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.CHAPTER 27Verse, Fame, and Beauty are intense indeedBut Death intenser—Death is Life’s high mead.—John KeatsThe gates of Lucien Moreau’s house stood open, with bouncers choosing guests from a human crowd gathered in front of them.Tana looked around at the girls in glittering red dresses and inky gowns, their eyes shimmering with liner and shadow and fake feathery lashes, and at the boys in their tight coats.Valentina had said it would be hard to stand out, and it was.Tana had chosen a long, ivory silk dress with a plunging neckline, the kind worn by starlets in old movies, with a slit on her thigh that hid the scratch but revealed a lot of the rest of her leg.Unlike most vampire partygoers, she had no fresh holes at the crooks of her elbows, where needles slipped in for venipuncture, no marks except for the old scar on her arm, and she hoped that might be unique enough to get her inside if Jameson’s name didn’t.Tana had piled her mass of black hair up on her head, secured with two silver combs she’d bought at the pawnshop so that everyone could see that the only thing at her throat was Gavriel’s garnet necklace, each stone shining like a single droplet of blood.She hoped she looked fresh and clean, untasted, wrapped up like a dumb little sacrifice.She’d left her boots, jacket, and backpack at the shop and concealed the rest of her things in a vintage clutch of hammered brass, sculpted into the shape of a gilded lion’s head with gluey pits for eyes where stones had once been set.Her knife she’d strapped to her thigh with two leather belts.It had taken her the better part of an hour to put together the outfit and fifteen more minutes of struggling in front of a cloudy window to get her hair up and staying that way.Then Valentina had made Tana sit in front of a mirror while she brushed her lashes with mascara, highlighted the arch of her brow with silver, and painted her lips a pale shell pink.As she walked up to the gate, the lion clutch banged against her hip from a thin chain, making her change rattle inside it, a hollow metallic sound.Valentina wore a bronze dress that shimmered with beading.It showed off the long expanse of her legs.Her lion’s mane of hair hung around her shoulders, and her golden makeup was brighter than ever.Tana grinned at her as they waded through the crowd to the gate.The bouncer was a big, muscular man with long hair pulled back in a black velvet ribbon.His gaze stopped on Tana for a moment, but instead he waved in a tall girl, naked except for a mangy mink coat.Tana edged closer as a trio of boys in leather pants slipped past.Then the bouncer chose two girls in matching green silk cheongsams, their hair styled and colored in identical copper bobs so it seemed as if they were twins.“Our friend is on the list!” Tana yelled over the noise, pointing and hoping the bouncer could hear her.“Your friend?” he repeated back dubiously.“Really? What’s the name?”“Jameson,” Tana said, standing up on her toes, trying to see the clipboard.“He got any more name than that?” the bouncer asked.A superior smile twisted his lips.Valentina stepped forward, managing to project an impressive aura of haughty impatience.“You know his name.Jameson Ramirez Alonso.Now, he told us to meet him here, and he told us we wouldn’t have any trouble getting in.This is ridiculous.”The bouncer looked as though he wanted to hassle her a little more, but something about her crossed arms and downturned mouth warned him off it.“Fine, go on.”Relief washed over Tana, and then, before she could quite believe it, they were walking past the scrollwork gate with knife-sharp posts and into Lucien Moreau’s party.“Nice job,” she said, under her breath.Valentina smiled, chin high.“Good plan.We’re like a pair of hot girl spies.”The house was a massive Victorian with a wraparound porch.The building loomed tall and strange, with several roofs of slate and glass.Partygoers stood on the sloped lawn beyond the gates, a few lying in the patchy grass or laughing as they ran in teasing circles.A thick, cloying incense perfumed the air, and the closer she got to the massive door, which stood open atop the steps, the stronger the smell grew.Myrrh and musk, covering up some sweet, foul stench underneath.She walked up the steps and through the open door into the foyer.There was music playing somewhere, the thin tortured sound of violins, accompanied by discordant, distant human cries.Her heart started to speed and her breath came unsteadily.She had the immediate sense that this party wasn’t for humans, no matter how many were present or who watched the recordings from their homes.Cameras looked down from the corners of the ceilings, blinking with green lights to show they were on.On the local cable channel back home, from three until four thirty in the morning, there was a show in which a girl called Asphodel, wearing a long purple wig, would broadcast clips of the party she thought were worth highlighting and discuss them with callers.Black bars covered any actual penetration of fangs so as not to offend the FCC [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]