THE FAMILY THAT PREYS TOGETHER…
I opened the door and entered a room that was all things pink and frilly, with spindly-legged chairs and a preponderance of mother-of-pearl gilding any available surface. Madeline sat in the middle of it, a tiny woman with a Barbara Bush hairstyle, pink fluffy slippers and matching bathrobe over a standard little old lady dress, cornflower blue eyes, and a face so wrinkled that she makes the Dalai Lama look like a third grader. It was a perfect illusion of innocence until she set down her Sevres teacup and gave me a smile that showed off a perfect mouth of teeth and a set of fangs that a tiger would be jealous of.
“Darling,” Madeline said, taking off the large grandma-glasses that she doesn’t need, but likes to wear for effect. “What an unexpected pleasure.” Her voice is another giveaway. It’s low and sweet, with some age showing in her pauses, but it sets every instinct in you on edge. I’ve known Madeline my entire life, yet listening to her still makes all the hair on the back of my neck stand up, and I hate turning my back on her.
“It’s not a surprise if you send people to get me, Mother,” I said. Sometimes I wonder what a psychiatrist would make of my relationship with my mother. If I could go to a psychiatrist, of course, and tell them everything about my life without them immediately throwing me into an insane asylum. Or, worse, believing me.
She just gave me a grandmotherly smile, completely ruined by the fangs that rested against her bright coral lipstick. “But it is still a surprise. After all, you could’ve refused to visit. And yet here you are, my darling baby. Youngest of my little sparrows, hopping home into the nest. Isn’t that lovely?”
I hate coming home.
GENERATION
V
M. L. BRENNAN
ROC
Published by the Penguin Group
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First published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library,
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First Printing, May 2013
Copyright © R. L. Murphy, 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA
ISBN: 978-1-101-61295-8
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
For my husband.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
About the Author
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
With deepest thanks to my agent, Colleen Mohyde. I also am exceedingly grateful for my amazing editor, Anne Sowards, for not only deciding to roll the dice on me, but for making every part of the editing process a delight. Everywhere you touched the manuscript, it got better. Thanks also go to my copy editor, Dan Larsen.
Enormous thanks go to Sarah Riley and Karen Pelaez, great friends and incredible readers. I am deeply indebted to the many writing instructors I’ve had over the years, most particularly Chuck, who was able to show me my mistakes and make me laugh at the same time. To my family—thank you for rooting for me, despite all available evidence. Finally, again, this book could not have been written without the support of my husband, Adam, who sees up close what my writing process looks like, yet still believes in me.
I am indebted to the following books, which I relied on heavily while I was constructing the kitsune: Fox by Martin Wallen, The Fox’s Craft in Japanese Religion and Folklore by Michael Bathgate, The Moon Maiden and Other Japanese Fairy Tales by Grace James, and Kwaidan: Ghost Stories and Strange Tales of Old Japan by Lafcadio Hearn.
Chapter 1
I knew the moment that my brother, Chivalry, walked into the coffee shop. I always know whenever a member of my family is around. I’m not sure whether it’s because we’re family or because we’re vampires, because I’ve never met a vampire I’m not related to.
But even if I hadn’t been able to sense Chivalry with a bone-deep certainty, I would’ve known by the way that Tamara at the register and my boss, Jeanine, suddenly snapped to attention. Two of the buttons on Jeanine’s blouse came undone with a speed that I’ve never seen her demonstrate in any of her administrative duties. Tamara’s top was already pretty low, but she leaned down over the counter in a way that now had her very ample breasts spilling out in a manner that I was certain the Health Department would find concerning. I was able to observe all of this from my crouched position behind the counter, where I’d been retrieving more stacks of paper cups. I occupy the low end of the totem pole of power at the unfortunately named Busy Beans coffee shop, which managed to remain marginally profitable despite grimy floors, hard scones, and truly terrible coffee owing entirely to the free wireless connection and the high level of chain-store-eschewing college dissidents in Providence. It was the latest in the series of crappy jobs I’d held since graduating from college with a degree in the shockingly unemployable field of film theory.
I stood up, paper cups in hand, and watched my brother move through the crowd of ironic cardigans, horn-rimmed glasses, and vintage dresses. Heads were turning, and the hum of conversations dimmed as everyone looked him over. Even with all eyes on him, though, Chivalry seemed completely unaffected, letting the adulation of women and envy of men roll off him with complete aplomb. Just over six feet tall, with perfectly tousled chestnut hair and chiseled good looks that would’ve made a casting agent weep, Chivalry wore black slacks, a white collared shirt, and a perfectly tailored dark car-length jacket, all designer. He had just enough of a tan to suggest a life lived outdoors, but not so much that he looked like he spent all day lazing on the beach. He looked expensive, restrained, and capable of seducing every woman in the coffee shop.
