There aren’t Shadowspawn gatherings this size very often.”
“This will be considerably more difficult than a brief impersonation. Stick close to me; close as glue. Say nothing that you don’t have to-”
“We’re not working for you, Br?z?-” Farmer began.
Adrian crossed his wrists in a sudden snapping motion, the backs of his fists outward. Thumb and forefinger came out, thumbs touched…
“Sseii-tok!” he snarled.
Focus gripped him. Possibilities shifted, like planes of greased crystal sliding over each other. A sensation ran up his spine, and something went snap behind his eyes.
Farmer had begun to recoil into battle-stance. One heel hit an oil-spot, at precisely the angle needed to make the rough gripping surface of the boot turn frictionless. He went over backward with a muffled yell, turning to a yelp as his shoulder struck the ridged steel of the truck’s folded loading ramp. His hand flashed towards the hilt of his hidden knife, but Adrian had flowed forward, and the edge of his foot rested on the man’s throat.
They both knew that required only a flex to crush his larynx and leave him choking and drowning in his own blood.
“Listen to me, imbecile. Will you be sensible?”
A nod, and he eased up on Farmer’s throat, ready to smash down in a stamp-kick if he went for the knife.
“I’m in this operation on my own terms, not under Brotherhood discipline. You’re under my command in this. Your life may be worthless, but mine is not, and my fianc?e is infinitely more important than either of us. Every one of the guests in this circus of demons could crush you like a cockroach at the least suspicion of what you really are. Understood?”
The man glared, then nodded.
“Show me you mean it.”
Another glare, but he let his shields slip enough for Adrian to sense agreement-qualified, grudging, but real. He stepped back and extended a hand.
“We’re on the same side, Farmer,” he said.
The other man took it, and Adrian pulled him to his feet. Guha snorted.
“Let’s get this over with. If we’re going to play renfields…”
They went around the other side of the truck. Harvey sighed, went with them, and returned with two small disposable hypodermics full of dark venous blood.
“Here you go,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Preservin’ the proprieties.”
“Tell me which one is Farmer’s, so I will know why my stomach’s upset,” Adrian replied dryly… but quietly.
He shot them both into his mouth with a thumb on the plunger and swallowed; the taste was mildly pleasant, about like a drink of cold soda-water on a hot day. It was fresh, at least; and he could display a convincing base-link to both of them if someone prodded at them with the Power. A Shadowspawn had to be able to protect his renfields.
Guha was rubbing at the sleeve of her jacket as she came back, and talking to her partner: “And he’s already given us intel that may mean the survival of the Brotherhood, Jack,” she said.
Harvey spoke: “Something that important?”
“We can develop hardened refuges against EMP,” she said, apparently missing the slight tinge of irony. “And… well, I don’t know officially, but we’ve got teams going to the Congo and we’re gearing up some bio-labs.”
Adrian nodded. Keeping the Brotherhood from disappearing in the wreck was a more realistic plan than trying to stop Operation Trimback altogether…
But I find myself less enamored of realism, these days. If I was truly realistic I’d be back in Santa Fe, drinking myself into a stupor. Or doing what Peterson did.
“Let’s get this stuff out. I have to familiarize myself with it.”
The trunks were just that; old-style, brass-bound leather and wood. Most of the clothes and gear within had a deep musty smell of age, beneath the mothballs.
“The newer ones will have to do,” he said. “Discard the rest. We must persuade them that he was never so far gone as to neglect everything.”
Adrian sorted until the remaining garments were presentable to a Shadowspawn nose; all deeply out of fashion, but that wasn’t unknown among older postcorporeals. And there were a few private possessions-a golden locket with a picture of a woman in the short hair and cloche hat of the 1920s, a massive wind-up wristwatch, a collection of letters and a few books.
“Jalna, by Mazo de la Roche,” Adrian said, reading the title on the spine.
It was leather-bound, worn but almost desperately well cared for, and it had the author’s signature on the flyleaf and a publication date of 1927.
“He had that one with him when he sat up for sunrise,” Guha said.
“Must have meant something to him at one time.”
“Or just a link to life. I had better read it, and the letters,” Adrian said thoughtfully. “There is a chance he knew my parents, and they will be at the Rancho. Still, Shadowspawn are no better than others at remembering small details for sixty or seventy years.”
“These are the weapons,” Farmer said; no Shadowspawn would travel unarmed.
A revolver, the grips black bone; he could feel silver on the interior pawls that moved the cylinder and the spring that drove the hammer.
“Webley Mk. VI,” Harvey said with interest.
He took the weapon, broke it open and examined it, smiling a little in satisfaction that it was functional.
“It’s a.455 caliber, top-hinged, 1915 model. This antique hand-cannon’s got stoppin’ power to spare but it’s a wrist-breaker; you’d better practice a bit.”
Adrian nodded. He was very strong-even for a pureblood Shadowspawn-but he wasn’t particularly massive. Harvey was forty pounds heavier, and mass counted in absorbing recoil. The bullets were silver as well, rougher than modern rounds but probably effective. There were two warded and silver-edged knives, not much different from those made today if you liked straight double-edged daggers; he weighed one in his hand, satisfied. A Council trident-and-sun was set into the pommel of each.
“Good. We have about a week before the official opening of the… Prayer of Long Life, enough for me to reinforce the Wreakings to disguise your minds.”
Harvey grinned. “You two are goin’ to be hearing a lot of Mhabrogast.”
The two Brotherhood operatives winced. So did Adrian; he would have to think in it, not merely recite phrases. That did odd things to your mind. It had only two tenses, the fixed and the potential, just to start with; it was a language for solipsistic monsters.
“I will be one of the first guests to arrive, in bird-form. You will be my faithful renfields, and-”
He sketched out the preliminary plan he’d developed. By the end of it they were all sitting on trunks and crates, eating shrimp po’ boys from a place Harvey had discovered here in Paso Robles and drinking Duvel beer that had started out in Belgium before it ended up in plastic glasses in California.
“That’s a lot more risky for you than for us,” Farmer said, when he’d finished.
“I need you for the first two days. After that, all you could do would be to die. I suppose you have your suicide imperatives primed?” They both nodded. “I don’t have that option, either.”
He stood and got the markers and chalks out of his knapsack. “This is a splendid place to work with. We’ll need a rope to scribe some circles…”
Several hours later Farmer walked away with his hands clutched to his head. Adrian blinked as he watched the Brotherhood’s operative carefully avoiding obstacles that weren’t there, and forced his mind not to see what they might be. His nose twitched; Anjali Guha had a wad of tissues pressed to hers, to stop the blood. Neither of them was used to Wreaking at this level; neither was he, anymore.
“That will do for a start,” he said, and they both groaned. “We can continue tomorrow night. No more than four or five more sessions.”
He thought Farmer sounded less resentful. Now you have some idea of what you’ll be dealing with, Adrian thought. We speak of minds that can rip the fabric of reality as if it were tissue. And who have the dispositions of malicious children, the type who pull the legs off one side of a spider to see it walk in circles.
