Swamp Foetus by Poppy Z. Brite Read Free Book Online Page B

obscenities writhing in the stroboscopic light.
    Louis brought me a drink from the bar. I sipped it slowly, still drunk on absinthe. Since the music was too loud for conversation, I studied the clubgoers around us. A quiet bunch, they were, staring fixedly at the stage as if they had been drugged (and no doubt many of them had - I remembered visiting a club one night on a dose of hallucinogenic mushrooms, watching in fascination as the guitar strings seemed to drip soft viscera onto the stage). Younger than Louis and myself, most of them were, and queerly beautiful in their thrift shop rags, their leather and fishnet and cheap costume jewelry, their pale faces and painted hair. Perhaps we would take one of them home with us tonight. We had done so before. ‘The delicious guttersnipes,’ Louis called them. A particularly beautiful face, starkly boned and androgynous, flickered at the edge of my vision. When I looked, it was gone.
    I went into the restroom. A pair of boys stood at a single urinal, talking animatedly. I stood at the sink rinsing my hands, watching the boys in the mirror and trying to overhear their conversation. A hairline fracture in the glass seemed to pull the taller boy’s eyes askew. ‘Caspar and Alyssa found her tonight,’ he said. ‘In some old warehouse by the river. I heard her skin was gray, man. And sort of withered, like something had sucked out most of the meat.’
    ‘Far out,’ said the other boy. His black-rimmed lips barely moved.
    ‘She was only fifteen, you know?’ said the tall boy as he zipped his ragged trousers.
    ‘She was a cunt anyway.’
    They turned away from the urinal and started talking about the band - Ritual Sacrifice, I gathered, whose name was scrawled on the walls of the club. As they went out, the boys glanced at the mirror and the tall one’s eyes met mine for an instant. Nose like a haughty Indian chief’s, eyelids smudged with black and silver. Louis would approve, I thought - but the night was young, and there were many drinks left to be had.
    When the band took a break we visited the bar again. Louis edged in beside a thin dark-haired boy who was barechested except for a piece of torn lace tied about his throat When he turned, I knew his was the androgynous and striking face I had glimpsed before. His beauty was almost feral, but overlaid with a cool elegance like a veneer of sanity hiding madness. His ivory skin stretched over cheekbones like razors; his eyes were hectic pools of darkness.
    ‘I like your amulet,’ he said to Louis. ‘It’s very unusual.’
    ‘I have another one like it at home,’ Louis told him.
    ‘Really? I’d like to see them both together.’ The boy paused to let Louis order our vodka gimlets, then said, ‘I thought there was only one.’
    Louis’s back straightened like a string of beads being pulled taut. Behind his glasses, I knew, his pupils would have shrunk to pinpoints: the light pained him more when he was nervous. But no tremor in his voice betrayed him when he said, ‘What do you know about it?’
    The boy shrugged. On his bony shoulders, the movement was insouciant and drop-dead graceful. ‘It’s voodoo,’ he said. ‘I know what voodoo is. Do you?’
    The implication stung, but Louis only bared his teeth the slightest bit; it might have been a smile. ‘I am conversant in all types of magic,’ he said, ‘at least.’
    The boy moved closer to Louis, so that their hips were almost touching, and lifted the amulet between thumb and forefinger. I thought I saw one long nail brush Louis’s throat, but I could not be sure. ‘I could tell you the meaning of this veve,’ he said, ‘if you were certain you wished to know.’
    ‘It symbolizes power,’ Louis said. ‘All the power of my soul.’ His voice was cold, but I saw his tongue dart out to moisten his lips. He was beginning to dislike this boy, and also to desire him.
    ‘No,’ said the boy so softly that I barely caught his words. He sounded almost sad.