Blood Canticle by Anne Rice

random as blood victims.
    All three of us were in the room with the door closed, and the insurgents danced oblivious to us, their senses drenched in lustrous sound and rhythm.
    They were absolutely spectacular in appearance, with tanned skin, rippling jet black hair to the waist—being both of Semitic or Arabic descent—very tall and with large facial features, including magnificent mouths, and they were inherently graceful. They danced with closed eyes, oval faces serene, in huge swaying and arching gestures, humming through closed lips to the music, and the male, who was on the surface almost indistinguishable from the female, every now and then shook out his immense veil of hair and swung it rapidly around him in a circle.
    Their sleek black leather clothes were stunning and unisexual. Supple pants, sleeveless and collarless tops. They wore gold bracelets on their naked upper and lower arms. They embraced each other now and then and let each other go, and as we watched, the female dipped down into the cluster of mortal children and brought up to her lips a limp little boy, and drank from him.
    Mona let out a scream at the sight of this, and at once the two vampires froze, staring at us. So similar were their movements, one would have thought they were grand automatons operated by a central system. The unconscious child was dropped to the couch.
    My heart became a little knot inside me. I could scarcely breathe. The music flooded my brain, the ripping, sad, compelling voice of the violin.
    “Quinn, shut it off,” I said, and scarcely had I spoken when the music stopped. The parlor was plunged into a ringing vibrant silence.
    The pair drew together. The figure they made was statuesque.
    They had exquisite arched black eyebrows, heavily lidded eyes with thick eyelashes. Arabic, yes, from the streets of New York. Brother and sister, petty merchant class, real hard work, sixteen when made. It came flooding out of them, and also a torrent of worship for me, a torrent of exuberant happiness that I had “appeared.” Oh, God help me. Juan Diego stand by me.
    “We didn’t dream we’d see you, actually see you!” said the female, with heavily accented words, voice rich and beguiling and reverent. “We hoped and prayed, and here you are and it is really you.” Her lovely hands unfolded and reached out to me.
    “Why did you kill innocent victims in my town,” I whispered. “Where did you get these innocent children?”
    “But you, you drank from children yourself, it’s in the pages of the Chronicles,” the male said. Same accented words, courteous, gentle tone. “We were imitating you! What have we done that you have not done!”
    The knot in my heart grew tighter. Those accursed deeds, those accursed confessions. Oh God, forgive me.
    “You know my warnings,” I said. “Everyone knows. Stay out of New Orleans, New Orleans belongs to me. Who doesn’t know those warnings?”
    “But we came to worship you!” said the male. “We’ve been here before. You never cared. It was as if you were a legend.”
    Suddenly they realized their immense miscalculation. The male raced for the door, but Quinn caught his arm effortlessly and swung him around.
    The female stood shocked in the center of the room, her jet black eyes staring at me, then silently moving over Mona.
    “No,” she said, “no, you can’t simply destroy us, you won’t do it. You won’t take from us our immortal souls, you will not. You are our dream, you are our model in all things. You cannot do this to us. Oh, I beg you, make of us your servants, teach us all things. We’ll never disobey! We’ll learn everything from you.”
    “You knew the law,” I said. “You chose to break it. You thought you’d slip in and out, leaving your sins behind you. And you murder children in my name? You do this in my city? You never learned from my pages. Don’t throw them in my face.” I began to tremble. “You think I confessed what I did for you to follow my