Shadowshaper Legacy

by Daniel José Older

  “Hey!” someone yelled into the sudden silence. Juan thought it might’ve been Jerome. A poof of thick rectangles of paper went shooting up into the air from one corner of the audience, and the cards fluttered down over bulging eyes and outstretched hands.

  At the opposite end, another voice yelled, “Hey!” — Nydia maybe — and the same thing happened. Then a third time, right in the middle of the audience.

  For a smooth couple seconds, utter silence took over. Then, like someone had flicked a switch, the whole crowd exploded into a frenzy of grasps, yells, lunges, and then, inevitably, punches and kicks.

  “Holy shit,” Juan whispered. Shadows stomped forward from where they’d been lingering at the edges of the audience.

  This was it.

  Juan looked at Pulpo, who stood beside him with a slight smirk on his face. “You ready to shadowshape like the lives of your loved ones depend on it because they do, my good brother?”

  “Hell yeah!” Pulpo nodded, signaling Kaz, and Juan kicked the overdrive pedal, and both of them leaned into a wide stance and let loose.

  “So what’s it like?” Angelito asked as he whacked through some more thick underbrush. Their strange procession snaked along through the jungle behind them: María and Septima trudging along in the middle, then Tío Angelo and one of his nephews on rear guard.

  “What’s that?” Sierra asked.

  “Being Lucera and all.”

  Whack! Whack! Whack!

  “Oh, ha … I mean …” What indeed? She’d been Lucera since June, six months now, and still hadn’t really figured out how to put it into words. She’d tried with Anthony, clacking away as honestly as possible about what it all meant on the Olivetti Nydia had gifted her for her birthday. But she didn’t think it really made much sense, just a bunch of aggy thoughts and feels. Truth was, no one knew how it felt, not really, cuz no one else was Lucera. And Mama Carmen had barely held on long enough to pass along the mantle and then been gone completely and so … Sierra was left to figure it all out for herself.

  Angelito glanced back at her and chuckled. “That’s a whole lot of stuff that just passed across your face, cuz.”

  Whack!

  “Yeah … because it’s completely impossible to explain. And we’ve been at war basically since I became Lucera, and dealing with the damn Deck, so I don’t even feel like … I’ve barely gotten to be Lucera, because I’ve had to be a wartime Lucera the whole time.” For a flickering moment, Sierra wondered what life would’ve been like if the Deck had never shown up, if the other houses hadn’t decided to team up to topple her, if she’d just been able to be happy and shadowshaping with her friends for the past six months. They could’ve made so much art, gotten so much closer to their spirits, who knew what else? The thought opened up a sadness inside her so deep she didn’t know what to do.

  Whack! Whack!

  “Yeah, I know what you mean,” Angelito said with a sad laugh. “I mean, not exactly, because yeah, what you said. But Papa’s been training me to be part of this elite guardia since I could walk, basically. I studied IT at San Juan University, and he nearly lost his damn mind the whole four years I was away.” He gave an eye-rolling nod toward where his father was still grumpily eyeing Septima. “I mean, he’s right to be on it. And yeah, it’s our lineage, our duty, I get that. But you weren’t wrong, you know, what you said back there.”

  “Er …” Sierra made a face. “I feel kinda bad about that. It was a real outsider-coming-in-to-tell-folks-on-the-ground-what’s-what kinda move.”

  “Yeah,” Angelito said. “But like I said … it wasn’t wrong. We will have to figure out how to live our lives when all this is over. I just don’t think it ever occurred to him that it could be over one day. Without the cards, it’s pretty much impossible to get anywhere near the place, and the House of Light had always had the Deck, so … Ah!”

  “Ah?” Sierra looked up, followed Angelito’s pointing finger to a hill sloping up above the treetops ahead. It was almost not there, the vegetation had overwhelmed it so much, but there amidst the curling tree branches and dangling vines, the peeling plaster walls of La Contessa’s ancient palace could be seen. A single tower rose up over the domed ceiling of the main hold. Sierra shuddered. “Ah.”

