Shadow Twin

by Rachel Neumeier

  “One reason,” Miguel put in quickly. Both Ezekiel and Santibañez looked at him. So did Étienne Lumondière, not with any great favor, which Miguel might have anticipated, but on the other hand, annoying Étienne was not his biggest concern right at this moment. Ducking his head, he looked at Santibañez so he wouldn’t have to look at either black dog. He said, careful to keep his tone apologetic, “I sort of figure Colonel Herrod’s the type to have more than one thing in mind. And, I mean, you are Senator Santibañez’s nephew. Which he mentioned, Lieutenant, before he tossed you to the wolves. I’m pretty sure it matters. Because quite a few people are likely to think it does, aren’t they?”

  A slight pause. Then Ezekiel ordered softly, “Answer the question.”

  Lieutenant Santibañez looked back at Ezekiel. Too directly, but then he rubbed a hand across his mouth, shrugged, and said, “Yeah, the kid’s right. Some people might think it makes a difference. If the wrong video clip leaks to the wrong people at the wrong time, if certain kinds of actions are proposed, you can bet my uncle will get a phone call. He’s probably getting one now, actually. And yeah, it might make a difference. So there’s that.”

  Ezekiel gave Miguel an ironic look. Then he said to Lieutenant Santibañez, “If Connelly had kept on as he was going, he’d have killed me.”

  “I would’ve stopped it before it went that far.”

  Ezekiel’s look became, if possible, more ironic.

  The lieutenant shrugged. “Well, I would’ve. But you’re one tough bastard. I don’t think he got all that close. Not that he didn’t go pretty far, I grant you. Sorry about that. Seriously.”

  Ezekiel let that stand there for a moment that seemed to stretch out for a long time. He said at last, with no particular emphasis, “Maybe I’ll accept that apology and maybe I won’t. I’m not happy with you, Santibañez. You may want to keep that in mind.”

  “Yes, sir,” the lieutenant said quietly. Not looking down, but his quiet, respectful tone pretty much did the job.

  Still, Miguel cleared his throat and moved a step closer to the desk, ostentatiously studying the map in order to give Ezekiel a way to break off the encounter. He was relieved when Ezekiel took the opportunity, shifting his attention away from the lieutenant to the map.

  Also willing to take this as a signal, Étienne Lumondière said in his dry, accented English, “If you young men have got that settled, possibly we might turn our thoughts for a moment to a topic of almost equal importance.” He turned the book of maps about on the desk, inviting the rest of them to look. Even Miguel, for whom he spared a brief, caustic glance that wasn’t exactly friendly, but wasn’t actually hostile either.

  Miguel edged forward, contriving to get between Ezekiel and Lieutenant Santibañez so he could edge the lieutenant a few steps farther away from Dimilioc’s executioner. He wished some convenient opportunity would present itself so that he could explain a few items of basic black dog manners to Santibañez, but it was hard to think of any subtle way to get the lieutenant off by himself. The best he could do was just make sure the man didn’t accidentally crowd Ezekiel. Who, from the half amused, half exasperated look he turned on Miguel, knew very well what he was doing and thought it was unnecessary and maybe ridiculous.

  Well, maybe. Miguel had very definite opinions about taking basic precautions and not borrowing trouble.

  The map was interesting, though, so he almost forgot about the potential for trouble.

  “These witches like deserted areas, but they need a certain infrastructure for their work, I gather,” said Étienne. “They favor underground locales where possible. If you will kindly observe the area I have marked. This is the Denver international airport. Many rumors have surrounded this airport since its construction Many people believe there are secret tunnels or installations beneath the airport. These rumors were widely mocked before the war. But you may recall that in the later part of the war, it was in fact revealed that a master vampire had made a place for itself beneath the lower levels of Concourse B, and that a underground government installation indeed existed northeast of the Jeppesen Terminal.” As he named these locations, he tapped the exact spots on the map with the tip of a pencil.

  Startled into tactlessness, Miguel said, “You know all that?”

  Étienne tilted his head. “I have been head of this sept for longer than a year, Miguel.”

  “Right. Uh, I mean, of course. Yes, sir. Okay, uh, anyway, that seems plausible. It looks like kind of a big area...”

