Blood Sacrifice (19 page)
To seduce? To entrance?
The two turned toward Edward. Terence smiled. The boy’s features betrayed nothing, only a kind of resignation.
He led the boy across the bar until they were in front of Edward. The boy suddenly seemed larger, heavier, as if viewing him from a distance had made him somehow a vision. Edward could see that his clothes were grimy and his dark hair, which had seemed so shiny, was really slick with grease. Why, he was nothing but a street waif!
“Shall we go?”
Edward closed his eyes and bit the inside of his lips.
Powerless,
he thought as he stood up, and took the boy’s other arm to guide him from the bar.
*
Edward swallowed, taking a drag off his cigarette, watching its tip glow orange in the darkness. His throat was burning and the little tar, nicotine, and tobacco-wrapped paper parcel tasted horrible: scorching and sour. His nose was clogged with thick mucous from the ingestion of a prodigious amount of cocaine, so clogged, in fact, he couldn’t exhale through his nostrils. He sat on the hard wooden floor of his apartment; outside the sky was lightening, its gray fingers grabbing onto his windowsill and hoisting themselves into his squalid room. The orchestra of car horn, exhaust, street vendors, and footsteps was tuning up, building to a crescendo that would not cease until the wee hours.
His head felt like it had been placed into a vise that an outside force was turning slowly, tightening, tightening.
Edward turned his hand and looked down at the smoldering cigarette between his fingertips. Even though he had long ago passed the stage where he got any enjoyment from them, he kept lighting cigarettes one after another. They helped mask the taste that was underneath. He wanted to eradicate that taste, but it seemed no amount of smoke could burn it away.
The taste was an undercurrent, hinted at, yet powerful: a sharp, metallic tang.
Blood.
Edward closed his eyes, and red swam on the inside of his eyelids. He blinked his eyes open, and winced.
The remainder of the night with Terence had gone pretty much as he might have predicted, if he’d had the wits to predict anything, but his head was so fogged by scotch, cocaine, and lust he could barely predict where his foot would go next as the three men climbed the stairs to his apartment. In his dulled mental state, he had become a canvas Terence could stretch at his will, paint on at his whim, making Edward his own personal creation. Whether the result was art or not was difficult to say.
The boy, whose name was Ned, had been eager for the substances Terence offered, snorting lines of cocaine carefully laid out by Terence across Edward’s belly, drinking single malt Scotch in gulps straight from the bottle. Ned didn’t say much and his giggled responses spoke of someone who didn’t have many brain cells left. He was a desperate boy, living off men who exploited him.
Edward might have felt sorry for him and called an end to the escalating debauchery if he had been clear-headed, if he could have seen into the future and known for certain there was no sexual liaison waiting for him with Terence.
But, like the boy, Edward followed obediently as Terence called out instructions for the two. They were like models, creating tableaux for their rich benefactor’s pleasure. They became creations ripped from the imagination of the Marquis de Sade. Here was Edward mounting the boy dry, trying to shut out the boy’s whimpers beneath him as Terence clapped and laughed. Terence and Edward held each other’s gazes while Edward’s hips moved rhythmically, thrusting into the boy, never approaching anything remotely like a climax. There was Ned, on his knees before Edward, endlessly tonguing him with a kind of detached boredom. Finally, Edward exploded down the boy’s throat, but only after Terence had dropped his black pants, exposing himself.
But all of the sex was a pastoral scene painted by Monet compared to what followed.
“Have you ever tasted blood?” Terence leveled his gaze upon Edward, who was lying across the boy’s lap. Ned was leaning against the wall, legs splayed out in front of him, head tipped forward, and snoring.
Edward turned his head and looked at Terence dully, a disbelieving smile slowly making its way across his face. “What do you mean?” Edward closed his eyes in an attempt to stop the room from spinning. “Yeah. I guess so. When I’ve cut myself and I suck on my finger or whatever.”
Terence reached out and tousled Edward’s hair. “No, I mean have you ever actually tasted the blood of someone else? Have you ever felt the hot rush, the pump from vein into your mouth?”
