Blood Sacrifice

by By Rick R. Reed

  Terence shakes his head. “Of course not. What kind of hypocrite would that make me? If you hadn’t gone against the rules, I wouldn’t be here. Edward wouldn’t be here. But, Maria, you have to understand, we can’t keep doing this. It has to end somewhere. And you know what will happen to her. You know. Think of Edward.”

  “She is all I can think about.” Love can be such a selfish emotion. One would think, in the hundreds of years Maria has walked the earth, she would have become immune to its siren call. But, in the face of the real thing, she is as helpless and dumb as any teenage girl.

  Terence sighs, pretending patience, or perhaps sympathy. “I thought it would always be just the three of us. Remember? When you made Edward—and what a mixed blessing that was—we decided our little trio, our family, would be the end of it. If we ever let anyone into our circle again, it could only be someone who was already one of us. We agreed, Maria. We agreed because it made sense. We made a pact for a reason.”

  “But—”

  “Take a look in Edward’s eyes!” Terence shouts, and his face reddens with the blood of the boy. “Never again. You said it, Maria.”

  “Never is a very long time.” Maria smiles. “We could use a change. We’ve gotten stale. Life is a bore. All the Harleys and whores in the world can’t change that. Elise can bring something new into our dynamic.” Even as she’s saying the words, she knows she is rationalizing, but that’s what lovers do to justify their ends. “And do we really know that Elise will be the same as Edward?”

  “You’re a fool.” Terence turns away. “A selfish fool.”

  Maria feels the anger growing inside, its flame leaping up, stirring up the calm. “Just because you’ve never loved anyone! Just because you’ve used your charms to lure and seduce only to get what you want and then to kill! Don’t be self-righteous with me. I love her. What’s wrong with that? Why can’t I have her? Why can’t I have someone who loves only me?”

  Terence scoffs. “Love? What a concept.”

  “Just because you don’t understand…”

  Terence cuts her off. “I understand love. It’s what I feel for you, for Edward. It’s not what you feel for Elise. If you truly loved her, you’d want to take nothing more than some examples of her art. Real love isn’t selfish. Real love is about doing what’s best for the object of your affection.”

  “That’s shit. Don’t you, of all people, preach to me about love.” Maria casts her eyes downward; she can’t help the sinking, defeated feeling inside: he is right. And yet, she wants Elise so much. “It’s shit, pure and unadulterated.”

  “No, it isn’t, and you know it. And you know why.”

  This stops Maria, and she lowers her head in shame. “Isn’t it time for you to go somewhere?”

  “Don’t avoid the issue, Maria. If you bring Elise over to us and make her one of us, you know what it will do to her.”

  “What it will do is make her happy! At one with the person she loves most!” Maria cries.

  Terence hisses. “Happy? That’s a good one, coming from you. Shall I call Edward? Ask him about happiness?”

  The pain in her head comes back, stabbing. She doesn’t want to hear this. In fact, she wants to claw Terence’s face, make him hurt. “We don’t know that. Just because she’ll have a different perspective as one of us doesn’t necessarily mean anything. The trade would be worth it, Terence. Eternal life.”

  “You’re pathetic. How can you say you love her?” Terence turns away, heading for the door. Over his shoulder: “There’s really nothing more to discuss here, Maria. We have to do something about your little artist friend. We do…or I will.”

  Maria shivers, a sensation she hasn’t had in a very long time. “She’s coming back to us. Soon.”

  “Good!” Terence shouts over his shoulder. “Maybe then we can get what we really should have from her, for our collection, and we can end this nonsense.”

  “How can we end it? She knows! She knows!”

  Terence waves her words away with his hand. “Goodbye, Maria. Poor thoughtless, love-struck Maria. It’s almost quaint.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  1954

  After a spate of gray days, energy-sapping humidity, and showers that seemed too lazy to do anything more than produce a half-hearted mist, New York was alive again. A northeasterly wind had blown over the city, clearing away the depressing weather with a few gusts. It was now one of those perfect autumn days, when the sky was a blue of such brilliant intensity it almost hurt to look at, the color so intense it seemed the birds flying through it would be stained. The few clouds above were of the fluffy, cotton-ball variety, cumulus to inspire the imagination, to make one a child again. Here a dragon, there a reclining nude woman, a la Rubens. The temperature was in the upper 60s, hot in the sun and with just a nip when one walked beneath the shadow of a building or tree.