I, on the other hand, was cringingly aware of my ratty jeans from Walmart, the tomato sauce stain on my T-shirt, and the duct tape that I’d used to reattach the sole of my left sneaker this morning, all topped off with a green Busy Beans apron that did not do wonders for my ego. My hair is a bit darker than Chivalry’s, and prone to sticking up in weird little tufts no matter how much hair gel I use in the mornings. Height that is imposing and impressive on Chivalry is gawky and awkward on me, and my face is forgettable at best. I’d once been with my girlfriend, Beth, when we were looking for some friends of hers we were supposed to meet up with, and had reached the level of cell phone calls along the lines of “Do you see the blue sign? We’re standing right under it,” and Beth had finally said, “Look for the tall, average-looking guy.” That had been about a month before she’d suggested that it would be good for our relationship if she had sex with other people.
If Chivalry looked like someone w
ho could put on pancake makeup and play a vampire in a movie, I looked like the guy who’d be fetching that guy coffee. Of course, Chivalry actually is a vampire—I’m still just mostly a vampire. As my family is always reminding me, I have a lot of human left.
By now Chivalry was at the counter and placing an order for a hazelnut cappuccino. He was smiling politely at Tamara and looking completely unaffected by her borderline toplessness, much to her apparent frustration as she managed to lean over even farther, with the result that two men seated at tables behind Chivalry but with good eye-lines to the counter choked on their drinks, and one unlucky guy spilled coffee all over himself. Chivalry didn’t so much as glance below her collarbone. I felt a little bad for Tamara, despite her tendency to leave me stuck with all the cleanup work. The elegant but extremely expensive wedding ring on Chivalry’s left hand meant that Tamara could strip down right in front of him, beg him to take her, and Chivalry probably wouldn’t even blink as he strolled away.
Now Chivalry was smiling at Jeanine and politely greeting her. “What a great little coffee place,” he said, prompting preening. “I just stopped by to say hello to my younger brother.”
Now everyone was staring at me—my coworkers with shock that I could be related to this god among men, and my brother with that calm steadiness that made me squirm inside at the memory of the sixteen calls of Chivalry’s that I’d dodged over the last month and a half. Nothing in Chivalry’s face suggested that he was pissed off at having to trot his thousand-dollar shoes into one of the mangier areas of Providence and over what was certainly one of its most disgusting floors to track down a brother who was avoiding him. I felt that very familiar sensation of gut-wrenching guilt and embarrassment that was my almost constant companion when I was with my brother.
“Hi, Chiv,” I said lamely.
“Hello, Fortitude,” Chivalry said, his voice grave and calm. “Would it be possible to have a word with you before you return to your”—and just the slightest flick of a glance to the collection of coffee bags, filters, and paper cups that lined the soiled workstation—“endeavors?”
I felt color creeping up my neck. The madder Chivalry was, the more he tended to show his age. Chivalry might look like he was in his early thirties, but he’d been born just as the Civil War was winding down. When he forgot himself, Chivalry sounded like a soldier’s letter home read in a Ken Burns special. At twenty-six, I’m not an infant compared to him—I’m a fetus.
“Fort, you bad boy,” Jeanine cooed, giving me a swat that might’ve looked playful but still packed some punch. “Why haven’t you ever mentioned that you have an older brother?” The unspoken stud muffin part of her statement hung in the air. “And”—here she turned to Chivalry, giving him a full-on eyelash batting—“of course Fort can take a break and talk to you. The little darling has been on his feet all day.”
That was laying it on a bit thick, I thought, but I wasn’t going to turn down a break, especially since Jeanine was usually of the thankless-taskmaster school of management. While I walked around the counter, ignoring Tamara’s glare of death, I watched while Jeanine leaned even farther toward Chivalry on the pretext of giving him a little pat on the chest. She failed to notice when Chivalry’s expression went from glacially polite to frigidly homicidal. Of course, she wasn’t the one who was going to have to deal with it—I was.
I picked a table as far away from the register as possible, and even as I waited for the ass-ripping to follow as Chivalry settled himself in front of me, I couldn’t resist giving a little grunt of pleasure at the sensation of sitting. Jeanine didn’t allow stools behind the counter, even during slow days, and my sneakers were so worn down that I could actually feel the curling edges of linoleum through my soles.
Chivalry glowered. Sometimes I wondered if that was his default expression or if I just brought it out in him. “That woman,” he pronounced, “is a whore.” He dropped a crumpled piece of paper onto the table and gave it a glare that should’ve ignited it.
“That’s harsh,” I said. “You’re acting like no one ever slipped you their phone number before.” He chose to ignore that, giving only a very regal sniff of distaste, and cautiously sipped the sludge in his paper cup. Nothing in his face gave any outward indication about his feelings, but then again, he came from a more mannered time. Anyone born in this century would’ve given a spit-take. Rinsing out the machines between batches was Tamara’s job, and it hadn’t been done since she was hired.
