The Council of Shadows

by S. M. Stirling

  Jose shook his head. “It’s from a TV show, or a movie or something. It’s used as a joke and also as defiance.”

  “Well,” she said, glowering at him, “I’m defiant and it doesn’t sound funny to me.”

  Jose shook his head and finished off the beer. “Look, you’ve survived for generations as a people, now you need to survive as a person. Independent, yes, doing things, being alive, or La Doña will eat you up.”

  “Then I’ll be dead; grateful release!”

  “Really? Hasn’t La Doña taken you into her memory?”

  Cheba made an involuntary movement and barely managed to catch the Jarritos bottle before it went flying across the kitchen. She started to say something and paused.

  “Yes, you’ve met George, I see. Take what time you have and can use. My aunt says that the Shadowspawn, los hijos de sombra, she calls them in Spanish, were the kings and priests of the old ones before the conquest. So it really isn’t new, even to you, from that little Huasteca village.”

  “So, they are chupacabra and we their goats! Nyyahahaha . . .”

  “Yeah, pretty much. We are their barbacoa.”

  “It’s worse than flames what she makes me do!”

  Jose looked surprised. “You were a virgin? I’m sorry. It must have been very hard to learn the perversions she likes, not knowing the loving pleasure most of us can share.”

  Cheba snapped angrily, “No, I wasn’t a virgin! Paco took care of that, he and five other men!” She turned away from his shocked eyes, picking up and draining the soda pop. She hesitated and waggled the bottle at him.

  “How do they get the drugs into it? And what is it called?” she asked.

  “Drugs?” he asked.

  “If she doesn’t like what I do she takes away the drugs. I never smoked, drank, did drogas! And now I am shaky, angry, confused, and she will only give me the drugs if I do what she says. But I don’t know which drug or how it gets into me. If I knew, maybe I could run away. I thought it was in the Jarritos and that she took away the ones with drugs if she was angry at me. But now I don’t think that’s it.”

  “Ooohh, niña,” exclaimed Jose. “It’s the bite itself. La Doña is the drug. It’s in the spit.”

  “¡Ai!”

  “See, I told you, they’re made to prey on us, like jaguars on deer. You remember the night you came here, what happened—”

  He pointed eastward. She remembered it, the killing hall, and La Doña’s guests . . . feasting.

  “Well, you’re lucky the Brézés don’t always kill. I’m going to live a long time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “La Doña hasn’t bitten me for five days, now. It hurts and I’m restless, and angry . . . and trying hard not to yell at you, you stubborn goat!”

  “Oh,” she said. “Then . . . why?”

  “Because she says my time as a lucy is over. Now I go back to my life, get married, settle down. Protected, you understand? All the people born here are, the renfield families who serve the Brézés. And you could be. Or you could end up dead, or worse than dead—like George.”

  “You look sick,” she said suddenly.

  “I’m going to get a lot worse before I get better, and it takes a lot of work and other drugs to stop the addiction.”

  He shrugged. “Pain I can stand. There’s pain in life, you know that. You let it be your master or you make yourself its master; there is no other way.”

  Cheba frowned. The blanched quality she’d noticed earlier was getting worse, and she could see pain lines etching themselves on his face.

  “¿Eso te pasa?” she asked sharply, feeling sick to her stomach as she understood.

  He took the bottle to the sink and turned. “Yes. I was born here. I get to live when she is done with me, just like my uncle. You don’t. If she had died, you, Monica and Peter would have been killed by her parents.”

  “Will . . . will it be very bad? I feel . . . itchy now. And I saw people at home who had no money for their drugs.”

  “Yes, it is very bad. Some kill themselves because of the pain; I won’t, and I have the doctor to help me as well. Give me your cell phone.”

  Jose snatched it out of the air when she tossed it over to him.

  “When I call you it will play ‘Tilingo Lingo.’ That’s loud enough to wake you no matter what.”

  He tossed it back to her. “So, I am going through withdrawal. It’s getting really bad, I’ve got a few more days before I begin screaming. Do you take this chance? Or die?”

  Cheba looked at the gray and sweating man standing by her—her!— kitchen sink. He, and Monica and even Peter had all tried to be nice to her.

