“I think so,” said Ghost, swaying as a breeze from the river brushed his face. The breeze was warmer than the night air, and it smelled of oysters and pearls, of bones, of dark mud. It made him nervous and thirsty. “Um—maybe we ought to walk down to that big cafe and get some coffee first.”
“Yeah, us and a million tourists. Let’s go on in. We can get some more beer.” Steve shoved the doors open and dragged Ghost in.
The kid working the door was dressed entirely in black. Somehow Ghost wasn’t surprised. His skin was so pale that it glowed in the blue light of the club; his eyes were nearly obscured by smudges of greasy black makeup.
“Fi’ dollar cover tonight,” he said.
Ghost rummaged through his pockets. Things sifted out—leaves, rose petals, everything but money. The kid’s sneer deepened. He looked like Billy Idol at the end of a long, rough night. There was a tic in his right eye, barely noticeable but constant. “You fags gonna pay or what?” He spoke less with malice than extreme indifference.
Steve leaned against the wall and produced a crumpled ten-dollar bill. The kid snatched it. With courtesy exaggerated to the point of great sarcasm, he waved them in.
As soon as they entered the club, Ghost was struck by the likeness of this place to the Sacred Yew back home in Missing Mile. It surprised him. The Yew was only a little hole-in-the-wall, more progressive than most of its kind. But this was a nightclub in the big city, in the heart of the French Quarter. Ghost had vaguely expected more glitter, more jazz. Revellers in spangled cat’s-eye masks, maybe, shaking confetti from their hair. But here were only the same sorts of kids that haunted the Sacred Yew. More of them, sure, but with the same dark-rimmed eyes, the studded ears, the pale jewelled throats. The sweet smell of clove cigarettes was familiar, and their smoke swirling through blue light.
There were differences too. Pasko’s served mixed drinks; Ghost saw mysterious crimson concoctions in fancy plastic goblets full of skewered fruit and paper parasols. And they had a decent PA here, one that not even Steve would be able to bitch about. Right now it was blasting Bauhaus at shattering volume. Ghost recognized the grave, guttural voice of the lead singer.
Ann had listened to them. Ghost couldn’t remember the singer’s name or the name of the album, upon which all the songs twined together to tell a kind of horror story. Nothing would know. Ghost wondered whether Nothing would be here tonight; all the children looked like him. Their long dark raincoats or too-big leather jackets enveloped their fragile bones like shadow. Most of them looked so small, so frail, ready to break like soap bubbles if you touched them. But in all those black-smudged eyes lurked a certain hardness, a wall of glass to mask their terrible vulnerability. Show me what you can, those eyes said. Hurt me if you want to. I’ve seen it all, or I think I have, and where’s the difference?
Steve was already at the bar ordering them a couple of Dixie beers. In the past few days he had developed a taste for the brand; sometimes he drank it as a chaser for his whiskey. Ghost would rather have gone to one of the all-night groceries on Bourbon Street and bought a flask of scuppernong wine. Wild Irish Rose or Night Train. He liked the syrupy thickness of the wine, and the way the fermented, rotten-sweet flavor of the grapes melted over his tongue. It reminded him of the elixirs his grandmother had mixed for him long ago: the spoonful at bedtime, the tiny liqueur glass that often sat by his plate at breakfast. He remembered her saying Drink that right down, every drop. That will stop your cough. That one will put rose petals in your cheeks. And the one he had drunk most eagerly, the one he now knew had been mostly fruit juice and sugar-syrup: This one will keep you from growing all the way up. It will preserve the child in you forever.
Fruit juice and sugar-syrup.
Well, mostly.
Steve was coming back toward him with a dripping bottle in each hand. Ghost reached out to grab a beer and their fingers touched briefly, and Steve was grinning his old easy drunken grin, and for a moment it was as if they were back at the Yew, taking a break between sets, catching a buzz together. For a moment everything was all right.
That was when the band began to play.