Chivalry set his cup down with exquisite care, another reminder that the places he preferred to eat at would’ve served it to him in a nice mug rather than a partially recycled paper cup. A small part of me felt hurt at how disgusted he was by where I was working. Not that I didn’t spend half of my own time being disgusted by it, but that wasn’t exactly the point.
“I am concerned,” Chivalry said.
“Don’t be,” I snapped.
“Mother is also concerned,” Chivalry continued as if I hadn’t said anything. To him I probably hadn’t. “You haven’t come home to feed in over five months.”
“I don’t need to. Not yet.”
“At your age, you should be feeding every month, if not more often.”
“I’m fine,” I insisted. I hated visiting my mother’s house to feed, and I always put it off as long as possible. I hated what it involved, and what it meant to me. I hated the way it made me feel. The longer I could go between feedings, the weaker I became, but I preferred it that way. It made me feel human. If I tried very hard, I could even pretend that vampires were all make-believe, and that I wasn’t turning into one.
Chivalry made a low grumbling sound and pushed his cup away from him. “If you wait too long, your instincts will take over. Even as young as you are, you will become a risk to all around you.”
“You don’t care about the people around me. You wouldn’t care if I snapped and went on a murder spree.”
Chivalry’s mouth thinned. “A murder spree would be most inconvenient. Our mother has better things to spend money on than covering up your foibles.”
“But that’s all you care about, isn’t it? People’s lives don’t matter at all to you.”
One second Chivalry was tapping the table in irritation, and the next second his hand was around my jaw. He’d moved too fast for my eyes, or any of the humans around us, to follow. The palm of his hand was against my chin, and his fingers were wrapped almost gently around my face. I waited, not moving—one squeeze and I’d be sucking Ensure out of a straw for the next twelve weeks.
Not that he’d do it. My sister, Prudence, fantasized about breaking all of my bones to kindling (as detailed to me last year at Christmas), but Chivalry wouldn’t. He was just giving me a reminder of what I wasn’t. He was a full vampire, and could break a person’s neck before the person even realized he was moving. I was still mostly human, and sucked at sports.
“You wouldn’t even care if I killed everyone in this building. Lives don’t matter, just your convenience.” Talking was difficult, but I managed. Another reason to avoid my family was that I almost routinely manage to piss them off. He didn’t move his hand, just looked at me. “Chiv,” I nudged, “this is getting weird and you have an audience.” Already people from other tables were sneaking glances.
Chivalry didn’t bother to look around, but released my jaw slowly, leaving me with a pat on the cheek that managed to convey both fondness and a warning.
“You’re right, baby brother,” he said softly, his voice cold enough to put my freezer to shame. “I wouldn’t care. Not really, or at least not for long. But you would.”
He stood up, and made a show of smoothing the wrinkles out of his jacket. His dark eyes gleamed like ocean water under a full moon, and the cold part of me that is entirely vampire seemed to sit up in response. I could hear the heartbeats of all the humans around me, smell the blood running through their veins. I pushed that part of me back down hard, until the people were only people again, and I could fool myself
that I was one of them. Not feeding does sometimes have its drawbacks, especially when I pushed it to the edge.
Chivalry gave a soft snort, unimpressed. “Mother has asked me to invite you to dinner tomorrow. It’s not a command…yet.” He turned and walked out the door, not having to push through the crowd, since everyone took a few steps back when they saw him coming, unintentionally creating a path. They probably didn’t realize they were doing it, or if they did, they thought it was because he was good looking. They didn’t realize that it was because he was a predator, and that lizard part of their brain that was in charge of keeping them alive knew enough to get out of his way.
I finished the rest of my shift, ignoring Jeanine’s not-so-subtle questions about my older brother and refusing to let it rile me when Tamara left ten minutes early, making me stay twenty minutes late to do both of our cleanup work. The sun was just starting to set when I finally left Busy Beans, and I gratefully inhaled a few breaths of air that weren’t permeated with the smell of coffee grounds. As I waited at the bus stop, I looked over the tops of the buildings and enjoyed the last few sunbeams.
True vampires prefer overcast days, but I can lounge on the beach all day and the only price I’ll pay might be a slightly worse sunburn than the human next to me. Time leeches away at our more human traits. At his age, Chivalry will avoid the afternoon sun, and he spends a lot of time complaining about how hats have gone out of style. My sister, Prudence, was a little girl when the British blockaded American ports during the Revolution. She sticks to the shade as much as possible, and carries both an old-fashioned parasol and a ready set of excuses about a family history of skin cancer.
Our mother lives behind blackout curtains and can’t go outside until hours after the sun sets.
The bus arrived, and I climbed up. I found a seat in the back and tried to keep my mind on good, human things. The vegetarian wrap that I’d pick up at the deli a block from my apartment for dinner. The Humphrey Bogart marathon that started tonight. The twelve hours between now and the next time I had to put on my green apron. But seeing Chivalry was tugging my mind back to all the things I spent so much of my time trying to avoid.
Generation V Page 1