Tainted Blood: A Generation V Novel

by M. L. Brennan

  Keiko sighed heavily. “How else, Fort? I’m going to lie my ass off. I’ll figure out a decent cover story when we get closer, or if I can’t, I’ll just ask for forgiveness.”

  “We’ll say it’s cultural,” Suze interjected. “Everyone always backs off if you claim that it’s cultural.”

  “I don’t know. That might not work on Farid.” Keiko slanted a glance at me. “Now if it were Wonder Bread over here, no problem.”

  “I’m not even going to respond to that,” I said icily. Mostly it was annoying that it was true.

  “Don’t be snippy, Fort.” Suze cut in, her voice chiding. “We can’t all have white male privilege, so stop being resentful about the occasional consolation prize.”

  While I choked on that one, Keiko shifted her attention to a more pressing matter and said, “Now pass that plate of brownies this way. I’m going to eat the crap out of them.”

  Suze snorted. “I was wondering how you were controlling yourself.” Reaching over, she grabbed the item in question and plopped it right in front of her sister, noting to me wryly, “Never get between a pregnant woman and chocolate.” She gave Keiko a quick, assessing look, and shook her head. “You might as well let Farid start making announcements. Loose shirts and padded bras are not going to cover that baby bump much longer.”

  The speed at which the sisters had gone from at each other’s throats to completely mellow had left my head spinning. “Padded bras?” I asked, confused.

  Keiko rolled her eyes at my apparent ignorance, but her mouth was already full of brownie, so Suze leaned forward and enlightened me. “Secret to concealing, Fort. She just keeps getting more and more padded bras to make her chest stick out as much as her belly. Pop on a loose shirt, and it just looks like she’s getting fat.”

  I sighed. “Yeah, that answers the question I never needed answered ever.” I’d eaten a more than generous dinner, but I was surprised to realize that there was still a little room left, and I reached over and snagged one of the brownies before Keiko could inhale them all. Apparently stress made me hungry.

  The sisters maintained their reluctant détente, and we managed to get through the remainder of the evening. When Suze and I were finally heading out, Keiko stopped me at the door with a soft touch on my arm.

  I looked down at her face. She and Suze were fraternal twins rather than identical, and without the expression of severe irritation that I was used to seeing her with, I had to note that the features of Keiko’s face were more refined and classically beautiful than her sister’s, though she lacked the sheer force of personality that Suzume exuded. Keiko looked extremely reluctant, but forced out, “Thanks for being willing to listen tonight, Fort. It really helped.”

  “No problem,” I said awkwardly. I’d been much more comfortable just disliking her.

  Removing her hand from my arm, Keiko pulled back out a bit of her usual superior attitude, and said, “So here’s just a bit of advice in return—your sister is going to be in charge of the territory soon. If I were you, I’d start mending some fences.”

  I wasn’t grateful for her advice, but I could tell that for once she hadn’t actually been trying to insult me, so I restrained myself to a short nod.

  Outside, the temperature had plunged further, and I shoved my hands as deeply into my pockets as they could go and wished that I’d brought along my nice woolly scarf. As I unlocked the car, I looked over at Suze, who was huddled in her bright green parka. “A lot of people are paying attention to my mother’s health, aren’t they?” I asked.

  Suze nodded, setting the bobble on her hat jiggling in a weirdly festive counterpoint to the seriousness of her voice. “The succession affects the lives of everyone who lives in eight states and a chunk of Canada, Fort. Saying that this has been the subject of some conversation is a bit of an understatement. Now let’s see if this witch can deliver on his promises.”

  Getting to Valentine Sassoon’s house involved driving almost completely across the city to Blackstone. Blackstone was one of the newest neighborhoods in Providence, and one of the most affluent. The houses suddenly got substantially bigger and newer as we drove around the streets. Sassoon’s house was in a nice enough neighborhood that a guy out for a late-night jog gave the Fiesta a second look, and glancing in the rearview mirror, I could see him scribbling down my license plate number.

  “Great, now I’m a person of interest to the neighborhood watch,” I muttered.

