went quiet; a cat on the other side of the street blinked from a windowsill, radiating an idle curiosity. The little house off Airport Road still had the yellow police tape across its doors, but he didn't think anyone was watching. Sink in, sink in…
Nothing. A few people in the other houses in the subdivision, young children and their mothers mostly; one adult peeking through the windows at his Ferrari for a moment, then shrugging aside a vague wonder. The suburb was solidly lower-middle-class and composed of flat-roofed frame houses making a feeble imitation of the haute- fake imitation adobe downtown, just the sort of place you'd expect a policeman to live in Santa Fe's high-cost, low-wage economy. He opened his eyes again and gave Ellen a quick slight nod where she sat behind the wheel of the low-slung sports car, felt her mind acknowledge it. She was wearing a scarf around her hair, and sunglasses, both absolutely unexceptional on a bright Wednesday afternoon. He was in jeans and ankle boots and a T-shirt, equally normal; the jacket was credible with the temperature in the mid-sixties, though he was actually wearing it to conceal the Glock and long curved knife the harness held on either flank.
There was a goat-stick fence beside the garage, five-foot unpeeled pinon sticks. He took three quick strides and vaulted over it, a hand lightly touching one of the poles, and came down silently on the balls of his feet. The backyard was similarly fenced all the way 'round; he wasn't hidden, exactly, but it was better than a wire barrier would have been. There was a weedy-looking Russian olive tree, a half-dead lilac, and plenty of genuine weeds, including the ferocious local goat's head, which dropped a little three-pointed seed that could cripple the barefoot or puncture tires. He thought of those as nature's caltrops. The rest was bare dirt, though his nose detected the recent presence of a dog. A bachelor's yard, one owned by a man without the time or interest to spend on appearances, right down to the battered barbecue grill that had gone a long time between cleanings.
He wrinkled his nose; there were drawbacks to the acute Shadowspawn senses. And beneath the old scorched meat and dog feces, a strong trace of rotting blood that made his lips start to draw up in a hunter's snarl. Adrian went to the glass sliding doors that gave onto a stretch of cracked concrete patio and produced a thin, slightly curved piece of steel. A moment's fiddling, a quick strong jerk, and something went click inside. He could have done the same with the Power, but he'd long ago decided to save that for purposes where nothing else would do.
Once he was inside the scent of old blood was much stronger; even a normal human would have found it unpleasant. Even decayed, it bore the traces of unbearable pain and raw terror; when fresh it would have been maddeningly appetizing. He followed it towards the single bedroom. Something else tickled at the senses there, the esoteric ones that came with his degree of the Power. Another Shadowspawn had been here, a powerful adept, either postcorporeal or night-walking. The traces were faint, too faint to identify an individual, but unmistakable. Gluttonous satisfaction as well, the killing frenzy and repletion. There was no need to go nearer to the outlines still painted on the floor or marked in tape on the tumbled, black-stained sheets. Instead he went to one knee and looked at the floor, bracing himself with a forearm on his thigh.
Black and rusty-brown, flaking away in the dry high-desert air, but the outlines of shoes were still visible, if you knew how to look. Someone had come in the front door and stood looking into the room with his feet in the pooling blood. Then he'd kicked off the shoes, stepped back out of the blood and turned…
He followed the tracks. The place they led had been a bedroom on the original plans, redone as a study-den- entertainment center. One wall held a fairly big flat-screen, a Chinese-made early 3D model half a decade out-of- date. There were a couple of-rather bad-pictures of local landscapes, bookshelves that held a mixture of popular fiction and well-read volumes on police methods and forensics, law books and a desktop computer. The unknown had come in, sat in the office chair and used it.
Adrian extended a hand over the machine and concentrated.
Interesting, he thought. The hard drive hasn't been pulled or wiped. Whoever was in charge here didnt do a real investigation; they just went through enough of the motions to fool outsiders. As I suspected, the Tokairin had someone sit on it. And someone – Michiko at a guess, the traces feel a little female – came out to tie up the loose ends. But whoever sat here at the computer took something from it…
He switched it on, pulled a data stick from his pocket and snapped it into the serial port. Electronic pseudothoughts tickled at him as he waited for it to suck the larger machine dry.
