Dark Ascension: A Generation V Novel (9 page)

Prudence leaned forward and spoke carefully, and the expression on her face was frankly unnerved. It was rare for my mother to talk about Constance, and I couldn’t remember a single time in my entire life that Constance’s name had been mentioned in this kind of context, as a loss that somehow impacted our current situation. “Mother, you lost Constance, that’s true, but I’m not a child anymore. I’ll be able to protect your territory and my brothers.” Prudence gave a sudden, sharp laugh, almost as if she couldn’t help herself. “Look at this territory that you built, Mother! We rule unchallenged, the others of our kind in this part of the world barely even worth mentioning! What dangers could you be afraid of?”

The lines in Madeline’s face dug deeper, and she shook her head slightly. A heavy, gusty sigh seemed to come from the very roots of her ancient, dusty sadness. “Oh, daughter. Just that.” My sister frowned, looking both pissed and confused at my mother’s simple, yet firm statement. Madeline locked eyes with her, and waited until Prudence reluctantly glanced away. Then my mother swept that intense blue gaze over all of us, leaving no wiggle room or hiding places. “You will decide this amongst the three of you. That is my will.” We stared. If anything had been revealed in the last hour and change, it was that there was almost no overlap in what we thought the best solution was. I had the sudden horrible vision of all of us trapped in this room for the next century, delivered food from the kitchen and surviving from bathroom break to bathroom break, deadlocked to the end of our days. Something of that must’ve been reflecting in all of our eyes, because my mother said, after a long and uncomfortable silence, “If none of you have changed your mind about the fate of the succubi, then we will simply wait. Perhaps time and consideration will soften your positions.”

That opened the possibility that the stalemate might at least be punctuated by Marvel movie release days, but I didn’t see that as much of an improvement. I leaned forward. “Mother, time is something that the succubi don’t have.”

Madeline flipped her hand dismissively. “Of course they have time. The succubi sit within our borders in the Supplicant House. The skinwalkers were reminded quite recently what the punishment is for violating my territory—they won’t risk it simply for the sake of prey, however tempting.” That glare swept over all of us again, and her decree was like iron. “We shall wait until the three of you can reach a decision.”

My brain raced through the implications of that. The succubi were safe if they didn’t have to leave New Jersey. And given that a month or more could drag by while Prudence and I argued and Chivalry sat on the fence, the most important thing to do was make sure that the succubi were able to survive. That meant making sure that the skinwalkers never got close to them, even assuming the skinwalkers knew where they’d run. And that meant . . . “The succubi are having to hunt outside our borders. If we can’t grant them a speedy decision, then we should grant them hunting rights within the territory, where they can be assured of safety.” I forced confidence into my voice. Fake it till you make it was a better motto than nothing.

Beside me, Chivalry tipped his head and pursed his mouth, weighing my statement. After a quick glance at my mother confirmed that she wasn’t going to say anything, Chivalry noted cautiously, “It would have to be limited hunting rights, but that doesn’t sound unreasonable. Prudence?”

My sister’s expression left no doubt about the absolute depth of her pissiness regarding this situation, but she snapped out, “City hunting only, and have them distribute it around as much as possible. If we’re lucky no one will notice a few more cases of syphilis in New Jersey.”

The slur (whether justified or not) to the reputation of the Garden State was the least of my concerns, and I could almost feel my brain lurch into sudden, high gear. This was the most progress I’d been able to make on behalf of Saskia and the other succubi all morning. “So we grant them subsistence hunting in the cities, and we have them submit reports on how many humans they’re feeding from, and what steps they’re taking to avoid repeat victims.” My words tumbled out so quickly that they were slurred together, but both of my siblings nodded with varied levels of grace. I took my victory and immediately pushed forward. “That covers that—but we’re asking them to stay in a holding pattern indefinitely. That’s going to make it hard for them to look for the kinds of jobs that they’ll need to support themselves. We need to grant them a monetary stipend to help them make ends meet.”

Oh, the disgust on Prudence’s face. “Good grief, Fort, you actually
are
trying to start a welfare state. We’re already allowing them to live rent-free in a house that we’re paying the bills on.”

“They need groceries, gas for their van, seasonally appropriate clothing,” I countered. “That takes money, Prudence, money that they currently don’t have.”

“They can get jobs. Even if they can’t get the kinds of jobs they’re used to, they can still mop floors.” For a woman who’d never struggled for money, even during the days when the woman’s place had ostensibly been in the home (with certain exceptions always made, of course, for the devastating one-two punch of the Scott family clout and wealth), Prudence seemed very confident in her assessment.

