“Us normals,” Harvey said cheerfully. “Well, that’s what the blades were designed for. Sort of ironic, isn’t it? The Shadowspawn using ’em, that is.”
They had been witchfinders’ tools originally, the predecessors of the Brotherhood as the Order of the Black Dawn and kindred groups were of the Council of Shadows.
Adrian shrugged. “I’m going to give it another try. Flash cards for me, would you?”
Harvey grunted agreement; he pulled out a set of blanks the size of playing cards and spent a moment marking them with the artist’s pencils from Adrian’s pack.
“OK,” he said. “This is the s-at’lauissi it’k-baiy sequence.”
Adrian sank back again. As the glyphs were held before his eyes he murmured words-Words, rather, one of the earliest patterns children learned when the Power came on them.
I’ve failed World Lit; now I’m back to using alphabet blocks.
There was a soft heavy resistance, the lingering traces of the knives in his flesh. Let the pattern grow stronger, let the Mhabrogast syllables echo in his mind, louder and louder, until his personhood felt their edges…
He was gasping when his eyes opened again, but the pain in arm and leg had grown to a fiery itch. There was no way of avoiding that, and he set himself to ignore it.
“More,” he croaked.
Harvey lifted his head again. The blood vanished as if his tissues were soaking it up, but his head felt less light. Then water, and he sighed.
“I’ll be walking in a day or two. Real recovery… not too much longer.”
“If we live that long,” Harvey said grimly. “Got the make on those two mooks we assisted to shuffle off. Definitely T?kairin clan muscle, partners who worked together regular. Up-and-comers.”
“Why?” he said, mystified.
“Could be general principles. They did edge out the Br?z?s for top-tiger position on the West Coast back when.”
“As if I cared! They know that.”
“The two you got were part of a security detail run by Michiko T?kairin. She manages that for this section of the West Coast. Old Hajime lettin’ family feeling overcome prejudice about the weaker sex.”
“T?kairin Michiko,” Adrian corrected absently as his thoughts spun. “Surname first.”
“Well, excuse me your exalted multiculturalist poobah-ness. She ain’t really Japanese. Hell, strictly speaking you could argue whether she’s human.”
“And she’s a sibling-of-blood to Adrienne. And definitely not the weaker anything.”
Harvey made a grimace. Among Shadowspawn the sibling-of-blood relationship was a kind of fictive kinship; it also had sexual overtones but mainly referred to shared kills.
Not that that is altogether different from the way actual siblings among Shadowspawn act, Adrian thought.
The older man reached under the bed he’d been napping on and hauled out a cardboard take-out box.
“Whatever the reason, if she came after us once, she may again. Put the cops on our trail, or Homeland Security spooks, too. We’re not official Brotherhood and we’re vulnerable.”
“I shall live with it,” Adrian said. “What have you got there?”
“Chicken b?nh mi sandwiches on sourdough with cilantro, chilis and five-spice. And some croissants that actually taste like croissants, which ain’t so easy to find this side of the Atlantic.”
Adrian accepted one of the sandwiches gratefully; the mere scent of it drove out the smell of limp green beans and reconstituted mashed potatoes and mystery-meatloaf from the trolley out in the corridor. Accelerated healing required food.
“And Sheila came through with the report on the Br?z?-clan properties,” Harvey went on.
He carefully cut the cards he’d marked with the glyphs-ideographic Mhabrogast-into confetti-small pieces and scraped them into a plastic Ziploc, to be burned later.
Then he wrapped his mouth around a huge bite of his sandwich. Indistinctly: “Whole lot of Br?z? properties, but there are only three or four likelies in the Central Coast area.”
Adrian’s lips thinned. “That is the problem. I got a visual impression with that… feeding incident, and the distance was less. Adrienne and Ellen were traveling. She’s moving, Harv. Where?”
“Getting closer, you said?”
“I think so.”
“Then maybe… we need to talk to the T?kairin honcho ourselves.”
Adrian looked at him in surprise, and he went on: “Michiko likes Adrienne. Hajime don’t. I’ll put out feelers, but if he accepts, it’ll be you he wants to talk to. I’m just an ape, remember?”
“How could I forget, my old? You are an ape.”
Harvey laughed. “Now you need some more sleep.”
“Yes.” He sighed. Then: “No. First I must tell you of the Seeings I had, before the feeding woke me.”
He did. Harvey whistled. “Sheila was right. They are plannin’ something a mite drastic.”
“Several things. Those were unrealized alternates. They both felt… loose, not nearly determinate. And Adrienne and Dmitri were in both. Somehow something we do affects those outcomes.”
Harvey’s mouth twisted. “Neither of ’em’s what I’d call desirable.” Adrian shrugged, half-conscious. “Ellen. I must rescue Ellen. The rest… it can wait.”
Harvey leaned over him and smiled, a tender expression incongruous on the rugged bristly face.
“Right, ol’ buddy. You get some shut-eye.”
“Ellen,” he murmured, and sank into the waiting darkness.
Hungry, Ellen thought, as the motorcycle burbled to a stop amid a small parking lot. Stiff. Cold.
She’d been drifting for most of the ride through the endless outskirts and suburbs south of the city. Now they were in San Francisco’s core, bright and lively. Ellen shivered again as she glanced at the people and traffic.
It’s all a false front, she thought. Now I know what’s real. And oh, God, how I wish I didn’t.
“We’ll get you warm and fed, ch?rie,” Adrienne said.
The restaurant was on Post Street, near Union Square; Ellen had a confused sense of recently-renovated antique magnificence, arched ceilings with mosaics and Art Nouveau marine-themed lamps. For a moment she felt hideously underdressed in her plain jeans and rumpled T-shirt and wind-tangled blond thatch; then her stomach twisted at the subtle scents.
I look like I’m homeless! “And I’m in motorcycle leathers,” Adrienne pointed out. “This is San Francisco. Nobody would bat an eye if you were in a bustier and pink boxers with your head shaved.”
The ma?tre d’ came up, smiling. “This way, Ms. Br?z?. Ms. T?kairin just arrived and is in the Sevruga room.”
He had the art of being deferential but not oily. The door to which he ushered them had an unusual addition; two Japanese-looking men in expensive suits flanking it, standing with their hands crossed. Within was a small private dining chamber, restrained in white and beige, the walls mostly covered in a wine library-bottles on slightly inclined shelves. There were a couple of nautical-fisherman paintings as well. The round table could have held four comfortably. The young woman sitting there was alone, andWearing a Sailor Moon costume? Ellen thought.
Certainly a manga-version of a Japanese schoolgirl outfit-white sailor blouse, blue skirt and red bow. Her raven hair was up in a complex design held by long golden hairsticks and a comb; Ellen recognized it from an Edo-period print by Koryusai. The face below was classic as well, doll-like and pretty; she was a bit shorter than Adrienne, which put her three inches below Ellen’s five foot six.
“Adrienne!” she said happily, rising.
“Michiko!”
She extended a hand and they touched fingertips, a greeting Ellen had never seen before. There was a sense of something passing between them, of words spoken too quickly and softly for her to hear.
They also exchanged several sentences aloud in Japanese before Adrienne switched to English: “Not blond anymore, I see.”
The Asian girl smiled and indicated her hairdo. “Grandfather! He wanted something more traditional, I gave him traditional.”
The two Shadowspawn women laughed and sat. Michiko went on: “How do you get that sweaty authentic look
