Shadowshaper Legacy

by Daniel José Older

  Sierra, came Vincent’s warning just as a footstep sounded on the gravelly rooftop behind her. “Gotta go,” Sierra said, hanging up with another slight cringe and then spinning, whipping one hand out wide as she did and flicking it forward into the darkness behind her. A black arrow flung through the air, powered by spirit and the shadows that churned within, and found its mark against the face of a hooded figure standing in the shadows about ten feet away.

  “Ah!” a voice yelled as the person stumbled backward and braced themselves against the doorway leading back into the building.

  “Got more of those if you’re interested,” Sierra growled.

  The figure shook it off, then stepped forward into the light and lowered their hood. Dake. Sierra tightened her fists. “Sneaking up on me is a bad idea, Dake.”

  “I honestly didn’t think I’d be able to get the drop on you,” he said with a self-satisfied grin. “Guess you got some training to do.”

  “In what possible interpretation of the last ten seconds are you the one that got the drop on me?”

  He shook his head as if it was all so obvious. “I mean, I made it all the way up onto the roof without you knowing.”

  “I’m not the one with a brand-new arrow-shaped shiner on his face, bruh. I wouldn’t be feeling too good about myself if I were you.”

  “Whatever.” He walked up to where she was and gazed down to the street below. “Find out anything juicy about your boyfriend?”

  “He’s not my boyfriend.” Sierra had to restrain herself from arrow-slapping the shit out of him once again. “Did you come here for any particular reason or just to get your ass handed to you repeatedly?”

  “How about, Thank you, Dake, for giving me the heads-up on an impending move against my team, even though you’re a brand-new member of Iron House and only there because I blackmailed you into being my spy? How ’bout that?”

  Sierra shrugged. “Saying thank you would imply that I’m grateful.” She turned her attention back to Anthony’s house, where the figures behind the curtains were now moving back and forth rhythmically … the Electric Slide, Sierra realized. Quite a homecoming.

  “So saucy,” Dake said with what might have been a flirtatious smirk. Sierra aggressively hoped it wasn’t.

  “Did you bring me any intel?”

  “Intel.” He shook his head. “You really believe your own hype, huh?”

  “So that’s a no, then. Cool.”

  “What makes you think I can be trusted?”

  “Why would you think I trust you?”

  “You put a lot of responsibility in my hands, sending me undercover like this after you decimated my crew.”

  Sierra blew out a steamy breath of air and rolled her eyes. “I guess. Can you tell me what you’ve found out now?”

  “They believe him.”

  “Who believes what now?”

  Dake nodded down at Anthony’s house, and Sierra halfway wished the nod would’ve thrown him off-balance and sent him tumbling to the street below. “The Iron House, they believe your boyfriend really did come into their ranks.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend. And, I mean … didn’t he?”

  Dake raised his shoulders and scratched his head. “Who am I to know? I’m just a spy in the House of Iron myself.”

  Sierra snorted. “Did you come up with that all yourself?”

  “I’m just saying, they don’t suspect him. And they know a lot about a lot, from what I can tell. And I can tell you this: He came into the house of his own accord, not under duress or any threat.”

  “What makes you think that I think he’s anything besides what he’s declared himself to be?”

  “It’s a cold December night and here you are on a rooftop outside his house, probably getting ready to ambush him with your little Sharpie demons and have a good little heart-to-heart about what’s really going on.”

  She rolled her eyes. “That’s not my style.”

  “Well, infiltrating an enemy house clearly is your style, and what I’m trying to tell you is that if you did send him in as a spy, you might want to be worried that he actually crossed over, at this point.”

  “Maybe you should worry about whether they believe you’re a spy or not and less about what they’re thinking about my” — she caught herself, but just barely — “friend.”

  The truth was, they’d never named what they were. It left her out of breath and elated all over when she realized it was happening and that her childhood crush felt the same way about her. And he let her in in a way no boy ever had, opened up to her like his worst fears and deepest secrets were a precious flower that only bloomed in the depths of a cave that only she was allowed to venture into.

