Blood Sacrifice (17 page)

“It’s a gift I can give you. And one that we do not bestow very freely. The last person to receive that gift was Edward, and that was almost sixty years ago.”

Elise thinks she hears someone move in the darkness, a sudden rush of air, almost like a sigh. She shivers and peers into the shadows, but sees nothing. She turns back to Maria. “What will happen to me?” She thinks of vampire lore, the Saturday evening “Chiller Theater” double features she watched as a child,
Nosferatu
, and rivers of blood, bat wings, fangs. “How could it not hurt?”

“I promise you. I won’t let you experience any pain. I’ll lead you through it slowly, my love. The change will take some time, but you’ll find it painless.”

“And I’ll have to do what you do to survive?”

Maria nods, stroking Elise’s cheek. “Your perception of it is at odds with what you’ll feel once you’ve crossed over. You’ll come to see it as a beautiful thing, more satisfying than sex, more fulfilling than anything you’ve ever experienced, that much I can promise.” Maria does not meet Elise’s gaze as she says this. Elise wonders why.

“The idea revolts me.” Again, Elise’s intellect and emotions war. “I don’t think I could do it. First, I couldn’t kill anyone. I don’t think I could, not even for my own survival. Second, I’d have to consume blood? Just thinking about it makes me sick.” Elise sighs. She wants to please Maria, but doesn’t think she can go as far as Maria wants. Can’t they just be as they are now? Why does she have to become one of them? “Really, Maria, it would make me sick. I can feel the bile rising up now.”

Maria shakes her head. “It won’t be that way. What you feel now won’t be what you feel…after. You won’t be the same and you’ll experience things in a new way, an exciting way.” Maria pauses to look at the moonlight shining on the floor, turning her head, apparently lost in thought. “I wish I could show you how it would feel. But there’s no other way to experience it besides doing it, besides actually becoming one of us. It’s a kind of heaven.”

“Why won’t you look at me?” Elise takes Maria’s face in both her hands, framing it, and turns the other woman toward her, forcing her to meet her gaze.

“Don’t you trust me, Elise? I love you. Can’t you see I only want what’s best for you, to bring you the kind of joy you can’t even imagine now? It won’t be as you think. Nothing you’ve experienced in your life can compare to the joy and pleasure feeding brings.”

Elise grimaces at the word “feeding,” but feels herself slipping away, beginning to be won over. It’s not about the pleasure of “feeding” or any of that mortality stuff; it’s about Maria and joining with this beautiful, enigmatic woman that she knows, after only a couple of meetings, more intimately and better than she ever known anyone in her life. But she has to continue this dialogue, has to be sure. She asks what she thought earlier. “Why can’t we just continue on as we are now? Isn’t this good enough?”

Maria smiles and shakes her head. “It’s wonderful, my darling. But we’re not on the same plane. I want you with me forever. I want us to be as one. Your years pass by like weeks for me; soon you will be an old, frail woman, and I’ll still be like this.” She nods. “Don’t you want that? Eternal youth? You’ll always be as radiant as you are right now.”

Elise whispers, “I don’t know,” but it’s obvious from the sheepish smile and the way she looks teasingly at Maria, like she has a hidden gift for her, that her resolve has all but slipped away. What does she have to cling to in her life anyway?

Possibility,
a small voice answers her. But she drowns it out and lets Maria embrace her.

“I’m so happy. It will be wonderful. You’ll see. And we can always be together.”

Elise collapses into her arms, shutting out thought.

*

In the darkness, in the deepest shadows of the cavernous room, Terence crouches, as silent and unmoving as the sculptures surrounding him. His face is hot with rage. He feels sick with betrayal.

How could Maria do this? It is against everything they had ever agreed on, against what others like them, except even older and wiser, have told them is wrong. It is akin to what the humans thought of as murder: an ultimate crime.

But Terence knows he has never been part of the morality police. The fact this is wrong among their kind isn’t what really bothers him. It’s the betrayal! He feels abandoned, like a child who suddenly realizes he is not his mother’s favorite.

