Generation V (33 page)

My throat tightened at his sincerity, and I nodded, wishing I had the words to tell him what that meant to me. He squeezed my shoulder one last time, then let his hand fall back to his side. My eyes drifted from him to the glowing numbers of my clock. It was after nine. I looked around the room. It was dark, with heavy clouds that covered up the moon. I shouldn’t have been able to see his expressions so clearly, yet I did.

“Chivalry,” I said tentatively. “Something happened when I was fighting Luca. Something about me is different.”

“I know.” His face closed up. “Mother will talk to you about it after dinner.”

There was one last thing to ask, and he was the only one I trusted to show this new weakness to. “Chiv, how did I get here? The last thing I remember was getting out of Luca’s house.”

“The kitsune brought you to us,” Chivalry answered.

I hesitated, then pushed forward. “Was Suzume Hollis there?”

Chivalry frowned a little. “Which one is that? I always have trouble telling any of Atsuko’s offspring apart.”

“She was the one hired to be my bodyguard. Dark hair, dark eyes, very pretty.” I wasn’t ringing any bells, so I played the odds and added, “Kind of a pain in the ass?”

“Oh, that one,” Chivalry said immediately, with the kind of glower that he usually reserved for me when I was being my most little-brother bratty. “Yes, she was definitely there. She had the nerve to send Mother an itemized bill for additional services rendered. Somehow she came up with a dollar amount for what following you to certain death was worth.”

I couldn’t help smiling at that. It was very her. “Did she look okay? When they brought me here, I mean.”

Chivalry shrugged. “I had my hands full with getting you upstairs and then getting a hold of a doctor who would treat you and keep his mouth shut.” He must’ve seen something in my face, because his voice gentled and he added, “I haven’t seen her since then, and she hasn’t tried to contact us since Mother sent them the check.” A pause, then, “I’m sorry.”

Dinner was a shockingly normal affair. Chivalry quietly ate his stew, Prudence glowered at me over her soup, I ate around my steak, and Madeline was doing her best dotty grandmother act, gossiping contentedly
about the cook’s cousin’s niece (aka “our Jenny”), who apparently was periodically brought in to help out with the spring cleaning, and had just returned from adopting a baby girl in China.

“And would you believe it?” Madeline burbled contentedly. “No sooner had she gotten home with the baby than she realized that all that nausea
hadn’t
been that ungodly food they were serving over there, but that she was actually pregnant!”

“How incredible,” Prudence snarled, stabbing her spoon into her soup with decidedly vicious motions.

“Eight years of trying!” Madeline sighed. “And then to have it happen when they’d completely given up. Well, I can assure you that our Jenny is just over-the-moon. All that time spent trying for one, and now she’ll have a set of Irish twins! Well,” she corrected herself, “Chinese-Irish twins.”

“We should have one of those baby shops put together a basket for her,” Chivalry suggested politely.

“I believe we sent one over just before she left for China,” Madeline said, tapping her wineglass thoughtfully. “But women never seem to have enough baby clothes.”

“
Mother!
” Prudence shrieked, having clearly blown through whatever restraint had been holding her together.

“And, of course, there is always the chance that this one could be a boy,” Madeline continued as if Prudence hadn’t said a word. “She’ll want a few things that aren’t pink in that case.” After a long drink of wine, she then turned a gimlet eye on Prudence and asked, “And now, darling, do tell me what has been gnawing away at your mind.”

“I would think that the issue of Fortitude completely ignoring your orders would be a bit more important than some servant’s pregnancy, however long in the making,” Prudence said in icy tones.

“Really, darling, how old-fashioned of you. I don’t think I’ve been able to refer to any of my employees as servants in at least forty years, after I nearly gave my poor lawyer a heart attack at the thought of lawsuits.” Madeline dabbed her mouth daintily with a napkin and then raised an eyebrow at Prudence while I sat on pins and needles, having been suffering through the entire meal waiting for the sword to fall. “And I cannot recall a single order of mine that Fortitude has recently ignored,” she finished blandly.

My mouth fell open nearly as far as Prudence’s, who sputtered like a wet hen. “Have you gone completely
senile
, Mother? Fortitude
killed
Luca!”

“Oh yes, that.” Madeline turned and gave me a smile as sweet as cotton candy. “Good work, my darling.”

