A Taint in the Blood

by S. M. Stirling

  “Yes . . .” they both said slowly, in eerie unison.

  “And you’re happy that I answered your questions, aren’t you? Now if anyone says silly things, you’ll just laugh because you know the real truth.”

  “Yes . . .”

  “And you’ll be glad that your mom is someone very special for me and gives me what I need, won’t you?”

  “Yes . . .”

  “So why don’t you let her tuck you into bed and kiss you good night?”

  Monica rose and took their hands; they were yawning and stumbling as she led them away. Over her shoulder she mouthed: Thank you.

  All the Lucy Lane yards had rear gates that led to the casa’s gardens.

  “That . . . actually was rather nice of you,” Ellen said as they went through Monica’s and walked up the stairs. “All things considered.”

  “I like watching human children gambol, like lambs and puppies. I suppose it’s an instinct to preserve the stock of our prey.”

  “Oh,” Ellen said. “It was still actually sort of nice . . . for someone as evil as you are.”

  “Ellen, you have absolutely no conception of how evil I am. Though I am having a wonderful time gradually showing you.”

  “I’d bet Monica thinks it was nice.”

  “She did,” Adrienne chuckled. “And believe me, I’ve already thought of several rather rough ways for her to show her appreciation.”

  “How was the blood?”

  “Surprisingly good with so little priming. Almost bubbly. Refreshing, like a sip of sparkling cider.”

  The truck backed into the warehouse. Adrian helped Harvey heave the big sheet-metal doors closed, the edges sharp under his gloved hands. When it was done the overhead lights came on, two long-endurance fluorescents making a puddle of visibility in the mostly empty space. The vehicle was an anonymous Chinese-made model of no great size, but low on its shocks; he wrinkled his nose at the exhaust stink in the confined space, and at the older smells of oil soaked into the concrete floor and nameless cargoes.

  Harvey shot the bolts that held the exterior door closed. A man and a woman jumped out of the truck’s cab, dressed in nondescript dark clothing, boots and knit caps, both youngish and moving well. They nodded to him as they came around to open the padlocked rear door of the truck, then turned to face him.

  “Anjali Guha,” the woman said. “This is Jack Farmer.”

  Guha was slender and fine-boned and dark, and spoke faultless English with the slightest trace of a singsong accent; Farmer was of medium height but broad in the shoulders, blue-eyed and with close-cropped sandy hair and a snub nose. They both shook hands; the brief contact confirmed what he’d suspected, that they were high enough on the Alberman scale to Wreak consciously.

  Somewhere between Harvey and Sheila Polson, he judged.

  They could feel his Power, as well, and bristled slightly at it. There was an ironic twist to his smile.

  The Brotherhood has become an asylum for those with enough Shadowspawn genes to Wreak, but not enough to be accepted by the Council, he thought.

  Both were armed; he could feel the warded knives, the man’s point-up under his left armpit, the woman’s on her back with the hilt just below her collar.

  “This is what we could cull from Wilbur Peterson’s stuff,” Guha said. “And what we could duplicate that would have been there if the banchut hadn’t gone hermit.”

  “Gone batshit,” Farmer said, and smiled. “A batshit banchut.”

  “Right. Krishna, but you’ve never seen such a ruin. Cobwebs, dust, stalactites of plaster under the leaks in the roof, stacks of ancient magazines and newspapers, reels and reels of old film movies worn out from being played over and over . . . old, dried moldy bodies, too, thrown down the stairs into the basement. And the smell. Like a ghoul’s lair.”

  “Just a couple of old renfields, enough to guard him by daylight,” Farmer said. “They were still wandering around stunned after he stayed up to kiss sun, when we moved in.”

  “They’re dead, I suppose?”

  “Yeah,” Farmer said; his voice held a gloating overtone. “And we got a full debriefing from the bastards first.”

  Guha gave him a glance. “Farmer, don’t be more of a banchut yourself than you can help, OK? It has to be done. You don’t have to enjoy it so much.”

  “They’re traitors,” Farmer hissed with sudden vehemence, the sound like a snake in the darkened empty room.