  It was the kind of day that inspired people to play hooky. It was the kind of day that made even the most mournful, the most misanthropic, yearn to get outside.

  It was the kind of day that perfectly suited Edward’s mood, as he strode across Washington Square, toward home after his meeting at Anima/Animus gallery. Only yesterday, New York had seemed grim, a prison with the only escape route, suicide. Today, Edward recalled why he had come here in the first place. People on the street yesterday had seemed nothing more than shuffling zombies, all of them plagued with various maladies ranging from acne to obesity to shiftiness and beyond; today, they were now unburdened by their problems. The light made everyone beautiful. If he could, Edward would have whistled.

  The city was vibrant. Alive.

  He sat on a bench in the square. Pigeons immediately rushed over, expecting something. Yesterday Edward would have shooed them away, alarmed at their filth; now he felt disappointed he had nothing to give them.

  He lit a cigarette and recalled the meeting.

  The staff at Anima/Animus Gallery had been more than hospitable. In fact, they, like Edward right now, had been jubilant when he stumbled into the gallery, sweaty and awkward, lugging his oversized canvases behind him. He felt nothing like an artist, but more like a sour-smelling deliveryman. He toyed with the idea of playing the part and just leaving, coming back when his face wasn’t shiny with sweat, in a shirt that wasn’t stained dark in the armpits. But that shiny face would still be the same, dry or sweat-slick. Now was the time.

  Olive Greene was sitting at the reception desk (more of a small glass-topped table, really). Her red hair was pulled once more into a tight French twist and today she wore a form-fitting black dress, patent leather stiletto heels, and sterling silver jewelry.

  Almost as if she were reading his thoughts, she called out, “You can just put those against the wall, young man. I’ll see to them in a minute.” She stood up from the desk, dug in the small, square black patent leather clutch on its surface, and crossed the glimmering hardwood, heels clicking. “For your trouble.” She held a dollar bill out to him.

  “Uh…I don’t think you understand. I’m…”

  “I know who you are, silly boy.”

  “Then why the charade?”

  Olive Greene put him at ease, somehow made him feel more confident. He snatched the dollar bill from her hand and put it in his pocket before she could close her mouth.

  She shook her head, “You artists are all alike. Money-grubbing, even as they deny it with their last, alcohol-perfumed breath.” She cocked her head. “I admire that.”

  Edward, grinning, reached in his pocket.

  “No, keep it.” Her gaze had moved to the canvases leaning against the wall.

  “Is he here?”

  “Who? Is that with a capital H? God?”

  Edward snorted, ran a hand across his damp forehead. “You know who I mean. Paul Gadzinski.”

  “Well, some think of him as God. Especially Mr. Gadzinski himself.”

  Edward didn’t need to hear he would be meeting with an egomaniac with an overly inflated view of himself. The fac
t Mr. Gadzinski thought of himself in divine terms wasn’t funny to Edward; it was intimidating. He didn’t like talking about himself, let alone selling himself, and his conversational and kiss-up skills had been honed to the sharpness of a dull pencil. He tried to smile at Olive, but it probably came out more a teeth-clenched grimace. “So, um, is he here or not?”

  Olive, obviously realizing Edward wasn’t going to attempt to join her in mirth, said, “Of course he’s here. You have an appointment.” She sighed and looked at her fingernails, which were lacquered black, something Edward had never seen before. “I can go fetch him. Why don’t you have a seat?” She pointed to a row of chrome seating, with back and seat cushions covered in red suede. He thought of the back of his soaked shirt. “That’s okay. I’ll just stand.”

