The Council of Shadows

by S. M. Stirling

  “Glad to hear it,” Eric said. “Don Jules and Doña Julia are here now? I should send a message up to the casa grande if they are. The word is that Tōkairin renfields should show complete respect now, not just be polite.”

  “Oh, no, they cleared out a couple of days ago, with all their baggage and lucies and servants, for a long trip. Even Monica’s gone—my mom plays tennis with her, and she was complaining about how it was going to disrupt the tournament schedule. Some sort of big Shadowspawn do, somewhere way far away. Isn’t it exciting?”

  “It’s important, I hear.”

  Tiffany leaned closer, her eyes glittering. “Totally! I hear”—she dropped her voice—“that they’re going to come out in the open somehow, the Shadowspawn are, that is. Real soon! On TV and everything, you know, the president kneeling and them chopping off his head and raping his daughter or whatever. But that last part may just be someone blowing smoke. Though it would be funny.”

  “Right, I’d heard the rumors. Big changes, sure enough.”

  She nodded enthusiastically, her silky hair bobbing around her shoulders.

  “They’ll be gods again then, with temples and sacrifices. And we from the faithful families will all be lords over the meat sacks, like it was always promised. No more of these crap waiting-table jobs for summer money ’cause they need to keep everything hidden!”

  “Yeah, I understand there will be leadership positions going begging.”

  “High priests and secret police and CEOs! We’ll all have like big houses and sports cars and. . . and stuff . . . and absolutely hordes of slaves and we can do anything we want with the meat sacks.”

  “Sounds like fun.”

  “Totally toga party! I’d like to kill a couple, just to see if it’s as big a spiff in the quiff as everyone says it is, and have them grovel and beg and cry and everything. I mean, I could see the Shadowspawn really got off on that when I was doing it. And we won’t have to stay in town all the time or watch what we say in front of meat sacks, and I can go to concerts and raves and all that like the people on TV and the Web. Or maybe spring break in Puerto Vallarta.”

  “It’s certainly got the Masters completely focused,” Salvador said. “Hardly any of them left in the bay area. Usually there are a couple of dozen, at least.”

  Tiffany nodded. “There aren’t any Masters left in town here at all, well, there are Doña Adrienne’s kids, I suppose. I’ve seen them a couple of times. Just kids, if you don’t know better. Sometimes the servants bring them down into town, or they have playdates and things.”

  Bingo, third confirmation and that’s the charm, he thought, disguising a hunter’s satisfaction with a bite of muffin. Definitely out of town, kids still definitely here. Plenty of nannies and such, I should think, and the security detail, but the living . . . well, active . . . monsters gone.

  “Didn’t your Doña Adrienne have another lucy? I think I heard someone mention that.”

  “Oh, Jose. No, he’s retired . . . well, you know, retired from being a lucy. Out of town now, his aunt’s got this business he helps with. The Villegas are sort of stuck up ’cause they’ve been here forever, but he’s nice.”

  A sigh from the girl, as she propped her chin on a fist. “I’d like to travel. What’s San Francisco like? There’s this great place for clothes my mom got to go to once and she’s still talking about it.”

  It struck Eric suddenly that quite possibly this Tiffany Meachum had never been more than a few miles from the town where she’d been born.

  Man, I’m never going to read ’Salem’s Lot again, he thought as he did riffs on the backstory of his supposed identity; the Brotherhood had a good system for producing them and he’d studied hard. Isolated small towns with horrible secrets just aren’t going to be any fun even to imagine. I wonder what’s in the cellars and attics here?

  “So,” she said a little later. “I get off at six. My place or yours?”

  Salvador choked slightly. “Ah. . .”

  “Well, you do want to fuck me, don’t you?”

  He answered with a wordless grunt, and she gave him a winning smile.

  “I can probably get Jilly in on it too if you’d like that. Bet you’ve never had sisters at the same time! Rough stuff’s fine, either way, I like pitching and catching. Your hotel might be better, ’cause my folks are, like, ancient and yell and pound on the door if I get too loud, and I really like to do that. Or you could gag me.”

