“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.
She was Asian, with beautiful almond eyes, perfectly refined features, and a cloud of rich black hair that flowed over her shoulders. It was too dark to figure out exactly what color clothing she was wearing, but there wasn’t too much of it and it was fitting very well. A sleeveless tank top was short enough to show off her flat stomach, and her dark pants were practically sprayed onto her legs, and tucked into knee-high boots with a very impressive heel. She was grinning at us, with a little strut in her step, and her hands rested on her hips.
It crossed my mind that we were having a collective hallucination. Maybe I was seeing her, and they were seeing a camel. Or I was dead and heaven consisted of an anime fetish. Except she wasn’t wearing a schoolgirl’s skirt and kneesocks, so maybe not that. Also, if this was heaven, the ground was really dirty, I still ached all over from the kicks, and frankly there was something kind of intimidating about the way she was smiling.
Apparently my assailants were also confused. “Bitch, what the fuck?” the leader asked. I was thinking of him as the leader because he had the most rings in his nose, and also he was the one holding my wallet. He also seemed to have the best command of the English language.
The woman thought so too, because she laughed. “Very eloquently put,” she said. “Now do me a favor and run along. You’re messing up my property.”
She didn’t even glance at me, but I gathered that I was the property in question.
My muggers didn’t think much of her request. “Fuck you, bitch,” the leader said. “And you’d better start running, because when we’re done with this fucker, you’re next.” But none of them moved. Whatever sense of menace was emanating from the woman, who could barely have topped five-foot-five and probably got carded every time she ordered a drink, they felt it too.
Her smile widened. “This is your last warning. And now I’m not even going to let you keep his wallet.”
“She’s crazy,” one of the beta thugs muttered.
“Yeah, get her,” said the other one.
“Too late,” she said. She lifted one hand off her hip and blew a kiss. For a long minute nothing seemed to happen, and I wondered if she actually was a crazy woman. I hoped not, because then I’d have to try to save her, and I’d already done an incredibly crappy job of saving myself.
But then the leader of the thugs let out an ear-piercing scream, echoed almost immediately by his cohorts. My wallet dropped onto my stomach, and they were running like track stars, still screaming, across the street and down an alley.
Their shrieks were disappearing into the distance. If we’d been in a residential area, people probably would’ve been calling the cops, but here there was nothing but chained-up storefronts. I started to get up, but the woman had walked closer, and she pressed her boot against my throat, effectively pinning me down.
“Uh-uh,” she said, leaning down closer to me. I got my first close-up look at her face, and felt my stomach give a flip that had almost nothing to do with the recent blunt-force trauma it had suffered. “I think I like you where you are. Maybe you’ll cause less trouble like this.”
Behind her, there was a small scuffling sound and then a rhythmic clicking. I tore my eyes away from the gorgeous woman and my brief hopes that this might go the way of a Penthouse forum letter to look and see what was causing the sounds. It was a fox—its brilliant red coat, dark feet, and pristine white throat and tail tip visible even in the weak light from the half-dead streetlights. The fox sat down next to the woman and looked at me with golden eyes. Then it gave a wide, deliberate yawn.
I looked back at the woman, who was still patiently standing with one foot balanced gently on my larynx.
“Oh, shit,” I whispered. “You’re kitsune.”
She gave me an approving grin and tapped my nose with one finger. “Got it in one.”
Chapter 4
The kitsune were shape-shifters and tricksters. They were native to Japan, but one of them had come over right after World War II, and had petitioned my mother to live in her territory. Madeline granted it, and the kitsune had set up shop, quickly raising a horde (or, more accurately, a litter) of children. There were many types of supernatural creatures in her territory, but Madeline’s ties were the closest with the kitsune, who were universally female and could change from women to foxes. I’d only ever encountered them in their fox form before—after I was first brought back to live in the mansion, Madeline had hired the kitsune to guard the grounds. I’d had more than a few runaway attempts foiled by a fox’s nipping teeth. They seemed to take a particular enjoyment in the task, and I still remember the sinking feeling in my belly whenever I was halfway through the border hedge and heard the high, amused yipping of a fox. The last time I tried to run away, they let me get completely through the hedge before four of them jumped me at once, pinning me to the ground under a furry, wiggling pile of fox. They’d then driven me home with nips and yips, taking every opportunity to trip me and smack my face with their tails.
My feelings toward the kitsune were not fond.
When Madeline decided that I needed protection with Luca in town, she’d apparently turned to tried-and-true methods of both containing and tormenting me, and had hired my current guard, Suzume Hollis, granddaughter of the original Japanese kitsune. While I limped and she strutted, the fox scampering at our heels, she took a lot of delight in telling me how she’d trailed me from my apartment and had watched my entire mugging.
I’d never seen their other ability at work before tonight, but kitsune could play with people’s perception as well. Illusion isn’t really the right word for it, since Chivalry said a kitsune could make something look so real that it would fool every sense, but it was what had driven away my attackers. Whatever had sent those three screaming for their mommies hadn’t been there for me, but for them it must’ve looked as real as I did. And if something had been chasing them, I hoped for their sakes that they had outrun it. A fox’s trick couldn’t kill them, but it might be able to scare them enough to bring out any congenital heart weakn
esses.
“What kind of bodyguard doesn’t stop me from getting mugged?” I asked incredulously. My embarrassment that her first impression of me had been me getting beaten up by Bruins fans was offset by my anger that she hadn’t prevented it. Between that and the growing consternation I felt about just how good she smelled, I felt really exhausted.
“The kind who wants to know exactly how much handholding this assignment is going to require,” she answered.
“How much is that?”
“Apparently the same amount as walking a five-year-old girl across the street. Was assuming the fetal position and trusting that they wouldn’t kick anything critical really your best plan?”
Fortunately we’d arrived back at my apartment, so I was saved the trouble of trying to come up with a witty comeback.
Occupying the sole handicapped spot in the parking lot was a low-slung and sleek little sports car, painted matte black and looking like it could break land-speed records. I felt a small cringe of embarrassment on behalf of my Fiesta, since it had to share the same lot as this automotive masturbatory fantasy. I silently promised to be a better owner and at least replace the bumper that was currently held on by wire ties.
“How did I not notice this when I pulled in?” I asked.
“Probably because you didn’t even look around. I could’ve been standing naked and waving pompoms and you wouldn’t have noticed.” Suzume opened the trunk of the car and pulled out a duffel bag. She tossed it over to me and I grunted a little as I caught it. It was so stuffed that I was amazed she had been able to get it closed—as it was, the zipper was barely holding on.
“No, that I would’ve noticed,” I muttered. Not low enough, because she snickered a little as she closed the trunk again. She unlocked and opened the passenger’s-side door, then tossed her keys on the driver’s seat.
She noticed my confusion. “My cousin Noriko drove me over.”
The fox yipped and hopped into the car. A minute later a naked woman a little younger than Suzume sat up and began to pull a sundress over her head with leisurely motions. I slapped a hand over my eyes, but the image was already burned into my retinas.
Generation V Page 8