Edward smiled dully. “You’re kidding, right? What are you tryin’ to say here, Terry?”
Terence said nothing for a moment, letting the nickname emerge and die in the air like a bad smell.
“What I’m trying to say is that I would like to introduce you to a whole new world of pleasure. What I’m
trying
to tell you is that there are realms of delight out there you haven’t even imagined, places I can take you that make pleasures like sex and drugs pale in comparison; pleasures that make those things seem pedestrian. And these pleasures can all be found in the hot, scarlet life of blood. Human blood.”
Edward blew out a sigh. “You’re sick, man.”
Terence lifted Edward off the boy’s lap and held him close. He whispered in his ear, “You want to be close to me? You want to share the ultimate in intimacy with me? Then you need to follow my lead.”
Edward watched as Terence laid the boy gently across the mattress on the floor. His lithe form and pale skin seemed almost neon in the darkness, a separate form rising up out of the mess of sheets and exposed striped mattress ticking. Edward wanted to concentrate on the alabaster form, how the skin, sweat-slicked, looked like stone. He didn’t want to think about what was coming. He tried to concentrate on the simple beauty of the prone boy, trying to ignore the pounding of his heart, the quickening of his breath, and the yammering in his brain—the one he had heard so many times when Terence was around—to flee.
“Let’s make this interesting.” Terence stood and began shedding his clothes, piece by piece, making a circle around Edward’s small apartment, dropping a silk shirt here, black twill there, a sock in the sink, another on top of the radiator.
Edward stared at Terence, mouth open, breathing hard. His body was flawless, like Michelangelo’s
David
, only better endowed. Terence was simply the most beautiful man (or should that be creature?) Edward had ever seen, and his beauty was like a shock to his system. He could scarcely move. He could scarcely breathe.
Terence squatted down beside Edward and Edward gazed dully into his dark eyes. He felt helpless, knowing every move Terence made was part of his seduction and he wasn’t even resisting enough to make the game interesting. Limply, he let Terence undress him, the long fingers moving expertly over his body, unzipping, unbuttoning, tugging, and pulling until Edward lay bare before him. “Kiss me,” he mumbled weakly, sounding desperate and hungry (which he was).
And Terence complied, giving him a deep, probing kiss that seemed to go on for hours, pressing his cool, smooth skin against Edward’s fevered flesh, sweaty and sour from all he had ingested during this night of “celebration.” Terence spread himself out on top of Edward, pressing him back against the gritty wooden floor. Edward maintained an erection, which was a particularly Herculean feat, considering the vast quantities of Scotch and cocaine he had ingested. He moved his legs apart, scissoring Terence between them and urging him further.
Terence sat up and shook his head, wagging a finger. “Now, now, my sweet. Don’t try to push for a greater advantage than I can give you. When I said we could be intimate, I didn’t mean in such a base way. I have better ways of penetrating you, my lad. You’ll see.” Terence stood and crossed the room to fumble in one of his pants pockets. He returned with the familiar-looking pipe and his sterling silver lighter, glinting from the moonbeams coming in through Edward’s window.
Edward propped himself up on his elbows and sighed. “I don’t know if I can take any more tonight. My head is already spinning.” Edward still wasn’t sure if that particular effect was due to the drugs or to Terence’s proximity and nakedness.
Terence fired up the bowl and drew in deeply. Holding in the smoke, he held the pipe out to Edward and croaked, “Take it. It will calm you and make everything…” Terence’s voice trailed off as he blew a plume of blue smoke into the air, perfuming it with the pungent aroma of cannabis. “It will make everything
sacred
, in a way.”
Edward rolled his eyes, but didn’t call Terence on the hyperbole. Like a pupil, or a slave, he took the bowl from Terence and drew in, imagining the smoke rolling deep into his lungs, drawing in deeper than he ever had before and resisting the urge to sputter, to choke—and waste the smoke. He knew how powerful this was, and he craved the oblivion it would bring.
Edward was numb. Terence stood and moved to the boy. “Now I’m going to show you. Now I’m going to share with you a way to elevate yourself above the world you have known until this night.” Terence put his hand beneath the boy’s neck. The boy stirred slightly at his touch, murmuring something. But he did not wake.
