A Taint in the Blood

by S. M. Stirling

  “I high-linked with Ellen. She’s . . . much better than I expected. And she had some information for me. We have an agent in the enemy’s camp.”

  He filled the older man in on the relevant details.

  “That might be useful. If there were a lot of bodies around this Congo site, we could maybe isolate the virus strain; their lab, now, that’ll be somewhere else. Somewhere with reliable electricity, which the Congo doesn’t have.”

  “Neither does California, compared to the old days.”

  “It sure does compared to the fucking Congo, ol’ buddy.”

  “A point.”

  “You know,” Harvey said after a moment, “I’m startin’ to feel a mite guilty about this.”

  Adrian looked. “How so?”

  “Now don’t misunderstand me. Ellen’s your obligation, and you’re mine. OK, that’s giri, as our buddy Hajime would put it. We go through with this, and Adrienne most certainly needs killing. But the fact of the matter is we’ve got information on something damn big the Council has planned for the world, and we’re not doin’ dick about that. What good’s rescuing Ellen if she dies of . . . whatever it was?”

  “Dalager’s Parasmallpox,” Adrian said. “Although, in fact, I could cure a virus.”

  On a limited scale, went unspoken.

  “And if they’re planning that, or some faction of ’em is, from your Seeing it’s not too far in the future. That means they’re already gettin’ it ready. If we knew the rest of ‘where’—where the labs and storage shit are—there might be something that we could do about it.”

  Adrian snorted. “Except that would mean the other option I Saw. I’m fairly sure that my sister is the nexus point between the probabilities, with us important mostly as we affect her.”

  “Yeah,” Harvey said. He leaned back meditatively, staring at the ceiling. “That other un definitely sounds to me like an EMP attack. That would account for the stalled cars and such.”

  “Could that be done to the whole world?” Adrian asked; his mentor had always liked keeping up with weapons technology.

  Harvey bit into one of the sandwiches himself. “Oh, sure. Most of the big powers got specialized high-altitude nukes for EMP work; mebbe the Council’s behind that. And the Council could set ’em off; squeeze on the leaders, mind-Wreaking, or just send in teams to Power-fuck the control systems, then launch enough to blanket the planet, minus the poles and oceans. Instant Ay-poc-al-ypse without much blast damage or fallout. ’Cept when all the reactors in the world slag down and suchlike. So you see why this has to be stopped.”

  Adrian’s mouth quirked. “Harvey, how often have the Brotherhood been able to stop one of the Council’s larger schemes?”

  “Well . . .” The older man looked out the window.

  It was raining, a dark persistent mist falling out of the sky onto the parking lot and the little strip of dead or half-alive stores and fast-food eateries beyond. His voice was reluctant:

  “Not too often.”

  “Ah, that is how you say never in Texan?”

  Stung, Harvey frowned in concentration. “We got Baron von Ungern-Sternberg, back in 1919. They were going to make him Dragon Emperor of the East. He was a bad one.”

  Adrian began ticking off points on his fingers. “But the Brotherhood never even realized the Council was behind the Black Hand and Prinzip. That’s World War One. They’d been grooming Hitler for years even then—”

  Harvey nodded reluctantly. “Little bastard was a battalion runner on the Western Front for four years, most dangerous job in the TOE. And he lived. Now, that’s not right or natural. Must have taken some special Wreaking to beat the odds that way.”

  “And Lenin’s stroke, so perfectly timed to put Stalin in power. And the Great Depression. And—”

  “OK, OK, you’re right. We still got to do some serious thinkin’ about these schemes.”

  “We have to rescue Ellen and kill Adrienne, Harvey; that’s why I’m here and not in Santa Fe, looking out over the arroyos and moving more supplies into the sub-basement. When Ellen is free and Adrienne dead, you and Sheila and the Brotherhood can concoct whatever futile schemes you wish, and I will take her back to New Mexico and guard her, if she will let me. In the meantime, send Sheila a memo.”

  The blue eyes grew somehow distant and savage at the same time.

  “You know, I’d off your sister in a moment and it’d be a right good deed. But I’d like to get me Hajime, I’d like that very much.”