  No, she thought, were nice to me, helped me, tried to support me, teach me . . . and I was mean and nasty and sullen back to them. They are not her. I don’t dare be that way to her.

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

  “If that means, yes, then go see Dr. Duggan tomorrow at eight a.m. Say it with words.”

  “Yes, yes, I will take care of you. And not because La Doña says so; but because you took care of me and I wasn’t good back.”

  Jose’s eyes were dark brown pools of pleading fear, and Cheba put out her hand. Hand in hand they walked through the house. She opened the door and they walked out into the late-summer day.

  She looked over at Jose’s house and the one beyond it. “Monica is still asleep. Her mother was pretty mad, last night,” she observed in Spanish to Jose.

  “It’s hard; most lucies don’t have kids. Monica tries to make sure they are always taken care of. I don’t know what will happen next. La Doña will be traveling and she always takes Monica with her.”

  He shrugged. “She’s sent Peter away somewhere, to do something for her. Poor guy; withdrawal will be hell for him, all alone. You might go with her and Monica—if you can get along with Monica. Try! Monica is a very nice person, and if you can’t make her want you there, you might die, after all.”

  Jose walked to his house and gave her a small wave as he walked in.

  She stood, troubled, on the doorstep, turning the cell phone over and over in her hands . . . hands that wanted work; a crochet hook, some thread, a pretty collar and some cuffs, a doily growing steadily, extra money as the tourists admired her mother’s embroidered napkins and her lacy trims on them.

  ¡Chupacabra! she thought. ¡ Y yo, chiva! Cheba, la chiva, cabrita chula!

  Calling herself a nanny goat, a cute little kid, didn’t really make her feel any better. She went back to the kitchen, rinsed the bottles out and took them to the recycling bin on her back porch. The little orange cat that had belonged to the brujo’s wife, Elena, peered out at her from under the bush. She called it imizton, that woman’s cat in Nahuatl, and fed it out of pity. She wondered what Elena had called it; Monica hadn’t known.

  She returned to the house and closed the door, frowning. The house was clean. The annoying rugs that couldn’t be swept were vacuumed with the loud machine several times a week, her kitchen spotless.. . . She grimaced, wishing for her grandmother’s open-air kitchen, four poles, a thatched roof, a table and a little charcoal stove. Then she looked around the bright little room and scolded herself. It wasn’t what she had wanted, or expected, and it was full of the . . . of Elena’s things. But Elena had good taste and they were pretty and comfortable things. She should stop being angry, all it did was give her bilis.

  One day, she thought, one day I will find a way to kill La Doña, and free myself. Elena nearly killed her, and what she could do, I can do! Until then I will take what I can and use everything I can find. I will be clever before I can be brave; then I will be brave and clever.

  She nodded sharply and looked down at her clean brown foot, neatly shod in a pretty gold leather sandal, a light anklet around her right ankle with a little charm made out of amethysts. Her lilac pants, ordered with Monica’s help off the Internet, were something Monica had called “pedal pushers,” and fit perfectly. She had on a nice sh
irt in a soft gold color. Her feet were clean, her toenails and fingernails manicured, her hair soft and wavy, pulled up into a long ponytail; she had many luxuries she had never had in her life.

  She shook her head thoughtfully, remembering the little stream where she and her mother had bathed every night in the warm, smelly waters that ran into the Gulf of Mexico, carefully using harsh yellow soap under their clothes; never undressing all the way. It had been hard to keep themselves clean, but they had managed that much.

  Now, she thought. Now, I must make friends with Monica. How can I do that?

  She stood by the living room window and craned a bit, looking towards Monica’s quiet house. Generally Monica had the house open to the air and sun, nice smells coming out as she cooked a little snack for her children.

  Oh! Cheba remembered. La Doña called Monica to come to her last night and she called her mother and her mother came but yelled and yelled at her. I hope they didn’t wake the children. So Monica must be really feeling bad.. . . A session with La Doña right on top of the fight with her mother. I guess her mama doesn’t really know what La Doña is. Will the children travel with them or stay with their grandmother? What about La Doña’s children?