  “You can both play a renfield?” Adrian asked.

  He shot a glance at Harvey. The older man was leaning one haunch against the open back of the truck, his arms crossed. He gave an ironic shrug and smile, as if to say: They’re what’s available.

  “We’ve done it before,” the senior Brotherhood operative said; she shot a look at her partner. “We’re still alive.”

  “For days at a time, in a gathering this size?” Adrian persisted.

  “No,” she said reluctantly. “Never with more than three Shadowspawn, and never for more than a few hours. There aren’t Shadowspawn gatherings this size very often.”

  “This will be considerably more difficult than a brief impersonation. Stick close to me; close as glue. Say nothing that you don’t have to—”

  “We’re not working for you, Brézé—” Farmer began.

  Adrian crossed his wrists in a sudden snapping motion, the backs of his fists outward. Thumb and forefinger came out, thumbs touched . . .

  “Sseii-tok!” he snarled.

  Focus gripped him. Possibilities shifted, like planes of greased crystal sliding over each other. A sensation ran up his spine, and something went snap behind his eyes.

  Farmer had begun to recoil into battle-stance. One heel hit an oil-spot, at precisely the angle needed to make the rough gripping surface of the boot turn frictionless. He went over backward with a muffled yell, turning to a yelp as his shoulder struck the ridged steel of the truck’s folded loading ramp. His hand flashed towards the hilt of his hidden knife, but Adrian had flowed forward, and the edge of his foot rested on the man’s throat.

  They both knew that required only a flex to crush his larynx and leave him choking and drowning in his own blood.

  “Listen to me, imbecile. Will you be sensible?”

  A nod, and he eased up on Farmer’s throat, ready to smash down in a stamp-kick if he went for the knife.

  “I’m in this operation on my own terms, not under Brotherhood discipline. You’re under my command in this. Your life may be worthless, but mine is not, and my fiancée is infinitely more important than either of us. Every one of the guests in this circus of demons could crush you like a cockroach at the least suspicion of what you really are. Understood?”

  The man glared, then nodded.

  “Show me you mean it.”

  Another glare, but he let his shields slip enough for Adrian to sense agreement—qualified, grudging, but real. He stepped back and extended a hand.

  “We’re on the same side, Farmer,” he said.

  The other man took it, and Adrian pulled him to his feet. Guha snorted.

  “Let’s get this over with. If we’re going to play renfields . . .”

  They went around the other side of the truck. Harvey sighed, went with them, and returned with two small disposable hypodermics full of dark venous blood.

  “Here you go,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Preservin’ the proprieties.”

  “Tell me which one is Farmer’s, so I will know why my stomach’s upset,” Adrian replied dryly . . . but quietly.

  He shot them both into his mouth with a thumb on the plunger and swallowed; the taste was mildly pleasant, about like a drink of cold soda-water on a hot day. It was fresh, at least; and he could display a convincing base-link to both of them if someone prodded at them with the Power. A Shadowspawn had to be able to protect his renfields.

  Guha was rubbing at the sleeve of her jacket as she came back, and talking to her partner:

  “And he’s already given us intel that
may mean the survival of the Brotherhood, Jack,” she said.

  Harvey spoke: “Something that important?”

  “We can develop hardened refuges against EMP,” she said, apparently missing the slight tinge of irony. “And . . . well, I don’t know officially, but we’ve got teams going to the Congo and we’re gearing up some bio-labs.”

  Adrian nodded. Keeping the Brotherhood from disappearing in the wreck was a more realistic plan than trying to stop Operation Trimback altogether . . .

  But I find myself less enamored of realism, these days. If I was truly realistic I’d be back in Santa Fe, drinking myself into a stupor. Or doing what Peterson did.

  “Let’s get this stuff out. I have to familiarize myself with it.”

  The trunks were just that; old-style, brass-bound leather and wood. Most of the clothes and gear within had a deep musty smell of age, beneath the mothballs.

  “The newer ones will have to do,” he said. “Discard the rest. We must persuade them that he was never so far gone as to neglect everything.”

