A Taint in the Blood

by S. M. Stirling

  All human beings are mortal, he thought. Including those you love, Adrian. Prepare yourself for more of this grief, unless you plan on dying soon.

  The other bed creaked. He opened his eyes again; Harvey was sitting up, stamping his feet into the boots and lacing them, rubbing at his face. The grin was back, and the sparkle in the eyes that made you forget the gray and the wrinkles and the way the hands were getting knobby.

  “You look like shit, Harv,” he said—or croaked.

  “Said Mr. Kettle to the honey-bucket. You look like shit that’s been through the baby twice. Hold one.”

  He went out; a few minutes later he returned with a big mug. Then he put a hand behind Adrian’s head and put it to his lips. The scent of the blood hit him a second before that, revulsion and longing together. It was almost warm. He looked a question.

  “Usual source, just a bit fresher. Pretty well straight from the donor. You need it, ol’ buddy. We got connections here, but it ain’t altogether a Brotherhood establishment. Drink before someone comes by and asks questions.”

  He drank. For an instant it tasted only of salt and metal, a sign of how drained he really was. Then it was like tofu—stale tofu with an overtone of slightly spoiled milk. There was only the mildest quiver of nausea as it hit his stomach, empty though that felt.

  “Ahhh,” he sighed. “My God, don’t give me this Grand Cru Burgundy too often, Harv.”

  “It’s back to the rotgut as soon as you’re out of here. I was gettin’ worried. You were in a trance lockdown—I had to jimmy those with a Wreaking—”

  He pointed at a bank of monitors, which were now showing his real heartbeat and respiration and blood pressure. It would have been hard for the older man; everything came from his own reserves.

  No wonder he looked so exhausted!

  “—but it didn’t seem to be doing you all that much good, not like a real healin’ coma. Thought I might have to hold your nose and pour the blood down your gullet my own self.”

  Adrian made a dismissive gesture. “Ellen woke me. Adrienne was . . . feeding on her.”

  “You’ve got a pretty close link with that girl, don’t you?” A grin. “Don’t work with just blood, does it?”

  “Dirty-minded salop,” he replied. Then: “Ellen is becoming acclimated to it, developing the addiction pattern. That was . . . not pleasant to observe. She was very frightened, and then . . . nearly ecstatic.”

  Harvey sighed. “Look, ol’ buddy, you knew that was going to happen. It actually makes things easier for her and less likely to get on the receiving end of an overfeeding frenzy—which in case you hadn’t noticed, is fatal while blissing-out isn’t.”

  “She has an addictive personality. She knows it and deals with it well. But in this situation she is more vulnerable.”

  Harvey shrugged. “She can go through detox when we get her back. Concentrate on getting healed up so we can do something about it.”

  Adrian crossed his arms and rested his hands on his shoulders. Breath in, out, in, out . . .

  A few seconds later he opened his eyes again and hissed, “Damn those knives! I’m healing only a little faster than . . . ah . . .”

  “Us normals,” Harvey said cheerfully. “Well, that’s what the blades were designed for. Sort of ironic, isn’t it? The Shadowspawn using ’em, that is.”

  They had been witchfinders’ tools originally, the predecessors of the Brotherhood as the Order of the Black Dawn and kindred groups were of the Council of Shadows.

  Adrian shrugged. “I’m going to give it another try. Flash cards for me, would you?”

  Harvey grunted agreement; he pulled out a set of blanks the size of playing cards and spent a moment marking them with the artist’s pencils from Adrian’s pack.

  “OK,” he said. “This is the s-at’lauissi it’k-baiy sequence.”

  Adrian sank back again. As the glyphs were held before his eyes he murmured words—Words, rather, one of the earliest patterns children learned when the Power came on them.

  I’ve failed World Lit; now I’m back to using alphabet blocks.

  There was a soft heavy resistance, the lingering traces of the knives in his flesh. Let the pattern grow stronger, let the Mhabrogast syllables echo in his mind, louder and louder, until his personhood felt their edges . . .

  He was gasping when his eyes opened again, but the pain in arm and leg had grown to a fiery itch. There was no way of avoiding that, and he set himself to ignore it.

  “More,” he croaked.

