The Council of Shadows

by S. M. Stirling

  “To hope for immortality and then have it snatched away . . . that would be exquisite,” Adrienne admitted. “My, but this suckling pig is exquisite as well!”

  “Of the season,” Seraphine said. “But in spring, ah, the Carré d’agneau a la Provençale is superb here! We get ours from this shepherd in the mountains.”

  “Only here in the south does one experience lamb as it truly should be prepared,” Étienne agreed. “Not only the herbs with which it is cooked, but the herbs on which its mother feeds in life up in the mountains and passes on to the lamb as it nurses.”

  Adrienne nodded and took a sip of her wine: a local vintage of no great fame, but more than adequate. The pork was indeed meltingly tender but firm enough for texture, and the kiss of the scallions and garlic in the oil that had been brushed on its surface complemented it completely. Not a complex dish, but one requiring real skill.

  I must remember that satiety is a trap lurking before the feet of eternity, she thought. Keep the capacity to enjoy the simple things, or life might well become a burden.

  The warm apricot tart with a dash of brandy went with the meal beautifully beneath the pale stars.

  “Nice has grown too large,” she said, sipping at the after-dinner pastis. “Does this not illustrate my point? At this stage of a dinner al fresco, one wishes to see the stars.”

  “True, true,” her great-grandfather said indulgently. “You have convinced me, my descendant.” A glimpse of something feral: “It would be well not to become tiresome, like your brother and his ludicrous earnestness.”

  “Oh, but it is in a much better cause, Étienne,” Seraphine said soothingly. “And the dear girl has a point. I remember what this place was like when dear Leopold first built it. The night sky was truly lovely.”

  “True,” Étienne said, mollified. “And at least the lad still shows good taste. That ‘wife’ of his . . . worthy of draining to the last drop, slowly, over years.”

  “Oh, yes,” Adrienne said, lost in thought for an instant; when she blinked all three of the Shadowspawn were wearing identical smiles.

  “Despite his convincing repentance, I still think he might have some sort of childish disruption planned for the Council meeting,” Étienne grumbled. “That would make me truly displeased.”

  “Oh, I think we can manage to keep him from playing any reprehensible pranks,” Adrienne said warmly.

  They chatted idly for a while; the upcoming meeting in Tbilisi was the main topic, usually with an undertone of malicious gossip.

  “And now for the true dessert,” Seraphine said happily, and waved her hand.

  The four chained to the fretted bronze poles began to scream as their vocal cords obeyed them once more. The Shadowspawn listened appreciatively.

  “The children of the night, what music they make,” Adrienne said, and all three laughed.

  Then the victims stopped, panting and sobbing and transfixed as the lambent yellow eyes rested on them, speaking to instincts older than the age of polished stone. Adrienne had to admit it was a piquant group: a handsome French couple in athletic and well-kept middle age, and their teenage son and daughter, the beginning and end of the prime feeding years. The relationships offered so many interesting variations on emotional pain and degradation, as well as straightforward physical torment.

  Their minds were a roil of terrified speculation already; being kidnapped and then left naked and unable to utter a sound during the meal was an excellent preliminary. So were the toys and cushions and implements scattered ready across the marble terrace between the terra-cotta jars with their trailing flowers, the little glowing brazier, and the expressionless servants standing by with hot, scented damp towels and fluffy dry ones.

  Seraphine rose and let her clothes fall away as she did, falling through the momentarily impalpable substance of her body; then she transformed to a statuesque blonde.

  “I’ve always favored this form for energetic amusements,” she said. “A real strapping Danish Valkyrie.”

  She went to the mother of the family and gently touched her face, picking up a tear on one fingertip and then tasting it.

  “Who . . . who are you?” the woman said. “Oh, God, you changed.”

  “We are the purpose of your being, ma petite,” Seraphine said. “All your lives you have been walking towards this moment, this service of a purpose beyond your comprehension. Now it has come, for you and these whom you love so much. This night is all that you have left; be wholly present in what you are about to experience! It will be so intense.”

