away. Her shields were impenetrable, but Hajime hadn’t survived over a century of Shadowspawn politics, and generations past his body’s death, by being unable to read faces as well as minds.
Perfect, she thought. Perfect!
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Adrian rose from the bed; he’d left the party early, by his nocturnal breed’s standards. The casa grande was finally quiet, though some Shadowspawn lingered in the public areas, and most were still awake in their rooms. He could sense them, a prickle of the Power. Sliding through the fabric of the world, like the smooth onrush of sharks that makes the water curve just below the surface of an ocean.
And Ellen is alone.
A grimace. Close by the girl Cheba was tossing and fighting her sheets and whimpering in her sleep; the two Brotherhood agents were nearly as restless. In their line of work-his too, again-post-traumatic stress was more of a permanent condition of life than a problem to recover from.
For them this is part of the business they have chosen. Or were born into, as I was. I pity Cheba, though. All she wanted was a better way to earn her bread than selling baskets on the streets.
Those were not his only base-links, links of blood and seed. Somewhere in the great pile two children were sleeping as well; he caught a brief image of a girl curled around a flaxen-haired doll and a boy lying in the utter abandonment of childhood slumber. Adrienne was awake, but happily oblivious to everything but her own building pleasure and hunger, lost in sensation and in the mind of her partner-victim as it opened to a helpless combination of pain and orgasmic release.
He grimaced again, and clamped down on the contact until it was merely a vague consciousness of direction.
Then he walked to the outer window. The air in the rest of the suite was fresh-the system of concealed ducts was old, but well designed-yet he welcomed the cool night breeze on his naked flesh. The moon hung over the Santa Lucia Range where it divided this interior valley from the sea. It was nearly full, and the silvery light was a prickle on the skin of his aetheric form. It seemed to call to him…
“And I’m going to answer,” he said softly. “Amss-aui-ock!”
The oldest Shadowspawn talent of all took him. A moment of silvery darts along his nerves, and his body flowed-to another shape as borrowed as that of Wilbur Peterson, but much more familiar. Vision grew less, color absent or muted, shades of black and white and gray predominant, though the moonlight was more than adequate. He could see movement-the twitch of a leaf, the motion of a cat leaping to a wall in the gardens below-with utter sharpness, but anything motionless blurred like the world of a short-sighted man.
Ah, but the sounds!
Nearly as keen as those of the owl, and in a different range. He could hear breathing, voices half a mile away, a frightened dog that suddenly scented an ancient enemy; the quiet night was a babble of noise now, and the wolf ’s mind sorted it with effortless ease.
And the smells! There are no words!
He snarled slightly, eager to run and hunt. It took an effort for the man-mind that lurked within to command the beast, though the wolf was his favorite. The hundred-and-eighty-pound beast sprang easily up to the sill of the window, then down a dozen feet to the ground below, landing on legs like powerful springs. He trotted through the garden, past the plashing of a fountain-wet, wet, weeds, cool tempting flesh of a frog-and down through steps that led through beds of azaleas-thick-sweet-strong-and lawns. A squeak and a snap and his jaws went clomp on a field-mouse, with a sweet gush of almost flowery blood. He tossed it up… … and let it fall.
When you transform again, it would still be in your stomach, and one not intended to handle raw mouse, bones and all.
And the flush of salt savor was not really satisfying. This body was built around the DNA of a timber-wolf, but within it was Shadowspawn still. Only human blood would do. He kept on until he reached the perimeter wall of the estate; a dash for a man was an easy trot in this shape.
Ellen’s scent was strong, many trails over many days overlain on each other. He whined slightly, mixed with a growl. Part of what his nose caught said prey, and raised visions of rending and tearing and the hot tang of blood. The other message it carried was of an overwhelming femaleness, that arched his tail and made his gait stiff- legged. Kill and mount her warred in the sharp limited consciousness of the wolf mind, amid images that mingled pink-and-golden nakedness with something furry and four-legged.
There was another scent mixed with Ellen’s; his sister’s. That raised the fur along the beast’s spine, and lips curled back to show long white fangs. His ears flattened to the massive wedge-shaped skull of the wolf in challenge-response, and he had to suppress a growl that rose from the animal’s deep chest.
The man-mind within prompted, and the Mhabrogast prickled and twisted in his head. When he rose on two feet he was Adrian Br?z? again. A stare, and the iron of the gate set in the estate wall turned translucent. He stepped through it, and a cold grating sensation ran along his nerves for an instant. Here he was in a courtyard garden, a tiled expanse amid raised flowerbeds and small trees, with a brick fire pit barbecue in one corner. Trellised roses gave the night a sweet-musky scent, strong to his Shadowspawn nose, dull by comparison with the wolf’s but much sharper than a human’s. A small trickle of water flowed from a ceramic lion’s mask into a bowl, and an owl flapped through the night above.
He stiffened at that for an instant, but the Power told him it was a natural bird, off about its business.
There were two lights through the windows of the house, a pleasant Spanish-revival building with a red-tile roof that might have housed a doctor or accountant in a hundred older Californian suburbs. The glass doors showed a living-room that had a lived-in look, with bookcases and art prints on the walls, and a thick scatter of volumes on the coffee-table; those were more reproductions, from the large format. Ellen was seated on the sofa, dressed in a long peignoir of sheer white silk, with a drink by her elbow. As he watched she leaned back and pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes.
His night-walking form was imperceptible to humans, unless he wished it. Now he did, bringing it into solidity, and tapped gently on the door. Ellen started, and then shot to her feet when she saw him.
“Adrienne?” she said, when she’d slid the door open and he stepped through; the golden hibiscus-scent of her filled his nostrils. “I… um, I thought you were with Monica tonight.”
Adrian’s brows went up. He looked down at himself; unequivocally male, and interested male at that. Then he mentally cursed.
“Of course. She has used my aetheric form with you.” Damn her presumption! “Remember Amalfi, Ellie… someday we will honeymoon there in reality.”
The joy in her face and mind blazed; it warmed him even as she dulled it with the glyph he’d taught her and threw herself into his arms. Long moments later she drew back, took several deep breaths and nodded in a businesslike fashion.
“You have an extremely self-disciplined mind,” he said.
“Oh, right now I’m not feeling very… well, yes, I wouldn’t mind a little discipline…”
He groaned. “I can’t.”
Her blue eyes sparkled. “I know, but teasing you is so much fun. When we’re together again, well, if you felt like punishing me for it… maybe in her form…”
She laughed at his expression. “Now I’ve shocked you, darling! Hey, if I’m going to have a vampiric shapeshifter for my guy, I intend to take full advantage of it.”
“I just may take you up on that.” Adrian grinned, and gave her a quick tweak that made her yelp and jump.
Then he sobered. “But now we must hurry. I need to scout the area where the ceremony is to take place, and I need you with me.”
“Why?” she said. “No problem, but… I’m not the fem-ninja type.”
“Because your blood and mind are involved with any Wreaking she’s been doing lately. Shadowspawn call it sourcing.”
“Sort of like me being fuel, right?”