  Adrian looked at him. “The only difference is that Adrienne has not yet had the time to commit so many crimes.”

  He sighed. “And now I will keep watch while you sleep.”

  “I can—”

  “Drop dead from exhaustion, Harv? Believe me, I will wake you as soon as possible.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “This one is just for clothes, chérie,” Adrienne said. “Really, I thought you’d be more interested in the last. All the things we bought there were replacements for your own . . . gear.”

  I got all that stuff on the Internet, dammit! Ellen thought, her ears still burning.

  Not in a sex store with attendants asking questions about whether I like plugs or clamps! And playing up to you as if you were . . . well, you are the top and I am the bottom, but it was still embarrassing!

  “You should become more comfortable with your identity. Now, clothes.”

  The establishment was so exclusive that it didn’t resemble a store at all; it was more like a wealthy family’s house with stockists-cum-models on call, amid a smell of rich fabrics and flowers and upscale consulting rooms. The owner beamed delight at Adrienne; he was a middle-aged man with a gray mustache and a rather blocky build, immaculately dressed in a three-piece suit and shoes that had to have cost more than Ellen had ever made in a month.

  “Ça va, Jean-Charles?” Adrienne said, as she drew Ellen in through the door by the hand. “I am sorry for the short notice.”

  Except that she didn’t quite say that, Ellen realized suddenly.

  She’d used the standard French casual greeting, which meant roughly How goes it? Ellen spoke fair basic French and understood and read it much better; that and some Italian were pretty well compulsory in her field if your area of study was Western art.

  She pronounced it something like cha va, instead.

  “Tu dit-moi ‘Ça va’?” he replied, drawing himself up and crossing his arms. “Rien pendant toute une année! Infidèle!”

  Well, that’s friendly, in a gal-pal sort of way, Ellen thought. They must have known each other a long time.

  Adrienne made a shrugging gesture, almost apologetic, and continued in the same language:

  “Jean-Charles, I never promised you a monogamous relationship. I was in Paris three times in the past year. In Paris, one buys clothes, is it not so?”

  She’s got an accent in her French, I think. Something nasal and quick, faint, I didn’t notice it until I heard it together with someone who doesn’t. Regional, maybe?

  “Ah, it could be so,” he said, and opened his arms. “And you are here now.”

  They exchanged an embrace and kiss on both cheeks. He held Adrienne at arm’s length and said:

  “My God, it is over a year since I saw you and you have not changed at all. In the ten years since we first met you have aged perhaps one or two.”

  “Oh, three or four, certainly.”

  “While I have gone gray and wrinkled. In a very distinguished way, but still, gray; and you were not a young girl then. How do you do it?”

  “I have told you so many times. Wicked sorcery and the drinking of human blood, my old. Besides, there is a wrinkle. One. Here, beside my eye, you see?”

  He laughed easily. “And I thought you were called Brézé, not Bathory,” he said.

  He doesn’t know, Ellen thought, and relaxed very slightly.

  Then he turned to Ellen and raised an eyebrow at her rumpled jeans, clean plain T-shirt and padded jacket; not entirely out
of place—Pacific Heights was still part of San Francisco—but not exactly fitting in either.

  At least my hair’s combed and I had a shower and the underwear and bra are fresh, she thought mordantly.

  Adrienne was in a severe outfit of dark blue, with a modishly asymmetric skirt that came to a point beside the left knee, and a gold-link belt; it somehow made her look a few years older.

  “This is a young friend, Ellen Tarnowski,” Adrienne said. “She lost all her possessions in a fire. I need a complete outfitting for her. I have taken her under my wing, as one says.”

  Elegant, batlike wing, Ellen thought, and saw a sardonic look in the gold-flecked eyes.

  God, telepathy adds whole layers of meanings to conversations even when you don’t have it yourself.

  “You have certainly given us something to work with,” he said enthusiastically. Then to her: “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Ms. Tarnowski.”

  Another lift of the eyebrow to Adrienne. “Ms. Darton . . . she was here only two months ago . . .”

  “Monica and I will always have a deep bond.”

  “You are a constant and faithful friend, Adrienne.”

