Carnal Sacrifice by Angelika Helsing Read Free Book Online Page B

parse through them or make her peace. She fled up the garden path toward the house.

Chapter Six
    It seemed to Jaden that night came early in the Andes. No power grid here to turn night into day. No coffee shops to pump him full of caffeine. He hadn’t been camping since he and his bandmates had formed Crown of Fire seven years ago. They’d grabbed their guitars, their girlfriends and a shitload of lager, and then pitched their tents for a week on Mount Si. Which, in hindsight, was a little stupid, but they were all a lot drunker then.
    He glanced up from the small fire he was making to check on Delaney, who slept warm and naked, cocooned inside his blanket. He remembered coming home from that camping trip, greeting his mother at the door as he stumbled inside, still a little drunk. He remembered trying to keep his gaze from straying over his mother’s shoulder to where Delaney sat reading by the pool in a bikini, knees primly together, something ponderous and socially responsible open on her lap. Val had glared at him, raised an eyebrow and then stalked away.
    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