Blood Rites (8 page)

Helen had touched him, intending to call to him, to beg him to come. Sensing his stubborn resolve, she pulled quickly back. This was a family ritual, their highest celebration, and she would not be torn away from the family by her lover’s jealousy and need. With only a slight effort of her will, she pushed him from her mind and concentrated on the ceremony, sharing the cup as it passed around the circle, drinking the mingled blood of the family, reaching for the hands of those beside her, joining minds with all of them.

Her last sharing had been one of initiation. Now, one of them, she shared the collective family memories, ancient and new, the building of the keep above the Varda Pass, the family exodus, the rising of cathedrals and palaces, the triumphs and the tragedies, her mind sharing each memory, becoming part of the whole. She stored it, every detail, to be recalled and slowly savored on some empty night.

The voices! The faces! The magic of it filled her, until she could no longer contain it. She exploded like the others into a song, rising, falling, dancing with the flames, scarcely noticing when the physical bonds broke and their human loves and friends stepped forward and shared their past.

Later, when the ritual had ended and the circle had broken into small groups, Helen went home. Her mind seemed universal now, a part of the family not quite her own. This was the moment she’d waited for. She pulled out Hillary’s painting for one final detached appraisal.

And could find no flaws.

The nude, “The Border of Woman,” had an almost universal effect on its viewers. It showed a girl who had seen too much, endured too much, and now tried to hold on to her tattered innocence while being thrust into adulthood by the biology of time. She faced the future as she had the horror of her past—with confidence and determination in her wide-spaced hazel eyes.

Helen hid the painting from Hillary. She wisely knew the effect it would have on the girl but she never anticipated the effect it would have on adults. Men could not help but look at it and desire the woman Hillary had almost become. Yet the body was unmistakably that of a child and her protective modest pose made their desire shameful. The expression was frightened and sad as if the subject knew every emotion she aroused and dreaded them.

Helen was forced to remove it from her London exhibit. The American Gallery that would sponsor her New York show was given a preview look at it along with a number of other paintings. The owners were universally enthusiastic in their reception of the nude, making it the focal point of their publicity.

After the London showing, Helen and Stephen visited Alpha, the Austra subsidiary in Ireland. While Stephen had his final meetings with the Alpha managers, Helen took long walks through the hills, reveling in the cloudy spring weather, the smell of moss, and the sea. From there, they flew to America—to fame, to death.

III

One hope sustained Philippe after Helen left Chaves. She had gone without saying good-bye!

He had braced himself for the eventual heartbreak but not for his wounded pride.

Or his hope.

She hadn’t said good-bye, he decided, because she didn’t want to leave him. He had to see her, had to beg her if need be to give him more time. She had years, centuries, didn’t she? Oh, yes, he’d find a way to get her back.

At night, he would lie awake, waiting to hear the front door opening and closing, the rusty hinge telling him she had returned. Then, despondent, he would recite over and over in his head all the words he’d say to hold on to her.

He would tell her how he never even looked at other women, didn’t even think about them. How he dreamed of her on the nights she wasn’t with him, found himself stammering like an adolescent when she was. How, for the first time, he even got along with his daughter, pleased at her unconscious imitation of Helen’s walk and hairstyle and accent. How, the more passion Helen devoured, the more his desire grew.

He would tell her all of this if only he could find her.

Hillary gave him his first real clue.

The girl had been hired to do a final cleaning of Stephen’s house. She was there when the movers came for the last of Stephen’s and Helen’s clothes.

Hillary came home that evening carrying a package Helen had left for her. A wide green sash circled her small waist and a bright blue ribbon tied back her hair. The colors were festive, concealing her loss. “Tell me where her things have been sent,” Philippe demanded.

“Why? So you can make more trouble. I’m surprised Senhor Austra hasn’t let you go. He must know about you and Helen.”

“Of course he does. That’s why you were told to never discuss
their
relationship with anyone.” As Hillary considered this odd logic, Philippe added, “Have you ever seen me as happy as I’ve been these last few months?”

