The Council of Shadows (40 page)

“Michiko prefers a snow leopard when she's night-walking,” Ellen said. “She's a Gucci were-whatever. Has to be maximum
pretty
for the atrocity party.”

Adrian nodded. “Another weakness. I suspect he will not mind being the goat, if things go badly for the beast. And he could be useful to us. You and I, together, with her distracted, might well put an end to her.”

“Ah,” Ellen said. A hot flush ran over her skin. “Oh, I would
so
like to meet Michiko again under . . . different circumstances and show her that the fun-to-kill-you thing works both ways.”

Adrian made a
tsk
sound. “You have been associating with me too much, my sweet.”

“Nope. It was associating with
her
that gave me the motivation. You've just shown me
how.
Lead on to the
ragoût
.”

“I shall. And . . . I have a good feeling about this.”

“That's reassuring.”

“Unless Michiko is having one too. We shall have to see who grasps the world-lines with the Power more strongly.”

“You mean we have to make our own luck.”

His grin was slow and savage, and she answered it in kind.

“Literally,” he said. “Quite literally.”

 

 

The road to Adrian Brézé's house was ten miles north on the I-25 and then west. The empty highway stretched through the night, cool air flowing in through the open windows as the tires hummed. Eric Salvador knew he was going to his death—but maybe he'd learn
something
. Maybe the world would make sense again.

Since when has it made sense anyway? I'm thirty-two years old, no wife, no kids, and my best friend died because I couldn't figure out what was going on. The only thing I've ever been any good at was killing people and frightening them. Cesar had twice my brains and now he's dead and his girl's dead and I can't make myself think about what I think . . . I
know
really did it. And maybe they're dead because I wouldn't say it, because I was afraid of being called a nut. Or actually
being
a nut . . . am I crazy? Or is the world?

West, and then north again on a dirt road. The Sangres low on the horizon in the light of the three-quarter moon. That and the stars were the only light as the last gas station fell away.

He hesitated for a moment, and then snapped off the car lights himself. That was a commitment, acknowledging to himself that the extra danger was justified by the value of surprise. Something at the back of his brain wanted to reach up and pull down the night-sight goggles on the helmet he wasn't wearing.

Only a few distant earthbound stars marked houses. The road turned winding in the pitch-dark night, and then there was a steep drop to his left, a hundred near-vertical feet; this was the edge of the plateau. He forced himself to stop when the wheels skidded and a spray of gravel fanned out and out of sight.

He clenched his hands on the wheel and made his breathing slow, smelling the sourness of his own sweat, tobacco and booze. Then he held one hand before his face until the trembling stopped. He was in shitty shape, not enough sleep or exercise and too many smokes and drinks.

“Am I trying to kill myself?” he murmured. Then: “No. Not yet. I've got to find out what this all
means
. I just wish I was in better condition for a fight. Not twenty anymore, got to work harder at it.”

He did the next hundred yards with the engine off, rolling downhill dead slowly. After that, driving was too dangerous without lights. Instead he got out and walked down the last stretch of road, taking his time and placing his feet carefully, thanking his father and uncles for taking him hunting, and the corps for making him even more familiar with moving quietly through unlighted countryside after sunset. The night scents were strong, the sweaty leather of chamise, the strong resin of the bleeding pines. An owl went by overhead with a
woot-woot-woot
, and something that might be a coyote or just a big rabbit scrambled through the scrub downslope. Gravel crunched under his feet—it was nearly a year since Adrian Brézé had vanished, and the housekeeper came in only once a month to clean, but there were a few more ruts than that would account for.

The house itself was built right into the edge of the cliff; the final dip in the road left him looking down on its fieldstone-and-adobe walls. It seemed to squat, as menacing as those huddles of cubes you saw in the'stans, with a distant family resemblance to a pueblo. Then his experienced eye took in the dispositions.

He took his gun in his hand. That hadn't done Cesar any good at all, but it made him feel a little better down below logic. Closer, closer. . . it didn't
feel
as empty as it should. He got out his illegal forced-entry kit, kept for those rare unspoken occasions when you said,
Fuck the rules
; then something made him reach out a hand and push. The high coppersurfaced door swung open to his touch, and a few soft lights came on under the high metal ceiling. The floor was trendy polished concrete in a mottled beige color, with colorful Navajo rugs.

Yeah, about what I expected,
he thought, tucking away the leather folder of tools and blinking as his dark-adapted eyes adjusted.
Hombre, this is the OK Corral.

The whole of the opposite wall was glass, right at the edge of the cliff; very clear glass, and now that he thought about it, probably the laminated, bullet-resistant type. The land fell in crags and gullies washed pale by the moon, until the rolling surface of the semidesert stretched eastward to the edge of sight. There were a couple of pictures on the walls, ancient and beautiful even to an untrained eye. He drifted through the house, feeling like a ghost in its well-kept emptiness, and then took up a position by the big wall-size stone hearth opposite the windows, where he had maximum situational awareness.

“Why did I think I could find something here?” he said aloud, just barely moving his lips, as he waited and anticipation turned a little sour. “Besides learning that the rich don't live like the rest of us. I have got to get my groove back. I wouldn't have lasted a week on the rock pile like this. But I was so sure—”

“Maybe a little bird told you
.
”

The voice seemed to come from behind him. He wheeled. Nothing. Back again . . . and the woman was there. A spurt of dreadful joy filled him. This wasn't a dream, or pixels. That was an actual person in front of him. Granted, she was naked and where nobody should be. . ..

He raised the Glock in the regulation grip, left hand under right.