  “It’s like we’re seeing the progression of a medical career,” Suze noted. “Sassoon probably started in a place like where Farid and Keiko are living.”

  “See, you’re warming up to him.” I saw her expression, then corrected myself. “Or not.”

  “He seems very nice. I’ll definitely keep that in mind when he figures out what Keiko is and she calls me up to help dump his body somewhere.”

  “Or it all works out really well and you become the first person in your family to have a brother-in-law. Plus, free medical advice!”

  “I think you’ve made this situation worse,” Suze accused me, her dark eyes narrowed.

  “Don’t say that,” I implored her. I wanted absolutely no ownership in the impending fiasco of Keiko trying to pass a kitsune kit off as a human baby to her boyfriend. I realized that her plan had seemed much more doable when she was describing it to me than now, when I just thought about it. “Look, we’re here.”

  Sassoon definitely knew how to live in style. The house was in the Tudor style, with all of the neat angles and sloping roofs, and from the look of the chimney, at least one truly boss fireplace. There was a single-car garage that had been designed to look like a carriage house, and a decently long driveway that was cluttered with four different cars. Two had Massachusetts license plates, one was from Connecticut, and the last one bore the distinctive “live free or die” of New Hampshire, that eternal stronghold of Ron Paul supporters.

  “Looks like those people he called in have all arrived,” Suze noted.

  I pulled up to the curb, and we got out. The sidewalks in this neighborhood were all freshly paved and free from encroaching grass. I was impressed—even in the nicer parts of College Hill, very few of the sidewalks looked this good. We went to the front and knocked. There was a little bit of movement at the window curtains while someone checked us out; then Valentine Sassoon was opening the door and ushering us into the living room. The fireplace was, I was pleased to note, exactly as amazing as I’d expected.

  There were five people sitting on Sassoon’s sectional sofa, one man and four women. I recognized the man as Ambrose, and he looked his usual badger-like self, but the women ranged from looking one step in the grave down to a woman who looked like she was just ready for her high school prom. All were dressed for some kind of cocktail party, and I had a brief instinctual wish that Suze and I had snagged a second bottle of wine. Instead I handed over possibly the worst guest offering ever—a plastic ice chest filled with frozen peas and a take-out container full of blood.

  “Did you get the full cup?” Valentine asked.

  “It’s a pint, just to be sure.”

  “Excellent. Always good to have some wiggle room.” His smile made me make a mental note to send some kind of thank-you note to Catherine Celik. I wondered if Hallmark had something appropriate for this situation. “Now, if you and Ms. Hollis can just wait here . . . this might take a while.” As if that were a signal, all of the witches in the living room stood up and picked up a potted plant. They’d been tucked discreetly to one side of the sofa, out of sight of the entryway, and I had the impression that each witch had brought their own. Thanks to my very brief career as part of a landscaper’s grunt crew, I recognized a few of the plants—daisies and nasturtiums in small pots that could be tucked onto a kitchen counter, one larger pot of jasmine that reminded me of what I’d seen in Sassoon’s examining room, and (for Ambrose) one huge outdoor planter of lilac that he lifted with a loud grunt. Without a word of acknowledgment to either Suze or me, they all h
eaded into the kitchen. Sassoon gave us another encouraging gesture at the couch as they left, and then handed me the TV remote.

  At my expression, he explained, “Really, I’m not kidding. This is going to take a bit. I’ve got cable, though, so you can watch whatever you want.”

  With that, he followed the others, closing the heavy wooden door to the kitchen firmly behind them.

  I looked at Suze, and she looked back at me. Given that we’d been told to arrive after eleven at night, being told that this would take a while was not something I’d been hoping for. After a second, she leaned over and snagged the remote.

  “Dibs.”

  Two hours passed. And despite the presence of cable, it was a long and very boring two hours. Television is not exactly at its best past a certain time, and the few things that I was willing to watch, Suze was vehemently opposed to, and vice versa. We ended up settling on a Hedy Lamarr movie on AMC, but while it did have the benefit of one of the queens of the silver screen, it unfortunately also had a really shitty script and plot. We’d also tuned in about halfway in, so there was a lot of confusion about what exactly was going on.

