The Council of Shadows

by S. M. Stirling

  “Champagne Apricato,” Monica said proudly, handing her a cocktail glass and drinking from her own.

  Adrienne took hers and sipped the chilly tart-sweet mixture. Champagne, apricot liqueur made on the estate, gin and the juice of freshsqueezed lemons from just down the hill.

  “A bit too sweet for constant consumption, but superb of its kind,” she said. “Much like you, Monica.”

  The human blushed and smiled as she sat down on the edge of the bed.

  “In fact, when I was tucking Leila in earlier, she said you smelled like cake.”

  Monica laughed. “They’re wonderful children,” she said. “So cute and smart . . . Do I really smell like cake?”

  “To a child. To me . . . a little. Definitely tasty. Perhaps a little more like kebab with a honey-mustard glaze. Also like sex on two legs, right now.”

  “You are feeling better,” Monica said as she sipped at her drink. Softly, glancing over her shoulder: “Will you kill me when my looks go, Doña?”

  They locked eyes. “Possibly. Or maybe not. But I’m going to swallow your soul in any case, so you’ll never really die.”

  Adrienne tickled her delicately with a toe—the pinkish, new one—and the human shivered.

  “That’ll be . . . interesting, dying and knowing I’m not really going to die.”

  “I can assure you that at the time you’ll be very focused on the physical side of things.”

  Another shiver. “But we get to go on with things together.”

  “True. Of course, who knows what I’ll be like in a few thousand years? Or what you will be? But we’re both going to find out.”

  The human’s mind roiled, longing, lust, fear, adoration, and far down a faint screaming from the deeply buried core personality. She put her drink down by her feet; Adrienne knelt behind her and grabbed a handful of her hair, bending her head back. A shiver as the last of the cocktail was poured along her neck. . .

  Sometime later Monica sighed drowsily and wiped at a drop of blood on her forehead with the back of her hand. The delicious coppery smell of it mingled with the earthier body musk and sweat.

  “It’s lovely to have you so active again, Doña,” she said. “It’s been a little lonely on Lucy Lane.”

  “It has?”

  “With Jabar . . . gone . . . even if he wasn’t very friendly.”

  Well, he shouldn’t have tried to run, Adrienne thought, and grinned. Though it was a nice bonding experience to hunt him down with Maman and Papa when they arrived from La Jolla. How he cursed and then squealed, there at the end when we ran him to ground in those woods. Papa was so inventive! I wouldn’t have thought a reptile could do that.

  “And Ellen too; it was nice to have another girl as a neighbor.”

  “Cheba might be described as a girl,” Adrienne said.

  “Cheba . . . Cheba isn’t adjusting very well.”

  “I thought you had her enrolled at all those ESL and adult-education classes at the high school? She’s a veritable Horatio Alger story of immigrant success, in a way.”

  “Yes, that’s working out, but . . . There’s Jose, of course, and Peter, they’re both dears. I was going to ask Peter if he wanted to go up to San Francisco and take in the opera, if that’s all right?”

  “Alas, I’m afraid Peter will be going too. You won’t be seeing him tomorrow, in fact.”

  Monica went very still; Adrienne tickled the back of her neck, savoring the chill of despair.

  “No, I’m not going to kill him,” Adrienne said. “Not anytime in the immediate future, that is. He’ll just be going away for a while.”

  “I didn’t think . . .” Monica said, over a rush of relief.

  “That I ever let anyone go? I don’t.”

  Like a cat with a mouse, Monica thought.

  “Exactly. And you should be prepared for some travel in the immediate future.”

  “Paris?” Monica said hopefully.

  “Among other places. I’ve got a new plane, you’ll enjoy it. An Airbus A380.”

  “Oh, that sounds like a dream.”

  “One of the better ones,” Adrienne replied. “Though nightmares have their charm.”

  Me llamo Eusebia Graciela Cortines Angeles. Nanotoca Eusebia.

  “I name Eusebia.”

