S Stirling - A Taint in the Blood

She nodded. “Yes, that’ll do. Though I had the Disney version in mind. What do you think of the ending? What went through your mind when you saw it?”

“It’s Disney… so of course the ending is happy. Well, to be fair, the Cocteau isn’t much different. The story always gave me a little hope.”

“I’ll tell you what I thought of it. Here I was, putting myself in Belle’s place… and inside I’m shouting at the end: What’s with this pansy prince? I want my Beast back!”

This time he laughed aloud. “But, Ellie,” he said gently. “Mine is not an animated beast.”

She shrugged. “Sure. If it was just a sabertooth… I’d be a bit nervous. But it’s got you inside it, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, certainly. But, Ellie, I am the most dangerous beast of all.”

“Nah. You’ve got you inside you too, if you’ll pardon the grammar. What you are is strong, Adrian. I can deal with that. I like it, actually. Women generally do-like strong, dangerous-but-safe men, you know? Bad boys who aren’t really bad down deep. It’s one reason I fell for you in the first place.”

His laugh had something of a groan in it. “Oh, please, please, tell me I am not Heathcliff!”

“No, no… Mr. Rochester, maybe… though we don’t have to remove the hand or make you blind to make you safe. Your conscience is a much more effective set of controls!”

“You flatter me,” Adrian said.

“Hey, we’re engaged. It’s my job.”

“And mine to see you safe,” he said, humor fading to grimness. “Come. We must get you home before anyone notices you are gone.”

“It’s a house, not a home, but I know what you mean. Here, kitty, kitty!”

His smile faded into the fanged grin of the sabertooth, like a Cheshire cat in reverse.

Let’s make my brave words true, she thought, and swung herself across the great animal’s back. Be what you want to seem, as the man said.

“Hi-yo Silver, away!”

Lounging by the pool in the afternoon felt good after a swim and a late rising.

In fact, I feel good generally, Ellen thought. Odd. Nothing’s changed, but I’m… hopeful. Why?

Somehow she didn’t feel really curious about that either; the thought faded from her mind.

There were a number of swimming pools in the grounds of the casa grande. This one was a rectangle of pale-veined Vermont marble with rounded ends, a hundred feet long and sixty wide. A fountain threw water high in the center, three stone basins stacked above each other on a central shaft. There were several pieces of statuary around it, done in the smooth French moderne style of the 1920s.

They included a classical-themed Leda and the Swan that grew more disturbingly realistic the longer you looked at it. Unnervingly so, if you were a lucy, with Leda’s splay-legged position and the expression of hopeless horror on her face beneath the great rampant bird that gripped her with wings and beak. That made you think about the truth behind the myth, and the mocking joke behind the statue.

Leila and Leon were playing in the shallow portion, like two lithe brown otters, with a nanny watching from the edge; Monica’s children were there too. The other end had a curving semicircular colonnade, two rows of stone pillars supporting a bronze trellis with wisteria growing woven through it, the purple-white-lavender bunches of blossom hanging overhead and scenting the air with a delicate, elusive scent amid the flickering shade. Adrienne and Dale and Michiko were resting on couches grouped around a low table, close enough for conversation, which was in some sneezing-clicking guttural language. Ellen suspected it was Apache, but couldn’t have been sure even if she’d been able to break the sounds down into separate words.

“I’m glad Josh and Sophie are getting to know the Do?a’s children,” Monica said to Ellen.

The lucies were lying on loungers underneath the pergola, a little aside from their Shadowspawn.

“You are?” Ellen said neutrally.

“Oh, yes. By the time Leon and Leila are old enough to need lucies, Josh and Sophie will be ready for initiation,” Monica said happily.

“Ah… well, that’s one career choice,” Ellen said neutrally.

“Wouldn’t it be marvelous? Well, it all depends on what Leon and Leila want, of course. I’ve got such bright kids, I’m sure they’ll have a lot of alternatives. They won’t have any problems with college!”

Dale’s lucy Kai was wearing nothing but a black bowler hat; the rest of them had bathing suits on, albeit topless for the women. She held up a bottle of lotion-cum-sunblock.

“Anyone want a rubdown with this stuff?” she asked brightly.

“No, thanks,” Monica said.

Ellen and Peter and Jose shook their heads; Wayne Jackson didn’t notice the invitation. He was thinner than she remembered from San Francisco, and occasionally tears dripped from his eyes. The other lucies ignored him courteously.

Or because it’s just too difficult to deal with it, Ellen thought grimly. It could be any of us, if Adrienne decided to destroy someone. Nobody talks about whatever happened to Jamal, either. Or maybe he’s destroying himself with guilt, too. Christ, I feel guilty enough, and I haven’t been helping plan the destruction of the world! “Hell, anyone want to give me a rubdown?” Kai inquired.

“No, thanks,” Monica said again.

Kai subsided and picked up a book of hentai manga; from a glimpse, it mostly involved tentacles and orifices. Ellen smiled a little to herself. Monica went on with a luxurious, but cautious, stretch: “By the way, Ellen, thanks for introducing Adrienne to that delicious silk whip thing.”

“Ah…” Ellen said. “You’re welcome, I guess.”

“I’ve always liked the smacking and spanking and smothering-well, I learned to get into that pretty quick after I came here-but I could never really enjoy being beaten with things before, however hard I tried. That riding crop just plain hurts. Adrienne chased me around with the silk whip last night after the first feeding; she used to use the riding crop for that. Those lovely silk thongs can give you a nice toasty glow, though.”

“Glad you had a good time.”

Monica nodded with a dreamy smile. “We were both laughing while she chased me-well, I was laughing and then squealing when she got a good swat in somewhere tender-and then she’d catch me and really lay into me until I sobbed and yelled for mercy and then she jumped on me and we really got down to stuff. Then more feeding, and… I can’t think of when I’ve had a better time, even with the carpet burns.”

What was it that Robbie Burns said? Ellen thought. “Oh that we had the gifte gi’ us/Tae see ourselves as others see us.” That does sort of sound like fun, apart from the no-limits terror at the back of your mind. Except I think Monica was originally a straight vanilla type and would have screamed with horror at the thought of that sort of playing… even without the really weird blood-drinking Shadowspawn could-kill-you-anytime part.

“Ummm, yeah, that sounds enjoyable,” she said aloud.

“Oh, yes. And afterwards I was lying there thinking I can’t feel my legs anymore and the Do?a said, I can always rely on you, Monica. What do you think of it, Peter?” Monica asked brightly. “Isn’t the sting it gives nice?”

The slight blond man was looking fragile today. “Ah, it’s certainly less uncomfortable than the riding crop,” he said politely, and Jose rolled his eyes.

“Lame, totally lame,” Kai muttered, on a rising note, getting up and tossing down her book of cartoons. “What a bunch of playacting-”

Dale Shadowblade glanced up in irritation and made a gesture. Kai stopped in mid-syllable and froze, her eyes going wide. A low keening sound came from beneath her clenched teeth. Then she toppled slowly backward, head and shoulders into the pool and then the rest of her slowly sliding after. The Shadowspawn laughed. Jose and Peter jumped to their feet, looked at each other, and then leapt into the pool after her. Between them they manhandled the slim, limp form to the stone; she lay facedown with water trickling out of her mouth.