The Bauhaus singer’s voice plunged from the heights of psychosexual ecstasy to the sepulchral depths of despair. Then the song cut off as abruptly as if a cancer had seized its throat. There came a ripple of wooden drums as the band took the stage, and a growling bass… and then the very air of the club was transfixed by an unearthly, blood-chilling, double-throated howl.
From where they stood near the back of the club, Steve and Ghost could not see the stage. They glanced at each other when they heard the howl, which vibrated through the layers of smoke, through the ivory bones of all the children, through the spray-painted walls of the club. As the first line of the opening song came whispering through the smoky air, the crowd rippled and parted. Now there was a clear path all the way to the stage, and Ghost got his first look at Ashley’s lovers. Ashley’s twin lovers.
He felt his nerves draw him rigid, taut as wire. His beer slipped from his hand and fell foaming on the sticky floor. Dimly he was aware of wetness soaking through his sneakers, of Steve staring at him, saying “What the fuck,” bending to rescue the bottle of Dixie before it all foamed away. He wanted to reach out and grab Steve’s wrist—for warning, for protection, for the simple feeling of warm familiar skin under his fingers.
But he could not move. He could only stare at the two figures onstage, could only watch their lips as they began to whisper into their microphones: “Death is easy …”
They hadn’t changed much since the night on the hill up by Roxboro. Since the night Ghost had dreamed of them. The only difference was the dark glasses both of them wore, even here in this dim club, in this air thick with smoke like blue cream. If anything, they were more beautiful than they had been in his dream, lusher than they had been up at the hill.
No more were they dry and brittle. No more did their skin look as if it might flake away from their bones at the lightest touch. Tonight their lips shone purple with rouge, and the ripe insides of their mouths glistened pink. Their skin was the smooth white of almonds. Their colored silks writhed around them. They clutched each other with their bird-boned hands and pressed their hollow cheeks together. Their hair twined together, long strands of ruby-red and yellow-white like mingling flames. Their faces echoed each other in a perfection that was at once opulent and dissolute.
As the twins’ song touched Ghost, he thought he caught their scent too, their heady bouquet of strawberry incense, clove cigarettes, wine and blood and rain and the sweat of passion. All the things they had loved when they were alive, the things that had dragged them down and carved the rich white flesh from their bones, the things that sustained them now. Incense and spice, wine and blood, sex and rain… and the juice of other lives, sucked away to saturate their brittle tissues, to restore them. They whispered their song to him.
Death is dark, death is sweet.
Death is eternal beauty—
A lover with a thousand tongues—
A thousand insect caresses—
Death is easy.
Death is easy…
DEATH IS EASY… DEATH IS EASY…
DEATH… IS… EASSSSSSY.
The patrons of the club must have seen these twins perform before, must have heard this susurrant song many times. They took up the chant. “Death is easy,” they wailed.
A girl near Ghost raised her arms, swaying. She wore a little black hat with a tattered veil that hung down over her face. A mourning hat. Beside her, a boy draped in fishnet and leather—a boy about Nothing’s age—wrapped his thin arms around himself. Ghost saw tears glistening on the boy’s fine-boned face.
“Death is easy,” the children whispered, and Ghost closed his eyes, but he could not keep their minds from brushing his. He knew that they believed those words. Why else did they shroud themselves in funeral garb; why else were their thin wrists scarred with razor-tracery delicate as spiderwebs? Why else did they
make trysts in graveyards, starve themselves and then kill their hunger with cigarettes, suck down their drinks and swallow their exotic drugs with all the enthusiasm of children turned loose in a candy store?
Why else did they love the vampires?
If Arkady had spoken truly, the twins were vampires of a different sort. They did not live on blood, like Zillah and his pair of lollipop thugs, like Christian and Nothing. These vampires sucked lives. They had sucked Ashley Raventon’s life out, or so Arkady implied. They had left Ashley a dry husk, a skeleton bound together by withered skin, with only the strength to finish what they had begun. Ghost could see the withered body suspended in the tower, slowly turning.
The twins shared a microphone now, giving it head, taunting the crowd with their erotic narcissism. Their hands twined in each other’s hair; their ripe lips nearly touched. The rest of the band was obscured, cast into shadow; all eyes were on the twins.
