Blood Rites Read Free

technical question led to another similar one. Paul continued the conference until the orchestra began to play, then excused himself, explaining that he had to join his guests. Again, caution dictated that he pose for a picture with Bob McCoy, a conservative senator from Massachusetts and one of his late parents’ close friends. He stayed only as long as politeness dictated, then left to greet a number of guests, always moving toward the spot where Elizabeth Austra stood beside her cousin Laurence.
    Elizabeth had bobbed and straightened her hair and she wore an indigo silk dress she had designed herself, the large armholes and loose sleeves hiding the unnatural length of her arms. Throughout the interview, she had discreetly kept her distance from her lover, letting the photographers snap their pictures and the reporters collect their usual statements. But now that the formal questions were over, she led him onto the dance floor for a slow, awkward waltz. “You must dance. It’s your night,” she told him and kissed the corner of his mouth.
    One dance. One dance was all his aching knees would take, all Elizabeth dared to risk before the reporters would descend on both of them, asking questions Elizabeth would never want answered. “Later,” she whispered and left him standing beside the mayor while she joined one of Paul’s shy young associates who looked terribly in need of someone familiar to hold on to.
    Through the remainder of the evening, she moved on the edge of the crowd, catching Paul’s attention from time to time, a small inviting smile on her face.
    At ten, the reception would take on a more formal air. Paul noticed Laurence Austra nervously talking to the violinist. Later, after the photographers were sent away and darkness would make surreptitious photos impossible, Laurence would take his place at the piano for one of his rare public performances. Laurence, cursed with a musical genius he could never publicly reveal, reveled in these rare opportunities. And if the music he played seemed richer and more complex than the usual Austra pieces played by other soloists, those listening would blame the informal setting or the relationship of the pianist to the composer, never guessing that Laurence Austra’s compositions had been rewritten to accommodate human limitations, that the young son lovingly playing his father’s creation was, in reality, the composer himself.
    Tonight he would play “World Harmonics,” the piece recently removed from the schedule of the Chicago Symphony because of its alleged subversive nature. Paul thought of the reporters scattered through the crowd and considered asking Laurence to play a different composition, eventually dismissing the idea as paranoia. The choice of music, after all, was a minor offense, one the papers would most likely blame on the idealism of the performer if they noted it at all. Paul decided to let Laurie have his masterpiece. Besides, it was the perfect music for this room, this night.

    The party broke hours later and Paul found Elizabeth stretched out on their bed in the penthouse atop La Paz, a bright red kimono barely covering the tops of her thighs, her dark eyes open watching him as he entered the room, inviting him to satisfy the hunger that experience and empathy allowed him to share. He undressed, leaving his clothes scattered on the floor. He was tipsy from the wine, too fast and inept. He began to slide on top of her when she pulled a chilled bottle of champagne from behind the bed and poured it over both of them. He lapped the pool of it that formed on her stomach and sucked the foaming drops from her hair. She got drunk on his blood and they giggled like children while they loved.
    Much later, Paul looked up and saw his face echoing in the tiny pieces of glass and he thought of his picture in the next day’s papers. His fame had never stopped thrilling him but it made him uneasy as well and he wished he could just plunk a building down on