A Taint in the Blood (13 page)

Adrienne grinned; Ellen
could
see the slight difference in the incisors.

Adrian was always very careful
not
to bite or scrape me, now that I think back. Even when things got a little rough, or once more than a little rough. Everyone said “they say they’re sorry but they really aren’t” . . . but I think he was. A special case.

“I’m sure he
was
sorry. What exactly was it he did . . . Oh, goodness, but that’s an arresting image! You might have smothered! Not to mention spraining your neck. You and I must try something analogous sometime.”

She felt her face go crimson. Then she saw what the little girl was doing; she had her hands on the table, cupped as if sheltering a candle-flame. Within was a tiny yellow feather, like a shaped golden dust-mote . . . and it was bobbing in midair, slowly turning. For a moment she simply stared in wonder. Then her mind lurched:

If you could do that with a feather, you could do it
inside someone
, couldn’t you?

The feather fell, and the girl’s face scrunched up.

“The air didn’t wanna do it! It
slipped
. You should teach me some more special Words and I wouldn’t slip. Please,
Maman
? I don’t ever say them aloud unless you’re there or the cousins or someone.”

“Nyah, I did it beehhhh-tttter!” her probably-brother said.

“No, you didn’t, Weasel Two,” Adrienne said decisively. “And I will most certainly not teach either of you more Mhabrogast yet. It’s dangerous if you can’t pronounce it properly.”

He
looked heartbreakingly like a younger Adrian, in shorts and T-shirt and sneakers, his black hair cut in a bowl shape like his sister’s. Her mouth began to droop towards a sob, until Adrienne hugged her and kissed the top of her head.

“That’s splendid work with the feather. Most children can’t do that for another year or two. What else have you been doing? Besides your lessons,
I hope
.”

“Feeding the snake,” the boy said. “Gerbils, mostly. Two. But now it just sleeps.”

“Well, it won’t want any more for a while. Ellen, these are my demon spawn; Weasel One—Leila—and Weasel Two, Leon. One and Two for order of arrival. Children, this is Ellen. She’ll be living with us now. Don’t you tease her, or you’ll be sorry. Now run along.”

The girl slipped off her lap. She lifted a strikingly beautiful tow-haired china doll in a frilly dress from the floor beside her mother’s chair. The child looked at it consideringly for a moment, and then up at the stranger.

“Hello, Ellen. This is my new dolly. She has hair and eyes like yours. See, blue, they close and open if you rock her like this.”

“Ah . . .” Ellen thought, looking down into the innocent face.

“Hello, Miss Leila. What’s her name?”

“Lucy,” the girl said firmly. A broad smile. “’Cause she’s
my
lucy.”

That was when she saw the miniature bandage around the doll’s neck. The children walked away, then suddenly ran, giggling, out into the courtyard.

“Bit of an experiment, so to say,” Adrienne said. “Often we foster our children out until after puberty. But I’m actually rather fond of my two little weasels . . . in moderation. Mind you, puberty’s the test.”

Then Adrienne shrugged and continued: “Come.” An inclination of the head. “We’ll have lunch over here in the nook. There’s a bit of a problem we should discuss.”

Adrienne rose; she was wearing jodhpurs with leather inserts on the inside of the thighs, polished riding boots and a
real
polo shirt, with a riding crop in her hands. The golden-brown eyes stared into hers; she remembered with a slight shock that she was an inch taller than the Brézé woman. You always forgot that, somehow, just as she’d been surprised again at Adrian not being tall every time they met again. A thought sprang unbidden and unstoppable into Ellen’s mind . . .

“Bettie Page comics?” Adrienne said. “I’m not nearly that pneumatic, and I don’t do high heels. I’m actually wearing this because I’m going riding later today. Hmmm. Visualize . . . Yes, I see your point, though. I wonder if one could do that in real life?”