  Adrian sorted until the remaining garments were presentable to a Shadowspawn nose; all deeply out of fashion, but that wasn’t unknown among older postcorporeals. And there were a few private possessions—a golden locket with a picture of a woman in the short hair and cloche hat of the 1920s, a massive wind-up wristwatch, a collection of letters and a few books.

  “Jalna, by Mazo de la Roche,” Adrian said, reading the title on the spine.

  It was leather-bound, worn but almost desperately well cared for, and it had the author’s signature on the flyleaf and a publication date of 1927.

  “He had that one with him when he sat up for sunrise,” Guha said.

  “Must have meant something to him at one time.”

  “Or just a link to life. I had better read it, and the letters,” Adrian said thoughtfully. “There is a chance he knew my parents, and they will be at the Rancho. Still, Shadowspawn are no better than others at remembering small details for sixty or seventy years.”

  “These are the weapons,” Farmer said; no Shadowspawn would travel unarmed.

  A revolver, the grips black bone; he could feel silver on the interior pawls that moved the cylinder and the spring that drove the hammer.

  “Webley Mk. VI,” Harvey said with interest.

  He took the weapon, broke it open and examined it, smiling a little in satisfaction that it was functional.

  “It’s a .455 caliber, top-hinged, 1915 model. This antique hand-cannon’s got stoppin’ power to spare but it’s a wrist-breaker; you’d better practice a bit.”

  Adrian nodded. He was very strong—even for a pureblood Shadowspawn—but he wasn’t particularly massive. Harvey was forty pounds heavier, and mass counted in absorbing recoil. The bullets were silver as well, rougher than modern rounds but probably effective. There were two warded and silver-edged knives, not much different from those made today if you liked straight double-edged daggers; he weighed one in his hand, satisfied. A Council trident-and-sun was set into the pommel of each.

  “Good. We have about a week before the official opening of the . . . Prayer of Long Life, enough for me to reinforce the Wreakings to disguise your minds.”

  Harvey grinned. “You two are goin’ to be hearing a lot of Mhabrogast.”

  The two Brotherhood operatives winced. So did Adrian; he would have to think in it, not merely recite phrases. That did odd things to your mind. It had only two tenses, the fixed and the potential, just to start with; it was a language for solipsistic monsters.

  “I will be one of the first guests to arrive, in bird-form. You will be my faithful renfields, and—”

  He sketched out the preliminary plan he’d developed. By the end of it they were all sitting on trunks and crates, eating shrimp po’ boys from a place Harvey had discovered here in Paso Robles and drinking Duvel beer that had started out in Belgium before it ended up in plastic glasses in California.

  “That’s a lot more risky for you than for us,” Farmer said, when he’d finished.

  “I need you for the first two days. After that, all you could do would be to die. I suppose you have your suicide imperatives primed?” They both nodded. “I don’t have that option, either.”

  He stood and got the markers and chalks out of his knapsack. “This is a splendid place to work with. We’ll need a rope to scribe some circles . . .”

  Several hours later Farmer walked away with his hands clutched to his head. Adrian blinked as he watched the Brotherhood’s operative carefully avoiding obstacles that weren’t there, and forced his mind not to see what they might be. His nose twitched; Anjali Guha had a wad of tissues pressed to hers, to stop the blood. Neither of them was used to Wreaking at this level; neither was he, anymore.

  “That will do for a start,” he said, and they both groaned. “We can continue tomorrow night. No more than four or five more sessions.”

  He thought Farmer sounded less resentful. Now you have some idea of what you’ll be dealing with, Adrian thought. We speak of minds that can rip the fabric of reality as if it were tissue. And who have the dispositions of malicious children, the type who pull the legs off one side of a spider to see it walk in circles.

  “Now let’s get some sleep,” Harvey said, wielding a mop to erase the glyphs drawn in a looping tracery outside the circle. “Early day tomorrow.”

  The walk to the motel they were using was short, but even with an adept’s training sleep came slowly. Rancho Sangre was not somewhere he’d ever been physically, but his parents had lived there for decades, and Adrienne since their body-death. It was graven in the history of his life; and now Ellen’s world-line was woven with it.

