A Taint in the Blood (12 page)

“Dr. Fiona Duggan,” she said, and shook hands, a brisk no-nonsense gesture.

From her expression she guessed her new patient’s thoughts.

“Everyone at this clinic is a doctor, Ms. Tarnowski, and a good one. But even if we were no professionals . . . lass, you’re the safest person for miles around. Think it through.”

“Bet there’s a low crime rate here,” she said slowly. “
Unauthorized
crimes at least.”

“Ye’d win that wager.”

A thought struck her. “Except murder-suicides?”

A grim smile. “Here, murder or any other serious crime
is
a form of suicide. A slow, painful form.”

“Oh.”

“If it will make you feel better, I was recruited as a second-year medical student in Edinburgh with—I’ll say it myself—brilliant marks. And incurable pancreatic cancer; a classic rapid-onset adenocarcinoma. They offered to make the cancer cells have fatal accidents.”

“You accepted.”

“And so would you,
I’d
wager.”

“Why do they need a
doctor
, then?”

She smiled. “The Power is powerful, but it needs knowledge to apply. Imagine them trying to correct your humors . . . only, we don’t have humors. We have cells. And there are accidents and traumas and plenty of things too small for their attention. Let’s get started.”

The only difference between this and the last exam she’d had in Santa Fe was the state-of-the-art equipment; instant blood analysis with only a tiny pinprick sample, just for starters, and the new thinbar scanners that could do things only massive hospital units had been able to manage a few years before. She dressed and sat on the edge of the examining table as the doctor finished tapping at her keyboard.

“Well, Ms. Tarnowski, as no doubt your previous doctor has told you, you’re in excellent health. I wish all my patients showed your degree of care with diet and exercise. You might be interested to know that you’re also an eighteen-point-nine on the Alberman Scale.”

“Alberman?”

“The test for nocturnus genes—the ones linked to the Power, of which there are between seventy-five and one hundred, mostly recessives. Average is around twelve percent.”

“Ah . . . thanks, I guess.”

“Aye. You should be thankful. There are behavioral complications with a twenty-to-forty result that often have unfortunate consequences.”

“Unfortunate?”

“Gilles de Rais. Stalin, Hitler, King Leopold of the Congo Free State . . . Or Joan of Arc.”

“Joan of Arc was unfortunate?”

“Think of how she ended.”

“Oh.”

“Now, it’s your special health circumstances we’ll move on to next.”

Special health circumstances!
she thought.
I suppose everyone needs euphemisms.

“You’ve been subject to three feeding attacks so far, correct? Typical attack bites on the inner right elbow, the inner left knee, and the smaller one on the left hand.”

“Right. None of them seem . . . infected, or anything. Just slightly discolored.”

“Nor will they be.
Homo sapiens nocturnus
—”

“Wha’?” Ellen said.

She snorted and pointed at one of the skeletons. “Them. The Shadowspawn. Which is a ridiculously melodramatic name . . . Their bites heal cleanly. It’s halfway between predation and parasitism, ecologically, and I’ve done some fascinating research . . . Well, another time. There’s also a coagulant which acts when the wound is exposed to air, and a psychotropic element. A drug.”

“I . . . couldn’t move while she was, um, feeding. I didn’t feel numb or anything, just didn’t want to move.”

“Yes, standard initial reaction. That effect’s strong, but wears off quickly when the mouth is removed. There’s an addictive euphoric, too, I’m afraid, wi’ a cumulative effect after multiple exposures.”

She froze. “
How
addictive?”

“A bit worse than nicotine.”

Ellen relaxed, and heard her breath whoosh out. “That’s not so bad.”

“Mmm, Ms. Tarnowski, nicotine is more addictive than heroin, clinically speaking. The effect on the victim is similar to MDMA, but without the side effects.”

At Ellen’s blank look, she went on: “Ecstasy is the street name. Intense feelings of intimacy, and sharply diminished fear and anxiety. If you could synthesize it the market would be huge.”

“Oh, Christ,” she said, hugging her shoulders. “How often . . .”

