Shadowshaper Legacy

by Daniel José Older

  “What if we could …” Anthony nudged.

  “What if we …” She started pacing. Pulled out a Sharpie without thinking about it, popped the cap. “What if …”

  Pieces came together, flew back apart.

  Anthony leaned against the wall with one hand, and the splotchy lines danced to life around his finger — that spirit finally coming through. They didn’t scatter, though — maybe he’d been hitting too hard all this time.

  “Hey, does this have anything to do with what you were onto when I walked in?”

  Sierra stopped pacing. “Huh?”

  “With the cards? You had the lights out and —”

  “Shit! Right! I …” She rummaged around on the coffee table, snatched up the Deck, and started shuffling through it. “Maybe it does. Turn off the light again.”

  He bent down and clicked the knob at the base of the desk lamp.

  The Deck did its eerie glowing thing. “You see, right?” Sierra asked.

  “Yeah. It always does that. Creepy-ass Deck.”

  “Does it, though?” Sierra said, the excitement growing within her. “Or is it just these?” She spread the Deck in her hands and sure enough, the Reaper cards were the only ones glowing. Anthony’s eyes went wide.

  “Whoa.”

  Ay, pero sí pero claro, Septima insisted, appearing behind Anthony and then sweeping in to inspect the Deck more carefully. The Reaper is the most powerful Hierophant. The most elusive. Nobody knows who he is, or where he is. Even what he is. But it is his light that powers the Deck. Eso ya se sabe.

  Sierra snatched the cards away from Septima’s glare. “You might’ve known all along, but the rest of us haven’t had access to the Deck until Mina got it away from you, and you decided not to mention that fact.”

  Buuuueno, Septima drawled.

  “What does it mean?”

  “What does what mean?” María Santiago said, opening the door and standing silhouetted melodramatically in the blast of light from the hallway. Sierra cringed a little. She still felt pretty terrible about sneaking the Sorrow into Lázaro’s apartment and having to keep her there even after her mom rightfully freaked out about it. Nothing was easy, nothing made sense.

  “The Deck,” Sierra said. “I’d always thought the whole Deck was glowing but turns out —”

  “Déjame ver,” María said, shoving Septima out of the way. “Hi, Anthony.”

  “Hey, Mrs. Santiago.”

  “— it’s just the Reaper card glowing,” Sierra said. “That’s why the glow is stronger now, because the Reaper has taken up a whole ascendant house’s worth of cards.”

  María took the Deck out of Sierra’s hands and shuffled through some of the cards, glowering. “This poison,” she muttered.

  It’s true, the Sorrow muttered from the corner, where she’d remained after being pushed there by María. It is poison.

  Sierra, María, and Anthony all turned their curious faces to Septima. “That’s not how you felt for the past however many hundred years when you and your sisters hoarded the Deck and used it to play all the rival houses off each other,” Sierra said.

  It’s true, it’s true, Septima mewed. I don’t deny it. I have benefited from its power, of course. And now … from here, from this side, even still amongst the Dominant house, but in the midst of this, yet another war, endless war, I see it now. That’s what the Deck does, it tears people apart. You think it’s working for you because you use it to crush your enemies one by one — she pounded a crinkled, shining fist into her palm — and watch them turn against each other and scatter before you, like pathetic insects.

  “Uh …” Anthony said.

  Pero the Deck is what makes us hungry. The Deck is what makes us greedy. The Deck is both the mechanism and the motivation. The power and the positioning. We are nothing without it, because it has created us in its image, but in doing it so, it makes us empty, husks, tazas vacías. She shook her ancient head.

  Sierra was barely listening. The Sorrow had finally come around, that was all that mattered. As the others talked, Sierra turned back to the mess of lines around the only remaining figures on the wallpaper: the House of Shadow and Light, the lineage of Luceras, the Hierophants. And in the middle of it all, La Contessa, her web still stretching outward into the chaos. The source. The power hub.

  “Shit,” Sierra whispered.

  Language, Septima chided.

  María threw her arms up. “Thank you! I’ve been trying to get this girl to speak with some respect ever since she turned twelve.”

