He arranged clumps of dried grasses around the branches he’d laid out, struck a match, and then lit the fire. At first it just smoked, but then it caught, and within minutes became a cheerful blaze. She would appreciate the warmth when she awakened. And he would tell her everything, even though witnessing the ritual—provided she even agreed to it—would possibly drive him mad.
To keep from obsessing over it, he dragged his instrument case closer, flipped open the clasps, and drew out his guitar. As a rule, he went nowhere without it. He smiled to think how Delaney must have silently rebuked him when she saw it. As much as she liked pretending not to understand why music informed his every waking hour, he knew she loved his passion for it. In music, he was restored; in Delaney, he was reborn.
Pensively, he picked out a few notes. Two strings were off pitch. He tuned them by ear. Better. Then he strummed the opening chords to a ballad he’d been working on, layering in the lyrics he had yet to commit to paper.
I made another face for you
Adorned it, suborned it
The truth might strip it bare again,
your love could be the forfeit…
Something tight inside him relaxed as he played the bridge, a series of running eighth notes that ended in B flat minor. He started from the top again, adding embellishments.
Three days ago, he’d been sitting in traffic on La Cienega Boulevard, radios blaring, cell phones ringing, horns blatting, sirens wailing, and someone’s sub-woofers bouncing off the pavement, creating this soul-numbing wall of sound that somehow you accepted as normal.
Half the time, he didn’t even like the music business. He loved the music but hated the wannabes, the fawners, the hangers-on. People who kissed your ass because your song topped the charts. More and more these days, he wondered if being a rock star was worth the bullshit that went with it. Already the wages of stardom were being paid: Anson, the drummer, spiraling deeper into drug addiction. Ritchie, the bass player, building a desert compound and stocking it with automatic weapons. Brett, their rhythm guitarist, and his revolving harem of girlfriends who were getting to be just this side of legal.
Val had loved it all. “My son, the rock star,” she’d say. “Thank God you aren’t wasting your life in the Peace Corps.” But what she hadn’t loved was his obsession with Delaney. “It’s obscene,” she’d said a thousand times. “A vampire in love with a mortal.”
“What about you and her father?” he’d reply.
“That was different. A necessity. You needed things I couldn’t afford to give you. And he was never a member of my own family.”
Strictly speaking, neither was Delaney, but he was wise enough not to argue.
Jaden thought he knew Val’s problem with Delaney. Delaney held in contempt everything that Val held dear: wealth, beauty, social status. Delaney had been born into privilege. Instead, she skipped off to a third-world village that had no running water or electricity. Val, who’d struggled so hard to scratch out a living after Jaden’s vampire father got sucked into hell, couldn’t understand it. Any of it. But she’d lost no time booking a tour to Peru with the sole intent of convincing Delaney not to undergo the carnal sacrifice. If successful, the ritual would not only keep all of them from turning demon, but save the village and many more like it from being devoured. Val opposed it all. And he had no idea where she was.
Jaden ran a few scales before giving in and extracting a blood pack from his duffel. He hated to drink in front of Delaney. What if she woke up and saw him? All this was so new to her, and the scent of blood made him change.
“Shall we have a toast, then?” came a voice from behind him.
Jaden looked up, unwilling to trust his own eyes. Standing at the portal were three of his vampire brethren in human form. Roark he hadn’t seen in five years or more. The two others he’d met backstage at one of his concerts, but their names came immediately to mind. The blond, muscular one was Lucan. The taller man was a Native American named Wolf. They gazed at him with a curiosity he thought he understood.
“Can we talk?” Roark asked.
All eyes went to Delaney, who slept the deep sleep of the sexually sated. Jaden sensed that she excited them in ways that were not strictly for the greater good of their kind.
“This way.” He led them down the passageway and then outside. The night was unseasonably mild. All his vampire senses came alive: the mossy smell of the earth, the scurrying of nocturnal creatures, the glittering of a watershed in the distance, like ghost diamonds cast by a lonely Andean god.
“You haven’t told her,” Roark said.
Jaden didn’t bother denying it. He passed them the blood pack the way a man might share a can of beer. It occurred to him that very soon he would be forced to share Delaney in just the same way, and his appetite fled.
“We’ve been gathering for months,” Lucan said. His eyes glowed vampire silver in the moonlight. “Despite the very real difficulty of traveling during the day, sleeping in caves—”
“Feeding on guinea pigs,” Roark grumbled.
By way of acknowledgement, Jaden inclined his head. “It restores my faith to see so many fight on the side of good.”
“But it will be for nothing if you don’t do your part,” Roark reminded him.
Lucan accepted the blood pack and lifted it in a mock toast. “The problem is, you love her. And because you love her, you’re jealous.”
Jaden whirled on him. “Wouldn’t you be? If you loved a woman, how easy would you find it to watch her screw a bunch of vampires on a sacrificial altar?”
“It’s either that or we all turn fully demon and ravage the land,” Roark said.
Wolf placed a calming hand on Jaden. “You forget that the choice is hers. Mystical forces summoned her here. She is the One. Why would you deny her destiny?”
