At Ellen’s blank look, she went on: “Ecstasy is the street name. Intense feelings of intimacy, and sharply diminished fear and anxiety. If you could synthesize it the market would be huge.”
“Oh, Christ,” she said, hugging her shoulders. “How often…”
“That’s unpredictable. You’ll no’ be her only source of blood, of course; that would be… unfortunate. For them the blood itself is an addictive drug, particularly if it’s primed by strong emotion. I’ve not been able to experiment on that side of things as much as I’d like.”
“The marks aren’t…” Ellen said, and made a stabbing gesture with two fingers at the inside of her elbow. “It’s more like a little line with a bit of a curve.”
There was a ghoulish fascination to the talk; and it might be useful. Something that tickled at the back of her mind said so. Duggan nodded enthusiastically and went to one of the skeletons. She pushed back the upper part of the skull until there was a bony gape and pointed.
“This is a replica. It’s the maxillary central incisors, d’you see? Advanced so they’re a bit proud and slightly inclined inward. Larger canines would be silly in a human-shaped mouth if you want a clean cut along a vein. These have microserration, so when they’re presented at just the right angle they slice like steak knives; the lips and tongue arrange the flesh so that the feeding bite is verra precise…”
She wrenched herself away from the details and went back to the screen. “Now, there was a sexual assault with at least one of the feeding attacks, correct? From your reaction to the pelvic exam.”
Ellen flushed. “Ah… yes.”
And that utterly weird thing in the restaurant, she thought. It’s absurd to be concerned about something like embarrassment now but I’m still cringing at the thought of that.
“Only some very minor stretching or bruising, so we don’t have to worry about that.”
“We don’t have to sit on it! I do!”
“Sorry for the physician’s ‘royal we.’ Any difficulty in walking or urination?”
“No. Just a bit of a sting when I pee.”
“I assume the penetration was manual?”
She thought about that for a moment. “Umm, yes. That’s what caused the chafing feeling, at least. I don’t remember it all.”
Thank God, she added to herself.
“Normal with a traumatic memory.”
She handed over a small container with a tube and applicator inside.
“Here’s a topical cream. You’re fortunate the attack had that pattern.”
“I am?” she said, trying to control the rising tone of her voice.
“Yes,” she said dryly. “The likelihood of a fatal feeding attack is much lower that way. There’s a mutual exchange of blood when they mate among themselves; in small quantities, but always, as far as I know. I’m no’ sure if it’s cultural or instinctual.”
“Oh.”
“Try to cooperate as much as you can the next time it happens; that’ll reduce the chance of lesions.”
“Just lie back, I suppose,” she said dully.
“No. The other thing that makes a fatal attack more likely is passivity or depression on the part of the victim. For lucies, as the slang here has it-”
“Where does that come from?”
“Ah, you’ve no’ read Stoker? You should-if only for a laugh. And the film, the one with Anthony Hopkins chewing the carpet, is even funnier.”
“I… don’t like horror films. They upset me.”
“Well, you’re in one now. Lucies. Some of them moved on to other positions here. Some have just… stayed. And some have died in what I think is probably inconceivable agony.”
“Slowly and cruelly and beautifully,” she quoted with a shudder.
“Aye. And that’s no’ even the worst thing that can happen. So… well, a doctor can speak frankly. Make the experience of feeding on you as satisfying for our Do?a Demonio as possible, because your life does depend on it.”
“Thanks for the advice,” Ellen said; she could hear the mixture of sincerity and sarcasm in her own voice.
That was probably unwise, but she couldn’t be strategizing all the time.
Or I’ll go stark raving mad. This is the sort of advice a horse doctor would give to other horses; don’t fight the saddle and signals or it’s the bit and spurs and whip for you, and the knacker’s yard if you won’t perform at all. I think a lot of these renfields must be crazy. And I bet that they do have a suicide problem.
The physician smiled. “I’m not easily offended. A doctor can’t afford to be. I’ll help you as much as I can, Ms. Tarnowski, but that isn’t much. I made my choice long ago, and I have a family to think of, as well.”
A screen-pen pointed at the skeleton. “That’s the world’s dominant subspecies. Not us. Even just in the body they’ve advantages, and there’s no fighting the Power at all, whatever the terrorists say.”
“Terrorists?”
“A few madmen.” She scowled. “Killers who’ll murder wholesale, men and women and children. The nocturnus at least have their instincts to blame.”
That’s interesting. The Resistance? And they think you’re a collaborator, Doctor? How could you fight the Power? With excitement: Could Adrian be in it?
Duggan shook her head. “If you have severe nightmares or problems sleeping, see me, and I may be able to get permission for a mild sedative. We’ve some good ones.”
The receptionist stuck her head in. “Your next appointment, Doctor. Ms. Mandelbaum and her daughter; the earache.”
“Right, that’s you, then, Ms. Tarnowski. Here’s your exercise schedule and a prescription for a dietary supplement. Lots of fluids, mind!”
Ellen looked down at her new BlackBerry. Lunch, 12:30. You’re not on the menu. This time! and a happy-face symbol with a little blood drooling out of one corner of the semicircle mouth.
“Oh, that’s just side-splitting,” she muttered to herself. Then: “Get a grip on your thoughts.”
Which was about like telling yourself not to think of an elephant. The main house was up the hill again, through California-gorgeous gardens only a little subdued for winter, with everything from palm trees to rose pergolas and velvety green lawns and ha-has, brick retaining walls and espaliered lemon trees. It was built in classic Spanish Revival like the town, if in a grander fashion; from the looks at the height of the style’s popularity in the earlier part of the twentieth century, like something out of Santa Barbara’s Montecito district. There were Andalusian towers and red Roman-tile roofs and earth-toned stucco on walls covered in sheets of purple-and-crimson bougainvillea, with colored tile Moorish-style insets over the arched entranceways, and plenty of wrought iron. Inside…
The architecture’s first-class if a bit retro, but my, there’s some interesting stuff here! If you can get over the number that should be somewhere else. At least they’re being taken care of.
An eclectic selection: old masters, impressionists and post-impressionists, some late-nineteenth-century academics like Leighton, of the type that had become so popular again, Hoppers and Wyeths. One sculpture she longed to examine, just on the suspicion that it actually was Rodin’s Andromeda. All with no particular organization, as if someone or several successive someones who could fulfill every whim had simply put up anything that took their fancy wherever they chose, like an omnipotent version of William Randolph Hearst.
Which is pretty much what happened, I suspect. Except that everything is good of its kind, if muddled.
The map function guided her efficiently, and she ended up in a large airy room set up as a lounge-study-office, with bookshelves and big mahogany tables and a comprehensive electronics suite; one wall was glass doors between Romanesque arches, open to the mild afternoon warmth and to the sight of a big bowl-shaped fountain plashing in the court outside. Adrienne was sittingWith a little girl on her lap. Oh, ick, please God not… No, wait a minute, that child’s the spitting image of her. Has to be a close relative. Couldn’t be hers, could she? And the boy’s as close as a fraternal twin can get. As close as Adrian and Adrienne.
A Great Dane sat beside the boy; the child had his arm around the beast’s shoulders, and it was nearly as tall as he. It sat looking up at the Shadowspawn woman adoringly and beating its tail on the floor; then it stood, swiveled its barrel head up and came over towards Ellen with tongue hanging and claws clicking on the diamond- pattern buff tiles of the floor. Ellen slowed step by step, then froze.
