Generation V (10 page)

Then there was a sudden scraping as a chair was pushed back from the table, and Prudence stood next to Chivalry, her hand around his bent wrist, stopping all of Luca’s momentum. Everyone paused for a long moment of shock, while she stood there, not a hair out of place, her upper lip curled ever so slightly in disgust, though who that was directed toward was unclear.

Luca stepped backward, removing his hand from Chivalry’s. The black of his pupils pulled in again, and his fangs slowly receded. He cleared his throat, and for a few tense seconds seemed occupied with adjusting his hair and shirt, smoothing out wrinkles and restoring his appearance. “And you, my lady Prudence,” he said finally, with clear deference in his voice. “Do you also intercede for your brother?”

I didn’t even breathe as Prudence’s hard blue eyes trailed over to look up and down Maria, then shifted over to me. Chivalry pushed himself up from the floor slowly, watching her face, his expression unreadable.

“Please, Prudence,” I said hoarsely, barely able to push the words through my suddenly tight throat. I hated everything she was, but I sought out her blue eyes and tried to beg silently.

She looked away from me then, back to Luca. “Perhaps I am too far removed from the nursery,” she said in
her coldest voice. “There are many pets with no devoted owner such as yourself. I see no reason to quibble further in this unseemly manner.”

“How wise,” Luca murmured with a small smile. With clearly regained confidence, he reached down and put his hand on Maria’s arm, just above where I was holding her.

“Prudence—” I said urgently.

“No, Fort,” she interrupted. “You are indulged enough.” Then she turned and walked back to her chair, and I could hear her settle down, and then the little beep as she turned her BlackBerry on again.

I looked back up at Luca, whose smile widened, then at Maria. That spark was gone from her eyes, and she slowly turned her face away from mine, back toward Luca.

“Fortitude.”

I looked over at Chivalry, standing next to me. His face was still flushed, and he was holding his abused wrist carefully with his free hand. He glanced at Maria, then back to me. “That’s enough,” he said, and I could hear the resignation in his voice.

I shook my head, not letting go of Maria’s wrist.

Luca gave a loud huff, then squeezed Maria’s arm tightly. Her high shriek cut through the thick air of the room sharply. I flinched, then hesitated. Luca lifted one expressive eyebrow.

I let go.

I stared up at Maria, desperately hoping that she’d look down at me, hoping that she’d show that she understood that I’d tried, but Maria turned her face completely away. Luca wrapped one skinny arm around her, pulling her close against his body, and I could feel acid at
the back of my throat at how she closed her eyes and shut down, accepting it.

Luca gave one last nod to Madeline, ignoring the rest of us, then walked quickly out the door with Maria, Phillip following closely behind them. I could feel the buzzing in the back of my head growing weaker and weaker as they moved farther out of the house, on to the driveway, then out into the night, until at last it was just me and the family.

There was a long pause, a sudden scurrying sound, and then the entire kitchen staff seemed to burst into the room. There was a flurry of cleared plates and platters, and within seconds we were alone again. The rush made me very aware that Madeline’s human staff had been completely absent for the entirety of Luca’s visit.

Madeline got up to leave. I realized that to her, there was nothing left to discuss.

“Aren’t you going to do something?” I burst out.

“About what?” Madeline asked. She glanced at the door to the kitchen. “If this is about dessert, there wasn’t one planned, but you can always ask for a slice of pie.”

Unbelievable. “About Maria!” I said loudly.

“Really, Fortitude, you’re going to have to be more specific. What should I be doing about Maria?” Madeline eased back down into her seat. With a clear indication of settling in, she unbuttoned her ermine cape and draped it over the back of her chair.

“Saving her! He’s hurting her, probably molesting her.”

“Darling, I’d say it’s rather certain that he’s been molesting her. But her life has likely been a misery for long enough now that I’m sure she’s looking forward to her inevitable demise, which from the looks of her will be
happening rather sooner than later. Why on earth should I interfere?”

I stared at her.

Prudence gave a gusty sigh. “For Christ’s sake, Fortitude, why must you try to make everyone else get worked up over nothing? So some girl is suffering. So what?”