Terence held the boy’s head tenderly, gazing down at him.
And then he turned back to look at Edward.
In spite of the pot, in spite of the dulling of his senses, in spite of this weird love he felt for this creature, Edward felt an electric jolt of terror go through him, singing along his synapses, making it impossible for him to hold in the shriek.
When Terence looked back and opened his mouth to smile, he revealed not the teeth Edward had grown accustomed to seeing, but rows of tiny fangs.
Edward gibbered, giggled with horror as Terence growled and then tore into the soft flesh of the boy’s throat, ripping his skin and unleashing a flood of black liquid that—in the darkness—looked like oil, a liquid quickly staunched by Terence’s hungry, sucking mouth. Terence made small noises of pleasure and contentment as he took in the blood that pumped in slower and slower ebbs from the boy’s dying heart.
Edward grew silent with shock.
Terence rent the flesh from the boy’s neck and his face, gobbling it, exposing the sinew beneath, the muscles that had made the boy smile, laugh, and swallow. The attack was so sudden the boy didn’t even have a chance to scream. A scream would have made the whole scene a little more real; the silence lent an even more disturbing edge. But quick, Edward supposed, was better.
Merciful,
Edward thought.
And then Terence, his face smeared with darkness, moved back to Edward, who lay frozen as Terence came closer. As he lowered his face closer and closer to Edward’s, Edward could do nothing but lie still, a stunned animal.
The kiss that followed was savage, deep, and possessed of a depth and intensity of feeling Edward had never known. He felt he had gone somewhere else. He felt he had died. Terence let the boy’s blood flow into Edward’s open mouth. It was hot, tangy with metal, and mixed with Terence’s saliva, a potent drug.
Edward was lost. The taste of the blood awakened something in him, something beyond love, beyond his understanding. So he didn’t resist when Terence urged him wordlessly toward the boy, guiding his head to the open wounds.
And Edward supped, hungrily drawing in the blood of a dead boy, hungrily taking the life Terence offered.
It wasn’t until after the pair had nearly drained the boy of blood that Terence bit Edward, digging his fangs into the tender flesh of his inner thigh. He filled his mouth with Edward’s own blood and then transferred it into Edward’s hungry mouth, causing Edward to orgasm so powerfully he shuddered, banging his head on the wooden floor, eyes rolled back.
When he opened his eyes and looked up at Terence, he saw with an eerie clarity. It seemed lighter in the room and everything had a sharpness to it, as if he had only seen the world through a gauze caul before this.
Terence kissed his neck gently. “There. Now you’re one of us.”
*
That was all Edward remembered. He did not recall what happened to the boy’s corpse or when Terence took his leave. He knew only that when night fell again, Terence would return for him and nothing would ever be the same.
Perhaps, Edward thought, if he had not blacked out, the course of history might have been altered and the boy would be alive and Edward would not be something that needed to crawl beneath a blood-stained mattress to avoid the nauseating rays of the sun.
Edward curled into a fetal ball beneath his mattress and slept. Finally slept.
2004
Elise can’t stop screaming, her shrieks ebbing away by degrees as she stares, wide-eyed, at the person who has followed her.
And realizes she knows him.
It’s Edward. He grips her arms in his hands, eyes beseeching. “Please,” he whispers. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to talk to you.”
Elise stares at him, heart still thudding. She notices the way he looks away when he promises not to hurt her, staring down at the sidewalk, over to the parked cars on the street, anywhere but into her eyes. Is he lying? Is that why he cannot meet her gaze? Does that mean, when he says he doesn’t want to hurt her, that he means the exact opposite? Elise doesn’t know what to do, and the confusion is so intense, it makes her nauseous. She wants to turn and run. She shrugs out of his grasp and turns her back on him, thinking as she does that it’s a stupid move. If he does want to hurt her, turning away from him will make her perfectly vulnerable.
