Shadowshaper Legacy

by Daniel José Older

  “Sierra.” Another excruciating moment passed. “When I told you that I understood and was alright with you and your friends … and your mami … having a whole secret woo-woo world that was beyond my capacity and quite frankly outside my pay grade to really comprehend, I’m pretty sure I was clear that my leaving the whole thing alone was conditional on it not bringing any kind of messiness or danger to anyone in this household. Correct?”

  “Well …” Sierra hedged.

  Dominic raised his eyebrows.

  Sierra felt herself soften, wasn’t even sure why. She was doing everything she could to keep the danger away, but wishing and hoping wasn’t gonna do it. “I’m trying, Papi.”

  “She is,” Bennie put in.

  “That doesn’t sound good enough.”

  “I’m not sure if it is,” Sierra admitted.

  “You know I have some people we can call,” Dominic said, “if things get … you know, out of hand.”

  Sierra tried not to scoff. Her dad might’ve run the streets one day many, many years earlier, but that was all ancient history. “Who, Uncle Neville?”

  Dominic looked mildly offended. “Some of his folks, yeah.”

  Sierra chortled and leaned over Cojo to give her old man a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you, Papi, I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “I’m serious,” he protested, picking his newspaper back up with a harrumph.

  “Good night, Mr. Santiago,” Bennie said with a giggle.

  “Mmhmm.”

  In the kitchen, Sierra sucker punched Bennie’s shoulder.

  “Ow! Damn, Si!”

  “You gotta watch your mouth, Bennie,” Sierra whispered, pulling the cafetera out from the cabinet. “I’m serious.”

  “I know!” Bennie moaned. “I’m sorry! What are you doing? It’s like midnight, Si. We gotta —”

  Sierra shot Bennie a shut-it look, and she did.

  The water shushed into the basin and the fine-ground café went into the filter and they all screwed together with the top part and went on the burner, which roared to life with a click-click-click fwoom!

  Sierra turned to Bennie, found there were tears in her best friend’s eyes. “B, what is it? What happened?” She crossed the tile floor and wrapped her arms around her friend without giving her a chance to answer. “Tell me. Who I gotta kill?”

  Bennie snorfled a laugh. “No, no, it’s just … sorry … something about this kitchen and …”

  Juan.

  Of course.

  Bennie and Juan had known each other for damn near their whole lives, and Juan had always been the annoying older brother who acted like a younger brother, and Bennie had always been the nerdy best friend, and they’d probably barely ever blinked twice at each other until a few months ago when they apparently managed to fall irretrievably in love at almost exactly the same time without the other knowing, and they didn’t even realize it until the night Juan got arrested.

  “I’m sorry,” Sierra said. “I know it’s hard.”

  “I know you know,” Bennie sniffed. “That’s why I feel kinda bad making a big deal out of it all. I mean, we didn’t even have a chance to kiss! At least you and Anthony —”

  Sierra held Bennie at arm’s length. “Girl, get that bullshit narrative out of your head, please. Anthony and I had y’all beat by like twenty-four hours at best. Ain’t no kinda head start. And sure, we went further, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s harder for me than it is for you. We’re talking about feelings, not bases.”

  Bennie scoffed and looked away, blinking.

  “Aw, B.” Sierra pulled her back into a hug and squeezed.

  “And anyway, he’s your brother. So you got a brother and, you know, friend or whatever we callin’ it in there.”

  Sierra laughed through some tears of her own. “It’s not a competition, dummy. I’m not keeping score. And look, just cuz I’m struggling doesn’t mean you’re not.”

  The cafetera let out its urgent burble as steam poured out the lip.

  “If you don’t tell me who this coffee’s for …” Bennie warned.

  Sierra poured a generous portion into a tiny elegant cup and placed it on a matching saucer. She threw in two heaps of sugar, stirred it, winked at Bennie. “Follow me!”

  They stopped on the second-floor landing, and Sierra gave Bennie a hard look. “This stays between us, clear?”

  Bennie nodded and snapped a salute. “¡Ándale!”

  Sierra rolled her eyes. “I’m dead ass, B. No accidentally letting it slide in front of my dad, por ejemplo.”

