S Stirling - A Taint in the Blood

Cognac, Coquerel Calvados, Van Gogh triple sec and lemon; the fruit flavors tingled over his tongue. It had been a popular mixture in the 1920s.

“Always one of your favorites, as I recall,” Jules said.

It’s the first time I’ve ever met my own father socially, Adrian thought. Since I was thirteen, at least, and he is utterly unchanged. He’s not a bad fellow, for a mass murderer.

“I never thought I’d see you alive again,” Jules said. “It is… not a good sign, when a man is as out of contact as you have been.”

Adrian shrugged and smiled. “I knew I was drifting, but… there always seemed to be time to remedy matters later. I lived much in dreams of the past. Yet in the end, they are unsatisfying.”

Which is why the real Wilbur killed himself, most probably. When the dream ends, the reality you fled is more terrible than ever.

For a Shadowspawn, it was possible to live in the interior world quite literally, shaping it to your will.

But while it feels and smells and tastes real, it isn’t; and the people are not real, unless they are captured souls.

Jules shook his head. “I knew. Yet every time I warned you… well, why relive old fights? May I see it? You still carry the locket everywhere?”

Adrian let his mind relax and chose. His fingers went into a pocket and brought out the little gold oval; that was the path the Power saw as leading to the result he wanted. He opened it and glanced within; the face was delicate, huge-eyed. If the hand-tinting of the photograph was accurate, there had been an elfin loveliness. Adrian handed it over carefully, as a man would with a precious possession, and took it back almost immediately.

“Joan was very beautiful,” Jules said. “Yet… my friend, it is not well to become too attached to them. Fond yes, in some cases, but not… attached. They die. We do not. Our natures are different. That you could not be there when she was killed and Carry her soul was a tragedy, yes, but I suspect… that the temptations of dreams would have been even worse if you had. Forgive me if I intrude!”

Adrian shrugged and smiled with Wilbur’s face and body. “Obviously, I came to agree with you in the end,” he said. “Though it was hard.”

“You should acquire a few contemporary lucies on a long-term basis. An occasional kill is one thing, but…”

“I think I was punishing them for not being her,” Adrian said, guessing at the psychology of a dead man.

I would feel some sympathy for him, if he had not brought so many others suffering and death.

“Some things do not change, though,” Jules said, winking. “I noticed you dancing with my daughter’s Ellen, you sly dog!”

He shrugged. “Is that her name? A glorious creature, and her blood-scent! Maddening! Trust a Br?z? to find such a vision, and to torment us all with it.”

A ruefully envious snap of the teeth, and Jules did the same; they laughed and raised their glasses in a brief toast before Adrian continued: “But the mind was extremely strange, and… well, women spoke with more restraint when I was a young man. Except for those of the lower orders, of course, and she obviously isn’t that. The mixture of sophistication and coarseness is… disturbing. I expected one or the other. The little chica I picked out of Adrienne’s gift-herd is a pretty, healthy animal, and satisfying in her peasant way. I may keep her. But in our day…”

“Our day is not past,” Jules said, giving him a brief slap on the shoulder. “Now that you are around and about again, you must come and visit us in La Jolla. Night-polo, old man! You taught me the art in daylight eighty years ago; let me return the favor. And we have a wide human acquaintance. There is much that is interesting among them.”

“This is… a trial venture. I must learn to live in the world again. It’s… well, it’s a damned odd world now, that’s all.”

“Ah, and it will grow odder still, unless we take measures. You probably haven’t been following Council politics?”

Adrian spread a hand out, remembering at the last moment to make the gesture palm-down and restrained. Wilbur Peterson had been American-raised, though related to the Br?z?s. He would be not only an Anglo-Saxon in his body language, but an antique one.

“I didn’t recognize much of the territory I flew over to get here, except for the ocean and the mountains,” he said. “God, to think that we used to drive around San Jose for the blossoms! The scent was intoxicating even for humans. I nearly reconsidered and turned around.”

Jules made a grimace. “Yes. We have been negligent in caring for the greater estate. My daughter has some interesting plans for dealing with that, and I find her energy and enthusiasm quite compelling. Julianne and I never became withdrawn, but it is so easy to live from day to day. Perhaps the corporeals have a greater sense of urgency. Let me tell you about the Council meeting that’s to be called. And of course Hajime will be representing us…”

“How did that happen?” Adrian asked; Wilbur had been well into his fugue by then.

“Oh, the usual way. Overconfidence by us, intrigue and then a swift coup by them. Hajime killed me personally, though I must say it was decent of him not to inflict Final Death. Adrienne is quite close with T?kairin Michiko, Hajime’s favorite grandchild. They negotiated the details of the peace agreement.”

“Tell me more about this ceremony, the Prayer for Long Life,” Adrian said. “And the Council meeting.”

Jules smiled. “It’s splendid to see you taking an interest again! Well-”

“Wilbur was quite a delightful man in his time,” Julianne Br?z? said. “He was something of a mentor to Jules and me after our parents died so tragically… Everyone was so surprised when they didn’t transition successfully, given their blood-purity, but those things were not as well understood in our youth. Perhaps it was the shock of the assassination. Those Brotherhood scum were bolder then.”

Several of the Shadowspawn listening hissed; Ellen felt a small crawling sensation at the sound. It wasn’t contrived or deliberate, she decided; it was just the natural way for them to express…

Murderous hate, she thought. Frustrated sadism.

“I’m Carrying one of them,” Julianne said; her eyes had an inward look for an instant. “The other was too quick to suicide, but we caught little Thomas. He’s in a small rock chamber in my mind, feeding a very large spider. And after so many years, he’s very tired of it. The spider is still extremely enthusiastic. Occasionally it becomes… amorous. Then it spawns in his flesh and the young eat their way out. And I’m never, ever going to let Tom die the Final Death, though he begs for that fairly continuously. Once I let him think he’d been given release, and then he woke up again to the spider’s caress.”

Oh, Christ, she means it…

The remark brought general laughter. Ellen sipped at her second glass of champagne and tried to ignore other comments about what could be, and gleeful recollections of what had been, done to captured Brotherhood agents. Even after the killing-hall some of them were gruesome. Peter grimaced to her as she turned away a little.

“I wonder why they let us mingle at events like this?” she said softly. “We lucies, and the renfields.”

“Control rods,” he replied promptly; his cheeks were a little flushed, and he was working on his third glass of the sparkling wine. “That’s definitely part of it.”

It’s been quite a while since she fed on him, Ellen thought sympathetically. God, that can get hard to take! Even knowing there’s going to be pain doesn’t make you want it less. At least not for me. I think that may be harder for him.

“What?” she said aloud. “Rods?”