Dark Ascension: A Generation V Novel (31 page)

I broke in before the train to Delusionville could leave the station. “That’s just another Band-Aid, Chivalry. And if we want to talk about things that could actually use a discussion from the group,
Prudence
, then how about the succubi who are still in complete limbo down in New Jersey?”

My sister’s monumental irritation with me was clearly evident as I brought up one of the least favorite subjects yet again. “Yes indeed, a group that will bring us all trouble and no income. The last thing we actually need, given that when I popped my head in to check on the accountants this morning, one of them informed me that one of the primary ghoul businesses completely missed its final quarter tithe payment.”

Chivalry lifted his eyebrows. “Well, that’s rather a surprise. The ghouls are usually so reliable about those things.”

Prudence made a small moue, as if she expected so little from any of the other races that she was incapable of being surprised over yet another failure. “I’ll go over today and get the money, and remind them about their duties while I’m at it.” And from the look in her eyes, there was no doubting about what form her “reminder” was going to come in.

“No, Prudence, I’ll go over and talk with them,” I said quickly, hoping to derail the one-woman traveling production of
The Clockwork Orange
level of ultraviolence.

Temper flashed across her face. “If this territory is a powder keg, as you’ve just claimed, then perhaps our residents need to be reminded why it is a poor idea to cause troubles—and right here at hand is an excellent opportunity to set an example.”

I refused to be deterred. “Prudence, you’re going to go straight in there and start ripping people apart. This isn’t a business that has missed payments in the past. Well, that suggests to me that this should be handled by talking—”

Clearly yet another reference to talking was enough to break her control entirely, and she half rose from her sofa, her voice heading for the rafters. “Little brother, you are—”

“
Hush
, both of you,” Chivalry snapped loudly, startling both of us into a momentary pause. He nodded at our result. “Good. Sister, we might as well send Fortitude over there and see if we can get the money owed the soft way. For one thing, the forecast today is for very sunny skies, enough that I was planning to stay inside, so you will definitely be unable to drive up to Providence in any comfort at all until at least the late afternoon, and by then our brother could already have gone up and ascertained the lay of the land, so to speak. If our brother is able to sort this out his way, then he has saved you a trip, and if not, you wouldn’t be getting up there any earlier anyway.”

Prudence did not look remotely appeased by his logic, but a glance at the sun streaming through the windows had her reluctantly acknowledging the truth of it. “And I notice that you are showing no interest at all in undertaking this yourself?” she asked pointedly.

“Certainly,” he replied, looking not even remotely sorry. “Simone was just employed to guide a group of hikers up Mount Washington next week, and I would far rather spend some additional time with her than listen to excuses about how the check is in the mail or some idiocy like that.”

Prudence made a wordless sound of frustration. “You are always the same in your honeymoon period, Chivalry, do you realize this?”

My brother flinched at her comment, and his expression was profoundly insulted. “There’s no reason to be rude, sister. Simone is an utter delight, and if you would just make an effort to get to know her, I’m sure that you—”

She cut him off with a gesture, then swept her cutting gaze over both of us. “I hope that you are not as dense as you are attempting to appear, brother, and that you are realizing what I am more than certain that Fortitude has already long comprehended.”

Chivalry’s expression changed between one breath and the next, his eyes suddenly very dangerous, and in that moment I was abruptly reminded that my sister was not the only predator in the room. “And what is that, my darling sister?” he asked, his voice very low.

“That despite all of Mother’s hopes, and all the vows she made us swear, this
is not working
.”

For a long second, no one even dared to breathe, even Prudence, at what had been said. A muscle in my brother’s cheek twitched, just once, and he got up, very silently and deliberately, and walked out of the room for the second day in a row.

