"ss - A Taste of Blood and Altars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brite Poppy Z)

night of Mardi Gras. She always turned with a start every time the door opened,
and her hand flew to her throat. «Who are you waiting for?» Christian asked her
the first time she came in. «The vampires,» she told him, and came back the next
night and the next, always alone, even at Mardi Gras. The black silk dress left
her throat and arms bear. She smoked Marlboro Lights. Christian told her that
only virgins are known to smoke those, and she blushed, and came in the next
night with a pack of Camels. She said her name was Jessy, and Christian only
smiled at her joke about the vampires, because he didn't know how much she knew.
And she had pretty ways, and a sweet shy smile, and she was a tiny brightness in
every ashen empty night. He certainly wasn't going to bite her. - The vampires
got into town sometime before midnight. The three of them got hold of a bottle
of Chartreuse and reeled down Bourbon Street swigging it by turns, their arms
around one another's shoulders, their hair in one another's face. They had
outlined their features in dark blots of makeup, and their hair was tangled in
great clumps, and their pockets were stuffed with candy which they ate noisily,
washing it down with sweet green mouthfuls of Chartreuse. Their names were
Molochai, Twig, and Zillah, and they wish they had fangs but had to make do with
teeth, and they could walk in sunlight as their great-grandfathers could not.
But they preferred to roam at night, and as they roamed unsteadily down Bourbon
Street they sang:
«O show us the way to the
next whiskey bar
O don't ask why
O don't ask why
For if we don't find the
next whiskey bar
I tell you we must die
I tell you we must die»
and Molochai peeled the wrapper off a HoHo and crammed as much of it into his
mouth as he could and kept singing, spraying Twig with crumbs of chocolate.
«Give me a bite,» Twig demanded. Molochai scooped some of the HoHo out of his
mouth and offered it to Twig. Twig laughed helplessly, clamped his lips shut and
shook his head, finally relented and licked the creamy paste of Molochai's
fingers. «Vile dogs,» said lovely Zillah with the sexless face, with the eyes as
green as the last drop of Chartreuse in the bottle. Zillah's hands gave away his
gender; they were large and strong and heavily veined below the thin white skin.
He wore his nails long and pointed, and he wore his hair tied back with a purple
silk scarf. Wisps of the ponytail had escaped, framing the stunning face, the
achingly green eyes. «Shut up, beautiful,» said Molochai happily, and bared his
teeth at a tall boy in full Nazi uniform. Molochai's teeth were unremarkable
except for the film of chocolate that webbed them, but some small bloodlust in
his eyes made the boy turn away, looking for trouble somewhere else, someplace
that vampires would not want to go. They made their way through the gaudy
throngs to the sidewalk, bracing themselves against the posters that screamed
MEN WILL TURN INTO WOMEN BEFORE YOUR EYES!!!, pictures of blondes with tired
breasts and five o'clock shadows. They stumbled past racks of postcards, racks
of T-shirts, a bar that served drinks to passersby on the sidewalk like a hot
dog stand. Overhead, fireworks blossomed and turned the sky purple with their
smoke, and the air was thick with smoke and liquor and breathe and river-mist,
and Molochai let his head fall back on Twig's shoulder and looked up at the sky,