There are glyphs worked into it-ideographic Mhabrogast.”
That made her feel as if the skin there was still burning. Then his face cleared.
“Not active glyphs… not a Wreaking. Just commentary.”
“What does it say?”
“Hard to translate… Mhabrogast concepts usually are. Something like… appropriate to purpose, or confluence of aspects with overtones of enjoyment-fulfillment…”
“For a good time, call Ellen?” she said dryly.
“More like, She’s a beauty. On that, if nothing else, she and I agree. And besides being beautiful, you are the most remarkably brave person I know, as well. I do not deserve you, but I shall enjoy my good fortune nonetheless.”
“So will I!”
He leaned closer and whispered in her ear: “You are also supremely bite-able, and at last I am able to say that and not feel sorry for myself, or guilty. I was feeding on Cheba and thinking of you, my Ellie. Jealousy adds to my long-standing hatred for my sister.”
There was something like a lick of hot wind in his voice, something that made her shiver slightly. Familiar yet not.
That’s the first time a Shadowspawn’s looked at me like that and it didn’t scare me. Well, not really scare me. It’s sort of predatory, yes, but I can see it’s Adrian in there. And… yeah, I really do love him, I guess. It won’t be easy, but I want to try.
“You’ve got a better butt than she does,” Ellen said, just for the pleasure of seeing his smile. “And you’re here.”
The tune came to an end, and they turned and applauded the musicians. Then she heard more applause from the formal staircase. Ellen swallowed and made herself turn, smiling, as the glyph sprang into her mind.
Christ, that’s strange, she thought. It’s as if my thoughts were operating on two sides of a plane of glass! “Be ready,” Adrian murmured.
She could feel her emotions running on parallel tracks, the fear-hate-fascination-loathing-longing that Adrienne produced, and the bubbling joy at restored hope as well. The mistress of Rancho Sangre was there, gowned and jeweled now, with her parents, and the three Shadowspawn who’d flown in right after Adrian.
Dmitri Usov was in immaculate white tie and black dress coat; with his long blond hair it made him look a little like a mad, murderous conductor in a Romantic opera about an old-fashioned orchestra. Dale Shadowspawn… she blinked. He was in Apache costume, or a version thereof, complete with tunic and headband and leggings. Not touristified, though the fabrics were fine dark cloth, and there was platinum on the hilt of his long knife.
And Michiko, in the full ceremonial splendor of a H?mongi kimono, with patterns of floral roundels and birds swirling along the seams of the pale-green silk, encircled by an embroidered fukuro obi and topped by an elaborate hairdo held with long jade pins. Even her step in the sandals and white divided-toe socks had a mincing look.
Oh, she thought. They’re expecting this Hajime guy. He’s really old-fashioned.
“Ah, Mr. Peterson,” Adrienne said. “I see you’ve made my Ellen’s acquaintance.”
“A great pleasure,” Adrian said neutrally. “You are to be envied. In fact, I do envy you.”
“I envy you, a little-it wouldn’t be really appropriate for me to dance with her tonight; we’re being very formal.”
“Wilbur!” Jules Br?z? said from behind her, delight in his voice. “Good God, it is you!”
Adrian extended his hand for an old-fashioned shake, rather than the touch of the fingertips that most younger Shadowspawn used. His shields clamped down like a surface of mirrored alloy, until his own perception dimmed.
“Good God, Wilbur, it’s been… nearly sixty years!” his father said.
“Yes,” Adrian said neutrally; he ruthlessly crushed a squib of panic. “A very long time, Jules.”
And there were several unanswered letters from you to Wilbur, he thought. Men change, even postcorporeals. Jules believes you are Wilbur, Adrian. He will interpret anything you say in that light.
“Let’s get a drink. Adrienne is stuck with the greeting tonight, until the grand entrance of our would-be mikado.”
The ground floor of the casa grande was a series of interconnected chambers, mostly opening into each other through arched entranceways in a Moorish-Iberian style. They ducked through into a smaller room, more of a broad passageway around a courtyard, and took cocktails from a tray.
“? votre sant?,” Jules said.
“Your health,” Adrian replied.
He sipped. Then his brows rose. “A classic Deauville! Now, that does take me back.”
Cognac, Coquerel Calvados, Van Gogh triple sec and lemon; the fruit flavors tingled over his tongue. It had been a popular mixture in the 1920s.
“Always one of your favorites, as I recall,” Jules said.
It’s the first time I’ve ever met my own father socially, Adrian thought. Since I was thirteen, at least, and he is utterly unchanged. He’s not a bad fellow, for a mass murderer.
“I never thought I’d see you alive again,” Jules said. “It is… not a good sign, when a man is as out of contact as you have been.”
Adrian shrugged and smiled. “I knew I was drifting, but… there always seemed to be time to remedy matters later. I lived much in dreams of the past. Yet in the end, they are unsatisfying.”
Which is why the real Wilbur killed himself, most probably. When the dream ends, the reality you fled is more terrible than ever.
For a Shadowspawn, it was possible to live in the interior world quite literally, shaping it to your will.
But while it feels and smells and tastes real, it isn’t; and the people are not real, unless they are captured souls.
Jules shook his head. “I knew. Yet every time I warned you… well, why relive old fights? May I see it? You still carry the locket everywhere?”
Adrian let his mind relax and chose. His fingers went into a pocket and brought out the little gold oval; that was the path the Power saw as leading to the result he wanted. He opened it and glanced within; the face was delicate, huge-eyed. If the hand-tinting of the photograph was accurate, there had been an elfin loveliness. Adrian handed it over carefully, as a man would with a precious possession, and took it back almost immediately.
“Joan was very beautiful,” Jules said. “Yet… my friend, it is not well to become too attached to them. Fond yes, in some cases, but not… attached. They die. We do not. Our natures are different. That you could not be there when she was killed and Carry her soul was a tragedy, yes, but I suspect… that the temptations of dreams would have been even worse if you had. Forgive me if I intrude!”
Adrian shrugged and smiled with Wilbur’s face and body. “Obviously, I came to agree with you in the end,” he said. “Though it was hard.”
“You should acquire a few contemporary lucies on a long-term basis. An occasional kill is one thing, but…”
“I think I was punishing them for not being her,” Adrian said, guessing at the psychology of a dead man.
I would feel some sympathy for him, if he had not brought so many others suffering and death.
“Some things do not change, though,” Jules said, winking. “I noticed you dancing with my daughter’s Ellen, you sly dog!”
He shrugged. “Is that her name? A glorious creature, and her blood-scent! Maddening! Trust a Br?z? to find such a vision, and to torment us all with it.”
A ruefully envious snap of the teeth, and Jules did the same; they laughed and raised their glasses in a brief toast before Adrian continued: “But the mind was extremely strange, and… well, women spoke with more restraint when I was a young man. Except for those of the lower orders, of course, and she obviously isn’t that. The mixture of sophistication and coarseness is… disturbing. I expected one or the other. The little chica I picked out of Adrienne’s gift-herd is a pretty, healthy animal, and satisfying in her peasant way. I may keep her. But in our day…”
“Our day is not past,” Jules said, giving him a brief slap on the shoulder. “Now that you are around and about again, you must come and visit us in La Jolla. Night-polo, old man! You taught me the art in daylight eighty years ago; let me return the favor. And we have a wide human acquaintance. There is much that is interesting among them.”
