the little stage in the theater above had indicated it was.
"'The dim lights of the house were mandatory, and the paintings appreciated in full, added to almost nightly when some vampire brought a new engraving or picture by a contemporary artist into the house. Celeste, with her cold hand on my arm, spoke with contempt of men as the originators of these pictures, and Estelle, who now held Claudia on her lap, emphasized to me, the naive colonial, that vampires had not made such horrors themselves but merely collected them, confirming over and over that men were capable of far greater evil than vampires.
"'There is evil in making such paintings?' Claudia asked softly in her toneless voice.
"Celeste threw back her black curls and laughed.
"'What can be imagined can be done,' slue answered quickly, but her eyes reflected a certain contained hostility.'Of course, we strive to rival men in kills of all kinds, do we riot!~ Sloe leaned forward arid touched Claudia's knee. But Claudia merely looked at her, watching her laugh nervously and continue. Santiago drew near, to bring up the subject of our rooms in the Hotel Saint-Gabriel; frightfully unsafe, he said, with an exaggerated stage gesture of the hands. And he showed a knowledge of those rooms which was amazing. He knew the chest in which we slept; it struck him as vulgar.'Come here!' he said to me, with that near childlike simplicity he had evinced on the steps.'Live with us and such disguise is unnecessary. We have our guards. And tell me, where do you come from!' he said, dropping to his knees, his hand on the arm of my chair.'Your voice, I know that accent; speak again.'
"I was vaguely horrified at the thought of having an accent to my French, but this wasn't my immediate concern. He was strong-willed and blatantly possessive, throwing back at me an image of that possessiveness which was flowering in me more fully every moment. And meanwhile, the vampires around us talked on, Estelle explaining that black was the color for a vampire's clothes, that Claudia's lovely pastel dress was beautiful but tasteless.'We blend with the night,' she said.'We have a funereal gleam.' And now, bending her cheek next to Claudia's cheek, she laughed to soften her criticism; and Celeste laughed, and Santiago laughed, and the whole room seemed alive with unearthly tinkling laughter, preternatural voices echoing against the painted walls, rippling the feeble candle flames.'Ah, but to cover up such curls,' said Celeste, now playing with Claudia's golden hair. And I realized what must have been obvious: that all of them had dyed their hair black, but for Armand; and it was that, along with the black clothes, that added to the disturbing impression that we were statues from the same chisel and paint brush. I cannot emphasize too much how disturbed I was by that impression. It seemed to stir something in me deep inside, something I couldn't fully grasp.
"I found myself wandering away from them to one of the narrow mirrors and watching them all over my shoulder. Claudia gleamed like a jewel in their midst; so would that mortal boy who slept below. The realization was coming to me that I found them dull in some awful way: dull, dull everywhere that I looked, their sparkling vampire eyes repetitious, their wit like a dull, brass bell.
"Only the knowledge I needed distracted me from these thoughts.'The vampires of eastern Europe...
Claudia was saying.'Monstrous creatures, what have they to do with us?'
"'Revenants,' Armand answered softly over the distance that separated them, playing on faultless preternatural ears to hear what was more muted than a whisper. The room fell silent.'Their blood is different, vile. They increase as we do but without skill or care. In the old days-' Abruptly he stopped. I could see his face in the mirror. It was strangely rigid.
"'Oh, but tell us about the old days,' said Celeste, her voice shrill, at human pitch. There was something vicious in her tone.
Chapter 23
"And now Santiago took up the same baiting manner.'Yes, tell us of the covens, and the herbs that would render us invisible.' He smiled.'And the burnings at the stake!'
"Armand fixed his eyes on Claudia.'Beware those monsters,' he said, and calculatedly his eyes passed over Santiago and then Celeste.'Those revenants. They will attack you as if you were human'
"Celeste shuddered, uttering something in contempt, an aristocrat speaking of vulgar cousins who bear the same name. But I was watching Claudia because it seemed her eyes were