SM Stirling

by Shadowspawn 01 - A Taint in the Blood (v5)

  CHAPTER EIGHT “I

  ’m still worried,” Adrian said. “Hey, ol’ buddy, it’s the mook this

  is aimed at who’s got something to worry about,” Harvey said. He spread the parts on the heavy plastic groundsheet he’d laid over the bed with methodical neatness. The west-facing window still had a line of eye-hurting brightness at its top, and the room was flooded with the last light of day. When he was finished he rubbed his hands with satisfaction. “Once Sheila says yes, she ain’t coy. This is the latest and best. Beautiful!” Adrian nodded, more as a placeholder than agreement. Harvey had a lifelong fascination with firearms; one of the things he most resented about the Power was the way it could make failures happen in complex machinery. Adrian found guns satisfying tools if they worked and could use them well—Harvey had taught him with endless patience— but they didn’t give him a hobbyist’s pleasure, the way really good cars did, or gliders, or kitchen gear. If he had

  to fight with anything but the Power or his hands and feet, a knife was more . . . Aesthetic. Satisfying,

  he thought. Then: Name of a black dog, am I going conservative in my fifties? The room was smaller than in a modern hotel in this price range, but not uncomfortable; the ceilings were very high, of antique pressed steel, and the wallpaper was hand-printed, a bamboo-spray pattern. The natural linen and floral smell was an intriguing contrast to the fruity gun-oil and sharp metallic steel and tooth-hurting silver of the weapon Harvey was checking, although it took a little effort to prevent his nerves from jangling. Harvey went on: “See, the problem with my good friend the Monster Truck gun, incidentally that’s a fine

  label—” Harvey nodded to the cut-down shotgun monstrosity, lying alone on one corner of the groundsheet as if sulking and jealous of the new lover. “—is that it’s very effective for a close-range takedown of a Shadowspawn, in body or out, but it sorta makes surprise difficult. And it’s real difficult to hit a Shadowspawn who’s decided to go elsewhere and fight another day. And when they come out of the wall right behind you—bad news. Y’know, that design feature is just so fucking unfair

  it makes you want to cry.” “Life, my old, is unfair.” “Plus some contract soldati

  cuts loose with a thirty-round mag of 5.56 from a hundred yards and I am well and truly fucked up. And I

  mere human ape scum that I am, don’t get to rise again. Have I mentioned life is unfair?” His big scarred hands moved on the pieces of the rifle, with a swift hard authority. There were snick-click-chunk

  sounds as things fitted together. “Now this has a whole bunch of selling points. For one thing, it’s just as good

  at killing ordinary people as the original, which is a Brit sniper rifle, the L96A1 in .338 Lapua magnum. Only this has a carbon-fiber stock with an ultrapure silver-thread mix. A little silver in the steel of the barrel and action, and surface glyphs and Mhabrogast protectives in International Phonetic Alphabet. Preactivated protectives, of course.” “God!” Adrian blurted, shocked out of polite interest into alarm. “I hope they were careful!

  ” “Ultra, ol’ buddy. Not to mention it cost a lot of the conscience money you’ve been wafting the Brotherhood’s way. Jacketed lead-silver alloy bullets—high AG—with active waste filler, pre-fraged so they disperse as long as the target’s tangible at all. I had two good shooters backing me up with these when we fixed Gheorghe’s wagon. Caught a couple of his people while we were clearing out.” “Shadowspawn or renfields?” Adrian asked sharply. “We didn’t stop to run an Alberman,” Harvey said dryly. “Things were a mite hectic. But these rounds do about three thousand feet-per-second. That’s under two seconds to impact at max effective range.” Adrian’s brows stayed up. “Not much time to do

  anything, if you’re not expecting it,” he said slowly. “You’d have . . . a small fraction of a second to realize what the silver was, and react. By then—” “Give

  the man a big cigar.” “I’m impressed.” Then he yawned and looked out the window. “Would you like to get something to eat? I’m not very hungry, but if I have to take blood tonight I want something for it to hit on the way down.” “I was thinkin’ of room service,” Harvey said. “Well enough—” “No, room service with another friend who’s coming over. You’re not invited.” A little hurt, Adrian nodded. They hadn’t seen each other in years . . . Harvey grinned. “The friend in question is not a brother-in-arms like you, ol’ buddy,” he said. “But she’s a natural redhead and certifiably female, which in this town you can’t count on from first impressions. I figure if I’m going to be dead in a week, or if your sister is going to make my eyeballs pop, or my balls, or set my entire skin on fire or use my spinal cord to play a violin concerto or any other of the things she has