  “More than fifty square miles. It is admittedly a good deal of area. I would imagine your sister should be able to narrow it down.”

  “Fifty-three,” said Lieutenant Santibañez, peering at the map with interest. “It’s fifty-three square miles, give or take. The vampire lair got blocked off for study and I don’t offhand think anybody’s likely to have set up housekeeping there because being anywhere near it has got to give any normal person the creeps. But the government installation’s still a going concern, as far as I know. It’s DOD—Department of Defense—that’s not our guys. But you know who used to have plenty of buddies there? Three guesses, first two don’t count.”

  “Not Senator Supervillain?” Miguel asked, startled again.

  Lieutenant Santibañez grinned. “That’s good. Senator Supervillain. Also, yeah, got it in one. They’re political as hell, that lot. Whatever they get their hands on, it gets politicized up the wazoo. You probably figure, the colonel’s not the kind to get distracted by politics. A do-the-job type, the colonel. He’s gone around with those guys once or twice. ”

  “Yeah? Who won?”

  “Come on, you don’t have to ask, right? The colonel knows how to play that game too. He’s got some pretty competent people in his corner who are right up at the top.”

  “That’ll come in handy when those tapes get out.”

  “You bet, Miguel.”

  Ezekiel was leaning one hip against the edge of the heavy desk, far enough from Étienne that his stance there couldn’t be seen as a threat. His posture was relaxed, his arms were crossed over his chest, but when he shifted his weight everyone just naturally focused on him.

  “Names,” said Ezekiel.

  Lieutenant Santibañez hesitated for just a second. Then he nodded. “You know the names, I bet. Mostly I’m talking about the people who got it done when the vampires appeared. General Matias, he’s one. General Katsouflakis.”

  “Your uncle, for another,” said Miguel. “His crowd.” He added deliberately, “Which would be pretty much the same crowd that’s pushing to go after black dogs now the vampires are not a problem. Which Colonel Herrod realizes is a bad idea, right? Because without Dimilioc, you’d be kind of screwed when you suddenly found out about things like black witches and demons, right? You do realize that no black dogs would mean no Pure? And then you’d have a real problem when you discovered anything demonic had started eating people, cause as far as I know only the Pure are totally immune to demonic influence. Not to mention, any of those guys figured out yet they might not want to open the whole country up to dragons and stuff?”

  Santibañez ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, you know, that stuff is kind of above my pay grade—”

  “Speculate,” ordered Ezekiel.

  There was a pause, Ezekiel inflexible and Santibañez caught between talking out of turn and maybe breaking right through the thin ice he was skating on with Dimilioc’s executioner. Miguel felt sort of bad about putting the lieutenant on the spot like that, but on the other hand, he really wanted to know if the Special Forces had been thinking along that kind of path. And if they hadn’t, it was pretty important to give them a good shove in the right direction. And if Lieutenant Santibañez happened to be in position sometime to drop a word or two in his uncle’s ear—yeah.

  “I can’t speak for Colonel Herrod,” Santibañez said at last. He met Ezekiel’s eyes—Miguel really had to find a chance to talk to him about that—and added, “This is guesswork, right? I don’t kno
w what’s in the colonel’s head. But I don’t think he would have stepped up about the helicopter if he didn’t figure it pretty much the way Miguel just laid it out. I definitely don’t think he’d have ordered me in here if he weren’t pretty damn sure he wants your people as allies.” Then he looked at Miguel. “Dragons, seriously?”

  “Not on this continent,” Miguel assured him smoothly. “Probably. Yet.”

  “China?”

  “Sure. And Korea. Why do you think they’ve built up so slowly? If the dragon of the Yangtze doesn’t want you building a dam anywhere on its river, well, there you go. Take a good look at how and where China’s industrialized, which technology has caught on and which hasn’t. You can figure out a lot about dragons that way. I’ll tell you one thing you’ll figure out right away: dragons didn’t like vampires one little bit. Everything demonic steers clear of the Far East. And vice versa: where the demonic gets a solid foothold, dragons stay away. Which has its downside, but on the other hand, we can dam any river we want, so there’s that.”