  Cheba sat at her kitchen table, in her kitchen, in her house . . . in a country and state and town very, very far away from where she had been given her names.

  “I am practice my English. I . . . I am practicing my English . . . ¡Qué lengua más estúpida! ”

  Before her, scattered over the table, were books, a computer pad, notebooks and paper, all dappled with sunlight from the garden outside.

  The building wasn’t totally unlike what she was accustomed to seeing, nor ones that her mother had occasionally scrubbed floors in: rooms grouped around a courtyard, pale stucco walls, red-tile roof. Nothing like anything she’d ever lived in, of course. This kitchen was bigger than any house she’d ever lived in before; at least, it smelled more the way she was familiar with now, cinnamon, cardamom, of fresh peppers and the strings of dried ones over the stove, poblanos, pasilla, chipotle, serranos, negros. A pot of corn was boiling with a hint of cal, chicken bubbling in a stew.

  Every detail was wrong, though. Better than the barrio, she had to admit. No wood smoke, no kerosene. The town wasn’t big, but it made her feel alien and exposed.

  As for what lived here—

  Her hands began to shake, and she stared at them stubbornly until they stopped. She had not slept very well. You didn’t, when you were waiting for . . . No.

  Then she took up the pencil again. Her teacher had told her that handwriting was one of the best ways to make her new words sink into her brain.

  “I’m not feeling very smart today.”

  Early in the morning, well before dawn, Monica and her mother had had a screaming fight out in the street. Cheba hadn’t understood much, but she hadn’t been able to get back to sleep. It was best not to think about that. She frowned at the last sentence instead. It wasn’t right. She tugged on the gleaming black curl she’d wound around her left forefinger.

  ¡Inglés! she thought in exasperation.

  It had auxiliary verbs. And they don’t make sense! Oh! My, it is “my” name, mío! And my father’s and my mother’s.

  The words hit her in the chest, squeezing, as memories opened and bled, and a single coughing sob burst out before she choked her lips shut. Images—

  Father, happy drunk and mean drunk.

  They’d lived with her mother’s parents in a brightly painted little cinder-block hut, on the edge of a small village. The dusty unpaved steet outside ran from the tiny town center to the hot, humid green jungle. Her mother, Alma Marta, had been an only child, and her husband had expected to inherit the lands from his father-in-law. But it hadn’t happened. The elders hadn’t liked his drunkenness, or the slovenly way he worked the lands for his father-in-law, and a cousin of hers had been granted the lands by the ejido when her grandfather had died.

  Unitario Cortines Cruz had left the village to find other work. She and her mother had stayed with the cousins.

  The only thing Papá found was his way into the grille of a very large truck. And I cannot even pretend it wasn’t his own fault. He was probably looking at it and laughing when it hit him.

  That had been near Papantla, Veracruz. The news arrived at the village a few months later.

  Alma Marta Angeles Zapatero had found only cold charity with her cousins. She and her surviving child had walked and hitchhiked to Tlacotalpan.

  I do not remember the village all that well. We were hungry there, sometimes, yes. But it was not like the homeless camps and the shantytown. And selling those ugly baskets to the tourists for centavos on the peso didn’t pay any better, and we had to buy everything. Everything stank of sewage. Even the sun and the rain were worse, all crowded together, and never any quiet, never a place to be alone even for a moment. Waking up and the bugs crawli
ng on me and eating the calluses off my feet. I had to come to el Norte. The thieves, they were as bad as the bugs, and as many as the rats and pigeons and seagulls. The rats stole our food and the thieves stole our money.

  “Mama, you saved everything, for years. Sometimes you would tell me you had eaten when you hadn’t, so we could put a little more in the box.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut again. The final day had been hot and muggy even to her, raised in the coastal lowlands; just like all the others before it, but worse. She had danced across the great highway first, carrying most of the baskets, the fresh straw smell strong as she peered around them.

  I could see it on the men watching. They were looking at me, at my legs, and then their eyes went up and they saw behind me and they shouted.

