SM Stirling

by Shadowspawn 01 - A Taint in the Blood (v5)

  from?” “Ah, you’ve no’ read Stoker? You should—if only for a laugh. And the film, the one with Anthony Hopkins chewing the carpet, is even funnier.” “I . . . don’t like horror films. They upset me.” “Well, you’re in

  one now. Lucies. Some of them moved on to other positions here. Some have just . . . stayed. And some have died in what I think is probably inconceivable agony.” “Slowly and cruelly and beautifully

  ,” she quoted with a shudder. “Aye. And that’s no’ even the worst thing that can happen. So . . . well, a doctor can speak frankly. Make the experience of feeding on you as satisfying for our Doña Demonio

  as possible, because your life does

  depend on it.” “Thanks for the advice,” Ellen said; she could hear the mixture of sincerity and sarcasm in her own voice. That was probably unwise, but she couldn’t be strategizing all

  the time. Or I’ll go stark raving mad. This is the sort of advice a horse doctor would give to other horses; don’t fight the saddle and signals or it’s the bit and spurs and whip for you, and the knacker’s yard if you won’t perform at all. I think a lot of these renfields must be crazy. And I bet that they

  do have a suicide problem

  . The physician smiled. “I’m not easily offended. A doctor can’t afford to be. I’ll help you as much as I can, Ms. Tarnowski, but that isn’t much. I made my choice long ago, and I have a family to think of, as well.” A screen-pen pointed at the skeleton. “That’s the world’s dominant subspecies. Not us. Even just in the body they’ve advantages, and there’s no fighting the Power at all, whatever the terrorists say.” “Terrorists?” “A few madmen.” She scowled. “Killers who’ll murder wholesale, men and women and children. The nocturnus

  at least have their instincts to blame.” That’s interesting. The Resistance? And they think you’re a collaborator, Doctor? How

  could you fight the Power?

  With excitement: Could Adrian be in it? Duggan shook her head. “If you have severe nightmares or problems sleeping, see me, and I may be able to get permission for a mild sedative. We’ve some good ones.” The receptionist stuck her head in. “Your next appointment, Doctor. Ms. Mandelbaum and her daughter; the earache.” “Right, that’s you, then, Ms. Tarnowski. Here’s your exercise schedule and a prescription for a dietary supplement. Lots of fluids, mind!” Ellen looked down at her new BlackBerry. Lunch, 12:30. You’re not on the menu. This time!

  and a happy-face symbol with a little blood drooling out of one corner of the semicircle mouth. “Oh, that’s just side

  -splitting,” she muttered to herself. Then: “Get a grip on your thoughts.” Which was about like telling yourself not

  to think of an elephant. The main house was up the hill again, through California-gorgeous gardens only a little subdued for winter, with everything from palm trees to rose pergolas and velvety green lawns and ha-has, brick retaining walls and espaliered lemon trees. It was built in classic Spanish Revival like the town, if in a grander fashion; from the looks at the height of the style’s popularity in the earlier part of the twentieth century, like something out of Santa Barbara’s Montecito district. There were Andalusian towers and red Roman-tile roofs and earth-toned stucco on walls covered in sheets of purple-and-crimson bougainvillea, with colored tile Moorish-style insets over the arched entranceways, and plenty of wrought iron. Inside . . . The architecture’s first-class if a bit retro, but my, there’s some interesting stuff here! If you can get over the number that

  should be somewhere else. At least they’re being taken care of. An eclectic selection: old masters, impressionists and post-impressionists, some late-nineteenth-century academics like Leighton, of the type that had become so popular again, Hoppers and Wyeths. One sculpture she longed to examine, just on the suspicion that it actually was

  Rodin’s Andromeda.

