CHAPTER TWENTY
Adrian Brézé wore the shape of Wilbur Peterson easily. It was close to his own; a little taller, a little more thickly built, eyes yellow in the way most postcorporeals preferred them, hair light brown with bronze highlights. His grip carried the girl along effortlessly, despite her attempts to pull free, though she was young and strong for her size. The screams faded as they walked.
Servants showed them to the suite of rooms; it was set up for a postcorporeal. Only one room had an exterior window, and it could be closed by a light-tight steel shutter and bolted fast; there was a hidden shaft that led to the basements and sub-basements below. For that matter, in night-walker form he could simply go impalpable and drop through the floors—though that was hideously dangerous, unless you were very careful. Dropping into solid earth while impalpable left you with no way to get back up.
Adrian shoved the girl through and caught her arm again when the outer door shut. She was under twenty, he judged, but she’d lived someplace where hard labor started early. Despite that she was slender in the waist and long-limbed but full-breasted, rare for a villager. Her skin was the exact color of a latte, and the face framed by loosely curled black hair showed a pleasant mix: mostly Indian, probably a little Iberian and a dash of African as well in bluntly regular features and full lips. Her dark eyes flickered around the elegant entrance-chamber, with its cool white-and-gray marble floors and rugs and spindly antique furniture.
“What is your name?” he asked: “¿Como se llama?”
“Eusebia Cortines.”
“¿Como le dicen?” he asked. How are you called?
He caught her eyes with his and held her at arm’s length, making an effort to give his speech a Mexican cast; he’d traveled there often enough to do that, though he’d first learned Spanish in Europe.
“Cheba,” she said, stammering a little but keeping her chin up.
“¿Me permite?” he said, asking permission to use the diminutive.
That ought to reassure her a little. She nodded, and he went on:
“Where are you from? Veracruz?”
“Coetzala,” she said, naming a village in that coastal state he’d passed through once long ago on Brotherhood business. “Then . . . Tlacotalpan.” Which was a city of some size. “Then to el Norte. With that bastard son of a whore Paco.”
“Paco is dead, and he died very hard. Waste no regrets. He knew what he was selling you into here, or at least that there was no returning. ¿Habla Inglés?”
“Poquito.”
Which meant a little; then she spoke in limping English:
“I say, yes, no, how much, can work, cook, clean, tend niños, kids.”
Back into Spanish: “My mother sold baskets to tourists. I talked with them sometimes, a little, to practice.”
He could sense her roiling fear, and defiance as well; her scent was healthy, clean beneath the dust and dirt of days of travel without an opportunity to wash. And her blood smelled so tempting, so tempting, even with the memory of Ellen’s tormenting flower-fragrance in his nostrils. Meaty and sweet at the same time, like a skewer of honey-glazed chicken.
“You know what I am, Cheba?” he said.
“Brujo. Vampiro,” she said
The corner of his mouth quirked up. She’s brave, he thought; the emotional balance was plain, even if he couldn’t yet read the surface thoughts that glinted away in a mumble of firing neurons.
And she only half-believes it, despite the fact that she saw me transform from a bird to a man. Quick-witted too, when she’s not stupefied with fear.
“Yes. Shadowspawn is the true name. In your language—Hijos de la noche. Los indios say it better: Nagualli.”
“Nagualli,” she repeated, in a way that confirmed his suspicion that she’d spent at least her early childhood speaking Nahuatl, the old Aztec language.
“What . . . what is happening to them?” she asked, her voice small. “The people I traveled with.”
“Blood drinking. Torture, rape, death also, for many,” he said; there was no point in sugar-coating it. “Control yourself, and listen to me, and you may live.”
She nodded, waited until his grip on her arm slackened . . . then jerked free, turned and bolted for the door. Adrian sighed, made a movement with his left hand, called up a glyph and pushed with his will.
A snap behind his eyes, and a rucked-up piece of Persian carpet slithered. Her foot turned under her and she fell with a jolt of pain that made his lips curl back for an instant. When she tried to scramble to her feet one leg tripped another. After the third time she lay panting, eyes wide. She was sweating with terror, and he could smell it as well as feel it sparkling like red fire through her mind. The effort not to snarl in eagerness shook him.
“You know that there is nobody outside who will not push you right back through that door? That I can keep this up as long as you try to escape? That doing this makes me”—he let the snarl show a little—“hungry? ”
Gradually she won a degree of mastery, enough to give him a quick nod.
