A Taint in the Blood

by S. M. Stirling

  “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 yo
ur 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.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “I’m still worried,” Adrian said. “Hey, ol’ buddy, it’s the mook this is aimed at who’s got something to worry about,” Harvey said.

  He spread the parts on the heavy plastic groundsheet he’d laid over the bed with methodical neatness. The west-facing window still had a line of eye-hurting brightness at its top, and the room was flooded with the last light of day. When he was finished he rubbed his hands with satisfaction.

  “Once Sheila says yes, she ain’t coy. This is the latest and best. Beautiful!”

  Adrian nodded, more as a placeholder than agreement. Harvey had a lifelong fascination with firearms; one of the things he most resented about the Power was the way it could make failures happen in complex machinery. Adrian found guns satisfying tools if they worked and could use them well—Harvey had taught him with endless patience— but they didn’t give him a hobbyist’s pleasure, the way really good cars did, or gliders, or kitchen gear. If he had to fight with anything but the Power or his hands and feet, a knife was more . . .

  Aesthetic. Satisfying, he thought. Then: Name of a black dog, am I going conservative in my fifties?

  The room was smaller than in a modern hotel in this price range, but not uncomfortable; the ceilings were very high, of antique pressed steel, and the wallpaper was hand-printed, a bamboo-spray pattern. The natural linen and floral smell was an intriguing contrast to the fruity gun-oil and sharp metallic steel and tooth-hurting silver of the weapon Harvey was checking, although it took a little effort to prevent his nerves from jangling.

  Harvey went on: “See, the problem with my good friend the Monster Truck gun, incidentally that’s a fine label—”

  Harvey nodded to the cut-down shotgun monstrosity, lying alone on one corner of the groundsheet as if sulking and jealous of the new lover.

  “—is that it’s very effective for a close-range takedown of a Shadowspawn, in body or out, but it sorta makes surprise difficult. And it’s real difficult to hit a Shadowspawn who’s decided to go elsewhere and fight another day. And when they come out of the wall right behind you—bad news. Y’know, that design feature is just so fucking unfair it makes you want to cry.”

  “Life, my old, is unfair.”

  “Plus some contract soldati cuts loose with a thirty-round mag of 5.56 from a hundred yards and I am well and truly fucked up. And I mere human ape scum that I am, don’t get to rise again. Have I mentioned life is unfair?”

  His big scarred hands moved on the pieces of the rifle, with a swift hard authority. There were snick-click-chunk sounds as things fitted together.

  “Now this has a whole bunch of selling points. For one thing, it’s just as good at killing ordinary people as the original, which is a Brit sniper rifle, the L96A1 in .338 Lapua magnum. Only this has a carbon-fiber stock with an ultrapure silver-thread mix. A little silver in the steel of the barrel and action, and surface glyphs and Mhabrogast protectives in International Phonetic Alphabet. Preactivated protectives, of course.”

  “God!” Adrian blurted, shocked out of polite interest into alarm. “I hope they were careful!”

  “Ultra, ol’ buddy. Not to mention it cost a lot of the conscience money you’ve been wafting the Brotherhood’s way. Jacketed lead-silver alloy bullets—high AG—with active waste filler, pre-fraged so they disperse as long as the target’s tangible at all. I had two good shooters backing me up with these when we fixed Gheorghe’s wagon. Caught a couple of his people while we were clearing out.”

  “Shadowspawn or renfields?” Adrian asked sharply.

  “We didn’t stop to run an Alberman,” Harvey said dryly. “Things were a mite hectic. But these rounds do about three thousand feet-per-second. That’s under two seconds to impact at max effective range.”

  Adrian’s brows stayed up. “Not much time to do anything, if you’re not expecting it,” he said slowly. “You’d have . . . a small fraction of a second to realize what the silver was, and react. By then—”

  “Give the man a big cigar.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  Then he yawned and looked out the window. “Would you like to get something to eat? I’m not very hungry, but if I have to take blood tonight I want something for it to hit on the way down.”

  “I was thinkin’ of room service,” Harvey said.

  “Well enough—”

  “No, room service with another friend who’s coming over. You’re not invited.”

  A little hurt, Adrian nodded. They hadn’t seen each other in years . . . Harvey grinned.

  “The friend in question is not a brother-in-arms like you, ol’ buddy,” he said. “But she’s a natural redhead and certifiably female, which in this town you can’t count on from first impressions. I figure if I’m going to be dead in a week, or if your sister is going to make my eyeballs pop, or my balls, or set my entire skin on fire or use my spinal cord to play a violin concerto or any other of the things she has been known to do when feelin’ bitchy . . . there’s things I want to do one more time first. And not with you. Sorry.”

  “No offense, my old,” Adrian laughed. “I’ll go for a walk.”

  “Next door’s fine. Might be safer.”

  Adrian snorted. “Not with only a wall in between us. I can’t afford to close my senses down completely. And good friends though we are, Harv, there are certain things I don’t care to share with you either. Even only telepathically.”

  Harvey grinned. “You could go exercise your sinister vampiric charm on some high school girl with perky tits longing for a pale and interesting demon lover.”

  Adrian frowned in solemn thought, then shook his head. “No, she would expect me to reject anything but kissing and cuddling, no matter how much she wanted more and how tortured I was with desire. Al
so there would be much conversation about our feelings.”

  “Talk about inhuman. God, the thought’s enough to make a man swear off women. Ones that young, at least.”

  “Besides, that’s the incubus part of the legend, not the vampire. I shall walk the night, commune with my soul, and think wistfully of what might have been.”

  “The things some men do when they could be fucking. See ya. Watch out for muggers.”

  Adrian shrugged. “The worse for them, in my current mood.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I meant. We want to keep you calm till we can get you and Ellen back to your mountaintop.”

  Will Ellen want to share my mountain? Adrian thought two hours later. Perhaps . . . now she knows the secrets I could not tell her. That would make a difference. Perhaps her kind and mine can share a life, if we know, if we work to . . . make accommodations with each other honestly.

  Then: But after Adrienne, will she want to come within a thousand miles of anyone who looks like me? Who is like me? All I can do is set her free, and convince her the rest is up to her.

  Tendrils of fog lay along the street; a heavy dew beaded on the surface of his gray anorak. It carried a raw chill, and he could sense the restless power of the ocean on three sides of the city, and smell the salt above the city stinks. There was an aloneness to the brightly-lit night greater than running beneath the stars in his own mountains.

  This was Geary Street; he could see the five-story tower of the Peace Pagoda ahead.

  Why not? he thought, and turned into the Japanese-style baths. Heat, and a cold plunge. Then I’ll get some noodles.

  It was men’s night, and for a wonder there wasn’t a line. A few minutes later he was relaxing in the heat of the dry sauna, feeling the sweat break out over his body in a single impalpable rush. He imagined it taking the poisons of the blood out of his body, the savage necessities of the Power.

  A shock of very slightly colder air, under the scent of cedar. Two men came in, both young and both Asian—with a little more body hair than most, so they were probably Japanese, and with bands of colorful tattoo over their torsos. Adrian sighed and prepared to block the trickle of consciousness that came through his shields . . .