Beautiful Blood

The cloak flapped about her, appearing to register a stronger force of wind than the one blowing across the dragon’s back. An updraft, he thought. He shouted again and she turned toward him. At that distance he could not distinguish her features, but her skin had acquired the mousey coloration of the cloak. Tentatively, realizing something was wrong, he walked forward a half-dozen paces, paused, and then went a few paces more. Not only had her complexion gone gray, but a myriad fine lines now webbed her skin, as if she had grown ancient as she fled from him—yet on second glance she did not seem to have aged, but rather that her youthful image had been partitioned into irregular segments like those of a jigsaw puzzle. He spoke her name again, less a shout than a plaintive inquiry. The wind blew more fiercely about her—at least her hair (also gray) billowed and the cloak flapped with increased fury—but Rosacher felt no like increase where he stood and heard no keening or any other windy noise. Cold gripped the nape of his neck, as if it had been seized by a dead hand. He backed away, his heel catching on a loosened fragment, and he pitched onto his side, his temple smacking down hard. He must have blacked out, for when his eyes blinked open he discovered her standing over him. He thought initially that her facial muscles were in spasm, but her expression was neither agonized nor contorted—it was her customary stoic expression, reflecting no particular mood or attitude. And then he realized it wasn’t her muscles that were moving—it was the skin, and not just that of her face. Every square inch of skin was rippling the way bacon ripples in a frying pan. Each tiny segment of skin as defined by the cracks pulsed to a separate rhythm, as if they were blistering, about to release a vile fluid. A dribble of sound leaked from him, a whimper born of fear, fear for himself, for her, revulsion. He crawled away, trying to regain his feet…but fell again. Her lips parted, her eyelids drooped and she lifted an arm, a gesture that an opera singer might make in straining for a high note, and something fluttered up light as ash from the back of her hand, something winged—it fluttered in the air above her. Further gray scraps disengaged from her and joined it, accumulating into a cluster, then a cloud that bobbled and danced overhead. Each time a scrap lifted from her body, it left behind a patch of glistening flesh that rapidly darkened and began to pulse. She was dissolving, disintegrating…the process quickened, quickened again, and after two or three minutes more she became unrecognizable, diminished to a stump, a gray stalagmite from which winged things no larger than a flake emerged and arose, forming a whirling mass that encircled Rosacher, penning him in. Possessed by dread, he knew that once she had completely dissolved, these remnants would descend, fasten onto his face and kill him with their stings. But in the end only one of the creatures touched him. It hovered in front of his face for an instant and, his mind bright with terror, he had the impression that its wings were not attached to an insect body, but to a slender white female figure, perfect in every detail, a replica in miniature of his former lover—it brushed against his cheek, imparting a chill sensation, and flew up to merge with the fluttering gray cloud, which then passed toward the south, vanishing behind the bulge of Griaule’s spine.

For several minutes thereafter, Rosacher continued lying where he had fallen. The chill spread across his cheek, yet did not disturb him—on the contrary, the coolness was soothing, as though a salve had been applied. The bizarre manner of Amelita’s death, if death it had been, if she were not reincarnate as a cluster of flakes, left him in an uncertain mood, overcome by sorrow, but also wondering if this might not have been the best possible outcome for her—she had always been unhappy—and not merely unhappy, despondent, despairing—except for moments here and there, and though he ached for her, he experienced an undercurrent of relief that she had been released from whatever pain had been gnawing at her for all her days—but this did not alleviate his own pain. He wept while walking back to Martita’s and had to pause outside the door in order to compose himself. Once inside, seated at a table in the rear, he hated the dim, wavering lantern light, the smell of stale beer, the lively talk and laughter around him, all the dull brown normalcy of the place. He hung his head and tried to calm himself, but his thoughts flurried and he kept picturing Amelita as her living layers peeled away, her mouth open and eyes lidded, an expression that reminded him of how she had looked when they made love—yet it lacked vitality and was absent the sounds of passion, the gasps, the musical sighs, and thus seemed a mockery.