  “Damn, Si. Alright.”

  “C’mon.”

  They walked up another flight, past the hipster’s rented apartment, and then made their way up to the fourth floor.

  “I knew it,” Bennie whispered. “Lázaro’s old place.”

  Sierra’s grandfather Lázaro had been the top-dog shadowshaper for a while. Well, top dog besides his wife, Carmen, Sierra’s grandma, who held the all-powerful role of Lucera even after she died and became a spirit. Then she passed it on to Sierra over the churning waves off Coney Island. But Lázaro’s apartment always had a kind of sacred glow in Sierra’s imagination.

  A faint light could be seen under the crack of the door as they approached, but it had nothing to do with Grandpa Lázaro.

  “Wait,” Bennie said. “It’s not ol’ Lázaro in there, is it?”

  Sierra smiled and shook her head. He’d been dead almost two months now, but of course that wouldn’t stop him from showing up and haunting his old apartment.

  “Cuz that’d be wild.”

  Sierra opened the door and a bright golden light filled the dim stairwell, sending both the girls’ shadows flying against the wall behind them. “Brought you your cafecito, Tía Septima.”

  Bennie boggled. “Mama … Who now? Isn’t Septima the last surviving …”

  An ancient, crinkled face glared up at them from inside the room.

  “Sorrow!” Bennie finished.

  Ay, m’ija, Septima drawled irritably. Took you long enough.

  ¡Ahh! the Sorrow crowed, hunching even closer to the Almanac of the Deck of Worlds. Sierra had never seen her in such a cheerful mood. In fact, Sierra had never seen her be anything but moody and mournful about how her sisters had been destroyed and the House of Light was no more and ay dios mío que barbaridad, etc. etc…. ¡Pero mira qué interesante!

  “Sierra,” Bennie whispered. “What the hell is going on?”

  They stood on the far side of Septima’s small wooden table. The cityscape spread out in a beautiful nighttime canopy on all sides of them, buildings rising and falling, the twinkles of the late flights sailing smoothly across the star-strewn sky.

  Pero siéntense, chicas, the glowing spirit insisted, barely looking up. She indicated two folding chairs in the corner that Sierra had brought up a few weeks earlier. No tengan pena.

  “I don’t know,” Sierra whispered back as they walked over to collect the chairs. “She been a miserable asshole every other time I’ve been up here, even after her cafecito. It’s really weird how excited she is.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about,” Bennie growled. “And you know it. Why is there a Sorrow in your attic?”

  “Long story?” Sierra tried.

  Bennie glared at her as they walked back with the chairs.

  They sat. Across from them, the Sorrow continued dithering away in Spanish at the Almanac. Sierra sighed. “Alright. Septima survived the collapse of the House of Light because when I attacked her with my shadowshaped face paint after they initiated me, some bit of shadow magic fused with her essence, so she had both shadow and light in her and —”

  “So now she’s part of our house,” Bennie finished.

  “Errrm, something like that,” Sierra admitted.

  “Ugh!” Bennie slapped her hand against her face. “How did this … Really?”

  “Anyway,” Sierra said, trying to keep the conversation moving, “we needed someone to keep
an eye on the Deck and —”

  “The Deck is here? With that?”

  Entonces. Septima chortled to herself, fully oblivious to the girls’ conversation. Quiere decir que tenemos algo totalmente nuevo pasando aquí. ¿Puede ser? Puñeta …

  “I mean …” Sierra said.

  “You have the most powerful sacred object in this whole dirty war in your grasp, Sauron’s ring pretty much, and you basically gave it to a Nazgûl and were like, Yo, hold this for me?”

  “First of all,” Sierra said, “this apartment is impregnable. I mean, the whole house is protected — I made sure of that — but this floor up here? Extra double-duty ridiculous-level lockdown. She can’t get out, no spirits or entities or anyone can get in without my permission. So let’s start with that. It’s more like, I had two things that needed safekeeping, right? The Deck and the Sorrow, and so they ended up in the same place. It’s not like I’ve entrusted her with its care and she’s just out and about, wandering around, brokering mad deals with rando house heads. She’s as much a prisoner as a guest. And anyway, she knows shit. Shit we need to know.”

