Poppy Z. Brite - 1992 - Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite Read Free Book Online

faces and control their passionate breathing before they left
the scene of a kill. Without his guidance, Zillah reflected, they would both
have been dead several times over, probably with stakes driven through their punky little hearts. It was true that Zillah was a hundred
and the others only seventy-five; even so, they were just teenagers by the
standard of their race. Zillah remembered the depthless eyes of Christian, his
quiet, almost painful dignity. How old would Christian be now? Three hundred
years? Four? But even when Christian had been a mere babe of fifty, Zillah
found it hard to imagine him acting as stupid as Molochai and Twig.
                 Still,
they were his charges. They took orders without question, and in return they
expected Zillah to take care of them, to do their thinking for them. They had
perhaps half a brain between them. They knew Zillah was the smart one. But they
were good fun.
                 Zillah
had met them at an elegant garden party in the roaring twenties, a Great
Gatsby- ish affair with paper lanterns and drunken
croquet games on the lawn. Molochai and Twig were huddled in a corner of the
garden making fun of the women’s fancy dresses.
                 Whenever
a waiter came by with a tray of champagne flutes, they would reach out and grab
two glasses apiece, one in each hand. When Zillah approached them, they were
too drunk to recognize him as one of their own, but they liked his pretty face
and his natty suit of white linen.
                 They
led him into the big house, thinking they were luring him to his death, and
tried to attack him in an upstairs parlor decorated entirely in animal skins
and trophy heads. Zillah threw them across the room, hoisted them up, and
cracked their heads together beneath the eternally roaring jaws of a stuffed
lion. Then he opened a vein in his wrist and tenderly gave them to drink. After
that they were his forever. Or nearly so.
                 Several
miles outside the town, they gave up on finding the doughnut shop that Molochai
thought he remembered once seeing along this highway. They stopped at a
7-Eleven instead.
                 Molochai
filled a big bag with candy and Hostess cakes. Twig chose a package of sliced
bologna and stocked up on cheap wine.
                 The
cashier watched them with an absorption that bordered on awe, readjusting her
heavy ass on the stool behind the register, pushing at the colored plastic
barrettes that held her stringy hair in place. When Zillah’s eyes met hers, she
felt her insides go runny. The unfamiliar territory between her legs twitched,
suddenly moist.
                 She
had moles on her face, and she was vastly overweight, and she figured she would
reach forty untouched by a man. But something in his green eyes made her feel
the way she used to when she would look at the Playboy and Penthouse magazines
that were sold in the store, before she told herself she wasn’t interested and
started going to church again. Something in his eyes made her wonder how it
would feel to let a man lie on top of her, to push his thing inside her. She felt
for her pack of Moms, lit one, and sucked the smoke up hungrily, watching the
black van pull away, wondering if that green-eyed angel would ever return.
                 On
the read again, Twig peeled off slices of bologna and
stuffed them into his mouth, tossing his head like a feeding leopard as he
swallowed, hardly chewing the soft meat. Molochai gulped sticky mouthfuls of
cake and cream. Zillah licked at a sliver of bologna, nibbled delicately around
the edges of a Twinkie, sipped from the bottle of Thunderbird. None of them
were satisfied.
                 “Will
we be in DC by tonight?” Molochai asked, licking chocolate off his fingers.
                 Twig
stared at the road. “Shit, we’ll be there in an hour. But you can count on
staying hungry till way after