  Harvey lifted his head again. The blood vanished as if his tissues were soaking it up, but his head felt less light. Then water, and he sighed.

  “I’ll be walking in a day or two. Real recovery . . . not too much longer.”

  “If we live that long,” Harvey said grimly. “Got the make on those two mooks we assisted to shuffle off. Definitely Tōkairin clan muscle, partners who worked together regular. Up-and-comers.”

  “Why?” he said, mystified.

  “Could be general principles. They did edge out the Brézés for top-tiger position on the West Coast back when.”

  “As if I cared! They know that.”

  “The two you got were part of a security detail run by Michiko Tōkairin. She manages that for this section of the West Coast. Old Hajime lettin’ family feeling overcome prejudice about the weaker sex.”

  “Tōkairin Michiko,” Adrian corrected absently as his thoughts spun. “Surname first.”

  “Well, excuse me your exalted multiculturalist poobah-ness. She ain’t really Japanese. Hell, strictly speaking you could argue whether she’s human.”

  “And she’s a sibling-of-blood to Adrienne. And definitely not the weaker anything.”

  Harvey made a grimace. Among Shadowspawn the sibling-of-blood relationship was a kind of fictive kinship; it also had sexual overtones but mainly referred to shared kills.

  Not that that is altogether different from the way actual siblings among Shadowspawn act, Adrian thought.

  The older man reached under the bed he’d been napping on and hauled out a cardboard take-out box.

  “Whatever the reason, if she came after us once, she may again. Put the cops on our trail, or Homeland Security spooks, too. We’re not official Brotherhood and we’re vulnerable.”

  “I shall live with it,” Adrian said. “What have you got there?”

  “Chicken bánh mi sandwiches on sourdough with cilantro, chilis and five-spice. And some croissants that actually taste like croissants, which ain’t so easy to find this side of the Atlantic.”

  Adrian accepted one of the sandwiches gratefully; the mere scent of it drove out the smell of limp green beans and reconstituted mashed potatoes and mystery-meatloaf from the trolley out in the corridor. Accelerated healing required food.

  “And Sheila came through with the report on the Brézé-clan properties,” Harvey went on.

  He carefully cut the cards he’d marked with the glyphs—ideographic Mhabrogast—into confetti-small pieces and scraped them into a plastic Ziploc, to be burned later.

  Then he wrapped his mouth around a huge bite of his sandwich. Indistinctly:

  “Whole lot of Brézé properties, but there are only three or four likelies in the Central Coast area.”

  Adrian’s lips thinned. “That is the problem. I got a visual impression with that . . . feeding incident, and the distance was less. Adrienne and Ellen were traveling. She’s moving, Harv. Where?”

  “Getting closer, you said?”

  “I think so.”

  “Then maybe . . . we need to talk to the Tōkairin honcho ourselves.”

  Adrian looked at him in surprise, and he went on: “Michiko likes Adrienne. Hajime don’t. I’ll put out feelers, but if he accepts, it’ll be you he wants to talk to. I’m just an ape, remember?”

  “How could I forget, my old? You are an ape.”

  Harvey laughed. “Now you need some more sleep.”

  “Yes.” He sighed. Then: “No. First I must tell you
of the Seeings I had, before the feeding woke me.”

  He did. Harvey whistled. “Sheila was right. They are plannin’ something a mite drastic.”

  “Several things. Those were unrealized alternates. They both felt . . . loose, not nearly determinate. And Adrienne and Dmitri were in both. Somehow something we do affects those outcomes.”

  Harvey’s mouth twisted. “Neither of ’em’s what I’d call desirable.” Adrian shrugged, half-conscious. “Ellen. I must rescue Ellen. The rest . . . it can wait.”

  Harvey leaned over him and smiled, a tender expression incongruous on the rugged bristly face.

  “Right, ol’ buddy. You get some shut-eye.”

  “Ellen,” he murmured, and sank into the waiting darkness.

  Hungry, Ellen thought, as the motorcycle burbled to a stop amid a small parking lot. Stiff. Cold.

  She’d been drifting for most of the ride through the endless outskirts and suburbs south of the city. Now they were in San Francisco’s core, bright and lively. Ellen shivered again as she glanced at the people and traffic.

