Topaze somersaulted against Rev, knocking the knife away from him with his feet. The knife slid on the floor. The midget rushed after it. It would be the key, his entry, to the magic circle which included Malissa. “I’ll get it for you, Miss Malissa!” he shouted. But before he could lift it, he looked up at Albert, who held the knife in his hand, pointing it downward at the midget.
“Kill her, Albert!” Freddy shouted. He knew that one act of murder might stir another. Then he could strike. At Duke!—at Richard! he thought fiercely. “Kill Malissa for all the torture!’’
Albert’s body trembled. Suddenly his eyes filled with— . . .
“Tears! He’s crying,” Bravo said in disgust. “He really does love her.”
Topaze seized the abandoned knife. He rushed toward the invisible circle, to enter it. “Here’s the knife, Miss Malissa!” he yelled.
“Don’t cross!” Malissa warned. If the midget penetrated the boundary she had established, the impact of her deliberate action would be destroyed.
Topaze stood like a tiny statue. He looked quizzically at Malissa. Would she allow him even another season? And if so, after that what! He would plot, learn from her—match her! He looked down at the knife in his small hands. Perhaps one day he might use it against her.
Contemptuously, Bravo took the knife from Topaze.
Head cocked, Topaze stared at her.
Neither Richard nor Mark moved.
Bravo’s stare: On Malissa.
Malissa: The black-ringed finger among the rubied drops of gelid blood.
The knife: In Bravo’s hand. The whip: In the other.
“We’ll see if your crazy magic circle is impenetrable, Malissa! You and your supernatural bullshit!” Bravo’s booted feet advanced toward the invisible circle.
“I warn you: Don’t come closer!” Malissa shouted.
Suddenly Bravo stopped. A greater victory was possible, she knew: She would split the powerful alliance. She slid the knife on the floor toward Malissa, and she rasped a savage command: “Kill Richard, Malissa! You hate him as much as we do! You envy his power!”
Automatically Malissa spun about to face Richard. Then she smiled. She saw Bravo’s tactic clearly. For these moments she and Richard must remain allies. Canceling Bravo’s strategic move, she laughed. To show her contempt, she pushed the knife away with her foot.
“She broke the righteous circle herself,” Blue uttered. “She cut it with the knife. Now it’s open.”
Savannah and Tor looked apathetically at the knife as if for them there was nothing further to vindicate. Even at this moment of poised violence—as if the victor would claim her—Savannah wondered: What will happen to me now? The shadowy servants seemed to stare at her as if in answer.
Gable bent over the knife.
“Kill him!” Tarah shouted at her son. “For what he did to you! To us!” Yes, it would be this way! Yes, it must be Gable who would kill Richard! Mysteriously, without her conscious knowledge, she must have known that it must be like this.
Holding the knife, Gable advanced toward Richard.
Infinite moments.
“Kill him!” Tarah yelled.
“Her!” Mark said. That was all.
Gable turned away from Richard and toward his mother. He uttered only one word at her:
“Whore,” he said.
Tarah’s head lashed to one side as if struck.
Gable dropped the knife.
Blue studied it carefully before lifting it. Murder was so easy, flesh did not resist, it would melt at the point of a knife. Like wax. But first: Finally he would face the mirror. The knife in his hand, he stood before it. The demonic face was not there. Only the face of the sensual dark angel. “You lied, Bravo,” he said.
“Yes!” Karen cried out at him. “She lied—because she wanted to torture you. Like Cam!” she attempted to turn his murderous rage against Bravo.
Cam! Blue’s eyes narrowed on Bravo. Then he trans-fered the dark-blue stare to the priest. He walked toward him as if pulled there. He stood before the priest.
Suddenly, in an insane, frantic gesture, Blue ripped at his own ankle with the knife.
“He’s trying to erase the inverted pentagram!” Joja said.
“No,” Malissa contradicted. “He’s trying to carve the missing ram’s head of Satan!”
Blue’s ankle blossomed with blood.
“Don’t!” the priest stopped him.
Now Blue straightened his long body. He raised the knife before the priest. Jeremy did not wince. Then Blue handed the knife gently to the priest and turned his back.
“Exorcise the evil,” Blue said finally, looking down at his feet. Blood had erased the tattoo.
And did he mean to exorcise the evil in Richard? Or his own, Blue’s? Or my own! Jeremy thought, and he held the knife.
“Kill him, Father!” Karen cried.
And she meant Richard, the priest knew. Blue still stood with his back to him. But now Jeremy faced Richard.
Stretched, hands as if ready to clutch the night, the bodies of the mamaloi and the papaloi prepared to welcome violent death when it struck.
Completely calm, Richard had made no move.
His confident coldness, did it warn that if they destroyed him, they destroyed the excuse, the blame— . . . For what! Jeremy’s mind demanded. Was it possible that they could indeed not live without him?
The priest dropped the knife.
And slowly, he nodded at Richard, understanding. Like enemies discovering, finally, that, all along, they were allies.
In a flash of white, Lianne glided with the knife toward Mark. In one swift threatening movement she raised it before him with both hands.
Calmly but firmly, “Give it to her, Mother,” Mark said; and he indicated Valerie. Now there was not even a trace of the shadowy smile on the boy’s face.
“Richard . . . warned . . . me . . . before . . . you . . . were . . . born!” Lianne struggled to form the words. She still held the knife before Mark.
“Give it to her, Mother,” Mark repeated more firmly.
Lianne brought the knife down violently into the air. Then, obeying, she walked with it toward Valerie.
Valerie still stood before the throne with her brother.