A noiseless servant in a high-collared white jacket brought two fluffy ham-and-scallion omelets with glazed crusts into the nook, along with a salad of fresh greens, walnuts, and slices of small tangy orange and glasses of a pale yellow wine.

“Ah . . . you said we have a problem?”

“Yes. Your former employer, Giselle Demarcio. She’s been making inquiries, trying to trace you—which means, trying to trace
me
. That really will not do.”

Anxiety turned into real fear with a sudden cold jolt, and the light omelet assumed the texture of mud.

“Please don’t hurt her! She’s just—I’m a friend as well as an employee. My place burned down. She’s probably worried sick about me.”

A hand reached out and cupped her jaw. Something
tickled
behind her eyes, and she started to pull back.

“Don’t squirm if you’re concerned for your friend,” Adrienne said—not threatening but abstracted. “This is delicate. I’m probing for memories. It’s not like playing back a computer file. They’re unwritten and rewritten every time they’re called up; it needs concentration. Don’t resist. That’s right . . .”

She murmured something under her breath; Ellen felt the words as sound, but they didn’t resolve themselves into anything she could recall an instant later. She forced her body to relax and tried to think about nothing. The tickling grew, as if tendrils were growing into the structure of her brain, rooting, opening,
merging
with the folds and pathways.
Things
moved in the corners of her vision; little flecks of light swam across her vision, the way they did when you closed your eyes, or opened them in a perfectly dark room. Her head felt
full
, a squirming sensation of penetration.

Then she began to
remember
, impossibly vivid jerky chains of images, as much like briefly reliving as ordinary memory. Herself paddling in the waves on the Jersey shore, the cold salt shock on chubby toddler feet and the taste of salt on her lips and the scuttling alienness of a sand-crab. Her father crying at the kitchen table the night her mother died, and the scent of cheap whiskey and the taste of fear. The first kiss with Paul and the book of art prints falling off the sofa between them, the first day at the gallery, the way Adrian had smiled as he extended his hand over the net and the feel of his palm and fingers—they blurred together, faded, whirled.

It stopped with a grinding shock as Adrienne released her jaw and broke eye-contact; there was a moment of pain, like whiplash of the mind, then it faded.

“Yes, I see. Still, Dmitri is fond of a saying: when a person causes you a problem, remember, no person, no problem. I don’t want my little visit to attract any attention.”

“Look, if I tell her I’m OK . . .” A hooded glance. She went on desperately: “Please. I’m begging you, please. I’ll do anything, just don’t
hurt
her. She’s always been good to me.
Please.
”

“I
do
enjoy it when you beg,
chérie
,” Adrienne said, with a lazy smile. “And as I said, it’s really no longer so essential to keep perfect secrecy . . .
^”

She picked up a control bar and thumbed it; a medium-sized screen flipped up from the center of the table.

“I love these things,” Adrienne said absently. “It lets you interact without having to
smell
everyone. We Shadowspawn have become friendly
tout court
compared to the way things were. Scoot over so you’ll be in the pickup zone.”

Another smile, at a thought that flitted through Ellen’s mind:

“No, you don’t have to strip this time. It would be socially inappropriate. The number?”

“Uh . . . the videoconference code—”

The query went through; then
accepted
came up on the screen. The image was a little grainy and jerky at first; Giselle had never thought it worthwhile to spend much money on her office system. Then it sharpened to bell-tone clarity. Ellen had never been much interested in hardware, but you couldn’t be in the arts these days—particularly the selling side—without knowing something about what the systems could
do
. That meant real capacity, particularly since there was no CGI-style surface gloss to the improvement.

“Uh . . . hi, Giselle. I’m here at Adrian’s sister’s place, I thought you might be worrying—”

“Ellen!” Giselle’s sharp hook-nosed, middle-aged face lit up. “You’re OK! Thank God!”