“This is a . . . place of los brujos,” he said. “I’m a guest here. You’ve been given to me for . . . food. For blood. That’s why you and your friends were brought here. You are entirely in my power. You understand?”
Another nod.
“I won’t kill or torture or violate you. You must be quiet and obedient and after three days when we all leave . . . they will probably find . . . work for you. Other work than being . . . food. Until then I will protect you from the others. That is all I promise, but what I promise I will do. Get up.”
She did, cautiously after the previous three attempts. “You . . . you want to drink my blood?”
“Yes,” he said. “Some. Not enough to harm you.”
But I wouldn’t unless I had to. I need the strength and it would ring any number of alarm bells here if I didn’t. This is part of why I told Harvey I was reluctant. To be accepted, I must act as one of them in this way at least.
“I will not harm you otherwise. It’s the best offer you’re going to get.”
She was looking skeptical, and at his crotch. He did himself, and smiled wryly: that was a reaction he couldn’t help.
“I’m a man with a penis, not a penis with a man attached. I don’t take unwilling women.”
Which makes me, if not unique among Shadowspawn, at least highly unusual.
“The blood, for protection. Quickly!”
She nodded. He reached for her . . . and then she swung a shin up towards his groin in a hard vicious kick combined with an earnest thumb towards his eye. That showed rough-and-tumble experience; he was glad she didn’t have a knife. Adrian ducked under the gouge, grabbed the ankle effortlessly—her mind had telegraphed her intention half a second in advance—and used it to fling her around, staggering as she fought not to fall. Then he had her pinned, his right arm holding both of hers against her body, his left under her jaw.
“Hold . . . still,” he snarled, as she bucked and heaved and shrieked and tried to claw, kick and bite at the same time. “Oh, nom d’un chien noir! ”
The body writhing against his was far too stimulating. He clamped her jaw upward and struck. The incisors sliced across taut skin, and the blood boiled into his mouth. She froze with the paralysis of an initial bite; not limp or stiff, simply unresisting as he held her off the ground and drank.
Oh, God, that is good, was the first thought.
Like eating a fine rare Chateaubriand when you’d been skiing all day . . .
. . . and add Madeira jus with sautéed mushrooms and a really good Côtes du Rhône . . .
. . . or like the floating feeling after sex, like the first stage of drunkenness in good company, like triumph. Power flowed into him; he could feel his mind uncoiling like a thing of steel and smoothly meshing gears.
Then shame. Then: But I wish I were with Ellie. This is good, but not enough to drive me mad as I feared. I can stop . . . now.
He did, and stepped back, licking his lips and wiping his chin, and forcing himself not to grin; the poor girl wouldn’t know it was relief at his own self-control. The impulse to strip off her clothes and throw her down on the floor and take her savagely was there too . . .
But no harder to resist than the instinct to kill if I am jostled. I am not my instincts; I am a man, and my mind rules them. Feeding does not turn me into a beast. That is a choice, and I choose “no.”
Cheba wobbled off and collapsed into a chair, hand to her neck.
“You . . . bit me,” she said wonderingly. “You are so strong, so quick . . . you . . .”
Her voice was quiet with the artificial calm that came with a feeding attack. She took the hand away and looked at the red smudge on it.
“You bit me. I could feel you drinking.”
“Yes, I bit you and drank some of your blood. I will again several times over the next few days. It will not hurt and you will be none the worse for it after a little while. What I am is not catching; you must be born so. Now don’t cause me problems!”
There was a discreet knock at the door. He opened it, and his pseudo-renfields came through, with a house servant pushing a dolly with the last of the trunks on it. The servant was blankly incurious, probably a survival trait; Guha and Farmer simply carried it through to the suite’s bedroom. When they came back Farmer gave him a smoldering look after his eyes flicked to Cheba. There was hate in it, though they’d discussed this necessity when they were briefing each other on the mission.
He wishes he could feed, Adrian thought. He has enough of the genes to want, but not enough to be satisfied if he does. Poor bastard; that’s the combination that makes for a Jeffrey Dahmer, if it’s not spotted early, if you don’t know what’s happening. But he must not let it interfere with our work!
Guha hacked him on the ankle with the toe of her boot. He screeched, cut it short as she grabbed him by the ear:
“Stay in character, Jack! Last warning! Think in character! Or I’ll kill you myself.”
He nodded, took a deep breath and bowed slightly to Adrian along with his partner.