  He watched as Olive walked through the gallery, heels clicking, and disappeared behind a door at the very back, with a frosted glass window that warned, “Private.” Now, Edward thought, now is the time to gracelessly bow out. I can slip out the door and be around the corner before either of them return. He continued to sweat, but now the perspiration wasn’t from heat or exertion. His mouth was dry. Would he even be able to speak? Go ahead, he allowed himself, go ahead and run. Let the paintings speak for themselves. If they like what they see, there’s no reason for me to even be here. The paintings would look no better or worse with his commentary. In fact, his stumbling, inarticulate ramblings could harm more than help.

  He was just inching toward the door when Olive’s mannish voice assailed him. “Halt! Stop right there! Where do you think you’re going, mister?”

  Edward tried to find some spit to swallow, but came up empty-mouthed. He froze, heat rising to his face. He turned, grinning, and groped for his cigarettes. In a barely audible voice, he said, “Just thought I’d duck out for a smoke while I waited.”

  There was a small man standing next to her. Paul Gadzinski was not what Edward expected. He expected someone with a goatee, dressed in beatnik clothes, wearing sunglasses, maybe. The ultimate in hipster cool, a complement to Olive Greene’s sophistication. Instead the man staring at him was unremarkable: slightly overweight with a bald pate ringed in the palest blond hair Edward had ever seen. His flesh was doughy and soft, and the only things that stood out on him physically were a pair of intense blue eyes, so pale they appeared almost translucent. He wore chinos and an Oxford cloth button-down white shirt. Wing tips. He looked like a Hoboken accountant on his day off.

  Edward’s tension level receded a bit.

  “Go ahead and indulge yourself, Mr. Tanguy. We’ll wait.” His voice was soft, slightly feminine. Edward wasn’t sure if he was being accommodating or acidly sarcastic.

  Edward shook his head. “No. It can wait.”

  He paused for a moment, struggling to slide the cigarette pack back into his pants pocket. He stared at Gadzinski with frightened eyes and tapped his foot. Then he realized what he should do: he crossed the short distance between them and extended his hand. “Edward Tanguy, sir. I’m honored to meet you.”

  Gadzinski placed an extraordinarily soft hand in Edward’s, barely returning the pressure. He removed that same hand and held it up, as if to stop him. “Please, I don’t need the flattery. I need good artists. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

  Edward was relieved the man felt no need for small talk. He crossed back, went over, and hoisted Number Six up.

  *

  Edward flicked the butt of his cigarette away and watched the pigeons scatter elsewhere in Washington Square, alighting at the feet of an old, purple nylon-scarf-wearing woman who even the pigeons could discern had a soft heart for the ornithological. The meeting he had just left, he supposed, could be called an unqualified success.

  When he had put the first painting down in front of Gadzinski, his hands were trembling so much the canvas wobbled. He drew in a great, quivering breath and grasped the wooden edges of the canvas framing tight enough to make his knuckles go bloodless. He kept his head low, in a defeated stance, ready to take the punishment and scorn that was surely on its way. He didn’t dare look at either Gadzinski or Greene. He couldn’t bear to see the distaste in their eyes, or worse, their pity.

  He grew even more concerned when no one said anything.

  A vein in his forehead began to throb; sweat trickled down his back. Unnerved by their silence, he finally forced himself to look up.

  Olive Greene was smirking. But that wasn’t so much of a worry; a smirk seemed to be the woman’s preferred expression. And besides, her opinion didn’t have the importance of Gadzinski’s.

  Gadzinski, however, looked transfixed, staring at the canvas, lips parted and eyes moving over its surface. Edward didn’t have the confidence to interpret this as a good sign. In fact, he read the intense look on the gallery owner’s face as shock. He had to be appalled Edward had summoned up the nerve to bring this crap into a gallery with an international reputation. Edward closed his eyes, trying to get some spit past the huge ball that had formed in his throat. He bit his lip until he tasted blood. The coppery trickle energized him and gave him the courage to speak. “You don’t like it, do you? I’m sorry…”

  He forced himself to make eye contact with Gadzinski; better to just get it over with. Then he could go home and reconsider his artistic ambitions.

  Gadzinski shook his head. “I think it’s brilliant. I think you have the talent, Mr. Tanguy, enough to wield major influence and take abstract expressionism to a new level.”