  “But what makes you think she’ll be straight with us, Si?” Bennie demanded. “This is like the umpteenth sworn enemy you’ve entrusted our survival to this week alone!”

  Chicas, the Sorrow said, looking up suddenly. This is very interesante. Lo que está pasando en el Almanaque.

  “She said something interesting is happening in the Almanac,” Sierra whispered.

  “Thank you, Duolingo,” Bennie harrumphed. “I took French, but I’m not a complete goober.”

  Sierra rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the Sorrow. “What’s happening, Tía Septima? In English, please, so Bennie can understand.”

  “Tía?” Bennie hissed.

  Sierra elbowed her.

  Septima turned her slow, dilapidated gaze to Bennaldra for the first time. She seemed to regard her for a moment and then nodded her approval and glared back down at the Almanac. You have all but wiped out the Bloodhaüs, she said. See?

  She spun the ancient tome around so it faced Sierra and Bennie and indicated with a crooked, near-skeletal finger where the five cards of the Bloodhaüs had faded to almost nothing. They are on their knees, eh? She chuckled. If we’re being honest, nobody liked those guys anyway, not really. And they were, in a way, the opposite of the Shadowhouse, hm?

  “I always thought —” Sierra started.

  Septima cut her off snappily. Jes, jes, of course the House of Light and Shadowhouse were always at odds and shadow versus light, jes, jes! ¡Pero! Este … the power of shadowshaping is, always has been, one of the spirit, no? Of death, hm? El alma — the soul. She looked at Bennie. ¿Sí o no?

  “Uh … sí,” Bennie said.

  Eso. And the Bloodhaüs, it is a magic that is corporeal. Of the cuerpo, the body, hm? That is why —

  “That’s why they be flinging around roadkill!” Bennie moaned. “Ugh.”

  ¡Eso mismo! Entonces, the spirit and the body, they are different, hm? Opposites, even. And you see, there are many different levels to this Deck in whose grasp we exist, jes.

  “I never thought of it like that,” Sierra admitted.

  Anyway — Septima took a thoughtful, excited sip of coffee, closing her ancient eyes in appreciation — un poco más azúcar next time, hm? The King of Iron only kept them around in case he needed to play them against us in the House of Light, I’m sure. But we were all ready to knock them out at any moment if need be.

  “Wow,” Bennie said. “It’s like the Behind the Music of the Deck of Worlds.”

  Not that what you have done isn’t tremendous, young Lucera, tremendous. A vast accomplishment, hm? Jes, jes.

  Sierra couldn’t help the odd flush of pride she felt at the compliment. “Well …” she started.

  Of course, Septima snapped, you shattered one of the most sacred rules of engagement of the Deck of Worlds. Sierra had been waiting for this. She nodded, solemnly.

  Bennie boggled. “We did?”

  “I did,” Sierra said. “The two cardinal rules of this whole thing are: You’re not supposed to kill other members, and, even more importantly, you’re not supposed to take away the head of another house’s powers.”

  “These guys were going around killing shadowshapers like it was going out of style!” Bennie sputtered. “What about Manny?”

  The Sorrow raised one bony finger. Point of clarification: At the point that Dr. Wick went on his killing spree, he had already broken from us and was functioning on his own. However, I will also add that —

  “And why is the killing one secondary to the taking-the-powers-away one?”

  “Killing is not the same as taking powers away,” Sierra said.

  Eso, Septima agreed.

  “Since folks show up as spirits with all their powers still. Sometimes.”

  Bennie shook her head. “Okay, that’s messed up. But also, didn’t ol’ boy in Park Slope try to take your powers away? That creepy guy we had to administer a fade to outside the club back in September?”

  “Yeah,” Sierra said. “I’d been wondering about that too.” She shot a look at Septima, who suddenly seemed very interested in the Almanac. “Especially because Mina told us he was doing it on behalf of you House of Light creeps.”

  Ah, see, es que, este tipo es especial … Septima’s voice trailed off.

  “What’s so special about him?” Bennie demanded.