  been known to do when feelin’ bitchy . . . there’s things I want to do one more time first. And not with you. Sorry.” “No offense, my old,” Adrian laughed. “I’ll go for a walk.” “Next door’s fine. Might be safer.” Adrian snorted. “Not with only a wall in between us. I can’t afford to close my senses down completely

  . And good friends though we are, Harv, there are certain things I don’t care to share with you either. Even only telepathically.” Harvey grinned. “You could go exercise your sinister vampiric charm on some high school girl with perky tits longing for a pale and interesting demon lover.” Adrian frowned in solemn thought, then shook his head. “No, she would expect me to reject anything but kissing and cuddling, no matter how much she wanted more and how tortured I was with desire. Also there would be much conversation about our feelings.” “Talk about in

  human. God, the thought’s enough to make a man swear off women. Ones that young, at least.” “Besides, that’s the incubus part of the legend, not the vampire. I shall walk the night, commune with my soul, and think wistfully of what might have been.” “The things some men do when they could be fucking. See ya. Watch out for muggers.” Adrian shrugged. “The worse for them, in my current mood.” “Yeah, that’s what I meant. We want to keep you calm till we can get you and Ellen back to your mountaintop.” Will Ellen want to share my mountain?

  Adrian thought two hours later. Perhaps . . . now she knows the secrets I could not tell her. That would make a difference. Perhaps her kind and mine can share a life, if we know, if we work to . . . make accommodations with each other honestly. Then: But after Adrienne, will she want to come within a thousand miles of anyone who looks like me? Who

  is like me? All

  I can do is set her free, and convince her the rest is up to her. Tendrils of fog lay along the street; a heavy dew beaded on the surface of his gray anorak. It carried a raw chill, and he could sense the restless power of the ocean on three sides of the city, and smell the salt above the city stinks. There was an aloneness to the brightly-lit night greater than running beneath the stars in his own mountains. This was Geary Street; he could see the five-story tower of the Peace Pagoda ahead. Why not?

  he thought, and turned into the Japanese-style baths. Heat, and a cold plunge. Then I’ll get some noodles. It was men’s night, and for a wonder there wasn’t a line. A few minutes later he was relaxing in the heat of the dry sauna, feeling the sweat break out over his body in a single impalpable rush. He imagined it taking the poisons of the blood out of his body, the savage necessities of the Power. A shock of very slightly colder air, under the scent of cedar. Two men came in, both young and both Asian—with a little more body hair than most, so they were probably Japanese, and with bands of colorful tattoo over their torsos. Adrian sighed and prepared to block the trickle of consciousness that came through his shields . . . They had towels over their arms. Both twitched them aside at the same instant, revealing the shielded gloves and the glinting edges of the knives. Tantos

  , twelve inches of slightly curved steel glinting with the silver inlay as the men drew them and flicked aside the sheaths. “Michiko sends greetings,” one of them said in Japanese. Ellen

  , he thought in one fractional instant, as his body prepared for
combat. She needs me

  . Then he gathered himself to leap. Ellen rested her face in her hands and elbows on the table for minutes after Giselle’s face left the screen, trying not to think. When she looked up again she was alone except for the sound of the Shadowspawn children romping in the courtyard, and an occasional deep whurf!

  from the dog. The BlackBerry beeped again, from beside a set of house keys: The rest of the day is your own. Bear in mind . . . Then it began to play a song—no, it was Adrienne singing, her voice full and sweet: “Look around and all you see Are sympathetic eyes, Stroll around the grounds Until you feel at home.” “I’m in the thrall of Countess Comic-ula,” she murmured. That made her feel better, somehow. Then: Your new place is Number 5 Lucy Lane. All should be ready for you by four o’clock. Take a tour around town first. “And apparently we’re not going to be sharing a room. I am so totally OK with that. It’s messy taking your cookies to bed with you anyway.” This time she took her time walking to the front door. The house felt old