  Once grand, the entranceway now festered and molded, crumbled and peeled. This had been a courtyard, Sierra realized. Now the forest had taken it over mostly, burst through the concrete and plaster, shattered elaborate statues and fountains in a slow-motion rampage over the course of decades.

  “She’s not going to let you boys in,” Sierra said when they paused at the front door. “You know this, so let’s not argue, yeah? But once she’s distracted, ah, come through swinging, please?”

  Angelito nodded, flashed his wily smile. “Será un placer.”

  Even Tío Angelo looked pretty giddy about the prospect of finally facing his lifelong foe. “Just promise me,” he warned, eyeing Septima.

  “Yes, yes. First sign of anything off from this one, we’ll shut it all down, I swear.”

  Septima bowed to Angelo. I just want to say, she started.

  “Uh-uh,” Sierra cut her off. “We don’t have time for all that now. Let’s move.” She and María headed into the shadows of the entranceway.

  Sorry! Septima called over her shoulder. Lo siento tanto.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Sierra mumbled to herself. “She’s sorry.”

  “Sierra,” María warned as they opened the front door and stood on the threshold.

  “Look, Mami.” She turned, looked her mom in the eye. “I love you. I wish it hadn’t come to all this. And I’m terrified that you’re here, that you’ll get hurt. But I also know it’s important that you be here. That you have to be here for this moment, whatever happens.”

  María looked misty-eyed for a moment, then shook it away and nodded sternly. “I believe in you, m’ija.” They hugged. Septima hovered up to them, sending her golden haze across the dusty linoleum floors and a once elegant, now dilapidated coatrack.

  Let’s do this, the Sorrow said shakily.

  The front room was gigantic, something like an amphitheater. It spiraled upward into the dome shape that had been visible through the trees, and moldy, mostly scratched-over frescoes decorated the walls all the way to the top. The far end was all shadowy, but … Sierra squinted … something was moving over there. The shadows themselves seemed to come to life, but it wasn’t spirits, Sierra realized. It was that whatever was moving was huge.

  “Mmmmm, Luceraaa,” a creaking, languid voice said. “Por fin.”

  It wasn’t a spirit voice like Septima’s; La Contessa Araña was still a flesh-and-blood thing. Sierra shuddered. From somewhere — far away, though — another voice called: Luceraaa. No: a chorus of voices. The same spirit song she had heard back in June when she’d first become Lucera.

  Sierra stepped forward, held the cards she carried up. “We have come, Contessa. And we have the Deck.”

  “You have some of the Deck, mmm …” the ancient voice mewed. It sounded like she was chewing on something wet and drippy. “The rest is … in play, I see. There has been a haze over my web for a few days now, as often happens in times of change, eh? I cannot see as clearly now, but a shift is coming, a great shift. New alignments, new Hierophants. All is chaos. That’s why you have finally come, Lucera … you are afraid. You wish, like I once did, to bring order to a world that is swinging against you.”

  “Yes,” Sierra said. “The tides have turned. We need your help.”

  “Fffffffinally.” La Contessa Araña seethed. “If only my own daughters had been smarter. If they had brought the Deck to the source, even part, along with you, Lucera — if they had convinced you to join them finally once and for all — they could’ve probably attained dominance, wiped out their enemies, consolidated power instead of being wiped out. Now … now that you have done what’s right, Lucera, all that is obsolete. We will annihilate these new houses, we will destroy and reign as we once di
d, and I will reign with you, and the family legacy will be complete again, after so many generations.”

  Madre mía, Septima called, swooping forward. It’s me, Septima.

  “Septima, stop,” Sierra whispered.

  The Sorrow spun in front of her and María, her back to the giant writhing shadow. I will bring her what you have brought, and I will destroy her with it! Septima hissed. Quick, give me.

  “Septima,” Sierra said again.

  Don’t you see? Septima pleaded. It’s the only way. It’s my destiny. I will atone for all I have done.

  “What’s that?” La Contessa shrieked. The darkness seemed to come alive around them, long shadows stretching through the dank vastness of the palace.

  “Septima, shut up!”

  Fool! Septima spat, then she spun around and broke toward the far wall.

  “What the hell is she doing?” María gasped.