Jaden knew he was being selfish. At the moment, he didn’t care. Delaney was his, no matter how many men brought her to orgasm. He clenched his fists, felt foolish and unreasonable, and stalked over to an outcropping of rocks. Letting Delaney run away from him to sort out her own feelings had been enough of a sacrifice. But this took brutal to a whole new level.
Lucan said, “We chose only the best looking and the most… What was that word you used, Roark?”
“Virile.” He polished off their meal and then, with a wry smile, handed the crumpled empty to Jaden. “Don’t go crazy and see this as a metaphor for what we’re going to do to your girlfriend.”
“She’s not my girlfriend.” He crossed his arms and leaned back against the rock. Every star pulsed tonight to its own celestial rhythm. He’d never seen so many stars. “She’s more than that. I’ve loved her for years, and… Delaney couldn’t handle what she saw as the unnatural weirdness of being stepbrother and sister.”
“But you thought that seeing her every day would make it harder, didn’t you?” Roark said. “I get that. You were afraid you’d lose courage, chicken out about asking her to make the sacrifice.”
Wolf lifted his face to the wind. He had the jet-black hair of his tribe, worn long, adorned with a leather string and a feather. On his neck were tattooed the Sioux words, Tákuni ištélyA, “no dishonor,” a vow not to drink humans, he’d once told Jaden.
“I am not surprised the ritual must unfold like this,” Wolf said gravely. “The Inca performed virgin sacrifice. Of course the restless ghosts of these virgins must be appeased by allowing them to experience ecstasy that had been denied them.”
“And by giving their emissary, Delaney, that sexual ecstasy, we ourselves will be delivered from our fate as bloodthirsty fiends,” Roark said with a cheerfulness that made Jaden want to punch him.
“It was ordained,” Lucan added. “We’ve been waiting for you. And the moon is almost full.”
They were more than eager to make love to her, Jaden thought with a bitterness he knew he had no right to feel. S
ex with mortal women was always hotter because of the blood element. A vampire could scent blood even through unpunctured skin. And Delaney was a beautiful specimen of her kind. Her orgasmic capability alone…
“What if she refuses?” he said defiantly.
Lucan gave him a cryptic smile. “She won’t.”
“What about the very real danger of something happening to her during the spiritual possession?”
“She has a warrior’s heart,” Wolf said. “More than that, she is a lusty woman. The months of your separation have been hard on her. I think you will find that she is receptive.”
Jaden raked back his hair, recalling the many times he’d visited her in dreams. How he’d tried to gently introduce her to the reality of his ancestry. It was the only reason she hadn’t freaked out when he’d changed. Some part of her had already known he was a vampire.
“Take her back to the village,” Roark said. “We have two days until the full moon. Let her talk to her people. And prepare her for what lies ahead.”
“You mean prepare her sexually,” Jaden said, hoping they couldn’t tell how the thought of doing that rallied his spirits a little.
Wolf said, “For a woman to reach her full orgasmic potential, many means must be used. Every pleasure point must be explored. The more comfortable you can make her with that, the better it will be. For her and for all of us.”
* * *
After they left, Jaden made his way to the watershed. The walk seemed longer than it did the first time, but his thoughts were in turmoil, and Peru restored him in ways that went beyond the supernatural.
Two low hills cupped the watershed, which was fed by glacial run-off. Against its silvery surface, the stars were reflected like a second universe. His vampire eyes could see better than humans’, but it was his other senses that sharpened. The water smelled of minerals, snow, and faintly of decay. He could hear the hollow roar of the wind in his ears. Jaden was man enough to admit that the wildness of it was a little unnerving, even to a vampire.
He wondered for the hundredth time whether Val had made it off that bus before it crashed, or whether circumstances compelled her to find another way to Delaney’s village. There were a few things he knew for sure—one was that Val wasn’t dead. Two, she would do anything to stop the ritual. Three, she would rather turn savage than owe her deliverance to Delaney Jones. It was a resentment he would never forgive her for.
Jaden headed back to the temple, worried now about Delaney. He didn’t want her to wake up without him. She needed food too, to keep her strength up, or what passed for food in these parts. Desire for her was always with him, tinged now with a new possessiveness. He would have to temper that with the dread of sharing her with so many men. What a pity the rites didn’t call for a legion of beautiful lesbians. That would have stung a lot less.
As he approached the temple, voices sounded—familiar ones, raised to an all too familiar pitch. Delaney—and Val. His heart gave a sideways lurch. This wasn’t the way Delaney needed to find out. She needed to hear the truth from him, not this. Not from Val. He ran, determined to save Delaney, maybe even to save himself.
* * *
Thank God, Delaney thought when Jaden came rushing through the door. Maybe he could stop this awful woman from lying. Clearly, Val had come for no better reason than to poison the well.
“Jaden!” Val spun around, scowling, looking none the worse for her apparent ordeal. She was every inch the grande dame, from her Leboutin peep-toes to her ecru sweater and matching Dior slacks. In looks, she’d always reminded Delaney of an older Grace Kelly, but now the only name was came to mind was Cinderella’s stepmother.
