A Taint in the Blood (48 page)

His smile faded into the fanged grin of the sabertooth, like a Cheshire cat in reverse.

Let’s make my brave words true
, she thought, and swung herself across the great animal’s back.
Be what you want to seem, as the man said.

“Hi-yo Silver, away!”

 

 

Lounging by the pool in the afternoon felt good after a swim and a late rising.

In fact, I feel good generally,
Ellen thought.
Odd. Nothing’s changed, but I’m . . . hopeful. Why?

Somehow she didn’t feel really curious about that either; the thought faded from her mind.

There were a number of swimming pools in the grounds of the
casa grande
. This one was a rectangle of pale-veined Vermont marble with rounded ends, a hundred feet long and sixty wide. A fountain threw water high in the center, three stone basins stacked above each other on a central shaft. There were several pieces of statuary around it, done in the smooth French
moderne
style of the 1920s.

They included a classical-themed
Leda and the Swan
that grew more disturbingly realistic the longer you looked at it. Unnervingly so, if you were a lucy, with Leda’s splay-legged position and the expression of hopeless horror on her face beneath the great rampant bird that gripped her with wings and beak. That made you think about the truth behind the myth, and the mocking joke behind the statue.

Leila and Leon were playing in the shallow portion, like two lithe brown otters, with a nanny watching from the edge; Monica’s children were there too. The other end had a curving semicircular colonnade, two rows of stone pillars supporting a bronze trellis with wisteria growing woven through it, the purple-white-lavender bunches of blossom hanging overhead and scenting the air with a delicate, elusive scent amid the flickering shade. Adrienne and Dale and Michiko were resting on couches grouped around a low table, close enough for conversation, which was in some sneezing-clicking guttural language. Ellen suspected it was Apache, but couldn’t have been sure even if she’d been able to break the sounds down into separate words.

“I’m glad Josh and Sophie are getting to know the
Doña
’s children,” Monica said to Ellen.

The lucies were lying on loungers underneath the pergola, a little aside from their Shadowspawn.

“You are?” Ellen said neutrally.

“Oh, yes. By the time Leon and Leila are old enough to need lucies, Josh and Sophie will be ready for initiation,” Monica said happily.

“Ah . . . well, that’s one career choice,” Ellen said neutrally.

“Wouldn’t it be marvelous? Well, it all depends on what Leon and Leila want, of course. I’ve got such bright kids, I’m sure they’ll have a lot of alternatives.
They
won’t have any problems with college!”

Dale’s lucy Kai was wearing nothing but a black bowler hat; the rest of them had bathing suits on, albeit topless for the women. She held up a bottle of lotion-cum-sunblock.

“Anyone want a rubdown with this stuff?” she asked brightly.

“No, thanks,” Monica said.

Ellen and Peter and Jose shook their heads; Wayne Jackson didn’t notice the invitation. He was thinner than she remembered from San Francisco, and occasionally tears dripped from his eyes. The other lucies ignored him courteously.

Or because it’s just too difficult to deal with it,
Ellen thought grimly.
It could be any of us, if Adrienne decided to destroy someone. Nobody talks about whatever happened to Jamal, either. Or maybe he’s destroying himself with guilt, too. Christ,
I
feel guilty enough, and I haven’t been helping plan the destruction of the world!

“Hell, anyone want to give
me
a rubdown?” Kai inquired.

“No, thanks,” Monica said again.

Kai subsided and picked up a book of hentai manga; from a glimpse, it mostly involved tentacles and orifices. Ellen smiled a little to herself. Monica went on with a luxurious, but cautious, stretch:

“By the way, Ellen, thanks for introducing Adrienne to that delicious silk whip thing.”

“Ah . . .” Ellen said. “You’re welcome, I guess.”

“I’ve always liked the smacking and spanking and smothering—well, I learned to get into that pretty quick after I came here—but I could never really enjoy being beaten with
things
before, however hard I tried. That riding crop just plain
hurts
. Adrienne chased me around with the silk whip last night after the first feeding; she used to use the riding crop for that. Those lovely silk thongs can give you a nice toasty glow, though.”

