runs with. This is good news?”
“Hell, yes, Harv. Because of what they all discussed. Ellen could not get all the details; much of the conversation was in languages she did not know. But Adrienne is using the credit she got with Hajime to get him to have his… not precisely a birthday party. A celebration called Prayer for Long Life.”
Harvey snorted and finished pulling on his leather jacket. “Interestin’, on account of he’s been dead since I was about ten, and I’m no spring prairie chicken.”
“They’ve adapted it to take Second Birth into account. And Adrienne is trying to convince him to have it at her estate.”
Harvey’s blue eyes went blank with calculation. “Oh-ho. Slip you in amid the inevitable screw-ups? Me as backup? Get Ellen out?”
“And kill Adrienne.” Adrian nodded grimly. “No point without that. We may have to run. Hajime could come after us in New Mexico easily enough. But it is an opportunity.”
“I can see that would make a man happy. Maybe too happy. I’ll plug into the Shadowspawn rumor mill. Too easy to get details, and it’s a trap. Hard, but they’re there, probably genuine.”
Adrian’s grin grew wider. “And Ellen wants to come back to me,” he said. “Now that we can be… honest with each other. I never really thought that would be possible.”
Harvey whistled softly between his teeth. “I was hopin’ things would turn out OK for you two. But I wasn’t holding my breath, exactly.”
“Neither was I. But Ellen was… quite convincing.”
“Got mentally laid, did you? That does tend to cheer a man up.”
Adrian made a rude gesture, as much as he could with one knee clasped to his chest.
“I have never been loved… loved for myself-you understand? At most, only for the mask I wore, and that for a little while. This is… marvelous.”
The older man hesitated. “You realize, you’re her lifeline right now? I’m not saying she’s not honest, but…”
“… but her feelings might change once she is no longer in Adrienne’s power. Yes, that is possible, but I don’t think it’s likely. And that, my friend, makes me feel very good indeed. Even more anxious for Ellen, but… good.”
He finished the exercises and walked over to his bed. His nose wrinkled slightly; the sheets hadn’t been used before they arrived, but they’d been musty. Now they smelled stale with his pain-sweat and faint traces from the bandaged wounds. He still sat. This whole place smelled bad.
“And I was thinking also of larger matters.”
“Uh-oh. Sex and philosophy. That’s a dangerous duo.”
“Salop. No, I meant what you said to Sheila the other day. The Power is here to stay. And while it’s good that Ellie trusts me, humans cannot live on our individual forbearance. We must learn how to… to untangle that kludge evolution handed us. The blood and pain and death, they are accidents. With the Power itself, and enough knowledge, we could make it the common inheritance of humanity.”
“Well, yeah. Except that almost all the people with a lot of the Power are your unesteemed sister’s sort. Can you see her working as a receptionist?”
“We could be… doctors. Therapists. Even police.”
“Christ, Adrian, you gonna start singin’ kumbaya next?”
“Harvey, we have switched roles in a week.” Adrian laughed. “But seriously, a lot of it is the way we are raised. You raised me from my early teens, and I didn’t turn out so very bad, eh?”
“Yeah. Now I’m playing pessimist. OK, first order of business, let’s sort out the files on the Br?z? properties and figure which one is going to be the site of this monster jamboree. Ellen said it was an all-day trip on a motorcycle?”
Adrian nodded. “Denn die Todten reiten schnell.”
“She’s not dead, but she does drive damn quick,” Harvey said, completing the bilingual pun. “Speed demons, both of you. Still, it was all on two-lanes… OK, here’s the possibilities…”
This stuff does make riding a motorcycle more comfortable, Ellen thought.
She was in a suit of tight leathers, canary-yellow with red trim, as they rumbled through the streets of Rancho Sangre at sunset. The wheels of the machine ground fallen cherry-blossoms under their treads. Cooking smells drifted from homes and restaurants; it was dinnertime, in the early-February gloaming.
I’m also less scared, she thought. For one thing, Adrienne didn’t drive like a complete maniac on the way back. And she hasn’t fed on me today.
“You didn’t need to be terrified and I wasn’t frustrated and angry at the world,” Adrienne said. “And while your blood is unfailingly delicious, I snacked elsewhere in San Francisco. Pretty drive on the inland roads too, isn’t it?”
“Yes, and I had more time to pay attention.”
“It comes to me that you are feeling less totally isolated and hopeless and psychologically crushed than I would have expected at this stage in our relationship,” the Shadowspawn said thoughtfully. “But I can’t quite tell why. It’s a pity. I am so looking forward to your abandoned misery and the transference and identification with the aggressor and so forth.”
“I… ah, sorry… Look, I could try to feel more crushed…”
“Oh, that’s very sweet of you, but there’s no problem. The full pleasures of your abject emotional degradation can wait. We’re not in a hurry. Anticipation has its own spice, and I’m a little busy right now anyway.”
Eurrrrk!
The motorcycle swerved inward in front of the police station, a blank wall of stucco with a gate of wrought iron; a round machicolated tower showed at one corner. Less than a minute after she kicked down the stand and took off her helmet to shake her hair free the police chief was standing at not-quite-attention on the sidewalk. He was a man in early middle age; Hispanic, Ellen thought, lean and grizzled. Beside him was the Englishman she had met before leading the patrol of Asian soldiers-Gurkhas, they were called. He gave her a small polite inclination of the head before standing at parade rest.
“There’s a problem, Captain Bates?” Adrienne asked.
“It’s Jamal, I’m afraid, ma’am,” the ex-soldier said. “Shortly after you left, he… went missing. He took hiking clothes and food and headed up into the high country. Southwest, I think.”
“Tsk,” Adrienne said. “That won’t do at all.”
Her head swiveled, the tousled black hair swirling about her shoulders; a frown of concentration grew between her brows.
Once they have tasted of your blood you are linked, linked forever, Ellen thought to herself.
“Yes,” Adrienne said, opening her eyes again. The gold flecks seemed to glitter. “Southwest. Not far, either. Working his way south through the hills on foot.”
“Suicide by cop, pretty much,” Mendoza said. “I told you we didn’t have to worry, Bates. I grew up here.”
The Englishman smiled, a thin, eager expression. “My men could use the practice tracking.”
Adrienne chuckled. “Oh, Captain Bates, this is Rancho Sangre of twenty-first-century California, not Tara in antebellum Georgia. We don’t chase people with bloodhounds and drag them back in chains. Besides, it wouldn’t be safe. Safe for your men.”
Looking over her shoulder, Ellen could see the corner of her grin. She turned her face, but not before she saw both men blanch a little.
“Safe, ma’am?” Bates asked carefully.
“There are large, predatory beasts in that area at night. Or there will be. Mankillers. Very dangerous.”
Despite herself, Ellen shivered and laid her head between the other’s shoulders.
Adrienne sighed and made a gesture with one hand, palm up and fingers cupping. “It’s a pity. Jamal… Jamal was so deliciously meaty. Like jerk pork. It was nice to have that on hand.”
I’m more like dessert, Ellen thought. Oh, Jesus. The poor man.
“You wouldn’t say poor man if you knew more about Jamal, ch?rie,” Adrienne cast over her shoulder.
The police chief cleared his throat. “The… preparations for your parents’ arrival are at the casa grande, Do?a. From San Simeon, this time. There will be no repercussions requiring your attention.”