  She began to scream again as the sense of the words sank home and Étienne transformed, stalking forward stiff legged, with the wolf’s great head held low. Seraphine flicked the chains open with her mind and threw the woman to the cushions.

  Adrienne rose and sauntered over to the husband.

  “And soon we will do this to the whole world,” she murmured, stroking him as Seraphine fed and then lifted her face to the stars, blood running from the corners of her mouth, and her sulfur yellow eyes slitted in joy. “To literalize the metaphor.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Adrian Brézé stuck his hands in their thin leather gloves into the pockets of his jacket and closed his eyes, blanking the flow of his interior monologue until his mind was still and quiet and wary. Awareness of his surroundings swelled, until he was one with the cool fall day. Somewhere a dog grew aware of him, whined and went quiet; a cat on the other side of the street blinked from a windowsill, radiating an idle curiosity. The little house off Airport Road still had the yellow police tape across its doors, but he didn’t think anyone was watching.

  Sink in, sink in.. . .

  Nothing. A few people in the other houses in the subdivision, young children and their mothers mostly; one adult peeking through the windows at his Ferrari for a moment, then shrugging aside a vague wonder. The suburb was solidly lower-middle-class and composed of flat-roofed frame houses making a feeble imitation of the haute-fake imitation adobe downtown, just the sort of place you’d expect a policeman to live in Santa Fe’s high-cost, low-wage economy. He opened his eyes again and gave Ellen a quick slight nod where she sat behind the wheel of the low-slung sports car, felt her mind acknowledge it. She was wearing a scarf around her hair, and sunglasses, both absolutely unexceptional on a bright Wednesday afternoon. He was in jeans and ankle boots and a T-shirt, equally normal; the jacket was credible with the temperature in the mid-sixties, though he was actually wearing it to conceal the Glock and long curved knife the harness held on either flank.

  There was a goat-stick fence beside the garage, five-foot unpeeled piñon sticks. He took three quick strides and vaulted over it, a hand lightly touching one of the poles, and came down silently on the balls of his feet. The backyard was similarly fenced all the way ’round; he wasn’t hidden, exactly, but it was better than a wire barrier would have been. There was a weedy-looking Russian olive tree, a half-dead lilac, and plenty of genuine weeds, including the ferocious local goat’s head, which dropped a little three-pointed seed that could cripple the barefoot or puncture tires. He thought of those as nature’s caltrops. The rest was bare dirt, though his nose detected the recent presence of a dog. A bachelor’s yard, one owned by a man without the time or interest to spend on appearances, right down to the battered barbecue grill that had gone a long time between cleanings.

  He wrinkled his nose; there were drawbacks to the acute Shadowspawn senses. And beneath the old scorched meat and dog feces, a strong trace of rotting blood that made his lips start to draw up in a hunter’s snarl. Adrian went to the glass sliding doors that gave onto a stretch of cracked concrete patio and produced a thin, slightly curved piece of steel. A moment’s fiddling, a quick strong jerk, and something went click inside. He could have done the same with the Power, but he’d long ago decided to save that for purposes where nothing else would do.

  Once he was inside the scent of old blood was much stronger; even a normal human would have found it unpleasa
nt. Even decayed, it bore the traces of unbearable pain and raw terror; when fresh it would have been maddeningly appetizing. He followed it towards the single bedroom. Something else tickled at the senses there, the esoteric ones that came with his degree of the Power. Another Shadowspawn had been here, a powerful adept, either postcorporeal or night-walking. The traces were faint, too faint to identify an individual, but unmistakable. Gluttonous satisfaction as well, the killing frenzy and repletion. There was no need to go nearer to the outlines still painted on the floor or marked in tape on the tumbled, black-stained sheets. Instead he went to one knee and looked at the floor, bracing himself with a forearm on his thigh.

  Black and rusty-brown, flaking away in the dry high-desert air, but the outlines of shoes were still visible, if you knew how to look. Someone had come in the front door and stood looking into the room with his feet in the pooling blood. Then he’d kicked off the shoes, stepped back out of the blood and turned.. . .