  It’s all a false front, she thought. Now I know what’s real. And oh, God, how I wish I didn’t.

  “We’ll get you warm and fed, chérie,” Adrienne said.

  The restaurant was on Post Street, near Union Square; Ellen had a confused sense of recently-renovated antique magnificence, arched ceilings with mosaics and Art Nouveau marine-themed lamps. For a moment she felt hideously underdressed in her plain jeans and rumpled T-shirt and wind-tangled blond thatch; then her stomach twisted at the subtle scents.

  I look like I’m homeless!

  “And I’m in motorcycle leathers,” Adrienne pointed out. “This is San Francisco. Nobody would bat an eye if you were in a bustier and pink boxers with your head shaved.”

  The maître d’ came up, smiling. “This way, Ms. Brézé. Ms. Tōkairin just arrived and is in the Sevruga room.”

  He had the art of being deferential but not oily. The door to which he ushered them had an unusual addition; two Japanese-looking men in expensive suits flanking it, standing with their hands crossed. Within was a small private dining chamber, restrained in white and beige, the walls mostly covered in a wine library—bottles on slightly inclined shelves. There were a couple of nautical-fisherman paintings as well. The round table could have held four comfortably. The young woman sitting there was alone, and—

  Wearing a Sailor Moon costume? Ellen thought.

  Certainly a manga-version of a Japanese schoolgirl outfit—white sailor blouse, blue skirt and red bow. Her raven hair was up in a complex design held by long golden hairsticks and a comb; Ellen recognized it from an Edo-period print by Koryusai. The face below was classic as well, doll-like and pretty; she was a bit shorter than Adrienne, which put her three inches below Ellen’s five foot six.

  “Adrienne!” she said happily, rising.

  “Michiko!”

  She extended a hand and they touched fingertips, a greeting Ellen had never seen before. There was a sense of something passing between them, of words spoken too quickly and softly for her to hear.

  They also exchanged several sentences aloud in Japanese before Adrienne switched to English:

  “Not blond anymore, I see.”

  The Asian girl smiled and indicated her hairdo. “Grandfather! He wanted something more traditional, I gave him traditional.”

  The two Shadowspawn women laughed and sat. Michiko went on:

  “How do you get that sweaty authentic look with the leathers? On me, it’s always like a twelve-year-old trying to butch up.”

  “The authenticity is simple. Put them on and then drive a motorcycle for three hundred miles.”

  “That’s going a bit far.”

  “Ichirō?”

  “He’s in Japan with the kids, supervising them while they learn to contemplate raked sand and rocks and the other profound Buddha-Shinto-ninja-clan shit. As if human nations and traditions meant anything to us anymore!”

  “The Wreaking training and the physical side are useful,” Adrienne said. “But I sympathize. On the other hand, Tōkairin Hajime’s father thought he was a human being for most of his life. It’s only natural your grandfather still thinks in those terms.”

  “Your Brézé-clan Old Ones are miracles of flexibility by comparison.”

  “We were . . . in at the beginning. We’ve had more time to adjust.”

  Ellen hovered uncertainly for an instant, then sat as waiters brought a tray of drinks and platters of Kumamoto oysters on beds of shaved ice and rock-salt and seaweed, with thin-sliced buttered brown bread on the side.

  “Ah, I can always rely on you, Jason,” Michiko said in a friendly tone to the man overseeing them.

  To Adrienne: “When I come here, I just put myself in Jason’s hands. I’m like putty and he’s never gone wrong.”

  Then to the man once more: “What’s with? Not the Staglin Chardonnay this time?”

  “I’m recommending this cocktail instead for the oysters. Skyy 90 vodka infused with Antiguan black peppercorn, Manzanilla dry sherry, shaken, served up with cucumber.”

  “Definitely linked to the pleasure principle,” she replied, sipping one. “Jason, if only you were straight, or at least flexible, what a lover you’d be!”

  “Not even for you, Ms. Tōkairin,” the slim handsome man said with a smile of his own. “Enjoy!”

  “Ah . . .” Ellen said, when the staff had withdrawn. “I’ve never actually eaten a raw oyster before.”

  The slanted eyes considered her. At first Ellen thought they were the normal brown so dark it was almost black, but then she could see tiny golden flecks here and there.

