Blood Rites Read Online Free PDF

in the bodice, cut in a deep V in the front with a woven leather belt that gave it a medieval touch. She put on her leather sandals and stared at herself in the mirror.
    Tonight she would feed on some unknowing mortal, would steal his blood, leaving him with scarcely a memory. She could understand this, even accept it, if her change had been more dramatic. But outwardly she was still Helen Wells, still nineteen, shy and pathetically nervous. She bit the back of her hand in the fleshy part between thumb and forefinger and her pain was rewarded with only an indentation that quickly vanished. Yesterday, Elizabeth had offered to pull four molars so that the long sharp fangs would grow in their place. Helen had declined the half-serious offer. She didn’t want any outward changes, at least not yet.
    She looked at her palm, noticing that the skin that had formed over the blisters was paler than the rest of her hand. Would every wound make her less human? Something in that thought troubled her, and as had become her habit, she gripped the black crystal pendant on the chain around her neck. Its power was beyond anything she’d experienced in the pale blue stone her grandmother had given her a few months—a lifetime—ago. That had been part of a family window. This was part of the family itself—Charles Austra’s ashes a tie to its past, its tragedies, its glory. And the tip, she noticed, had been made conveniently sharp.

    III

    They walked down the mountain on a narrow path leading around the glass house, the AustraGlass corporate building, the Colony where most of the workers lived. They continued taking a winding path through the trees to the isolated Portuguese mountain town of Chaves.
    They did not speak as Stephen led her through narrowing streets, finally stepping down a flight of stairs into a small, crudely stuccoed café lit only by bare candles on each rough wooden table. Stephen exchanged some words in Romany with the swarthy barkeeper who took them to a seat against the back wall.
    “This is as close to an Andalusian cave as you will find in all of Portugal,” Stephen said, paying a barefoot girl of not more than ten who carried over a tray containing a carafe of water, a small bottle of wine, stone mugs, and a plate of coarse wheat bread and cheese.
    Helen watched her leave, then commented sadly on her poverty. “They live as they choose,” Stephen replied. “Her father owns this café. Later he will play the violin and you will know he could possess whatever he desired.”
    “And he desires this?”
    “His family has food, shelter, and centuries of tradition. If you gave them one of our snug comfortable houses, they would break the windows to let in the air. They are as different from the complacent Spaniards in the houses around us as we are. Feel his emotions as he plays, sense the music in his soul, his ties to his family and his land.”
    “Of course,” Helen replied, puzzled at Stephen’s vehemence.
    Vocal conversation ended as the gypsy began to play. He walked through the tables, gripping his violin with gnarled fingers that seemed to have curved to accommodate the violin’s neck, the tips narrowed and callused by the strings.
    Stephen poured her wine, and as she sipped it, the warmth filled her. For the first time tonight, she relaxed, and let Stephen help her weave her thoughts with the old musician’s and glimpse the source of his music—his old loves, his travels, his family, his beliefs.
    As Helen sat, lost in the magnificence of the songs, desire began to grow. Not for the old man but for the emotions that gave his music its life. The hunger grew with it. She fought it back but it surfaced just long enough for the gypsy to sense it, miss a note, and pause, staring at her, caught by her eyes. She nodded and he walked slowly to her and, leaning against an empty neighboring table, played a soft Andalusian love song.
    When he’d finished, he whispered something to her in Portuguese. She