  As the praise started tumbling out of Gadzinski’s mouth, blood rushed in Edward’s ears, making it hard for him to hear. His face flushed. Surely, Gadzinski was teasing him; could the man be so cruel? Was he supposed to laugh and then gracefully accept the criticism that would follow this little act?

  “I’d be honored—” Gadzinski stopped. “Mr. Tanguy, look at me please.”

  Edward lifted his head, blinking and stared into the blue of the man’s eyes, waiting.

  Sometimes good news could be as stressful as bad.

  “I’d be honored to show your work. In fact, I’m revising my original plan—which was to have you show with several other artists—and am thinking of a solo exhibition. I think we need that, with all the requisite hoopla, as soon as possible.” He turned to his assistant and cocked his head. “Olive, check and see what we have available in the next couple of weeks. If there’s something less exciting than Mr. Tanguy’s work here,” Gadzinski rolled his eyes. “Which would include most of the work we plan on showing soon, bump it back to a later time.”

  “I’ll see what I can come up with.” Olive winked at Edward, smiled, and returned to her desk.

  Gadzinski said, “I assume you can be ready? Yes? You have more at home like these?”

  Edward whispered, “Yes. Are you sure?”

  “Oh, how I dread the day when your innocence and modesty dries up, which, I suspect, will be shortly.” Gadzinski smiled. “Leave the two paintings here and go home and get together eight more pieces of your best work. Olive can take care of having them transported over here. She’ll also be in touch about when…but it will be soon.”

  “Okay.” Edward wished he had something clever to say, or at least something to say. He turned, dazed and dizzy, and wandered toward the front of the space, needing the fresh air of the crisp autumn day outside, needing to foul it with a lungful of cigarette smoke. He was too shocked to be happy, too stunned to even say goodbye to Olive Greene.

  *

  Edward sat back on the bench and closed his eyes. It had happened more easily than he could have imagined. He was on his way.

  Chapter Seventeen

  2004

  Elise stands at their front door, wondering why she has come. She casts her eyes down; the wind off the lake at her back is cold. She shivers, thinks about turning around, and walking to the corner to wait for a bus to take her back.

  Take her back to what? A life of selling herself on the street? Depressed days in a little box with peeling paint, mouse turds,
and cockroaches? To making herself one with the inevitable, never mind that she has an intellect and can draw dark, warped pictures? Who cares about that? No, she’ll fall into the trap like all the rest: first it will be the hard drugs to escape (not stuff like marijuana, but crystal meth, cocaine, heroin, all easy to get in her little corner of the world), and then will come the health problems, the chlamydia unchecked, ruining what’s inside and what’s female. She will come to the point where HIV will make a nest for itself in her bloodstream. And with little money, little will to live, and contempt for doctors, she will not be one of the ones she’s read about, who find a miracle drug cocktail and go on living, only slightly inconvenienced. No, she’ll be like one of the gay boys in the 1980s, who wound up gasping for breath, reduced to skeletal wraiths covered in Kaposi’s sarcoma lesions. She could see it all before her.

  Suddenly, returning to the bus stop didn’t have quite the allure or the feel of common sense Elise thought it should. Why did it always seem, in the end, there was really no free will and that choice was just an illusion? Freedom, she thought, recalling Janis Joplin, is just another word for nothin’ left to lose.

  Still, she had promised herself she wouldn’t come back here, wouldn’t answer the siren call of a beautiful woman whose skin reminded her of milk and roses, and her hair of silk. She promised herself that life, in whatever form and no matter how bad, was preferable to the unending sorrow and isolation these creatures seemed to promise. What’s happened to her will, so defiant it caused her to cast away everything for the sake of art? How has she come to bend so easily to a pretty face, a graceful form, the promise of love?

  She swallows and raises her hand to knock. Drops it back down.

  It isn’t just the promise of love. It’s the reality of it. The pull of Maria has her in its grasp and it isn’t letting go.

  Surrender, Dorothy.

  The door, painted black, is alive—moving imperceptibly, breathing, waiting; the watchful eye of a cat just before it pounces.