Chivalry cut in, chiding Prudence. “We’re keeping them in the Supplicant House, sister. It’s not exactly located in a hotbed of industry.”

Finally the kind of big brotherly support that I’d been waiting for. “Exactly, which is why—”

But Chivalry, the turncoat, hadn’t finished, and spoke over me. “I don’t like the idea of giving cash payments. That’s not exactly the direction that money should be flowing in this territory.”

“Which I’m noting from page twelve, in extremely tiny print, that you’ve already established a precedent for, Fortitude.” Acid was less corrosive than Prudence’s tone.

Prudence was clearly a lost cause on this one, so I instead focused entirely on Chivalry, who at least seemed persuadable. “There are seven children in that house, Chivalry. That’s a lot of mouths to feed.”

He sighed, acknowledging my point, and suggested, “We could contact our agent and have him make deliveries of groceries and food. Maybe see if we can set up some kind of reimbursement agreement with the local gas station.”

“That would be good,” I agreed fast, hoping that the tide was turning in my favor.

“
Too
good.” Prudence flicked cookie crumbs off her lap with sharp flicks of her hand and looked quickly from Chivalry, to me, and back again, clearly weighing her position here. She grimaced, then allowed, “We have groceries for ten people delivered for as long as they’re kept in limbo from our lack of a decision. But they’ll have to figure out gas and clothing themselves.”

“That’s not unreasonable.” Chivalry’s voice was pleased.

I hesitated, trying to run numbers in my head. The gas and the clothing were tough, but they had the thousand dollars that I’d given them, plus whatever cash they’d still kept in the hole. Even my grocery bills were showing the signs of inflation, and I’d once spent five weeks living on nothing but white rice, salt, butter, and chewable vitamins when I was in the twilight time between the end of one job and waiting until the lagged pay on the new job started up. I had no doubt that at least shifting the burden of feeding seven children would make things much more manageable for the surviving succubi adults. It wasn’t everything I’d hoped for, but it was a lot more than I’d been afraid of. “Okay, agreed.”

Madeline, who’d sat back silent and alert during our brief, intense conversation, now made a small, pleased noise in her throat. “See, my darlings? I was certain that you could make strides. Now,” she huffed a little, exhaustion clear, “I would like us to perhaps table the larger discussion of the succubi until we can come together for a more decisive conversation. For now, I would prefer to rest my eyes for a bit.” She glanced at Chivalry. “Dear, if you could send for Patricia?”

He nodded, rising to his feet with the kind of courtesy that was as ingrained as it was archaic. “Of course.” Then he leaned down and touched one hand to our mother’s shoulder, soft and tentative. “And Maire as well?”

Maire was a former combat medic who had received her honorable discharge from the army after she lost one of her legs to an IED. A capable and wholly unflappable nurse, she’d been scooped up and employed by my mother to look after the medical needs of my host father, Henry. Vampires didn’t conceive and bear children directly—instead, true to our parasitical roots, we made our food sources also serve as our incubators. By carefully and patiently replacing all of Henry’s blood with her own, Madeline had begun a physical transformation that changed him, from his surface biology all the way down to his DNA, into a warped and twisted creature that was capable of passing on genes that were almost entirely my mother’s vampiric legacy. The process had shattered his mind, leaving him homicidally insane and a permanent guest of my mother’s basement containment facility, where he’d lived for the first twenty-six years of my life with his counterpart, my host mother, Grace. As my host parents, they’d shared an uncomfortable fixation and knowledge of me, which exceeded my understanding of it, but Grace had committed suicide to deliberately trigger the beginning of my transition, somehow knowing that in that moment that had been the only thing that could save my life during an altercation with a European vampire.

Henry’s current need for Maire’s services came from an attempt Prudence had made on his life in order to try to complete my transition to full vampire status. Before my mother stopped her, Prudence had managed to deliver punishing damage that would’ve killed him had he been fully human—but my mother’s blood had saved him. However, the vampire blood flowing through Henry’s veins wasn’t his—it was my mother’s. He could survive incredible injuries, was granted inhuman strength, but the blood couldn’t replenish itself within Henry’s body, and he couldn’t heal from the injuries my sister had inflicted without more blood from my mother. And in her current state of declining health, my mother had not chosen to heal Henry. Now he spent all of his days strapped to a medical bed, monitored and attended to by Maire for his health and Conrad, his general keeper and overseer, for security.

I’d known that Maire had been hired to take care of Henry (Conrad was a big, tough former marine who was great on security and marksmanship, but was admittedly nauseated by the very thought of changing a catheter needle), but this was the first time I’d even heard a suggestion that Maire also tend to Madeline. A chill ran up my spine.