  This is what I am trying to tell ju. Septima seethed. If you break the rules, there are consequences. She started flipping pages. You have to be discreet, you see. This man who attacked you may have been doing so on our behalf, hm? But he was not a member of the House of Light.

  Sierra rolled her eyes. “Discreet isn’t really my style.”

  Well. Septima sighed, then turned to the first page, where the five Hierophant cards stood out against a black, tattered background that seemed to have tiny veins that pulsed with gold crisscrossing it: the River, Fortress, La Contessa Araña, the Reaper, and the Empty Man. Then this is what you will have to deal with. The illustrations showed a flowing rush of water in the outskirts of a distant city, a fortified tower, a huge spider with an old woman’s face, a hooded angel of death, and a blank-faced man staring through a window at a happy family dinner.

  Our mother. The Sorrow pointed to La Contessa Araña. Your great-great-great-grandmother, Sierra. She created the five Hierophants as a balancing factor, to keep things in order, in case one House gained too much power. They were originally not supposed to have allegiance to any one side, but of course … not so much. But they are also the regulators. If a house gets out of line or — she gestured at Sierra with what might’ve been admiration — breaks a cardinal rule, then the Hierophants are allowed to take sides with opposing houses.

  “But also the old b —” Bennie caught herself. “Uh, your mama made herself one of them. So that’s hardly fair. And didn’t she come up with House of Light?”

  Originally, Septima said sagely, there were no houses, no need for houses. There was just the power of light, hm. And yes, La Contessa brought this power from the old world when she voyaged to the island of Puerto Rico and took up residence in a castle deep in El Yunque, which she inherited after her husband died suddenly from too much bleeding from the mouth, ears, and anus, lamentablemente.

  “That’s an interesting way to die suddenly when there’s an inheritance on the line,” Sierra muttered.

  Bennie shook her head, blinking. “Girl.”

  She anointed her four daughters as the Sorrows, Keepers of the Light. In her benevolence she included her youngest, María Cantara, la bastarda. But María Cantara was indolent and ungrateful. She stole off into the forests and joined forces with her father, a well-treated servant who also escaped, and together they created the power of shadowshaping, and they declared war on La Contessa and all that is good and light and beautiful in the world. That is when she became the first Lucera.

  For a few moment
s, Sierra and the old woman stared across the table at each other. Sierra had learned to laugh off Septima’s ridiculous spins on the family history; she spent her energy trying to figure out what the truth was beneath all that bullshit. But it riled her, deep down, that the only voice telling her about her own roots and legacy was that of a sworn enemy. And tonight was no exception. Still … she’d never mentioned the Hierophants before. And the Sorrow’s whole demeanor was so suddenly different now; it felt like something else was coming.

  Of course, Septima said slowly, deliberately, that is all ancient history, hm? But now that you have broken this cardinal rule, the Hierophants are in play, as you shall see…. She turned to the section about the emergent houses: Bloodhaüs, now faded, and, on the next page, instead of the different suits that the other houses had, all five images were identical to that of another card: the hooded man with a scythe known as the Reaper.

  Sierra boggled. “What the —”

  “Isn’t that one of the Hierophants?” Bennie asked.

  The Reaper is the most powerful Hierophant, the most mysterious. We say he, pero … the truth is, he’s more of an it. Nobody really knows. He’s like a virus, hm? When he appears así, taking over a whole house, it means great, catastrophic change is imminent, no matter what. This is what has been unleashed by your actions, Lucera.

  Sierra felt her whole heart sink. Every time she felt like she had a handle on this whole Deck thing, it seemed to switch up on her. She’d already done so much, made so many moves, and it all seemed like some impossible, ever-changing puzzle anyway.

  “Great,” Bennie said. “So you’ve pissed off the power brokers and the Angel of Death is coming to kill us all.”

  Something inside Sierra steeled. She shook her head, standing. “Good. Just means we have to fight all the harder. We brought the Bloodhaüs to its knees. If the Hierophants want to come for us, we’ll take them out too.”

  Once, a very long time ago, as the tide of disease and bloodshed swept across the Caribbean amidst armadas, freighters, and sugar plantations, a new power was born from the ashes of a very old one.