“Naked! ” the younger girl said breathlessly, her eyes glittering.
“-well, yeah,” her older sister said, with affected worldliness. “You wear this white robe, and then you stand up and let it slip off and go up in front of everyone. Which is so totally hideous if you’re overweight and you’ve got a big wobbly butt or something like poor Madison did on my night. I thought she was going to die of embarrassment right there, or cry, or hurl. Or if you’re a guy and little like Bob Tyler. So watch out, Sherry.”
“I am not fat! I’ve got a twenty-five waist!” Sherry said hotly.
“Didn’t say you were. But think about that next time you see a milk shake. At least you can do something about it, which is more than poor Bob could.”
Turning back to Ellen: “And you lie on this stone altar thing-it’s got padding-and you put your arms around the Do?a while she bites your neck and feeds on you while everyone watches. She’s naked too, and God, what a body. Like Monica said, Sherry, it just makes you feel… calm. Not much blood, a sip from each, and then you get your pendant and a black robe and everyone gives you a hug and a kiss on both cheeks and you sing.”
Her mother crooned a verse:
“Spawn of Shadows
The elder daughter nodded. “Then there’s a big party. It’s a bit like a sorority or fraternity pledge.”
Sorority Sisters from… Heeeellll, Ellen thought, keeping an interested smile on her face. Oh, Christ! “Or like a first communion, in other places,” someone else said helpfully. “Or a bar mitzvah.”
An older woman tinkled the ice in her drink; she was a well-preserved sixty-something, neat in her tennis whites and billed cap, with blue-white hair and a fresh pink face and eyes like an ancient snake.
“Tame, tame, tame. Now, in my day, when Don Jules and Do?a Julianne were heads of the family here, if you were pretty you were likely to get deflowered as well as bled, right there on the altar in front of everyone. Don Jules had my brother, Henry, on our initiation night, and then me right after. My mother fainted dead away watching. But Mother wasn’t born here, of course.”
“Oh, wow! ” Sherry said, her face wavering between fascination and dread. “That would be so totally extreme.”
“Yes,” the older woman said softly, swirling her drink again and looking into the distance.
Then, in a normal tone: “That changed my perspective on things, let me tell you. Of course, most girls were virgins at sixteen, in my day. Are you, Sherry?”
The girl’s mother glowered at her as Sherry blushed crimson. Monica put in: “Do?a Adrienne doesn’t do that very often. Though,” she added thoughtfully, “her parents are visiting, so maybe they’ll give you an initiation to remember, Sherry.”
“Well, I’m off,” Ellen said brightly, looking at her watch.
“Would you like to catch a movie later?” Monica said. “I’m taking Josh and Sophie to the new Disney, the Snow White remake. We finally got 3-D here.”
“I’ve, ah, got a heavy date tonight,” Ellen said. “Up at the casa. I’m supposed to meet the Do?a’s parents, and then, ah, you know. I was hoping I could drop by your place to make sure the dress is exactly right. She said look nice.”
And she said don’t plan on anything energetic tomorrow, too. Which means she’s got something… whimsical planned. Oh, Jesus.
“Oh, of course,” Monica said. “Have fun on your drive! See you about seven, then.”
Everyone else waved or called goodbyes. Ellen went out through the stucco and wrought-iron entrance to the civic center, got into her Volt and let her head drop onto the steering wheel while she struggled to keep her breath even. The knowledge that she couldn’t just wake up and be back in a sane world was a cold, thick lump in her stomach. She craved a cigarette and a couple of stiff vodka-and-orange-juice mixes.
I’m craving being bitten, too, she thought. It’s been everyone else but me for the last six days and I need it. My skin’s itching and I’m starting to resent the others. I want it and I’m scared of the other stuff she’s going to do to me and I still want it.
“I’ve got to get out of this place!” she said to herself, resisting the urge to beat her forehead rhythmically on the padded surface of the wheel. “Got to, got to, got to!”
The temptation to just point the car in any direction but west and accelerate was overwhelming. She fought it down and began taking deep breaths: in until the chest creaked, hold for the count of three, slowly exhale, repeat. It had seemed silly when she’d first started it after her therapist talked her into yoga classes years ago, but it did help. When she was sure her hands wouldn’t shake anymore, she turned the key. The quiet hum of the electric motor sounded as she pulled out into the street; a glance at the gauge showed nine-tenths charge, enough to get all the way to Paso Robles and most of the way back before the gasoline engine kicked in.
Warm air poured in as she drove; the outskirts of town passed quickly, with its Rancho Sangre Sagrado elevation 666 pop. 3964 sign. Then a stretch of countryside mostly in vines and orchards and olive groves with the odd horse-ranch, rising towards hills westward where the grass was turning gold between tongues of forest, more open to the east. And then the outskirts of Paso Robles itself, with a scatter of outlet stores and fast food…
It looks so normal I could cry, she thought. I even love the sight of some boarded-up stores.
She parked in a side street near the town center; she was wearing a pants-and-blouse ensemble with a worked-leather belt and a sun hat, casual-chic. The man at the podium-desk of the Craftsman restaurant greeted her with a smile.
“Mr. Ledbetter will be waiting,” she said.
Why did I say that? Who is Ledbetter? What am I doing hereAdrian rose from the table as she entered the starkly elegant room. For a moment time and memory dropped away; then they came crashing back into her mind, like a surf-wave that crumbles a sand-castle on the beach. Tears started from her eyes, but she blinked them away in her eagerness to see.
He was smiling at her, but there was something grave in the expression as well. Only a little taller than her, but with a hard, slender masculinity; after not seeing him for three months she was struck again by his presence, the way he dominated any room he was in. His face was tanned dark, so that the golden flecks in his eyes stood out more vividly, and there were sun-highlights in his raven hair.
He looked more stark than he had in Santa Fe, but with some of the distance gone from his expression, less of the remoteness that had frustrated her. She started towards him and extended her hands; they were trembling slightly.
Adrian caught them in his, and kissed each one gently.
“Ma belle Ellie,” he said softly. “It has been so very long.”
They flowed together.
Harvey cleared his throat
Damn, Adrian thought.
He broke the kiss, pulling himself away from the touch and taste and the lovely tormenting scent that was like a memory of peach and lilac and apple blossom.
“Ellen, my old friend Harvey Ledbetter. Sort of a mentor in my youth, an unofficial elder brother always, brother-in-arms for many years, and my comrade in this business.”
Ellen extended a hand. Adrian found himself surprised at how much he wanted these two to like each other. The Texan smiled as he shook, an expression that transformed his homely lined face.
“Pleased to meet you, Ms. Tarnowski. Glad to see what Adrian thought was worth fighting for. Can’t say as I disagree, offhand.”
She laughed. “I won’t say any friend of Adrian’s a friend of mine,” she said. “But any really good friend of Adrian who risks his life for Adrian and for me is a friend of mine.”
Harvey shrugged. “Adrian and I have saved each other’s butts so often we lost count years ago,” he said.
“Harv, could you give us ten minutes?”