“Her situation is unfortunate,” Chivalry said quietly from where he was still standing behind my chair.

“That is so typical of you to take his side,” Prudence snapped. “You don’t give a damn about her either now that she’s out of the room and we don’t all have to see what a messy eater that idiot is, but you’ll pretend just to make Fort happy.”

Chivalry glared at her. “I think my actions this evening have shown that my commitment is more than just some easy facade.”

Prudence’s eyes blazed. “And I should’ve gotten involved in your little squabble, risking injury in that fight, for what? What use do I have for a drained girl with one foot in the grave already?”

“My little turtledoves,” Madeline said, making a little simmer down gesture with her hand. “This is all academic anyway. I have welcomed Luca to my territory, and other than Fortitude’s tender feelings, it is disturbing none of us for him to have his plaything. In a week he will be back merrily assaulting the young girls of Naples, and out of sight is out of mind.”

“How can you say that?” I asked.

“Very easily. You are young, darling, and prone to foolishness, so let me be clear. You are not to interfere with the young Maria, and you”—her gaze pinned Chivalry—“are
expressly forbidden to have any involvement with Luca or his servants while he is in my territory. I will not have your little brother’s distress drive you to imprudent action.”

“And me, Mother?” Prudence asked. “Do you have any orders for me?”

“No, darling.” Madeline smiled. “I am certain that I can trust in your dual senses of decorum and disinterest in this area.”

I shoved back from the table, letting my chair fall back and onto the floor as I stood and stared at my mother. “You could’ve stopped him from taking her,” I accused. “I couldn’t, Chivalry couldn’t, Prudence wouldn’t, but just one word from you and he would’ve left her.”

Madeline’s smile stayed fixed on her face, but there was a clear warning in her voice. “For me to demand the pet would be to challenge Luca’s father, and that would risk a war between our territories. We tend to be slow-moving creatures, Fortitude, but we can be riled. I doubt very much that you would enjoy a visit from Dominic, who holds closer to older ways than I do. Like your sister, I do not embrace direct confrontation when I am not certain of victory.”

“I can’t sit here and listen to any more of this,” I said.

“You certainly could, darling, but I understand that you would prefer not to. Have a lovely evening. And”—Madeline glanced up at me, her blue eyes suddenly gleaming—“you are more vulnerable than your siblings, so while Luca is in town I have made arrangements for your protection.”

“If that’s so easy for you, why can’t you protect Maria?”

“Really, darling, you are utterly beside yourself. You
are my child, while Maria is nothing. Why would I even dream of spending favors, money, or effort for her protection?”

I left, ignoring it when Chivalry called my name. I could hear the sound of Prudence’s voice, probably starting in on Chivalry, but I needed to get out of that house, with its stifling air and pervasive attitude of superiority. It was too much like when Jill and Brian had died, and Madeline had acted as if I’d just lost a pet bunny.

I made the drive home primarily on autopilot, and since it was almost midnight on a Wednesday, the roads were almost deserted. I made good time, pulling into my parking space at just after twelve thirty. I sat in the car for a long minute. Inside the car, I was wrapped in a bubble of silence, left alone with my thoughts. That was the last thing I wanted. It had hurt to have my last illusions and hopes shattered so harshly. Madeline knew me too well—I’d always imagined that maybe other vampires were different from my family, that they had managed to retain more humanity, or at least more respect for humanity. That maybe they didn’t have the ruthless self-interest that the vampires I knew, even Chivalry, had. That hope had sustained me for a long time, because it meant that maybe there was a chance that after I transitioned, I would still be me and I wouldn’t lose those feelings that my mother and siblings saw as so foreign. Meeting Luca had shown me that by the standards of the larger vampire community, my family was actually a bunch of tree huggers. I remembered how completely unaware he’d been of what his entourage looked like,
and how surprised he’d been when I suggested that they needed to eat as well.

Chivalry’s slow destruction of his wives, or even the way Prudence had killed my foster parents with such brutal and heartless efficiency, suddenly seemed less vicious compared to Luca. I’d never seen a mark left on Chivalry’s spouses, and dinner had been moved progressively earlier in the mansion to accommodate Bhumika’s flagging energy. She sat at the table every night, and I’d seen Chivalry suffer without complaint through countless Bollywood movies, just to make her happy.