“Lay out my dinner jacket, Farmer,” he said quietly. “White tie. Guha, get the girl cleaned up. Order her a meal from the kitchens and show her where she’ll sleep—there will be bedchambers for my personal attendants.”
It would create a little gossip when the maids changed the sheets and realized he was sleeping alone, but not too much—Shadowspawn considered their private lives private.
“Find her some clothes, too. She doesn’t speak much English, but I suspect she understands more, so be cautious. And she’s pretty good at trying to kick you in the crotch while gouging out your eyes, so be cautious about that, too. Get her settled in and then dress for dinner yourselves—I’ll need you to lend me countenance later. Let’s get going.”
A couple of presentable attendants were the minimum he could sport and not be the Shadowspawn equivalent of a homeless beggar.
“Cheba,” he said, switching back to Spanish.
She was coming to life again, and looked up warily.
“This is Anjali Guha, and this man is Jack Farmer. They both speak your language”—tolerably, at least—“and they are my trusted servants. They will not harm you, but you must do as they say when I am not here.”
It was time to put in his appearance at the party.
“Excuse me,” a voice said behind her. “You dance so beautifully.”
Ellen turned and stopped her solitary drift to the music. It was the man . . . Shadowspawn . . . who’d first appeared as an owl in the killing hall, but now in a cutaway coat and white tie, trimly elegant rather than unselfconsciously naked. She met the yellow eyes . . .
Click. A feeling like rubber bands snapping inside her head. Emotion surged up as the doors in her mind opened.
“Shhh!” Adrian said—she could feel that it was Adrian behind the disguise.
What he calls the link. I can feel it too, now. He’s happy, and afraid, and very determined. But I didn’t realize he could be so fierce.
She clamped at her thoughts, and she could sense something helping her. He bowed over her hand and murmured:
“Allow me, darling. You must not spike noticeably. Use this. Think of it and it will help you contain. And if you are read, it will collapse your memories back to the rest state.”
A shape appeared in her mind; the sense that saw it was not sight, or touch, or hearing, but it had something of all three.
Wait a minute, she thought, under the muted rush of relief; she could feel how huge it was beneath the artificial barrier.
He could have done things to my mind when we were together. I’d never have known and he would have gotten whatever he wanted. But he didn’t. He let me leave even though it hurt him. He does have willpower like titanium steel.
Then he went on aloud: “But this always goes better with two. May I have this dance?”
She nodded wordlessly, biting her lip. He placed his right hand on her waist, took her left and led her into the waltz; the musicians played a little louder, and they had the floor to themselves. He smiled at her, his own expression visible behind the stranger’s face and the blank golden eyes.
“Oh, thank God, Adrian,” she said softly, swaying across the marble with him. “I feel like I want to live again.”
“And I as if I have a reason to live again,” he answered.
She swallowed. “You know what happened up there. After you left, and I had to watch some of it.”
“Yes. That is how things are done at such affairs.” A crook to his mouth. “You see why I am alienated from my family, Ellie.”
“Thank God for that.” Sharply: “What happened to that girl you hauled off?”
“Nothing bad.” His face went stiff. “Well, nothing very bad . . . I’m here as an agent, Ellie, an infiltrator. I have to . . . fit in. I had to feed on her. Forgive me.”
He looked miserable at her scowl, and she squeezed his hand as they moved to the music.
“Silly, I’m jealous, that’s all. I know you wouldn’t hurt her. You saved her life by getting her out of that . . . that horrible place before things started. But once we’re out of here, dude, it’s strictly my veins or the blood bank!”
His laugh was delighted. “You know, you are not only the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, particularly in that dress—”
Ellen snorted. “Your sister picked every stitch I’ve got, down to the thongs. And she’s actually better looking than I am, come to that.”
“If you like adolescent boys with small perfect breasts,” he said, and she muffled a snort of laughter. “And I cannot fault her taste in clothes or in women.”
“Do you really have a thing for Marilyn Monroe?” Ellen asked.
He looked at her blankly for a moment. “You . . . actually you do look a little like her, don’t you? But with a better figure, and your face has more animation. You are more . . . elegant.”
“Elegant? Wait until you see my new tramp stamp,” she said wryly. “It’s stopped itching, at least. And she thought that really added to my ass; so much for her taste. It’s got all the colors the tattooist had on hand.”
His eyes went a little wider. Then he smiled and let his hand shift a little backward as they turned. His face was abstracted for an instant, though the smooth grace of his movements was unaffected as they danced. Something tickled slightly over the base of her spine.