  He followed the tracks. The place they led had been a bedroom on the original plans, redone as a study-den–entertainment center. One wall held a fairly big flat-screen, a Chinese-made early 3D model half a decade out-of-date. There were a couple of—rather bad—pictures of local landscapes, bookshelves that held a mixture of popular fiction and well-read volumes on police methods and forensics, law books and a desktop computer. The unknown had come in, sat in the office chair and used it.

  Adrian extended a hand over the machine and concentrated.

  Interesting, he thought. The hard drive hasn’t been pulled or wiped. Whoever was in charge here didn’t do a real investigation; they just went through enough of the motions to fool outsiders. As I suspected, the Tōkairin had someone sit on it. And someone—Michiko at a guess, the traces feel a little female—came out to tie up the loose ends. But whoever sat here at the computer took something from it.. . .

  He switched it on, pulled a data stick from his pocket and snapped it into the serial port. Electronic pseudothoughts tickled at him as he waited for it to suck the larger machine dry.

  Yes, a file copied just before the machine was shut down. I think Shadowspawn technophobia is about to give me a lead, he thought. So much for the Progressive faction.

  This time he did let himself snarl. The low, guttural sound filled the house of death.

  “Oh, my,” Ellen said as they walked through the door. “Doesn’t this bring back memories.”

  Adrian’s house west of Santa Fe was large but not a palace, a low-slung, sprawling single-story thing built of genuine adobe as well as concrete and steel, in a style that mixed the area’s traditions with a restrained modernism. The door was tall and sheathed with copper, facing the drive along the ridgeway that led to this point where cliffs fell from steep to sheer on three sides. She looked at the door.. . .

  “Silver underneath?” she said. “Plus a little something for people rude enough to use explosive door knockers? I noted the fields of fire outside this time! And the cliff protects the other side.”

  “Silver, but of course.” He grinned at her; she could tell he was enjoying both her wit and her pleasure in it. “And ceramic-steel composite sandwiched in between.”

  Damn, but I’m lucky to get a man who doesn’t feel threatened by smart women. Of course, he’s also a blood-drinking shape-shifter . . . but that’s a feature, not a bug. It’s not like cigarettes, after all. As long as we keep it to what my bone marrow can supply, there’s no downside for either of us.

  “In fact,” he went on, “this hill is mostly silver ore. Not very rich silver, there was an attempt at a mine once but it did not pay, not enough precious metal spread through far too much very hard rock. Still, it is . . . was . . . why I picked this spot.”

  “And I thought it was the view,” she said dryly. “Your being-high-up fetish.”

  “This from one with a tie-me-up-and-whip-me fetish?” he said, and ducked as she swiped at him.

  Then he threw the bags through the door and swept her up to cross it; they were kissing and laughing as he bore her into the hallway beneath the vaulted exposed-metal roof. She leaned into his shoulder, enjoying the steel-cord strength of his embrace; then his arms locked hard around her and there was a nip at the base of her throat, and a hard suction. She shivered as warmth seemed to flow out from the bite, like scented soap suds in a bath of hot water sliding over her skin, leaving her whole body warm and flushed in an almost unbearable relaxation.

  “Ah,” she said a moment later, shuddering. “Now, that was what I call a welcome home.”

  “Welcome home, then,” he said, striding through into the living room.

  That had a glass wall overlooking the vast blue distance northwestward. That fell away to the high plain below in a tumble of boulders and canyons, juniper and piñon, home to eagles and deer and coyote. The room was spotless—Adrian’s housekeeping service—but had the slightly lifeless feel to its air that came of long vacancy, with only a very faint scent of satchets and pine ash from the hearth.

  God, it’s nearly a full year since I stormed out and Adrienne caught me! she thought. Not that I actually ever lived here, unless you count the odd overnight.

  “Well, put me down and we’ll get unpacked,” she said.

  “Not quite yet,” he said, setting her on her feet in front of him; the arms stayed around her, but now the hands roved.

  “Mmm, nice . . . but we do need to get unpack—Yeeek!”

