Blood Sacrifice Read Online Free PDF Page A

what someone like him is doing in her part of town. She draws in hard on the cigarette, cheeks collapsing. Thin tusks of blue gray smoke rise. She burns.
    “Hot tonight.” Terence smiles and looks around him, as if for the source of the heat.
    The whore smiles, shakes her head. “You gotta do better than that for an opening line.” She laughs. “Ah, but the way you look, what do you need lines for?” She cocks her head, suddenly the coquette.
    “Flatterer.” Terence touches the whore’s bare shoulder.
    She flinches, shrugging his hand away. “Baby, you’re cold. How’d you manage that?”
    Terence thinks for a moment. “Just got out of air conditioning.”
    The whore looks around, trying to locate the building from which Terence has emerged.
    More conversation. Cheap words mouthed to get to the real purpose. Finally, the whore cuts short the compliments and inanities about the weather and cuts to the chase, not knowing that the chase began a while back.
    “What do you get into?” Her eyes flicker, moving down Terence’s body like liquid. Her voice has a broad, Midwestern twang: flat A’s, sharp and nasal.
    “There are three of us.”
    “Group scene.” The whore nods. “Been there. There’s no group rate, though. It’ll cost each of you the same as if you came to me individually.”
    “So that’s all right with you?”
    “Anything’s all right, so long as it’s worth my while.” She takes one more drag off the cigarette, drops it to the pavement, and grinds it under her toe. “I assume you got a place. Otherwise, it’s extra. There’s a motel on Sheridan.”
    “No need for that. We have a car nearby. Come with us?”
    “What kinda car?”
    “A black Mercedes.”
    Eyes light up. “Let’s go.”
    The Mercedes idles at a corner, just steps away from Lake Michigan. It’s quieter here, away from the bustle of Howard Street. Once in a while, someone strolls down to the lakefront, or a figure passes across a lighted window. Otherwise, here so close to the lake, it’s deserted.
    “Shit! Why you wanna make me walk so far in these shoes? Couldn’t you have had one of your friends come and pick us up? Jesus, don’t you have a cell?” The whore bends down and pulls off the black spike heels and grips them angrily in one hand, continuing in a tight little barefoot canter. “You’re gonna have to give me some money for new hose.”
    “Sorry,” Terence says, not bothering to explain, but there is a reason: Maria always plans ahead; she’s cautious. The car will be close to the lake, away from the bright lights and bustle. This way, there will be fewer witnesses. Even whores, sometimes, have friends. There have been times when they had taken the wrong person. There was trouble, and they had to flee. Terence and Maria have lived all over the world, nomads with the stench of death following them, too cunning to be caught, but unable to stay—and feed—in one place for too long.
    “Not to worry, my dear. Our vehicle is just ahead.” Terence nods at the Mercedes, black, shimmering, and reflecting the moon. There’s a low hum, the song of solid German engineering. The windows are black.
    “Nice car.” She giggles, running a red fingernail across the trunk.
    Terence opens the back door for her. She slides in; Terence follows, closing the door behind them with a muffled
thunk
.
    The whore settles in, grinning and leaning back into the leather. It takes her a second to notice Maria in the front seat. “Ah,” she says, “we got a lady here.”
    Maria turns. “I hope that’s not a problem.”
    “Problem? Honey, it’s a bonus.” The whore smiles at Maria, engaging her with her eyes. She tries to keep their gazes locked. Maybe that way, Maria won’t notice the crooked teeth and the slash across her right cheek, the smooth white scar.
    “This is Maria.”
    The whore offers her hand. Maria makes a kissing expression in its direction but does not touch it. “I’m very pleased.” Maria