“It sounds like you are,” Robbie said, when Sierra just closed her eyes and looked away.
Caleb sighed. “If you give Dake the Deck, he’ll still do all the things he threatened. Maybe not the next day or the day after, but I can guarantee you that one by one, he will take our people out. Except no one will be able to stop him.”
Nydia stepped forward and everyone got quiet. “Look,” she said, very softly. Both her hands were clenched at her sides and her head was bowed forward just slightly, brow furrowed. “I don’t know whether giving the Deck back is the move or not. All I know is this: Dake has to die.” She looked around the room, locking eyes with each of them. “Do you understand me? He’s threatening my —” Her voice cracked, and she stopped. Sierra prayed she wouldn’t break down. Nydia took a breath. “He’s threatening my boys; he’s gotta die. So what I need for this discussion to be is one about how, exactly how, we are going to make that happen.” She paused, and no one said anything for a few seconds. Then she added, “Preferably slowly.”
“I mean, I’m with that,” Caleb said. “My thing about the how is, we don’t have enough intel to really figure that out yet. Right, Vincent?”
Vincent emerged from the shadowy corner of the apartment where the spirits tended to congregate. He’s eighteen years old. Real name, Dave Kallert-Picker. Attends Argyle Prep, a private school on the Upper West Side; commutes in from Long Island every morning. Parents are Leslie Jean Kallert and Ronald Picker, a lawyer and an architect. Only child.
“Great,” Robbie said. “So we stake out the house and —”
He’s gone to ground, though, Vincent cut in. Parents think he’s on some ski trip for Christmas break, but we’re pretty sure he’s hiding out wherever their new meeting spot is, and we haven’t been able to figure that out yet.
“Then we sic Juan on him,” Bennie said. “He the Hound, y’all. And he’s a beast with it! No pun. But I’m sayin’ …”
“Wherever Dake is, he’s gonna be well protected,” Caleb said. “Like, impenetrable-fortress-type well protected. He only has to stay that way for another day. We’ll be playing right into his hands if we come for him, and guarantee it’ll set off whatever crap he has planned for our loved ones. That’s why Robbie and I were looking into taking other people out.”
“So we’re right back where we started.” Sierra sighed.
“So we just get everyone the hell outta Dodge for a while,” Juan said, sounding more nervous than Sierra had ever heard him. “Just tell ’em to take vacations and —”
“Gael on that list,” Sierra tried to say gently. “Dake got people in Afghanistan. Sending someone to Florida isn’t gonna keep ’em safe.”
Sierra put her head in her hands. Her phone buzzed. A message from Dake popped up on the screen with about thirty other numbers cc’d besides Sierra’s. She groaned.
“You mean on top of being a kid nazi and a murderer, this guy sends group texts too?” Jerome growled, looking over her shoulder. “Yeah, he gotta die.”
“What’s it say?” Nydia asked.
Sierra read out loud: “Come celebrate the advent of a brand-new house and the dawning of a new age for the Deck of Worlds: Unity and Freedom Party this Wednesday at sunset.”
“That’s the day he demanded we hand over the cards by,” Bennie said.
“Reginald Meadows off the NJ Turnpike,” Sierra continued.
“That’s where we faced off with Bloodhaüs a few days ago,” Tee said.
“Follow the streamers and flashing lights. All houses welcome, emergent, Dominant, and everything in between. It’s time to join together as one as we face a new threat with unity and power! Special entertainment provided by …” Sierra’s voice trailed off.
“What?” Juan asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Culebra,” Sierra finished. “Apparently you guys have a gig playing at our funeral.”
Juan Santiago sat on his bed and strummed a single chord on the acoustic guitar his parents had given him when he turned eleven. It was a B7 — one of his favorites. He loved the way his fingers stacked on top of each other like a tower with one sticking out. He loved the slightly off-center jangle of it, that wily tritone. He loved how it described a rainy day without a single word.