Lianne held the knife cuddled in her arms, like an offering to Valerie.
Valerie took it.
“Kill him!” came Freddy’s voice. Then at last Tor’s: “Kill him!” Karen’s again. Savannah’s, released. Albert’s! Tarah’s! Bravo’s! Rev’s! Topaze’s! “Kill him!” “Kill her!” And now it was an exhortation directed at no one; it had no definable object—someone in their past, someone in their present—perhaps themselves:
“Kill him!”“Kill her!”
“Kill him!”
“Kill her!”
“Kill him!”“Kill him!”
“Kill her!”
“Kill him!”
Kill him!”
And then Malissa saw this: Mark stepped out of the invisible circle which she herself had torn with the rejected knife—separating himself from his father, from her, from the others. Soundlessly, as if in rehearsal of lines soon to be spoken aloud, the boy’s lips formed the words—distinctly, coldly:
Kill . . . him. . . .
And whom did he mean! What victim had he chosen! Was it possible he had meant his father? Or what other victim? And for whom had he chosen that ambiguous victim? . . . Malissa raised her head exultantly.
Valerie heard voices without discernible origin. Kill him, save him, kill him, save him, kill him, save him, kill, save, kill, save, save, save, save! Save!
The knife was cold in her hand, but she felt it scorching her.
She saw: Faces staring at her! Masks! Mouths! The bruise on her neck burned. Now she saw only Richard. And then Mark. Mark and Richard! Their eyes were red. Paul. Paul’s face! Her brother’s face was a mask like theirs! And his lips were smeared with— . . . No!
Suddenly she rushed from the throne, runn
ing away from the leering maskfaces, away from this room, this fatal stage, into the hall trapped by the gaping dome exposing a dark heaven, up the stairs, along corridors, past mirrors, past the gold panels on the walls. Mirrors! Panels! Mirrors! Panels! Mirrors! They caught her fleeing image, tossed it into others; and momentarily it seemed to join, even in motion, the waiting figures frozen in silhouettes within the framed panels. Then: Mirrors! And her screaming, rushing image! She held the knife before her as if to destroy the very air in the house. Voices left behind her—downstairs! But someone was following her! Running after her!
Inside her room, she was enveloped instantly by the blue mist.
Breathless, she lay on the bed. She waited. She knew. Already she saw the shadow at the open door, framed by the light from the hall.
“Paul,” she said.
Downstairs, Malissa confronted Richard. “The speakers! Connect the speakers in her room!”
“No,” Richard refused.
“You’re afraid!” Malissa lashed.
This time it was Mark who touched the panel of buttons on the wall.
“Valerie,” the speakers carried Paul’s voice from the bedroom.
“Now we’ll know the fruition of the carefully nurtured purity!” Malissa said.
Paul sat on the bed, beside his sister.
The speakers magnified Valerie’s whispered words: “You did come to me earlier, Paul. You touched my neck with your lips, you drew— . . . blood.”
“You imagined it,” said Paul’s voice.
“You had been with Richard first,” she said. Then this thought occurred to her, for the first time: “Or with Mark.”
“No, Valerie,” he said. “You imagined it all.”
“The bruise,” she said, touching her neck.
“You tore at your own flesh, you had a dream, a nightmare,” Paul said. And he touched her shoulders, softly. Now his hand brushed the bruise on her neck.
She closed her eyes. She felt his breath, his face only inches from hers. And now her hands rose.
“Valerie, Valerie. . . .”
Malissa held her breath. Then there was silence from the speakers. “There is your purity, Richard!” she announced the mock epitaph. “Incest!”
Richard sighed.
In defeat, Tarah knew. That sigh. She understood, unequivocally and painfully: Yes, he had wanted each of his own experiments to fail.
And Malissa knew too. Her deadly fingers slaughtered: “It’s over for you, Richard!” she pronounced.
Softly, “Yes, it’s over,” Mark said to his father.
Malissa’s mind clashed: Before the season was over would Mark attempt to seize total control! Would it be Mark she would ultimately confront? This season? Next?
Then they heard the scream flooding the speakers.
Lianne echoed it.
Pulled by it, they rushed upstairs.
Paul staggered away from his sister. The knife buried between his shoulders, he fell face down to the floor.
Raging, Valerie stood over him.
Her scream erupted throughout the house.
Valerie knelt over her brother’s body. She pulled out the knife she had thrust into his astonished flesh. His scream of terror blended with hers. Twisting his body in one final flailing, he faced her from the floor. Then she raised the knife, and she plunged it again into his body as if driving a stake into his heart. To exorcise the evil! Blood poured out like a red orchid. She plunged again. His scream rushed at her like a savage black bird, fused with hers, as if he too were slaughtering her. Now only her scream remained.
Faces suddenly at the door.
Voices surrounded her: Is this the game no God nobody plays games like that an exorcism playing at God no Satan no no your terrible experiment exorcised is this the game?
Valerie stood up. She saw the others now in the room, the maskfaces gathering about her and her brother. And she saw their lips dripping with blood. Quickly she looked down at her brother. His chest was covered with blood.
But there was no blood on his lips!
Then again suddenly she had the sensation of fire. She could hear it roaring! It would consume them all! She knew it was devouring the walls, the drapes, the furniture.
But she saw no flames, felt no heat.
Still, she knew they were all burning.
Even as she saw the house intact and the strange people gathering about her, even then she knew that the terrible house was on fire and they were all being consumed within the roaring holocaust of purification. She closed her eyes, and there was nothing but a pure, pure blackness.
At the door Malissa faced Mark.
John Rechy, The Vampires
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