Free A Taint in the Blood by S. M. Stirling

off the boss or do the sort of big showy shit that’s difficult to make vanish, it’s pretty well anything goes.”
    “Sounds like a good gig,” Ellen said.
    If you’re completely fucking crazy , she added to herself. And have the morals of a rabid weasel.
    “There are some things you should know,” Theresa said.
    David looked at her; she shrugged. “I am household manager,” she said. To Ellen:
    “There is no privacy from them, not even in your thoughts. And no safety or protection from them anywhere. Once they have tasted of your blood you are linked, linked forever. They can find you if you flee to the ends of the earth and hide in the deepest cave. And whatever they do to you, even a very painful death, embrace it rather than disobey.”
    David smirked and glanced at the older woman. “There’s one other downside to being a renfield,” he said. “Your colleagues are going to be the sort of people who are cool with joining the Mafia, or selling their souls to the Devil.”
    He levered himself up. “Going to go hit the bunk. We’ll be home in an hour and a half. Thanks for the chicken soup. Man, I’m looking forward to my own bed!”
    Adrienne came out of the bathroom a minute after he’d wobbled to the rear. Her hair was damp, slicked back in a ponytail, and she wore a long loose colorful West African m’boubou robe with wide sleeves, printed in what Ellen thought of as a dashiki pattern.
    She and Adrian even walk a lot alike, allowing for the difference in the hips, Ellen thought.
    That flowing dancer’s grace was one of the things that had attracted her to him in the first place.
    Oh, God, Adrian, come get me! And I hate waiting for someone to rescue me, but what else can I do?
    Though the walk had an unpleasantly catlike quality to it, now that she thought of it. A sense of creeping menace came with Adrian’s sister, a fear that she hadn’t noticed until it returned.
    “Five minutes to the Seversk call, Ms. Brézé,” Theresa said. “Do you want me to cancel it?”
    “No, no, it’s important. Hmmm. There’s an idea. He makes a great noise about his progressive attitudes but is fond of high Shadowspawn attitude . . . A pity David isn’t photogenic right now.”
    She looked at Ellen. “Take off your clothes.”
    “What?” Ellen said. Then an involuntary yelp of: “ Ouch! ” as her neck twinged.
    “That wasn’t a request, chérie . This is business. The underwear too. My, that dress is quite ruined, isn’t it?”
    She tousled Ellen’s pale-blond hair, studied the results and nodded.
    “Theresa, your pendant for a little.”
    The manager compressed her lips, but reached behind her head. The slim gold chain held a disk with the same black sun and golden trident that she’d noticed on David’s wrist. Adrienne dropped it over Ellen’s head, and gave it a twitch so that the sigil was visible just above her breasts.
    “Excellent,” she said. “Now, I will be talking with an associate named Dmitri Usov. He’s an able man but has some quirks. Ah, well, don’t we all, eh? Don’t speak unless spoken to; if he does speak to you, answer him quickly. Theresa, bring coffee and brandy. Ellen, stand by my chair within the pickup angle and serve them if I move my hand, so .”
    The chair was a deep lounger. Adrienne lay back in it and touched a clearpad control surface in one arm. A sixty-inch screen swung down from the ceiling with a very faint whir of servos, and lit. After a moment it cleared with the pellucidly sharp outlines that meant a high-bandwidth dedicated satellite link.
    Ellen blinked. The room that showed in it looked like a set from a Bakst ballet, with samovars and Persian rugs and colorful drapes and icons, clashing horribly with a tumble of electronic equipment. A man in an open embroidered caftan and loose drawstring pantaloons sat on a chair that wasn’t quite thronelike—it looked too comfortable—but came close. Two naked teenagers stood on either side; the boy holding