He closed his eyes, strummed it again, now willing the spirits to gather, imagining them there in front him, those long loping strides, those gangly arms. He advanced his fingers up a few frets and then back down, making a hazy slow progression as his occasional strums veered into a more rhythmic strut, something like a blues, something like a dirge.
Around him, the spirits surely slid through the air in time to his tapping foot, the tinkling notes as his fingers danced into arpeggios along each string. He would bust into a new rhythm, and the spirits would move with him, and then he’d let them stream through and inhabit the song and take form.
He opened his eyes.
Nothing.
He stopped playing, just blinked into the emptiness of the air around him.
Where were they?
A knock snapped him out of his disappointed reverie. “Yeah?”
“It’s Bennie,” the muted voice called from the other side. “Can I come in?”
“Uh, yeah! Of course.” Juan stood. Sat back down. Put his guitar on the bed as the door opened.
“Don’t stop playing,” Bennie said. “I came to listen.”
“I … okay.” He picked it back up, hit that A minor, and laid into a sultry kind of flamenco riff.
“Ooo la la,” Bennie cooed, doing a little twirl with elaborate finger snaps and then plopping on the bed next to him. Soon, she’d draped herself across his shoulder and, still strumming, he lifted his left elbow to accept her into his embrace and then lowered it around her. Slowly, and with the flamenco roll sliding into a gentler samba, he eased them both down onto the pillows, and for a little while, they just lay there while he played.
“You asleep?” Juan asked.
“Mm-mmm.”
“Can I, um, ask you something? And don’t say that I ju —”
“You just did.”
“Urk.”
“Don’t stop playing!” She snuggled closer, her legs tangled in his now, and Juan had to make an active effort to remember what chords were and how to strum. Right. That.
“Seriously, though. This is, ah, difficult to ask.”
“I’m here. What is it? I won’t laugh at you, I can almost promise.”
“Comforting,” Juan snorted. “Can you teach me how to shadowshape?”
She propped herself on one elbow so she could get a better look at him. She was smiling — not in a mean way. “Of course, Juan! I just assumed —”
“I know, I know. I should already know. I totally should. And, like, maybe I do, kinda? Just, like, not really. Yeah, I been around it my whole life, yada, yada, but I never really … and here we are.”
“Mmm.” She nodded sagely. “What happens when you try?”
“Well, earlier when we were rehearsing it seemed like it was about to work. Spirits showed up and everything. But then we got interrupted, and then I was trying again just now, and … nothing.”
“Oh, I mean — keep playing, man. Just because we having a conversation doesn’t mean you get a break.”
“Okay, damn.”
“I mean, thing is, sometimes it just be like that? Especially when you starting out. And sure they know you …” She made her voice all spooky. “¡Juancito! Right? But they don’t know you as a ’shaper yet, just as like family or whatever. It might just take a few tries before they know to show up.”
“Hmm … I guess so?”
“And maybe you haven’t found your ’shaping skill yet.”
“But, I mean!” He shrugged. “It’s gotta be music? Right?”
She shrugged back. “Who knows? Not always that simple.”
Juan cracked a mischievous grin. “Show me.”
“Aw, man, right now?”
“Nothing complicated. I just w
anna see the summoning part.” And then: “Please?”
She rolled over so they lay beside each other on their backs, his arm her pillow, then raised her left hand. Immediately, the room felt fuller somehow, the air heavy. She was so smooth with it! “Boom, just like that,” he whispered.
She gave a sly smile. “Eh, I just been practicing.”
“I gotta get like you.”
He could make out the shadows now — a tall one and a short one. Couldn’t see their faces, but he was relieved that neither appeared to be Vincent. Woulda been kinda awkward to have a girl summon up her murdered brother while you were having cozy time with her. Juan leaned the guitar against his desk and watched.
They swooped forward together and leapt over the bed (Juan did everything he could not to flinch) and then vanished into Bennie’s open hand. With her other arm, she slapped the wall and both shadows emerged onto it.