Madeline considered Chivalry’s hand on her shoulder with narrow eyes, and I could see her weighing whether to strike out at him. But his dark eyes were steady, and if it hadn’t been for the slight shake in the palm resting on her thin shoulder, I would’ve described him as perfectly calm. Then Madeline made a decision, and the dangerous moment passed. Her voice was sharp with irritation, but it was an old woman’s exaggerated crankiness, not the anger of a monster that could tear through flesh and bone as easily as I could rip a piece of paper. “Very well. If it would comfort you.”

A brief flurry of activity followed. We hung back and watched while Patricia bustled in, all solicitous clucking and tenderness with her charge, and my mother submitted to her attentions with an almost affectionate air. Patricia showed all of her sixty-plus years on her face, but she’d worked in this house since she was a teenager, and had been my mother’s maid since she was in her twenties. She’d grown old in my mother’s service, and had probably never even imagined that she could outlive my mother. Looking at her expression, of worry fighting with an almost religious fervor, I wondered if she’d let herself admit it yet, that the unthinkable would actually come to pass, and she would outlive Madeline.

Maire followed, carrying a small bag of medical supplies, and trailed by another staff member who pushed a wheeled cart that carried more, all tastefully obscured with a linen tablecloth. Her employment with my mother could only be measured in months, not years, and her expression was clinical and assessing. She hadn’t been around the family long enough to face the difference in our life spans, to observe the Scott family remaining almost unchanged by the decades that passed as the humans wilted around us.

I hadn’t had to see that either, of course. At twenty-seven, I remained deceptively in step with the aging processes around me. It wouldn’t last much longer, my siblings had assured me multiple times. The next twenty years, the next thirty, would strip away my ability to view myself as human, as a peer to the men and women I’d gone to college with and formed friendships and ties to. It was clear that the rest of my family was eagerly awaiting the delivery of nature’s harshest lesson.

My siblings and I
found ourselves politely showed to the door, our ears filled with Patricia’s particular blend of reassurance about my mother’s condition (“just a nap is all she needs to perk her up”) and almost knee-jerk guilting (“it’s so important not to overly burden her, though of course I understand how difficult it might be to respect one’s own mother. After all, I can tell you things about my Levi that would break your heart”).

Prudence headed down the hallway in the direction of her own suite, looking—from the completely neutral expression on her face down to her professional low pumps, like any Providence businesswoman heading to work. She didn’t even glance at either me or Chivalry. I didn’t often feel like chatting with my sister, but after what we’d all just seen, I couldn’t help feeling that at least a little postmortem was in order. “Prudence—”

She glanced over her shoulder, her mouth tight and her eyes flinty. “Later, little brother. All things can be discussed at length later.” Then she turned a corner and was gone.

Chivalry rested a hand on the back of my shoulder and subtly nudged me to accompany him in the other direction than our sister, away from the family suites and toward the main staircase that would take us downstairs. Of course there were several other staircases in the house, but given that Chivalry had grown up in an age where those had been strictly for servants’ use, I didn’t think it ever would’ve even occurred to him that occasionally they offered more direct paths around the various levels of the house. “Give her a moment, Fort. This has been a shocking morning for us all.” A muscle twitched hard for a second in my brother’s chiseled jaw.

“But what does it mean, Chivalry? What Mother said—”

“You know, Fort. You already knew.” Nothing about my brother’s tone was harsh. It was gentle, and his own sadness was readily apparent. But at the same time it brooked no argument, gave me no way to wiggle around what had been stated outright in that frothily decorated room. Nothing, not even the life of a vampire, lasted forever.

I didn’t want to have to think about that, or wonder what life would be like without my terrifying, and terrifyingly loving, mother sitting in the corner, manipulating the lives of her children on puppet strings. So I thought about something else, something that I hoped would push us far away from the rawness of this topic and the way that it was making me think about my mother as transitory rather than permanent, and perhaps even have to decide once and for all whether I loved or hated her. I knew that I was acting out a cliché even as I did it, but clichés come from the truth, so I got mad at my brother.

“Chivalry, why couldn’t you just have sided with me on the succubi? I was the one who was actually sitting and talking to them.”

“Fort, it’s critical that you begin to start finding common ground with Prudence.” He let me change the topic, even as I felt his dark eyes assess me.

I pushed him, welcoming the feeling of justified irritation. The plight of the succubi was real and concrete, and with my brother’s vote I could’ve done real good for their lives. “Mother said that it was our decision—a two-to-one vote would’ve ended the conversation.”

