Page 26

“And that would be a pistol you reach for, under your collar.”

“It would.”

A punch, a kick, a cry for help, the drawing forth of some secret weapon of his own: Jean-Guy braces himself, a match-ready fuse, tensed to the point of near-pain against any of the aforementioned. But the Chevalier merely nods as well, undeterred in the face of Jean-Guy’s honest aggression—his very passivity itself a form of arrogance, a cool and languid aristocratic challenge to the progressively more hot and bothered plebeian world around him. Then leans just a bit forward, at almost the same time: A paralytic blink of virtual non-movement, so subtle as to be hardly worth noting . . . for all that Jean-Guy now finds himself beginning—barely recognizing what he does, let alone why—to match it.

Leaning in, far too slow to stop himself, to arrest this fall in mid-plunge. Leaning in, as the Chevalier’s red lenses dip, slipping inexorably downward to reveal a pale rim of brow, of lash, of eyesocket. And leaning in yet further, to see—below that—

—first one eye, then another: Pure but opaque, luridly empty. Eyes without whites (or irises, or pupils), the same blank scarlet tint—from lower lid to upper—as the spectacles which masked them.

Words in red darkness, pitched almost too low to hear; Jean-Guy must strain to catch them, leaning closer still. Places a trembling hand on the Chevalier’s shoulder, to steady himself, and feels them thrum up through his palm, his arm, his chest, his wildly beating heart: A secret, interior embrace, intimate as plague, squeezing him between the ribs, between the thighs. And . . .

. . . deeper.

Before him, the Chevalier’s own hand hovers, clean white palm turned patiently upward. Those long, black-rimmed nails. Those red words, tracing the myriad paths of blood. Suggesting, mildly—

Then you had best give it to me, Citizen—this pistol of yours. Had you not?

Because: That would be the right thing to do, really. All things considered.

Do you not think?

Yes.

For safety. For—safe-keeping.

. . . exactly that, yes.

Such sweet reason. Such deadly reasonableness.

Jean-Guy feels his mouth drop open as though to protest, but hears only the faint, wet pop of his jaw-hinges relaxing in an idiot yawn; watches, helpless, as he drops the pistol—butt-first—into the Chevalier’s grip. Sees the Chevalier seem to blink, just slightly, in return: All-red no-stare blurred by only the most momentary flicker, milky and brief as some snake’s nictitating membrane.

And—

“There, now,” the Chevalier observes, aloud. “That . . . must suit us both . . . so much better.”

Must it—not?

A half-formed heave, a last muffled attempt at a thrash, muscles knotted in on themselves like some mad stray cur’s in the foam-flecked final stages of hydrophobia—and then, without warning, the Chevalier is on him. Their mouths seal together, parted lip to bared, bone-needle teeth: blood fills Jean-Guy’s throat, greasing the way as the Chevalier locks fast to his fluttering tongue. His gums burn like ulcers. This is far less a kiss than a suddenly open wound, an artery slashed and left to spurt.

The pistol falls away, forgotten.

Venom spikes Jean-Guy’s heart. He chokes down a numbing, stinging mouthful of cold that takes him to the brink of sleep and the edge of climax simultaneously as the Chevalier’s astringent tongue rasps over the inflamed tissues of his mouth, harsh as a cat’s. Finds himself grabbing this whippet-slim thing in his arms by the well-arranged hair, anchoring himself so it can grind them ever more firmly together, and feels a shower of loose powder fall around both their faces like dirty city snow; the Chevalier’s ribbon has come undone, his neat-curled side-locks unraveling like kelp in an icy current. At the same instant, meanwhile, the nearest lapel of his lurid coat peels back—deft as some mountebank’s trick—to reveal the cold white flesh beneath: No pulse visible beneath the one flat pectoral, nipple peak-hard but utterly colorless . . .

. . . oh yes, yes, yes . . .

Jean-Guy feels the Chevalier’s hands—clawed now—scrabble at his fly’s buttons, free him to slap upwards in this awful red gloom. Then sees him give one quick double thumb-flick across the groove, the distended, weeping velvet knob, and send fresh scarlet welling up along the urethral fold faster than Jean-Guy can cry out in surprised, horrified pain.

Name of death and the Devil!

The Chevalier gives a thin grin of delight at the sight of it. His mouth opens wide as a cat’s in flamen, tasting the slaughterhouse-scented air. Nearly drooling.

People, Revolution, Supreme Being, please—

Lips skinning back. Fangs extending. His sleek head dipping low, as though in profane prayer . . .

. . . oh God, oh Jesus, no . . .

. . . to sip at it.