One spirit slid along to the light switch on the far end of the room, disappeared into it, and then the overheads dimmed to a romantic glow. “Nice,” Juan whispered. The other stepped on long, shadowy legs toward the speaker system, vanished. Immediately, the whole thing lit up, digital numbers spinning through the radio dial, speakers churning out waves of static and ads. Then something else clicked and another light blinked to life on the main hub. “Bluetooth?” Juan marveled. “Damn.” The other shadow reemerged out of the light switch and sped back across the room to where Bennie’s phone sat on the desk. Soon, a sweet piano melody spilled out from the speakers, and then a smooth lo-fi beat rose up around it amidst the whisper of a record player crackle and someone humming in the background. “What’s this?”
Bennie smiled, eyes closed. “The new DJ Taza jam. Just dropped Friday.”
“Mmmm!”
“This dude just puts out a new underground hit every few weeks, mixing in ol’ Cubano jams and putting ancient rhythms together with hip new ones, and every time it’s like a whole other thing. Young genius, man.”
“Isn’t he, like, old, though?”
“I just meant, younger than old white guys that call themselves geniuses, but yeah, he’s in his thirties, I think.”
“Ah.”
For a few minutes, the song pulsed around them, calmed all Juan’s aching muscles and washed away the endless pulse of fear that had been with him since yesterday, the knowledge that someone was coming for his loved ones and he wasn’t even remotely prepared to stop them. For a few minutes, it was just his own heartbeat, the thump and clatter of DJ Taza’s beats, and Bennie in his arms.
And then he imagined his dad at work, and some random creep from the Internet showing up with a gun. Before the man even raised his arm to shoot, Juan was picturing Gael doing some training exercise and a fellow soldier unstrapping his sidepiece, taking aim. Both guns went off at once, but the sound of Sierra’s screams drowned out their ear-shattering claps.
Juan sat up, gasping.
Bennie was already sitting straight up, and when he looked into her wide-open eyes, he knew she’d slid into the same pit of terror that he had. He was wrapped around her before he’d decided to, and together they slid back down into the bed, holding tight as the drumbeat and piano wove their sad tapestry through the air around them.
“Is there anything you can do?” Nydia asked.
Tee and Izzy looked at each other, then back down at the two wide-eyed boys with big, terrific fros staring up at them. “We’ll figure something out,” Tee promised.
They stood outside the Santiago brownstone. The December afternoon had turned weirdly warm as everyone skulked off to settle their affairs and worry after the emergency meeting, and Uncle Neville had rolled up in his Caddy with the boys in the back just as Nydia pulled Tee aside for a discreet word.
Now Tee and Izzy took in the gently waving air around Nydia’s sons, Virgilio and Timba, aged seven and nine respectively. Protection, protection, protection … what would it look like? The two Hierophants wondered, sorting through different possibilities and trying to discern the limits of their own powers. Nydia stood back, giving them space. Over on the street, Neville sat in the front seat of his idling Cadillac with his eyes closed and a jazz tune simmering out of the radio.
A shield, perhaps. A spirit shield. Mmm. It would block negative energy but probably not a bullet or a knife. A cloaking mechanism of some kind, then? They walked a small circle around the boys, squinting and cocking their heads. A deflection device.
We could pass them the Hierophant powers, Tee thought, half jokingly.
Ha, Izzy replied. If only …
Which summed it up pretty well. Being a Hierophant was simultaneously the most incredible and empowering and unnerving experience that Tee had ever had. As soon as it had clicked into place, she’d felt desperately in love with that tingling sense of wonder that ricocheted through her even now, and also absolutely ready for it to all be over. She had understood Mort’s strange fatigue and entire off-kilter way of carrying himself in a whole new light, and she hoped he’d wake up soon and be able to explain a thing or two to them.
What about a confusion solution? Izzy suggested, always rhyming, even when she didn’t mean to be.
I like, I like. They circled again, making funny faces at the boys to keep them giggling. It worked, mostly: Little Virgilio followed them with his eyes, a goofy grin plastered across his dark brown face. Timba looked a little warier but kept a half smile on as he watched them.
