SM Stirling

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

  Seriously consider slitting my wrists? So . . . “Please, stay for a while.” “Good. I’ll make some coffee to christen your machine . . . unless you prefer decaf?” “No, premium grade is fine.” “. . . and these are the best

  homemade brownies in town! All local ingredients. Except for the chocolate and vanilla and sugar, of course, but the nuts and flour are, we have the most wonderful farmer’s market. I’ve stocked your pantry and fridge with a few basics and staples, bread, butter . . .” She bustled them into seats and set out plates and cups and cut the brownies into squares, then brought the pot over from the filter machine. Ellen felt her nose twitch; there was some seriously

  good coffee in there, and if she couldn’t have a stiff drink, she could use a cup. Monica went on: “And I put a lasagna and a salad in the fridge too, in case you just want to throw something in the oven for dinner instead of cooking or going out. There’s laundry stuff and basic linens and so on, and a few clothes, jeans and sweats and underwear in the bedroom, and toiletries. You can get the rest of what you need anytime, of course, but we wanted to, you know, help.” Ellen looked at her beaming smile and dazedly bit into one of the brownies. They were

  good. It’s June Cleaver and the Welcome Wagon of Nosferatu Manor,

  she thought. “Ah . . .” If resistance is futile, so’s tact

  . “You’re all . . .” “Lucies?” Jose said cheerfully. “Yeah.” I’m not surprised. You’ve all got something about the eyes, this haunted look. I think I probably do too, now. “Lucy

  is an exclusionary stereotype. I prefer to think of us as helpers

  ,” Monica said, a slight trace of primness in her tone for a moment. Yeah, helper as in Hamburger Helper,

  Ellen thought. “It’s not as much of a hard-and-fast distinction as the renfields like to think, either,” Peter said. Ellen went on: “This place was empty? Who was here before?” A ringing silence fell. Everyone looked away for an instant, except Peter, who coughed and explained: “Mmmm, there’s sort of a Lucy Code; you don’t ask questions like that, about people who are . . . gone. Though in fact Dave used to live here, before he got promoted.” “He’s up at the Company Security barracks now, teaching unarmed combat to the rent-a-cops,” Jose said. “And the Doña

  takes him along as muscle sometimes. Good riddance.” A laugh. “Though Peter kicked his ass!” She looked at the slight blond man with surprise. He smiled slightly and shrugged. “Only because he was surprised I knew anything at all. I could never have taken him if he hadn’t gotten overconfident. He’s a professional.” “That’s how he ended up here. Came to a tournament up in Paso Robles, and the Doña

  was there. Decided Hey, I want some of that

  and what she wants she gets. No accounting for tastes, I guess,” Jose said. “David could be difficult,” Monica conceded. Her smile broadened and she leaned forward to pat the newcomer’s hand. “I’m so glad there’s another girl here now! Some people in town are very nice, but some are a bit standoffish with people who, you know, live on this street. I’m sure we’ll be such great friends, Ellen!” Yeah

  , Ellen thought. We can exchange recipes and do each other’s hair and compare fucking bite marks

  , maybe. “Can I borrow a cup of sugar? Or a pint of blood? I’m out.” “So,” Peter said. “What do you think of our little town?” Impulse made her honest: “It’s like Stephen King, illustrated by Norman Rockwell with ads from Town & Country

  magazine.” Peter coughed, apparently choking on a crumb of brownie. Jose pounded him helpfully on the back, looking puzzled but goodnaturedly so. He rose and went to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of beer as an alternative to the coffee; it was some local microbrew with an Art Nouveau label that incorporated part of a Mucha poster. “OK?” he said, raising it and glancing at her. “Sure,” Ellen said, and he popped the cap and drank with a satisfied ahhh! “Norman Rockwell is right!” Monica nodded, apparently utterly without irony. “I love it here. It’s a wonderful place to raise kids.” Ellen blinked. “You . . . have children?” she said neutrally. “Two. Joshua, he’s ten, and his sister, Sophia, is nine. They’re the cutest kids! Adrienne . . . the Doña