  Or a collector, Ellen thought. Then she remembered Dmitri Usov saying Don’t you ever just kill them? and the hopeless caged desperation in his lucy’s face. And Tōkairin Michiko’s avid eyes when she wondered how the last living drops of Ellen’s blood would taste, as her heart quivered and died.

  Let’s hear it for collection! she thought fervently. At least until I get out of this madhouse-slash-Hell.

  “Never are you out of it,” Adrienne whispered in her ear. “Abandon all hope, remember?”

  Then she went back to her discussion with the designer. The premises included a laser scanner in a changing room that made a complete three-dimensional model of her body. When she came out it was already on the screen, and the proprietor and Adrienne were consulting over the curiously sexless silver shape.

  “Oui, mais—” the owner said. “With such a complexion and such a figure—magnificently traditional, a veritable maize-fed American goddess—it would be criminal not to—”

  “Mais non, Jean-Charles; you make her sound like a prize Jersey at a state fair in Wisconsin. She is also a woman of great intelligence and sensitivity, an artist. Look at that face, those eyes—”

  Ellen offered an occasional comment as clothes appeared on the figure or mysteriously wafted out of the depths of the establishment; once or twice they took her seriously, or more often gave her pitying looks and then ignored her. Once the man did a series of quick impersonal measurements with a tape, and several times models came in wearing one item or another. Then a cloud of assistants descended and bore her off to fitting chambers, expanses large as a living-room; fine chairs and rugs, and only the mirrors and mannequin stands and the sewing station that let down from the wall to show their purpose. Tucks, pins, hems, voices advising:

  “This skirt is just right for madam, but it needs to be longer, Madam has such elegant legs, she can carry off the longer length as other women can’t . . .”

  Another: “This slip goes with this dress and it will be better if we change your bra. The thong will show—let’s use the elastex full undergarment instead . . . These pantyhose . . . try these shoes, Miss Tarnowski, no, I think the satin Eau de Nile slippers are better for this one . . .”

  One of the assistants flipped up her BlackBerry:

  “Jack? Shoes. Size seven and half medium, satin Eau de Nile, evening and dancing . . . Bring five or six examples . . .”

  But they aren’t really treating me like an object, Ellen thought suddenly, as one of them stepped back glowing with enthusiasm and clapped her hands together.

  These are artists at work. They’re having fun. They’ve been turned loose in a candy store with a gold card. Or they’re painters suddenly given the key to the supply closet. That’s why they keep asking me too.

  “Madam is a true champagne blond, very natural, very beautiful,” one said around the pins clenched between her lips. “Your complexion can carry off many difficult colors, even this sunset pink, most women would kill to have madam’s figure; it makes dressing you a pleasure . . . God, if you only knew what we have to do to make some of the cows who come in here look like human beings. Talk about being masters of disguise—the CIA have nothing on us . . . Someone get Margaret and tell her to bring her emergency kit!”

  Margaret guided her to one of the chairs and put a towel around her shoulders and went to work on her hair.

  “My God, it’s all real,” she said, fingers and comb deft. “Look at this color, and the density! You could grow this to your ankles like a silk waterfall if you wanted. But what have you been doing with it, madam?”

  More clothing, and double doors opened to show a long corridor nearly as wide as a room. Ellen walked down it, with the critical group spacing themselves out to see how the outfits looked at a distance as well. At the end around the ell was an ironing board and cleaning station. Jean-Charles made an occasional entry at discreet moments, spoke an imperial word and left.

  “Good,” he said at last.

  She’d returned to the original room, feeling oddly diminished in her jeans and T.

  He made a final note and turned to Adrienne: “That’s settled, then. A final fitting? In any case, we should have the complete ensemble ready by . . . oh, the end of the week. You have priority, of course.”

  “Your work is always right the first time,” Adrienne said. “In any case, I have perfectly competent seamstresses at home when it’s a matter of tiny adjustments to a hem. It’s your creative genius I need. Also, of course, a few things for her right away. I appeal to you, my old friend!”

  Jean-Charles turned to her, tapping his hand on his chin. “A fire, you say,” he muttered. “Pauvre petite! ”

  Then, decisively: “You are wandering around our windy city in that junk, a girl of my own daughter’s age!”