“It’s actually rather pretty, if a bit loud,” he said. Then a slight frown. “It’s not just colored knotwork, either. There are glyphs worked into it—ideographic Mhabrogast.”
That made her feel as if the skin there was still burning. Then his face cleared.
“Not active glyphs . . . not a Wreaking. Just commentary.”
“What does it say?”
“Hard to translate . . . Mhabrogast concepts usually are. Something like . . . appropriate to purpose, or confluence of aspects with overtones of enjoyment-fulfillment . . .”
“For a good time, call Ellen?” she said dryly.
“More like, She’s a beauty. On that, if nothing else, she and I agree. And besides being beautiful, you are the most remarkably brave person I know, as well. I do not deserve you, but I shall enjoy my good fortune nonetheless.”
“So will I!”
He leaned closer and whispered in her ear:
“You are also supremely bite-able, and at last I am able to say that and not feel sorry for myself, or guilty. I was feeding on Cheba and thinking of you, my Ellie. Jealousy adds to my long-standing hatred for my sister.”
There was something like a lick of hot wind in his voice, something that made her shiver slightly. Familiar yet not.
That’s the first time a Shadowspawn’s looked at me like that and it didn’t scare me. Well, not really scare me. It’s sort of predatory, yes, but I can see it’s Adrian in there. And . . . yeah, I really do love him, I guess. It won’t be easy, but I want to try.
“You’ve got a better butt than she does,” Ellen said, just for the pleasure of seeing his smile. “And you’re here.”
The tune came to an end, and they turned and applauded the musicians. Then she heard more applause from the formal staircase. Ellen swallowed and made herself turn, smiling, as the glyph sprang into her mind.
Christ, that’s strange, she thought. It’s as if my thoughts were operating on two sides of a plane of glass!
“Be ready,” Adrian murmured.
She could feel her emotions running on parallel tracks, the fear-hate-fascination-loathing-longing that Adrienne produced, and the bubbling joy at restored hope as well. The mistress of Rancho Sangre was there, gowned and jeweled now, with her parents, and the three Shadowspawn who’d flown in right after Adrian.
Dmitri Usov was in immaculate white tie and black dress coat; with his long blond hair it made him look a little like a mad, murderous conductor in a Romantic opera about an old-fashioned orchestra. Dale Shadowspawn . . . she blinked. He was in Apache costume, or a version thereof, complete with tunic and headband and leggings. Not touristified, though the fabrics were fine dark cloth, and there was platinum on the hilt of his long knife.
And Michiko, in the full ceremonial splendor of a Hōmongi kimono, with patterns of floral roundels and birds swirling along the seams of the pale-green silk, encircled by an embroidered fukuro obi and topped by an elaborate hairdo held with long jade pins. Even her step in the sandals and white divided-toe socks had a mincing look.
Oh, she thought. They’re expecting this Hajime guy. He’s really old-fashioned.
“Ah, Mr. Peterson,” Adrienne said. “I see you’ve made my Ellen’s acquaintance.”
“A great pleasure,” Adrian said neutrally. “You are to be envied. In fact, I do envy you.”
“I envy you, a little—it wouldn’t be really appropriate for me to dance with her tonight; we’re being very formal.”
“Wilbur!” Jules Brézé said from behind her, delight in his voice. “Good God, it is you!”
Adrian extended his hand for an old-fashioned shake, rather than the touch of the fingertips that most younger Shadowspawn used. His shields clamped down like a surface of mirrored alloy, until his own perception dimmed.
“Good God, Wilbur, it’s been . . . nearly sixty years!” his father said.
“Yes,” Adrian said neutrally; he ruthlessly crushed a squib of panic. “A very long time, Jules.”
And there were several unanswered letters from you to Wilbur, he thought. Men change, even postcorporeals. Jules believes you are Wilbur, Adrian. He will interpret anything you say in that light.
“Let’s get a drink. Adrienne is stuck with the greeting tonight, until the grand entrance of our would-be mikado.”
The ground floor of the casa grande was a series of interconnected chambers, mostly opening into each other through arched entranceways in a Moorish-Iberian style. They ducked through into a smaller room, more of a broad passageway around a courtyard, and took cocktails from a tray.
“À votre santé,” Jules said.
“Your health,” Adrian replied.
He sipped. Then his brows rose. “A classic Deauville! Now, that does take me back.”
Cognac, Coquerel Calvados, Van Gogh triple sec and lemon; the fruit flavors tingled over his tongue. It had been a popular mixture in the 1920s.
