Shadowshaper Legacy

by Daniel José Older

  La Contessa surged forward in a skittering, spiraling blur across the defaced portraits and up into shadows of the ceiling and then launched back down, a single strand of web trailing her, those long, pale arms reaching for Sierra and María.

  “Go!” Sierra yelled. “Go!”

  They made it to the stairwell and dashed up, jumping over La Contessa’s long, sectioned legs that slid between the bannister posts to trip them up.

  “¡No se vayan!” La Contessa sang in her terrible shriek. “Ya voy …”

  A stitch opened up in Sierra’s side as they reached the second-floor landing. They couldn’t stop, though. They couldn’t even hesitate a moment. Already, the sounds of those skittering legs grew louder from the stairwell.

  “I don’t … I don’t know how much more I can go for,” María panted as they started up the next flight.

  “I know,” Sierra said. “But we … we have to, Mami … please.”

  Luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu, came that distant spirit song, but it didn’t sound so distant anymore. And it was definitely coming from somewhere up above them.

  Ceraaaaaaaaaaaa!

  “Come on!” Sierra said, pulling her mom along. La Contessa clattered onto the second-floor landing. Sierra peered over the bannister, saw those many red eyes glaring up at her, that scrunched-up, gnarled face, those dangling dollops of skin and rows of teeth. La Contessa smiled. Sierra ran.

  “We’re so close!”

  Luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu …

  “One more flight!” They pounded up through the darkness and dust.

  Ceraaaaaaaaaaaa!

  Sierra could hear more voices now — tons of them. It sounded like many, many women talking over each other. But they didn’t seem scared or urgent at all, just talking and talking endlessly … who could be having a regular conversation at a time like this? And why weren’t they even listening to each other?

  It didn’t matter. There was no time to worry about that.

  The stairwell narrowed, then narrowed some more, finally became just a rickety ladder.

  Luuuuuuuuuuuuu …

  “¡Vengan acá, mis nietas!” crooned La Contessa.

  Ceraaaaaaaaaaaaa! And more voices, louder voices, talking and talking.

  “Go!” María yelled, getting out of Sierra’s way. There wasn’t time to argue — Sierra hand-over-handed it up the ladder, pushed against the trapdoor at the top with everything she had, shoving it out of the way, and then glanced back. For a second, Sierra thought her mom was about to pull some horrible heroic-type move and allow herself to get captured. But no, María was climbing as fast as she could up the ladder, her expression stricken with fear, eyes wide, lips tight. Then a face appeared behind her: La Contessa’s red eyes and open mouth, long fingers spread wide, poised to close around María’s ankle.

  LUUUUUUUUUCERAAAAAAAAAA!!

  So many voices! And they all sounded the same! And they were all speaking Spanish! It was deafening.

  Sierra lunged upward into the darkness and then turned back, reached down, and grabbed her mom’s outstretched arm and heaved her up, up, waiting all the while for a sudden wrenching that would rip her away. Instead, they rolled onto a wooden floor and then slammed the trapdoor shut behind them.

  And then everything became suddenly silent.

  Down, down, down into the fray, as bodies tangled and thrusted and collapsed, broken, into the mud. Down amongst kicking, stomping boots, open mouths, grasping hands, mud and more mud, the rising, dark tide of the River, coating everyone in filth. Down and then forward in a flush of wind, and the Hierophant Air swooped along past more crackling, colliding bodies right up to the towering figure of the River himself as he lunged at a group of combatants encircling him.

  No, not just combatants. Nydia and Jerome. Friends.

  Up above, the monstrosity that Dake had become fluttered in uneven, clumsy circles, still figuring out how to work those corruptions of wings.

  The River howled, stumbling back a few steps as a burst of light issued forth from Nydia. Then a flash of green and red smashed into his face, wrapping around it and searing a sharp, suddenly fleshless strip across the Hierophant’s forehead. Jerome let out a crow of victory, but already the River had recovered and raised both hands, sending black water streaming through the already burbling mud at their feet. Nydia yelled, sent a blast of shadow outward, but the River dodged easily, snatched the librarian’s slender wrist in his gigantic, crusty hand. Immediately, Nydia started coughing and dark water poured out of her mouth in spurts.

