S Stirling - A Taint in the Blood

“Do?a?” Ellen asked.

Adrienne looked over, smiled, and raised a brow at the man. He shrugged and glanced; Kai’s body bucked and heaved, and she gave a whoop and coughed up more of the water. The two lucies helped her to her deck chair, and she lay quietly for a few minutes. Then she blinked, scrubbed her face, and reached for the manga. It dropped through her fingers and Ellen instinctively picked it up and handed it to her.

“Thanks,” she said in a small, hoarse voice.

Adrienne raised her voice slightly. “It’s really time to start getting ready for the birthday party,” she said. “We wouldn’t want anything to go wrong!”

A bronze bell rang through the night. The crowd walked towards the Japanese garden in chattering clumps, beneath the colorful paper lanterns. Tonight everyone was in Japanese costume; Adrian felt at ease in the hakama outfit, and it was certainly comfortable and-much more important-suited for quick action.

Plus night-walking like this I can go impalpable at any time. Convenient, if you don’t mind being naked while people are trying to kill you.

These last nights and days were the longest consecutive period he’d ever been out-of-body. He was finding it subtly disturbing.

Or possibly seductive is a better word.

There was a wild freedom to it that made him understand why Mhabrogast treated existence as a dream that could be shaped by wishing it so.

In the days of the first Empire of Shadows the speakers of the lingua demonica must have been mostly postcorporeals. For them, existence was a long fantasy of blood and lust and power.

He licked the last of Cheba’s blood off his lips with a slight grimace. She hadn’t fought him this time, either. He was very glad that he’d be away or dead tonight.

“I feel as if I were in a performance of The Mikado, Wilbur,” his father murmured, gesturing with his fan.

“Such a stuffy death,” Adrian replied with a smile.

“I’d better circulate. My company is still slightly radioactive with Hajime’s people and seeing us much together would do you no good.”

They walked through the gateway; it was a little eerie to see the same place he’d come as the smilodon thronged with a laughing, chatting crowd in kimonos. The darker, restrained colors of male garb mixed with the golds and scarlets and indigos of the women. Hajime’s was an exception to the men’s soberness, a deep red with gold accents.

Even more colorful were the decorated fukusa cloths that covered the gifts on a long table; one caught his eye, embroidered on silk satin, lined with soft crepe silk. Forests of pine tossed beneath clouds; water fell down a mountainside to a river as if it were falling from the sky and was rippled to shore. A Chinese man played the koto among a meadow of camellias, beneath a blossoming plum tree and flying cranes.

“Lin Bu,” Ellen murmured to him, seemingly casual. “A Soong-era nature poet; he used to call the plum-blossoms his wife and the cranes his children. The pines and camellias are supposed to signify longevity. That’s Edo-period work.”

Adrian/Wilbur nodded. His hand brushed hers, and he felt her take what he held.

Now we’re totally committed, he thought. She can’t escape detection for long now. And there’s only one reason for a normal human to have that tucked into their clothing, and no way she could have gotten it except from someone like me. Plus my supposed renfields have quietly decamped… You’re back in the war, Adrian, and playing for higher stakes than mere life and death this time.

A gong rang, and the guests grouped themselves along the long low-slung tables, with cushions to sit cross-legged on. Servants appeared, bringing sake-in square wooden boxes, the ultra-traditional form that had started out as rice-measures, each of six fluid ounces. They rested in little dishes and were filled to overflowing, for abundance and hospitality.

Adrian was on the other side of the table from Hajime, and three places down; Adrienne was on his other side, in the place of honor. That would be awkward, but he was close enough, and as a bonus he could hear the conversation.

“Ah, Yonetsuru Daiginjo sake,” Hajime said. “I grew up drinking this! Though now I’m older than even the average in Yamagata. Oshoushina! ” he added, in the dialect word for thanks.

“Sasukune!” Adrienne replied in the same local variant of Japanese, topping him neatly with you’re welcome.

“Kampai!”

He laughed and lifted the box carefully to drink from one corner, smacking his lips.

“Flowery and fruity and just a bit rough,” he said with satisfaction. “Enough to stand up to this masu, though I’m glad you haven’t gone too far and used cedarwood ones. Bottoms up!”

“I liked the look of this dark oxblood red lacquer,” she said, when they’d each drained theirs. “Do have a little more.”

She poured for him and his wife and returned to her own.

“Ah, longevity,” Hajime said, studying the ideogram in the bottom of the masu. “Very pretty calligraphy, too.”

Adrian sipped; it was good, if you liked warm rice wine, which he did. The problem would be to drink enough to lull suspicion but not enough to fuddle himself. This sort of party would make restraint rather conspicuous.

At least the others aren’t even trying to hold back, he thought; Adrienne was emptying hers as well-more or less obligatory, for good manners’ sake.

Eat, Adrian, eat. Relax your stomach muscles… deep breath… the aetheric body needs oxygen too.

Shiizakana came next, the appetizers that went with the sake. Asazukiri Tofu, presented on a bamboo plate with a slice of Yuzu fruit, and on the side citrus-infused salt, plum-infused salt, and soy.

“Ah!” his immediate neighbor said, a T?kairin retainer. “Really fresh, not that glue paste you get in the stores.”

It was good, the bland-sweet-bitter tastes flowing through his mouth… and it would help sop up the alcohol. A pity that there was no rice, but that would come towards the end of the meal, if they followed the ancient pattern. The second dish to arrive was Gindara no Saikyo Yaki, grilled black cod marinated in Saikyo Miso sauce. The black cod was moist, but not turned into fish jelly; the Saikyo Miso taste was delicate, just short of being too salty.

If I’m going to die, at least it won’t be with overcooked cod in my stomach, he thought.

Though, as he was night-walking, the contents would just fall to the ground if he disintegrated in Final Death. That made him grin; at least he could count on making a disgusting mess at his sister’s party, even if he failed.

He looked over to Ellen; she was at the lucies’ table, behind the principals but not too far, talking easily to the others-the striking dark-haired woman, the slight blond man and a Latino who looked like he’d stepped from a motorcycle ad but who wore the hakama with surprising ease. One of them made a joke, waving something in his chopsticks.

The sight line isn’t good enough while everyone’s seated, Adrian decided grimly. And Hajime’s between Harvey and Adrienne.

The head table wasn’t sheltered by the roof of the shrine-Harvey’s shooting position above the cave would clear it. But not by enough; he hadn’t allowed for the fact that the seating was so low, cushions on tatami-mats on the ground instead of chairs.

The surge of murderous rage that twisted at his pseudo-gut was so intense that a few of the other Shadowspawn immediately looked his way. He smiled at them and lifted the wooden masu again.

“Kampai!”

Wakatake Onikoroshi this time, a bit sweeter; and after all, gusts of murderous passion weren’t all that uncommon among his breed. A deft servant refilled it, and he cursed her mentally with a smile still on his lips.