  For a terrible moment, they just watched as Septima’s golden light traversed the dim hall. It was beautiful in the worst way. Then two tall shapes at the far end that Sierra had thought were pillars lifted and came down with sharp crunches, and a huge form emerged from the darkness. La Contessa looked like some horrible configuration of flesh, all dripping and bulging through the tattered remains of an elegant ball gown. Her shriveled, hideous face squinted out at them with several pairs of eyes that shone from the folds of her gigantic forehead. Spider legs sprouted from a bulbous protrusion behind her; they stretched up and outward into the darkness.

  “¡Traicionera de puta!” the monstrosity screeched, and then one of her legs twitched and came shooting out of the darkness, stabbing through Septima’s golden shroud.

  The Sorrow let out a horrific shriek and then was simply gone. Darkness fell over the room and all Sierra heard was the thick and mucousy rattle of her horrific great-great-great-grandmother breathing in and out.

  “Okay,” Sierra said, taking her mom’s hand in her own and squeezing. “Run.”

  Spirits surged through Juan as he strummed.

  Beside him, spirits surged through Pulpo as he plucked. It suddenly seemed so simple, shadowshaping, like Juan had been doing it his whole life. Which, maybe, in some strange, small way, he had.

  The music surged. Kaz had been going berserk on the drums since hitting the four count — like, only a true music savant like Juan could even distinguish where the one was, the whole sequence was so ludicrous — and Juan and Pulpo had just been hammering away at the same chord sequence in rising and falling riffs.

  And the spirits had known exactly what to do, it seemed. As soon as the song had started, they’d turned their shimmering faces to the stage and galloped toward it on those long shadow legs, right in time to Kaz’s maniacal beat.

  And then, one by one, they’d leapt forward from either side, and one by one they’d surged directly into Juan and Pulpo, then busted back out again, now somehow solider, fiercer. Each newly rebirthed spirit had thrashed into the rollicking, battling crowd, scattering people to either side like some miniature tornado blast.

  “Is this what we’re supposed to be doing?” Pulpo asked, leaning over to get close to Juan’s ear.

  Juan scanned the place. People were beating the crap out of each other everywhere. It was like one of those videos that go viral on the Internet of some all-out brawl erupting at a fast-food joint or whatever — just utter chaos. It would’ve been hilarious if it wasn’t real people getting their faces bashed in and being tossed into stampeding crowds.

  Those cards, though. They all wanted to get their hands on those cards. And as soon as they did, they’d use them to subjugate each other.

  Sierra — wherever she was — had had a lot more cards tossed into the mix than there really were in the Deck. Every once in a while, someone would emerge from the mire with one in his hands, then gape at it and start to complain that it wasn’t even — and then get his ass beat before he could finish the sentence as the writhing, roiling pile of whupass rolled ever forward.

  Juan nodded. “Yep. Chaos is the plan. We doing it.”

  “That’s for damn sure.” Down below, a guy shoved someone into another guy, and the shoved guy ducked so when the first guy went to punch him, he ended up knocking the guy behind him’s teeth out, and then middle guy leapt up from his crouch and caught a face full of knuckles from a woman who’d run up behind the first guy. Then the woman kicked him in the chest, crumpling him, and snatched something from his hand: one of the cards.

  “Good grief,” Juan said as another spirit came running up, blitzed through him, and then stormed out, smashing directly into the lady and knocking her on her ass. The card went flying, and the throng of people hurled into each other over where it landed.

  “STOP!” Dake’s voice burst over the mayhem and music. Juan whirled around, still playing. This guy. The young fascist stood on the throne, arms stretched to either side. He was still wearing that ridiculous fur, but now it seemed to crawl and seethe around him, a thing alive.

  Ugh. That blood magic was still a thing, Juan realized, just now it was combined with the Iron House powers, and who knew how all that would play out?

  For a few seconds, it seemed to work. The melee paused as everyone looked up. It was all the time Dake needed. Immediately, his throne extended upward, iron spikes and pistons stretching beneath it with a wrenching squeal.