  What is happening there now, Ellie? I’m coming to you, as fast as I can.

  “I am pleased to meet you, sir, madam,” Ellen said formally to Adrienne’s parents.

  Should I curtsy or something? she thought. In this Jean-Charles creation I’m wearing at least it wouldn’t look ridiculous. But I never learned how anyway. Polite will have to do. And . . . they’re Adrian’s parents too. God, in a skanky sort of way this is like being taken home to meet the folks.

  “No, you’re not glad at all,” Jules Brézé said. “But it was polite of you to say so. By all means, call me Jules. This is America, after all. My parents were the ones who came from France.”

  He advanced and took her hand. The contact had a slight shock to it, psychically cold and somehow wet, though the hand felt absurdly normal for a man who’d died before she was born; there was even a faint smell of wine and mint on his breath, beneath an expensive cologne.

  His eyes were the thing that made what he was unmistakable, like pools of living gold. His wife came up beside him and reached out to touch Ellen’s hand as well. Both flared their nostrils slightly to take her scent; it was an oddly animalistic gesture. She could remember Adrian doing it when he forgot himself, but then she hadn’t had the context.

  “Oh, I see what you mean, darling,” Julianne said over her shoulder to Adrienne. “One longs to consume her. Her mind is like a rose carved out of finely marbled meat until the petals are translucent, scented with fruit and flowers and blood.”

  Errrk, Ellen thought. That’s an . . . arresting metaphor. All my life I thought my only talents were for tennis and art history, and now I find out I’m A-1 Shadowspawn fodder too.

  “Even more entrancing than the others,” Jules said to his daughter. “My dear, you have without a doubt inherited the family’s discerning tastes.”

  The elder Brézés were in slightly old-fashioned evening wear: a beautifully tailored suit and a long off-one-shoulder gown and slightly bouffant hairdo, like something she’d seen on the TV as a little girl back before the turn of the century. If she’d met them at a launch party at the gallery, she’d have put them down as extremely well-conditioned late thirties or early forties, with a sleek timeless look that appeared effortless and cost heavily; Adrienne’s mother was a bit fuller-figured than her daughter, and h
er hair not quite so dark.

  They had the same slight Continental accent as their children, but there was also an indefinable difference in the way they treated their vowels and used contractions, a tinge of slow clipped harshness. The English language itself was in the process of changing out from under them.

  “I’m glad I’m . . . interesting . . . Jules,” Ellen said.

  “My dear, you are positively appetizing,” Jules said, bowing over the hand and releasing it.

  Errrrk, Ellen thought again.

  Adrienne laughed. She was standing by the carved-stone fireplace; the spring evening was cool enough that the low crackle of flames on the split oak there seemed justified. She had a snifter of brandy in her hand, and a cigarette in her ivory holder. Mark and Renata were the elder Brézés’ lucies, a golden-haired younger man and a slim dark woman of about thirty, and they were reclining on the sofa, chatting easily to each other about some cultural event in Los Angeles.

  “So, what do you think of the Rancho Sangre art collection?” Julianne said. “Adrienne has added to it, but we and our parents did a good deal.”

  “Ah . . . it’s very impressive. But eclectic and hardly organized at all,” Ellen said, both of which were true.

  Jules shrugged. “It was a case of I know what I like with us, I’m afraid. Adrienne is more enthusiastic. I’m sure you’ll work immense improvements.”

  “I’ve gotten a preliminary redistribution roughed out and approved by Adrienne, and we’re going to start moving some items soon. Before the, ah, party.”

  Both the elder Brézés smoked—slim dark cigars for him, and Turkish cigarettes in an ivory holder like Adrienne’s for her. The way she held it . . .

  By God, that’s the way they used to do it in old movies! Ellen thought. Not an imitation, it’s completely unselfconscious, and apparently they really did wave it that way. Really old movies, silents, back when it was a daring novelty for women to smoke in public. And the way the two of them talk . . . When were they born?

  “More than a century ago,” Adrienne said.

  There was that sense that something passed between her and her parents. They both laughed, Julianne more ruefully than her spouse.