  , we usually call her . . . thinks so too and they adore her. I’m dying for you to meet them.” Peter evidently heard the quiver in Ellen’s question and understood the sudden tension of her hand on the thick porcelain of the cup. He leaned close and whispered: “They

  don’t feed on children. The blood doesn’t taste right. Sour. Green.” Ellen let out a little grunt of relief; it was a welcome alternative to starting a scream she wasn’t sure she could stop and trying to kill the other woman with the mug. Monica went on without pausing; Ellen judged she was the sort of person who found it easier to talk than listen, anyway, in a pleasant-enough fashion: “I knew that it was the best place right away. Well, after a little while, I was a bit scared at first. It’s so quiet and pretty here, and there’s no crime, and the streets are safe for children and the schools are just wonderful

  . All charter, you know, with free preschool, and the best facilities in the state, no cutbacks. And there’s the health plan, too.” The very best straw and turnout pasture, and the stable is so comfortable, and silver horseshoes, and kindly Dr. Duggan for vet . . . “That’s . . . ah . . . why you moved here?” Ellen said aloud. The lucies—the other lucies, let’s be honest

  , she thought—laughed. “I ran out of gas!” Monica crowed. “Well, Tom left us after he lost his job and couldn’t find work, he wasn’t a bad man but he was weak

  , this was down in Simi Valley where we lived, and we lost the house, and Mother wanted to try and move in with her sister in San Jose but we just ran out of gas outside town. And this lady in a Land Rover pulled over, it was about sundown, and asked if we needed help. That was Adrienne. I thought it was so kind of her to put us up.” “Until she dropped by your room that night for a snack, maybe a little hubba-hubba too,” Jose said with a grin. “I thought it was all dreams at first. Nightmares. Everything was so strange. And it was

  kind, I still say. Just . . . there were other reasons, as well.” Coyly: “She says my blood smelled attractive.” Ellen sat slowly upright. “Wait a minute!” she said. “You’ve been here eight years?” Monica nodded. Then how old is she? How old is

  Adrian, for God’s sake? She took another bite of the brownie. Maybe these would be better with hash,

  she thought. Oh, Christ . . . “Me, I was born here, went to school here, graduated Sangre High here,” Jose said. “Theresa, you met her, she travels with the Doña

  ? She’s my mother’s cousin, but she went away to Cal Poly for a while—she’s got most of the brains in the family and I got all the charm. We’ve been here since before the Brézés came—” “1862,” Monica filled in helpfully. “That was Don Justin. He was from France. I’ve been doing a little local historical pamphlet for the library. I work there as a volunteer.” “—yeah, we were vaqueros

  and all that good sh . . . stuff, before they bought the Rancho

  . Hell, the Indio

  part of us has been here forever

  . My uncle was a lucy here for a while on the lane; I figure with any luck it’ll be a couple of years for me; then I get a pat on the fanny and told to go get a girl and make some babies to work for the next generation. Meantime I work on the cars and stuff uphill, when I’m not, um, busy.” He grinned. “Hey, you know, some of the girls, they sort of think it’s cool for a guy to be a lucy for the Doña.

  Think you pick up stuff.” His smile died for a moment and he took another swig of the beer. “And no money worries making your stomach twist up so you shake every month. And then there’s the travel,” Monica went on. “I’ve been to, oh, London and Shanghai and Paris and Rome and Cairo and everywhere

  . On that wonderful plane.” Taken along for snackies

  , Ellen thought. For those midnight cravings when room service is over and you can’t go out. “I did my graduate degree at MIT. I was at the National La
b in Los Alamos when I started getting some anomalous results,” Peter said. He grinned ruefully. “And I wouldn’t stop trying to get people interested, no matter how heavy the hints were. They sent Adrienne in to kill me with a nice little perfectly genuine heart attack or stroke or getting hit by a truck, since she was in the neighborhood on personal business—they’re informal about things like that, I’m told. But she decided to give me another option instead. You bet

  I said yes! Actually, I’ve done some more work here, for her. She can get me all the computer time I need and I’m mostly a theoretician.” “Do you have any outside interests, Ellen?” Monica asked brightly. “I got married right out of high school, myself. More coffee?” “Thanks. I, um, BA in Art History from NYU. Worked in a gallery in Santa Fe. I was . . . involved with Adrian. Adrienne’s brother. She . . . took me away.” Another ringing silence. Monica coughed into her fist and pushed the plate of brownies over. “I’m sure you’ll have plenty to do. There are just infinite

  amounts of art up the hill. And they send some down to the high school and the civic center, now and then, too. Exhibitions.” Bet they don’t tell them it’s all genuine