  “Oh, please,” Dake scoffed. “I’m the Crimson Agent. Deception is what I do.”

  Sierra rubbed her eyes. “Do you ever listen to yourself, Dake? Like, really listen?”

  “Alright.” He turned to go. “Well, I’ve said all I had to say.”

  She held up her hand. “Wait.”

  “Hm?”

  “What’s the ritual for entrance into Iron House?”

  “Huh?”

  “What do they make you swear?”

  “Oh, you know — the basics. That you’ll uphold and honor the truth at all times because the truth is iron and iron is the truth, all that bullshit.”

  “And?”

  “And you will defend Iron House from any other house and lift them up into supremacy for the whole world to see their glory.”

  “Yikes. That sounds right up your alley.”

  Dake gave a vague nod. “I guess. Doesn’t bode well for your boy, though. If he swore that and can’t break an oath, you know …”

  “I just asked about the oath, Dake, not your relationship advice.”

  “I thought you weren’t in a relationship.”

  “Leave, Dake.”

  He stood there for a moment, and the wind whipped between them, and Sierra imagined and discarded several different ways of hurting him as cars rolled past in the street below; the lights had finally gone out in Anthony’s house.

  Dake walked away, probably smirking.

  Slowly, gingerly, as if she’d been injured, Sierra lowered her tired body down onto the cold rooftop gravel and dangled her legs over the side. She felt the spirits gather behind her, that gentle susurro, something like a zephyr in the chilly night. They had been there, keeping an eye on things all along, making sure he didn’t make a move. And now they were worried about her, felt that sudden sadness she’d been holding back radiate off her in heavy waves.

  Alice’s voice rose from the soft murmur: Lucera?

  “Not right now,” Sierra said, the thickness of oncoming tears heavy in her voice. She let out a long breath that rose in a steamy cloud into the darkness.

  The spirits signaled their understanding in quiet, faraway whispers and widened their berth around her — giving space but not leaving entirely.

  Sierra put her face in her hands and sobbed.

  A Hierophant.

  Tee sat at the beat-up plastic table in the second-floor office area of the Medianoche Car Service and sipped the coffee she’d been given from a paper cup. And pondered. Izzy had knocked out on the couch and was snoring loudly. Caleb was downstairs watching the Culebramobile get turned into scrap metal. Some tinny bachata song tinkled along on a radio somewhere. The place smelled like carpet cleaner, Florida water, and car grease.

  Well, Sierra had said she wanted them to find the five Hierophants, Tee thought. She probably hadn’t expected one of the Hierophants to find them, nor for it to be someone they’d squared off with in the past.

  The dude was sketch, that was obvious. He looked like a greasy pencil-thin evil car dealer in a cheap suit and was somehow too old and too young for his own face at the same time. Plus, he’d tried to end Sierra. But he’d also literally murdered the most dangerous fighter of their enemy house. And he’d tracked them down with an offer of some kind. That wasn’t the kind of
thing one did lightly, even in the cutthroat battleground of the Deck of Worlds.

  There was something … enticing about the whole situation, Tee had to admit. With a Hierophant on their side, they could surely wipe out the other houses and bring this whole ridiculous war to a close. Hell, considering they’d just ended the Bloodhaüs and now the Iron House was Warriorless, they might not even have to make another move at all once word got out they’d recruited Mort.

  She stood up. Wouldn’t that be something …

  Izzy snored away on the couch.

  On the garage floor below, Caleb and the crew chatted back and forth about tattoos and assassinations.

  ¡Me engañaste! some brokenhearted Dominican dudebro wailed on the radio as a high-pitched guitar riff circled back to the one over a vicious club beat. Me mataste … lentamente y con cariño … me mataste …

  Tee put her hand on the doorknob, ever so slowly turned it. The door swung open with a squeak, but Izzy didn’t stir, and then Tee was in the stairwell, and at the bottom was a corridor that opened out to the garage on one end and led to a door marked EXIT at the other.