He bites down on his lower lip so hard he breaks the skin and tastes blood. Blood that is not his own. A memory from just hours ago comes back to him.

“Hi. Where are you off to?”

“I’m on my way home from school.” She eyes him warily and he can see the tiny war going on inside her: the attraction of a young woman tempered by the fear of a little girl. It is up to him to see that the woman takes the upper hand. He knows from experience this is not difficult work.

“What’s your hurry? Why don’t you stop and talk with me a little.” He smiles. “I’m Terence.”

She looks up at him from behind a curtain of dark hair, blue eyes peering out from under a black fringe. There is a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Her lips are full. She is not yet beautiful, but she will be. Or would be, Terence thinks.

He licks the blood away from his lip now and remembers how he convinced her to take a ride on his bike, her schoolmates playing ally to him because she wanted to impress them, roaring off with this stunning older man in front of them all.

Her blood, inside him, is still warm. He had savored her, keeping her chained in the basement, feeding slowly from her over the past forty-eight hours, watching her weaken, until finally she was drained and her young life winked out. For two days, he luxuriated in her terror, watching her lose her mind with fear and revulsion as he ate her.

The lives of these monsters weren’t always as romantic and glamorous as Maria portrayed it to Elise.

It isn’t so much Maria’s misrepresentation that angers him; it’s the fact she is being so duplicitously selective in what she tells her…her…
beloved
. How dare she! How dare she leave out the most important part of what Elise might lose should she become one of them?

Terence leaves the room like a chill, hardly discernible. He knows one thing, and this is what enrages him most: he wants Elise for himself.

*

“So, you’ll be with me?” Maria searches Elise’s eyes for verification.

Elise can see, again, how tentative she is, and it charms her. She sees the hope and the fear. It makes her feel that this is a person with feelings, not some horror-movie monster. She nods. “Yes. I think it would make me happy.” Elise pauses. “But what about Terence? What about Edward? Will they be okay with this?” She stops to think for a moment. “Will they even be with us, or will we go off on our own?” Elise realizes it’s this last option she really wants. She doesn’t know until she utters her question, but the idea of being with Maria alone is perfection; being with two men in addition would take a different kind of adjustment. It’s such a huge change; anything to make things simpler would make the transition that much easier. She pictures herself with Maria—a romantic notion—imagining the two of them in some crumbling villa in Greece, surrounded by olive trees and water so blue in the sun it is nearly blinding.

Maria reaches out and touches Elise’s cheek. “Terence and Edward will be with us. They are like family to me. No, they
are
my family. We’ve been together for so long, longer than you can imagine. I will make sure they are all right with the change. You won’t have anything to fear or worry about. In time, you’ll find them the most delightful of companions. Terence can be, well,
Terence
at times, a little vain, a little self-centered. But, deep down, he’s fiercely loyal and can be quite funny. Edward will love having you join us, I’m certain. You have so much in common.” Maria looks away when she says this last part, and the fire behind her casts flickering light and shadow on her face. It cackles, and sparks shower out of the hearth as wood collapses and dies.

Neither of them says anything for a while. Elise notices the chill in the room and realizes the fire must be the only source of warmth. Maria doesn’t look at her for a long time; it’s almost as if she’s forgotten Elise is there. But Elise watches as something dark and inexplicable crosses over her features; there’s an internal dialogue going on. Maria’s eyebrows knit together. She frowns.

Elise begins to grow afraid. She senses something awful is coming up. It’s strange for Elise to shift from elation to dread so quickly, like a sunny day when a northern wind blows in, causing the temperature to drop twenty degrees. Elise feels like that now; she watches as storm clouds gather on the horizon. She’s tempted to ask Maria not to go on, that whatever she wants to say, Elise can live without knowing. But she isn’t that strong. Or that weak. She simply leans back on her elbows and waits.

Finally, Maria turns to her. She takes in a deep breath and her gaze is already beseeching.

Elise steels herself.

Maria waits for a moment longer, then says what she must. “There is one more thing I haven’t yet told you. And I wish I could say it’s a small thing, but it definitely is not.” Maria slides closer to Elise, so their bodies are touching. “It wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t tell you.”

