S Stirling - A Taint in the Blood

How should I do this? she wondered.

The sabertooth wasn’t as tall as a horse, even if it weighed in at the heavy end of the pony scale. The back wasn’t like a horse’s, either, and not just because it sloped down from the massive shoulders to the rump. When she touched the skin over its spine the bone was imperceptible under the roiling coils of muscle. The beast’s rumble grew a little louder; it crouched and butted her again, and she gulped.

Didn’t he say once that it was hard not to… get lost in the beast?

Ellen gulped again and straddled the great cat, lying forward with her hands sunk in the not-quite-mane around its neck and her toes locked-firmly, she hoped-in the narrower spot just ahead of the hips. The sabertooth stood and turned, pacing out into the night; she clutched harder at the rolling foot-foot-foot-foot pace that tried to pitch her from side to side. Then the padding quickened and the hindquarters bunched, and Ellen suppressed a startled eeep! as it leapt effortlessly to the top of the ten-foot wall that formed the outer wall of the estate gardens about the casa grande. Her weight didn’t seem to matter at all as it soared, a single instant of birdlike flight.

The huge paws touched the stucco-covered stone with a slight dry scritch sound and a click of claws, and then they were in the air again. The landing was so soft that the thud sound was startling; no matter how well the pads and paws and legs cushioned it, better than half a ton was hitting the close-cut grass. The landing turned into a bound that carried them better than twenty feet, flowerbeds and trees rushing past in a silvery night-blur. Her hands and legs clutched convulsively at the hard hot warmth beneath her, and her breath came faster as the huge cat took the hillside in a smooth reverse-cascade of leaps.

Past a great marble pool and fountain, soaring over a flowering hedge, past rows of cypresses beside a bridle path, an onrush like flight in a dream. At last they came to a Japanese-style garden, or the California version of one as conceived a century ago.

Which is actually pretty authentic, she thought. Most of the gardeners in this state were Japanese then.

The great cat reared a little, panting like a bellows as they came to the gateway with its swooping tiled roof and backdrop of tall black pines. The scent of them filled the cool night, spicy and almost incense-like. She slid to the ground and the figure was Adrian again, rising to his feet, naked and as lithely graceful as the beast he had been. His chest slowed, but he was still the slightest bit breathless as he said: “Those things were ambush hunters. No endurance.”

“That was like flying!” Ellen said, distracted into delight for an instant.

“No, flying is different… better. I will show you someday, Ellie.”

Beyond the gate were two great stone Koma-inu, lionlike dogs from Japanese mythology. Ellen’s mouth quirked as she looked at them.

“They’re supposed to keep away evil spirits,” she said.

Adrian snorted dryly as he walked past them. “Apparently they don’t work,” he said.

“Adrian!” He looked around, and she went on sharply: “You are not evil! And believe me, I now have a wide enough acquaintance with people in your family who are real-thing no-fucking-doubt-about-it evil to tell the difference!”

He quirked a smile at her. “Perhaps you can convince me, someday.”

Beyond the gate paths wound, lined now and then with Kasuga stone lanterns, unlit, like miniature shrines on stone pillars. The low hills on either side were covered in azaleas, dim beneath the moon in white and pink-more color than was usual in a Japanese gardening scheme, but this was California. Rocks lined the edge of a lake, the still water reflecting moonlight and starlight. A low waterfall made music, with a half-arch bridge across the stream below it, the reflection making a circle; the sides of the bridge were carved with phoenix birds, destruction and rebirth.

“Rebirth of what?” Ellen asked, low-voiced.

“Knowing my family, I don’t think there’s much doubt as to that,” Adrian said grimly.

They came to the shrine itself, stone and black-weathered beams; through it they could see the rock-garden, raked gravel and stones in their natural shapes. Slow-growing black bamboo surrounded the flagged enclosure. It soughed and rattled slightly with a breeze that ruffled the surface of the water; then that died away.

“You know, Adrian,” she said slowly, “if your family could appreciate this, Shadowspawn and humans have more in common than you seem to think.”

“Aesthetics, at least. Stand here, Ellie. And… I need a little of your blood.”

She smiled at him. “Go ahead.”

He took her hand and raised it to his lips. There was a slight sting, and when he held it out over the gravel a red drop welled from one fingertip to drop slowly to the ground.

Adrian made a slight hissing sound as it struck. “Yes, Wreaking sourced from you. Let me see-”

Ellen was silent while he paced the enclosure; occasionally he would pause and make a gesture with his hands held palm-down above the ground. Now and then he would speak-syllables that seemed to twist as she heard them, fading away before her mind could hold them.

And it gives me a chance to look at the ol’ bod, she thought. Yeah, all other things being equal, the male form really does have a lot going for it. Particularly the narrow-waisted, slim-but-broad-shouldered, really taut but not bulky types with that focused look to the butt. Like for example my fellah here. Yup, girls just don’t basically compare.

“Now that is very odd,” he said at last. “The basic protectives have been renewed, yes. Here they seem to be intended to nudge minds toward harmony and cooperation, as well. But the external wards… the warnings of hostile intent, the twisting of paths towards ruin and disaster… they have not been renewed at all. Still there, still strong if old-fashioned, but they are precisely as the Brotherhood records indicate. Very few modifications.”

“That’s not in character for Adrienne,” Ellen said. “She likes to give these devil-may-care vibes, but she’s got a chess player’s mind. Careful and she thinks ahead.”

Adrian nodded. “Still, I would not care to be a human approaching this place with hostile intention.”

“What would happen?” Ellen said.

“You would make noises no matter how careful you were. Your belt would snap, your equipment would break, weapons would misfire. Dogs would happen to catch your scent and bark. If you came in a group, you and your friends would quarrel with each other. And if there was the slightest chance of a heart attack or a stroke or a detached retina or a fall that twisted your ankle and then your head happened to hit a stone…”

She shivered, and he went on: “But they are all directed outward. That is what I had to know.”

He hesitated. “I am afraid I must become the beast again to take you back.”

Ellen put her hands on her hips. “Why afraid?” she said.

He blinked, taken aback. “Because… well, it’s a large predatory animal. Ellie, you don’t even like dogs!”

“That’s dogs. Who said anything about cats?”

His smile was unwilling. “You are a very brave person, Ellie.”

“I hope so. But it isn’t courage. That sabertooth thing is beautiful. And that ride… if I weren’t scared of what’s going to happen tomorrow and the day after, I’d say that was just plain fun.”

“I… well, it is sort of… bestial. An abandonment of myself. And… I thought you would find it repulsive, Ellie.”

Now her smile grew into a grin. “Adrian, did you ever see Beauty and the Beast?”

“You mean La Belle et la B?te by Cocteau? Yes, of course… though, frankly, it bites a bit close to the bone. I liked the ending, despite knowing better.”