Suddenly, through the fog of drunkenness that clouded Ghost’s brain, suspicion flared. Why were they so opulent tonight? Why did their lips shine so wetly; why did their bright hair writhe, alive with color? What had they found to sate them before the show?
Now the redheaded twin had a skull in his hands. He held it up and slowly turned it, letting the colored stagelights play over its ivory surface. The eye sockets caught two beams of golden light, and a ripple of pleasure went through the crowd. Now all the lights went off except the ones shining directly on the skull. It hung above the stage, suspended in darkness, revolving slowly.
Ghost thought he recognized it.
Had the twins been back to the shop tonight?
And if they had, who was taking care of Ann?
Steve was watching the band and the audience, transfixed if not actually enjoying himself. Ghost grabbed his elbow. Steve swayed a little as he turned; somehow his drinking had gotten ahead of Ghost’s. He rolled his eyes. “We never shoulda trusted Arkady’s taste in music. You heard enough of this Gothic crap? You wanna go find a bar?”
“No,” said Ghost. He tightened his grip on Steve’s arm. “Listen. I think we better go back to Arkady’s. I think something might be wrong.”
At any other time the look Steve gave him would have hurt like hell. But there was no time to worry about himself. Ghost only stared back, and at last Steve dropped his gaze and muttered, “Okay. Whatever you say, man.”
* * * * *
“Death is easy!” a boy with red lipstick smudged around his eyes shouted into Steve’s face. Steve shoved the boy out of his way and continued toward the door. The kid stumbled backward, as drunkenly limp as a rag doll, and spilled his fancy cocktail all over his friend. The friend’s cigarette sputtered out.
Steve didn’t give a fuck. He stared at the back of Ghost’s head, at the pale hair that straggled over the collar of Ghost’s army jacket. For a second—just for a second—Steve wanted, to grab a handful of that dirty, tangled, silky hair and yank it as hard as he could. He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans.
Not for the first time, and surely not for the last, Steve found himself wishing he could reach inside Ghost’s skull and pull out the magic there. He wished he could grind it under his boot, leave it smeared across the beer-sticky floor. He’d been standing there minding his own damn business, drunk enough to groove on the stupid music, a beer in each hand. For a couple of hours Steve had managed to forget Ann and everything else. Now they were tearing off on some mission that could only mean more pain and trouble. Ghost’s thoughts brushed Steve’s, Ghost’s fear was in him, and for a second he hated Ghost. If Ghost really did have a shining eye in his heart, as Arkady had said, Steve wished he could gouge it out.
“Have a nice night,” the doorman called nastily after them as they left the club.
When the cool night air touched his face, Steve calmed down a little. Crazy shit to be thinking about. What did he love best about Ghost? What had he always loved about Ghost? The magic. The weird, illogical, irritating magic.
“I’m sorry,” he said, bumping into Ghost, hugging him. For one more moment they were safe, they did not have to hurt. Neither wanted to move.
But finally Ghost stepped away and pulled Steve by the arm. “Come on,” he said. “We got to get back.”
Steve knew there was more trouble ahead. More stupid shit and agony. But he could not hate Ghost, no way, nohow. He followed his best friend—maybe his only friend—through the maze of streets and alleys that led back to Arkady’s shop, and the wind that fingered their hair blew off the river, smelling of oysters and pearls, of dark mud and the bones of children.
32
“I’m dying,” Molochai moaned. The floor beside him was spattered with fresh blood.
“I already died,” Twig told him. “I’m a zombie, I wanna eat your BRAINS—” He lunged at Molochai, got a mouthful of hair. Molochai began to choke. After a moment he vomited a long stream of blood, some of which soaked the front of Twig’s jacket. They collapsed across the floor.
“Not again—”
“I can’t help it—”
“SHUT UP!” screeched Zillah. The room fell silent except for the sound of Molochai and Twig softly gagging. At the first onset of the sickness Zillah had collapsed in a corner, shivering madly. He would let no one near him; no one wanted to go near him.