  “A new lucy?” she asked, glancing at Adrienne. “You always did favor those Marilyn Monroe types on the distaff side.”

  Wait a minute, Ellen thought suddenly. I do look a little like Monroe.

  She’d studied Warhol’s prints closely at NYU and half a dozen people in the class had pointed it out, some far more often than she liked. The resemblance had been even stronger before she took up running and tennis intensively.

  And come to think of it, Monica back at the ranch looks a fair bit like Norma Jean Mortenson before she went blond and got discovered. Is that a thing with the Brézés? Oh, that’s a bit of an ick . . . Well, some guys just have a subconscious preference for a type, I suppose . . . Adrian may have liked my looks, but he stayed for me. I was the one who broke it off.

  “Though I should be charging you corkage!” Michiko continued with assumed umbrage. “You’re perfectly free to hunt in San Francisco while you’re my guest—we put that in the peace agreement—and it’s not as if we didn’t have a wide assortment. Bringing your own fresh bitch to bleed is almost a slur on our hospitality!”

  Ellen fought to control the spike of resentment. From the smiles, that was absolutely futile, and Adrienne chuckled.

  “Chérie, you’re my lucy. That means you are my bitch, in several senses of the word. Here. Take a sip of the cocktail—”

  Cool, sweet-pungent, a tiny peppery bite, then white ice-fire down the throat.

  “—then put a tiny bit of these marinated scallions on the oyster, a squeeze of lemon, and use the oyster fork to help the whole thing sliiiide in. Then take a bite of the brown bread.”

  Ellen let the morsel and shell-full of liquid drop into her mouth. It was good, if a little strange—salty and meaty and fishy at the same time. The earthy texture and half-sweet taste of the brown bread and butter cleared her mouth.

  “Like kissing the Pacific Ocean on the lips,” Adrienne said.

  To Michiko: “But this is the one I took from dear Adrian. And quite unusual in herself. Less pillowy than Monroe, too, judging from the films.”

  “Oooh, she was Adrian’s? Mind if I take a look?”

  “Be my guest.”

  This time the gaze took her seriously. Ellen decided she preferred dismissal. The eyes locked on hers, and she found she couldn’t look away. The sensation that foll
owed was purely mental, but the exact equivalent of having someone put a fingernail on the base of her spine and run it slowly up to her neck. She shivered involuntarily. Michiko reached out without breaking the eye-lock and took her hand, put her thumb on the web between the little finger and the next and pressed sharply.

  “Ouch!” Ellen said; she barely suppressed the impulse to snatch the hand back.

  Michiko’s teeth came together with a click. She began to turn the hand to expose the wrist, her mouth opening again as she bent forward, lips curling back in a way that made her suddenly look far less human. Ellen’s breath caught as she shivered, and she looked over at Adrienne with her eyes wide in involuntary appeal.

  OK, aren’t I supposed to be your bitch?

  The other Shadowspawn chuckled and rapped her friend’s wrist with an oyster fork.

  “Ta-ta-ta, Michi, I said look, not taste. You know how I hate people touching my things.”

  “Oh,” she said with a start, and released Ellen’s hand. “Sorry. Still, I see what you mean. There are depths there. I wonder how her blood would taste as her heart skipped and quivered and stopped?”

  “Absolutely marvelous, I’m sure. That is always a treat. But then she’d be dead, and no fun at all. I have plans for this one.”

  Michiko shrugged as she squeezed lemon on an oyster.

  “There’s always more, even of the special ones. The planet’s overpopulated, after all. And Adrian will come after you whether she’s alive or dead.”

  “Be careful, or you’ll start to sound like Dmitri.”

  Michiko made a gesture of theatrical horror, throwing up her hands; one of them held an empty oyster shell.

  “Oh, no, not that. I don’t kill what I can’t eat. Well, usually.”

  “Dmitri is definitely a gourmand. Still, he’s earned release. And he has the supreme virtue of being useful.”

  “Ah,” Michiko said, and ate another oyster. “Well, that’s about the only good news I’ve got for you tonight. Grandfather will extend Tōkairin patronage so that he can attend the meeting . . . and leave Seversk in time to prepare.”