  All with no particular organization, as if someone or several successive someones who could fulfill every whim had simply put up anything that took their fancy wherever they chose, like an omnipotent version of William Randolph Hearst. Which is pretty much what happened, I suspect. Except that everything is good of its kind, if muddled. The map function guided her efficiently, and she ended up in a large airy room set up as a lounge-study-office, with bookshelves and big mahogany tables and a comprehensive electronics suite; one wall was glass doors between Romanesque arches, open to the mild afternoon warmth and to the sight of a big bowl-shaped fountain plashing in the court outside. Adrienne was sitting— With a little girl on her lap. Oh

  , ick, please God not

  . . . No, wait a minute, that child’s the spitting image of her. Has to be a close relative. Couldn’t be

  hers, could she? And the boy’s as close as a fraternal twin can get. As close as Adrian and Adrienne. A Great Dane sat beside the boy; the child had his arm around the beast’s shoulders, and it was nearly as tall as he. It sat looking up at the Shadowspawn woman adoringly and beating its tail on the floor; then it stood, swiveled its barrel head up and came over towards Ellen with tongue hanging and claws clicking on the diamond-pattern buff tiles of the floor. Ellen slowed step by step, then froze. This is silly

  , she thought. It’s just a

  dog.

  She’s the dangerous animal in the room! The fear didn’t go away. “What’s the matter?” Adrienne asked. “That’s a delightful flash of apprehension there, but why?” “Large dogs . . . make me nervous. I was badly bitten once. Sorry. I can’t help it.” The Shadowspawn snapped her fingers and pointed, and the dog left after giving her a curious sniff. She relaxed . . . And now I can remember I have something to be

  really frightened of. Suddenly she looked after the dog. Shouldn’t it be barking, or going crazy? “No, dogs aren’t frightened of us, chérie,

  ” Adrienne said dryly. “That’s Terminators

  you’re thinking of, which don’t exist.” Oh, Jesus, but I wish it was robots! Adrienne grinned; Ellen could

  see the slight difference in the incisors. Adrian was always very careful

  not to bite or scrape me, now that I think back. Even when things got a little rough, or once more than a little rough. Everyone said “they say they’re sorry but they really aren’t” . . . but I think he was. A special case. “I’m sure he was

  sorry. What exactly was it he did . . . Oh, goodness, but that’s an arresting image! You might have smothered! Not to mention spraining your neck. You and I must try something analogous sometime.” She felt her face go crimson. Then she saw what the little girl was doing; she had her hands on the table, cupped as if sheltering a candle-flame. Within was a tiny yellow feather, like a shaped golden dust-mote . . . and it was bobbing in midair, slowly turning. For a moment she simply stared in wonder. Then her mind lurched: If you could do that with a feather, you could do it

  inside someone, couldn’t you? The feather fell, and the girl’s face scrunched up. “The air didn’t wanna do it! It slipped

  . You should teach me some more special Words and I wouldn’t slip. Please, Maman

  ? I don’t ever say them aloud unless you’re there or the cousins or someone.” “Nyah, I did it beehhhh-tttter!” her probably-brother said. “No, you didn’t, Weasel Two,” Adrienne said decisively. “And I will most certainly not teach either of you more Mhabrogast yet. It’s dangerous if you can’t pronounce it properly.” He

  looked heartbreakingly like a younger Adrian, in shorts and T-shirt and sneakers, his black hair cut in a bowl shape like his sister’s. Her mouth began to droop towards a sob, until Adrienne hugged her and kissed the top of her head. “That’s splendid work with the feather. Most children can’t do that for another year or two. What else have you been doing? Besides your lessons, I hope

  .” “Feeding the snake,” the boy said. “Gerbils, mostly. Two. But now it just sleeps.” “Well, it won’t want any more for a while. Ellen, these are my demon spawn; Weasel One—Leila—and Weasel Two, Leon. One and Two for order of arrival. Children, this is Ellen
. She’ll be living with us now. Don’t you tease her, or you’ll be sorry. Now run along.” The girl slipped off her lap. She lifted a strikingly beautiful tow-haired china doll in a frilly dress from the floor beside her mother’s chair. The child looked at it consideringly for a moment, and then up at the stranger. “Hello, Ellen. This is my new dolly. She has hair and eyes like yours. See, blue, they close and open if you rock her like this.” “Ah . . .” Ellen thought, looking down into the innocent face. And how do you address the Lady Demon’s demon spawn? “Hello, Miss Leila. What’s her name?” “Lucy,” the girl said firmly. A broad smile. “’Cause she’s my