Elise can stand the suspense no longer. “What is it?” she hisses, sorry for the note of annoyance and impatience that marks her words. She’s afraid of what’s coming next. It seems as though nothing can ever work out for her. She almost laughs, thinking,
not even becoming one of the undead
.

Maria breathes in deep. “When you cross over…” She stops, then starts again. “When you become one of us, things within you might change. You will still be yourself, of course, but your perception will be altered. There will be profound emotional differences; you’ll see the world in a new way.”

Elise blows out a sigh of relief. She is excited about this new development, this prospect. Sharpened perception? Seeing the world in a different way? What could be more exciting for a creative person? She understands Maria’s concern, but this could be a very good thing. She smiles. “That might be good, you know. It could help my art.” She smiles. “Sharpened senses never did an artist any harm.” She expects Maria to smile back at her. When she doesn’t, Elise shivers.

Maria stares down at the floor. Her lips flatten into a thin line, then become lush again as she lets out a rush of air. “And—I have to tell you this—I’m so sorry.” She shakes her head. “But I’m afraid the truth is: it
could
harm your art. When perception changes, so does everything else. You’re right, it could be a boon to what you create. But it could also take away your artistic sensibilities, your creative ‘bent’ if you will. That’s your choice. It’s a risk. But what isn’t a risk is my love for you.”

Elise bites her lip. Panic rises up, a scaly creature scurrying along her spine. “So you’re saying this change could make it harder for me to create? That, essentially, there’s a risk I could lose my abilities? That I might no longer be able to paint or draw?”

Maria swallows; her hands tremble. “There are few vampire artists. Your perceptions will be more acute, I promise you, especially with our herb, but their expression will more likely be in the form of the hunt, rather than on paper or canvas.”

Elise turns away, bile rising. She pulls at her hair, hard enough to detach some of it, and cries out in a strangled wail. A vision comes to her with all the clarity of a movie: Black night, deeper than any black on her palette. Alone, she wanders the streets south of the Art Institute, streets abandoned, punctuated only by the sounds of the wind and the occasional el train, rumbling. Her face is smeared with blood, and she beats on the doors of the Art Institute, begging for admission. But no one hears except the stone lions guarding the place. Miraculously, they turn their leonine heads to mock her.

Elise struggles to her feet and dashes from the house, salt tears stinging.

*

Elise can’t stomach the thought of public transportation. The bright lights and the crowds are a horror. She pauses briefly on the front porch, vision blurred by tears, the house an oppressive presence at her back. The structure feels more like something organic, something lurking behind her, waiting to pounce. Elise eyes it warily out of the corner of her eye, moving only an inch at a time toward the steps, fearful if she moves too fast, she will be caught up in its clutches.

Silly.

What to do? How do I get myself home so I can crawl in my own little hole?

The house seems to move closer as she moves further away. She hastens her pace and trips as she comes down the steps, tumbling forward, and skins her elbow. The pain stings but it’s welcome; it reminds her she’s human, letting her know she can feel. She looks down at the swatch of black on her arm, the smear of blood. It always comes down to blood.

The traffic swarms by on Sheridan Road, a line of busy bright lights, like the eyes of insects. The air has turned even colder; Elise sees her breath emerging in blue-gray plumes as she runs, a madwoman, up Sheridan Road. She turns west, away from the lake, and heads toward Kenmore. The wind pushes her along, a cold hand at her back.

Kenmore is a good route for traveling north. There isn’t as much traffic, and at this late hour, not much of anyone is around.

She glances down at her watch and sees that it’s just past 2:00 a.m. Where did the time go so quickly? Had she really been inside with Maria for hours? The pot clouding her brain lingers, making Elise wish she could somehow force its soporific and confusing effects out of her bloodstream and nervous system. She needs to be clear.

It’s not until she gets past Loyola University, and has been walking for nearly a half hour, that she notices someone is following her. She had crossed Sheridan as it headed west, then cut through the Loyola campus, bringing her out again on Sheridan. She had crossed Sheridan and headed over to Greenview. It was on Greenview, heading north again, she first noticed the footsteps.