Read Online Blood Sacraments by Todd Gregory - Free Book Online

his neck and staining his shirt. The pale blue was turning dark just below the collar, where the running blood came into contact with the tightly fitting cotton. His nipples were erect, and all of his weight was leaning back against the wall. His eyes opened a little wider yet were still half-closed. Other than the bleeding neck, his eyes looked like so many others who drank more than they should in the Quarter. They weren’t focused and looked a little cloudy to me. “What”—he swallowed, his throat working, the Adam’s apple bobbing up and down — “wha —happen? Cord? I feel—I feel funny.”
    I couldn’t just leave him there, with his neck bleeding and his shirt getting darker with wetness every passing second. Something was wrong, something was seriously wrong, and I had to get away as quickly as I could, but I couldn’t just leave him there.
    Modern society might not believe in vampires, but when the police found him—and he would certainly wind up in the hands of the police—they might not go for the notion of a vampire attack, but I couldn’t take the risk he would remember seeing me and mention me to the cops.
    And since Cord Logan had died in a fire two years earlier on Lundi Gras, that was a can of worms best left unopened.
    I put his left arm around my shoulders and placed his head down on my neck. At least the wounds were hidden that way, and in the growing darkness maybe no one would notice the bloody shirt. “Come on, buddy, you need to walk with me,” I whispered to him.
    His head tilted back for a moment and his face lit up with a crazy grin. “Cord, buddy. I knew you weren’t dead. I tole them all you weren’t dead.”
    “Come on, it’s just a couple of blocks.” I smiled into his eyes, willing him to start walking. “Use me for support if you can’t stand up.”
    “Okay, buddy,” he replied, and started walking. Most of his weight was on me, and had I been a mortal, we probably would have both fallen to the ground. But I was no longer mortal, and while I had not matured into my full strength as a vampire—Jean-Paul said it would take another fifty or so mortal years for that to happen—I was still stronger than I’d been when I was a twenty-year-old college student. We shuffled our way past the Presbytere, no one really paying any attention to us. It was a common sight in the Quarter—Jared looked like another young man who’d had too much to drink and needed to be helped back to his hotel. We turned and headed down the alley between the Presbytere and the Cathedral. The alley was empty and silent other than our footsteps against the stone. Even though I was stronger, I was still having trouble drawing breath by the time we reached Royal Street. We headed up Orleans, past the crowds on Bourbon and the dancing hand grenade in front of Tropical Isle, and before I knew it we were climbing the steps of Jean-Paul’s house. I put the key in the lock and helped him inside, setting him down on the couch.
    As I turned to shut and lock the front door I stared at the little cottage across the street. It was still in the process of being rebuilt after the fire. It was there that Jean-Paul had rescued me from the witch Sebastian, and brought my dying body back across the street to his house. It was on that very couch where Jared now lay that Jean-Paul had opened the vein in his arm and had me drink his blood, the blood that transformed me into what I am now, no longer human. I shut the door and drew the curtains shut, flipping the light switch. The overhead chandelier came to life, casting strange shadows into every corner.
    I knelt down beside Jared. His eyes were now fully closed and his breathing was shallow. His skin felt cold, and I pressed my fingers against his wrist. His heart was beating, but not strongly. The wounds on his neck had stopped bleeding but still were open and angry. I put my hand up to my mouth in order to open another wound in a finger but stopped.
    Think about it,