Beautiful Blood Read Online Free PDF

separate issues,” Rosacher told him. “If you don’t take care of them, sooner or later they’re bound to cause a serious infection and you’ll be of no use to me. Then there’s the consideration of your appearance. I want you to frighten people, but I don’t think it’s necessary to make them giddy with fear.”
    “Will it hurt?” Arthur asked.
    “Yes. I can do the extractions painlessly, but there’ll be some bruising of the tissues. However, you’ll suffer more living with a mouth like that than you will in losing the teeth.”
    Arthur shuffled his feet, glanced out the window. “Why’re you doing this? After what I done to you, it don’t make sense.”
    “Everyone in Morningside is afraid of you,” said Rosacher. “I’ve been observing you for several months and you’re not unintelligent, though your methods of intimidation are unnecessarily crude. Most importantly, you’re not an addict.”
    “Too right! I’d sooner take poison than smoke a pipe of mab (this the name the citizens of Morningshade applied to the drug, being an acronym for ‘more and better’). I don’t need my view of the world tarted up. I prefer to see things as they are.”
    “An admirable trait,” said Rosacher. “One I’ve grown to appreciate.” He got to his feet and came around the desk to stand in front of Arthur. “The past is the past. There’s no need to dwell on it. I can help you and you can help me by dealing with problems that may arise. What I’m proposing is a business relationship pure and simple.” He held out his hand. “Do we have an accord?”
    “I’m your man!” Arthur shook his hand gingerly, as if taking pains not to injure him anew. “I’ll deal with your problems. You can trust to that.”
    Rosacher was not inclined to extend his trust. For all his coarse exterior, Arthur was no fool and, sooner or later, the instincts bred by his rough-and-tumble existence would turn his intellect in a treacherous direction. Rosacher believed, however, he could find ways to keep him occupied.
    Three and a half years later, armed with teeth that were no longer new, grinning fiercely at every passer-by, his huge frame draped in a jacket of cherry-colored satin embroidered in white silk, hair held back from his shoulders by a gay matching ribbon, Arthur accompanied Rosacher to the top of Haver’s Roost. People cleared out of the giant’s path, falling back to either side of the winding street; others came to the windows and doorways of the mansions of brick and undressed stone that lined it, made curious by the passage of this two-man parade. At the summit of the hill lay a cobbled square ringed by buildings of pinkish stucco with ironwork balconies and red tile roofs, open on one end (the opening was due to be closed off by a cathedral, its foundations already laid and a single wall erected). It was toward the largest building, a three-story affair with ornamental iron bars over the windows, that they proceeded.
    “I’ve never been up here before.” Arthur sniffed the air. “Don’t smell near as ripe as Morningshade.”
    Rosacher mounted the steps. “I think you’ll find the stench more familiar once we’re inside.”
    A slender, dark-haired man, appearing to be four or five years younger than Rosacher, sat on a bench in the mahogany-paneled vestibule on the second floor, outside the council chamber, clutching a leather artist’s portfolio, listening as a functionary explained that he would have to wait until Mr. Rosacher finished his business before the council. On hearing this, the young man jumped up and demanded an immediate audience. Rosacher stepped in and said, “Excuse me. Mister…?”
    “Cattanay,” said the man, giving the name an angry emphasis, pronouncing each syllable with biting precision. “Meric Cattanay.”
    “Richard Rosacher. You have a proposal to put before the council?”
    “I’ve been here since yesterday. I’ve come all the way from…”
    “Believe me, Mister