  Cheba thought about Monica for a moment and then nodded to herself. She stuck the cell phone back into her pants pocket and walked out and down the lane.

  Ringing the bell of number one wasn’t as hard as she thought it would be. She wasn’t a petitioner, a stupid from the bottom of the heap anymore. She was somebody who could help, and help in a real way.

  The other woman’s overly familiar manner and bubbly personality made her feel just like the orange cat backing away from her the first few days she’d been stuck in number five. But she could take it; it was well-meant. She firmly pursed her lips and pushed the button. Monica’s ringer was something cheerful that sounded like kids’ cartoons.

  Monica didn’t look much better than Jose when she opened the door: pale, moving a bit carefully, her hair tousled, and her sweatsuit rumpled.

  “Oh, hi, Cheba,” she said flatly. “What can I do for you?”

  Am I too late? Does she already hate me? No, no, this is just her being tired from last night. The kids are going to be home from school in just a little bit.

  “I am the sorry,” she said. “I . . .” Exasperated with the difficulties of trying to speak proper English, she flipped over to Spanish. “I am sorry, I know you understand my language better than I speak yours. I woke up last night when your mother yelled. I have come to say, I will help you if I am not helping Jose. Can I help now? You need to sleep and I can look after the children. They are nice children and a pleasure to watch.”

  Monica sagged against the doorframe. “You’d do that? I can pay you! Oh, Cheba!” Tears leaked down her cheeks. “I’ve been so afraid somebody will tell La Doña what Mom said.”

  Cheba nodded firmly and pushed Monica into the house. “Go, go take a nice bath, listen to soft music, sleep. You do not need to pay me money; that we have.

  “I will clean for you today, make dinner, watch children. This I can do and will. Then later you will help me buy things so I can make you some crocheted lace collars or trim an apron for you. And we will become friends; friends help each other. Now I pay you back for those first terrible days when you helped me so much.”

  Monica gave a sudden sob and clutched Cheba to her in a strong hug. Cheba stiffened, but held still. With a big sniff Monica let go and rubbed her face with a hanky.

  “Thanks. Thanks. I know you don’t like it here, but, oh, Cheba, I’m so lonely and alone. Ellen was nice. And she’s gone and she can never be a friend again. Adrienne will just tear her to pieces when she catches her.. . .”

  Cheba turned the babbling woman around and pointed her down the hall. “Bath,” she said firmly, and felt the first glow of positive action in a long time.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Twelve days after he fled Rancho Sangre, Peter Boase stumbled into the bathroom of the motel and fell to his knees before the toilet bowl, retching. The heaves came again and again, even though he had nothing in his stomach but a little water. When that was gone it felt as if his guts were coming up, as if something were going to tear inside and he’d spew blood and bits of organ meat into the bowl.

  Only clenched teeth kept him from screaming as the waves of misery swept over him; the nausea, the blinding headache, the fierce itching feeling as if his skin were crawling off his bones, the way the bones ached with little jabs of pain in the joints. The flickering of the dim fluorescent light seemed to strobe in rhythm with the gasps that drove themselves through his throat.

  I’m not going to die, he made himself think. I’m not going to die.

  Part of him wanted to die. Most of the rest of him wanted the bite, knew that if Adrienne were to appear he’d beg for it, do anything for it. Everything was wrong, the whole world was wrong. The crooked hang of the shower curtain hinted at obscene possibilities, the grinning fangs beneath the surface of the world. Tendrils crawled at the edges of sight.

  She’s dead. I’m not going back. Thank God I got too sick and weak to go back before the craving got unbearable.

  He managed to choke out a grunt of laughter. He’d placed himself in a situation where he had to endure the unendurable. The cheap motel room didn’t even have a phone in the room to call back to Rancho Sangre and tell La Doña’s parents—

  You don’t have to think of her as the Lady anymore. That sadistic bitch’s freaking undead monster parents.

  —to come and get him and please, please feed on him. And he was too weak to get dressed, much less go ask for a line at the desk. He’d made his own phone inoperable without more concentration than he was capable of right now.