  You have to be firm with the children, but there’s only so much we can do.

  “Shit,” Sierra said again, louder this time.

  “Sierra!” both María and Septima hissed at the same time.

  “What is it?” Anthony asked, stepping up beside her and gazing at the paper. “Do you know what to do?”

  Sierra narrowed her eyes, scanned the figures in front of her, the splattered lines. “Yes.”

  Anthony made little get-on-with-it hand rolls. “And?”

  “We’re going to give them exactly what they’re asking for.”

  Juan watched the world pass out the window of the revamped Access-A-Ride van. The gray day seemed to grimace back at him: traffic and smokestacks and ugly clouds across an ugly sky. Occasional glimpses of the Manhattan skyscrapers behind them. Crisscrossing highways all around. Blah.

  “We getting close,” Rohan advised from the driver’s seat. “Just FYI and all that.”

  “What the hell are we doing?” Juan said. “None of this makes sense.”

  “It doesn’t,” Robbie said. “But we don’t have much of a choice.”

  Juan had never particularly liked Robbie. He didn’t hate him or anything, and he definitely trusted him. But the guy just rubbed him wrong. He was too polite about everything, and him basically ghosting on Sierra once they’d found each other and started dating? That was the last straw. It was cool that he stuck around after getting curbed for Pulpo, but that only meant he merited tolerating, not actually being nice to.

  But today wasn’t the day for snappiness or infighting. Juan swallowed his retort and scowled back out the window. “Sierra said what again?”

  “She said we’ll know what to do,” Anthony said. “And when to do it.”

  “Mad cryptic,” Juan said. “Mad, mad cryptic.”

  Bennie put her hand on his leg and squeezed, and that was about the only good thing to happen all day, and things were obviously about to get much, much worse.

  “Are we even gonna be able to ’shape?” Juan asked, trying not to sound terrified. “Didn’t y’all say there was like a no-spirit barrier around the lot the other day? What if —”

  “We don’t know,” Caleb said.

  “And where is Sierra in all this?” Juan asked.

  “Wouldn’t say,” Pulpo said.

  “And you’re cool with that?”

  He shrugged, maddeningly chill about all this but also probably losing his shit in a massive way on the inside. “Not much we can do about it, but yeah, I trust Sierra. She’ll probably make some grand appearance right when we need her and wreck shit.”

  Juan allowed himself a slight smirk. That would be in line with how she did things. He still didn’t like it.

  “Look,” Caleb said, turning around from the passenger seat. “I don’t like it either, kid, but it’s what we got, and Anthony’s right: Your sister knows what she’s doing. In a way, it’s simple. All we have to do is show up and act normal, meaning be irritable and ornery about everything because shit isn’t going our way, which is easy because we are and it’s not, and then, you know, do what’s gotta be done.”

  “See, that’s the part I’m unclear on,” Juan said. They pulled off the highway and wound through some dusty backroads amidst vacant lots and random abandoned gas stations. Smoke poured out of power plants in the distance, further graying the already gloomy skies. “What does that mean?”

  Anthony shook his head, looki
ng more and more spooked as they approached. Up ahead, the stage light towers and platform appeared over the tall grass. Already, a crowd had shown up, tons of people milling about, waiting for whatever horrific shitshow was about to go down. “All she said was, we’ll know when the time comes, and when it does: Fight like hell.”

  “Think this is close enough?” Neville asked, putting the Cadillac in park and stretching an arm across the front seat so he could turn back and see Tee and Izzy.

  “It’s hard to say,” Tee said at the same time as Izzy said, “Tough to say, really.”

  They glanced at each other, but neither one laughed.

  Nydia did, though. “Oh, man. Hierophant status really is some shit, huh?”

  They both nodded, because the fact was, it was, it really was, and that was all there was to it.

