LUCIUS SHEPARD
Beautiful Blood
A Novel of the Dragon Griaule
Prologue
“By night, the crooked streets of Morningshade resounded with laughter, shrieks and contending musics, and were thronged with drunks, brawlers, vendors, whores, cutpurses, pickpockets and the precious few who were their targets—they pushed, jostled and shouldered their way along beneath a pall of smoke, a sluggish river of humanity dressed in rags and cheap gaud sloshing against the banks of taverns and gin shops, disreputable inns and bawdy houses, ramshackle buildings that leaned together like doddering grey-faced uncles with caved-in top hats made of tarpaper. And over it all, the vast bulge of piceous blackness that was Griaule’s belly and side, from which depended a fringe of vines and clumped epiphytes, some dangling so low they nearly brushed the rooftops, showing in silhouette against the glowing blue darkness of the sky.
“As we pressed closer to the dragon, the crowds thinned, the cooking smells became less pervasive and the buildings grew less densely packed, until at last we came to the wide semi-circle of dirt (the site of a flea market by day) that bordered Griaule’s bent foreleg and great taloned foot. Here there stood a single notable structure, a rickety construction made of weathered boards, replete with gables, bay window and other ornamental conceits—the Hotel Sin Salida, Morningshade’s most infamous brothel. The hotel incorporated two of the talons into its foundation (they flanked the front door, forming a massive entranceway of age-yellowed bone) and rose an improbable nine stories, seeming on the verge of collapse, though it was actually quite stable, anchored by thick hawsers and cables to Griaule’s scaly ankle, against which it was braced. With its spindly frame and treacherous outside staircases, it resembled a shabby, eccentric castle.
“Standing about on the steps were a half-dozen women with their breasts exposed, wearing satin trousers, and a larger number of unsavory-looking men, some carrying machetes. Scampering in and out amongst them, playing a game of tag, were a handful of children dressed in bright blue pants and blouses, a uniform that marked them as property of the hotel. They were initially oblivious to our approach, but as we came within earshot, they turned toward us, children and adults alike, displaying a disturbing unanimity of intense focus and neutral expression, as if responding to an inaudible signal—but then, almost instantly, they relaxed from this rigid posture and ran toward us, smiling and with open arms, inviting us to partake of the pleasures of the house.”
Braulio DaSilva, The House of Griaule
1
At the age of twenty-six, Richard Rosacher, newly a medical doctor (he advertised the fact to no one, his diploma resting beneath a heap of soiled clothing on his bedroom floor), was possessed of a devout single-mindedness such as might have been attached to an educated man twice his age and of infinitely larger accomplishment. From earliest childhood he had been fascinated by the dragon Griaule, that mile-long beast paralyzed millennia before by a wizard’s spell, beneath and about which the town of Teocinte had accumulated; and, as he approached his majority, that fascination was refined into an obsessive scientific curiosity. Running contrary to this virtue, however, was a wide streak of adolescent arrogance that left him prone to fits of temper. His rooms, occupying a portion of the second story of the Hotel Sin Salida in Morningshade (the poorest quarter of Teocinte, tucked so close beneath the dragon’s side, it never knew the light of dawn), offended him not so much by their squalor, but by the poor relation in which they stood to the tastefully appointed surroundings in which he believed a person of his worth should be lodged. While he bore a genuine affection for many who quartered at the inn, rough sorts all (laborers, thieves, prostitutes, and the like), he believed himself destined for a loftier precinct, imagining that someday soon he would converse with poets, artists, fellow scientists, and cohabit with women whose beauty and grace were emblems of sensitive, carefully tended souls. This snobbish attitude was exacerbated by his outrage over the fact that the populace of Teocinte treated the dragon as an object of superstition, a godlike creature who manipulated their actions through exercise of its ancient will, and not as a biological freak, a gigantic lizard whose sole remarkable quality was as a treasure trove of scientific knowledge. Thus it was that when thwarted in his ambitions by Timothy Myrie, a disheveled shred of a man with no ambition of his own apart from that of drinking himself unconscious each and every night, Rosacher reacted along predictable lines.
The confrontation between the two men occurred late of an evening in Rosacher’s sitting room, a narrow space with a sloping ceiling cut by pitch-coated roof beams, the plaster walls painted by the brush of time to a grayish cream, like egg gone off, and mapped by water stains the color of dried urine. Spider webs trellised the corners, belling in drafts that entered through a half-open bay window and, although the breeze carried a certain freshness (along with an undertone of sewage), it was unable to dispel the odor of innumerable sour lives. Rosacher had pushed sofa and chairs all to one end in order to accommodate an oak ice chest and a crudely carpentered workbench whereon rested scattered papers and a second-hand microscope; a cherrywood box containing vials, slides, and chemicals; a dirty dish bearing chicken bones and a crust of bread, the remnants of his supper; and an oil lamp that shed a feeble yellow light sufficient to point up the squalor of the place. Myrie, his pinched features shadowed by a slouch hat, clad in a greatcoat several sizes too large, stood by the bench, striking a pose that conveyed a casual disaffection, and Rosacher—his lean, handsome face, active eyes and glossy brown hair presenting by contrast an image of vitality—glared at him from an arms-length away. He wore a loose white shirt and moleskin knee-britches, and was holding out some crumpled banknotes to Myrie who, to his amazement, had rejected them.
“I need more,” Myrie said. “I thought my heart would stop, I took such a fright.”
“I can’t afford more,” Rosacher said firmly. “Next time, perhaps.”
“Next time? I’ll not be going back there soon. The things I saw…”
“Fine, then. That’s fine. But we had a bargain.”
“Too right we had a bargain. And now we’re going to have a new bargain. I need a hundred more.”
Rosacher’s frustration plumed into anger. “It was a simple thing I asked. Any fool could have managed it!”
“If it’s so simple, why not do it yourself?” Myrie cocked an ear, as if anticipating an answer. “I’ll tell you why! ’Cause you don’t much like the thought of crawling into the mouth of a fucking great dragon and drawing blood from his tongue! Not that I blame you. It’s far from a pleasant experience.” He stuck out his palm. “A hundred more’s still on the cheap.”
“Can’t you get it through your head, man? I don’t have it!”
“Then you’re not having your precious blood, either.” Myrie patted the breast of his coat. “Town’s full of crazy folk these days, all wanting souvenirs. Chances are one of them will pay my price.”
Fuming inwardly, Rosacher said, “All right! I’ll get you the money.”
Myrie smirked. “I thought you didn’t have it.”
“One of the girls downstairs will loan it to me.”
“Got yourself a sweetheart, eh?” Myrie made an approving noise with his tongue. “Go on, then. Ask her!”
Rosacher fought back the urge to shout. “Will you at least put the blood in the ice chest? I don’t wish it to degrade further.”
Myrie cast a dubious look at the chest. “I reckon I’ll keep it on my person until I see the hundred.”