Blood Rites
Part One: Beginnings
Part Two: The Witness
Part Three: The Instrument
Part Four: Metamorphosis
Part Five: Executioner
ELAINE BERGSTROM’S ACCLAIMED VAMPIRE SAGAS
“It’s little wonder critics have compared Bergstrom’s work to that of Anne Rice.”
—
Cleveland Plain Dealer
shattered glass . . . Introducing the vampire Stephen Austra—and his human lover who suspects him of murder. “A love story and a horror story. . . sensual. . . effective!”
—
Mystery Scene
“Spellbinding . . . brilliantly portrayed . . . one of the best vampire novels I’ve ever read.”
—2 A.M.
BLOOD RITES
. . . Stephen Austra shares the gift of immortality with a woman who resists—until she’s forced to kill.
“I haven’t read any vampire novels that come close to these since Anne Rice’s
Vampire Chronicles
.”
—
ONYX
magazine
“Bergstrom sees vampires in a new light.”
—
Ohio Sun Herald
BLOOD ALONE
. . . In Europe, in the shadow of the Nazis, the Austra family wages a vampire’s war—against the Reich.
“Hot, bloody. . . entertaining.”
—
Fangoria
“These are vampires I can believe in!
—Jacqueline Lichtenberg, author of
Those of My Blood
DAUGHTER OF THE NIGHT
. . . Bathing in blood, Elizabeth Bathori terrorized Europe. And her inspiration was the vampire Catherine Austra.
“A web of seductive, compelling prose and fascinating characters. . . I’m hungry for more!
—Jennifer Roberson, author of
Lady of the Forest
Ace Books by Elaine Bergstrom
BLOOD ALONE
BLOOD RITES
DAUGHTERS OF THE NIGHT
SHATTERED GLASS
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
This Ace Book contains the complete text of the original edition.
BLOOD RITES
An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author
PRINTING HISTORY
Jove edition / December 1991
Ace edition / July 1994
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1991 by Elaine Bergstrom.
Cover art by Marc Tauss.
This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part,by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016.
ISBN: 0-441-00074-6
ACE®
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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
BEGINNINGS
ONE
Romania, 729
The room had been made for menial human slaves. Tiny and far too warm, it lacked the grandeur of the drafty great hall of the Austra keep or the smaller private quarters kept for the young and beautiful men and women stolen from the Moldavian plains who served the adult Austras’ needs for blood and pleasure.
At twelve, Steffen was too young to be admitted to the private rooms, nor did he desire to know all that went on behind their carved doors. No, he preferred to be here with someone his own size and temperament. Though the cramped space of Ion’s room should have sent Steffen into a claustrophobic panic, with practice he had managed to fight down the instinctive fear of close places, step inside and remain. Now, after a dozen visits over as many days he could relax and enjoy Ion’s more experienced caresses, the young and so-potent passion of the boy’s blood, and the magic of doing something so forbidden that he would not dare think of it outside this room lest the Old One read his thoughts and punish him.
Ion had been the first to suggest escape. They had been sitting cross-legged on the stone floor, a map that Denys had given to Steffen spread before them. It showed the world surrounding them. Names like Lombardy and Bavaria and Carinthia rolled around in their mouths like exotic wines as they had planned to leave the keep and travel from one place to another.
Dreams of adventure were wonderful fantasies but Steffen was old enough to know the truth. He would go someday as some of his older kin had already done, but Ion would die here perhaps as a servant alone in this room or, more likely given the boy’s beauty, he would soon be taken to the private rooms where he would be used and used again until, with nothing left to give, the adults would draw lots on who would have the pleasure of his kill.
At this time of year no fences or locks kept their slaves from running away. The ice-coated walls of rock beneath the Austra keep maintained the winter prison. If the boys had any chance of leaving, it would be now.