“Glad you had a good time.”

Monica nodded with a dreamy smile. “We were both laughing while she chased me—well, I was laughing and then squealing when she got a good swat in somewhere tender—and then she’d
catch
me and really lay into me until I sobbed and yelled for mercy and then she jumped on me and we really got down to stuff. Then more feeding, and . . . I can’t think of when I’ve had a better time, even with the carpet burns.”

What was it that Robbie Burns said?
Ellen thought.
“Oh that we had the gifte gi’ us/Tae see ourselves as others see us.” That
does
sort of sound like fun, apart from the no-limits terror at the back of your mind. Except I think Monica was originally a straight vanilla type and would have screamed with
horror
at the thought of that sort of playing . . . even without the really weird blood-drinking Shadowspawn could-kill-you-anytime part.

“Ummm, yeah, that sounds enjoyable,” she said aloud.

“
Oh
, yes. And afterwards I was lying there thinking
I can’t feel my legs anymore
and the
Doña
said,
I can always rely on you, Monica
. What do you think of it, Peter?” Monica asked brightly. “Isn’t the sting it gives nice?”

The slight blond man was looking fragile today. “Ah, it’s certainly less uncomfortable than the riding crop,” he said politely, and Jose rolled his eyes.

“Lame, totally
lame
,” Kai muttered, on a rising note, getting up and tossing down her book of cartoons. “What a bunch of playacting—”

Dale Shadowblade glanced up in irritation and made a gesture. Kai stopped in mid-syllable and froze, her eyes going wide. A low keening sound came from beneath her clenched teeth. Then she toppled slowly backward, head and shoulders into the pool and then the rest of her slowly sliding after. The Shadowspawn laughed. Jose and Peter jumped to their feet, looked at each other, and then leapt into the pool after her. Between them they manhandled the slim, limp form to the stone; she lay facedown with water trickling out of her mouth.

“Doña?”
Ellen asked.

Adrienne looked over, smiled, and raised a brow at the man. He shrugged and glanced; Kai’s body bucked and heaved, and she gave a whoop and coughed up more of the water. The two lucies helped her to her deck chair, and she lay quietly for a few minutes. Then she blinked, scrubbed her face, and reached for the manga. It dropped through her fingers and Ellen instinctively picked it up and handed it to her.

“Thanks,” she said in a small, hoarse voice.

Adrienne raised her voice slightly. “It’s really time to start getting ready for the birthday party,” she said. “We wouldn’t want anything to go wrong!”

A
bronze bell rang through the night. The crowd walked towards the Japanese garden in chattering clumps, beneath the colorful paper lanterns. Tonight everyone
was
in Japanese costume; Adrian felt at ease in the
hakama
outfit, and it was certainly comfortable and—much more important—suited for quick action.

These last nights and days were the longest consecutive period he’d ever been out-of-body. He was finding it subtly disturbing.

Or possibly
seductive
is a better word.

There was a wild freedom to it that made him understand why Mhabrogast treated existence as a dream that could be shaped by wishing it so.

In the days of the first Empire of Shadows the speakers of the
lingua demonica
must have been mostly postcorporeals. For them, existence was a long fantasy of blood and lust and power.

He licked the last of Cheba’s blood off his lips with a slight grimace. She hadn’t fought him this time, either. He was very glad that he’d be away or dead tonight.

“I feel as if I were in a performance of
The Mikado
, Wilbur,” his father murmured, gesturing with his fan.

“Such a stuffy death,” Adrian replied with a smile.

“I’d better circulate. My company is still
slightly
radioactive with Hajime’s people and seeing us much together would do you no good.”

They walked through the gateway; it was a little eerie to see the same place he’d come as the smilodon thronged with a laughing, chatting crowd in kimonos. The darker, restrained colors of male garb mixed with the golds and scarlets and indigos of the women. Hajime’s was an exception to the men’s soberness, a deep red with gold accents.