“Always one of your favorites, as I recall,” Jules said.
It’s the first time I’ve ever met my own father socially, Adrian thought. Since I was thirteen, at least, and he is utterly unchanged. He’s not a bad fellow, for a mass murderer.
“I never thought I’d see you alive again,” Jules said. “It is . . . not a good sign, when a man is as out of contact as you have been.”
Adrian shrugged and smiled. “I knew I was drifting, but . . . there always seemed to be time to remedy matters later. I lived much in dreams of the past. Yet in the end, they are unsatisfying.”
Which is why the real Wilbur killed himself, most probably. When the dream ends, the reality you fled is more terrible than ever.
For a Shadowspawn, it was possible to live in the interior world quite literally, shaping it to your will.
But while it feels and smells and tastes real, it isn’t; and the people are not real, unless they are captured souls.
Jules shook his head. “I knew. Yet every time I warned you . . . well, why relive old fights? May I see it? You still carry the locket everywhere?”
Adrian let his mind relax and chose. His fingers went into a pocket and brought out the little gold oval; that was the path the Power saw as leading to the result he wanted. He opened it and glanced within; the face was delicate, huge-eyed. If the hand-tinting of the photograph was accurate, there had been an elfin loveliness. Adrian handed it over carefully, as a man would with a precious possession, and took it back almost immediately.
“Joan was very beautiful,” Jules said. “Yet . . . my friend, it is not well to become too attached to them. Fond yes, in some cases, but not . . . attached. They die. We do not. Our natures are different. That you could not be there when she was killed and Carry her soul was a tragedy, yes, but I suspect . . . that the temptations of dreams would have been even worse if you had. Forgive me if I intrude!”
Adrian shrugged and smiled with Wilbur’s face and body. “Obviously, I came to agree with you in the end,” he said. “Though it was hard.”
“You should acquire a few contemporary lucies on a long-term basis. An occasional kill is one thing, but . . .”
“I think I was punishing them for not being her,” Adrian said, guessing at the psychology of a dead man.
I would feel some sympathy for him, if he had not brought so many others suffering and death.
“Some things do not change, though,” Jules said, winking. “I noticed you dancing with my daughter’s Ellen, you sly dog!”
He shrugged. “Is that her name? A glorious creature, and her blood-scent! Maddening! Trust a Brézé to find such a vision, and to torment us all with it.”
A ruefully envious snap of the teeth, and Jules did the same; they laughed and raised their glasses in a brief toast before Adrian continued:
“But the mind was extremely strange, and . . . well, women spoke with more restraint when I was a young man. Except for those of the lower orders, of course, and she obviously isn’t that. The mixture of sophistication and coarseness is . . . disturbing. I expected one or the other. The little chica I picked out of Adrienne’s gift-herd is a pretty, healthy animal, and satisfying in her peasant way. I may keep her. But in our day . . .”
“Our day is not past,” Jules said, giving him a brief slap on the shoulder. “Now that you are around and about again, you must come and visit us in La Jolla. Night-polo, old man! You taught me the art in daylight eighty years ago; let me return the favor. And we have a wide human acquaintance. There is much that is interesting among them.”
“This is . . . a trial venture. I must learn to live in the world again. It’s . . . well, it’s a damned odd world now, that’s all.”
“Ah, and it will grow odder still, unless we take measures. You probably haven’t been following Council politics?”
Adrian spread a hand out, remembering at the last moment to make the gesture palm-down and restrained. Wilbur Peterson had been American-raised, though related to the Brézés. He would be not only an Anglo-Saxon in his body language, but an antique one.
“I didn’t recognize much of the territory I flew over to get here, except for the ocean and the mountains,” he said. “God, to think that we used to drive around San Jose for the blossoms! The scent was intoxicating even for humans. I nearly reconsidered and turned around.”
Jules made a grimace. “Yes. We have been negligent in caring for the greater estate. My daughter has some interesting plans for dealing with that, and I find her energy and enthusiasm quite compelling. Julianne and I never became withdrawn, but it is so easy to live from day to day. Perhaps the corporeals have a greater sense of urgency. Let me tell you about the Council meeting that’s to be called. And of course Hajime will be representing us . . .”
“How did that happen?” Adrian asked; Wilbur had been well into his fugue by then.
“Oh, the usual way. Overconfidence by us, intrigue and then a swift coup by them. Hajime killed me personally, though I must say it was decent of him not to inflict Final Death. Adrienne is quite close with Tōkairin Michiko, Hajime’s favorite grandchild. They negotiated the details of the peace agreement.”