  “Ah, sorry. Can’t.”

  For a moment he felt a horrible temptation; it had been a long time since his dates had included anyone but Ms. Rosy Palm. Then he mentally recoiled at his mind’s prompting vision of what he’d feel like afterwards.

  You are too old to be thinking with the little head, Salvador. Also you have to look at yourself every day in the mirror.

  “Oh, don’t be all unfun!” she said, sensing his recoil. “I could get Don, my boyfriend, too,” she added, with a considering glance. “If that’s your thing.”

  “No offense, but I’m really busy. Another time.”

  “Oh, well, it was fun talking, Miguel. Have a nice day. Hail to the, ah, the Black Eternal Dawn . . . Eternal Black Dawn, and, uh, and whatever!”

  “Jesus,” he whispered softly to himself.

  Lucy Lane was extremely quiet, a curving row of neo-Spanish houses deeply embowered in big trees, with lovely gardens out front and even better behind, from the glimpses he got. The narrow street made it almost drenched in sweet, heavy flower scent; the roundabout at the end gave onto the hills behind the town, and to the left was the high stuccoand-tile wall around the casa grande. Its roofs showed over the top, and the tips of trees. The brooding presence was never really gone anywhere in town, but here it was overwhelming.

  Right, peones down here, hacendados up there. Ms. Cortines must feel right at home, not. I was right about this place being un-American, unless you count maybe Alabama.

  From what he’d heard—the briefings had been brief, limited to the essentials—the Brézés had been aristos back in the old country, as well as satanists and magicians using powers they didn’t understand until the nineteenth century. The sort who, back when, had hunted peasants for sport with horses and dogs, before what Adrian had called Madame la Guillotine taught them a few limits. Only, the Brézés hadn’t wanted any limits. They’d apparently brought their conception of how things should be organized along when they came here, as well. This wasn’t exactly a castle on a crag somewhere in the Auvergne with a village huddled at its feet, but it wasn’t exactly not like that either.

  Right, Salvador said to himself. According to Ellen, the one called Jabar got killed before she left, Peter Boase escaped, Monica’s not here, and it doesn’t look like there’s anyone home anywhere but Cheba. Good news about this Jose guy being off the lane, that’ll simplify things.

  He felt hideously conspicuous, even though it was getting dark; California weather could make you forget what season it was, but the sun went down at the right time, anyway. The streetlights were picturesque, frosted globes on wrought-iron stands, but not the most efficient outdoor lighting he’d ever seen. Of course, the people who controlled the process could see in the dark anyway.

  He didn’t like to think what would happen if the local cops caught him loitering with intent on the street that was, essentially, the local Brézé drive-by buffet. He’d also been warned that his cover story wouldn’t hold up if someone actually contacted the Tōkairin for a background check. Not even normal Shadowspawn sloppiness got that bad, and even a large clan didn’t have so many close servants that they had to rely entirely on computerized lists.

  Plus I don’t think the local police are much into the Miranda rights thing, somehow.

  The outside light came on at number five, and four people came out.

  Right, Monica’s kids. Boy eleven, girl ten. Older woman—probably their grandmother. And Eusebia Cortines, formerly of Coetzala and Tlacotalpan.

  His professional instincts stut
tered a little when she hit his eye. She was about seventeen, and not your typical girl from a little ejido village. For one thing she looked to have a strong dash of African in there with the predominant india and some Spaniard, to judge from the cinnamon-coffee color of her skin and the way her blue-black hair was loosely curled, as well as her full lips. Slim, straight figure, but a high, full bust—also not typical, peasant girls tended to stocky builds and breasts at best of the perky persuasion.

  Okay, stop snorting and pawing the ground, let’s hope she’s not as mentally fucked-up as the last pretty girl you saw.

