To Make Death Love Us by Sovereign Falconer Read Free Book Online

read.
    "Good Christ, stop
that, mister," the girl yelled at the top of her voice, angry because things were getting out of
hand. "You had no call to hit him like that."
    Her little sister
hid her face in her skirt, hiding the sight of bloodied Enoch on the ground.
    "Man trying to rape
you or something," said the black man defensively.
    The older sister
said, with some heat, "You get along now. He ain't trying to rape nobody!"
    Rape?
    The word seemed to
act as a magnet. The word went flying around the crowd on the street, triggering hard feelings.
The blacks gathered, sensitive to the word and the meaning.
    There was blood all
over Enoch's face and his ruffled shirt. His ruined mouth opened and closed spasmodically. The
girl stepped between the fallen man and the man from the Cadillac who had knocked him
down.
    She roughly
shouldered the man aside. "You quit, now. I know this man. He done suffered enough. Didn't have
no harm in him. He just a little weird in the head, is all. He been hurt enough. You leave him
be."
    The black man still
had his fists clenched. The faces in the crowd all around were still hostile.
    The older sister
bent down and helped Enoch to his feet. He seemed dazed, the shock of the blow rendering him
senseless. He staggered, almost fell. His eyes saw, not this world but into another—Poe's dead
world—and it was his own grave his wild eyes sought.
    The black girl's
hand on his arm steadied him. This act of helping him to his feet eased the tension in the
watch­ing crowd. The anger began to recede like a storm with spent force.
    But this was not as
Enoch wished it.
    Serena in her
dream, saw it all. Her father, that poor, mad, frightened creature, with pains and hates too
large for this world. This man, so unlike her father, with a horri­fying need that only death
could cure, stood before her, as if begging her for mercy, for that release from this life he so
desperately wanted.
    Serena then
understood it was more than a dream. The dream grew, pulsing with energy and sudden force, until
it became a torrent in her head, a giddy rush to power, awesome, limitless power. She saw the
grave Enoch so desperately sought, the violent punishment his mind and body shrieked to
have.
    And to that end,
she moved what did not have the strength to move.
    Serena nearly
screamed in her sleep, a smile of secret knowledge on her delicate lips. She went back inside her
brain, deep into the hidden places, until, in that secret, terrible place, she at last understood
what she must do. There had to be an end to Enoch's shame, to a lifetime of hurt, and anguish
that would not stop.
    It was like
sticking a knife into a living creature, but she did it. She reached into a wish in Enoch's mind
and made death love him.
    Enoch's eyes
glazed, his unsteady legs stiffened with a surge of adrenaline. His face was suffused with his
own
    madness. His hands
clenched and unclenched, now fists, now like the claws of some great, predatory bird.
    The people in the
hostile crowd were beginning to move off, their anger vented, the crisis over.
    His eyes focused
and he looked all about him, a quick, all-inclusive glance, and saw for the first time, a world
he had pretended against all his life. He saw the ugliness of the city ghetto, the squalid,
sordid hustle of the age in which he really lived. With this sudden clarity of mind, came,
unbidden, an act—unthinkable, unspeakable— against everything Enoch had ever known or
thought.
    His hands went up,
reaching for the girl. It happened very quickly. His fingers found the neck of her thin cotton
dress and, adrenaline strong, he ripped it down to her waist, exposing her white bra.
    The crowd fell on
him like lions. Had they not seen some crazy white man laying hands on one of their sisters? They
stamped him into the pavement. Yes, yes, Enoch's mind cried, my just punishment. The weight of
the angry crowd, hard shoes and fists, raining down on him,