Her voice had a slight East Coast big-city edge, overlain with Wellesley. She went on breathlessly:

“Your
apartment
burned down, there was talk about
arson
and a mysterious man with a
gun
chased the Lopezes out—”

Ellen let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

“—nobody knew where you
were
, nobody’s at Adrian’s but his
housekeeper
. What’s going
on
?”

“Uh . . . I’m OK, Gis. Really. No harm done.”

Apart from the blood-drinking and the torture and rape and the speculation about how pleasurable it would be to kill me in an artistic fashion and feel my life flicker out. I must be a lot more in control of myself than I thought I was. I’m
not
screaming or babbling.

“
Where
are you? Do you need a place to stay? Ummm, if you’re actually OK, you realize this is a working day? We’ve got the Cliffords—”

“Ms. Demarcio,” Adrienne cut in, her voice like a purr felt through velvet.

Giselle stared at her with what Ellen recognized as nervous courage, like a bird ruffling its feathers and rearing back at a cat. Owning a quirky, successful gallery in art-happy Santa Fe didn’t make you rich and powerful. It did mean you met the genuine article often enough to recognize them.

“Yes, Ms. Brézé?”

“Ellen is a bit upset, what with the fire, and some personal things.

So she’s decided to come out here to my place and, ah, help catalogue my family’s collection. She needs a change of scene and pace for a while.”

A sharp glance at the two of them; she saw her boss’ eyes narrow. Giselle had always been good at reading body language. Ellen made herself relax from her stiff brace, sway a little towards Adrienne. She smiled and nodded as the Shadowspawn put a hand on her shoulder, winding a lock of pale-yellow hair around one finger.

“That’s right, Gis. You know things were a bit, ah, rocky for me the past couple of weeks anyway.”

The bright black eyes darted back and forth again.

“Ellen, you need to settle the insurance, the police want to talk to you, you lost all your
stuff
. You should get your ass back to Santa Fe from wherever-it-is. All I could find out was that you got on some
plane
at the airport and went away!”

“No, no, that’s all being handled. Really, I’m sorry as all hell to leave you in the lurch like this. You’ve been really good to me. But I need to get away. To . . . clear things up. And the collection here . . . unbelievable! I’m happy.”

A snort. “Ellen Tarnowski, I told you that Adrian was creepy. Told you that these old-money Euro types are bad news for ordinary people who’re just jumping on a trampoline while they’re flying. Intersecting trajectories aren’t a meeting of true minds. I told you months ago that he was treating you like a mushroom and dumping him would be a good idea. Switching to fucking your brains out with his
twin sister
is not! And no, I’m not going to deny the evidence of my own eyes at the restaurant. If that wasn’t real, you should be in
Hollywood
, girl, not Santa Fe!”

Ellen gave a panic-stricken glance aside. Adrienne was smiling again.

“Ms. Demarcio, your concern for Ellen is touching. But there are family dynamics at play here you don’t understand. Nor is it really any of your business with whom she is, as you so elegantly put it, fucking her brains out.”

“Pardon my French.”

“
Ce n’est rien
,” Adrienne said. “You found my brother Adrian, how is it,
creepy
?”

Giselle nodded. “I don’t care who knows it, either.”

“No, you’re right. Adrian
is
creepy, from your point of view. He is also, as you put it, old money. So am I. That apparently does not bother Ellen, eh? And my forbearance for well-intentioned interference in my private life is not infinite.”

“No, Gis, I’m, umm, really having a great time,” Ellen said brightly. “Out of this world.”

“Here’s the number on her new BlackBerry,” Adrienne said helpfully, and tapped on her control bar. “Do feel free to call, but not too often.”

Baffled, the older woman looked at Ellen. “OK, you’re a big grown-up type person, Ellen. Just remember that you’ve got somewhere to go. I’ll hold your job for you—indefinite unpaid leave, OK?”

Ellen felt tears prickle at her eyes. “I . . . I really . . . Thanks, Gis. You’re a good one.”

“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 . . .