  Brakes squealing and engine roar and tires skidding across the hot asphalt screaming like a trapped rabbit. Her own voice shouting, No, no, as she dropped the baskets and turned. The heavy, meaty thump came through the air like a blow, like a fist in the belly. A crackling with it, like sticks being twisted off a bush. All that before she could even turn and see, see what she knew and would not believe even when she saw it.

  There were baskets scattered all over the busy fairway, and she stood, teetering on the edge of the curb, watching the broken rag doll tossed into the air and rolling, bouncing and banging, under two more cars before traffic split about the shattered body. The screams of the sirens had echoed through her head, the flashing lights had played on her eyes as she stood frozen, watching the emergency crew bag the body up and bundle it into the back of the ambulance. The police had held people away, but they hadn’t asked questions and the great truck was long gone.

  Who cares for the death of one more useless old india? And now, I have my truck. Her name is Adrienne, she told herself mordantly.

  The doorbell chimes startled her out of the fruitless reverie. Like everything in this maldito country; they were wrong! Who would have tooting, galloping horns for a knocker! She stumped through the living room and opened the door, scowling. Jose was there.

  They try, she thought. They try to be so nice. And I try, try to be polite to them. She silently stood aside to let him in and waved towards the kitchen.

  She frowned as he sat down; there was a blanched look to his skin, and the small wrinkles at the corners of his eyes were tight and tense.

  “¿Una chela?” she asked.

  He nodded and wagged a finger at her. She stuck out her tongue, feeling as awkward as usual. He was Hispano like her, she should feel at home with him, but it didn’t happen. He didn’t feel like a bad man; she had experience enough and to spare with those, and you could tell. But he was different.

  “¿Una cerveza?” she asked instead.

  He opened his mouth and then wagged his finger again. She sighed.

  “Bien, bien. Do . . . you . . . like. . . the . . . beer?”

  “Would you like a beer?” he corrected her. “Don’t sigh, Cheba. It’s really important you work at fitting in. Yes, there are many who can speak Spanish in this town, more than in most places around here—”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “This was a rancho . . . hacienda . . . long ago, before the Americans came. Under Spain, under Mexico. After that it was out of the way, not close to any of the cities. Anglos settled here only slowly; then the Brézés came, long ago—more than a hundred and fifty years—and since then, not many people leave, not many come in, we are a bit apart from the world. But it is still California, and if you cannot speak English well you are like someone with only one eye or one leg. Also my tía Joan has spoken to me about you.”

  Cheba went to the refrigerator and took out a bottle of the beer with the pretty label for Jose and a Jarritos soda pop for herself.

  “Your tía? Is she a sister of your father or mother? And why does she care?”

  He took a long gulp from the bottle. “My father’s older sister. As to why . . . Because . . . it’s part of being human?”

  Cheba snorted. “Not like your tía Theresa?”

  She had met the Brézé household manager that terrible day the people-smuggler Paco had delivered them to Rancho Sangre. They called them coyotes, but he’d met real shape-shifters. He had deserved to die; the others hadn’t.

  He laughed. “Theresa? There’s a story here that a snake bit her once, a rattlesnake.”

  “What happened?”

  “The snake died.”

  That made her laugh, a brief, unwilling snort. Jose leaned forward, speaking earnestly.

  “Listen, Joan lived in Mexico for many years, studied there and all. She owns an import business, goes back a lot. She asked me what you did all day. I didn’t understand why; but she says that the women of the villages are never idle. They always have something in their hands, embroidery or crochet lace, or weaving, but never idle.”

  Cheba closed her eyes, seeing the brightly embroidered blouse her mother had been finishing, soaking up the blood, turning from white to dark red, and shuddered unexpectedly.

  “It costs money,” she excused herself. “And I am . . . sad all the time. I like to crochet, and sometimes embroider.”

  “Money . . .” exclaimed Jose. “You know you have as much as you want. And making things that are pretty will make you less sad.”