Nothing lay on the bed bathed in icy sweat. Long streaks of crimson marked the side of the mattress where he had vomited.
Christian stood at the window. His back was rigid, his face drawn with disgust. The shade was pulled down. When he had tried to raise it, the others shrieked piteously at the faint light that filtered up from the gas lamps far below. At last, when the retching had subsided, he said, “Do none of you possess the sense of smell?”
No one replied.
“Do none of you possess the sense of taste?”
Still no answer.
“Because if his cancer was far enough along to make all of you this sick, Wallace Creech must have reeked like a fresh grave. Or were you so eager to make your kill—in our alley, under our window—that you paid no attention to the very things that give you power? ARE YOU ALL MAD?” Wild-eyed, Christian surveyed the room for a moment. Then, as if he knew the answer to his own question, he turned back to the window.
Nothing’s voice wavered toward him in the darkness. “Are we gonna die?”
Christian snorted. “No. You’re going to—how would you put it?—puke your guts out. For about twenty-four hours. Then you’ll be weak and tired for twenty-four more. Essentially, you have food poisoning. A fine way to spend your first full night in the French Quarter, no?”
“You’re so smug,” hissed Zillah from the corner. “But what happens when you drink our poisons? Give you a double shot of Chartreuse and you’d be flat on your back just like us.”
“Yes.” Christian permitted himself a faint cold smile. “But I would be wise enough not to drink a double shot of Chartreuse.” He remembered a time when he had not been so wise, and phantom pain shot through him. If they were hurting that badly, they deserved more sympathy. After all, he supposed they had thought they were doing him a favor.
But Zillah didn’t want sympathy. He hauled himself up on his elbows and glared at Christian. His eyes snapped green fire, visible from across the room. “Yeah?” he whispered. “Yeah? You know what I think? I think if we have to be sick, then you should be sick too.”
Christian hesitated, wary. “What do you mean?”
“I mean… maybe you should have a drink, Chrissy.”
Molochai giggled. “Have a drink, Chrissy.”
Twig took up the chant. “Have a drink… Chrissy, have a drink…” Their voices chased each other around the room. Only Nothing was silent. He lay absolutely still against the red-streaked sheets. Christian saw the shadow of his ribs under his white skin.
“You can’t make me,” said Christian, but cold fear trickled down his spine.
“Twenty-four hours puking our guts out,” mused Zillah. “Then tw
enty-four more to recover. We could be on the road by the next night. The van’s gassed up. Twig has the keys.”
“There’s no Chartreuse,” said Christian wildly.
Zillah waved a languid hand. “In your bag. The closet, top shelf. Three bottles.”
Then he leaned over, coughed, and vomited a great gob of blood. It cascaded down his chin and trailed onto the floor. When he straightened up, his face was as serene as ever. “Have a drink, Chrissy,” he said. His voice was almost casual.
Could he live like this, with Zillah always threatening him, dangling the constant specter of loneliness over his head? Christian considered the alternative. If they left, he would lose not only them but Nothing too. His heart clenched at the thought of never seeing that fine fragile face again. His only moments of love would be those he spent with the children, matching their caresses with his own before he tore their pale throats out and stole their lives.
Whether he could live with Zillah’s threats Christian did not know. But he knew he could not live alone again. Numbly, as if in a dream from which he hoped to wake, he moved toward the closet.
“Don’t make me do this,” he said when he had the bottle in his hand. He spoke calmly, but it was a plea born of desperation.
Zillah only stared at him, eyes still flaring. His breath hissed in and out through his teeth—quick, jagged, painful.
“Have a drink, Chrissy,” he said.
The first shot blazed green agony as it went down.
And then Zillah made him drink another.
And then another.
33
By the time they got back to Arkady’s shop, Steve was running full tilt. Ghost lost his breath trying to keep up. Cold drops of sweat flew from them, catching the light of the street-lamps. Ghost licked salt off his lips. The sweat in Steve’s hair sparkled, as if his hair were full of a million tiny diamonds.
Lost Souls Page 33