her right wrist tightly at her side, the tears coarsing down her blushing cheeks, her teeth biting into the flesh of her lip.'Just as sure as this flesh is pink, it will turn gray, wrinkled with age,' he said.
"'Let me live, please,' she begged, her face turning away from him.'I don't care... I don't care.'
"'But then, why should you care if you die now? If these things don't frighten you... these horrors?'
"She shook her head, baffled, outsmarted, helpless. I felt the anger in my veins, as sure as the passion. With a bowed head she bore the whole responsibility for defending life, and it was unfair, monstrously unfair that she should have to pit logic against his for what was obvious and sacred and so beautifully embodied in her. But he made her speechless, made her overwhelming instinct seem petty, confused. I could feel her dying inside, weakening, and I hated him.
"The blouse slipped to her waist. A murmur moved through the titillated crowd as her small, round breasts stood exposed. She struggled to free her wrist, but he held it fast.
"'And suppose we were to let you go... suppose the Grim Reaper had a heart that could resist your beauty... to whom would he turn his passion? Someone must die in your place. Would you pick the person for us? The person to stand here and suffer as yoga suffer now?' He gestured to the audience. Her confusion was terrible.'Have you a sister... a mother... a child?'
"'No,' she gasped.'No... : shaking the mane of hair.
"'Surely someone could take your place, a friend? Choose!'
"'I can't. I wouldn't.... : She writhed in his tight grasp. The vampires around her looked on, still, their faces evincing no emotion, as if the preternatural flesh were masks.'Can't you do it?' he taunted her. And I knew, if she said she could, how he would only condemn her, say she was as evil as he for marking someone for death, say that she deserved her fate.
"'Death waits for you everywhere,' he sighed now as if he were suddenly frustrated. The audience could not perceive it, I could. I could see the muscles of his smooth face tightening. He was trying to keep her gray eyes on his eyes, but she looked desperately, hopefully away from him. On the warm, rising air I could smell the dust and perfume of her skin, hear the soft beating of her heart.'Unconscious death... the fate of all mortals.' He bent closer to her, musing, infatuated with her, but struggling.'Hmmm.... but we are conscious death! That would make you a bride. Do you know what it means to be loved by Death?' He all but kissed her face, the brilliant stain of her tears.'Do you know what it means to have Death know your name?'
"She looked at him, overcome with fear. And then her eyes seemed to mist over, her lips to go slack. She was staring past him at the figure of another vampire who had emerged slowly from the shadows. For a long time he had stood on the periphery of the gathering, his hands clasped, his large, dark eyes very still. His attitude was not the attitude of hunger. He did not appear rapt. But she was looking into his eyes row, and her pain bathed her in a beauteous light, a light which made her irresistibly alluring. It was 'his that held the jaded audience, this terrible pain. I could feel her skin, feel the small, pointed breasts, feel my arms caressing her. I shut my eyes against it and saw her starkly against that private darkness. It was what they felt all around her, this community of vampires. She had no chance.
"And, looking up again, I saw her shimmering in the smoky light of the footlamps, saw her tears like gold as soft from that other vampire who stood at a distance came the words... 'No pain.'
"I could see the trickster stiffen, but no one else would see it. They would see only the girl's smooth, childlike face, those parted lips, slack with innocent wonder as she gazed at that distant vampire, hear her soft voice repeat after him, 'No pain?'
"'Your beauty is a gift to us.' Iris rich voice effortlessly filled the house, seemed to fix and subdue the mounting wave of excitement. And slightly, almost imperceptibly, his hand moved. The trickster was receding, becoming one of those patient, white faces, whose hunger and equanimity were strangely one. And slowly, gracefully, the other moved