Now even Chivalry looked shocked. “Mother?” he asked cautiously.

“Really, my pets,” Madeline said, “I’m a bit surprised at you all. A vampire I have no true blood tie to, coming into my territory with a full-fledged host in tow? Very suspicious. There are only three other vampires in the entire country, and I’ve made sure that they stay well away from even our boundaries. I have all of you to consider, someday when I’ve passed off to my reward and there are two of you thinking of striking out and setting up your own nests. No, I didn’t like the thought one bit of Luca going back to Europe and spreading stories of just how much good land there is out here. Most of the
vampires out there only have a single heir, but there are a few left who have produced two, and a few more who have poor territory who might be interested in a move. Luca’s death serves my purpose quite well.”

“But,” I stuttered, completely confused. “The hospitality…thing…”

“Yes, Mother you
swore
.” Chivalry’s tone was horrified.

“Of course I did. And when Dominic made an international phone call,
very
irate at feeling his son’s death, I was able to quite honestly tell him that I had no idea what he was talking about, and had not laid eyes on the boy since he left this house after I granted hospitality.”

“But, Mother, your orders—” Chivalry began, and Madeline cut him off with a few little tutting sounds.

“Dominic knows that you are my closest child, the one who works often in my name, the one who would never disobey me. If you moved against Luca, it might as well have been me. But Prudence and Fortitude”—she encompassed both of us in a glance—“are known to live apart from me. Hospitality bound me alone, and action from the two of you would be far less suspect.”

“You wanted me to kill Luca?” I asked.

“Well…” Madeline gave a rather feral smile. “It was certainly convenient.” She focused on Prudence, her brilliant blue eyes narrowing. “I had hoped that your sister would have…assisted.”

“That is not in my nature,” Prudence bit out.

“Perhaps not, my child,” Madeline conceded. “But I did hope.” She glanced over to me, and there was definitely a rebuke in her tone. “Though, admittedly, I did assume that Fort would’ve been a bit wiser in his course of
action, and chosen discretion over bravery when it became obvious how overmatched he was.”

Chivalry and Prudence both snorted a little at that one, though Chivalry’s was fairly gentle, while Prudence gave me a glare that told me exactly how unhappy she was that Luca hadn’t killed me.

Madeline turned back to my sister. “And how, daughter,” she asked pleasantly, “go your experiments? How long did your last host survive?”

Prudence hid her surprise quickly, but not quickly enough. It was obvious from his face that Chivalry hadn’t known about what she’d been doing, and he looked at her nervously. Prudence regained her composure enough to answer Madeline coolly, with just the slightest tremor in her voice. “Longer than I had thought, but less than I’d hoped.” There was some rebellion in the way that she emphasized the last word, and Madeline dipped her head slightly in acknowledgment.

“Thank you for coming to dinner this evening, daughter. I do value your company so highly. And, Chivalry, I’m sure that Bhumika is missing you.” Effectively dismissed, both got up and left. Chivalry with a small pat on my shoulder, and Prudence refusing to look at me at all.

“Alone at last, my darling,” Madeline said when the door closed behind them. “Now that I believe you’ve been both sufficiently scolded and praised for your actions, I believe that you have a question for me.”

“I was an experiment, wasn’t I?” I blurted out the question that had been circling the back of my mind since I’d visited Prudence’s house.

Madeline raised an eyebrow. “An interesting turn of phrase, my darling. All children are experiments. Even
human ones. Will this child look like me, or like my lover? Will he be like his siblings, or different? A child is a gift whose unwrapping will last a lifetime.”

I shook my head, frustrated. “But I’m different than Prudence and Chivalry. You
made
me differently.”

“Yes, I certainly did.” Madeline gave a Cheshire Cat smile.

“Why?”

“All in its own time, dear. And I am quite curious where this line of questioning has sprung from, but that is not what I intended to discuss with you.” Her voice dropped, became businesslike. “You’ve been moving differently this evening. Better balanced, more certain. I’ve been speaking with your doctor, and he was quite surprised at how quickly you’ve been healing. A number of days ahead of schedule, he told me.”

“Something happened,” I said. “During the fight.”

“Yes.” She nodded. “Transition has begun.”

