with the leathers? On me, it’s always like a twelve-year-old trying to butch up.”
“The authenticity is simple. Put them on and then drive a motorcycle for three hundred miles.”
“That’s going a bit far.”
“Ichir??”
“He’s in Japan with the kids, supervising them while they learn to contemplate raked sand and rocks and the other profound Buddha-Shinto-ninja-clan shit. As if human nations and traditions meant anything to us anymore!”
“The Wreaking training and the physical side are useful,” Adrienne said. “But I sympathize. On the other hand, T?kairin Hajime’s father thought he was a human being for most of his life. It’s only natural your grandfather still thinks in those terms.”
“Your Br?z?-clan Old Ones are miracles of flexibility by comparison.”
“We were… in at the beginning. We’ve had more time to adjust.”
Ellen hovered uncertainly for an instant, then sat as waiters brought a tray of drinks and platters of Kumamoto oysters on beds of shaved ice and rock-salt and seaweed, with thin-sliced buttered brown bread on the side.
“Ah, I can always rely on you, Jason,” Michiko said in a friendly tone to the man overseeing them.
To Adrienne: “When I come here, I just put myself in Jason’s hands. I’m like putty and he’s never gone wrong.”
Then to the man once more: “What’s with? Not the Staglin Chardonnay this time?”
“I’m recommending this cocktail instead for the oysters. Skyy 90 vodka infused with Antiguan black peppercorn, Manzanilla dry sherry, shaken, served up with cucumber.”
“Definitely linked to the pleasure principle,” she replied, sipping one. “Jason, if only you were straight, or at least flexible, what a lover you’d be!”
“Not even for you, Ms. T?kairin,” the slim handsome man said with a smile of his own. “Enjoy!”
“Ah…” Ellen said, when the staff had withdrawn. “I’ve never actually eaten a raw oyster before.”
The slanted eyes considered her. At first Ellen thought they were the normal brown so dark it was almost black, but then she could see tiny golden flecks here and there.
“A new lucy?” she asked, glancing at Adrienne. “You always did favor those Marilyn Monroe types on the distaff side.”
Wait a minute, Ellen thought suddenly. I do look a little like Monroe.
She’d studied Warhol’s prints closely at NYU and half a dozen people in the class had pointed it out, some far more often than she liked. The resemblance had been even stronger before she took up running and tennis intensively.
And come to think of it, Monica back at the ranch looks a fair bit like Norma Jean Mortenson before she went blond and got discovered. Is that a thing with the Br?z?s? Oh, that’s a bit of an ick… Well, some guys just have a subconscious preference for a type, I suppose… Adrian may have liked my looks, but he stayed for me. I was the one who broke it off.
“Though I should be charging you corkage!” Michiko continued with assumed umbrage. “You’re perfectly free to hunt in San Francisco while you’re my guest-we put that in the peace agreement-and it’s not as if we didn’t have a wide assortment. Bringing your own fresh bitch to bleed is almost a slur on our hospitality!”
Ellen fought to control the spike of resentment. From the smiles, that was absolutely futile, and Adrienne chuckled.
“Ch?rie, you’re my lucy. That means you are my bitch, in several senses of the word. Here. Take a sip of the cocktail-”
Cool, sweet-pungent, a tiny peppery bite, then white ice-fire down the throat.
“-then put a tiny bit of these marinated scallions on the oyster, a squeeze of lemon, and use the oyster fork to help the whole thing sliiiide in. Then take a bite of the brown bread.”
Ellen let the morsel and shell-full of liquid drop into her mouth. It was good, if a little strange-salty and meaty and fishy at the same time. The earthy texture and half-sweet taste of the brown bread and butter cleared her mouth.
“Like kissing the Pacific Ocean on the lips,” Adrienne said.
To Michiko: “But this is the one I took from dear Adrian. And quite unusual in herself. Less pillowy than Monroe, too, judging from the films.”
“Oooh, she was Adrian’s? Mind if I take a look?”
“Be my guest.”
This time the gaze took her seriously. Ellen decided she preferred dismissal. The eyes locked on hers, and she found she couldn’t look away. The sensation that followed was purely mental, but the exact equivalent of having someone put a fingernail on the base of her spine and run it slowly up to her neck. She shivered involuntarily. Michiko reached out without breaking the eye-lock and took her hand, put her thumb on the web between the little finger and the next and pressed sharply.
“Ouch!” Ellen said; she barely suppressed the impulse to snatch the hand back.
Michiko’s teeth came together with a click. She began to turn the hand to expose the wrist, her mouth opening again as she bent forward, lips curling back in a way that made her suddenly look far less human. Ellen’s breath caught as she shivered, and she looked over at Adrienne with her eyes wide in involuntary appeal.
OK, aren’t I supposed to be your bitch?
The other Shadowspawn chuckled and rapped her friend’s wrist with an oyster fork.
“Ta-ta-ta, Michi, I said look, not taste. You know how I hate people touching my things.”
“Oh,” she said with a start, and released Ellen’s hand. “Sorry. Still, I see what you mean. There are depths there. I wonder how her blood would taste as her heart skipped and quivered and stopped?”
“Absolutely marvelous, I’m sure. That is always a treat. But then she’d be dead, and no fun at all. I have plans for this one.”
Michiko shrugged as she squeezed lemon on an oyster.
“There’s always more, even of the special ones. The planet’s overpopulated, after all. And Adrian will come after you whether she’s alive or dead.”
“Be careful, or you’ll start to sound like Dmitri.”
Michiko made a gesture of theatrical horror, throwing up her hands; one of them held an empty oyster shell.
“Oh, no, not that. I don’t kill what I can’t eat. Well, usually.”
“Dmitri is definitely a gourmand. Still, he’s earned release. And he has the supreme virtue of being useful.”
“Ah,” Michiko said, and ate another oyster. “Well, that’s about the only good news I’ve got for you tonight. Grandfather will extend T?kairin patronage so that he can attend the meeting… and leave Seversk in time to prepare.”
“Seversk, that oozing chancre upon Siberia’s lower intestine,” Adrienne said with a grin. “Still, it’s a good place to reminisce about Srebrenica.”
Ellen kept eating through the Shadowspawn laughter. Four oysters were just enough to remind her that it had been a long day since lunch.
And that I lost half a pint of blood, she reminded herself grimly. This cocktail is going straight to my head. Then: So what?
The longer the time that passed, the less…
Peaceful, she thought. Dreamy, peaceful, pleasant, right-and-proper… the memory of Adrienne’s ecstatic face, turned to the sky, mouth open with Ellen’s blood trickling from the corners.
I can remember thinking at the time that I’d be grossed out later, and I remember now how good it felt then. And I really don’t like the way Michiko keeps glancing at me, as if I were one of these oysters. Eating with people who think of you as food is nerve-racking.
“The bad news is that he’s pretty much decided to support option Trimback One,” the woman in the elaborate hairdo went on.
Adrienne sighed and took the last oyster. She replied… and it was in Japanese, as the head-waiter came in again.
“Champagne-cured Monterey sardines for you, Ms. T?kairin,” he said triumphantly, laying out the appetizer.