  Jerome hurled a blast of light and then shadow at the River, yelling and swinging his arms wildly, but the towering man swatted them off even as another red-and-green shape slashed across his face, shredding more skin away.

  The Hierophant Air swooped low along the churning mud, then burst upward in an explosion of wind so sharp it shoved the River backward, both hands extended to either side to keep balance.

  Nydia fell away, coughing, and Jerome ran to her side.

  The River, already recovered, scanned the empty space in front of him, empty eyes twitching. Then he stopped and smirked.

  They had been seen.

  “Get down!” someone yelled, and everyone ducked as Dake’s tangle of humanity, iron, and animal swooped clumsily overhead.

  “Run!”

  Nydia and Jerome had already disappeared into the crowd. The River glared up at Dake, watched as he dove toward the crowd, those long wings of bone, metal, and fur flapping mechanically.

  “Take cover!” people yelled. “Get away!”

  The River spun back around to find his new nemesis, the Hierophant Air, but it was too late: They’d already slid close to his face, stretched across it, felt the tiny pinpricks of flesh boiling up and suffocating beneath their embrace. The River snatched at them with his huge hands, scratched his own face with those long, broken fingernails, came up empty and bleeding. Fell to his knees, arms flailing.

  Farther off, Dake fluttered back up into the sky, now with two people gripped in his monstrous talons.

  Not just two people: Juan and Anthony. Friends.

  The Hierophant Air released their grip on the River, who collapsed into his own mud, gasping. They blitzed through the crowd, an impossible wind, and then up into the sky after the Emperor of Blood and Iron.

  Silence.

  Silence and a gentle breeze. The smell of mold and filth replaced by the fresh, musty scent of soil, and beyond that something rich and pungent — garlic! Sierra hadn’t had that combination of scents in her nose since Mama Carmen’s spirit had made her Lucera and then vanished as light filled Sierra’s whole body, bright light, and then the gentle aroma of soil and cooking garlic had reached her, along with —

  An ancient, familiar voice broke the silence with a song: Ven a los cuatro caminos, a los cuatro caminos ven. Sierra and María stood up, looked around. They were in the cupola at the top of the tower. Open windows on all sides revealed the thick clouds over the forest below, mostly shrouded mountains in the distance. The room was empty, but Sierra could just make out a weathered map painted on the floor beneath her combat boots.

  Donde los poderes se unen se vuelven al uno.

  A shimmering form appeared before them, an elderly woman with brown skin. Half her face was just raw flesh pulled tight over her barely concealed skull. María Cantara, Sierra knew without having to ask. In her cheekbones, her wide eyes — the lineage was unmistakable. She smiled as she finished the verse and bowed her head slightly.

  Welcome, my daughters, I have waited so long for all three of you.

  María blinked. “¡Tatarabuela! It’s … but … three?”

  Sierra nodded once at the spirit.

  “Sierra? What’s going on?”

  “You’ve been here all along, haven’t you?” Sierra said.

  The ancient spirit cocked her head. Of course. Clouding her vision, you know. Among other things.

  “How did you …” Sierra didn’t know how to put it. “It was such a long time,
to be trapped.”

  Ah … She gave a soft chuckle. How did I keep from losing my mind up here all alone, for all this time, with only my rotten mother who’d trapped me here in the first place to keep me company? You see, my vision hasn’t been clouded, not at all. I have seen, even in my imprisonment, I have seen. And so I have recited as I saw. I watch, I watch, and I recite.

  “Recited what?” María asked. “To whom?”

  The stories of our people, of course. Our legacy, m’ija. Yours and mine, and this young one here, hers too, of course. And so many more.

  “The voices,” Sierra said, feeling a surge of something like sadness, something like joy well up inside. “They were all you.”

  Mmm. María Cantara nodded. They stay, you know. The stories. Keep me company, so to speak, but they’re good for much more than keeping an old spirit’s mind intact.

