on her black satin pants, her whirling cape, her arm out to steady me, even as I tried to slip free.
Now I knew all that had been left out of the pages I had read about the rock singers -- this mad marriage of the primitive and the scientific, this religious frenzy. We were in the ancient grove all right. We were all with the gods.
And we were blowing out the fuses on the first song. And rolling into the next, as the crowd picked up the rhythm, shouting the lyrics they knew from the albums and the clips. Tough Cookie and I sang, stomping in time with it:
CHILDREN OF DARKNESS MEET THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT
CHILDREN OF MAN, FIGHT THE CHILDREN OF NIGHT
And again they cheered and bellowed and wailed, unmindful of the words. Could the old Keltoi have cut loose with lustier ululations on the verge of massacre?
But again there was no massacre, there was no burnt offering.
Passion rolled towards the images of evil, not evil. Passion embraced the image of death, not death. I could feel it like the scalding illumination on the pores of my skin, in the roots of my hair, Tough Cookie's amplified scream carrying the next stanza, my eyes sweeping the farthest nooks and crannies, the amphitheater become a great wailing soul.
Deliver me from this, deliver me from loving it. Deliver me from forgetting everything else, and sacrificing all purpose, all resolve to it. I want you, my babies. I want your blood, innocent blood. I want your adoration at the moment when I sink my teeth. Yes, this is beyond all temptation.
But in this moment of precious stillness and shame, I saw them for the first time, the real ones out there. Tiny white faces tossed like masks on the waves of shapeless mortal faces, distinct as Magnus's face had been in that long-ago little boulevard hall. And I knew that back beyond the curtains, Louis also saw them. But all I saw in them, all I felt emanating from them, was wonder and fear.
"ALL YOU REAL VAMPIRES OUT THERE," I shouted. "REVEAL YOURSELVES!" And they remained changeless, as the painted and costumed mortals about them went wild.
For three solid hours we danced, we sang, we beat the hell out of the metallic instruments, the whiskey splashing back and forth among Alex and Larry and Tough Cookie, the crowd surging towards us over and over until the phalanx of police had doubled, and the lights had been raised. Wooden seats were breaking in the high corners of the auditorium, cans rolled on the concrete floors. The real ones never ventured a step closer. Some vanished.
That's how it was.
Unbroken screaming, like fifteen thousand drunks on the town, right up to the final moments, when it was the ballad from the last clip, Age of Innocence.
And then the music softening. The drums rolling out, and the guitar dying, and the synthesizer throwing up the lovely translucent notes of an electric harpsichord, notes so light yet profuse that it was as if the air were showered with gold.
One mellow spot hit the place where I stood, my clothes streaked with blood sweat, my hair wet with it and tangled, the cape dangling from one shoulder.
Into a great yawning mouth of rapt and drunken attention I raised my voice slowly, letting each phrase become clear:
This is the Age of Innocence
True Innocence
All your Demons are visible
All your Demons are material
Call them Pain
Call them Hunger
Call them War
Mythic evil you don't need anymore.
Drive out the vampires and the devils
With the gods you no longer adore
Remember: The Man with the fangs wears a cloak.
What passes for charm
Is a charm
Understand what you see
When you see me!
Kill us, my brothers and sisters
The war is on
Understand what you see
When you see me.
I closed my eyes on the rising walls of applause. What were they really clapping for? What were they celebrating?
Electric daylight in this giant auditorium. The real ones were vanishing in the shifting throng. The uniformed police had jumped up onto the platform to make a solid row in front of us. Alex was tugging at me as we went through the curtain:
"Man, we have to run for it. They've got the damned limo surrounded. And you'll never make it to your own car."
I said no, they had to go on, to take the limo, to get going now.
And to my left I saw the hard white face of one of the real ones as he shoved his way through the press. He