  , by American standards at least. Not in the least run-down, it was immaculately maintained and there were discreet signs of periodic refits, but like a building that had been inhabited for generations by the same family. There were touches you hardly ever saw in recent designs, even historicist ones; genuine groined vaulting in ashlar masonry, for starters. It smelled that way too, of old stone, wax-rubbed paneling, hints of lemon and clean ancient rugs. In structure it was a set of linked E-shapes, and designed to take advantage of the varying levels to look a little less massive than it was; she suspected it was the sort of place where you could discover new rooms for years. Staff went by her now and then, usually with polite nods. She went down a curling formal staircase and out under a portico of columns and arches. The size of the stone-pines and palms and live-oaks, citrus trees and olives outside and the thick bases of some of the espaliered vines confirmed her guess. The outer gateway in the solid circumference wall had an archway of wrought iron above it, making words: Rancho Sangre Sagrado

  . “I guess the sense of humor is hereditary,” she said; it meant Ranch of the Holy Blood

  and had obviously been there a good long while. Though it could be a perfectly genuine Hispanic place-name, come to think of it, possibly dating right back to Mexican California or even the Mission era when Spain’s flag flew here. Her lips quirked. She’d picked up a fair bit of conversational Spanish in her time in Santa Fe, and if you changed it just a little to Rancho Sangrón

  it meant Ranch of the Asshole. There was a strip of parkland, green grass and leafless oaks and solid blocky cypresses fifty or sixty feet high sheltering the wall from easy outside view, and then the town proper, a little place of a couple of thousand people along half a dozen streets, lined with cherry trees now blossoming in a froth of pink and rose. The only really odd thing about it was the near-uniformity of style, and the fact that there were no boarded-up shops and not many for-sale signs. A civic center had a municipal pool and library and tennis courts; notices on the boards before the steps included those for a farmer’s market, the meeting of the local chapter of the SPCA— I wonder if

  we get included?

  she wondered, then saw the fine print: Sponsored by Brézé Enterprises

  . —and every other little bit of civic self-organization you’d expect, from the Lions and Elks through aromatherapy clubs. A biggish high school showed southward, a golf course, and after that a tangle of minor industrial stuff, fruit-packing plants and wineries, repair shops and a dairy that had a big All fresh! All organic! All local!

  sign, one of the few advertisements she could see. To the east of town were rolling fields fading into the middle distance with the occasional farmhouse or crossroads hamlet sheltered in its trees. Vineyards marched in geometric rows and silvery-green olives flickered; there were low bare-branched brushy orchards of trees she couldn’t name, and flaming apple and almond and apricot in white and pink, interspersed with intensely green fields of grain. The higher pastures to the west, above the mansion, were green too with the winter rains; tongues of forest ran down the low points, growing denser on the high hills or modest mountains that separated this area from the sea. The people were dead-on small-town California-normal; about half Anglo, more than a third Hispanic, the rest bits and pieces of everything with an accent on Asian and lots of mixing. They bustled in and out of shoe stores and bakeries—the buttery odor of fresh pastry made her mouth water—and stationers and the post office and electronics shops. Mothers wheeled babies, toddlers clutched hands, kids ran, elderly men sat sunning themselves and reading papers or watching the world go by. Teenagers Rollerbladed the brick sidewalks with immersive buttons in their ears, bopping to sounds only they could hear, or stood in groups at the corners. No, there’s one thing odd. You’d expect at least one big Catholic church in a rural town this size, and a couple of others. She wasn’t religious herself, but the thought made something clench a little inside. There was one building that looked

  like a church in the elaborately carved Churrigueresque style, but it had Sangre Community Theater

  on the front, with a banner announcing a Shakespeare revival. And a little like selling your soul to the Devil