I looked at my sister. I agreed with her, but we were coming at this whole situation from such polar opposite directions that it didn’t even seem to matter that we were meeting at this point—it was just the happenstance intersection of two lines that would otherwise have nothing else in common. Frankly, that we were agreeing at this point seemed like a pretty bad thing. I got up and slowly began to head out myself, saying to her as I went, “I’ll get the tithe information from the accountants, and I’ll drive up—” Just outside the door, I froze. Sitting patiently on a small chair in the hallway was Jon Einarsson, reading a copy of
Wired
magazine, looking like he was in a doctor’s waiting room. I hadn’t seen Jon since the day that Prudence invited him to her town house in order to use him as a live feeding example for me. He still had that fit and square-jawed appearance of a former college athlete that no amount of legal education could completely exorcise, but there was a slight change in his pallor. Perhaps no one who didn’t know what they were looking for would’ve seen it, but while Jon was still blond and handsome, there was a hint of sickness to him, an air of vulnerability that hadn’t existed a month before. Being my sister’s source of fresh human blood was taking its toll on him.

He caught sight of me, and set his magazine down immediately. “Fort!” he said cheerfully, and reached out to give my hand a firm shake. “Good to see you doing well!”

“Yeah . . . so, are you here to see my sister?” Inwardly I cringed a little—somehow that felt even more awkward than if he’d been my sister’s hired gigolo.

“Oh, Prudence asked me to come by today,” he said, that friendly smile almost welded into place.

Behind me, Prudence emerged from the room, looking very pleased with the situation, her previous irritation set aside. “Jon, punctual as always,” she complimented him. “Yes, I was wondering if you’d be willing to let my brother drink your blood today.”

“What?”
I squawked, taking an automatic step backward.

Jon’s eyes never left Prudence’s face. She’d tricked him into ingesting some of her blood, which at her age created a powerful sense of unwavering loyalty in his regard of her. It was a frightening, insidious thing, which made him so willing to give up all sense of self-preservation and allow her to feed on him, and even hide the evidence of it from anyone else in his life as she slowly killed him, one bite at a time. “Oh, if that’s what you’d like, Prudence,” he said, as if she’d asked him to let me borrow a pen, rather than open up a vein. “It doesn’t seem like it would be a problem.”

“Prudence,” I started, then looked at Jon’s open, friendly expression, and just couldn’t take it. I grabbed my sister by the elbow and towed her to the other side of the hallway, then turned my back to Jon and hissed, “Prudence, what exactly are you doing here?”

She looked at me very seriously. “Little brother, you will need to drink from the vein very soon to maintain your health, so why not do so with Jon? He is present, and I have already made certain of his loyalty, which you will be unable to do with your own victims for many years yet.”

My sister was never more terrifying to me than when she was showing her affection. I knew that, in this instance, there was no ulterior motive—that her primary concern was for my physical well-being. It made me want to vomit, but I forced myself to be calm as I answered, “I appreciate the offer, but I’m going to handle this in my own way.”

She sighed, the perfect image of a put-upon sister with a bratty little brother. “I wish you wouldn’t be so stubborn.” Her expression turned sympathetic. “And how are your teeth today? I know that Chivalry was looking around online for remedies, and purchased some kind of small terry cloth octopus that can be put right into the freezer for when you—”

“No, no, I don’t even want to know. I’ll talk with you later.” I turned and left.

As I walked away, I could hear Jon ask Prudence, “Well, if he isn’t interested, would
you
like to drink my blood today?” and hurried my steps so that I couldn’t hear her response.

*   *   *

After collecting the tithing files from the accountants, and double-checking the location of the ghoul-owned business in question, I drove up to Providence and picked Suzume up from the downtown area, where she’d just wrapped up a business lunch on behalf of her grandmother.

“Was this one of
those
business lunches?” I asked her as she carefully maneuvered herself into the Scirocco. All I could see of her was a long black wool coat that came down to the tops of her calves, and a pair of black stockings ending in a pair of perfectly acceptable business pumps, but I could tell from her movements that she was almost certainly wearing her usual business uniform of a knee-length pencil skirt and a silk blouse.

“Silly vampire,” she said affectionately. “I told you that Midori got the short straw and is doing client interviews now. That was a meeting with the state attorney general about how happy Green Willow Escorts will be to make a sizable donation to his campaign fund when he announces his candidacy for the Senate in a few months.”

I snorted. “Another great example of money in politics.”