The ten-millimeter bullets punched into her belly and she folded backwards.

Two in the center of mass, one in the head; the last snapped her head around in a whirling of long black hair and a spray of blood and the bullet starred through the glass behind her. He felt his teeth begin to show as he walked towards her. The gold-flecked eyes were already beginning to glaze.

Then her head came up. “Oooooh, that
hurt
,” she said. “That can be sort of hot, you know? For starters. Then I get to hurt you. You like that, lover?”

Salvador leapt backwards, almost fell as he half sprawled against a malachite-surfaced table of rough-cast glass, then wrenched himself into a crouched firing position.

Ten shots. Five hit. Five more punched the great window behind, starring it, then collapsing it out in a shatter of milky fragments. Even then the part of his mind that was mostly training thought that was odd if it was the laminate he thought it was.

“Oooooh, oooooh, you're so
rough
,” the thing crooned as it advanced on him, laughing.

A hand reached out towards his neck. Then jerked back as she hissed:

“We really have to do something about those silver chains. Maybe we could make people think they cause cancer?”

She dabbed at the blood on the side of her head and stuck the fingers in her mouth for a moment, tongue curling around them.

“Mmmmm, tasty!” But you want to take that stupid chain off, don't you . . . that's right. . . .”

The eyes grew, the yellow flecks drawing together like drops of molten gold, running into two lakes of fire. Depth, depth, drawing him into a whirling—

She screamed, pain and rage. The great ten-foot wings beat behind her as the talons slammed home and the hooked beak drove into her neck. The snow leopard rolled over and over—

—
leopard?
—

—its paws striking in a blur of speed and claws amid a saw-edged screeching. The eagle dropped out of the air into a huge tawny
something
and the big cats rolled over and over, shrieking and striking and lunging for each other's throats and racking their hind feet to rip bellies as furniture smashed and broken glass crunched under their weight.

Then the man was standing with his back to Salvador, every muscle in his lean body standing out like static waves as his thumbs dug into her throat. She was making the same bestial snarling sound as she reared back with a knee braced against his chest and her hands driving up between his forearms, and the world seemed to
twist
between them, things flickering in and out of existence, nightmare glimpses of possibilities that ought not to exist. Salvador doggedly began to drag himself to his feet, looking around for something to throw. Something to hit with.

Much louder this time. The double splash of impact and her skull started to deform under the huge kinetic energy, and then a sparkle, and she was gone. Blood fell to the floor, a sharp, sour, iron-salt smell, and stomach contents; he recognized the acidic not-quite-vomit fecal stink. The man went to one knee for a second, panting, then rose and turned.

“You're Adrian Brézé,” Salvador said, trying to make his mind function again.

The gun came up, almost of its own volition. The slim dark man pointed a finger at him.

“Don't. Just
don't
. It's been a long day. And you need silver bullets for it to work.”

“Silver bullets?” Salvador snarled. “Silver fucking
bullets
—”

Adrian Brézé cast a glance over his shoulder; the first paling of the night sky showed that dawn was coming, and he winced a little.

“It becomes late for night-walking; I'd better go corporeal. Right back, Detective Salvador, when I've fetched my real body.”

Salvador looked down at the pistol.
Why the hell not?
he thought, and began to bring it up towards his mouth.
That's safer. Only amateurs try to shoot themselves in the head. . . .

“I wouldn't do that if I were you.”

“Why don't you kill me? Why don't you kill me?” he screamed.
“Why don't you just fucking kill me?”

“That's ‘why don't
they
fucking kill you,' ” the man said. “I can tell you, if you want to know.”

“You're one of them.”

Brézé was slight but built like a lynx or a gymnast, a bit below medium height, pale olive skin and dark hair and gold-flecked brown eyes. . .

“You're
Adrian Brézé
!”

“Yes.”

Salvador drew breath in, held it, let it out. “Okay, I get it: I'm supposed to believe you're a
good
monster.”

“Oh, he's not just good, he's a
great
monster, believe me. But all mine, mine, mine.”

Salvador jerked at the other voice, looked down at the pistol, then ejected the magazine, worked the slide to take the last round out of the chamber, and dropped it to the table he was sitting on. A workedcopper-and-turquoise box had spilled open, full of slim cigarettes. He took one out and lit it; some distant part of himself was proud of the fact that his hand didn't shake. The second voice belonged to a woman. Tall, blond, legs up to there, hourglass figure, dressed in dark outdoor clothes and boots, with a knit cap over her head and a rifle cradled in her arms—he recognized it, a big Brit sniper job he'd seen SAS types use, long scope, aircraft-alloy body. This one looked as if it had been tweaked a bit in ways he didn't recognize. Her face was a little thinner and a lot harder than the pictures, not so much of the wounded-fawn look; he recognized part of what waited in the blue eyes, from his mirror.

“You're . . . Ellen Tarnowski.”

“Technically, Ellen Brézé, now. No, I'm not one of them. You can't catch it from getting bitten, it's hereditary.” A sudden charming smile. “And believe me, I know the biting part! Not contagious at all, even if you're married to one and use the same toothbrush occasionally.”

“I get the feeling you've changed.”

“I had to . . . ah . . . take a couple of levels in badass, let's say.”

“You killed her.”

His eyes went back to the puddle of blood; there wasn't a body. A pretty disgusting mess, but no body.

“
Oh
, yes.” Her eyes were large and turquoise blue; for a moment they held a hot satisfaction. “There's a body, probably a long way away, but it's empty now, and in a little while it'll just stop breathing. Nobody home anymore. I put a bullet through
that
part of the bitch.”