  From the kitchen, there was the low murmur of conversation, several extremely weird smells, and once a cloud of sluggish gray smoke oozed under the door. It smelled remarkably like one lecture room at Brown where my film theory class had been scheduled immediately after a senior seminar for chemists. Chemists, as I had learned that semester, apparently did not make much use of deodorant, and the room would develop enough of a funk that it became common practice for whoever arrived first into the film theory class to immediately open all of the windows in the room, even on days when it was snowing.

  It was shortly after one thirty in the morning, and the AMC host had just announced the title of the next movie to be shown (which I was personally bracing for, since when AMC hosts referred to a movie as “not one of the better regarded films” of a star’s oeuvre, they were never kidding, and it was turd city ahead), when Sassoon emerged from the kitchen. He’d removed his tie, loosened his top buttons, and the sleeves of his shirt were rolled up to his elbows. He looked like a man who’d just spent four hours at the gym, and the muscles of his arms were actually twitching as I watched.

  He gave me an exhausted but very proud smile. “All set,” he said, and handed me a jelly jar.

  I looked at it, feeling slightly underwhelmed. It was a normal-size Welch’s Concord Grape Jelly jar (and I could tell, since that was what it said on the lid), halfway filled with a weird liquid that would look like blood for a minute, but then slowly start shifting color until it was the same color as the gray water that had been leaking out of the bottom of my kitchen sink until Jaison had fixed it. Once it looked like sludge for a second, the color started shifting back to red. On the surface of the liquid floated one of those fancy toothpicks, the kind that came with one end wrapped with a piece of colored cellophane and were meant to be used for party hors d’oeuvres. The green cellophane on this one was spinning lazily in a circle.

  There was a long pause as we all stared at it. Suze broke that silence. “We waited two hours for this shit?” she said. I couldn’t help but silently agree with her assessment.

  Valentine looked distinctly annoyed. “Yes, two hours and six witches, and I made exactly what you need.” He pointed at the jar. “Follow where the green end points you, and it will lead you to your murder weapon.”

  I peered at it again. Sassoon had clearly put a lot of effort into this, but I had to point out my observation. “Um, Valentine . . . it’s spinning. That’s . . . not quite helpful.”

  “Oh, that,” Sassoon said. “Well, this is kind of on the edge of what we can actually do since it’s almost getting too far from the physical body. So, this won’t work until the sun is up.” His tone implied that that should’ve been obvious.

  I thought about it for a second, and still found it rather less than obvious. I’d also had a really long day that had not been improved by two hours in a strange living room, listening to Suze’s running commentary about a movie that neither of us had enjoyed. “Why is the sun important?”

  Sassoon gave me a look that let me know that he hadn’t exactly had an easy day either. “Do you really want that answer, or are you just being annoying?” he asked.

  “Fair enough,” I conceded. I gave the jar another leery look as Valentine handed the empty ice chest to Suze. “Well, I appreciate you making the . . . thing. And I’ll give you a call to let you know how it works out. You probably want to lie down or something, so, you know, Suze and I can just show ourselves out.”

  Somehow Suzume managed to restrain her summary comment until we were back on the sidewalk and heading for the car. “I’m starting to empathize with your sister’s position on the witches.”

  “Maybe it’s solar powered,” I suggested, trying to pull the collar of my jacket high enough to warm up my nose. Suze glared at me. “Some things are! I had a calculator that had a solar-cell battery.” It had actually been a pretty good calculator too. The battery had never died, and it had ended up being swiped by one of my series of asshole roommates.

  Suzume did not look appeased. “It’s one thirty. The sun rises . . .”

  “Six thirtyish.” Thanks to my dog-walking duties, I was unfortunately very familiar with sunrise times in November.

  She rubbed her face as I unlocked the car. “I’m not getting up that early,” she stated.

  I yawned and began the process of starting up the Fiesta. I could see a thin layer of frost on the hood, and I knew that this was probably going to take at least four attempts. Cold weather was not a friend to an ancient engine. “We’re hunting a killer, Suze,” I pointed out.

