you fed.'
'Are any of my lucies ready? I'm in the mood for comfort food.'
'Yes.' Duggan consulted a clipboard. 'You fed on Peter the day before yesterday, the spare before that, Jose the day before that…so Cheba and Monica are both past due, actually. That's stressful.'
'Cheba, then,' Adrienne said. 'Don't let me overfeed if I go into fugue; my control is still shaky.'
And she's the one I'd miss least if I do go all mindless-voracity .
Cheba was Mexican and from Coetzala in Veracruz, mestizo with a touch of African somewhere, dark and slim and very pretty, a girl Adrienne had bought from a coyote people-smuggler with a job lot of refreshments for the party where the previous head of the Tokairin had died four months ago. She came through the door with Duggan holding one arm, but there wasn't much struggle; after repeated feedings the addiction had her strongly, and she was quivering a little with the need. And averting her eyes in horror from what lay on the bed, but Adrienne couldn't really blame her for that.
I'm not exactly aesthetic at the moment. Very ungrateful of Ellen to treat me this way, after all I did for her! I will have to punish her quite severely when I get her back, which will be a lot of fun. Still, it's a stroke of luck in the long run. Everyone thinking I'm dead makes it all so much easier.
'Sit here, lassie,' Duggan said; there was a padded rest beside the bed. 'Then lean forward and present your throat for the Dona!'
She did. The scent was enough to make Adrienne feel a little more alive: fear in complex layers, shuddering disgust, and something musky that was probably self-loathing. The emotions she could feel directly were a lovely roil too, though Adrienne knew her telepathic sensitivity was still deplorably weak, and she could barely pick up the conscious part of the thought stream at all.
The cinnamon-colored throat came closer and closer…a tear dropped into her mouth, and then the contact of skin against her lips brought the taste of sweat, a sting in the cracks. Her mouth moved in the precise grace of the feeding bite, and the microserrations on the inside of her incisors sliced the taut surface.
The girl's whimper turned into a hoarse moan mixed with sobs. Adrienne growled deep in her throat as the blood flooded into her mouth, salty and meaty and sweet and as intoxicatingly complex as a glass of Bollinger VVF 1999, the taste of life. The burst of ecstasy flared in the victim's mind and resonated in hers, mingled with terror and despair, swirling down to a warm contentment as the blood flowed, a delicious yielding. Her mouth worked against the skin…
'That's enough, Dona'.
Adrienne growled again in protest as the doctor's hand pressed her head back to the pillow. Cheba slumped down on the padded stool and leaned against the edge of the bed, breathing deeply, smiling with a soft, dreamy look on her face. The small cut on her neck clotted with unnatural speed; Duggan ignored it for a moment as she wiped Adrienne's chin and lips with a cloth; the antiseptic stung a little in the cracks.
' Merde, am I dribbling?'
'Just a little.' The Scotswoman looked down at Cheba. 'She'll be fine. You took about a pint, I think-aye, as much as you can handle now.'
'Good, I do not want the nausea back. Though I'd like a kill as well, when I'm fit enough. There's nothing quite like it for setting you up.'
She yawned; she was feeling better, but from experience she knew the torpor and discomfort would return soon. Duggan was feeling pure scientific curiosity under her impassive exterior; it was a curious emotion, tasting like mineral water or mountain ice, eerily detached. Peter had a similar mind-set when he was working on a problem.
'Will you want Cheba for the kill? If I could dissect afterwards, there might be something interesting in the neurological changes…'
'Oh, no, that would be wasteful, for several reasons. Cheba is progressing nicely. But I'll see if there's anything left for you to poke and prod at of whomever I kill.'
'Thank you, Dona.' A sigh. 'Less likely to be anything noticeable…Shall I call the orderlies to remove her?'
'No, not yet. In about an hour, and she'll probably need a sedative then. I'm going into trance now and taking her with me.'
