“This is… a trial venture. I must learn to live in the world again. It’s… well, it’s a damned odd world now, that’s all.”
“Ah, and it will grow odder still, unless we take measures. You probably haven’t been following Council politics?”
Adrian spread a hand out, remembering at the last moment to make the gesture palm-down and restrained. Wilbur Peterson had been American-raised, though related to the Br?z?s. He would be not only an Anglo-Saxon in his body language, but an antique one.
“I didn’t recognize much of the territory I flew over to get here, except for the ocean and the mountains,” he said. “God, to think that we used to drive around San Jose for the blossoms! The scent was intoxicating even for humans. I nearly reconsidered and turned around.”
Jules made a grimace. “Yes. We have been negligent in caring for the greater estate. My daughter has some interesting plans for dealing with that, and I find her energy and enthusiasm quite compelling. Julianne and I never became withdrawn, but it is so easy to live from day to day. Perhaps the corporeals have a greater sense of urgency. Let me tell you about the Council meeting that’s to be called. And of course Hajime will be representing us…”
“How did that happen?” Adrian asked; Wilbur had been well into his fugue by then.
“Oh, the usual way. Overconfidence by us, intrigue and then a swift coup by them. Hajime killed me personally, though I must say it was decent of him not to inflict Final Death. Adrienne is quite close with T?kairin Michiko, Hajime’s favorite grandchild. They negotiated the details of the peace agreement.”
“Tell me more about this ceremony, the Prayer for Long Life,” Adrian said. “And the Council meeting.”
Jules smiled. “It’s splendid to see you taking an interest again! Well-”
“Wilbur was quite a delightful man in his time,” Julianne Br?z? said. “He was something of a mentor to Jules and me after our parents died so tragically… Everyone was so surprised when they didn’t transition successfully, given their blood-purity, but those things were not as well understood in our youth. Perhaps it was the shock of the assassination. Those Brotherhood scum were bolder then.”
Several of the Shadowspawn listening hissed; Ellen felt a small crawling sensation at the sound. It wasn’t contrived or deliberate, she decided; it was just the natural way for them to express…
Murderous hate, she thought. Frustrated sadism.
“I’m Carrying one of them,” Julianne said; her eyes had an inward look for an instant. “The other was too quick to suicide, but we caught little Thomas. He’s in a small rock chamber in my mind, feeding a very large spider. And after so many years, he’s very tired of it. The spider is still extremely enthusiastic. Occasionally it becomes… amorous. Then it spawns in his flesh and the young eat their way out. And I’m never, ever going to let Tom die the Final Death, though he begs for that fairly continuously. Once I let him think he’d been given release, and then he woke up again to the spider’s caress.”
Oh, Christ, she means it…
The remark brought general laughter. Ellen sipped at her second glass of champagne and tried to ignore other comments about what could be, and gleeful recollections of what had been, done to captured Brotherhood agents. Even after the killing-hall some of them were gruesome. Peter grimaced to her as she turned away a little.
“I wonder why they let us mingle at events like this?” she said softly. “We lucies, and the renfields.”
“Control rods,” he replied promptly; his cheeks were a little flushed, and he was working on his third glass of the sparkling wine. “That’s definitely part of it.”
It’s been quite a while since she fed on him, Ellen thought sympathetically. God, that can get hard to take! Even knowing there’s going to be pain doesn’t make you want it less. At least not for me. I think that may be harder for him.
“What?” she said aloud. “Rods?”
“Like the control rods in a nuclear reactor, the ones they slide in to absorb neutrons and slow down the reaction. We damp down their hyper-aggressiveness. In fact, I think it’s probably the human part of their heredity that lets them cooperate as much as they do. They’re solitary killers by nature, or at least the original breed were.”
“Adrienne said that they don’t want to breed themselves much more pureblood than she is.”
Peter nodded. “But they pay for it,” he said. “I think they have a lot of inner conflicts too.”
“Too?”
“The way we do because of the dash of Shadowspawn. It… twists us both up in different ways.”
“Speaking of which,” Ellen said quietly.
Jose was talking with his aunt Theresa, looking martyred as she brushed lint off his shoulder and adjusted his tie. Monica hesitated, then approached Adrienne; she was a little haggard again. The Shadowspawn frowned, then glanced at her sidelong with a slight smile and moved away from the group around her mother. Monica followed and their heads leaned together.
“If you ask nicely,” Ellen heard Adrienne say. “It’s really Peter’s turn.”
“Oh, I beg,” Monica said quietly. “Please.”
“Very well. But things will be energetic. Strenuous. Social events put me on edge.”
“That’s fine, Adri. Whatever you need is what I want.”
“Damn,” Peter said softly. “That’s sad. It’s also jumping her place in line, dammit!”
“I know it’s hard to miss out on the bite,” Ellen said.
“It’s been nearly a week. Damned right it’s hard. I can’t think straight.”
“Well, for you especially, lack of clarity of thought is a major downer,” Ellen went on dryly. “But what part of energetic and strenuous are you so sorry to skip?”
“There is that. Though,” he added, with the relentless honesty she’d noticed was one of his habits-“parts of that can be OK. I don’t mind the actual sex much, apart from always having…”
His voice trailed off. Ellen guessed, and her voice went even drier: “Apart from always having to be the girl?” she asked.
“Ah… well, I wouldn’t have phrased it quite that way…”
She laughed; the sound even had some humor in it. “Peter, I am a girl, and one who’s a submissive masochist at that, and I find it extremely wearing at times, Adrienne-style. But really… Monica was hit very hard by what we saw.”
Something spiky flashed into the forefront of her mind for a moment… a glyph, she thought. I wonder why? But it calmed her, somehow.
“You weren’t hit hard?”
“I was. Oh, yeah. It was grisly beyond words. But I’m better at… at compartmentalizing. And Adrienne took a full teeth-in-the-throat feeding from me right afterwards.”
“Misery makes you taste good,” he said wryly.
“Yeah. But she just sipped a little from Monica and it’s coming back on her.”
She went on: “More… interaction… will help. You know what I mean.”
I mean strenuous and energetic involves a fair bit of screaming, in pain and otherwise. Been there, done that. It is distracting and distraction is just what poor Monica needs now.
Monica fumbled something out of her handbag; her BlackBerry. She made a call on it, probably telling her mother she wouldn’t be home tonight and needed her to stay with the children, then smiled tremulously and seemed to relax a little.
Peter sighed. “I don’t suppose I can argue with that. I will now proceed to get gradually but thoroughly drunk. That and the hangover will distract me for a day or so until I get my dose. She’s probably going to be feeding more than usual, with all this activity.”
More guests arrived; some through the front entrance, others down the staircase, which meant they’d flown in. Some of those were corporeals too, like Adrienne’s three…
Coconspirators? Ellen thought. Which means their actual bodies must have been unconscious and carried in by their renfields. Maybe even in coffins… well, no, in padded boxes that look a lot like coffins, I suppose. And the postcorporeals must have something like that for safety when they’re traveling… anyway, ewww.
Adrienne stopped as she walked by. “I’ve known some of the postcorporeals to transform into a smallish creature and have themselves shipped FedEx,” she said.