  Neville shook his head, made a face, craned his neck to make sure he could see Tee’s eyes, then glanced into Izzy’s. “I know y’all got some extra shit going on,” he said, sounding like the dead-serious Uncle Neville they’d first seen come fully to light that night of their upstate run-in with the Bloodhaüs. Neville was always about that life, no question, but he was usually as quick with a laugh and avuncular chuckle as anything else; you just kind of assumed he’d literally kill anyone that got in his way, because he probably would. But it was rare you actually saw the killer look flash past his eyes, and this was one of those times. “But I’m telling you right now: The only, and I mean only, reason I’m not getting out of this car right now and putting a bullet through the skull of this corny little nazi I keep hearing about, is because I have been assured that that’s not the move right at this moment by Nydia here, and she is technically the boss.”

  Tee and Izzy nodded solmenly.

  “And,” Neville allowed, “I’ve been tasked with something even more important than killing a fool, and that’s keeping you two safe. Or at least, your bodies safe, while the rest of y’all goes fluttering off to do whatever it is you gotta do and all that, right?”

  Another nod.

  “Alright, cool. I’m just gonna let you know that whatever happens, Uncle Neville gonna keep you safe. Not if, not but, not anything except that’s what it is. I don’t know if that makes you feel any better about all the hell going on, but I hope so.”

  It did actually. They felt the slightest warm sense of ease enter their bones as he spoke, because, quite simply, they knew his words to be true. No one would touch them while Neville was on vigilance duty, and that was that.

  “Additionally,” he said, now with a slight smile. “I got Reza and one of her peoples, Bri, set up out in the weeds with a high-powered rifle and a steady bead on the surrounding area, just in case they try to throw more at us than I feel like handling at the moment. Uncle Neville’s getting old, you know.”

  Tee and Izzy smiled. It was a tiny, fleeting thing, but it was an honest one, and they knew it’d give Neville a little bit of peace to know his humor had hit home. He looked up at Nydia, who was watching him lovingly. “You good, sweet thing?”

  “Never been better,” she said, and kissed him on the lips. “Just kidding.”

  “Didn’t think so,” he said.

  “But I will be once this shit is over.” She popped the door. Shot a final glance at Tee and Izzy. “Be careful, girls. And make sure you know how to get back so you can make it in time whenever whatever’s gonna happen happens.”

  “Stay safe,” Tee said.

  “Safe is for suckas,” Izzy said. “Just don’t die or get grievously injured.”

  Tee rolled her eyes. She had a point, though. None of them were going to be safe for the next few hours, so why bother pretending?

  Nydia shook her head and conceded the point. Then she stepped out of the car, blew another kiss at Neville, swung a messenger bag over her shoulder, and headed out through the weeds.

  “Alright,” Neville said, catching Tee’s eyes in the rearview. “What’s next?”

  Sierra, ten cuidado, Septima called from behind. Está mojado.

  “She doesn’t listen,” María huffed. “I told her to bring an umbrella. Did she?”

  Claro que no.

  “I think I liked it better when you two were fighting,” Sierra grumbled over her shoulder.

  “What?” María asked just as Septima said ¿Qué dijiste?

  Sierra rolled her eyes. “Never mind!”

  Not bringing an umbrella to a rain forest had been a pretty newbie mistake, but that wasn’t the point. And anyway, it wasn’t really raining so much as aggressively misting. The air seemed alive with heat and water particles flying in every direction and sudden gusts of warm tropical breezes carrying the thick flowery must of some nearby river. It was, in short, the best reprieve ever from nasty-ass December in Brooklyn.

  Puñeta, Septima cursed. Pero esa muchacha se va a caer.

  At least, it would be if those two ladies would ever shut up and let her enjoy it. “I’m not going to fall,” Sierra called. “I’m fi —” Of course in that moment her foot would slip on a smooth rock surface and she’d have to catch herself on a nearby tree, scratching her palms a little. Of course.

  “Sierra!” María called with unnecessary urgency. “Are you okay? Be careful!”

  Que te dije, Septima admonished, clearly over the moon about her own foresight. Que carajo te dije.

  “Guys, I’m fine!” Sierra said. “I’m totally fine. You both gotta chill.”