  She hadn’t been, from what the others said, but she’d also been here a year as a lucy. A pretty traumatic situation to begin with, and Shadowspawn could do things to your head. He’d experienced a little of that with Adrian putting in the blocks and wards; his cover identity would account for that, if he’d been a Tōkairin soldato once. They used their renfield mercenaries against one another in their squabbles and didn’t want them to be too utterly vulnerable. But that had been clinical, not whatever the local monsters had been doing with her on a whim in this theme park for demons.

  These village girls are tough, though. He’d had enough experience with wetbacks to know that. And Adrian said she looked mentally resilient to him. Now for the risky part.

  If she yelled for the cops he was dead, or much much worse. Shadowspawn had ways of torturing you that didn’t have to end with death. Just plain didn’t have to end.

  He waited until the older woman and the kids had driven off, then walked through the gate and up the brick pathway. The risers of the steps leading to the arched front door were mosaic tile, and there was a colorful surround in the arch above. It was a nice house, carefully maintained but lived-in; number one was the only other that did, and it had a couple of bicycles out front in racks, kids’ models.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d knocked on a door that might have someone unhappy to see him behind it. Policemen saw a lot of that. He drew a breath and rapped; it was more personal than ringing the bell.

  “Yes?” she said, when the door opened; Salvador had been pretty sure that she spent an instant looking at him through the peephole.

  “My name is Eric Salvador, Señorita Cortines. I come from a certain man you met, who was not as he seemed.”

  “Oh, fuck,” said Salvador; he’d never met Adrienne Brézé, and from the impact she’d had on other people he had no desire to do so. “She’s alive?”

  “Yes. Everyone else is not to know, you understand? So I can’t say so, the witch makes sure of that. Only to you I can, I don’t know why, my head doesn’t start buzzing.”

  That must be the Wreakings that Adrian had implanted.

  No wonder they’re sloppy about security! They can just reach into people’s minds directly!

  Salvador stared at her. The Mexican girl seemed extremely selfpossessed, if a little pale and moving carefully. She was leaning back on a pale, elegant sofa, her hands busy with some sort of lacework, dressed in a silk blouse, braided belt, elegant slacks and tooled leather sandals, an orange cat curled up beside her. There were a few paintings on the wall; those would have been Ellen’s while she was here.

  But the bookcase held a slew of school primers and language guides and some illustrated books on crafts; and he suspected the color scheme, heavy reds and navy blues with highlights of orange and crimson and green, was the current tenant’s idea. A plate of sugar cookies had been put out, and a pot of strong black coffee.

  “You’re . . . sure?” he said. “Sure she’s not dead?”

  She rolled her eyes; he had to acknowledge that it was a stupid question.

  “¡Ai! The things the evil bitch does to me every couple of days, I’m very sure, me.”

  Well, here’s some crucial information. Christ! Well, no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

  “But she’s gone?”

  “Yes. She, her parents, Monica. Only the children left. They’ve all gone to get ready for this big meeting.”

  She grimaced and took a small case out of a pocket and tossed a little white pill into her mouth and swallowed.

  “She drank a lot of my blood just before she left, but already it hurts; and she made me help with Jose, so I’d know what was coming to me. This medicine from the doctor helps a little. She laughed about how I would beg her to beat me and take me in the worst ways when she came back. Damn her to hell!”

  They were speaking in Spanish; it wasn’t Salvador’s first language, hadn’t been in his family since his grandmother’s time, but he was fully fluent and had been as long as he could remember. Though the dialect he’d learned from his grandmother’s generation was quite a bit different from hers; there had already been more English words mixed in, for starters. Her English was reasonably good, but still heavily accented, and sometimes a little too much like a literal word-for-word translation for fine detail to come through to anyone who wasn’t bilingual already.

  He suspected she’d spoken a lot of Nahuatl before moving to the bigcity ambience of Tlacotalpan. Coetzala must really be in the boonies.