“No, Papa,” she reluctantly admitted.

“Would you like Helen to be with us always?”

Hillary grinned, the child showing fully for a moment. “Really?” she said, and with no further hesitation, Hillary told him, “The men said the boxes were going to Maine, then something about an architect.”

“Paul Stoddard?”

“I think that was the name.”

Philippe smiled. He remembered the Stoddard beach house well. Paul wouldn’t mind a surprise visit from an old friend.

I

Helen Wells’s life hung on the flat white panels supplied by a New York gallery. The watercolors she had done before she met Stephen, the more vibrant canvases completed during her changing, and the stunning realism and depth of her latest works were all there for the world to view. If the critics had been as trained in psychology as they were in technique, they would have known that some dramatic change had occurred in her. Instead they merely admired the result.

The show was sponsored by a gallery located on the ground floor of La Paz, Paul Stoddard’s finest creation. It was held in the lobby, the great expanses of smoke-colored glass turning the early spring afternoon to evening, the modern elegance of the marble floors and walls a perfect backdrop for her work. The show drew crowds not because of Helen’s work but because it included pieces from the Austra private collection. But the critics who came to see the eighteenth-century glass sculptures of Steven Austra, the fourteenth-century wood carvings of Edward Austra, the display of the initial sketch for the west rose of Notre Dame and the accompanying glass samples, as well as the other rarely exhibited treasures, studied Helen’s works just as carefully. Unlike the other pieces, Helen’s paintings were for sale. And the fact that the show had been sponsored by AustraGlass only meant that the price asked for a Wells painting today would be a fraction of its value in the future. The small “sold” tags began appearing on pieces almost immediately.

As the crowd began to grow, Helen slowly moved away from the front doors to a quiet alcove near the elevator where the crowd did not press so close and where she could watch for the rare friends amid the sea of strangers. She had built the wall around her psychic powers, afraid to touch the guests around her and learn how much they really valued her work.

Paul Stoddard joined her. “You shouldn’t be hiding today,” he said.

“The London exhibit was so small compared to this. It’s frightening,” she confessed.

He nodded. “When this building was opened to the public, Elizabeth stood here beside me and showed me the thoughts of the guests entering it for the first time. Don’t be afraid to meet your public, Helen. They’re the critics who really count. Try now. I’ll stay with you.”

She looked doubtfully out at the crowd, finally choosing an older woman in a severe black suit staring at an Andalusian landscape as romantic as her past. She entered the minds of a pair of collectors in awe of the wildflowers she had completed during her changing. Excited, she moved on and on. Her work. Their praise. Her self. All melted into a drink more powerful than wine or blood. She fed on it until, dizzied by excess, she lowered the mental wall that held back their thoughts. Only then did she become aware that Paul had moved in front of her, hiding her face from the glances of the inquisitive crowd.

“In the future you might wish to settle for observing
expressions
,” he said with dry good humor.

His pale blue eyes and white-blond hair made him seem more her kind than the Austras. He had certainly become her closest human friend in the last few months. “Thank you,” she said and kissed his cheek.

When she pulled back, he saw the hint of tears in her eyes and understood. “You made the right decision. Though Stephen will probably not admit it, he needs you far more than you do him.”

“I know,” she responded, her eyes already scanning the crowd looking for him.

Dick Wells arrived an hour after the exhibit opened. He should have been in town the night before, but as the chief investigator in a complicated murder case, he’d had to testify at a trial this morning before catching a flight from Cleveland to New York. He’d come alone. After the tragedies surrounding Helen’s changing, Judy Preuss might never be able to relax in the company of Stephen Austra. His children, Carol and Alan, seemed to have mercifully forgotten much of the summer and he didn’t wish to bring them and remind them of it. He’d thought of staying home as well but Judy had insisted he come. “Family is important,” she told him. “Don’t break the tie because of me.”

He’d hugged Judy and thanked her. Yes, he had wanted to come. He liked Stephen and he loved his niece and he did not wish to lose touch with either of them.

