Read Online Of Masques and Martyrs by Christopher Golden - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Christopher Golden
Ads: Link
Kuromaku, to honor their friendship and his respect for Kuromaku’s skills as a warrior.
Once again, the dream shifts. No memory now, but a warning. The moon is still red and full, and a cacophonous roar fills the air. But it is not cannon fire. Kuromaku stands next to Octavian, and the dead flow in waves against one another, and blood runs in the gutters. They are allies yet again, but their enemies are shadows like themselves, long of fang and swift of claw. Strangely, Octavian again wields the sword he had given as a gift of honor so long ago. In this nightmare Kuromaku sees bright colors and hears music merging with screams of terror and agony.
He knows this place. He has been here once before. Long ago. But it looks different now, despite the war and the blood. It is an older city now.
Kuromaku and Octavian stand back to back, and the . ronin turns to his old friend, and in the dream . . . in the dream, he sees the oddest thing. Octavian has been slashed in the side, just beneath the ribs. Under his clothing, Octavian bleeds
And bleeds.
And does not heal.
And in his dream, Kuromaku begins to fear that Octavian is going to die. . . .
Kuromaku’s eyes snapped open. He stared into the darkness of his sleeping chamber, the only sunless room in his little villa in the south of France.
“Kami,” he whispered, but the gods didn’t answer.
They never had.
Kuromaku rose quickly and dressed in the dark. He phoned the pilot in his employ and asked the woman to have his plane standing ready at the small airfield nearby in twenty minutes. Then he packed a small traveling case and laid out his weapons on the bed.
To his own array of blades, he knew he must add another.
Kuromaku went to the eastern wall of his chamber. From its place of honor there, he drew down the sword of the greatest warrior he had ever known.
For what he had experienced was no dream, but a prescient vision. He had had such night visions perhaps a dozen times in his long life, and invariably they had been true. If the images from his nightmare were in fact a glimpse of things to come, it seemed Peter Octavian would have need of his sword once more.
Perhaps more than he ever had.
The lamp was an antique, its shade a globe of blown glass with a painted rose pattern. Its light was insufficient for the room, and so it cast a reddish-pink tint across the bedchamber of the vampire lord Hannibal. His long white hair seemed washed in the color, reflecting it back as did his pale flesh.
But the blood staining his bedsheets looked black in that light. Black as his soul, he might have boasted. Hannibal had neither the time nor the inclination to boast, however. Nor did he believe he had a soul.
A Strauss concerto flowed from the CD player. He was not without culture, after all. But the volume was not up terribly high. Hannibal wanted to hear every scream and whimper of his victims. It was the only thing that could arouse him anymore.
With the music lilting softly in the pink light, Hannibal extended his right hand once again. The claw of his index finger elongated even further, its tip a razor needle. Once more, he drew it across the deeply tanned, gently curving belly of the woman who lay on his bed, wrists and ankles trussed with thin wire that cut her flesh each time she moved.
She shrieked in pain, and Hannibal slapped her left cheek openhanded. The crack was quite satisfying to him, and her flesh split just over the cheekbone. He bent and licked the blood from her face and she whimpered all the more.
They were deep within the bowels of Sing-Sing prison, where the sun’s rays could not reach them. Hannibal liked the way the woman’s cries echoed through the steel and cement labyrinth. It was why he’d chosen to set up his own quarters so far from the less primitive rooms once inhabited by the warden and his staff. Hmm, yes. He liked the screams.
“In case you’re wondering, my dear,” he whispered to her, “I am going to make love
Once again, the dream shifts. No memory now, but a warning. The moon is still red and full, and a cacophonous roar fills the air. But it is not cannon fire. Kuromaku stands next to Octavian, and the dead flow in waves against one another, and blood runs in the gutters. They are allies yet again, but their enemies are shadows like themselves, long of fang and swift of claw. Strangely, Octavian again wields the sword he had given as a gift of honor so long ago. In this nightmare Kuromaku sees bright colors and hears music merging with screams of terror and agony.
He knows this place. He has been here once before. Long ago. But it looks different now, despite the war and the blood. It is an older city now.
Kuromaku and Octavian stand back to back, and the . ronin turns to his old friend, and in the dream . . . in the dream, he sees the oddest thing. Octavian has been slashed in the side, just beneath the ribs. Under his clothing, Octavian bleeds
And bleeds.
And does not heal.
And in his dream, Kuromaku begins to fear that Octavian is going to die. . . .
Kuromaku’s eyes snapped open. He stared into the darkness of his sleeping chamber, the only sunless room in his little villa in the south of France.
“Kami,” he whispered, but the gods didn’t answer.
They never had.
Kuromaku rose quickly and dressed in the dark. He phoned the pilot in his employ and asked the woman to have his plane standing ready at the small airfield nearby in twenty minutes. Then he packed a small traveling case and laid out his weapons on the bed.
To his own array of blades, he knew he must add another.
Kuromaku went to the eastern wall of his chamber. From its place of honor there, he drew down the sword of the greatest warrior he had ever known.
For what he had experienced was no dream, but a prescient vision. He had had such night visions perhaps a dozen times in his long life, and invariably they had been true. If the images from his nightmare were in fact a glimpse of things to come, it seemed Peter Octavian would have need of his sword once more.
Perhaps more than he ever had.
The lamp was an antique, its shade a globe of blown glass with a painted rose pattern. Its light was insufficient for the room, and so it cast a reddish-pink tint across the bedchamber of the vampire lord Hannibal. His long white hair seemed washed in the color, reflecting it back as did his pale flesh.
But the blood staining his bedsheets looked black in that light. Black as his soul, he might have boasted. Hannibal had neither the time nor the inclination to boast, however. Nor did he believe he had a soul.
A Strauss concerto flowed from the CD player. He was not without culture, after all. But the volume was not up terribly high. Hannibal wanted to hear every scream and whimper of his victims. It was the only thing that could arouse him anymore.
With the music lilting softly in the pink light, Hannibal extended his right hand once again. The claw of his index finger elongated even further, its tip a razor needle. Once more, he drew it across the deeply tanned, gently curving belly of the woman who lay on his bed, wrists and ankles trussed with thin wire that cut her flesh each time she moved.
She shrieked in pain, and Hannibal slapped her left cheek openhanded. The crack was quite satisfying to him, and her flesh split just over the cheekbone. He bent and licked the blood from her face and she whimpered all the more.
They were deep within the bowels of Sing-Sing prison, where the sun’s rays could not reach them. Hannibal liked the way the woman’s cries echoed through the steel and cement labyrinth. It was why he’d chosen to set up his own quarters so far from the less primitive rooms once inhabited by the warden and his staff. Hmm, yes. He liked the screams.
“In case you’re wondering, my dear,” he whispered to her, “I am going to make love
Similar Books
