A Taint in the Blood (29 page)

“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.

“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.

“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 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.”

“He does?”

“Oh, certainly. He has killed more Shadowspawn than any living . . . well, more than any corporeal.”

Good for you, Adrian!
she thought.
You’re the
only
Shadowspawn I’ve met I
don’t
want dead!

Adrienne laughed. “I won’t miss most of the ones he got. He very nearly killed
me
at least once, and vice versa . . . not unusual for brothers and sisters of our breed. As is passionate love. Love, hate, they are closely linked.”

I wish he
had
killed you
, Ellen thought.

It was automatic, but she winced. Adrienne laughed again, and freed her hand for a moment to administer a slap to the fundament that made her yelp and jump.

“Keep that up and I’ll think you don’t appreciate me,” she said.

“I
hate
you. And not in any ambiguous way, either!”

“Of course. It adds a delicious spice to things. But to return to Adrian . . . whom you seem to be falling in love with again, perhaps by way of contrast to me . . . That I have his lucy strengthens
my
reputation.”

“Sort of like . . . running off with his flag, or stealing his car, or something?”

“Exactly. And so I wish to display you to best advantage, and because it amuses me. But keep in mind that I’m not a tame tiger, Ellen. Peter was quite right about that.”

Yesyesyesyes
, she thought, nodding.

“I promised you many new and interesting sensations and experiences. This is one of them. There are going to be others that you’ll find much more stressful. I suggest you learn to live for the moment.”

She’s jerking me around
.

“Of course I am. I am a sadist! But not a guzzling brute like Dmitri; he’s the type who gave werewolves a bad name. I’m going to devour you utterly, Ellen, in several senses of the word, but slowly, artistically, a sip at a time. You may or may not survive the process, but it’s going to be interesting for us both.”

“Oh,
Jesus
.”

“He’s a myth, alas. Now the Tempter . . .
that
was real.”

The thought was appalling, but . . .

They walked down to Fillmore and turned towards the Bay, blue and white below; then into a café with an inner courtyard, a cheerfully bustling place, patrons sitting at marble-topped tables amid a mouth-watering smell of pastries baking.

“Adrienne!” a woman’s voice called.

Ellen recognized Michiko; there was a slender preoccupied-looking black man with her. Beside them were a pale-faced spiky-haired girl in black trailing clothes wearing a pillbox hat with a net half-veil, and a Native American man in shirt and vest, pants and boots. He had the broad brown beak-nosed face of one of the Southwestern tribes, with a lean trim body; his hair hung down his back in a single braid beneath a headband, and there was a gold hoop in one ear.

“
Hon Da
, Adrienne,” he said, rising in a motion like a cougar coming to its feet on a rock.

“
Hon Da
, Dale,” she replied.

They exchanged the finger-touching gesture she’d noted before; this time there was a trace of . . .

Cool and wary,
Ellen thought.
They’re sort of . . . respectful of each other. And he’s giving me the eye too. So’s Michiko, in a pouty sort of way.

Suddenly the drape and cling of the running suit made her feel even more vulnerable than she knew she was.

I wish I was wearing a burka, only they could still see my mind. Why do all these monsters find me so
attractive
, for God’s sake? Or is
appetizing
the right word?

“She was Adrian’s, eh?” he said. “Nice. He must be slipping. I heard he’d gone soft.”

“Eccentric, perhaps,” Adrienne said.

She repeated the gesture with Michiko. The three—the Shadowspawn, she realized—took one end of the table.

They began talking earnestly; unfortunately, they did it in some language she’d never heard, though she suspected it was the dark man’s.

That left her . . .
Below the salt
, she thought wryly.

A plate of tarts and sweet fruit breads and cinnamon rolls and tiny puff pastries was placed between them.

“Hi,” she said to them. “I’m Ellen Tarnowski. I’m Adrienne’s . . . lucy.”

The spiky-haired girl grinned. “I heard about you. I’m Kai, Dale’s blood-bitch.”

She nodded towards the man with the braid. “And he and Michiko were talking about you a bit. Pleased to meetcha.”

She had a rapid-fire voice and a quick smile, and irregular-pretty features. A little younger than Ellen, with a tough, wary look around her dark eyes. They traveled up and down the blond woman’s form.

“Michiko said you were hot. I sorta agree, in that classy blond way . . . That’s natural, right? You show a canary with your pants down?”

“Yes,” Ellen said, startled into honesty.

Then she glared.
Shall I inquire about
your
pubic hair?

Kai smiled again, unabashed. “I’m mousy brown so I go for this ink-black look—it’s a Wreaking, not Clairol. Michiko said Adrienne wouldn’t throw you into the pot. Got kinda shirty about it.”

The black man shuddered. “She . . . killed a girl last night. One that looked like you. I had to watch. Oh, Jesus, all the blood, the sounds she made, and she bit her and bit her and then she’d stop and the girl would wake up and scream and beg me to help—”

He collected himself. “I’m Wayne Jackson. I’m . . . with Michiko. I am . . . was . . . an epidemiologist at Stanford.”

He knotted his hands together. Kai looked at him with a slight sneer.

“Wuss. You better get your act together or
you’re
not going to last long, not with
her
. Show some positive ’tude, dude!”

Then she lit a cigarette. Ellen blinked; in San Francisco that was worse than beating kittens to death in a public place, but nobody seemed to notice.

Kai looked around proudly: “That’s me, not Dale or the others. I’m a twenty-six.”

At her look: “I’ve got twenty-six percent of the Shadowspawn genes—there’s this test they have.”

“The Alberman?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

Unexpectedly, Wayne spoke: “Someone . . . like me did it for them back at the end of the last century. Twenty-six is high, for the general population.”

Kai nodded. “It happens sometimes just by accident, or a Shadow-dude has some bitch and forgets to hex the sperm. I can do some Wreaking now that I’m trained, just little shit like my hair, but it’s lots of fun. Dale says it’s why I’m alive after my
happy childhood
and wasn’t some strung-out OD’d junkie or something. It makes you lucky, sorta, kinda.”

“It sounds . . . useful.”

“Oh, shit, yeah,” Kai said, around a mouthful of kiwi tart. “That’s why Dale didn’t off me when we met. He could feel it when he got his mind into me.”

She giggled. “Along with his teeth and dick. He lets me help with a kill sometimes, get guys or chicks thinking it’s a hookup and lead ’em in. He usually doesn’t like to string it out the way most Shadowspawn do. Or I get to watch, which is totally hot, or do other stuff. You done any of that yet?”

A Judas-goat lucy,
Ellen thought.
Eww. Whole new vistas of ewwness.

“No,” she said, her mouth a little dry. “I’m . . . new to this.”

“It’s cool, I think. I was always into the pain stuff, I was
so
this death metal fangirl, but I never got to
do
a lot of it until this. I’ve been Dale’s for four years now.”

Wayne seemed to have gotten some self-possession back. He ate a little sugar-dusted
something
and sipped at his coffee.

“Michiko asked me some hypothetical questions at a public lecture.

They were off-the-wall, but I answered. Then she decided she needed my services full-time.”

“Yeah, services,” Kai said, and licked her lips.

He sighed. “Well, professors don’t get hit on by gorgeous young rich women very often and taken out and . . . And then there were teeth in my throat, and the world . . . went crazy.”

He looked down into his coffee cup. Kai snorted again and ate another chocolate-and-cream pastry.