  He pulled the dress up over her head, then down again behind her with a single strong jerk that pinned her arms tightly. Another two, and the bra and panties went flying in silken wisps; she had a moment’s pang as she remembered the Parisian shopping expedition they’d managed to squeeze in, when she’d gone berserk in the lingerie section of a boutique on the rue Saint-Honoré.

  “Adrian. . . God, that feels good.. . . Adrian, the door’s still open! And we’re in front of a picture window!”

  “Fresh air and sunlight are good for you, wench.”

  A push between the shoulder blades sent her staggering forward; the arm of a couch struck her across the thighs, and she pitched forward with her toes just touching the slate flags of the floor. Goose bumps rose in the chilly air, and at the touch of the leather cushions on her belly and breasts.

  “Ooof!” Then she wiggled. “Like the view, masterful Shadowspawn, sir? Ow!”

  That at a stinging smack across one buttock, before he gripped her hips with a power just short of real pain, or perhaps slightly across the border.

  Sometime later she stretched and giggled; she could hear Adrian’s heart thudding against her back, but the weight was going from fun to not.

  “Okay, playtime’s over, let me up.”

  He rose, sighing, and she laughed again; she had a beautiful view of part of a sunset, if she craned her head up until her neck hurt. The way she was positioned she also couldn’t rise, unless she was willing to roll onto the floor and run around with everything swaying and/or exposed.

  “Get me back on my feet, would you, honey?”

  “Oh, perhaps I should leave you like that while I make dinner. You look quite fetching that way, ma belle.”

  Ellen laughed again. “Another time, when I don’t need to pee. Earwax! Earwax!”

  “Ah, before the omnipotent power of the mighty safe word, the evil sorcerer has no choice save obedience.”

  “You betcha, lover. I’m in charge here, and don’t you forget it!”

  “Never, my sweet.”

  It was hard to sound authoritative with your stern high in the air like this and a cold breeze on intimate places, but Ellen thought she’d managed it. Adrian helped her up with gentle force and freed her from the macramé of clothing. She stretched and they exchanged a long, slow kiss.

  “Now let’s have a shower, and then I shall lounge about in a fluffy robe drinking hot cocoa before the fire while my adoring Paris-trained love slave makes me dinner and lights the candles and opens the wine,” she said.

  His yellow-flecked eyes
shared hers for a moment, then went a little cool.

  He shrugged. “Sorry. I was just thinking how good it would be if we were really coming home here now, with nothing to do but live our lives.”

  “I have every intention of living our lives regardless,” she said. “Besides, I was raised to do things. Gentlewoman of leisure will be fine later; there’s a world that needs saving . . . and I really do have to pee now.”

  “Oh, God,” Ellen said, waving her wineglass at the polished cocobolo wood that lined the big elevator. “A secret elevator in the back of the bedroom closet leading to the underground lair? Shouldn’t this be in a volcano on a tropical island, or something? Either that or give onto a wilderness with a lamppost and a talking lion.”

  Adrian grinned at her, lounging back against the wall with his arms crossed; the ventilation system was so good that she didn’t even mind the fact that he was smoking, much.

  “So, where’s the button?”

  “There’s a minor Wreaking in the control circuits. Unless someone more of an adept than I comes along, the door will not open and the elevator will not operate except for those whom I, mmmm, put on the list.”

  “So how do I do it.”

  “You are on the list. Just think open or down.”

  He blew smoke at the ceiling; she schooled her thoughts, concentrating on down.. . .

  “Eh, voilà,” he said, as the sinking feeling began, gesturing with the cigarette.

  She had to admit it did give a nice period touch to the retro glamour of his black turtleneck and pants tucked into ankle boots. So did the sheathed knife and automatic, but she knew now that he was almost never willingly unarmed; it must have been a real effort to conceal the fact when they were first dating. She had known that he owned guns and went to a range, and mildly disapproved.

  You aren’t Granola Girl anymore, she thought. Then something occurred to her.

  “Honey?”

  “Mmmm?”