  “But, where?”

  Jose sighed and waggled his finger at her again. She laughed, a bit sourly.

  “You mean, where would you buy the stuff? In town, of course. There are three or four shops that sell craft stuff. Monica would take you, and love doing it.”

  He looked at her and she dropped her eyes to the papers on the table. Her classes were over the Internet, she didn’t need to go out and try to mix. Jose had taken her to the library and introduced her to the librarian. Cheba had not been back.

  Jose made an exasperated sound. “¡Mira, tú!” he said with some heat in his voice. “We are all trying, but you are not.”

  Cheba bit her lip and tried to stop the tears. “What should I try? Try to be a puta and food?” she asked, feeling the raw anger crowd forward. “I had to leave my village because my papa was a drunk and died. . . walked in front of a truck. My mama died crossing a street . . . another truck, so, I took a truck up to here, trying to get away from the bad luck and a new life. And look what picked me up!”

  “Yes. But now you have that new life. A house, a life, things to learn, people to meet . . . What is wrong?”

  “It’s all wrong!” Cheba shouted. “It’s not the right size, or shape; the rugs are dirty! There aren’t nice floors to sweep, the kitchen is closed in; the windows too big; the lights too bright; the roads. . .

  “I want to feel the dust between my toes, the sun on my back, pick the corn and beans in my grandfather’s milpa, hear the voices of the village, of the market, of the children.. . .”

  More tears threatened and she held them back with her scowl.

  “But what did you expect?” he asked her, a puzzled note in his voice. “Of course it would be different!”

  She looked around, surprised, and thought back to that day, the day of death when she had carefully stolen ten wallets, carefully, oh, so carefully, and added the money to her little hoard and begun her flight north. What had she expected? Difference, just something different from her real life.

  “I guess, different; I wanted something different. No more poverty or living like an animal? To be rich.”

  “And in comparison, here you are rich!”

  “But it is not rich like I know rich! It is wrong.. . . Everything is different, yes; but evil!” Cheba shook her head and watched Jose take a quick gulp of beer.

  “Yeah,” he said, surprising her. “It is.” A grim smile at the look on her face. “Do I look stupid?”

  “But if you hadn’t fallen in with La Doña, you’d have been slaving in the fields, living crowded cheek by jowl in tar paper shacks, hiding from la migra, eating worse than you ever have in your life . . . and raped, often, by the men who hir
e the wetbacks. That man Paco who sold you and your friends to La Doña was not interested in taking you anywhere good. I don’t have to draw you a picture about that, no? So, it kinda balances out.”

  Cheba clenched her jaw. He is right, the trip across the border and to here taught me that! This piece of logic of Jose’s she could follow; she couldn’t always understand his thoughts.

  “La Doña is better than working in the fields? A bruja, a chupacabra, and I am not a goat!”

  “You are a goat.” Jose’s voice was flat. “Or you’re a bird and she is a cat. We all are. And it is better than the fields. At least she doesn’t roast us over fire; just over the coals of our emotions. Rape is rape, and that hasn’t changed.”

  “There’s a lot you don’t understand and we’ve tried to tell you. Not just my tía has sent me to talk to you. La Doña called me in and told me . . .”

  “She confides in you,” Cheba observed sourly.

  He hesitated and then shrugged.

  “I was born here, and my ancestors. One chance, Cheba. You have one chance left. If you don’t do what La Doña orders you to she will eat you up tomorrow.”

  He took another swallow of the beer and Cheba glowered at him; this nice young man who looked so much like the young men in Coetzala and Veracruz and was so very different in how he saw the world. She couldn’t help herself.

  “You are gringo, gabacho, you don’t understand!”

  “I know that! And it bothers me. What don’t I understand? You’re india; you and your people have lived for twenty, thirty generations as conquered people, on the edge! Where do you get that pride?”

  “We still live!” she flashed back at him, and scowled as he dissolved into hearty guffaws. “What is funny?” she demanded.