Page 33 of Gunslinger Girl
Luster tossed her a gauzy strip of gold fabric. “Here, to keep you warm.”
“Uh, thanks.” She draped it around her shoulders.
“I’ve got some good news, kids,” Max said. “In honor of Pity seeing her first show, Halcyon reserved us a box.”
“A Finale and we don’t have to sit with the rabble?” Duchess looped an arm around Pity’s and led her toward the door. “I am suddenly so much fonder of you.”
Max didn’t move. “Sorry, Dutch, but if you don’t mind?”
“Oh, Maxxy, I knew you’d come around sooner or later.” Duchess released Pity and linked arms with Max instead, who rolled his eyes. “Oh, all right. She’s all yours.”
As Max led Pity into the hall, her embarrassment evaporated, chased away by a spark of excitement.
Whether it was for the show or her escort, in that moment she couldn’t have said.
It began with a faint hum of music, almost too low to make out. That hum grew, vibrating through Pity, weaving among the crowd’s hushed whispers and held breaths. It was impossible to tell where it came from in the dark theatre, lit only by red lights that cast everything in bloody shadows. She shifted anxiously in her seat, glancing at Max beside her. With his black suit and black hair, he seemed hardly more than a floating face. On her other side, Luster leaned against her shoulder, a huge grin on her face. Duchess and Garland were behind them, the box just spacious enough for five.
The theatre had been in a ruckus as they entered, its stands brimming with spectators. Pity had found herself assaulted by raucous laughter, colorful outfits, and scents of perfume, sweet cigar smoke, and too many bodies. But as soon as the lights dimmed, the crowd had settled, their anticipation thick and infectious.
The music continued its languid ascent. Her attention was drawn to the center of the stage, where a ring of purple and orange lights appeared, pulsing in time with the melody. Amid them, like a demon rising out of the depths of hell, Halcyon appeared.
“The sun has set, and the moon begins to rise.” His voice was everywhere, like the music. “Now is the early black. Now is the time of magic and mysteries, of darkness and devilry. I welcome all of you, new friends and old, to the greatest show on the continent, to the theatre to end all theatre! Welcome”—the music rose sharply, a trembling crescendo—“to the Theatre Vespertine!”
Halcyon threw up his arms. Huge jets of sparks exploded out of his sleeves and from the apex of the ceiling, flakes of light raining down on the audience like snow. The crowd erupted in cheers as the arena flooded with light. Halcyon was no longer alone. A dozen dancers—naked save for patches of multicolored silks cut to look like feathers—appeared. They circled around him like a flock of colorful vultures before back-flipping away, bending and twisting in the air, only to land as delicately as cats.
“Tonight you will be party to some of the greatest visual pleasures known to mankind. You will be excited and tantalized, terrified and electrified, and at times—never fear!—you will not believe your very eyes!” Halcyon weaved through the dancers along the perimeter of the stage, tipping his striped top hat at the onlookers. When he passed their box, he winked at Pity. Only then did she realize that she had slid forward to the edge of her seat. She felt a hand on her shoulder—Max guiding her backward, a knowing smiling on his face.
“So sit! Relax! And enjoy all the pleasures that the Theatre Vespertine has to offer!” He returned to his ring of lights. “Tonight we begin with an act to warm your blood… though warm or cold, it makes no difference to her. Everyone, blow a hiss—pardon me, a kiss—to Scylla!”
The room went black. A low drumming began, soon joined by a high, reedy flute. As Pity watched, Halcyon’s lights were replaced by a sour greenish glow. Fog billowed, tendrils curling into the darkness like a poisonous miasma. In the middle of the glow a body appeared, stretched supine. It rose from the fog on a rippling platform.
Rippling? She blinked, but the movement remained. Suddenly, projections of the stage appeared on the ceiling, illuminating the arena. Pity inhaled sharply.
The platform was covered with snakes.
Her vision was filled with them—big and little, striped and scaled, copperheads and rattlesnakes, and ones she didn’t recognize. And in the center of the reptilian nest, Scylla lay, still as death. Breasts bare, her skin shimmered like an oil slick. Pity shivered with a primal revulsion as the serpents slithered over Scylla’s limbs, her torso—even her face.
As the tempo of the music increased, Scylla began to move, arching her back slowly before rising. In a slow, upward drift, she got to her feet, dancing seductively, her body undulating like those of her pets. The air tasted of nervousness, excitement, and sensuality. When Scylla bent forward to pluck a pair of snakes from the mass and wrap them around her neck, the audience howled with appreciation.
Pity squirmed as Scylla’s eyes, ringed with green glitter, stared down at her from above. And yet she could not look away. She expected one of the snakes to strike at any moment. Instead, they slid up Scylla’s legs, wound over her hips, and slipped between her thighs. She continued to dance, raising her arms above her head as the serpents coiled around them. Soon they enveloped her so completely that Scylla resembled some ancient, horrible monster.
“How does she keep them from biting?” Pity breathed.
Luster leaned in close. “Scylla’s half witch,” she whispered. “And the other half is snake charmer.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Max said. “Illegal neural implants. Not that Scylla will admit it or breathe a word about where she got that done. There are some things you can’t get even in Cessation.”
The music stopped and Scylla froze. After a moment, it started again, lower and deeper. She began to unwind the serpents from her body, kissing each before placing it at her feet. When she plucked off the final one, a tiny black baby no longer than her forearm, Pity released the air arrested in her lungs.
Scylla spun, her hands extended toward the audience, body glistening. Applause showered down on her, continuing until her platform was out of sight.
Halcyon reappeared. “And now, from that which crawls on its belly to that which flies in the air! Your favorite quintet of gravity-defying darlings—I give you, the Rousseaus!”
“Scylla and the quints, right out of the gate?” said Garland. “Halcyon isn’t holding back tonight, is he?”
“He wants people thinking about who will do the Finale,” Luster replied.
Pity turned to her. “What’s the—?”