  Miguel explained all this as smoothly and quickly as he could because he didn’t expect Étienne Lumondière to be patient for very long, maybe not Ezekiel either, and he wanted to get it out there. No black dogs means you get to deal with other things that are really powerful and that you don’t understand at all. Yeah, that was the basic idea he wanted Santibañez to pass on.

  The lieutenant paid close attention to Miguel’s little speech, so that was gratifying. But when Ezekiel stirred, his attention snapped right back that way. Which made perfect sense and was no problem. Santibañez was a smart guy. He’d pass along Miguel’s warning when and where it counted. Miguel was pretty sure about that.

  If they all survived long enough, of course.

  Because whatever Ezekiel had meant to say or do, he had stopped short, pivoting sharply to his right—to the south, toward the main driveway. So had Étienne Lumondière: Miguel hadn’t even seen him move, but the older black wolf was on his feet and facing the some way. Both of them were alert, heads up, faces starting to deform, eyes changing from human blue or brown to fiery yellow and orange.

  The Special Forces people were doing something, maybe. But Miguel didn’t think anything they would—or could—do would get a reaction like this.

  Or maybe some really powerful black dog enemy had suddenly made a move. But that would be quite a coincidence.

  Yeah. It was Gregor Kristoff, or his demon. Or both. Miguel wasn’t a black dog and didn’t have any kind of superpowers, but he was pretty clear about that.

  Ezekiel said to Étienne Lumondière, “Oh, this is wonderful. And we took the alarms down ourselves. Because the damned Special Forces are allies.”

  “Oui. It seems this was not clever of us,” Étienne agreed.

  “Yeah, well, this time he’s on our ground, and this time the bastard is dead.” Ezekiel gave Miguel a flashing look, jerked his head at Santibañez—Take care of him—and headed for the door, Étienne right behind him. The first gunshot came before the two black dogs were all the way out of the room, and then the first shout, blurred by distance.

  Miguel grabbed the lieutenant’s arm when he would have followed the black dogs. “Nope! We don’t go that way.”

  Santibañez probably outweighed him by eighty pounds and was muscled up besides, but he showed his good sense yet again by taking advice. Once Miguel was sure the lieutenant was following him, he headed the other way, for the nearest staircase. “We go this way,” he explained over his shoulder, “because there’s always someplace at the front of any sept house, second or third floor, good view, tough to get into from the outside, easy to get out of if you’re a black dog, shoot out of if you’re human—mierda, you don’t have a gun!”

  “Yeah, that seemed like a good idea at the time—”

  “Every stupid idea seems like a great idea at the time!” In Dimilioc’s Vermont house, Miguel would have known just where to grab a decent weapon and a dozen clips of silver ammo. He didn’t even know if Étienne Lumondière had that kind of gun safe in this house. Étienne was pretty old-fashioned about arming human kin, not to mention there weren’t any surviving Lumondière human kin anymore. He could just bet Étienne wasn’t in any damn rush to arm anybody else.

  Better figure no guns and no ammo except what Miguel had on him. Which had started life as Colonel Herrod’s gun, actually, so maybe by rights he should pass it back to Santibañez.

  Not far enough away, someone screamed. The high-pitched sound cut right through the house, way better than a deeper-toned man’s shout. Whatever was going on, it didn’t sound great—Miguel caught the bannister at the top of the stairs and swung himself around, heading for the lookout room where, surely, James had been. And Carter, hadn’t Grayson sent Carter up here? Miguel was sure he had.

  The room was big, all windows along the front, balcony built to be tough to swing over, front wall made to be tough to climb, great field of view right out across the curve of the driveway and the circle of pines beyond. The Special Forces people were out there, but, yep, they were not the problem. They were backing up, toward the house, a whole knot of them, fifteen or sixteen men—well, fifteen or sixteen people, Miguel spotted not just Hannah Raichlen but a couple other women as well. But all of ’em backing up.

  He could see why. Because stalking right through the middle of the pine circle came...something. Something...not good. Not a demon, or he didn’t think so. At least, not the kind of demon they’d all run into before. This...it was like a person, sort of. It was like a person, except...distorted. Not the same kind of distortion you’d see when a black dog shifted from one form to the other, not like that. This was like you took some normal guy and then...twisted every single feature in a different direction.

  “Now, that’s just really disturbing,” muttered Santibañez.

  “Yeah,” Miguel agreed.