I’d known it, but I hadn’t wanted to admit it, and I felt the hurt deep inside. “Why now?” I asked, bitter even knowing that it had almost certainly saved my life, not to mention Suzume and Amy. “Why did it start now?”

Madeline steepled her fingers, and seemed to consider something. Coming to a decision, she fussed briefly with her wineglass and said, “Grace died three days ago.”

“What?” I asked, stunned.

“Her keepers had become complacent,” Madeline said. “Grace was always so very intelligent. Part of the reason I chose her, of course. Apparently she’d begun sharpening the base of her toothbrush. Quite clever, really. She’d honed it to a knife’s edge. I shudder on behalf
of Albert for what she was planning to do with it, but she turned it on herself instead. Stabbed herself quite madly. Hosts are tough creatures, but she put that knife into her chest twelve different times—absolutely shredded her heart. Dead before anyone could even reach her.”

The pieces came together horribly in my mind. “When it happened,” I said, my voice harsh, “I tasted blood. It wasn’t mine.”

“Yes, darling, now you begin to see.” Madeline was pleased. “Your host parents bind you while they live, tie you to those shreds of human DNA that rattle around in you like a vestigial tail. Henry and Grace held back the beginning of transition. Quite fascinating, actually. I only regret that vampires have never maintained any sort of university press or scientific journal traditions. This incident would’ve been well worth a write-up.”

“So I’m more vampire than I was before Grace died,” I said slowly.

“Much more.” Her blue eyes gleamed.

“And when Henry dies?” I asked, dreading the answer but having to ask.

“Well, it’s quite obvious, my darling.” Madeline’s smile was very wide. “Transition will be complete. And now that you have begun traveling down that path…your responsibilities will increase. Time for you to stop acting like a child and begin assisting your brother with the task of guarding our territory. But there’s time to speak of that later.” She took a long sip of wine.

I stared at her, a thousand thoughts chasing each other through my brain. With a little harrumph, Madeline reached out and gave my arm a small pat. “Now,” she said comfortably. “You have a birthday coming up,
and Chivalry told me that you were in need of a certain something.” She fumbled around in the purse hung on the corner of a chair and pulled out a new cell phone, putting it onto the table in front of me. When I remained speechless, she gave me a coaxing smile. “Chivalry picked it out. Apparently he was even able to have the technicians connect it to your own number. Isn’t that clever?”

I visited Henry before I left the mansion.

It was strange to see him, sitting in his usual spot in his plastic cage, with the enclosure beside him empty. I’d never seen him without Grace, and he seemed oddly smaller, older and more fragile.

His eyes were closed when I sat down, opening slowly when I greeted him to reveal those twin pools of madness, barely leashed. I thought briefly about the way that Phillip had crouched over Jessica’s body, remembered his gibbering ranting, and felt relieved that Henry was separated from me by thick walls and locks.

“Hello, Fortitude,” Henry said in that soft, deceptively gentle voice. “You’ve come to ask me why your mother did it.”

“Yes.” I forced my body to stay relaxed in the chair, to try to prolong this interlude of sanity.

“Because you needed it,” he said, voice calm and unemotional.

“What?”

“I have heard your heartbeat since you first stirred in Grace’s belly.” Henry leaned forward, placing one hand against the plastic barrier, and began tapping his fingers in the exact beat of my heart. “We both knew when you needed to be more than you were.” His tapping sped up
and I tried to take deeper breaths, slow them down, but he kept diabolical rhythm. “It simply happened to be Grace who had the means at hand.”

He said it so calmly, so coldly, when he would’ve had a front-row seat for her grisly suicide. Looking at Henry, still horrified at the proof of how linked I was to him, I felt a surge of pity fill me.

“Do you miss Grace?” I asked. “You spent so many years together.”

Henry shook his head slowly, his mad eyes never moving from my face. “You don’t understand me, son. I don’t think you ever could. Grace and I spent many, many years together. But if I’d had the chance, I would have torn her throat out with my teeth, and she would’ve done the same. You do not understand what it is to live with whispers in your mind, to feel foreign blood inside you that twists and claws. The only way to quiet it is to offer it other blood, and it has been a very long time since I have been able to kill.” It was only at the end that emotion filled his voice, and then I heard his deep, terrible longing for blood and death. His hand was drumming almost without stopping, and now he rose out of his seat to begin the familiar pacing, and I knew that there was nothing more to say.