  , Ellen thought. Or . . . it’s a renfield town. Maybe they know

  that too. “I’m sure you’ll be happy here,” Monica said. She sighed. “Jamal—he’s from LA—isn’t fitting in well. I’ve tried

  to be friendly and help him, honest, but . . .” “Don’t think he’ll last long,” Jose said bluntly. “Man, you can see it in his eyes! And he screams a lot.” “Don’t we all!” Monica said lightly; then her smile became almost a simper for an instant. “Why, sometimes, I’m hoarse for days

  , when things get, you know, a little wild with Adrienne.” “No, he screams when he’s alone sometimes too. Give you odds, the Doña

  ’s going to . . . remove him from here, know what I mean?” “Well, maybe it’s just a phase he’s going through. I remember my first few weeks here, I cried

  a lot, before I realized how lucky I was. Just sobbed and sobbed and oozed like a puddle. I was, like, so

  silly!” Getting really creeped out now,

  Ellen thought. She’s got odd body language. Look at the way she fidgets and pats her hair. Like a smoker who can’t . . . oh. The bite’s addictive. Addictive as nicotine, and Adrienne’s been away. I’m feeling nervous myself. Is that just because I’ve got really good

  reason to be nervous, or . . . “Hey, there’s pain in life.” Jose shrugged. “A man’s got to deal, unless he’s a . . .” He glanced at Monica and amended what he’d probably been going to say into a form less blunt. “A sissy.” “Besides,” Monica said. “It’s not always that bad. Sometimes . . . it’s just nice and fun or fun-scary, doing what she wants, and then you cuddle and the feeding . . . it’s almost like nursing. You can feel how you’re helping this need

  .” Ellen sipped at her coffee again, remembering Adrienne’s face on the plane, laughing with blood on her teeth and chin. Hearing her say: I may kill you someday, slowly and cruelly and beautifully

  . “And she says that then, those times, my blood tastes like warm milk and cookies before you go to bed.” Creeping out getting closer to total now. Jose looked out the window as he finished his beer. Peter spoke gently, but his tone was dry: “It’s not a tame tiger, you know, Monica, even if it purrs sometimes. Usually, there’s plenty of screaming involved.” “Oh, Peter, you’re such a complainer! That’s

  not always all bad either. It can be sort of . . . exciting, once you’re used to it. And when it’s, well, very wild and you feel so . . . sometimes then she touches me, you know, there

  , and does that extra-special thing with her mind only she can do. And that feels so

  good!” Oh, icky-poo yuk, total creeped-outness achieved.

  A thought: that thing in the restaurant was with her kissing my

  knuckles. I wonder if it were . . . could Adrian do . . . Stop that, Ellen! Monica’s BlackBerry chimed. The tune had words: “See my eyes so gold I could stare for a thousand years—” She opened it and said: “Yes? Oh, Doña Adrienne! Yes, of course.” For a moment she closed her eyes and whispered: “Thank God!” Then: “Shall I make dinner?” A giggle. “Just me? At seven? I’ll see you then!” A brilliant smile at all of them. “Speak of the devil!” She keyed another number. “Mom? Oh, hi, Mom, I need you to pick up Josh and Sophie from the Judo and dance classes and take them overnight. Yes, I’ve got company coming. I don’t know if I’ll be up to bringing them home tomorrow, no. It depends on, you know, how wild things get. Call me in the afternoon. OK? Love you too, Mom! Bye!” She left with a smile and a wave. Jose washed out his beer bottle and left it upside down in the drainer. “Well, I’m going to go visit my folks,” he said. “It was really nice meeting you, Ellen. You have any trouble with the car, the plumbing, just let me know. The guys from up the hill are on call, but I’m on hand! We usually have a potluck BBQ on Sunday. It’s my turn next.” He left; Peter sat in companionable silence for a moment. Ellen drank the last of the coffee, looked down and realized she’d also eaten the last of the brownies without even noticing, which wasn’t like her. “That was David Bowie,” she said eventually. “On the ringtone. But aren’t the words to that song See my eyes so

  green?