  “Why haven’t you destroyed the web?” María asked.

  Ah, there is only one force strong enough to destroy the Deck of Worlds and all its rotten power. For a moment, an infinite sadness took over her withered face. And I did not have access to it, you know. Not until now, of course.

  “The Reaper.” Sierra smiled, taking out the cards and placing them on the floor in front of her great-great-grandmother. “Three,” she said.

  “You two keep saying that,” María groaned. “I’d love it if someone would let me in on what you’re talking about.”

  My dear, dear daughter. María Cantara sighed, gazing at the softly glowing stack of cards. At long last. Rise. Rise and take part in this final chapter of our struggle, m’ija.

  Sierra stepped back, still smiling, and took her mom’s hand in hers. A hooded glowing spirit emerged from the cards, then pulled back the cowl to reveal a solemn face, half of it painted with an elaborate skull design. “Cantara Cebilín Colibrí,” Sierra whispered.

  The spirit nodded, then turned blinking eyes to her mother, María Cantara. Mami, she whispered. They embraced.

  Are you ready, m’ija?

  Another nod, and then words filled the air once more: Once, a very, very long time ago, when the stars seemed so close and the trees and soil still sang songs of that first act of creation … So he stayed, and when María Cantara turned back to the darkening woods around them, she felt the icy presence of Death like a gentle breeze beside her…. Santo Colibrí watched in horror and admiration as his daughter seemed to catch fire within a blast of heavenly light while arrows and spears shrieked through the air. …

  Sierra turned in circles, eyes wide, as the voice of her great-great-grandmother told stories of her lineage that danced around her. She turned to her mom. “Are you ready, Mami?”

  María blinked away tears. “Sí, m’ija. Let’s end this forever.”

  They turned to the trapdoor, each grabbing a handle, and pulled it open.

  The wind whipped against Juan’s face as Dake dragged them higher and higher into the sky in flitting fits and jolts. Those metallic claws dug into his shoulders, he was positive they were drawing blood if not puncturing through tendon and bone too, and he was also pretty sure he was going to die.

  Beside him, Pulpo had stopped screaming around the same time Juan had and was just blinking at the open sky around them.

  Dake was just trying to get high enough to be sure they wouldn’t have a chance when he let go. Fine. Juan would at least make things as difficult as possible for him. He reached up with the arm that hadn’t been pinioned at the shoulder and grabbed one of Dake’s monstrous claws, wrapping his fingers around a metal rod and getting a pretty good grip on it at that.

  “Pulpo!” he called, indicating for him to do the same. Pulpo just blinked and took in air in tiny, horrifying hiccups that Juan could’ve recognized anywhere: a panic attack. He’d somehow managed to keep the panic at bay all through prison and now it had risen up at the worst possible time.

  It hardly mattered, though. Grabbing on wasn’t going to do much at the end of the day, not really.

  Juan stopped trying to tell Pulpo what to do and felt a strange calmness seep into him. He was with his best friend, and they’d done their best. That was all there was to it. They might’ve even helped save the shadowshapers. Who knew?

  “I’m here,” Juan said. “I’m here with you.”

  Pulpo’s eyes found his, and the gulping gasps slowed down just a notch. Didn’t mean the panic attack was over, Juan knew, but it was something.

  Suddenly, the air around them filled with spirits.

  Juan looked around. They were beautiful, those streaming shadows charging up into the air alongside him — beautiful and useless. He had no instrument, nothing to ’shape with. And even if he could, what good would it do? He could maybe take out Dake, or at least distract him, and then what? Get dropped anyway and smash like a potato across the greater New Jersey swampland. Great.

  The whole spirits-can-lift-you-up thing sounded pretty, but it only worked when you were Lucera, as far as he understood it. They couldn’t just go around levitating random shadowshapers.

  Juancito, a voice said, then many voices: Juancito. Lucha.

  Fight. Why?

  Lucha, Juancito, lucha.

  Pulpo was looking around too now, and his breathing seemed almost normal. The spirits had distracted him, caught him off guard, and somehow yanked the singeing edges of his mind away from that ongoing fire.