She sank back and crossed her arms on her chest, moving slowly and cautiously. The first sensation of withdrawal was like falling into dark softness, like sleep.
Then she was standing in the entrance to her memory palace, and for a long moment she just focused on feeling good. The fact of her illness faded to the faintest of memories at the back of her brain with a practiced effort of will. The somatic memories tried to manifest here, but she could overcome them.
The mental construct was a pool edged in white Carrara marble, with man-tall alabaster jars standing at intervals; at one horseshoe-shaped end a colonnade of Corinthian pillars supported a roof of bronze fretwork woven with flowering wisteria to make a walkway, with a plinth in the center pouring more water through the mouth of a copper lion. Tall umbrella pines stood around it, and then oaks amid asphodel-starred meadows, fading away to rocky hills purple under a clear blue sky; the warm air was scented with sap and hot rock and arbutus, birds warbled and insects clicked and buzzed.
Cheba staggered and stared around. Her eyes cleared quickly; now that her mind was running on Adrienne's wetware it wasn't saturated with MDMA analogues and serotonin boosters. When she was fully alert she looked surprised for a moment, then sullen. In here Adrienne's senses felt as if they were functioning normally, and the waves of murderous hate tingled along her nerves.
'I'm much prettier here,' the Shadowspawn said, looking down at herself. 'This is how I'm supposed to look. Really, being sick is such a bore, tout court!'
I wish she'd killed you! Cheba thought. Or that man did, that brujo.
'I don't doubt you do,' Adrienne said happily. 'Though really, with dozens of Shadowspawn running around uncontrolled and upset you'd probably have died.'
It would be worth it!
Adrienne laughed, and the girl went on: Where… where is this?
'My-' Adrienne thought for a moment; Cheba was intelligent but not very well educated. 'Inside my mind. In my head. Or you could think of it as Hell. It's where your kind got the idea for Hell, most likely.'
It doesn't look so bad, Cheba thought, and looked around again.
While she did the first tentacle slid out of the water, black and glistening and as thick as her leg below the narrow questing tip. With a movement as quick as a lunging cobra it threw a loop around her ankle and jerked.
Cheba screamed as she fell to the marble, but she wound her arms around the nearest vase and held on with frenzied strength, kicking at the tentacle. More exploded out of the water in a tower of spray and lashing flesh and spoiled-seafood stink, dozens, falling on her like whips and tearing at her clothing, squeezing, thrusting 'Aiiie. A Thesaurus is come. Maim, strangle, violate,' Adrienne said as she walked over and smiled down at her. 'George gets so lonely here,' she explained. 'He's quite dead outside, you see, so he's here until my own Final Death. Which will be a very long time, I think. That's why your kind thought Hell could go on forever.'
Then, louder: 'George, what did I tell you? Not unless I say you can!'
The mauling continued, and beneath it the choked, muffled shrieks. Adrienne sighed and looked at the water, frowning. It turned from crystal blue to a rosy pink, and steam began to rise from it. After a moment it boiled, and the tentacles withdrew with a sudden rush, as quickly as the first attack. The water smoked and roiled, and from beneath it came a bubbling shriek of agony as the creature cooked and cooked but could not die.
Cheba was pushing herself backwards, naked, her body streaked with blood and welts, her mouth working, and white showing all around the dark irises of her eyes. Then she stopped and froze. A moment later she felt behind her.
'It's quite fetching,' Adrienne said, as Cheba's fingers made contact with the fluffy white doe's tail at the base of her spine. 'And symbolically appropriate for your role in this little drama we're about to have.'
Cheba bolted upright, pawing frantically at the sides of her head. The ears she felt there were tall and pointed and furred, and twitched.
'?Dios mio, Jesucristo!'
'I'm the only deity here,' Adrienne said, feeling the other's control crack. 'Ooooh, yes, that's right. Panic, despair, horror, very stimulating, you saucy, sexy minx. Now you run away, sweetie. And when I catch you, I do