  “Master!” a skinhead called from the front of the crowd. “I have the card! I have the card of the Emperor of Blood and —”

  He didn’t get the next word out, because someone sucker punched him into a crowd of people who immediately pounced on the knocked-out nazi.

  “Bring me that card!” Dake yelled.

  Juan and Pulpo exchanged a glance and then focused on that exact spot, where bodies writhed on top of each other, bones cracked, and people screamed. Shadows all over the field turned suddenly and began converging.

  Juan saw Nydia and Jerome both working their way there from opposite sides of the crowd. But then an impossibly tall figure emerged from under the stage and Juan leapt back with a yelp.

  The River. He launched into the crowd and foul, muddy water seemed to gush up from the ground around him. Nearby, a huge figure in filthy black fatigues and a gas mask elbowed people out of their way as they surged through the human tangle.

  Shit.

  The shadows weren’t close enough. Already, the River and Fortress had tossed swinging, screaming bodies to the side like they were digging through the trash. A shadow spirit slammed into Fortress, and the Hierophant batted it aside like a mere annoyance. The River stood, the card raised above his head, way out of reach of anyone, and stepped gingerly back toward the stage, ascended it with one spooky, horrific lunge, and then seemed to almost float past Juan and Pulpo to where Dake sat upon his raised throne. A heavy, foul stench filled their air in the Hierophant’s wake. He held the card up to Dake, who reached out and took it from him with a triumphant cackle.

  Everyone watched in awe; even Kaz stopped playing.

  The throne grew outward in several directions, reinforced and newly ferocious with spears shoving toward the sky and either side. Then Dake himself started expanding: iron appendages draped in gnarled, bloodstained fur unfolded from his back like horrific wings. He shrieked in pain, legs and arms lengthening as metallic shards shoved underneath his skin and then poked out at odd angles amidst splatters of blood. Gleaming, crimson tusks wrenched themselves out of his cheeks.

  “Holy shit,” someone in the audience said, summing up everyone’s general mood perfectly. “What the —”

  “THE HOUSE OF BLOOD AND IRON IS DOMINANT!” the newly crowned emperor bellowed. “And now a great slaughter will commence!”

  Juan glanced at Pulpo, then both of them dropped their instruments and ran.

  Sierra and María Santiago sprinted through a shadowy passageway that led out into a wide corridor, then threw themselves against a wall to catch their breath. They could hear the sounds of that horrible, disgusting creatur
e cackling and howling and banging through the palace not too far away. It didn’t seem to be coming up too close behind them, but Sierra was pretty sure the damn thing could just drop out of nowhere at any given moment. She kept her eyes on the shadows around them, ready to run.

  “What the hell?” María panted.

  Sierra didn’t have a response. She just shook her head, coughed into her hand, tried to slow her breathing.

  “Where do we … ?”

  Luuuuuuuuuuuuu, came that faraway call.

  They both perked up, glanced around. “You heard it, right?” María asked.

  Ceraaaaaaaa!

  “Yeah, but where from?”

  They took a few steps into the corridor. Someone had ripped the faces off all the dusty, age-old portraits along the walls. The carpeting was moldy and covered in bird shit or … something shit …

  Luuuuuuuuuuuuu …

  It sounded like it was coming from somewhere up high, way above them, and deeper into the palace.

  Ceraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

  Sierra pointed her chin toward the far end of the corridor, where a marble staircase wound up into the shadows. María nodded.

  “¡Nietas desgraciadas!” La Contessa shrieked, clattering down at them through an explosion of broken, rotting wood and plaster.

  “Ah!” Sierra shoved her mom out of the way and rolled a few times to stay clear of the collapsing ceiling. She was on her feet, pulling María up. La Contessa clearly hadn’t counted on the extra crossbeams and deluge of plaster that would rain down after her. She shoved one hairy spider leg out from the rubble and then another, as she coughed, sputtered, giggled amidst the cloud of dust.

  Sierra and María didn’t bother waiting to see what happened next. They turned and barreled down the corridor. The sounds of buckling wood and more cackling meant that she’d freed herself, and then came the clackity click of all those legs scattering along the floor and, Sierra realized with horror as she glanced back over her shoulder, the walls.