  The nausea died down a little, and the universe stopped trying to buckle in on him in waves of squirming horrors. He crawled to the sink, the cracked bad-smelling linoleum of the floor gouging at his naked skin. The stinks of dirt and stale urine and old sweat and bad, distant ghosts of greasy food set his stomach in a knot again; his senses were superacute now, touch and smell especially.

  Peter waited out the spasms and reached the sink and hauled himself up. He didn’t want to look in the mirror, but he couldn’t help it. The blond stubble on his face was a lighter color than his hair, a tinge of orange in it. The face beneath had fallen in on itself, the skin showing the skull beneath, and his hair was lank and greasy and plastered to his forehead with cold muck and sweat. Dried tears marked streaks down to his chin, and his lips were cracked.

  Always thin, his body was skeleton-gaunt now; he hadn’t been able to keep any food down for nearly a week. Moving very carefully, he turned on the tap, shuddering at the sound the water made as it hit the discolored porcelain of the sink. For a minute or so he leaned with his hands on the side of the sink, panting. Then he put a light plastic cup under the flow and waited until it overflowed. It took both hands to raise the water to his lips, and he sipped cautiously between breaths.

  Oh, God, it’s going to stay down, he thought. I’m dehydrated. I need this water.

  Slowly he reached to a capful of pills. They were a prescription sedative he’d taken from Monica’s bathroom before he left; it felt obscurely like a betrayal, although she’d have no problem getting more. The dose was two; in his present state he didn’t dare take more than one. Another cup of water to wash it down, and an anxious wait until the nausea didn’t grow any worse. He shuffled his feet around, feeling dizzy as he turned despite the caution.

  One step to the bathroom door. Grip it, lean, pause. A slatted window across the room, a stained carpet, a chair and table, the mess of blankets and sheets on the bed. Step. Step. Step. Then a slow lowering onto the messy surface.

  It’s not a mass of flesh-eating beetles. It’s not a pit of black slime. It’s a bed; you’re imagining things.

  He startled himself by yawning. Then he turned onto his side, grabbed a pillow, and held it to his stomach as he curled around it. Sleep was a
n escape, a door he longed to dive through, but only by relaxing could he seek it. The sedative helped, a little. He forced himself to take slow breaths instead of panting. Let the pain flow through. No stopping it along the way, not magnifying it by paying attention. Just let it go as another physical sensation. Another yawn. He shut his eyes and looked at the random patterns on the inside of his eyelids.

  Think about the way your retinas discharge randomly in darkness. It’s soothing.

  A deeper darkness. When he awoke the sun was bright outside the window. He raised his head to look at the clock; it was two, which must mean the afternoon.

  I feel better, he thought. Which is to say, I feel like absolute shit.

  Stiff, sore, weak, headache, dry grainy eyes. His hand rested before his eyes, and it was like a yellowing spider, the knuckles enlarged like the swellings in a root. Moving it hurt, and parts of it felt as if he had deep paper cuts.

  “Sit up,” he murmured, and then stopped at the shrill squeaking sound of his voice and the way it hurt.

  And feels like it’s echoing down a tunnel, with something waiting at the other end. Stop that!

  Still, he sat up. The room swam for an instant, and then steadied. He braced the mummy hands against his knees; they were knobs in the middle of sticks, and he could count every one of his ribs along the way. Push, very carefully. He came erect, tottered, and walked to the door of the bathroom. Fresh misery washed over him for an instant at the effort, then receded. He clung to the doorjamb and laughed weakly, a croaking like something that lived in a summer pond back in his parents’ Minnesota home.

  Then he arranged himself and walked two steps to the sink. That was triumph, and he felt himself grinning idiotically. His throat was dry and raw; he sipped three cups of water carefully, and felt it sinking into his tissues, bringing them back to a painful life. Outside in the room were the supplies he’d laid in before the withdrawal symptoms got too bad, and he made his way there. A can of chicken broth with a pop-top lid; he was panting and trembling again before he got it open, but he did, and spilled only a little to run down his chin as he drank it. The rich fatty salty goodness of the clear fluid was almost too much, and he fought to keep it down with deep breathing.