  lucy.” That was when she saw the miniature bandage around the doll’s neck. The children walked away, then suddenly ran, giggling, out into the courtyard. “Bit of an experiment, so to say,” Adrienne said. “Often we foster our children out until after puberty. But I’m actually rather fond of my two little weasels . . . in moderation. Mind you, puberty’s the test.” Then Adrienne shrugged and continued: “Come.” An inclination of the head. “We’ll have lunch over here in the nook. There’s a bit of a problem we should discuss.” Adrienne rose; she was wearing jodhpurs with leather inserts on the inside of the thighs, polished riding boots and a real

  polo shirt, with a riding crop in her hands. The golden-brown eyes stared into hers; she remembered with a slight shock that she was an inch taller than the Brézé woman. You always forgot that, somehow, just as she’d been surprised again at Adrian not being tall every time they met again. A thought sprang unbidden and unstoppable into Ellen’s mind . . . “Bettie Page comics?” Adrienne said. “I’m not nearly that pneumatic, and I don’t do high heels. I’m actually wearing this because I’m going riding later today. Hmmm. Visualize . . . Yes, I see your point, though. I wonder if one could do that in real life?” A noiseless servant in a high-collared white jacket brought two fluffy ham-and-scallion omelets with glazed crusts into the nook, along with a salad of fresh greens, walnuts, and slices of small tangy orange and glasses of a pale yellow wine. “Ah . . . you said we have a problem?” “Yes. Your former employer, Giselle Demarcio. She’s been making inquiries, trying to trace you—which means, trying to trace me

  . That really will not do.” Anxiety turned into real fear with a sudden cold jolt, and the light omelet assumed the texture of mud. “Please don’t hurt her! She’s just—I’m a friend as well as an employee. My place burned down. She’s probably worried sick about me.” A hand reached out and cupped her jaw. Something tickled

  behind her eyes, and she started to pull back. “Don’t squirm if you’re concerned for your friend,” Adrienne said—not threatening but abstracted. “This is delicate. I’m probing for memories. It’s not like playing back a computer file. They’re unwritten and rewritten every time they’re called up; it needs concentration. Don’t resist. That’s right . . .” She murmured something under her breath; Ellen felt the words as sound, but they didn’t resolve themselves into anything she could recall an instant later. She forced her body to relax and tried to think about nothing. The tickling grew, as if tendrils were growing into the structure of her brain, rooting, opening, merging

  with the folds and pathways. Things

  moved in the corners of her vision; little flecks of light swam across her vision, the way they did when you closed your eyes, or opened them in a perfectly dark room. Her head felt full

  , a squirming sensation of penetration. Then she began to remember

  , impossibly vivid jerky chains of images, as much like briefly reliving as ordinary memory. Herself paddling in the waves on the Jersey shore, the cold salt shock on chubby toddler feet and the taste of salt on her lips and the scuttling alienness of a sand-crab. Her father crying at the kitchen table the night her mother died, and the scent of cheap whiskey and the taste of fear. The first kiss with Paul and the book of art prints falling off the sofa between them, the first day at the gallery, the way Adrian had smiled as he extended his hand over the net and the feel of his palm and fingers—they blurred together, faded, whirled. It stopped with a grinding shock as Adrienne released her jaw and broke eye-contact; there was a moment of pain, like whiplash of the mind, then it faded. “Yes, I see. Still, Dmitri is fond of a saying: when a person causes you a problem, remember, no person, no problem. I don’t want my little visit to attract any attention.” “Look, if I tell her I’m OK . . .” A hooded glance. She went on desperately: “Please. I’m begging you, please. I’ll do anything, just don’t hurt

  her. She’s always been good to me. Please.

  ” “I do

  enjoy it when you beg, chérie

  ,” Adrienne said, with a lazy smile. “And as I said, it’s really no longer so essential to keep perfect secrecy . . .” She picked up a control bar and thumbed it; a medium-sized screen flipped up from the center of the table. “I love these things,” Adrienne said absently. “It lets you interact without having to smell

  everyone. We Shadowspawn have become friendly tout court

  compared to the way things were. Scoot over so you’ll be in the pickup zone.” Another smile, at a thought that flitted through Ellen’s mind: “No, you don’t have to strip this time. It would be socially inappropriate. The number?” “Uh . . . the videoconference code—” The query went through; then accepted

  came up on the screen. The image was a little grainy and jerky at first; Giselle had never thought it worthwhile to spend much money on her office system. Then it sharpened to bell-tone clarity. Ellen had never been much interested in hardware, but you couldn’t be in the arts these days—particularly the selling side—without knowing something about what the systems could do

