A Taint in the Blood (37 page)

“Pretty much exactly my figure. You could wear this with only a little alteration.”

“No, I
used
to have it. You’re . . . thirty-five, twenty-four, thirty-five?”

“Just about.”

“Add an inch or so all ’round for me. And I’m a little shorter than you. Maybe I should start running every morning too.”

“An inch isn’t a real difference, and you’re certainly welcome to join Peter and me!”

“I think you both look pretty,” Joshua said.

Ellen smiled at him; at ten-going-on-eleven he was just after the age when boys find women totally uninteresting as such, but well before actual reflexive lust snaps in, and he looked at her with an almost detached critique. His sister, Sophie, was simply entranced by the dress, taking in the details over and over again. They were both in their pajamas—rabbits on hers, some sort of tentacled thing on his—which fit in with the well-kept but very slightly worn look the living-room had, the inevitable result of two active children in an ordinary-sized house for years.

“You’re going to meet the
Doña
’s parents,” Sophie said. “I wish
I
could meet them. They’re probably really cool.”

They’re mass murderers
, Ellen thought.
I’ve been perfectly glad to put
this
off for a while. But no point in scaring a kid.

The door opened, and Adrienne walked in, dramatic in a classic black dress with platinum and sapphires on throat and wrists. Both the children stood politely; she smiled at them, nodded to Monica, then raised a brow at Ellen.

“My, Jean-Charles did not labor in vain! Impressive! Well, nearly time to go. I thought we’d stroll up. My parents are eager to meet you, now that they’re well settled in with their things.”

Suddenly Joshua spoke. “Ma’am?”

“Yes, Josh?”

“Do . . . you drink my mom’s blood? Is that what her being your lucy means?”

Monica started and flushed. “
Joshua!
”

Adrienne chuckled and made a soothing gesture. “You can’t avoid rumors in a renfield town, Monica, and they’re getting to the age when little people hear things. Better they hear from us than in the school-yard at recess.”

She turned to Joshua, bending a little so that their faces were level.

“Yes, that’s part of what being my lucy means. I’m a Shadowspawn . . . you’ve heard that name?”

“Like . . . like vampires? With superpowers?”

“Vampires are just a story. Very silly stories. Shadowspawn are for real. We aren’t catching, like a cold or the flu; we’re born that way. Superpowers . . . well, we can do many things your type of people can’t.”

She sat on the sofa and folded a piece of paper there into an origami bird, holding it out on her palm when she finished. Then she hummed . . . and the wings of the bird began to vibrate to the same rhythm. She slowly lowered the hand, and the bird stayed suspended, hovering. Then it moved, circling and swooping around the children. Sophie gave an exclamation of awed delight as it paused before her face, and Joshua’s mouth fell open slightly as it circled his head before it flew back to the table, stopped and hovered, then settled gently down.

“It’s called the Power, Josh, and it’s . . . magic, really. That’s why we Shadowspawn rule the whole world, as I do here in Rancho Sangre. And to use the Power, we need to drink blood.”

He swallowed, and visibly gathered himself, his face flushed with determination.

“Does . . . does it hurt her when you drink the blood?”

“No,” Adrienne said easily. “I only take a little at a time from her, and that doesn’t hurt. It’s fun for both of us.”

He was silent, but visibly unconvinced. She sighed and patted the sofa cushion to her right.

“Monica, I think they’re old enough. Come here.”

Monica hesitated, then sat beside her and cleared her throat.

“Come here, Josh, Sophie,” she said, with a creditable effort at calm. “Stand right here where you can see things.”

They did; Sophie clutched at her brother’s hand, her face a little pale, blinking rapidly.

“Now watch closely, and you’ll see it’s not anything bad,” Adrienne said.

Ellen flushed herself, with embarrassment.
I’d feel even more weird if I turned around or went out
, she thought, and tried to will herself invisible.
And, God, I want the bite myself right now. Want it! Want it!

The children gasped as lips peeled back from Adrienne’s teeth in a way human equipment couldn’t quite do. Monica sighed, slid her arms around the Shadowspawn and leaned across her lap, turning her head and arching her neck with her eyes closed. Sophie gave a little cry and then put a hand to her mouth as Adrienne’s head moved in the precise predatory grace of the feeding bite. Monica sighed again, a longer sound, and stroked the back of the Shadowspawn’s neck, her face soft with pleasure.

The children relaxed as their mother straightened up a few seconds later and smiled.

“See?” she said, her voice slightly dreamy. “Just this little nick.”

She pulled a Kleenex from the box by the couch and touched it to her neck; the small incision had already clotted when she took it away and went on:

“And it feels nice while she drinks from me, really. It’s . . . natural. Like the way flowers make nectar for hummingbirds. It’s what we human people are for.”

Sophie looked calmer and nodded. Joshua hesitated again, then said:

“Ma’am? Sometimes when we come back from Gran’s, Mom . . . looks like she hurts.”

A little Tabasco sauce in the Bloody Mary tonight, Monica
, Ellen thought grimly.

“Ah,” Adrienne said. She paused, looking up a little in thought, then went on to him:

“That’s because we play together in other ways, too, and sometimes we have so much fun we play a bit rough. You play soccer, don’t you?”

“Yes,
Doña
,” he said.

“Well, sometimes that gets rough, eh? Someone gets their knee skinned or a bruise. Sometimes they even cry. But it’s all fun,
hein
?”

A dubious nod.

“It’s a bit like that. You’re really not old enough to understand about those things yet. Now, you and your sister come here. Stand with your heads together. That’s right . . .”

Her hands came up and cupped their heads, thumb at the corner of the eye and little finger behind their skulls. Her voice dropped to a murmur as she brought her face close to theirs.

“It’s time for little children to be sleepy. You’re sleepy, aren’t you?”

“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.