piercing, twanging fury of the
electrical guitar. The drums boomed into a marching cadence, and the
grinding locomotive sound of the synthesizer crested, then broke into
a bubbling caldron of noise in time with the march. It was time to
begin the chant in the minor key, its puerile lyrics leaping over the
accompaniment:
I AM THE VAMPIRE LESTAT YOU ARE HERE FOR THE GRAND
SABBAT BUT I PITY YOU YOUR LOT
I grabbed the microphone from the stand and ran to one side of the
stage and then to the other, the cape flaring out behind me:
YOU CAN'T RESIST THE LORDS OF NIGHT THEY HAVE NO
MERCY ON YOUR PLIGHT IN YOUR FEAR THEY TAKE
DELIGHT
They were reaching out for my ankles, throwing kisses, girls lifted by
their male companions to touch my cape as it swirled over their heads.
YET IN LOVE, WE WILL TAKE YOU, AND IN RAPTURE, WE'LL
BREAK YOU AND IN DEATH WE'LL RELEASE YOU NO ONE CAN
SAY YOU WERE NOT WARNED.
Tough Cookie, strumming furiously, danced up beside me, gyrating
wildly, the music peaking in a shrill glissando, drums and cymbals
crashing, the bubbling caldron of the synthesizer rising again. I felt the
music come up into my bones. Not even at the old Roman Sabbat had
it taken hold of me like this. I pitched myself into the dance, swinging
my hips elastically, then pumping them as the two of us moved
towards the edge of the stage. We were performing the free and erotic
contortions of Punchinello and Harlequin and all the old commedia
players improvising now as they had done, the instruments cutting
loose from the thin melody, then finding it again, as we urged each
other on with our dancing, nothing rehearsed, everything within
character, everything utterly new. The guards shoved people back
roughly as they tried to join us. Yet we danced over the edge of the
platform as if taunting them, whipping our hair around our faces,
turning round to see ourselves above in an impossible hallucination
415
on the giant screens. The sound traveled up through my body as I
turned back to the crowd. It traveled like a steel ball finding one
pocket after another in my hips, my shoulders, until I knew I was
rising off the floor in a great slow leap, and then descending silently
again, the black cape flaring, my mouth open to reveal the fang teeth.
Euphoria. Deafening applause. And everywhere I saw pale mortal
throats bared, boys and girls shoving their collars down and stretching
their necks. And they were gesturing to me to come and take them,
inviting me and begging me, and some of the girls were crying. The
blood scent was thick as the smoke in the air. Flesh and flesh and
flesh. And yet everywhere the canny innocence, the unfathomable
trust that it was art, nothing but art! No one would be hurt. It was
safe, this splendid hysteria. When I screamed, they thought it was the
sound system. When I leapt, they thought it was a trick. And why not,
when magic was blaring at them from all sides and they could forsake
our flesh and blood for the great glowing giants on the screens above
us? Marius, I wish you could behold this! Gabrielle, where are you?
The lyrics poured out, sung by the whole band again in unison, Tough
Cookie's lovely soprano soaring over the others, before she wrung her
head round and round in a circle, her hair flopping down to touch the
boards in front of her feet, her guitar jerking lasciviously like a giant
phallus, thousands and thousands stamping and clapping in unison.
"I AM TELLING YOU I AM A VAMPIRE! " I screamed suddenly.
Ecstasy, delirium.
"I AM EVIL! EVIL! "
"Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, YES, YES, YES. " I threw out my arms, my hands
curved upwards:
"I WANT TO DRINK UP YOUR SOULS! " The big woolly-haired
biker in the black leather jacket backed up, knocking over those
behind him, and leapt on the stage next to me, fists over his head. The
bodyguards went to tackle him but I had him, locking him to my
chest, lifting him off his feet in one arm and closing my mouth on his
neck, teeth just touching him, just touching that geyser of blood ready
to spew straight upwards! But they had torn him loose, thrown him
back like a fish into the sea. Tough Cookie was beside me, the light
skittering on her black satin pants, her whirling cape, her arm out to
steady me, even as I tried to slip free. Now I knew all that had been left [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]