“That’s unpredictable. You’ll no’ be her only source of blood, of course; that
would
be . . . unfortunate. For them the blood itself is an addictive drug, particularly if it’s primed by strong emotion. I’ve not been able to experiment on that side of things as much as I’d like.”

“The marks aren’t . . .” Ellen said, and made a stabbing gesture with two fingers at the inside of her elbow. “It’s more like a little line with a bit of a curve.”

There was a ghoulish fascination to the talk; and it
might
be useful. Something that tickled at the back of her mind said so. Duggan nodded enthusiastically and went to one of the skeletons. She pushed back the upper part of the skull until there was a bony gape and pointed.

“This is a replica. It’s the maxillary central incisors, d’you see? Advanced so they’re a bit proud and slightly inclined inward. Larger canines would be silly in a human-shaped mouth if you want a clean cut along a vein. These have microserration, so when they’re presented at just the right angle they slice like steak knives; the lips and tongue arrange the flesh so that the feeding bite is verra precise . . .”

She wrenched herself away from the details and went back to the screen. “Now, there was a sexual assault with at least one of the feeding attacks, correct? From your reaction to the pelvic exam.”

Ellen flushed. “Ah . . . yes.”

And that utterly weird thing in the restaurant
, she thought.
It’s absurd to be concerned about something like embarrassment
now
but I’m
still
cringing at the thought of that.

“Only some very minor stretching or bruising, so we don’t have to worry about that.”

“
We
don’t have to sit on it!
I
do!”

“Sorry for the physician’s ‘royal we.’ Any difficulty in walking or urination?”

“No. Just a bit of a sting when I pee.”

“I assume the penetration was manual?”

She thought about that for a moment. “Umm, yes. That’s what caused the chafing feeling, at least. I don’t remember it all.”

Thank God
, she added to herself.

“Normal with a traumatic memory.”

She handed over a small container with a tube and applicator inside.

“Here’s a topical cream. You’re fortunate the attack had that pattern.”

“I
am
?” she said, trying to control the rising tone of her voice.

“Yes,” she said dryly. “The likelihood of a
fatal
feeding attack is much lower that way. There’s a mutual exchange of blood when they mate among themselves; in small quantities, but always, as far as I know. I’m no’ sure if it’s cultural or instinctual.”

“Oh.”

“Try to cooperate as much as you can the next time it happens; that’ll reduce the chance of lesions.”

“Just lie back, I suppose,” she said dully.

“No. The other thing that makes a fatal attack more likely is passivity or depression on the part of the victim. For lucies, as the slang here has it—”

“Where does that
come
from?”

“Ah, you’ve no’ read Stoker? You should—if only for a laugh. And the film, the one with Anthony Hopkins chewing the carpet, is even funnier.”

“I . . . don’t like horror films. They upset me.”

“Well, you’re
in
one now. Lucies. Some of them moved on to other positions here. Some have just . . . stayed. And some have died in what I think is probably inconceivable agony.”

“
Slowly and cruelly and beautifully
,” she quoted with a shudder.

“Aye. And that’s no’ even the worst thing that can happen. So . . . well, a doctor can speak frankly. Make the experience of feeding on you as satisfying for our
Doña Demonio
as possible, because your life
does
depend on it.”

“Thanks for the advice,” Ellen said; she could hear the mixture of sincerity and sarcasm in her own voice.

That was probably unwise, but she couldn’t be strategizing
all
the time.

Or I’ll go stark raving mad. This is the sort of advice a horse doctor would give to other horses; don’t fight the saddle and signals or it’s the bit and spurs and whip for you, and the knacker’s yard if you won’t perform at all. I think a lot of these renfields must be crazy. And I bet that they
do
have a suicide problem
.

The physician smiled. “I’m not easily offended. A doctor can’t afford to be. I’ll help you as much as I can, Ms. Tarnowski, but that isn’t much. I made my choice long ago, and I have a family to think of, as well.”

A screen-pen pointed at the skeleton. “That’s the world’s dominant subspecies. Not us. Even just in the body they’ve advantages, and there’s no fighting the Power at all, whatever the terrorists say.”