“Why did you come?” Jaden asked sharply.
“Necessity.” Her ice-blue eyes swept over him in disdain. “Especially since it is both obvious and horrifying that you and Delaney have resurrected your physical relationship.”
“What business is that of yours?” he said coldly.
“I would say all of it is my business. And I’ve made sure that Delaney is responsibly informed of what hers may be if she agrees to participate.”
Delaney stared at Jaden. She read the guilt on his face, and her heart sank. How could he ask her to sleep with other men? No, not men. Vampires. Was it that easy for him to pass her around like a party favor? Did she mean so little to him?
“I’m warmed by your touching concern over my whereabouts,” Val continued. “And those of the unfortunate souls who did actually perish. I was lucky enough to have gotten off the bus in one of the foothill towns. It made me nervous, driving on such a narrow road. But I had to hire a man to get me to this forsaken place, which took up valuable time.”
“I never doubted you,” Jaden said, and Delaney saw the tension between them. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“What, and miss the mass humanization of so many of your disciples?”
“Which you oppose.”
Val turned to Delaney with an expression she was all too used to seeing: a cat playing with a mouse. “I don’t believe in domesticating vampires. If it’s ordained that we shall rid the earth of the plague of humanity, who am I to stop it?”
Delaney felt as though her brain just wasn’t working right. What plague? How could she possibly be a part of the extinction of man? “Jaden, what’s going on?”
He swept a hand through his dark hair, looking both troubled and protective of her. She knew he would have done anything not to share this conversation with Val. But something unthinkable was about to happen, world-in-peril unthinkable. There was no way she could keep standing at this point, because her legs shook and her head wouldn’t stop throbbing. She sat on the steps leading to the altar. Jaden came and sat beside her.
“I know it’s a lot to take in,” he began. “No one is going to force you to participate in the sacred rites.”
“Not at first, perhaps,” Val said from where she stood with her arms crossed.
Jaden glared at her, then said to Delaney, “Once every thousand years, vampires are given the choice to either go fully demon and kill as much of humanity as possible before they themselves are killed, or they can forsake their demon nature, live as mortals, and do harm to no one.”
“But you live that way now,” she said. “Can’t you just keep doing it?”
“We’re about to experience what’s known as a Reckoning, and we must choose one way or the other.”
Delaney raised her eyes to Val. “But you don’t want them to. Why?”
Val shrugged her elegant shoulders. “I was born a vampire. Jaden too. Some vampires are made, but our family dates back to the Crusades. If we turn our backs on who we are, we are doing our heritage a terrible disservice. That will be the end of our line. Jaden will not be able to father a vampire if he refuses to heed the call of his people.”
“But you would turn savage, wouldn’t you?” Delaney asked him. “You and the others.”
“Yes.”
“And you would feed on humans. Me, maybe. My village.”
“Delaney, once a vampire goes fully demon, he isn’t himself any longer. I…we wouldn’t be able to control ourselves. We would feed until somebody—or what’s more likely, an army of somebodies—stopped us.”
The thought made her frantic. Every compassionate instinct came rushing to the defense of future victims, but anger was there as well, a righteous anger that felt far more manageable than her uncertainty. So it was true, then, what the villagers believed. The Hungering Ones weren’t superstitious nonsense. They were real. And once they turned fully demon, they weren’t going to suck the blood out of a few guinea pigs. They were going to tear through her village one innocent soul at a time, draining necks until nothing was left, and then move on to the next village. And they wanted her to stop it?
“How on earth do I figure into this?” she said. “How do we go from ‘creatures of the night’ to ‘
all-night orgy’?”
He glanced at Val, who wore an expression of feline alertness, then said, “The first vampire predates the Incas by thousands of years. The Incas conducted their ritual sacrifices to appease Pachacamac, the god that protected them from our kind. But the maidens they sacrificed had been cheated of life, love, family. Their ghosts demand retribution—one woman through whom they will finally know sexual ecstasy. One woman who will serve as their vessel. Five vampires will have congress with her. Five vampires will climax inside her. With five men, she will achieve many climaxes. And in that woman shall they find their humanity and be saved. In that woman, they shall be redeemed.”
Delaney recoiled as though he’d struck her. “So it’s true, then, what your mother said.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve come to pimp me to your friends.”
Jaden’s eyes betrayed his guilt and horror. “No, Delaney. Surely you don’t think me capable of that.”
Delaney struggled to her feet. She had to do something, anything, productive, real, because it was just too much to take in, all of it, and…she couldn’t. This was crazy. Unthinkable. Five men. No, five vampires.
“No,” she said emphatically. “I can’t.” She went to where the supplies were, knelt down and picked up an ancient skillet. For a second, she thought about using it on both of them. Instead, she set the pan on the fire, but her hand shook, and the silence was both ominous and electric.
“You and I have never been close,” Val said. “I know that I could have been a better mother to you. There’s been bad blood between us.”
“You give that phrase a whole new meaning.” Delaney recognized the chill in her own voice. She picked up a potato and a paring knife, and then sat cross-legged to slice it.
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