Стив и Призрак

She had bled so much that the sheet and the mattress could not absorb it all;

The twins shared a microphone now, giving it head, taunting the crowd with their erotic narcissism. their ripe lips nearly touched.

They had left Ashley a dry husk, a skeleton bound together by withered skin,

They clutched each other with their bird-boned hands and pressed their hollow cheeks together. Their hair twined together, long strands of ruby-red and yellow-white like mingling flames. Their faces echoed each other in a perfection

If anything, they were more beautiful than they had been in his dream,

This one will keep you from growing all the way up. It will preserve the child in you forever.Fruit juice and sugar-syrup.Well, mostly.

He liked the syrupy thickness of the wine, and the way the fermented, rotten-sweet flavor of the grapes melted over his tongue. It reminded him of the elixirs his grandmother had mixed for him long ago:

Most of them looked so small, so frail, ready to break like soap bubbles if you touched them. But in all those black-smudged eyes lurked a certain hardness, a wall of glass to mask their terrible vulnerability.

Their too-big jackets enveloped their fragile bones like shadow.

But here were only the same sorts of kids that haunted the Sacred Yew. More of them, sure, but with the same dark-rimmed eyes, the studded ears, the pale jewelled throats. The sweet smell of clove cigarettes was familiar, and their smoke swirling through blue light.