Tee and Izzy began waving their hands up and down, feeling the slight vibrations of pressure against their fingers as they went. Virgilio mimicked their motions with an enthusiastic cackle. Tee smiled, but the sadness of what they were doing swirled within her.
It was just a little shift in the energy field, that was all. A twist. Their fingers found purchase in those pulsing waves around the two boys, and then Tee and Izzy stopped, nodded, and stepped once to the left in perfect sequence with each other.
Imminent tragedy aside, God, it was cool having a mind-melded, ultra-powerful lover!
The energy field shifted with them; they both felt it like a wave of warm air shoving past them. And then it was done.
Tee turned to a perplexed-looking Nydia, and the three of them stepped a little away from the boys. “This is what’ll happen: Anyone coming at them will see them, or think they do, and attack with whatever they have, but they will miss. Wherever they’re seeing Virgilio and Timba, it won’t be where they really are. Understand?”
Nydia bounced her head around. “Kinda. Will it really stop them from being hurt?”
“It’ll give them time to get away,” Izzy said. “And they’ll be almost impossible to catch.”
“But,” Tee added, “that’ll only work for a direct attack, right? So … sorry to be grim, but —”
“It’s fine,” Nydia said.
“— if someone uses an explosive device, for instance, or something else that doesn’t require much precision, this won’t help much.”
Nydia frowned, nodded. “I appreciate you guys. A lot.”
Tee shrugged. “It’s the least we can do.”
“Anyway,” Izzy added, “you fine as hell.”
Tee rolled her eyes. “Sorry. She right, though.”
“It’s cool.” Nydia shrugged. “I know. I mean, thanks.”
They shared a good chuckle in spite of the lingering dread and then said their good-byes, and Tee and Izzy strutted off down the street, yanked forward by this strange new instinct neither of them could name, this sudden knowledge and ferocity.
They would find somewhere safe and settle in and, once again, leave their bodies behind like clothes on the bedroom floor after a rugged, delicious night. And they would soar, as one, as none, up through the Brooklyn skies and out over the rooftops, past the steel and bustle of Manhattan and into the wilds of Jersey, over highway and railroad, and then across the ranging, dingy field, beneath passing planes and away from the rumble of faraway traffic. And they knew what they’d find there, amidst work crews settin
g up a large stage and sound system. They could feel it as sure as they could sense the slightest trembles along the stretched-out fabric of the web they now formed a part of. They knew as surely as they knew their own names and knew their love for each other was meant to not only be but last.
There, rising from the marshes and tall, waving grass, they would find a wall, a force field — one designed by the power-wielders of the brand-new House of Blood and Iron, one very like what had surrounded the car graveyard yesterday, designed to keep spirits out and protect those within from the skills of the shadowshapers. They would find it, and they would feel their way along its sloping invisible face bit by bit, testing, probing, sensing.
They would find a chink, a way to bring the whole thing down.
And then they would smile, an inward kind of smile, unseeable but deeply true, and whisk off into the dimming skies.
Sierra sat with her legs crossed, facing the marker-covered paper on the wall, and sighed. She’d clicked off the lights and turned a desktop lamp to face the wall, so the whole thing was lit up. On a pillow in front of her, the Deck of Worlds let out its eerie glow. It was definitely brighter now, though Sierra had no idea why or how. She shook her head at it, frowning. Looked back up at the spirals and arrows she’d drawn the day before. Just a big mess, really. Barely made sense at all. And there was so much that she didn’t know. That no one knew.
How could they have gotten so hemmed in?
She picked up the top card on the Deck, turned it over. A half-naked muscular man sat on the Iron Throne draped in animal carcasses. The Emperor of Blood and Iron. His head was bowed and partly obscured by a cowl made from the head skin of a warthog. His crimson-stained hands gripped the armrests of his throne like he was stressed.
Sierra grabbed a lighter off the coffee table and flicked it to life beneath the card. The flame just simmered there, the card undamaged.
She scowled at it. Got up, went to the kitchen, and came back with a pair of scissors. They didn’t even dent the thing. She rolled her eyes and put it back.
Shadowshaper Legacy Page 25
