clarity. Ellen had never been much interested in hardware, but you couldn’t be in the arts these days-particularly the selling side-without knowing something about what the systems could do. That meant real capacity, particularly since there was no CGI-style surface gloss to the improvement.
“Uh… hi, Giselle. I’m here at Adrian’s sister’s place, I thought you might be worrying-”
“Ellen!” Giselle’s sharp hook-nosed, middle-aged face lit up. “You’re OK! Thank God!”
Her voice had a slight East Coast big-city edge, overlain with Wellesley. She went on breathlessly: “Your apartment burned down, there was talk about arson and a mysterious man with a gun chased the Lopezes out-”
Ellen let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.
“-nobody knew where you were, nobody’s at Adrian’s but his housekeeper. What’s going on?”
“Uh… I’m OK, Gis. Really. No harm done.”
Apart from the blood-drinking and the torture and rape and the speculation about how pleasurable it would be to kill me in an artistic fashion and feel my life flicker out. I must be a lot more in control of myself than I thought I was. I’m not screaming or babbling.
“Where are you? Do you need a place to stay? Ummm, if you’re actually OK, you realize this is a working day? We’ve got the Cliffords-”
“Ms. Demarcio,” Adrienne cut in, her voice like a purr felt through velvet.
Giselle stared at her with what Ellen recognized as nervous courage, like a bird ruffling its feathers and rearing back at a cat. Owning a quirky, successful gallery in art-happy Santa Fe didn’t make you rich and powerful. It did mean you met the genuine article often enough to recognize them.
“Yes, Ms. Br?z??”
“Ellen is a bit upset, what with the fire, and some personal things.
So she’s decided to come out here to my place and, ah, help catalogue my family’s collection. She needs a change of scene and pace for a while.”
A sharp glance at the two of them; she saw her boss’ eyes narrow. Giselle had always been good at reading body language. Ellen made herself relax from her stiff brace, sway a little towards Adrienne. She smiled and nodded as the Shadowspawn put a hand on her shoulder, winding a lock of pale-yellow hair around one finger.
“That’s right, Gis. You know things were a bit, ah, rocky for me the past couple of weeks anyway.”
The bright black eyes darted back and forth again.
“Ellen, you need to settle the insurance, the police want to talk to you, you lost all your stuff. You should get your ass back to Santa Fe from wherever-it-is. All I could find out was that you got on some plane at the airport and went away!”
“No, no, that’s all being handled. Really, I’m sorry as all hell to leave you in the lurch like this. You’ve been really good to me. But I need to get away. To… clear things up. And the collection here… unbelievable! I’m happy.”
A snort. “Ellen Tarnowski, I told you that Adrian was creepy. Told you that these old-money Euro types are bad news for ordinary people who’re just jumping on a trampoline while they’re flying. Intersecting trajectories aren’t a meeting of true minds. I told you months ago that he was treating you like a mushroom and dumping him would be a good idea. Switching to fucking your brains out with his twin sister is not! And no, I’m not going to deny the evidence of my own eyes at the restaurant. If that wasn’t real, you should be in Hollywood, girl, not Santa Fe!”
Ellen gave a panic-stricken glance aside. Adrienne was smiling again.
“Ms. Demarcio, your concern for Ellen is touching. But there are family dynamics at play here you don’t understand. Nor is it really any of your business with whom she is, as you so elegantly put it, fucking her brains out.”
“Pardon my French.”
“Ce n’est rien,” Adrienne said. “You found my brother Adrian, how is it, creepy?”
Giselle nodded. “I don’t care who knows it, either.”
“No, you’re right. Adrian is creepy, from your point of view. He is also, as you put it, old money. So am I. That apparently does not bother Ellen, eh? And my forbearance for well-intentioned interference in my private life is not infinite.”
“No, Gis, I’m, umm, really having a great time,” Ellen said brightly. “Out of this world.”
“Here’s the number on her new BlackBerry,” Adrienne said helpfully, and tapped on her control bar. “Do feel free to call, but not too often.”
Baffled, the older woman looked at Ellen. “OK, you’re a big grown-up type person, Ellen. Just remember that you’ve got somewhere to go. I’ll hold your job for you-indefinite unpaid leave, OK?”
Ellen felt tears prickle at her eyes. “I… I really… Thanks, Gis. You’re a good one.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“I’m still worried,” Adrian said. “Hey, ol’ buddy, it’s the mook this is aimed at who’s got something to worry about,” Harvey said.
He spread the parts on the heavy plastic groundsheet he’d laid over the bed with methodical neatness. The west-facing window still had a line of eye-hurting brightness at its top, and the room was flooded with the last light of day. When he was finished he rubbed his hands with satisfaction.
“Once Sheila says yes, she ain’t coy. This is the latest and best. Beautiful!”
Adrian nodded, more as a placeholder than agreement. Harvey had a lifelong fascination with firearms; one of the things he most resented about the Power was the way it could make failures happen in complex machinery. Adrian found guns satisfying tools if they worked and could use them well-Harvey had taught him with endless patience- but they didn’t give him a hobbyist’s pleasure, the way really good cars did, or gliders, or kitchen gear. If he had to fight with anything but the Power or his hands and feet, a knife was more…
Aesthetic. Satisfying, he thought. Then: Name of a black dog, am I going conservative in my fifties?
The room was smaller than in a modern hotel in this price range, but not uncomfortable; the ceilings were very high, of antique pressed steel, and the wallpaper was hand-printed, a bamboo-spray pattern. The natural linen and floral smell was an intriguing contrast to the fruity gun-oil and sharp metallic steel and tooth-hurting silver of the weapon Harvey was checking, although it took a little effort to prevent his nerves from jangling.
Harvey went on: “See, the problem with my good friend the Monster Truck gun, incidentally that’s a fine label-”
Harvey nodded to the cut-down shotgun monstrosity, lying alone on one corner of the groundsheet as if sulking and jealous of the new lover.
“-is that it’s very effective for a close-range takedown of a Shadowspawn, in body or out, but it sorta makes surprise difficult. And it’s real difficult to hit a Shadowspawn who’s decided to go elsewhere and fight another day. And when they come out of the wall right behind you-bad news. Y’know, that design feature is just so fucking unfair it makes you want to cry.”
“Life, my old, is unfair.”
“Plus some contract soldati cuts loose with a thirty-round mag of 5.56 from a hundred yards and I am well and truly fucked up. And I mere human ape scum that I am, don’t get to rise again. Have I mentioned life is unfair?”
His big scarred hands moved on the pieces of the rifle, with a swift hard authority. There were snick-click-chunk sounds as things fitted together.
“Now this has a whole bunch of selling points. For one thing, it’s just as good at killing ordinary people as the original, which is a Brit sniper rifle, the L96A1 in.338 Lapua magnum. Only this has a carbon-fiber stock with an ultrapure silver-thread mix. A little silver in the steel of the barrel and action, and surface glyphs and Mhabrogast protectives in International Phonetic Alphabet. Preactivated protectives, of course.”
“God!” Adrian blurted, shocked out of polite interest into alarm. “I hope they were careful!”
“Ultra, ol’ buddy. Not to mention it cost a lot of the conscience money you’ve been wafting the Brotherhood’s way. Jacketed lead-silver alloy bullets-high AG-with active waste filler, pre-fraged so they disperse as long as the target’s tangible at all. I had two good shooters backing me up with these when we fixed Gheorghe’s wagon.