  The whole past twenty-four hours had been like the Halloween special of some terrible bilingual sitcom. First it was the rush to get last-minute tickets and speed off to the airport (after a quick stop at Tee’s), and Septima and María fussed like two old hens the whole way while Neville zipped in and out of traffic on Atlantic Ave and Sierra stared out the window, trying not to think about all the hell headed their way.

  At JFK, Sierra had broken it to Septima that they were going to have to put her in a carry-on, since she had some solid parts amidst all that woo-woo ethereal mess, and it wouldn’t do to have a weird floating head and hands accompany them through security. “It’ll be fine,” María had told the Sorrow in her conciliatory, time-to-put-your-big-girl-pants-on voice. “And at least we’re not putting you in one of the checked bags.”

  Septima sighed.

  “And we’ll get you a nice cafecito when we arrive, okay? Bet it’s been a while since you’ve had an actual Puerto Rican coffee brewed in Puerto Rico itself, hm?”

  Sierra had watched in a kind of awe. When did these two bitter enemies reconcile? She couldn’t remember the moment, but it was kind of adorable to see her mom go into extra-mom mode over an ancient spirit. And then, as always, Sierra had remembered all the awful things Septima had done and tempered her excitement some.

  They’d crashed in a cheap airport hotel that night and then set off to El Yunque at dawn. The bus dropped them at a depot on a winding mountain forest road, and they’d been trooping through the dark green fronds and dangling vines in the early morning gray for an hour, following María’s vague recollections from her childhood visits to Tío Angelo’s place.

  Now Sierra stopped to catch her breath on the hill they’d been hiking up for the past hour. It was still early, sure, but she had no idea how long anything was going to take, and things were probably going to happen fast in Jersey once they started. “Are you sure this is the right way, Mami?”

  “How many times do I have to tell you …” María panted from a few feet back.

  “I’m just saying, it was a long time ago …”

  Sierra, don’t sass your mother.

  “You know, I’ve had just about enough of —”

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Sorrow said, floating up ahead and then turning to face them. Her flowy essence cast its golden sheen across the forest greens, sparkled into a rainbow through the prism of the morning dewdrops. Escucha por favor.

  “What’s up?” María asked, coming to a stop beside her daughter.

  I just … I want to say something. Septima
glanced around (as if there was anyone else for miles, Sierra thought). It’s that: I am sorry. I am so, so sorry. I have been a terrible, terrible person for most of my life and the long extended period of my afterlife existence. I have taken advantage, I have killed, manipulated, maimed. I have hurt people, and that in itself is unforgivable, but worse estill, I have hurt my family. She sniffled. Mi familia. It really hit me the other day, when Sierra was talking about the ancestors, and how they protect her, and I thought, but not me. Me? I almost killed her. Several times. What kind of an —

  “Ya,” Sierra said sharply. “Enough. I hear you.”

  “And I accept,” María said. “I don’t speak for Sierra. She decides about her own forgiveness. But I believe you, Tía Septima, and I accept. I have seen how you have come to care for my daughter, for us, and it is genuine. And that’s what matters most, more than the past. The future. For what it’s worth.”

  It’s worth the whole world, Septima said, closing for an awkward hug.

  Sierra hadn’t decided how she felt about the whole thing. There were too many angles and she was too busy trying to make sure they did what they came here to do to figure out forgiveness.

  She looked away, not wanting to interrupt the reconciliation but not really wanting to take part in it either, and something bright caught her eye up ahead.

  LOS ANGELOS BAR & CAFETERIA a sign read in brightly painted red letters. Beyond it, fans spun lazily in an open-air wooden structure. A tall, wide, hairy-faced man watched them stonily from the entrance.

  Sierra recognized him from their family photo album.

  “Tío Angelo!” she called. The last time she’d been to Puerto Rico, she’d been a kid, seven or something, and she barely remembered anything except that hot wet air and the scruff of Tío Angelo’s big beard when he hugged her.

  That solemn face broke into a wide, unruly smile as soon as she said his name, and Tío Angelo, looking like some kind of revolutionary Boricua Santa Claus, burst into a raucous chuckle. “Sierra! You’ve grown up! And María! Wow!” Then he squinted, frowning. “What the hell is that golden glowing thing?”