Peter snorted. “Shipped?”
“It’s no hardship being boxed up if you’re a comatose rodent, hein? And you can use a nice secure sealed container of welded steel when you can go impalpable-just walk in through the side as a gerbil or a ferret, say. Curl up, and then step out the same way when you get to your destination. But I think I’ll keep my jet or whatever the equivalent is by the time I’ve had my Second Birth. Getting there is half the fun.”
When she’d passed by, Ellen went on to Peter: “Has it struck you how dependent Shadowspawn are on renfields? They’d have to hide in caves or sewers without them.”
“Yes,” Peter said, running a hand through his hair. Then he took a deep breath and forced himself to stop fidgeting. “But they can know who’s trustworthy.”
“It isn’t fair,” she burst out.
Unexpectedly, he laughed. It was a little slurred, but genuine. “No, it isn’t fair. There are so few of them, and they’re no smarter than we are-Adrienne is very bright, but she’s well above average for them, too. Most of them are arrogant and self-indulgent and unbelievably self-centered, judging by the ones I’ve met. It’s the damned Power.”
By now the great room had seventy or eighty people in it not counting the house servants; milling around, talking, drinking and eating canap?s off trays. Each Shadowspawn individual or couple-a few had teenage children in tow, looking sullen as you’d expect-was surrounded by an aura of their important renfields and…
“Show-lucies,” Ellen said.
“What?” Peter said.
“That’s what we are. We’re show-lucies. Trophies, as well as control rods. Notice how all the lucies are extremely good-looking and very well dressed?”
He smiled wryly. “Touch?. And thanks.”
“You’re a very handsome man, Peter.”
“That’s probably why I’m alive. No,” he went on a little pedantically. “It’s probably why she didn’t kill me in Los Alamos. If I’d been a quarter-ton of questionable hygiene like quite a few of my colleagues, I’d have been toast. But my brains are probably why I’m still alive.”
It might have been a cocktail party or reception anywhere, except for the odd touch-Jules disappearing into an alcove with his lucy, Mark… reappearing with blood on his lips and Mark looking flushed and rumpled, for example. Then Adrienne’s head came up; she nodded and made an inconspicuous signal.
The Shadowspawn present moved to either side of the doors. Ellen shared a glance with Peter, and got a nod from him too; the movement was slow and ragged and Adrienne was obviously restraining a shout of Hurry up, you idiots! with difficulty. Theresa had the favored renfields and lucies lined up behind them much more quickly.
The great doors swung open; the air outside was a little cooler, scented with flowers and warm dust. A file of the Gurkha mercenaries marched in wearing green dress uniforms with silver buttons and little pillbox hats; they split and wheeled into two lines on either side, and brought their rifles up to present arms with a smart stamp and crash of boots and smack of hands on metal.
T?kairin Hajime walked through, in a black sha-silk kimono and gray hakama-wide trousers like a split skirt. The haori jacket over it all was open at the front, and bore five kamon, House badges with the mon of his clan. His wife was behind him, in a rustling splendor of white and rose and crimson and intricate headdress; an attendant carried his swords, leaving his hands empty except for a fan, and there were several others behind him. He and his party stepped out of their sandals and a servant knelt to help them on with slippers.
Adrienne swept forward and sank in a deep curtsy-the antique form combined with a bow, but the Western gesture nonetheless. Her parents followed suit.
Ah, Ellen thought, watching his nod in return; everyone else just bowed. That’s more respectful, not less. I wonder what she’s thinking?
“T?kairin-sama, yoku irasshaimashita,” Adrienne said, in formal greeting. “Lord T?kairin! Welcome to my home.”
“Sorry to be a bother,” Hajime said-which made more sense in Japanese. Then he switched to English for a moment: “Thank you for going to all this trouble.”
“It was the least I could do,” Adrienne half-purred.
“Tsumaranai mono desu ga…” he went on; this is a mere trifle, or words to that effect.
The gift was a sword in a superb black-lacquered sheath, an elegant plainness. She made a small, quite genuine exclamation of pleasure as she took the silk-cord grip in her hand and drew it just enough for a sliver of the silver-worked layered steel to show, then clicked it home to keep the chill menace of the activated glyphs warded. Someone who really knew what they were doing had worked over this one. Hajime was powerful enough, but not so subtle a Wreaker.
They went through the usual oh-I-couldn’t-possibly/please-accept-this dance that Hajime’s background required.
Then Adrienne indicated a pair from those her renfields had picked from potential quarry at San Simeon over the past few months-a statuesque redheaded girl with milk-pale skin and a sandy-haired youth with a beautiful dancer’s body. Both showed to advantage in the short white feeding tunics, and they had been carefully primed, mostly by a detailed and honest description of what was likely to happen to them. They had sensitive, intelligent minds, now nearly paralytic with terror but unable to stop imagining their fates in flashes of vivid imagery that came through beautifully.
It was enough to make her hungry, and she’d fed well today. There was nothing quite like picking out the worst from someone’s mind and then actually doing it to them.
“Nani mo gozaimasen ga, dozo meshiagatte kudasai,” she said: “It’s nothing, but please go ahead and have some.”
Hajime’s wife had been decorously quiet except for a murmured exchange of greetings; now her teeth clicked together slightly.
“Oishisou,” she said softly: looks delicious.
The clan-head smiled and gave Adrienne a shrewd glance, and she could feel Michiko’s bubble of quickly- suppressed mirth even through her shields.
“You are courteous to a fault,” he said. “Later, certainly.”
Theresa and her assistants hustled the pair out; they’d be ready in the guest-suite when dawn made postcorporeals seek shelter. The formal greeting array broke down as Hajime and his retinue began to mingle.
“My only worry is that my mad brother may somehow manage to spoil things,” Adrienne said to him.
The Shadowspawn overlord of the West Coast snorted. “I doubt that very much.”
Michiko bowed. “I have had our best men checking carefully, Grandfather,” she said. “The precautions certainly seem more than adequate.”
Dale had been doing his best impassive-Indian impression, even crossing his arms over his chest. Now he smiled thinly.
“I think so too, sir,” he said.
Hajime’s nod was wary this time. “Ms. Br?z? requested that you do so?”
“Yes. I’m not active on any Council missions right now, so I gave it a thorough going-over, and I’ll be here for the full three days. It’s within my remit, since you are a Council member, sir.”
Dmitri nodded: “I have also reviewed the arrangements. It was the least I could do, after your patronage released me from Seversk!”
One of Hajime’s brows rose with his nod this time. “You certainly seem to have taken every possible precaution,” he said to Adrienne.
She spread her hands and smiled charmingly. Hajime’s other brow went up; her father and mother were stepping up from behind her.
“Jules,” he said. “Julianne.”
The elder Br?z?s bowed slightly. “Haven’t seen you since you killed us, Hajime-san,” Jules said cheerfully.
“You’re moving back here?” their murderer said with a trace of iron in his tone.
“Oh, no, just visiting with our grandchildren.”
Hajime’s face relaxed slightly. “One of life’s great pleasures, exceeded only by great-grandchildren.”
Adrienne backed out of the conversation graciously, keeping her smile to herself until she was safely facing