She breathes in deep, trying to slow the pounding of her heart, trying to prevent the hyperventilation that feels imminent, that horrible sensation where the air disappears. It takes her several moments to calm down. She is certain she was going to be harmed…or murdered. She has read about such things in the
Tribune
, and heard the same stories, usually repeated in more graphic details, on the streets each night. But slowly, instinctively, she holds on to what she felt the first time she met Edward. He is a lost soul, like her. And her instinct, and her empathy, tell her she is in no danger.
She turns back to him, regard wary. He is smiling, supplicating. This is the quiet one, the one who stays in the background, never offering much. Elise has exchanged glances with him, little more, but has always felt he had more to say to her. Her mother had always told her, half jokingly, “It’s the quiet ones you have to watch out for.”
“What do you want to talk to me about? It’s almost dawn, and I have to be getting home.” Elise feels she will cry, yet—even though there are many reasons for tears—she isn’t sure she can pinpoint even one of those reasons. Her vague confusion finds little comfort from Edward’s gentle stance, his warm gaze, and his smile, all of which should reassure her that he has only her best interests in mind.
“There are some things you should know.”
“Like what?” Even though the fear is beginning to ebb, her heart is still thudding, and the sweat on her skin feels cold in the night air.
“Things about me. Things that could be about you.”
Elise doesn’t know what to say.
“Listen, could we walk over to the lake? I just need to talk to you for a few minutes.”
Elise shivers, in part at the prospect of being on the lakefront, where the air will be even colder, chilled by the wind racing across Lake Michigan, but more by the chance that Edward is lying. A stroll by the lake could be just perfect: quiet and—at this odd time just between night and dawn—empty. Empty enough so her quick startled scream will not be witnessed, will not be heard by someone foolish enough to try and come to her aid. She searches his face for some sign that might inform her, that might reveal whether his intentions are benign or evil, and sees only a little man who appears to be about the same age as she, whose dark eyes are filled with a kind of sadness and caring. She knows these things might all be part of the mask, a trap carefully laid to catch the unwary and the sympathetic (like her, just like her). And yet, at the same time, she wonders what he could possibly have to tell her. Does it have anything to do with the weird proposal she had tonight from Maria?
In an odd way, she trusts all of them. They could have easily have killed her several times over already.
“I see you hesitate.” Edward smiles. “I can’t blame you. But I promise you I won’t harm you.” Again, Elise doesn’t like it that he looks away from her when he mentions harming her. It could be just a coincidence, but maybe not. (She has a quick flash of herself as a little girl and how her mother could always get the truth from her by pointing at her own eyes, and insisting, “Look right here,” whenever she thought Elise might not be telling the truth.) Edward is the only one of the trio she senses has a conscience. Even more than Maria, he seems still to have some humanity clinging to the monster he has become. He looks back up, and his gaze seems genuine, a true connection. Elise lets out a breath.
“There are some things I really need to tell you, things that have to do with what Maria asked you to do.”
Elise frowns. Is this little inbred family really so close? Is nothing a secret from the other two?
Edward picks up the reason behind Elise’s frown and admits, “Yes, I was listening. So was Terence. We never thought there would be a fourth among us.” And it’s here she sees his lips form a thin line, watches as his eyebrows move just a fraction of an inch closer together, but it’s enough, enough to see the idea of her joining them makes him angry. Almost as quickly, the look vanishes, replaced by a slight, cockeyed smile Elise is certain is meant to charm her. This quiet one’s thespian skills confuse and chill her.
“But I have no intention…” She stammers. The thought of a life with them doesn’t make sense to her. She hasn’t considered being part of some weird family, she only wants to be with Maria.
“I know. Neither did I. Maria can be very persuasive. You and I have a lot in common. Did you know that?” Edward cocks his head. “So, what do you say? Hear me out?”
Elise looks to the east; Lake Michigan is visible down the block. She won’t ask herself, “Where’s the harm?” because there could be many frightening answers to that question. She will go on faith. She needs to hear what Edward has to say. “All right. I’ll come with you. But only for a little while.”
Edward looks up at the sky; it’s still night, but there is a dullness to it that signals morning’s imminent arrival. “A little while is all I’ve got. C’mon, we’ll go sit on the rocks.”
