Now he looked out to sea. “I did. For twenty-five years-”
“Thanks for telling me your real age!”
“I couldn’t-”
“I’m teasing, dummy!”
“Oh. Thank you for that. I… retired a few years ago.”
“Why?”
“Because it was futile. I was the strongest Wreaker the Brotherhood ever had, but there was only one of me. The others were far weaker; and the Council has all the resources of the earth at its call, the governments and the police and the armies and the security forces. All I could do was kill-some who deserved it, many who did not. It didn’t change anything.”
“Wait a minute,” she said. “To use this Power for big stuff, don’t you need-”
“Blood. From the Red Cross, and handsomely paid for.”
“Oh,” she said with relief.
He grimaced. “God, it tastes terrible. And the things it does to my digestion, and the headaches… I can’t even completely cure those with the Power, because that would require more of it. That was another reason to retire. On my mountain, or here, I could… grapple with the cravings, the drives. Learn a degree of peace.”
“Your sister… seems to enjoy the taste.”
“She’s drinking live hot blood, and primed with strong emotions. It’s… a powerful drug. Dead blood is an entirely different story.”
She squeezed his hand again. “I hope you can get me out soon,” she said. “Jesus, it’s… creepy here. The people all act as if it were normal. Even the ones she hurts.”
“To them it is,” Adrian said. “People adapt. If they could not, humanity would not have survived the first rule of the Shadowspawn. But, Ellie…”
“Yes?”
“This isn’t just a personal thing between me and Adrienne, as I thought at first.”
“It’s certainly partly a personal thing! There’s all sorts of overtones in her voice when she mentions you. And she thinks about you a lot. Even her children look like you!”
Adrian froze, so suddenly that his hand tugged her to a halt; he was a slender man, not large and so graceful you forgot the solid density of him.
“She has children?” he said neutrally.
“Twins, a boy and a girl, around six or seven. Oh, God, talk about creepy! You didn’t know?”
“No, I did not,” he said in a voice empty of all emotion, so much so that it was as notable as a shriek. “I had no idea.”
Then he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. But there is some great matter at stake here as well, somehow tied up with me and Adrienne. The Council of Shadows is moving, contemplating… enormous actions. There are factions and factions within factions; that is natural to Shadowspawn, even more than to humans. Please, listen to all that you can. Adrienne likes to talk, when she thinks it safe.”
Ellen nodded. “Does she ever!”
He stopped and took both her hands in his. “And… I hate to say this, Ellie, but until you’re rescued, that advice from the renfield doctor is good. Stay alive! Whatever it takes.”
“I’ll do my best. And you get better and get to work, hombre!”
She leaned forward and kissed him gently. Adrian’s arms went around her, and she stiffened. He let them drop and step back.
“Sorry-” she began.
A shake of the head. “It’s natural. You’re sensing… what I am. Sleep well, Ellie, and hope.”
He reached out and touched thumb to one side of her forehead and little finger to the other.
“Sleep well, and don’t think of this unless you must.”
A word, and sleep returned. She woke for a moment, grasping at the fleeting stuff of dream, turned over and hugged Mr. Wabbit against her and drifted down into the velvety blackness once more.
“Woof!” Peter said. “You do run a lot, right?”
“Told you,” Ellen said smugly.
“God, you long-legged people-it isn’t fair!”
They came down the bike path at a loping trot, then slowed to a walk.
“So it does solve one problem,” Peter said; she’d grown used to the way he skipped mentally among topics.
“What, another one?”
She liked Peter, but his mania for explaining and systematizing could probably wear, after a while.
He nodded vigorously and drank the last of the water in his bottle. “All those old legends, and the books and movies… none of them could explain why, if there were creatures with such power around, they didn’t rule the world.”
“The answer being, as soon as they’re around, they do rule the world. They just don’t like publicity.”
“Exactly. It’s horrifying, but it’s… intellectually satisfying as well. And the dislike of publicity is probably a holdover from the secret societies they started out with-the occultists and ninjas and whatnot.”
“Boy, your hobby rides you hard, doesn’t it? And there’s one good thing about it all.”
“What? That’s a first.”
“We don’t have to blame ourselves for the way the world’s screwed up. It’s them, goofing on us.”
Ellen mopped at her face with the towel hung around her neck as he laughed, breathing deeply but not panting; after a solid day’s rest and two good nights’ sleep her body was starting to feel right again.
The world feels wrong, but my body is back in tune.
The third run had been best of all so far, and the weather was cooperating-it had rained in the night, but the morning was cool sixties, with scattered clouds over the hills to the west. Sweat mixed with the smells of crushed grass and wet dust.
“See you later,” Peter said, as they came out onto Lucy Lane. “I’ve got some remote time on the Stanford machine. I’m working on-”
“-something I wouldn’t understand if you told me twice. Tear ’em up, tiger,” she said. “Let us know when you’ve solved the mysteries of the universe.”
Or invented a zap gun to kill Shadowspawn. Only they’d read your mind and know about it beforehand. God, that’s depressing!
They walked past Number One, and Monica waved to them from the doorway. Peter went by with a nod and a wave back, but Ellen stopped. Evidently the Sangre schools had a uniform policy-white shirt and blue shorts for boys, shirt and pleated navy skirt for girls-and Monica was seeing her two off. They hurried by with a polite murmur of “Hi, Ms. Tarnowski.”
Which makes me feel ancient beyond words, she thought, as she returned the greeting.
And… I wonder what they know? What do they think about the times Mom has… company and they have to stay with Grandma? The boy’s eleven and the girl’s nine; you do think about things at that age. What does Monica’s mother think, that it’s some sort of deeply weird kept-woman arrangement? Could you live here eight years without a clue about what’s really going on?
Monica looked after them fondly as they ran swinging their book satchels and lunch boxes and folded Netbooks, the morning sun bright on their light brown hair.
“How are you?” Ellen asked.
“Oh, I’m fine,” she said. “Thanks, though.”
“I, ummm-”
Monica laughed. “Oh, you heard me screaming the other night, did you?”
“Sorry. I was walking by that evening. And you were, uh, sort of laid up yesterday. I wondered what happened, especially…”
“Since it’ll be happening to you too.” A smile and a shrug. “Nothing too bad. I mean, the screams were real, but when… I just let it rip, let the hurt flow right up the throat, you know? It helps and she likes it.”
“What happened, exactly?”