  He snapped his fingers. “Martha! The brown and turquoise running suit with a pale blue shell and a tan shell, the ones Richarda models. Also, bring the off-royal blue wool dress, the camel coat . . . Francisco wanted to change the design on that anyway. Grab those nice lined wool slacks . . . in a dark olive and a chocolate, and one of the asymmetrical jackets in that dark ivy and black pattern. We should have two or three silk blouses in tan, lilac and green, oh, and that twinset in nile. That should help! You cannot be with nothing but those jeans. Just a few things to tide you over this week.”

  Ellen found herself flushing. “Merci, Monsieur,” she said, trying for her best pronunciation. “Vous êtes si très gentils. So very kind.”

  He really is, she thought, her eyes prickling a little. I haven’t had much of that lately.

  “It is nothing,” he said, smiling at her. “I am merely following my trade.”

  Adrienne smiled herself and pulled a checkbook out of her handbag. Hats, gloves and pantyhose appeared as if by magic, and Ellen tried to pay attention.

  I have to wear them, after all.

  “Good deeds should not go unrewarded.”

  She filled in the check. Then she tore it from the book and slid it across the table to the man.

  “After Mademoiselle Tarnowski’s so-gracious words, I feel like a whore to charge anything,” he said. “But one must live.”

  “You are a grande horizontale in the ancient mode, Jean-Charles,” she said; they laughed and exchanged another set of cheek-kisses.

  “I am a veritable Liane de Pougy, then! I shall write a novel about our liaison!”

  They were laughing together as the assistants reappeared with his list, to bear Ellen off one more time.

  At least I feel less conspicuous walking beside her, Ellen thought when they came out onto the street.

  She’d been chilly before. The fine double-knit merino wool of the running suit and the knit silk shell fit like her own skin, but they were supremely comfortable as well.

  And this stuff feels fabulous.
Like my clothes are stroking my skin all the time.

  Ahead steepness fell away to show the Golden Gate Bridge soaring above water royal blue, and the hills of Marin green with the winter rains. It was sunny but brisk, and she was glad of the suit’s jacket. She put her free hand in the right pocket; Adrienne had her left again, swinging it like a happy child as they walked.

  Though inconspicuous is an odd way to feel considering I’m wearing six months’ salary.

  “Or conspicuous in the same way as others,” Adrienne observed.

  “Why are you doing this?” Ellen asked, genuinely curious.

  “Well, we could have stayed in and found other ways to pass the time until my meeting. The replacements for all that . . . equipment you lost have arrived by now, I’m sure. There’s that nine-thonged braided silk whip with the delightfully explicit dual-purpose handle . . .”

  Errrk! Ellen thought, flushing with a complex play of emotions.

  “I wasn’t objecting, Adrienne! Ah, it’s weird, but yeah, I like the clothes. They’re fun. I’ve always gone funky before because it was what I could afford.”

  “Well, even wearing a burlap potato sack you would look like Aphrodite rising from the waves.”

  “Ah . . . thanks.”

  “No, truly. You should develop a more positive self-image. And, of course, you are supremely bite-able, which is a matter of the psyche and mind as much as the body, though physical beauty helps. Have you noticed how much Michiko wanted to drink your blood, even though she was sated? I think nearly every Shadowspawn you meet will. Adrian certainly would have too. How it would have tortured him, the scent, the pulse beating so close to his lips! You are like a sweet, fragrant golden peach one longs to taste.”

  “Ah . . . thanks, I suppose.”

  I think. Sort of. That’s sort of eerie and creepy and . . . thinking of Adrian . . . sad. If I’d known . . . I mean, if I’d known and hadn’t run screaming for the hills . . . Poor Adrian! I was teasing him all the time and I didn’t know it. He must have willpower like titanium steel.

  “I like having beautiful things,” the Shadowspawn went on, giving her hand a squeeze. “You deserve the proper settings. Also there are some . . . social engagements coming up, if things go well. I want to show you off to best advantage—for yourself, and as a sort of subtle statement about Adrian. He has quite a reputation as . . . a person of formidable, dangerous talents, you know.”