“Fort, you’re asking me to side with you just because of your delightful personality. That’s not enough for this. I don’t disagree with you about the succubi, but I also don’t disagree with Prudence’s assessment either.”

Just hearing him reexpress that was nearly enough to make my head explode. My sister’s votes against me were incredibly frustrating, but at least they’d come from a particular set of deeply felt views, even if those views were far too Randian for me to ever sign on to or even respect. “But—”

“Fortitude.” We were on the main staircase by then, and Chivalry stopped and grabbed my lower arm hard, his fingers digging in with just enough force to remind me how strong he was, and how easy he would find it to snap my bone like kindling. His dark brown eyes were intense, and the irises were just slightly bigger than they should’ve been, a reminder to me not to push his temper. We were on the upper part of the staircase, and as I stepped back slightly I could feel the cool marble of the staircase balustrade against my waist. I resolutely kept my eyes on my brother, long practice allowing me to ignore the staircase carvings behind him. My mother’s home decorating whimsy combined with a great deal of discretionary income had resulted in a marble staircase with a nautical mermaid theme. The sculptor had apparently started the project innocently enough, but by the middle of the staircase had started feeling enough artistic license to drop the mermaids’ tops, and by the top of the stairs the carvings were frankly pornographic.

My brother leaned close, his voice low. “Mother said it outright today. She won’t be with us much longer. When she is gone, the territory falls to Prudence. If you wish to have your voice heard in the way that the territory operates, then you need to be working with her, not just trying to outvote her. Believe me, it won’t be about votes once Mother is gone.”

“Mother didn’t say that Prudence would inherit,” I pointed out. Then, emotions running high, I broached the topic that we almost never spoke of. “And she did something different with you and me than Prudence.
Made
us different.” Madeline had killed my sister’s host parents the day that she was born, and Prudence had gone through transition as she moved through puberty. But later, with my brother, Madeline had left his host mother alive until he was twenty, and learned that her life had held his transition back. With me she’d gone even further, and somehow this seemed to have changed us, made us different than our Prudence.

A disbelieving, incredulous smile pulled across my brother’s face. “Don’t fool yourself, little brother. Whatever Mother was doing with our conception and rearing, for whatever reason, it won’t change the facts. I’m a century away from mature power. You’re barely more than an infant. Despite what Mother might wish for, Prudence is the only candidate, and she knows it.” His hand tightened painfully on my arm, and I knew that I’d carry a bruise tomorrow. “And much as you two might be different, don’t forget that she is our sister, and that she knows her responsibilities.” He released my arm, and continued walking down the steps. After a second’s hesitation, I followed. We walked through the labyrinthine hallways of the house until we reached my brother’s office, tucked well away from the public rooms of the house where guests (both human, supernatural, and politicians) were entertained. It was decorated in dark wood, with luxuriously deep carpeting and almost stereotypical paintings of dogs and horses on the walls. I’d become a regular user of this office in the last few months, enough so that my brother had even floated the idea of getting a second desk brought in for me to use. But I’d said that I was comfortable enough making use of one of the long study tables in the corner when I needed workspace, and my brother was usually generous about sharing his computer, though he’d thrown something of a fit when I installed
Minecraft
on it. Truthfully I felt more than sufficiently involved in the family business, and, like the fictional Michael Corleone before me, preferred a bit of distance, however symbolic.

Other than us, the office was empty. The family employed two accountants to process tithes and print up the bills (yes, we actually did mail out tithing statements, which looked suspiciously similar to Rhode Island property tax bills) as well as determine what everyone should be paying. They were both human, and occupied a tidy little office in what had previously been the music room. Loren Noka also had a desk in that room, though she was just as likely to be found in this room, researching pieces of information in the extensive files that we still maintained in print. The file cabinets Chivalry owned were modern and top-of-the-line, but it wasn’t uncommon to open up a manila folder and find that the documents within it had been written on vellum centuries ago.

“Ah, excellent,” Chivalry said with forced heartiness as we came into the empty room. “Given how early Loren showed up this morning, I asked her to take the rest of the morning off and go have a nice brunch on us. Now”—he eyed me cautiously—“since I have you to myself for a moment, there are some line items in Ms. Hollis’s reimbursement sheets that I’d like to discuss with you.”

I immediately dropped into one of the comfortable leather armchairs in front of Chivalry’s desk and settled in for the long haul. Suzume was paid well by my family to accompany me around the territory and assist in the investigation of any issues or the enforcement of the Scotts’ rules, but she was not above submitting reimbursement sheets for any expenses that she felt that she had in some way incurred while on Scott time. After I’d gotten mud from my shoes on the inside of her Audi, I got an earful from Chivalry about receiving the bill for her car’s detailing. And the argument over whether or not she could send dry-cleaning bills to the family was a long and ongoing one—probably not assisted by my comment at the time about how she only seemed to wear clothing on fifty percent of our excursions anyway. That had resulted in several faxed documents breaking down standard dog grooming costs, and suggesting that a similarly priced scale be applied to her own cleaning and upkeep. My brother had been less than amused on that day.