Dick glanced at the program he’d been given when he’d arrived. He had a frugal nature—to him a numbered print was extravagant—and the four- and five-figure prices being asked for his niece’s paintings amazed him.

Then he saw the nude of Hillary Dutiel and for the long minutes he stared at it, he forgot the crowds around him, or that he was tired, or even that his niece had painted this. He felt the same awe he did in St. John’s Church, surrounded by Stephen’s windows, and he understood. The Austra family could walk into people’s minds, record their souls, and, through their work, make those souls immortal. The program noted this piece was not for sale. That was only right for something so priceless.

He noticed Helen on the other side of the lobby doors, talking to a group of guests. She wore a sleeveless green empire silk dress that crisscrossed over the bodice, then fell into long straight folds to just above the floor. Her hair had been arranged in tight curls that framed her face and head like angel’s hair and fell down her back in a soft unruly mass. Some trick with her makeup made her eyes look larger than he’d remembered, her cheekbones more prominent, her lips more sensuous. Yet, she had an air of innocent excitement as if she were younger than her twenty years and this her debut or her first dance.

Stephen was beside her, his dark curls a striking contrast to her white-blond ones, her complexion already approaching his pale ivory hue. They made a handsome couple, Dick thought, amazed at how normal he still considered them. Even when Stephen had told him the truth about the Austra family, it had taken hours to convince him of it. How easily they hid!

Then Helen saw him and motioned him over. He was conscious of the eyes watching his niece as she hugged him and kissed his cheek. There were a few women here more beautiful than Helen but men and women did not look at them the way they did at Helen or even at Stephen. The Austra power, the Austra health, drew mortals to them like mayflies to an eternal torch.

As Helen stood beside him, she confessed one human weakness. —Stay close, Uncle— she said to him telepathically. —I feel like I’m for sale with the rest.—

Dick appeared momentarily startled, then, knowing she was showing off, responded with a chuckle and said softly, “If that concerned you, Helen, you never should have worn that dress. I think you’ll survive without me. Besides, it looks like a new line is forming to meet you.”

He had intended to begin walking through another section of the display when he saw a tall, white-haired man in his sixties farther back in line. With an experienced policeman’s eye, he scanned the gallery noting the three armed men in the crowd, their shoulders holsters carefully hidden under full-cut jackets, and, with irrational relief, the guards at each of the show’s exits. Even without the security, Raymond Carrera, undisputed head of organized crime in northern Ohio, could only be here to buy. Not certain how Helen would react to the man, he stayed close to her as Carrera walked over to her.

When Carrera took Helen’s hand, she sensed the blood on his conscience, the power of the man. She wanted to recoil but held her control perfectly, enough to smile when he introduced himself and complimented her on her work, to thank him as he said, “I would have bought a picture as an investment. I think now that I will keep it in my collection forever to remind me of your face.”

Carrera’s eyes shifted sideways, meeting Dick’s. “I’d heard this young woman was your niece, Captain. It made me curious. She shows great talent. You should be proud.” He nodded politely to both of them, then turned and walked toward the center of the lobby, one of his guards a few steps behind.

Helen watched them go, barely aware of Stephen and her uncle moving closer to her. “He’s facing federal charges soon. I wish I could admit what you probably just learned as evidence for the prosecution,” Dick said in a low tone.

“What I learned would make no difference, Uncle,” she replied, certain somehow that the man wouldn’t live long but that his presence here would one day have a tragic impact on her life.

Her expression grew so troubled that Dick asked, “Are you all right?”

“I think so.” Helen watched the men walk away, inexplicably wondering about her strange surge of emotion. Carrera only made her feel sad and somewhat wary, but his sandy-haired bodyguard projected such evil she could almost see the blood on the marble floor where he had walked. Dismayed, she pulled her eyes away from him and took the hand of a young man who had been waiting to speak to her with eyes fixed on her face, fighting the desire to reach out and stroke her white-blond hair.