  . That meant real capacity, particularly since there was no CGI-style surface gloss to the improvement. “Uh . . . hi, Giselle. I’m here at Adrian’s sister’s place, I thought you might be worrying—” “Ellen!” Giselle’s sharp hook-nosed, middle-aged face lit up. “You’re OK! Thank God!” Her voice had a slight East Coast big-city edge, overlain with Wellesley. She went on breathlessly: “Your apartment

  burned down, there was talk about arson

  and a mysterious man with a gun

  chased the Lopezes out—” Ellen let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “—nobody knew where you were

  , nobody’s at Adrian’s but his housekeeper

  . What’s going on

  ?” “Uh . . . I’m OK, Gis. Really. No harm done.” Apart from the blood-drinking and the torture and rape and the speculation about how pleasurable it would be to kill me in an artistic fashion and feel my life flicker out. I must be a lot more in control of myself than I thought I was. I’m

  not screaming or babbling. “Where

  are you? Do you need a place to stay? Ummm, if you’re actually OK, you realize this is a working day? We’ve got the Cliffords—” “Ms. Demarcio,” Adrienne cut in, her voice like a purr felt through velvet. Giselle stared at her with what Ellen recognized as nervous courage, like a bird ruffling its feathers and rearing back at a cat. Owning a quirky, successful gallery in art-happy Santa Fe didn’t make you rich and powerful. It did mean you met the genuine article often enough to recognize them. “Yes, Ms. Brézé?” “Ellen is a bit upset, what with the fire, and some personal things. So she’s decided to come out here to my place and, ah, help catalogue my family’s collection. She needs a change of scene and pace for a while.” A sharp glance at the two of them; she saw her boss’ eyes narrow. Giselle had always been good at reading body language. Ellen made herself relax from her stiff brace, sway a little towards Adrienne. She smiled and nodded as the Shadowspawn put a hand on her shoulder, winding a lock of pale-yellow hair around one finger. “That’s right, Gis. You know things were a bit, ah, rocky for me the past couple of weeks anyway.” The bright black eyes darted back and forth again. “Ellen, you need to settle the insurance, the police want to talk to you, you lost all your stuff

  . You should get your ass back to Santa Fe from wherever-it-is. All I could
find out was that you got on some plane

  at the airport and went away!” “No, no, that’s all being handled. Really, I’m sorry as all hell to leave you in the lurch like this. You’ve been really good to me. But I need to get away. To . . . clear things up. And the collection here . . . unbelievable! I’m happy.” A snort. “Ellen Tarnowski, I told you that Adrian was creepy. Told you that these old-money Euro types are bad news for ordinary people who’re just jumping on a trampoline while they’re flying. Intersecting trajectories aren’t a meeting of true minds. I told you months ago that he was treating you like a mushroom and dumping him would be a good idea. Switching to fucking your brains out with his twin sister

  is not! And no, I’m not going to deny the evidence of my own eyes at the restaurant. If that wasn’t real, you should be in Hollywood

  , girl, not Santa Fe!” Ellen gave a panic-stricken glance aside. Adrienne was smiling again. “Ms. Demarcio, your concern for Ellen is touching. But there are family dynamics at play here you don’t understand. Nor is it really any of your business with whom she is, as you so elegantly put it, fucking her brains out.” “Pardon my French.” “Ce n’est rien

  ,” Adrienne said. “You found my brother Adrian, how is it, creepy

  ?” Giselle nodded. “I don’t care who knows it, either.” “No, you’re right. Adrian is

  creepy, from your point of view. He is also, as you put it, old money. So am I. That apparently does not bother Ellen, eh? And my forbearance for well-intentioned interference in my private life is not infinite.” “No, Gis, I’m, umm, really having a great time,” Ellen said brightly. “Out of this world.” “Here’s the number on her new BlackBerry,” Adrienne said helpfully, and tapped on her control bar. “Do feel free to call, but not too often.” Baffled, the older woman looked at Ellen. “OK, you’re a big grown-up type person, Ellen. Just remember that you’ve got somewhere to go. I’ll hold your job for you—indefinite unpaid leave, OK?” Ellen felt tears prickle at her eyes. “I . . . I really . . . Thanks, Gis. You’re a good one.”