The club is dark and full of a sweet smelling mist. Lilith cannot see the magician in the swarm of black wrapped bodies. Standing at the edge of the dance floor, she looks around the room. Dancers’ teeth glow, as do the white and neon flyers on every table. Shining drinks look like lanterns under the black light. It feels like home.
She sees a man bouncing forwards and backwards across the dance floor. He wears a black trench coat and shiny jeans and the skin just below his mouth is pierced. A small metal spike juts outwards. Admiring the look, she adopts it as her own. Her spike is ebony and wags like a tail as she licks her lips.
The music is fast, it pounds so furiously that her natural rhythm has to adjust to keep up with the beat. Bodies and hair bounce in unison. In the centre of them all four girls dance together. One towers above the others. Her hairstyle is similar to Lilith’s, and she moves in an uncoordinated way—Raven. Another, the blonde girl from the rum bar with purple ribbons in her hair, sways slowly to the music, carefully moving out of Raven’s way whenever she staggers too close. The other two jump up and down with the rest of their tribe. Like a live volcano, swelling upwards and shrinking as one bubbling mass before finally exploding. One of the girls has short black hair, the other an abundance of dark ringlets, she is the one Lilith is interested in. The magician’s female—Star.
Star bounces in perfect time. Her enormous boots look weightless. Lilith can only see the back of her. The thick black curls of her hair rise and fall as she leaps. Her shoulders and throat revealed in each descent. Her skirt lifts too, each time she falls back down to earth, like the petals of an exotic night flower, tempting insects to its core.
The music changes, Star and her group leave the dance floor and cross to a table of drinks not far from where Lilith stands. The blonde and Raven fall onto the couch together, giggling. The other two stand behind stools and move their bodies in time to the music. They cradle drinks, but their movements are too controlled to spill the liquid.
Violent lyrics repeat over a metallic drum beat. Lilith smiles, thinking back to the man by the factories: her first kill in this brave new world and sweetest so far. The others feel less exquisite in her memory, but the next one … She nods and smiles, watching Star enjoy the evening. She will take her time, become the corrupter of spirit rather than flesh.
Three of the girls return to the dance floor as soft keyboards wash across the nightclub. The square of wooden boards fills and bodies crush together. Some stand still, others sway slightly as the soft vocals sing of regret and the passage of time. As the pace builds behind the voice, the movements of the dancers become more exaggerated then the bouncing starts again. Faces filled with joy blur with their rapid rises and falls.
Star faces Lilith this time, her face as rapt as any other. Is this worship? To which god do these souls lay themselves bare, offering their tributes of sweat? Lilith does not join them. The music confuses her. She enjoys the role of voyeur for the moment.
At midnight the music slows. The strains of a great organ replace the keyboard. The music sways as do the bodies still clinging to the wooden boards, after others have deserted them for drinks or rest. Star remains. Lilith watches as the woman’s body curves and arches, her thinly veiled arms rising above her head then twisting, like ivy, down to frame her face then descending further to cross her chest. The ritual is repeated again and again. Lilith looks at Star’s face; her eyes are closed and she looks as if in sexual ecstasy, writhing in pleasure at an unseen touch.
Entranced, Lilith joins the dancers. She sways across the floor like a snake. Like the snake. Well it worked with Eve. When Star opens her eyes again Lilith dances beside her. Her body matching Star’s deep curls and twists, the pheromones in her scent mingling with the dry ice.
http://smarturl.it/TheStarbloodTrilogy art by Anna Dmitrieva, words by Carmilla Voiez.