I was waiting for something like that, so I was very surprised when Chivalry looked at me extremely seriously and asked, “Fort, are you in any trouble?”

I blinked at him, confused. “No—not more than usual.”

“I wish you’d be honest with me,” Chivalry said sadly. “Surely the last few months have shown you that the family is willing to support your actions and interests, or at least have a reasonable discussion about them.” He reached onto his desk and slid a file out of his stack, which he tapped with one finger but didn’t open. He stared at me, clearly waiting for a confession. When none was forthcoming, because of the sheer level of flummox that I was feeling, he gave a heavy sigh and flipped the folder open, then handed it to me. “You’re having the kitsune stay on duty four nights out of seven for bodyguarding duties. There’s clearly something going on.”

Horror filled me. I desperately tried to convince myself that it wasn’t the case, that she wouldn’t go that far, but there it was in black-and-white itemized charges. “. . . she’s charging for overnights?” And double for the weekends. I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach, with the air shoved outward and leaving me gasping and lost. I’d been a job for Suzume when we first met—the helpless baby vampire that she was hired to keep an eye on. But that had been a long time ago, and things had changed—or I’d thought they had. A nasty thought intruded into my head—was I still a job to her?

I mentally shook myself hard. That couldn’t be the case, and it
wasn’t
.

But that’s the horrible, insidious thing about doubt. Doubt lingers, undermines. Doubt is like the salt that was put down on all the New England roads every winter. It kept our cars from sliding on the ice, but it was corrosive. It devoured the metal of our cars, spreading rust through them like cancer. It weakened the roads, creating fissures in the asphalt. It washed off the roads and into the rivers, poisoning our waterways.

“Yes—” Chivalry was confirming.

“I’ll handle this,” I snapped. That airless feeling was going away, but I could feel my neck and cheeks getting hot as the shock faded and was replaced by anger. In what alternative universe, even a kitsune universe, was putting together an invoice for the time we spent together socially okay? My body felt numb, and I had a brief moment of gratitude that I had already been sitting down before my brother had unwittingly sprung this emotional can of snakes on me.

“But—”

“It’s a miscommunication, Chivalry, and
I’ll handle it.
”

Chivalry’s jaw firmed, and I saw a familiar, and wholly inconvenient, stubbornness as he refused to heed what I could only hope was a truly gimlet look in my eyes. “I know that you’ve done things on your own before, Fort, but given everything that’s currently going on here, I really don’t want you to be—”

I couldn’t take it anymore, and I blurted out, much louder than I’d intended, “I’m
dating
her.”

There was a long pause, and I could see the wheels turn in my brother’s head. “Oh.
Oh
.” He looked hideously embarrassed, which seemed only fair given the level of personal humiliation I was currently experiencing in realizing that my girlfriend had been logging her overnights as a business expense. The file was yanked out of my hands and shoved under his blotter, as if by immediately excising it from our sight we could pretend that the conversation had never even come up. “Well, then . . . yes, good chat.” He smoothed out his already immaculately pressed sweater, then made a show of checking his watch. “I’m going to see if Simone needs anything. Like . . . lunch.”

I turned to stare out the window. Just looking at him felt like too much right now—a million times worse than if I’d just found the numbers myself. It was like a mirror reflecting light, exacerbating the whole wretched moment. “Yes. Super. Do that.”

Chivalry made a hasty exit out the door, ostensibly off to go see my newest sister-in-law. I sat in the chair for a long minute, the blinding feeling of my wholly justifiable pissed-ness rolling over me in a wave, letting my fingers clench into the leather of the armchair until my knuckles ached.

I knew she cared about me, I reminded myself. She’d risked her life for me (even though she’d later put a dollar amount and an invoice on that too, if memory served me). She’d comforted me when the truth about vampire feeding almost broke me apart and turned me to desperate actions. She’d teased me, taunted me, slept beside me.

An image of her from that morning forced itself into my head—not of her smiling face or the sight of her bare skin in the morning light, but a furry ball on my pillow, white tail tip tucked over her nose.

She’d never stayed in her human shape all night with me. She always became a fox again. That had been bothering me for weeks, scraping at the back of my mind. Was that significant? Had that refusal actually been her true feelings coming through?