  “That thing it’s doing is even worse.”

  “Yeah,” Miguel said again. Because it totally was. The thing it was doing...it reached out as they watched and laid a hand, a hand-like body part, on the trunk of one of the pine trees. The tree twisted and warped beneath that touch. It didn’t die. That was the worst part. It writhed in a horrible fluid way into something tree-like that wasn’t right, that was all wrong, and it stayed that way when the...creature...moved on. The earth where it stepped twisted and gaped open and writhed shut and...yeah, it was pretty horrible.

  Behind it, on the other side of the circle of pines, were worse things than misshapen earth and pines.

  “That was our outer perimeter,” Santibañez said, his tone hushed and horrified. “That’s—I recognize those...those guys.”

  Yeah, Miguel had kind of thought the scattering of...sort of...semi-human creatures the monster had left behind might be some of the Special Forces people. Those, what was left of them, yeah, they were pretty ghastly. Two of them. No, three. Or maybe four, depending on whether that one farthest back had ever been a person. They sort of didn’t have actual faces left. Or not in the normal position on the body. Not that they exactly had bodies, either, anymore. Not in any ordinary sense. They were sort of...melted into the distorted ground. Parts of them.

  How Santibañez could recognize them from the misshapen things the monster had left...maybe from the bits that hadn’t changed as much, like clothing and stuff. Miguel didn’t doubt him, though.

  No wonder the rest of the Special Forces people were getting out of the way. A ragged semicircle of tough guys and a couple tough women, backing slowly toward the house. Miguel could see Colonel Herrod...right, there was the putative civilian-who-wasn’t-a-major, Hannah Raichlen, anchoring the other end of that line. Yeah, they didn’t have a clue how to handle something like that monster. Not that Miguel had any idea either. He hadn’t come across anything like this when he’d read about Navajo skinwalkers or Ashanti witches or Assyrian demon-callers. He needed a year to do the background research, not a couple really busy days.

  Shooting the t
hing definitely wasn’t doing much. Herrod’s people were shooting at it. Shooting it, not like any of them were missing. Careful directed fire at the thing’s...face. It was a pretty easy target, big as it was and getting closer every second. It screamed and kind of oozed around the entrance hole whenever a bullet struck it, but otherwise, yeah, not much effect. Obviously Kristoff would have hardly have made a monster that could be stopped by bullets, even silver bullets. Which was bad. Really disturbing the way the earth malformed under it. Nobody was going to want to set foot on that ground any time in the near future. Maybe bulldoze the whole area and see if grass would grow over it before anybody touched it.

  If they all survived long enough to care about long-term effects, that’d be great.

  Grayson came into view, down the steps from the porch underneath the balcony. He walked slowly out toward Herrod’s people. The Master had obviously taken his time to assess the situation. Not one to rush blindly into some weird mierda, no, not the Master. But there he was at last, and the others with him. Most of the others. Étienne and Ezekiel, both in human form. Carter and Rip, Frédéric and Steven Knauer, all mostly in black dog form, though only Rip had shifted all the way yet. And yeah, there was Théo Callot, that was a little surprising. Prying Théo away from his wife must’ve been a trick, except maybe Natividad had actually found a way to help her. That would be one little point in favor of the good guys.

  No Alejandro. And Miguel didn’t see James, either. Or Carissa Hammond. Yeah, okay, so Grayson was keeping another string to his bow, at least one more. That was good. Even distracted by the monster, Miguel couldn’t help but notice the Master had put Carissa with Alejandro. Not something to worry about just yet, but it would sure be better if a couple Pure girls Alejandro’s age turned up. If he got involved with a black dog girl, that could be tough on both of them later on.

  If there was a later to worry about, of course.

  Eight black dogs out there right now. That was lots and lots of firepower. Probably Rip was the weakest black dog of the lot and he was smack dab in the medium range. But Grayson wasn’t in any hurry. He reached Colonel Herrod and paused for a word. Probably they were each saying things like My God that thing is weird, and Oh look, bullets aren’t stopping it. Miguel figured in a minute Grayson would take action. He’d have to, since the Special Forces people so far looked pretty damn helpless. He wanted to yell down, Don’t touch it! Except that was so totally obvious he might as well save his breath.