Yes, a file copied just before the machine was shut down. I think Shadowspawn technophobia is about to give me a lead, he thought. So much for the Progressive faction.
This time he did let himself snarl. The low, guttural sound filled the house of death.
'Oh, my,' Ellen said as they walked through the door. 'Doesn't this bring back memories.'
Adrian's house west of Santa Fe was large but not a palace, a low-slung, sprawling single-story thing built of genuine adobe as well as concrete and steel, in a style that mixed the area's traditions with a restrained modernism. The door was tall and sheathed with copper, facing the drive along the ridgeway that led to this point where cliffs fell from steep to sheer on three sides. She looked at the door…
'Silver underneath?' she said. 'Plus a little something for people rude enough to use explosive door knockers? I noted the fields of fire outside this time! And the cliff protects the other side.'
'Silver, but of course.' He grinned at her; she could tell he was enjoying both her wit and her pleasure in it. 'And ceramic-steel composite sandwiched in between.'
Damn, but I'm lucky to get a man who doesn't feel threatened by smart women. Of course, he's also a blood-drinking shape-shifter…but that's a feature, not a bug. It's not like cigarettes, after all. As long as we keep it to what my bone marrow can supply, there's no downside for either of us.
'In fact,' he went on, 'this hill is mostly silver ore. Not very rich silver, there was an attempt at a mine once but it did not pay, not enough precious metal spread through far too much very hard rock. Still, it is…was…why I picked this spot.'
'And I thought it was the view,' she said dryly. 'Your being-high-up fetish.'
'This from one with a tie-me-up-and-whip-me fetish?' he said, and ducked as she swiped at him.
Then he threw the bags through the door and swept her up to cross it; they were kissing and laughing as he bore her into the hallway beneath the vaulted exposed-metal roof. She leaned into his shoulder, enjoying the steel- cord strength of his embrace; then his arms locked hard around her and there was a nip at the base of her throat, and a hard suction. She shivered as warmth seemed to flow out from the bite, like scented soap suds in a bath of hot water sliding over her skin, leaving her whole body warm and flushed in an almost unbearable relaxation.
'Ah,' she said a moment later, shuddering. 'Now, that was what I call a welcome home.'
'Welcome home, then,' he said, striding through into the living room.
That had a glass wall overlooking the vast blue distance northwestward. That fell away to the high plain below in a tumble of boulders and canyons, juniper and pinon, home to eagles and deer and coyote. The room was spotless-Adrian's housekeeping service-but had the slightly lifeless feel to its air that came of long vacancy, with only a very faint scent of satchets and pine ash from the hearth.
God, it's nearly a full year since I stormed out and Adrienne caught me! she thought. Not that I actually ever lived here, unless you count the odd overnight.
'Well, put me down and we'll get unpacked,' she said.
'Not quite yet,' he said, setting her on her feet in front of him; the arms stayed around her, but now the hands roved.
'Mmm, nice…but we do need to get unpack- Yeeek!'
He pulled the dress up over her head, then down again behind her with a single strong jerk that pinned her arms tightly. Another two, and the bra and panties went flying in silken wisps; she had a moment's pang as she remembered the Parisian shopping expedition they'd managed to squeeze in, when she'd gone berserk in the lingerie section of a boutique on the rue Saint-Honore.
'Adrian…God, that feels good…Adrian, the door's still open! And we're in front of a picture window! '
'Fresh air and sunlight are good for you, wench.'
A push between the shoulder blades sent her staggering forward; the arm of a couch struck her across the thighs, and she pitched forward with her toes just touching the slate flags of the floor. Goose bumps rose in the chilly air, and at the touch of the leather cushions on her belly and breasts.
'Ooof!' Then she wiggled. 'Like the view, masterful Shadowspawn, sir? Ow!'
That at a stinging smack across one buttock, before he gripped her hips with a power just short of real pain, or perhaps slightly across the border.
Sometime later she stretched and giggled; she could hear Adrian's heart thudding against her back, but the