  Alright, Juan thought, somewhat irritably. Imma fight. At least I can mess up this freak’s day a little bit before I die.

  He swung his legs back and forth, ignoring the wrenching pain it opened up in his already throbbing shoulder, and then kicked them all the way up into the tangle of iron and fur and bone that was Dake now, turning Juan almost totally upside down. Then he started kicking.

  The claw digging into his shoulder released very suddenly — maybe Dake was hoping Juan would plummet but no such luck! Juan took the opportunity to adjust his position and start ripping chunks of skin and fur away from wherever he could grab it.

  Pulpo, Juan noticed, had started doing the same.

  Dake screeched and veered sharply toward the ground.

  Words swirled around Sierra as she and her mom crouched side by side before the opening in the floor and raised their left hands.

  There were so many spirits in El Yunque. They gathered around whenever Cebi and Death went off on their adventures.

  Out of the darkness below, a shape stirred, then lunged, the light catching those glowing red eyes and the glint of carapace. Then four legs wrenched their way up onto the lip of the opening, blocking out everything else. Sierra and María stepped back, waited.

  “Foolish, foolish children,” La Contessa snarled with a hint of laughter in her voice. “Don’t they even realize —” As soon as her face appeared, Sierra and María clambered over her legs and shoved both their right hands onto it. They clasped each other’s left hands over their heads. La Contessa Araña’s skin was clammy and loose, like it might chafe off her skull at any moment.

  A smooth bristle of chilly energy flushed through Sierra’s arm.

  Cantara Cebilín: the Reaper.

  “¿Y esto?” La Contessa growled. Sierra glanced at her mom, met her gaze, and then looked back down and released with everything she had. Around them, the whole history of the shadowshapers, of each Lucera, hung in the air, ready.

  Cebi did as she was told. Her mom’s palm was warm on her forehead. And then light erupted through her.… Cantara Cebilín sat at her spot by the window, watching the avenida slowly pass by. She sipped her cafecito and took in the warm afternoon sun.

  The stories caught fire around them, surged past their ears with a murderous whoosh, and linked with Cantara’s spirit, ’shaped, and then burrowed into La Contessa’s screaming face.

  Sierra Santiago headed quickly down Lafayette, pulling out her phone as she walked. If she couldn’t get wisdom from the women in her family, she’d find it elsewhere.

  That moment! Just six months ago, and it felt like a whole
lifetime. With wide, ancient eyes, the spirits had been watching all along. They watched and they fought alongside their living counterparts, to make this world a better, safer one for their children, and they carried the shadowshaper legacy across that tangled web of power, straight back to its source: María Cantara, who waited patiently in her tower in the woods.

  Sierra’s own story intertwined with those of her ancestors, became something gigantic within her.

  “You can’t!” La Contessa wailed. “You caaaan’t!” Powered by Death herself, the stories sizzled across the ancient spider creature’s skin, shredded through her like buzz saws, blitzed in and out and back in again. “Noo!” she howled, and then she trembled, and her red eyes began to mist over with gray as her many legs went slack, and then she simply slid down, away from the opening, and plummeted.

  Sierra and María stood, still watching in awe as La Contessa Araña went crashing through one stairwell and then another before landing in a shattered, dusty heap on the first floor, a long streak of black blood exploding outward upon impact.

  It is done, María Cantara whispered.

  Sierra and María collapsed on the floor panting as the stories danced circles around them.

  Surging through the sky toward Dake, the Hierophant Air felt a tremble and then a sudden, resounding lurch in the fabric of the world.

  It was over.

  It would all come crashing down now.

  It was just a matter of where the pieces would land; who would survive the crash.

  Dake’s trajectory stopped midflight. He’d been dipping and diving, trying to shake the two boys who were mercilessly shredding him from below. Now a chunk of his wing went spinning off into the sky. Then a flap of fur.

  Dake screamed.

  Below, others were screaming as their powers faded.

  It wouldn’t be instantaneous, but it wouldn’t take long either.