Even more colorful were the decorated
fukusa
cloths that covered the gifts on a long table; one caught his eye, embroidered on silk satin, lined with soft crepe silk. Forests of pine tossed beneath clouds; water fell down a mountainside to a river as if it were falling from the sky and was rippled to shore. A Chinese man played the
koto
among a meadow of camellias, beneath a blossoming plum tree and flying cranes.

“Lin Bu,” Ellen murmured to him, seemingly casual. “A Soong-era nature poet; he used to call the plum-blossoms his wife and the cranes his children. The pines and camellias are supposed to signify longevity. That’s Edo-period work.”

Adrian/Wilbur nodded. His hand brushed hers, and he felt her take what he held.

Now we’re totally committed
, he thought.
She can’t escape detection for long now. And there’s only one reason for a normal human to have
that
tucked into their clothing, and no way she could have gotten it except from someone like
me.
Plus my supposed renfields have quietly decamped . . . You’re back in the war, Adrian, and playing for higher stakes than mere life and death this time.

A gong rang, and the guests grouped themselves along the long low-slung tables, with cushions to sit cross-legged on. Servants appeared, bringing sake—in square wooden boxes, the ultra-traditional form that had started out as rice-measures, each of six fluid ounces. They rested in little dishes and were filled to overflowing, for abundance and hospitality.

Adrian was on the other side of the table from Hajime, and three places down; Adrienne was on his other side, in the place of honor. That would be awkward, but he was close enough, and as a bonus he could hear the conversation.

“Ah, Yonetsuru Daiginjo sake,” Hajime said. “I grew up drinking this! Though now I’m older than even the average in Yamagata.
Oshoushina!
” he added, in the dialect word for
thanks
.

^“
Sasukune!
^”
Adrienne replied in the same local variant of Japanese, topping him neatly with
you’re welcome
.

He laughed and lifted the box carefully to drink from one corner, smacking his lips.

“Flowery and fruity and just a bit rough,” he said with satisfaction. “Enough to stand up to this
masu
, though I’m glad you haven’t gone too far and used cedarwood ones. Bottoms up!”

“I liked the look of this dark oxblood red lacquer,” she said, when they’d each drained theirs. “Do have a little more.”

She poured for him and his wife and returned to her own.

“Ah,
longevity
,” Hajime said, studying the ideogram in the bottom of the
masu
. “Very pretty calligraphy, too.”

Adrian sipped; it
was
good, if you liked warm rice wine, which he did. The problem would be to drink enough to lull suspicion but not enough to fuddle himself. This sort of party would make restraint rather conspicuous.

At least the others aren’t even
trying
to hold back,
he thought; Adrienne was emptying hers as well—more or less obligatory, for good manners’ sake.

Shiizakana
came next, the appetizers that went with the sake. Asazukiri Tofu, presented on a bamboo plate with a slice of Yuzu fruit, and on the side citrus-infused salt, plum-infused salt, and soy.

“Ah!” his immediate neighbor said, a Tōkairin retainer. “
Really
fresh, not that glue paste you get in the stores.”

It
was
good, the bland-sweet-bitter tastes flowing through his mouth . . . and it would help sop up the alcohol. A pity that there was no rice, but that would come towards the end of the meal, if they followed the ancient pattern. The second dish to arrive was
Gindara no Saikyo Yaki
, grilled black cod marinated in Saikyo Miso sauce. The black cod was moist, but not turned into fish jelly; the Saikyo Miso taste was delicate, just short of being too salty.

If I’m going to die, at least it won’t be with overcooked cod in my stomach,
he thought.

Though, as he was night-walking, the contents would just fall to the ground if he disintegrated in Final Death. That made him grin; at least he could count on making a disgusting mess at his sister’s party, even if he failed.

He looked over to Ellen; she was at the lucies’ table, behind the principals but not too far, talking easily to the others—the striking dark-haired woman, the slight blond man and a Latino who looked like he’d stepped from a motorcycle ad but who wore the
hakama
with surprising ease. One of them made a joke, waving something in his chopsticks.