had been advancing towards the foot lights, saw him suddenly and came to a halt, making a moan like a child. Indeed, she was very like a child, though clearly a full-grown woman. Only a slight wrinkling of the tender flesh around her eyes betrayed her age. Her breasts though small were beautifully shaped beneath her blouse, and her hips though narrow gave her long, dusty skirt a sharp, sensual angularity. As she moved back from the vampire, I saw the tears standing in her eyes like glass in the flicker of the lights, and I felt my spirit contract in fear for her, and in longing. Her beauty was heartbreaking.
"Behind her, a number of painted skulls suddenly moved against the blackness, the figures that carried the masks invisible in their black clothes, except for free white hands that clasped the edge of a cape, the folds of a skirt. Vampire women were there, moving in with the men towards the victim, and now they all, one by one, thrust the masks away -so they fell in an artful pile, the sticks like bones, the skulls grinning into the darkness above. And there they stood, seven vampires, the women vampires three in number, their molded white breasts shining over the tight black bodices of their gowns, their hard luminescent faces staring with dark eyes beneath curls of black hair. Starkly beautiful, as they seemed to float close around that florid human figure, yet pale and cold compared to that sparkling golden hair, that petal-pink skin. I could hear the breath of the audience, the halting, the soft sighs. It was a spectacle, that circle of white faces pressing closer and closer, and that leading figure, that Gentleman Death, turning to the audience now with his hands crossed over his heart, his head bent in longing to elicit their sympathy: was she not irresistible! A murmur of accenting laughter, of sighs.
"But it was she who broke the magic silence.
"'I don't want to die... : she whispered. Her voice was like a bell.
"'We are death,' he answered her; and from around her came the whisper,'Death.' She turned, tossing her hair so it became a veritable shower of gold, a rich and living thing over the dust off her poor clothing.'Help me?' she cried out softly, as if afraid even to raise her voice.'Someone... ' she said to the crowd she knew must tae there. A soft laughter cane from Claudia. The girl on stage only vaguely understood where she was, what was happening, but knew infinitely more than this house of people that gaped at her.
"'I don't want to die! I don't want to!' Her delicate voice broke, her eyes fixed on the tall, malevolent leader vampire, that demon trickster who now stepped out of the circle of the others towards her.
"'We all die,' he answered her.'The one thing you share with every mortal is death.' His hand took in the orchestra, the distant faces of the balcony, the boxes.
"'No,' she protested in disbelief.'I have so many years, so many...' Her voice was light, lilting in her pain. It made her irresistible, just as did the movement of her naked throat and the hand that fluttered there.
"'Years!' said the master vampire.'How do you know you have so many years? Death is no respecter of age! There could be a sickness in your body now, already devouring you from within. or, outside, a man might be waiting to kill you simply for your yellow hair!' And his fingers reached for it, the sound of his deep, preternatural voice sonorous.'Need I tell what fate may have in store for you?'
"'I don't care... I'm not afraid,' she protested, her clarion voice so fragile after him.'I would take my chance.... '
"'And if you do take that chance and live, live for years, what would be your heritage? The humpbacked, toothless visage of old age?' And now he lifted her hair behind her back, exposing her pale throat. And slowly he drew the string from the loose gathers of her blouse. The cheap fabric opened, the sleeves slipping off her narrow, pink shoulders; and she clasped it, only to have him take her wrists and thrust them sharply away. The audience seemed to sigh in a body, the women behind their opera glasses, the men leaning forward in their chairs. I could see the cloth falling, see the pale, flawless skin pulsing with her heart and the tiny nipples letting the cloth slip precariously, the vampire holding