Fevre Dream Page 0,93

Let them make the suits. We shall wear them. Let them build the steamboats. We shall ride upon them. Let them dream of life eternal. We shall live it, and drink of their lives, and savor the blood. We are the lords of this earth, and that is our heritage. Our destiny, if you will, dear Joshua. Exult in your nature, Joshua, do not seek to change it. Those cattle who truly know us envy us. Any of them would be as we are, given the choice." Julian smiled maliciously. "Have you ever wondered why this Jesus Christ of theirs bid his followers to drink his blood, if they would live forever?" He chuckled. "They burn to be like us, just as the darkies dream of being white. You see how far they go. To play at being masters, they even enslave their own kind."

"As you do, Julian," said Joshua York, dangerously. "What else do you call the dominion you have held over our people? Even those you call masters you make slaves to your own twisted will."

"Even we have strong and weak among us, dear Joshua," said Damon Julian. "It is fitting that the strong should lead." Julian set down his glass and looked far down the table. "Kurt," he said, "summon Billy."

"Yes, Damon," said the big man, rising.

"Where are you going?" Joshua demanded, as Kurt strode from the room, his image moving purposefully across a dozen mirrors.

"You have played at being cattle long enough, Joshua," said Julian. "I am going to teach you what it means to be a master."

Abner Marsh felt cold and frightened. All the eyes in the room were glassy, transfixed, watching the drama at the head of the table. Standing, Joshua York seemed to tower over the seated Damon Julian, but somehow he did not dominate. Joshuas gray eyes looked as strong and passionate as a man's could be. But Julian wasn't a man at all, Marsh thought.

Kurt was back in less than a moment. Sour Billy must have been just outside somewhere, like a slave waiting for his master's summons. Kurt took his place again. Sour Billy Tipton sauntered right up to the head of the table, carrying something, with a strange sort of excitement in his icy eyes.

Damon Julian swept the plates aside with an arm, clearing a space on the table. Sour Billy shifted his burden and set a small brown infant down on the tablecloth in front of Joshua York.

"What the hell!" Marsh roared. He pushed back from the table, glaring, and started to rise.

"Sit down and keep real quiet, boy," Sour Billy said in a flat, quiet voice. Marsh started to turn toward him, and felt something cold and very sharp press gently against the side of his neck. "You open your mouth and I'm goin' to have to bleed you," Sour Billy said. "Can you just imagine what they'll do when they see all that nice hot blood?"

Trembling, caught between rage and terror, Abner Marsh sat very still. The point of Billy's knife pressed a little harder, and Marsh felt something warm and wet trickle down into his collar. "Good," whispered Billy, "real nice."

Joshua York glanced briefly at Marsh and Sour Billy, then turned his attention back to Julian. "I find this obscene," he said coldly. "Julian, I do not know why you had this child brought here, but I do not like it. This game will end right now. Tell your man to take his knife away from the captain's throat."

"Ah," said Julian. "And if I do not choose to?"

"You will choose to," said Joshua. "I am bloodmaster."

"Are you?" asked Julian lightly.

"Yes. I do not like to use your methods of compulsion, Julian, but if I must, I shall."

"Ah," said Julian. He smiled. He stood up, stretched lazily, like some great dark cat waking from a nap, then extended a hand across the table toward Sour Billy. "Billy, give your knife to me," he said.

"But-what about him?" Sour Billy said.

"Captain Marsh will behave himself now," said Julian. "The knife."

Billy handed it over, hilt first.

"Good," said Joshua.

He got no further. The baby-undersized, scrawny, very brown and very naked-made a sort of gurgling noise just then, and stirred feebly. And Damon Julian did the most horrible thing that Abner Marsh had ever seen in all his born days. Swiftly and very delicately, he leaned over the table and brought down Sour Billy's knife and cut the infant's small right hand clean off with a single smooth stroke.

The baby began