But that didn’t make Chivalry less of a predator. And I still dreamed that someone would drop a house on Prudence. They weren’t any less deadly than they were before dinner—all that this meant was that there was a much worse option.

I got out, stood next to the Fiesta, and looked up at my building. The lights in my apartment were on, meaning that Larry had returned home. I didn’t want to talk with him, or even look at him. It didn’t seem right to even think about the money he owed me when somewhere in the city, behind those shuttered eyes, Maria was experiencing a level of suffering that I couldn’t even imagine.

I started walking around the neighborhood. Everything was buttoned down for the night, and I was only passed by an occasional car, but maybe if I walked long enough and wore myself down I wouldn’t dream. I already knew that my dreams would be bad ones tonight. I circled around for maybe half an hour, until I switched directions and started heading for the twenty-four-hour 7-Eleven. The buses had stopped running, but it wasn’t
too far to walk, and if any night was one that called for a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, it was this.

I was already planning to buy a bag of Doritos chips to go with the ice cream when I realized I was being followed. Three tall guys who looked eighteen or nineteen and were wearing matching Bruins jerseys and assorted ill-conceived tattoos and facial piercings had been walking about twenty feet behind me, talking to each other in that overly loud way that drunks tend to communicate in. I hadn’t thought much of them, figuring that they were just heading home after watching the latest hockey game at a sports bar, but when I crossed the street, they crossed it as well. I glanced back over my shoulder—all three were looking right at me now, and they weren’t talking anymore.

I started walking faster. They walked faster too. I broke into a jog. One of them laughed, a high, mocking sound that made me aware of just how quiet it was, and I didn’t have to look back to know that they were moving faster now. I wasn’t even halfway to the 7-Eleven yet. The streets were empty of cars, and all the windows were dark. It hit me suddenly that I was about to experience my first mugging, a landmark of city living that I had frankly not been eager to meet.

For once I regretted not being a true vampire, with the ability to hand out shit, or at the very least outrun people. During high school the only person I was able to outrun had been Alton Myers, who was morbidly obese and had asthma. The inevitable occurred when a hand grabbed the back of my collar and yanked me backward. I heard the tearing of cloth and felt the solid impact of
concrete on my ass. One of them landed a kick on my side that knocked the wind out of me. As I rolled around on the ground, trying to protect my vulnerable areas of crotch, stomach, and head while the other two decided to join in on the kicking idea, I was struck with the very horrible irony that I was the one vampire in the northeastern United States and lower Canada who placed value on the lives of humans who I didn’t directly know. Now those humans were about to show their appreciation by beating the crap out of me.

This was possibly either a life lesson or a comment on my overall philosophy. It was definitely going to leave bruises.

“Hand over your wallet, dipshit,” one of the boys said.

“Fine!” I said, rolling over when another foot just missed my kidney. “Just stop kicking me!” The assault slowed to a few enthusiastic nudges as I scrabbled at my back pocket for my wallet. From the sharp crunch that I’d heard from my other pocket when I first fell, I could reasonably assume that my phone had passed on to join Frodo in the undying lands, and I really hoped that the thugs would run off before checking my billfold. Replacing my driver’s license and canceling my credit and debit cards was going to be a bitch, but I somehow doubted that they would be happy to learn that my entire cash reserve consisted of three dollars and a ticket from my sandwich shop that was only two notches away from a free hoagie.

I handed over my wallet and my luck held. At shitty. There was a pause as they all looked in, then a chorus of three voices calling me a fuck-head. I had braced myself
for a renewed kicking when a smooth, very husky, very female voice said: “Boys, why don’t you hang on a moment?”

We all looked. The three guys from where they had surrounded me, and me from my defensive huddle on the ground. Then there was a long beat while we all tried to comprehend what we were looking at.

A woman had come out of the nearby alley and was strolling up to us, as if this were…well, actually I’m not sure in what situation a woman would stroll up to a trio of teenage malcontents and their hapless victim with just that level of panache.