They sit, the rocks cold and real beneath them. Elise thinks the rocks are about the only real thing about this whole scenario. She turns to look at Edward’s pale profile in the darkness and tries to keep an open mind as he begins to talk.
“They found me in much the same way they found you: a creator, but someone who was lost, whose only connection to the world were the images that we can create with our hands and our minds.” Edward smiles at her. “Like you, I was swept up in their strange beauty and their passion for art. Like you, I feel deeply in love with one of them.” Edward sighs. “Terence cast a spell on me and it’s yet to break.” He puts a gentle hand on her shoulder; Elise thinks it feels like marble. “Unlike you, my dear, I was on the cusp of success. I was on the verge of getting serious recognition for my work.” He smiles. “Not that your work isn’t ready for such recognition, but a very influential gallery in Soho wanted to do a show of my work. They were very excited about it.” Edward covers his face with his hands and when he brings them away, Elise sees a tortured mask: a face contorted with grief and loss. “I gave that up. I gave that up not so much for immortal life—whatever that’s worth—but for a chance at love.” He lets out a bitter chuckle. “Love for someone who doesn’t even love me back. Love for someone who probably never loved anyone other than himself his whole long existence.”
Elise hides her own face behind her hands. She wants to cry. She wants to be sick. She wants to envelop Edward in her arms and make the pain he has suffered go away. She wants to turn back time so he has the chance to undo his error. “So you lost your art? You lost your ability to create?”
Edward nodded. “Coming over to them took it away.” Edward stares out at the dark water, eyes shining, lips quivering, until, finally, he breathes in deeply and turns to meet her gaze. “After…I could see better. I could see through the darkness and everything was more alive. There was an aura around people. All that would seem like riches for an artist, but after I crossed over, I couldn’t paint anymore. The inspiration and that indefinable need to create just…died. As I did.”
Edward seems lost in thought as he considers the churning dark water before him. He touches Elise’s face and his eyes shine in the darkness. “Keep your art. That’s what I want to warn you about, Elise. Don’t be like me. I was an artist, and I would gladly give up this hideous, perverse youth to have back just one night of feeling filled with the fire, the need to create, to get lost in the act.”
Elise knows exactly what he means.
“You need to get away from them, from us, before it’s too late. I’d like to tell you that I’m not a monster, but I am. Just because I can feel regret and can still weep doesn’t make that any less true.
Keep your art.
Don’t become a monster…paint them instead. Get away. It’s simpler than it seems. But you have to go far away; you have to hide.”
“You mean you—they—might harm me?” Elise breathes more quickly and hugs herself. Now, she sees the position she’s put herself in without even trying: to join them, to spend her life hiding from them, fearful of every night-borne noise, every pale stranger, or to hold her ground and be dead within a few days…or even hours.
“Yes. You must not trust us, not even me.” Edward leans forward, his arms outstretched, and Elise whimpers and falls into them. He draws her close and the two stay that way for several moments. Elise feels him shift and feels the cool touch of his lips on her throat.
Sitting up, she pulls away from him, seeks out his eyes, and muffles a scream. His teeth have become a row of tiny, pearlescent fangs. But here’s the strange thing: Edward looks more shocked and frightened than she. And here’s what’s even stranger: when he realizes she sees, the fangs morph into normal teeth, so fast Elise wonders if she has really seen such a thing at all. It would make sense with all the stress of the past few hours she could hallucinate something as terrifying as what she just saw. Or did she? Perhaps that heavy, powerful marijuana they were always forcing on her had something to do with her vision.
Whatever the reason, she no longer wants to be near him. She stands on shaky legs and looks down at him, mouth open to say something, but no words emerge.
Edward says nothing more; there is a line of gray light along the horizon, capping the blackish, churning waters. “I have to go, before it’s too late.” He looks out at the rapidly lightening horizon. “Although maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.”
Elise turns her head to run her hand across the rough gray surface of the boulder upon which she sits. When she turns back to Edward to thank him, he’s gone, as if he had never been there in the first place.
And maybe he hadn’t.
Wearily, Elise stands. The sky is now purple, bruised-looking, and flecked with orange. She must find her way back.