In large, painful gulps he
drained most of a second bottle, letting the wine take the place of
blood in his veins.
He would be Master yet. The sun was up and it was day. He would have
her, and then destroy her. Then destroy himself. Nothing else
mattered, and Nothing never needed justification. It simply was, the
only truth: the hole when the bottom fell out. It was the naked razor,
stalking through the streets, cutting out men and women at random.
Letting some grow fat for its later pleasure. Wantonly hewing the poor,
who though possessed of a greater capacity for suffering, had reached
the limits of endurance and could be tortured no more.
He had become a willing servant of the thing he had always fought, and
feared. But he did not care.
He did not care.
*
When he came to her, as arranged, there was a moment when Sylviana saw
what Kalus had seen: a wild, desperate hunger in his eyes, that could no
longer feed on things which the earth gave as food. They wanted not
flesh, but blood, not nourishment, but to mock the very act of
nourishment. They could not be fed, or appeased, any more than one
could quench the rape of napalm fire.
She turned away, and felt her heart throb violently in revulsion and
fear. Only the perverse pride and will that had slowly taken hold of
her, kept her from running away at the sight of him.
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