“Tell me more about this ceremony, the Prayer for Long Life,” Adrian said. “And the Council meeting.”
Jules smiled. “It’s splendid to see you taking an interest again! Well—”
“Wilbur was quite a delightful man in his time,” Julianne Brézé said. “He was something of a mentor to Jules and me after our parents died so tragically . . . Everyone was so surprised when they didn’t transition successfully, given their blood-purity, but those things were not as well understood in our youth. Perhaps it was the shock of the assassination. Those Brotherhood scum were bolder then.”
Several of the Shadowspawn listening hissed; Ellen felt a small crawling sensation at the sound. It wasn’t contrived or deliberate, she decided; it was just the natural way for them to express . . .
Murderous hate, she thought. Frustrated sadism.
“I’m Carrying one of them,” Julianne said; her eyes had an inward look for an instant. “The other was too quick to suicide, but we caught little Thomas. He’s in a small rock chamber in my mind, feeding a very large spider. And after so many years, he’s very tired of it. The spider is still extremely enthusiastic. Occasionally it becomes . . . amorous. Then it spawns in his flesh and the young eat their way out. And I’m never, ever going to let Tom die the Final Death, though he begs for that fairly continuously. Once I let him think he’d been given release, and then he woke up again to the spider’s caress.”
Oh, Christ, she means it . . .
The remark brought general laughter. Ellen sipped at her second glass of champagne and tried to ignore other comments about what could be, and gleeful recollections of what had been, done to captured Brotherhood agents. Even after the killing-hall some of them were gruesome. Peter grimaced to her as she turned away a little.
“I wonder why they let us mingle at events like this?” she said softly. “We lucies, and the renfields.”
“Control rods,” he replied promptly; his cheeks were a little flushed, and he was working on his third glass of the sparkling wine. “That’s definitely part of it.”
It’s been quite a while since she fed on him, Ellen thought sympathetically. God, that can get hard to take! Even knowing there’s going to be pain doesn’t make you want it less. At least not for me. I think that may be harder for him.
“What?” she said aloud. “Rods?”
“Like the control rods in a nuclear reactor, the ones they slide in to absorb neutrons and slow down the reaction. We damp down their hyper-aggressiveness. In fact, I think it’s probably the human part of their heredity that lets them cooperate as much as they do. They’re solitary killers by nature, or at least the original breed were.”
“Adrienne said that they don’t want to breed themselves much more pureblood than she is.”
Peter nodded. “But they pay for it,” he said. “I think they have a lot of inner conflicts too.”
“Too?”
“The way we do because of the dash of Shadowspawn. It . . . twists us both up in different ways.”
“Speaking of which,” Ellen said quietly.
Jose was talking with his aunt Theresa, looking martyred as she brushed lint off his shoulder and adjusted his tie. Monica hesitated, then approached Adrienne; she was a little haggard again. The Shadowspawn frowned, then glanced at her sidelong with a slight smile and moved away from the group around her mother. Monica followed and their heads leaned together.
“If you ask nicely,” Ellen heard Adrienne say. “It’s really Peter’s turn.”
“Oh, I beg,” Monica said quietly. “Please.”
“Very well. But things will be energetic. Strenuous. Social events put me on edge.”
“That’s fine, Adri. Whatever you need is what I want.”
“Damn,” Peter said softly. “That’s sad. It’s also jumping her place in line, dammit!”
“I know it’s hard to miss out on the bite,” Ellen said.
“It’s been nearly a week. Damned right it’s hard. I can’t think straight.”
“Well, for you especially, lack of clarity of thought is a major downer,” Ellen went on dryly. “But what part of energetic and strenuous are you so sorry to skip?”
“There is that. Though,” he added, with the relentless honesty she’d noticed was one of his habits—“parts of that can be OK. I don’t mind the actual sex much, apart from always having . . .”
His voice trailed off. Ellen guessed, and her voice went even drier: “Apart from always having to be the girl?” she asked.
“Ah . . . well, I wouldn’t have phrased it quite that way . . .”
She laughed; the sound even had some humor in it. “Peter, I am a girl, and one who’s a submissive masochist at that, and I find it extremely wearing at times, Adrienne-style. But really . . . Monica was hit very hard by what we saw.”
Something spiky flashed into the forefront of her mind for a moment . . . a glyph, she thought. I wonder why? But it calmed her, somehow.
“You weren’t hit hard?”