Steffen, who moved across the peaks with the grace of a mountain chamois, could leave easily anytime he wished. Ion, with his human need for warmth and his physical weakness, could not. But Ion, who remembered the time before he was brought to the keep, could recall the old tales and suggested what they could do. “If you share your blood with me, I can become immortal.” Once Ion had denied the Mountain Lords’ existence. Now he had lived with them long enough that the line between the facts and the legends had become hazy. Now he believed it all.
“That is not true,” Steffen had replied for that is what his elders had taught him.
“How can we know what is true and what is not unless we try.”
Ion had a point. So they tested the legend, their youthful kisses, more affection than physical attraction, had grown through their sharings into a passion so intense it made them guilty and hungry for more. Now, as he had done each time they met and shared life with each other, Steffen turned to Ion, panting beside him. “Can you feel a change? Are you any stronger?”
Ion, his dark body sheened with sweat, shook his head as always. “No.” He had long since given up hope and yet, Steffen knew, they would share blood again. He lay, his long pale fingers twined with Ion’s shorter ones, and they said nothing at all until, through the many layers of stone separating him from the world outside, Steffen felt the lethargy of dawn and prepared to leave.
At that moment, Ion’s door crashed inward and the Old One’s tall form ducked low to come inside. He took in everything with a single sweep of his lightless eyes. Steffen wisely said nothing though he did move sideways, placing his body between his father and his friend.
“Do you desire him so much?” No softness in that question, no possibility of any reprieve.
“Yes,” Steffen replied.
“Kill him.”
“No!” Spoken word. Mental recoil. He would not obey.
“Then I will.”
Behind him, Ion screamed as the first wave of the Old One’s mental torture rolled through the boy. Steffen stiffened from their shared agony, silently trying to absorb it or to somehow deflect the mental blow. He wanted to hold Ion, to merge with him and fight his father’s attack, but his mind was not strong enough. Perhaps it never would be.
“This is not disobedience but an abomination. Forbidden,” his father said, no trace of emotion in his tone.
But not instinct. Had the sharing been counter to his nature, Steffen could not have done it.
His father followed his private reasoning. “It is forbidden,” he replied. “Now I will show you why.” A long arm thrust Steffen aside and he fell against the hearth, one hand covered with flame. Though he shrieked from the sudden agony, his father did not turn to him. Instead he lifted Ion as if he were a piece of tinder, holding the boy level with his face. Ion had ceased to struggle, hanging limp as a doll in the Old One’s hands, his eyes fixed on the Old One’s eyes, his mouth a small circle of fear and awe.
A second wave of pain swept through the boy. Steffen, his heart beating at Ion’s pace, his body feeling every nuance of Ion’s torment, bolted from the room, running down the empty halls and into the pale morning light.
The screams followed him. Miles away he could still hear them ringing through his mind, still feel the pain.
The pain would have been enough but when his mind grew silent, he knew he had been truly punished.
Later, Steffen returned to the little room where Ion lay crumpled and lifeless on the stones. There he sat with his knees drawn tightly to his chest, while the body beside him slowly cooled.
Cleveland, 1932
Russ clapped a hand over his sister’s mouth to silence her whimpers and pinched her hard whenever she tried to get away. At five, she would be no match for his strength but her struggles and the moans of pain he could feel vibrating beneath his palm kept him from thinking too much about how quickly he’d begun breathing and how hard his heart was pounding. Though a crack of light leaked beneath the closet door, the air in their hiding place felt like it had been used up in the endless hours since the ambulance had come and taken Mama away. He could hear his father swearing just outside the door. He knew where they were hiding. His father took perverse pleasure in knowing that they would not hide if they weren’t afraid. Now he sat and waited like a mangy hunting torn for the mice to leave their hole. When his sister was silent, Russ could hear his father’s heavy breathing, the sound of the bottle hitting the top of the nightstand.
Someone pounded on the door to their flat, someone who kept on pounding for all the minutes it took for their father to decide to answer. Russ listened to the silence, then heard his father start to bellow again with the same rage he had earlier used on their mother.