“Terrorists?”

“A few madmen.” She scowled. “Killers who’ll murder wholesale, men and women and children. The
nocturnus
at least have their instincts to blame.”

That’s interesting. The Resistance? And they think you’re a collaborator, Doctor? How
could
you fight the Power?
With excitement:
Could Adrian be in it?

Duggan shook her head. “If you have severe nightmares or problems sleeping, see me, and I may be able to get permission for a mild sedative. We’ve some good ones.”

The receptionist stuck her head in. “Your next appointment, Doctor. Ms. Mandelbaum and her daughter; the earache.”

“Right, that’s you, then, Ms. Tarnowski. Here’s your exercise schedule and a prescription for a dietary supplement. Lots of fluids, mind!”

 

 

Ellen looked down at her new BlackBerry.
Lunch, 12:30. You’re not on the menu. This time!
and a happy-face symbol with a little blood drooling out of one corner of the semicircle mouth.

“Oh, that’s just
side
-splitting,” she muttered to herself. Then: “Get a grip on your thoughts.”

Which was about like telling yourself
not
to think of an elephant. The main house was up the hill again, through California-gorgeous gardens only a little subdued for winter, with everything from palm trees to rose pergolas and velvety green lawns and ha-has, brick retaining walls and espaliered lemon trees. It was built in classic Spanish Revival like the town, if in a grander fashion; from the looks at the height of the style’s popularity in the earlier part of the twentieth century, like something out of Santa Barbara’s Montecito district. There were Andalusian towers and red Roman-tile roofs and earth-toned stucco on walls covered in sheets of purple-and-crimson bougainvillea, with colored tile Moorish-style insets over the arched entranceways, and plenty of wrought iron. Inside . . .

The architecture’s first-class if a bit retro, but my, there’s some interesting stuff here! If you can get over the number that
should
be somewhere else. At least they’re being taken care of.

An eclectic selection: old masters, impressionists and post-impressionists, some late-nineteenth-century academics like Leighton, of the type that had become so popular again, Hoppers and Wyeths. One sculpture she longed to examine, just on the suspicion that it actually
was
Rodin’s
Andromeda.
All with no particular organization, as if someone or several successive someones who could fulfill every whim had simply put up anything that took their fancy wherever they chose, like an omnipotent version of William Randolph Hearst.

The map function guided her efficiently, and she ended up in a large airy room set up as a lounge-study-office, with bookshelves and big mahogany tables and a comprehensive electronics suite; one wall was glass doors between Romanesque arches, open to the mild afternoon warmth and to the sight of a big bowl-shaped fountain plashing in the court outside. Adrienne was sitting—

With a little girl on her lap. Oh
,
ick, please God not
. . .
No, wait a minute, that child’s the spitting image of her. Has to be a close relative. Couldn’t be
hers
, could she? And the boy’s as close as a fraternal twin can get. As close as Adrian and Adrienne.

A Great Dane sat beside the boy; the child had his arm around the beast’s shoulders, and it was nearly as tall as he. It sat looking up at the Shadowspawn woman adoringly and beating its tail on the floor; then it stood, swiveled its barrel head up and came over towards Ellen with tongue hanging and claws clicking on the diamond-pattern buff tiles of the floor. Ellen slowed step by step, then froze.

This is silly
, she thought.
It’s just a
dog
.
She’s
the dangerous animal in the room!

The fear didn’t go away. “What’s the matter?” Adrienne asked. “That’s a delightful flash of apprehension there, but why?”

“Large dogs . . . make me nervous. I was badly bitten once. Sorry. I can’t help it.”

The Shadowspawn snapped her fingers and pointed, and the dog left after giving her a curious sniff. She relaxed . . .

And now I can remember I have something to be
really
frightened of.

Suddenly she looked after the dog.
Shouldn’t it be barking, or going crazy?

“No, dogs aren’t frightened of us,
chérie,
” Adrienne said dryly. “That’s
Terminators
you’re thinking of, which don’t exist.”