  The Hierophant’s business card felt like something alive in her pocket. It churned, beckoned her.

  Caleb’s laughter echoed through the garage along with a few other voices — Rohan’s and the woman in sweats. Tee could go to them. Join their circle of idle, easy chatter and let the impossible, grotesque day fade from her pulsing mind. It would be simple. She could go back upstairs, slide onto the couch alongside the girl she loved madly and wrap around her, whispering her back to sleep and then close her eyes and dream of their life together.

  Instead, she scowled and headed out the back door into the chilly night, cell phone already in one hand, her other hand fishing through her pocket, pulling out the card, trembling fingers punching the number as Bushwick trundled past in the form of hipsters heading to a party, the gradual grind of midnight traffic, an old aching man limping home from the bodega, trying to light a cigarette with shaking, arthritic hands.

  “That was quick,” Mort said with what was surely a smirk.

  “Yeah, well,” Tee murmured, but didn’t have anything to follow up with. It was quick, and maybe that was her first mistake: seeming too hungry for whatever he had to offer. Maybe the whole thing was a mistake. Probably. But still, the temptation of ending this all in one fell swoop called to her like a siren song. It would not shut up, she knew that. If she didn’t try, the possibilities would follow her around, keep her up at night, dancing endlessly through her head as more bodies dropped, more chaos erupted.

  No. She could end it — not now but soon. She knew that. She felt it.

  “Are you still at the gangster’s car lot?”

  “Right out back,” Tee said, and her voice sounded small somehow, childlike.

  “I’ll be there in five.”

  “Okay,” she said as the call went dead. “See you then.”

  “See who when?” Izzy’s voice demanded from behind her.

  Tee spun around, heart pounding. “I … I just —”

  Izzy looked so tired and tiny in the sharp light over the door. Tee wanted to crumple to the ground and beg her forgiveness. She wanted to sweep her up in her arms and tell her everything would be alright. She wanted to burst into tears. Izzy held up one finger. “You suck at sneaking around” — then the other — “and you suck at lying, babe.” She shook her head. “So just … don’t bother.”

  “I know,” Tee said. “It’s that …”

  “You were calling the creepy white dude.”

  “He’s a Hierophant, Iz. He could …”

  “He could what?” Izzy stomped one foot. “He could kill you is what. He could trick you, kidnap you. He could lock you up, just like …” All that fierceness suddenly emptied from her face, and she blinked a few times.

  Tee crossed the bit of sidewalk between them and wrapped Izzy up in a hug. “I just want this to be over. And I want to do my part.”

  “But, Tee,” Izzy whispered. “I just got free. We just saw a man get his head crushed by an SUV, like, a few hours ago. And now you want to get into the SUV that crushed him.”

  Tee nodded. “I know.”

  “This guy tried to empty Sierra of her powers. He almost did. Who knows what he could do to you …”

  Tee heard the sound of a large vehicle pull to a stop behind them. It idled loudly. Pretty soon the window would whir down, and Mort would yell something obnoxious out at them. Or maybe he’d just drive off and the opportunity would be gone forever.

  Tee stepped away from Izzy, rubbing her face. “I’m sorry, Iz. I have to … I have to try. I don’t want this to be our lives. I don’t want this to keep going.”

  Izzy could’ve yelled out, or cursed her, or said some passive-aggressive shit, and that would’ve sucked plenty. Instead, she just nodded sadly, like she’d never see Tee again, and turned away, and that was a thousand times worse.

  Down through the darkness, past frosted windows, chipped concrete façades, and dim streetlamps, past building entranceways and parked cars, and then the concrete met Sierra’s boots as the spirits deposited her gently beside a small hill of trash bags.

  She used to thrill at the sensation of being carried along in the gentle embrace of those shadowy tendrils. That weightlessness. That freedom. Now everything felt far away, like all her emotions were happening in another room, behind a closed door.

