Free Headhunter by Michael Slade Page B

absently, suddenly feeling the jittery intoxication of the drug. Her face felt frozen and there was no sensation in her teeth. When she looked down at her chest it seemed as though her heart was beating wildly in an effort to break free, each tick of the clock vibrating this room into sharper focus.
    The room would have been similar to any other rich, elegant parlor in New Orleans were it not for the walls. To Crystal, it was eerie to have so many empty eyes watch her every move. Suzannah had decorated this half of the upper floor of the ancient Lafon house entirely in antiques. Most of the furniture was by the cabinetmaker Prudent Mallard, immense, ornate, and Victorian. Though Mallard had used carved rosewood, Suzannah had used the masks.
    There were more than a hundred different masks covering the walls.
    On the wall opposite the window were the masks of Africa: an Oule Mask from Bobo and a Senufo Fire-spitter; a Nalindele Mask and an Ashanti Fertility Head.
    On the wall to the right of the window were hung the masks of the Near and Far East: a Mummy Mask from Egypt and a Roman Mask of Pan; a Japanese Gigaku and a Chinese T'ao t'ieh Face.
    In the wall to the left of the window there were three closed doors, and around the jambs, framing them, were the masks of America: a Death Mask from the Inca and a Salish Spirit Mask; a Six Nations Iroquois False Face and a Hopi Katchina Doll.
    And on the window wall were the modern masks. To the left of the pane was a Beelzebub by Theodore Benda and a German Executioner's Mask. From above it leered a Corbel
    from England, a Creon Mask from Stratford, a Death's Head Hussars Busby. While to the right hung a New York Yankees' catcher's guard, a World War I gas mask and a shroud from the Ku Klux Klan.
    Out beyond the window were the masks of Mardi Gras.
    Catlike, Suzannah padded across the floor and began to stroke Crystal's hair. Together they watched the parade.
    "What does all this mean?"   Crystal asked. "That's what I'd like to know."
    "Mean? It doesn't mean anything. It's just something you feel. You let yourself go."
    Crystal closed her eyes, moving her head in time to the stroking of her hair. It felt so good.
    "You see," Suzannah added, "Carnival appeals to a basic human urge. Almost everyone has the desire hidden within them to occasionally don a mask. There is no culture in-history in which masks have not played a part." Suzannah whispered, "Come with me."
    Together they walked to one of the doors set into the wall to the left. The woman swung it open and they entered the bedroom beyond.
    This was a room in conflict, a riot of red and black. The walls were of red satin, the curtains of red velvet, the spread draped across the bed a red patchwork quilt. The carpet, however, was black. The furniture—a dresser, a wardrobe and a mirrored washstand—was of black ebony and onyx. And attached to each of the four posts supporting the canopy bed were chains and handcuffs of forge-blackened steel.
    Suzannah crossed to the washstand and sat down on its chair. As she picked up a jar of makeup, she was staring at her own face in the mirror, thinking the reflection was showing signs of age. The small creases at the corners of her full mouth and green feline eyes had been there last week. The lines on her forehead had not. Concerned, she rubbed one hand across her shaved head, noting the blue veins that spread like fingers reaching up from her temples, counting the pulse-rate at which her heart pumped blood.
    Suzannah opened the jar of stage makeup and began to blacken her eyelids. Spreading the grease with her index fingers, she worked the shadow in a narrowing slit around the sides of her head. Then she cleaned her hands with cream and began chalking her entire face white. As she did this, her eyes seemed to sink further and further back in her head. Fascinated, Crystal sat down at the foot of the bed and watched.
    When she had finished, Suzannah painted her fingernails a bright scarlet