  “With a compass that only works if they haven’t cleaned the murder weapon yet. Our killer either cleaned it already and we’re going to be shit out of luck, or they haven’t cleaned it yet, in which case they probably aren’t planning to do it. So I’m getting up when I’m getting up.”

  I conceded to her logic. In my current brain-fogged state, it seemed like more than enough justification for a few extra hours of sleep. “Sounds like good reasoning to me.” I glanced at the dashboard clock as the engine caught and perked up. “Hey, Wendy’s has late drive-through hours. Let’s get some fries on the way back.”

  By the time I’d driven Suze completely across town to her place in Silver Lake, then back to my apartment in College Hill, it was a quarter past two. Deciding that dental hygiene could wait a few hours, and enjoying the feeling of French-fry fullness in my belly, I toed off my shoes, chucked my pants and button-up shirt, and was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

  * * *

  When I woke up, the sun was shining through my windows, and I had that weird knowledge that someone was watching me. Sure enough, it was Suzume. Dressed in an eye-searingly bright red turtleneck and blue jeans, she was straddling my hips in a somewhat concerning manner and staring down at me.

  “Um, hi,” I said cautiously. My tongue felt completely furred, and with regret I remembered last night’s decision to forego toothbrushing.

  “Hey.” Her black eyes were unblinking. There was a short pause. “I brought over a carton of eggs.”

  I blinked, my sleep-muddled brain attempting to process both the non sequitur and her presence in my bedroom. “You drove yourself over . . . with eggs?” I rubbed my eyes and tried to gather more facts to clear this up. “What time is it?”

  “Almost nine. C’mon.” She poked my belly. “Time for eggs.”

  I dropped my hand and stared up at her again, comprehension sinking in. “You want me to make these eggs, don’t you?” I wondered if this was some kind of bizarre relationship signal, or if Suze had woken up in her own bed and decided that the easiest way to obtain her breakfast was actually to drive over to my apartment and demand that I cook it for her.

  “Well, I mean, I’m certainly not going to instruct you on the proper rules of hosting, but it is usually considered good manners t
o provide food for your guests.” She smiled at me helpfully.

  I sat up, scooting my hips back toward the headboard and out from under her, grateful that my winter bedding included a thick comforter and an old quilt. Suzume’s presence had sent all of my partially remembered dreams completely out of my head, but it had definitely been enough to confuse the lower half of my body. I shifted myself carefully. “Last night you were all about a late start,” I noted.

  “Technically that was this morning.”

  She’d dodged the question. I eyed her suspiciously. “Normally a late start means I call you at around tenish.”

  Suze gave a lazy shrug. “So today it didn’t.” I noticed the way her eyes darted around the room, scanning everything.

  Looking for something. Abruptly I recognized the expression on her face and realized what was going on. Curiosity wasn’t just the killer of cats—it also applied to foxes. “Under the bed, in the shoe box.”

  She immediately combat-rolled off the mattress and, after a moment of rustling, emerged with the magical jelly jar. We both stared at it. The liquid this morning was now an even swirl of red and gray, and the toothpick was no longer spinning, instead pointing in the direction of my framed poster of the original Dune movie. Suze moved the jar around a little, first in one direction, then the other, and each time the toothpick adjusted itself to continue indicating the same spot. “Huh.” She raised her eyebrows. “Guess Sassoon wasn’t useless after all.” She set the jar down carefully on my bedside table, then looked back at me. “Now. Eggs?”

  I kicked Suze out of my room long enough to pull on clothing for the day—I wasn’t sure where the magical blood compass was going to lead us, but I decided that I probably couldn’t go wrong with jeans and a sweater. My own stomach was indicating that eggs actually were a fantastic idea, so I headed straight to the stove, where Suze had helpfully positioned the open container. Suze was occupying herself by reading the newspaper (actually, I had strong suspicions that she was reading Mrs. Bandyopadyay’s newspaper, and I made a quick mental note to drop it off in front of her door on our way out) and I gave her clothing a quick scan for any visible googly-eye attachment paraphernalia, but there were just too many places for her to stash them, and I gave up.