“Don’t be grouchy,” she replied. “Look, I even brought you my leftovers.” She held up a leftovers box. “Scallops!” Withdrawing a napkin from her pocket, she unrolled it to reveal a clean fork, then popped open the top of her container and was in moments holding out a forkful of incredibly decadent-smelling scallop to me.

I was admittedly kind of hungry, so after I had merged the car safely back into traffic, I leaned over and begrudgingly ate the bite she was holding out to me. It was delicious. “I’m surprised you aren’t taunting me with surf and turf,” I grumbled as I chewed. “That’s what you used to always go for when someone with deep pockets was footing the bill.”

“I normally would’ve,” she agreed, “but I got your text about going to shake down the ghouls right before I ordered, and given where we’re going to end up going, even for me it seemed like a good day to avoid red meat.”

I made a face and had to agree.

*   *   *

The era of the local butcher shop—where professional butchers took huge sides of meat that were delivered to them directly from the slaughterhouses and broke them down themselves for customers, able to answer any and all questions about the meat in question—was one of the sad casualties of the modern big-box grocery store, where precut, packaged, and frozen meats were shipped in from hundreds of miles away to be thawed and presented for sale by glorified stocking clerks. The small butcher shops that remained were fighting the long defeat against an opponent that would always be able to undercut them on price, and whatever edge the butcher shop had in terms of customer service or basic competence was invariably lost when customers weighed that against the ability to also be able to buy eggs, panty hose, laundry detergent, and just-released DVDs while they waited for their order to be put together.

The butcher shop that we entered was one of this dying breed. With no frills or shiny pizzazz, it nevertheless had a long and gleaming selection of meats, and the chalkboard that ran the entire length of the counter showed a rather staggering breadth of both meats and cheeses. Looking over the counter gave the customer a full view of the three men currently working. One was breaking down meat from the full half of a cow into specific cuts to be sold, another was mixing ground meat in a large bowl, and a third was at the slicer making deli cuts. The only woman was standing at the counter, waiting on an elderly customer, but from her red-flecked apron, she was also no stranger to the butcher’s knife.

If I hadn’t known that this shop was owned and entirely staffed by ghouls, and that some of the offal meat that was cut, ground, or sliced on those workstations was from animals that had walked on two legs, I probably would’ve bought as much cheese as my budget could allow out of the sheer desire to express solidarity for the locally owned store. As it was, of course, I had to work to keep my stomach under tight control. Even living with Dan couldn’t shake me of the feeling that it was just kind of gross to eat human organs.

I was aware of what a hypocrite that made me, given my very regular consumption of human blood smoothies (the crushed ice and fruit didn’t exactly improve the flavor, but it did distract me a little more than when I warmed it). However, that didn’t make it any less true.

The ghouls knew who I was. From that mixture of outright terror and pants-wetting relief that crossed each of their faces, it was also clear that they’d known this visit was coming, and that they were aware just how lucky they were that I was the one to show up rather than my sister. I’d never exactly wanted a reputation—frankly, I’d spent most of my life just trying to fade into the background of almost every situation I was in—but I’d apparently, despite my best efforts, secured one for myself. Fortitude Scott—Holy Shit, We’re Glad You’re Not Your Sister.

Suze and I were hustled immediately to the back room, given the nicest seats, and then spent the next half hour trying to get everyone to stop promising speedy repayment and repeating babbled apologies so that we could actually figure out what was going on. After they finally caught on that—just as they’d barely even dared to hope—I wasn’t planning on using my sister’s method of persuasion, they calmed down enough that I could get them to actually walk me through the background.

What finally came out was that a year earlier, a large supermarket chain had bought up some defunct warehouse just one street over from the butcher shop, and had announced plans to raze the old building and construct a beautiful new grocery store with an emphasis on environmentally sustainable practices, excellent foods, wide varieties, and, among other things, its own in-store butcher station. Realizing the danger that this posed to their business, the ghouls had sent an appeal to my mother to use her political connections to make certain that the supermarket never moved in. They had received assurances that this would happen and had settled back, certain that Madeline Scott’s hands would soon be manipulating the levers of power like a seasoned organ player.