  , she remembered Theresa saying. And that her parents and grandparents before her had made the same bargain. This was effectively a settlement of hereditary not-quite-Satanists. I wonder when they tell their kids? What was that Theresa said about . . . initiation? Suddenly she didn’t want to sightsee anymore, for all the charm that would have had a New Urbanist drooling. “Excuse me,” she said to a middle-aged man sitting on a bench outside a café, eating ice cream from a cardboard cup with two teenagers similarly occupied. “I’m looking for Lucy Lane?” He smiled at her, and she gritted her teeth. The kids were smiling too, and one nudged his slightly younger companion; it was more than the usual teenaged-male leer. Oh, yeah, they know. They know. “Just another block north up Brézé Avenue; left on Armand. It turns into Lucy after the intersection with Auvergnat.” “Thank you,” she said between clenched teeth. Lucy Lane was a cul-de-sac curling around the hill the mansion rode, backing against the perimeter wall. The sidewalk was the same herringbone-pattern brick, and the houses were overshadowed by old plantings that included orange trees in fair-sized front gardens and little walled inner yards. She passed one man sitting on a bench with a set of weights nearby. He was black, tall and impressively built without being bulky, which she could see because he was stripped to exercise shorts, and he had a shaved head and narrow hook-nosed face. “Hi!” she said brightly. He looked at her impassively, then lay down on the bench again and began a series of vertical lifts. Well, that wasn’t too successful. Number Five had a newish Volt in the open garage, with the hood up and the charger cord extended and plugged into a pole-mounted outlet by the garage door. “You Ms. Tarnowski?” a young Latino said around the open hood when she halted uncertainly. He was about twenty, in jeans and cowboy boots and a white T-shirt that showed his taut-bodied build, an inch or so under six feet. He let the hood fall with a clunk

  and wiped his hands on a rag; when she shook she felt workingman’s calluses. “Don’t mind Jamal,” he said, nodding towards the black man two houses up. “He doesn’t talk much. I’m Jose Villegas. I’m in Number Three. Just checking your car. Welcome to Lucy Lane!” “I get a car

  ?” she blurted. He grinned, white teeth in a light brown face. “Sure, Ms. Tarnowski—” “Ellen,” she said automatically. “All the fixings, Ellen,” he said in perfect California English of a small-town, blue-collar variety. “Me, I’m a mechanic when I’m not . . . you know. So I was checking it for you. Looks good. You need anything done, though, just bop over. Come on in.” The house had the feel of a place that had been cared for but vacant until recently; it was about two thousand square feet, with a living-room that gave on a rear court through sliding-glass doors and restrained furniture of the type that American Home Furnishings tried to imitate. A slender blond man a little below her height was
finishing the connections on a wallscreen TV. He had a handsome triangular face and pale green eyes, and dusted off his hands before offering one. “Hi!” he said. “Peter Boase, in Number Two. TV and display here, PC in the study, omnidirectional Bose speakers here, there and in the bedroom. All networked to the content library. You’ve got a high-capacity fiber-optic Internet connection. Hey, it’s the President’s plan, right?” “Peter’s an egghead,” Jose said. “Forgets his own name sometimes. But he sure can make anything electronic dance and sing.” The slender man shrugged. “PhD, physics, so I should be all thumbs and baffled by putting a CD in a player. But you need to be able to handle equipment the way grants are . . . were . . . these days. Come on in. Monica will—” “Coming through!” a woman’s voice said. She came through the front door with a baking tray in gloved hands. Ellen judged her to be the oldest person present, thirty or a hair either way, dressed in slacks and shirt and a checked bib apron. She had pleasantly pretty features that reminded Ellen vaguely of someone, and curling dark-brown hair held back by a barrette. She was very slightly shorter than Ellen’s five-six, and very slightly heavier; they might have been sisters as far as face and figure went, coloring aside. “Hi! Monica Darton, in Number One,” she said. “Come on through to the kitchen. That’s where a house starts to turn into a home!” “Monica’s our den mother,” Peter said. “She’s been here longest, eight years.” Peter, Jose, Monica

  , Ellen thought; she had a good memory for names, and you needed one dealing with the public at the gallery. And Jamal is the black guy. With me that makes five, so that’s all five houses on Bloodbank Row . . . pardon me, Lucy Lane. The kitchen was south-facing, with a glassed-in breakfast nook, and a small dining room separated from it by a pierced screen. Monica set the tray down on a counter. Then she took off the oven mitts and shook hands in turn. “Do you want us all to clear out?” she said. “While you settle in peacefully?” “Ah . . . no, no,” Ellen replied hastily. So I could sit and look at the wall and try not to scream? Call Giselle and lie to her? Wonder where Adrian is? End up lying facedown on the floor drooling with an empty fifth of vodka in my hand?