“I was. Oh, yeah. It was grisly beyond words. But I’m better at . . . at compartmentalizing. And Adrienne took a full teeth-in-the-throat feeding from me right afterwards.”
“Misery makes you taste good,” he said wryly.
“Yeah. But she just sipped a little from Monica and it’s coming back on her.”
She went on:
“More . . . interaction . . . will help. You know what I mean.”
I mean strenuous and energetic involves a fair bit of screaming, in pain and otherwise. Been there, done that. It is distracting and distraction is just what poor Monica needs now.
Monica fumbled something out of her handbag; her BlackBerry. She made a call on it, probably telling her mother she wouldn’t be home tonight and needed her to stay with the children, then smiled tremulously and seemed to relax a little.
Peter sighed. “I don’t suppose I can argue with that. I will now proceed to get gradually but thoroughly drunk. That and the hangover will distract me for a day or so until I get my dose. She’s probably going to be feeding more than usual, with all this activity.”
More guests arrived; some through the front entrance, others down the staircase, which meant they’d flown in. Some of those were corporeals too, like Adrienne’s three . . .
Coconspirators? Ellen thought. Which means their actual bodies must have been unconscious and carried in by their renfields. Maybe even in coffins . . . well, no, in padded boxes that look a lot like coffins, I suppose. And the postcorporeals must have something like that for safety when they’re traveling . . . anyway, ewww.
Adrienne stopped as she walked by. “I’ve known some of the postcorporeals to transform into a smallish creature and have themselves shipped FedEx,” she said.
Peter snorted. “Shipped ?”
“It’s no hardship being boxed up if you’re a comatose rodent, hein? And you can use a nice secure sealed container of welded steel when you can go impalpable—just walk in through the side as a gerbil or a ferret, say. Curl up, and then step out the same way when you get to your destination. But I think I’ll keep my jet or whatever the equivalent is by the time I’ve had my Second Birth. Getting there is half the fun.”
When she’d passed by, Ellen went on to Peter: “Has it struck you how dependent Shadowspawn are on renfields? They’d have to hide in caves or sewers without them.”
“Yes,” Peter said, running a hand through his hair. Then he took a deep breath and forced himself to stop fidgeting. “But they can know who’s trustworthy.”
“It isn’t fair,” she burst out.
Unexpectedly, he laughed. It was a little slurred, but genuine. “No, it isn’t fair. There are so few of them, and they’re no smarter than we are—Adrienne is very bright, but she’s well above average for them, too. Most of them are arrogant and self-indulgent and unbelievably self-centered, judging by the ones I’ve met. It’s the damned Power.”
By now the great room had seventy or eighty people in it not counting the house servants; milling around, talking, drinking and eating canapés off trays. Each Shadowspawn individual or couple—a few had teenage children in tow, looking sullen as you’d expect—was surrounded by an aura of their important renfields and . . .
“Show-lucies,” Ellen said.
“What?” Peter said.
“That’s what we are. We’re show-lucies. Trophies, as well as control rods. Notice how all the lucies are extremely good-looking and very well dressed?”
He smiled wryly. “Touché. And thanks.”
“You’re a very handsome man, Peter.”
“That’s probably why I’m alive. No,” he went on a little pedantically. “It’s probably why she didn’t kill me in Los Alamos. If I’d been a quarter-ton of questionable hygiene like quite a few of my colleagues, I’d have been toast. But my brains are probably why I’m still alive.”
It might have been a cocktail party or reception anywhere, except for the odd touch—Jules disappearing into an alcove with his lucy, Mark . . . reappearing with blood on his lips and Mark looking flushed and rumpled, for example. Then Adrienne’s head came up; she nodded and made an inconspicuous signal.
The Shadowspawn present moved to either side of the doors. Ellen shared a glance with Peter, and got a nod from him too; the movement was slow and ragged and Adrienne was obviously restraining a shout of Hurry up, you idiots! with difficulty. Theresa had the favored renfields and lucies lined up behind them much more quickly.
The great doors swung open; the air outside was a little cooler, scented with flowers and warm dust. A file of the Gurkha mercenaries marched in wearing green dress uniforms with silver buttons and little pillbox hats; they split and wheeled into two lines on either side, and brought their rifles up to present arms with a smart stamp and crash of boots and smack of hands on metal.