  I’ve heard it a couple of times. Giselle . . . my boss at the gallery . . . likes him.” “The Doña

  had him cut a special version for her,” Peter said. Silence fell for another few moments. At last: “Monica . . .” she said. “Monica’s completely insane, isn’t she?” Peter shrugged. “I prefer to think of it as excessively well adjusted

  . She really is as nice as she seems; the Susie Homemaker thing isn’t put on, either. And her four-cheese lasagna is to die for.” He grinned. “Though sometimes I feel I should become a vegetarian. It would be appropriate, somehow . . .” Then he did an alarmingly realistic “moooooooo!” Ellen laughed, despite the crawling sensation between her shoulder blades. “It does give you more sympathy for their position, doesn’t it? God, I feel bloated. I don’t generally eat as a displacement activity, but this has been a rough

  couple of days. Forty-eight hours ago, my only problem was figuring out how to tell my boyfriend it was over with us and worrying about how he’d react. Is there any place you can run, around here? I usually do three miles a day minimum.” “There are some great trails in the hills, if you don’t mind steep.” “Hey, I’m from New Mexico too!” “Meet you in half an hour, then?”

  CHAPTER NINE T

  he two killers snarled as they spread out in the big sauna and advanced, lips pulled back to show the wide white gape of their teeth. The air was rank with the scent of their aggression. Adrian answered with a snarl of his own, one that turned into a full-throated racking scream. The wordless challenge-cry of the king predator: Mine! Mine the land, the herds, the blood, the mates! Mine! It checked them for the merest fraction of a second. He could feel their intent narrow again, focused like the edge of their knives; they were Shadowspawn, and powerful. Not as powerful as he, but there were two of them and the silver-inlaid, glyph-warded knives were deadly, annulling luck, canceling the Power’s ability to heal the wounds they made. Adrian knew a single instant of irony; that was the same sort of weapon he’d learned to use when he was the Brotherhood’s fosterling. The two sides of the ancient struggle were more closely linked than either would admit. Then his intent was as pure as theirs. One came in, lunging leopard-fast up the stairlike seats, sweat gleaming across the bright patterns printed into his skin. The knife ripped upward towards belly and genitals. Adrian swayed his hips aside, fluid and sure, and lashed out with the ball of his foot as he pivoted on the other. The man rode it, flinging up one arm to take the impact and tumbling down the wood-sheathed tile of the benches, coming to his feet and shaking his head at the base. His companion was already attacking, the knife flashing in a blurring X-figure of slashes before him. Some remote part of his mind spoke in Harvey’s voice; memory held a tinge of sunligh
t filtering through the boards of a barn somewhere in the Texas hill country too, and the sweaty feel of a practice-hilt in his hand. If it’s a knife-fight, accept that you’re going to get cut and cut bad. Just make sure the other mook’s worse-off. Adrian lunged into the other’s attack. That broke his rhythm for the merest second; he’d been counting on the unarmed man retreating. Silver-veined steel slashed down his deflecting forearm and into his thigh, like a razor of sun-hot fire. Pain! Painpainpainpain— Blood-scent, his own, rank and terrible; the knife-arm slipped free of his grip and whipped back for the stab up under the short-ribs. For an instant they were locked chest-to-chest, and Adrian’s other hand flashed up and clamped on the back of the knife-man’s head with fingers like iron rods. “Sh’tzeeeez ak-ot!

  ” he spat, while their faces were close as lovers’. Mhabrogast commanded

  the mind; the Power flowed out of him. The man’s galvanic reaction sent him to the floor in a twitching, writhing, heel-drumming fit, and hurled Adrian back. A thin keening sound came out of him, endlessly. Adrian snatched up the knife where it had fallen; more pain lanced up his right arm, without the shielding glove. The other blade-man halted his rush and poised in a wary guard. Then he smiled thinly. Adrian’s leg buckled under him. The blood was flowing too fast, and he couldn’t spare the focus to clamp the vessels from within. On one knee he kept the blade pointed out, swaying as gray gathered around the edges of his vision. Cold seemed to be blowing around him, despite the dry heat of the sauna— “Hey, asshole!” a gravelly voice said cheerfully. The tattooed Shadowspawn turned in a blur of speed. The massive bummpf!