  “She nearly died, she was very sick,” Cheba added. Clinically: “That would have been bad. I would have been killed myself, sacrificed. They do that, I hear, like the days of the old gods, sending the servants along with the master. Also—”

  There was a disturbing glint in her big dark eyes, a flicker like a kiss of flame.

  “—also I want to kill her myself. See her die. See her die! If that blond gringa can nearly kill her I can finish the job.”

  Okay, no Stockholm syndrome here.

  “Then you will help us?”

  Cheba put her lacework down. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe,” she said again. “¿El brujo quiere mi ayuda? ¡Le costará! If the sorcerer wants my help, it will cost him!”

  “Well . . . he’s offering a way to escape.”

  “Like he did last time? And so I escape, what am I going to do? I have no papers, no money, I don’t speak the language really well yet.”

  “This is a bad place.”

  She shrugged, her eyes hard. “I grew up selling baskets on the streets in Tlacotalpan. What do you think that’s like for an india with no money? It’s a bad place! I’m getting ready here, me, learning things. What happens to me—” Another shrug. “That bastard son of a whore Paco, the coyote who smuggled us across the border and sold us to the witch as snacks, he and his friends did things to me too. I saw him die, I’ll see her die. Meanwhile I have a nice house and enough to eat, and I learn and I prepare. Revenge is like mole, you have to cook it slow for the best taste.”

  Salvador hid an admiring grin, but he thought she caught a bit of it. She was smarter than most, but otherwise she reminded him of others he’d met, the ones not simply beaten down and numbed by misery. She had a lynx-eyed grasp of the main chance, and wasn’t going to let anything get in the way. It was annoying, but she had never had enough to indulge in luxuries like sentimentality.

  “Okay, what do you want?” he said.

  “What do you want, you and your boss?”

  “He wants the witch’s children.”

  “He’s the father, right? She boasted to me about that, once. That she tricked him or something.” A sniff. “As if men needed to be tricked into that.”

  “Ah . . . yes.”

  “I have helped look after them a little. They are not bad children, but very strange. Now, here is what I want. I will help this man you work for to fight the brujos. I want a chance to kill Adrienne. Also I want papers, not a green card but citizen’s papers, and I want enough money to open my own shop.”

  She touched the lacework beside her on the sofa, gently nudging the cat’s interest away.

  “I have learned enough of what they like here. Some I can make, some buy from the south, I know where to go and I can bargain. What city for the shop, I am not sure. A safe place. Give me that and I will help.”

  Eric Salvador grinned openly this time. “Y
ou are a lady who knows her own mind,” he said.

  “I am one who has no time for foolishness,” she said.

  “This is no time for foolishness!” Cheba said.

  Adrian shook his head. The Brotherhood commandos were gathered in the safe house, a disused warehouse in Paso Robles they’d used before, a dim expanse smelling of old motor oil and olives. Adrian, Farmer and Guha, Ellen, and Eric Salvador; their backup and exit groups were elsewhere, waiting. The only ones without a look of shocked astonishment on their faces were Cheba and Salvador, who’d delivered the news. Adrian himself felt as if he’d been punched in the gut; Ellen had gone gray and staggered backwards to sit on an old fruit crate. Farmer and Guha had their heads together and were whispering frantically.

  “I killed her,” Ellen whispered. “I swear to God I got her right in the foot with the hypo and pressed the plunger.”

  “You did,” Cheba said. “But one of the other guests, the woman Michiko, cut off her foot almost instantly, before much of the poison got into her. Then she was very sick for months. The foot grew back. Like a bud on a plant.”

  She shuddered. Adrian nodded; he didn’t know if the original Shadowspawn had had that ability, but the Council’s eugenics program had established it among the purebreds a few generations earlier. Probably in normal humans switching off that particular suppressive gene would have meant death by cancer, but his breed didn’t have that sort of bad luck. Or perhaps the cells that went wrong had extremely bad luck themselves.

  “We are very hard to kill,” he said, feeling himself gathering strength. “Very hard indeed. Things . . . fall out well for us.”