Tōkairin Hajime walked through, in a black sha-silk kimono and gray hakama—wide trousers like a split skirt. The haori jacket over it all was open at the front, and bore five kamon, House badges with the mon of his clan. His wife was behind him, in a rustling splendor of white and rose and crimson and intricate headdress; an attendant carried his swords, leaving his hands empty except for a fan, and there were several others behind him. He and his party stepped out of their sandals and a servant knelt to help them on with slippers.
Adrienne swept forward and sank in a deep curtsy—the antique form combined with a bow, but the Western gesture nonetheless. Her parents followed suit.
Ah, Ellen thought, watching his nod in return; everyone else just bowed. That’s more respectful, not less. I wonder what she’s thinking?
“Tōkairin-sama, yoku irasshaimashita,” Adrienne said, in formal greeting. “Lord Tōkairin! Welcome to my home.”
“Sorry to be a bother,” Hajime said—which made more sense in Japanese. Then he switched to English for a moment: “Thank you for going to all this trouble.”
“It was the least I could do,” Adrienne half-purred.
“Tsumaranai mono desu ga . . .” he went on; this is a mere trifle, or words to that effect.
The gift was a sword in a superb black-lacquered sheath, an elegant plainness. She made a small, quite genuine exclamation of pleasure as she took the silk-cord grip in her hand and drew it just enough for a sliver of the silver-worked layered steel to show, then clicked it home to keep the chill menace of the activated glyphs warded. Someone who really knew what they were doing had worked over this one. Hajime was powerful enough, but not so subtle a Wreaker.
They went through the usual oh-I-couldn’t-possibly/please-accept-this dance that Hajime’s background required.
Then Adrienne indicated a pair from those her renfields had picked from potential quarry at San Simeon over the past few months—a statuesque redheaded girl with milk-pale skin and a sandy-haired youth with a beautiful dancer’s body. Both showed to advantage in the short white feeding tunics, and they had been carefully primed, mostly by a detailed and honest description of what was likely to happen to them. They had sensitive, intelligent minds, now nearly paralytic with terror but unable to stop imagining their fates in flashes of vivid imagery that came through beautifully.
It was enough to make her hungry, and she’d fed well today. There was nothing quite like picking out the worst from someone’s mind and then actually doing it to them.
“Nani mo gozaimasen ga, dozo meshiagatte kudasai,” she said: “It’s nothing, but please go ahead and have some.”
Hajime’s wife had been decorously quiet except for a murmured exchange of greetings; now her teeth clicked together slightly.
“Oishisou,” she said softly: looks delicious.
The clan-head smiled and gave Adrienne a shrewd glance, and she could feel Michiko’s bubble of quickly-suppressed mirth even through her shields.
“You are courteous to a fault,” he said. “Later, certainly.”
Theresa and her assistants hustled the pair out; they’d be ready in the guest-suite when dawn made postcorporeals seek shelter. The formal greeting array broke down as Hajime and his retinue began to mingle.
“My only worry is that my mad brother may somehow manage to spoil things,” Adrienne said to him.
The Shadowspawn overlord of the West Coast snorted. “I doubt that very much.”
Michiko bowed. “I have had our best men checking carefully, Grandfather,” she said. “The precautions certainly seem more than adequate.”
Dale had been doing his best impassive-Indian impression, even crossing his arms over his chest. Now he smiled thinly.
“I think so too, sir,” he said.
Hajime’s nod was wary this time. “Ms. Brézé requested that you do so?”
“Yes. I’m not active on any Council missions right now, so I gave it a thorough going-over, and I’ll be here for the full three days. It’s within my remit, since you are a Council member, sir.”
Dmitri nodded: “I have also reviewed the arrangements. It was the least I could do, after your patronage released me from Seversk!”
One of Hajime’s brows rose with his nod this time. “You certainly seem to have taken every possible precaution,” he said to Adrienne.
She spread her hands and smiled charmingly. Hajime’s other brow went up; her father and mother were stepping up from behind her.
“Jules,” he said. “Julianne.”
The elder Brézés bowed slightly. “Haven’t seen you since you killed us, Hajime-san,” Jules said cheerfully.
“You’re moving back here?” their murderer said with a trace of iron in his tone.
“Oh, no, just visiting with our grandchildren.”
Hajime’s face relaxed slightly. “One of life’s great pleasures, exceeded only by great-grandchildren.”
Adrienne backed out of the conversation graciously, keeping her smile to herself until she was safely facing away. Her shields were impenetrable, but Hajime hadn’t survived over a century of Shadowspawn politics, and generations past his body’s death, by being unable to read faces as well as minds.
Perfect, she thought. Perfect!