Our Beloved Tyrants Scene 8

The last dregs of sunlight were finally outclassed by the light of the full moon, which bathed the clearing in an ethereal, though faintly ghoulish luminescence. As Alexandru approached the slab, the lady opened her eyes – not in a very elegant fashion, with pretty fluttering of the eyelids, but in a single, spasmodic jerk that left them wide open and staring at the sky. That would have shocked him quite sufficiently, but added to that the fact that the colour of her eyes was blood-red, it was enough to make him forget that he had ever been a battle-hardened warrior, and freeze him to the spot like a rabbit realising too late that it had taken a stroll into a fox’s den. She sat bolt upright, casting the gypsy’s corpse away with a casual swatting motion, and turned to look upon the man who had saved her “life” (for want of a better word).