  No.

  She wouldn’t let Anthony’s betrayal, or whatever this was, dampen her whole world. She refused. The wind whipped some errant raindrops across her face, and she shook her head, pulled the hood back up, and crossed the street. Slipped easily over the small fence around the King property and then, silent as a shadow, made her way alongside the house until she came out at the backyard. A nearby streetlight cast an orange haze over the drooping vines and fronds of their garden, mostly bare and scraggly for the winter, but the rest of the small plot was empty. The house loomed above her, dark.

  Sierra took a breath, felt the spirits gather. Enter? Alice asked, stepping forward on a long shadowy leg.

  Sierra took in a deep breath of fresh winter night air. Anthony lay in bed. Tossed a thousand possibilities through her mind.

  The Iron House believes his vow, Dake had said. Claimed. And they knew what they were talking about.

  And did she really know Anthony? Sure, he’d been friends with her brother since they were kids, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been dealing with some other entity on the side all along. Wick had been close with Grandpa Lázaro and still managed to betray and almost destroy him. That had been different, sure, but …

  None of it added up.

  Worst of all, it was Sierra’s own heart, with its distant pitter-patter, that refused to make sense of this mess. That was why she was second-guessing herself. That was why this whole thing was such a big deal. It was her heart that kept sending tiny images up like distress signals: Anthony’s face close to hers; Anthony struggling his way through an anxiety attack; the way his body felt cocooning hers; when, finally calm, he’d fallen asleep, each slow breath lifting her head up and then letting it gently back down; the splash of fireworks in her own chest when she thought about him.

  Sierra let out a low growl, then said, “No.”

  Alice glanced at her: a question.

  “I don’t … I don’t know what to do,” she admitted.

  Alice nodded. Neither would I.

  They stood there in silence; behind them, the other spirits faded back into the night.

  I don’t remember my life, so I don’t remember who I loved, Alice said. But the feeling is one that I still carry in me, even though I don’t have a face to go along with it or any moments I can thread together to help me make sense of it. It’s just like a giant flame that I carry in me, and sometimes I think maybe that’s just what love is — not something you feel for another person, necessarily, but just something so gigantic that it’s impossible to keep inside you, and
so when you find someone else you think you can trust, you have to share it with them, otherwise you’ll explode.

  “That sounds about right,” Sierra said. “But what do you do when the person you thought you could trust turns out to work for the enemy?”

  Alice swooshed gently in the breeze. Said nothing.

  Sierra took a long breath, and something inside her resolved. One way or another, she’d have an answer.

  And there it was: a simple kind of peace seemed to sweep in, sloshing away all that roiling anxiousness. She would find out what she needed to know, and that meant she could make a move. And more than anything else, it was the tiny paralysis that was killing her.

  She nodded once, and around her the chilly night air suddenly became alive with the dead.

  “Are you scared?” Mort asked with a slippery note of laughter in his voice.

  “That’s an obnoxious question,” Tee said, keeping her gaze focused on the dark streets slipping by out the window. They’d worked their way through a series of quiet residential blocks in Bushwick, passed beneath the expressway, and were now navigating the industrial back roads in or near Queens. She’d only just managed to calm herself down enough to think somewhat coherently, now that all the possibilities of a horrible death had cycled through her head a few times and, perhaps, gotten bored. “But no,” she finally added. “I’m not scared. Are you?”

  Mort let out a soft chuckle and then sighed and pulled the car over by a rocky embankment between two warehouses. Moonlight shimmied among pale glints of the city along the dark river up ahead. He cut a sideways glance at Tee. “Stay in the car.”

  “What is this?” Tee demanded. “I came along. You owe me some answers.”

  Mort smiled, and it looked something like death. Then he got out, said, “I owe you nothing,” and closed the driver’s-side door.

  Sierra picked up on the second ring and whispered something unintelligible. Mort was making his way through the darkness toward the river, his back to Tee. No one else was around, as far as she could see.