The Conclave of Shadow (8 page)

“And the one in Lahore two days later. Melbourne yesterday.” He grinned at my gasp and leaned back, arms spreading across the back of the divan. “You didn't? Well, I suppose the latter two are secret facilities rather than publicly hosted events. I understand the respective governments are none too happy to discover the Argent Corporation had quasi-military holdings on their soil.”

Who could blame them? I was pretty fucking displeased myself. Lahore. No wonder Sadakat had shot Abby down on Pakistan. And Abby had conceded. Because she knew.

“You didn't have anything to do with these attacks?”

“My dear champion. I'm lying low. For your safety, I might add. Lao Hu in particular seems very eager to exact vengeance against me for his imprisonment. Unless you fancy being batted around by an immortal tiger?” He grinned, and I considered that it couldn't be any worse than being smarmed at by an immortal dragon. “However, I suppose the removal of my protections in certain cities around the world did create opportunities for the Conclave to exploit. Would you sit? I'm getting a crick in my neck.”

“Somehow, I doubt that.” But I sat. “Why did you even bother with protections?”

“Not for Argent's sake. Everything I did was done to protect my people. The sorts of activities the Shadow Dragon Triad was involved in tended to attract otherworldly attention.”

“And now?”

“They're no longer my people. Tell me, how is Mei Shen faring?”

Protectiveness surged. I swallowed my reflexive
get bent
response. Somewhere along the way, I'd gained a bit of sense. “None of your business.” Only a bit. “You said back in Shanghai that you might be willing to help me on occasion.”

He snorted. Then laughed. Kept laughing so hard he doubled over with it. When he collected himself enough to raise his head, there were honest-to-god tears in his eyes. I'd missed my calling as a stand-up comedian.

He wiped the tears away with a gloved finger. “I meant in situations of your imminent demise. You're asking for my help?”

I gave a half-shrug. I'd come this far. Might as well eat the whole bowl of stupid. “I need help with the Shadow writing system. The… sigils. These things.” I help up my handful of Post-Its. “At least enough to translate an Enochian summoning ritual.”

The mirth drained away. “And just who do you aim to summon?”

I wondered if La Reina's ritual might be strong enough to summon and bind Lung Di properly. I doubted it. If he could create wards strong enough to dissuade the Conclave from his territory and keep them from crossing over the veil with impunity, he'd have protections in place against being at the beck and call of every sorcerer with a bit of chalk and charcoal.

Or Sharpie and Post-Its.

“Nobody you know.” At his raised brow, I sighed and relented. “A thief. She's a djinni–”

“Ah. I think I know the one of which you speak.” He waved a hand before I could speak. “She has no claim on any protection of mine. I'll help.”

“J-just like that?” I knew better than to trust the surge of relief. Finally, I was getting somewhere. But I mistrusted that there was no associated cost.

“Of course.” His grin was too sharp, all teeth and narrowed eyes. “You had fifteen years under my brother's tutelage. I would say that it is about time I picked up the slack, wouldn't you?”

T
he first thing
I did after Lung Di left – with a promise to send me what I needed to translate La Reina's ritual – was confirm that Abby was still waiting for me and that no unusual amount of time had passed. My experience with Jian Huo had left me just a bit paranoid about losing time where dragons were concerned.

My second thing was to ream Abby a new one. “You don't keep shit like this from me.”

“It wasn't my intel to share,” she hissed, keeping her voice low as we argued at the top of the stairs leading down to the BART. “You're not Argent. You're not even who Argent thinks you are. And apparently you have sources that are better informed than most of our agents, so maybe I should be turning you over to those agents for questioning.” She held up a hand at my growl. “I won't, but I hope you appreciate the tightrope I'm walking for you, Masters. I hate this divided loyalty bullshit.”

I waited for a couple of young bar-trawling types to pass. They barely paid us any mind. “And I hate being lied to.”

Abby sighed and kicked the stairwell railing. I was coming to learn that she kind of sucked at apologies. “Did your friend happen to mention what the Conclave is after?”

“No.” And I was kicking myself for not asking. I'd caught Lung Di in a helpful mood, and I'd let my own paranoia squander it. Sure, maybe everything he told me was a monkey's paw in disguise. It was still useful information. “But you can bet there will be more attacks.”

I fiddled with my Post-It notes. Something had been bothering me since I laid them down to summon Templeton. I considered laying them out again in the hopes it would nudge the discomfort into a full-fledged thought, but out here on the street, that would be courting stupidity. I'd already pushed my luck twice tonight. I ripped up the Post-Its before I could be tempted to a third. I'd burn them once I was home.

“I need to report back to Sadakat. Any idea how long you'll need?”

“A few days. I'll let you know when I have a better idea.” Like when Lung Di's promised help arrived.

“Fine. Okay. I'll wait for your call.” Abby shoved her hands in the pocket of her coat and headed down the stairs. I stared at the confetti in my hands. What would keep the Conclave from attacking after the sigils were in place? What would keep other Shadow denizens from wandering through the thinned veil like the kraben had in my apartment?

“Hey, kid!” Abby's call chased away the thought before I could catch it.

“What?” I snapped. Granted, I'd been a kid when we first met, but thanks to my lost years in China, we were now roughly the same age. I hated the way “kid” made me Luke Skywalker to her Han Solo.

She gave me a lopsided grin worthy of Harrison Ford. “Don't look so glum. At least you're not bleeding out. I'd say we're one up from the last time we were here.”

“Yeah. Thanks.” I thought about Templeton's lie and Lung Di's helpfulness. “I've got a bad feeling about this,” I muttered, and headed home.

M
y bad feeling
only increased as the days passed. Lung Di's help arrived in the form of a leatherbound book, a pair of cotton gloves, and a terse note that just said “Use them.” Little wonder why. The book's pages were brittle animal hide, the inks faded in some places and a little too animated for my comfort in others.

Shimizu decamped for an ex-girlfriend's. “I'd rather deal with Sheila's particular brand of crazy than the Necronomicon over there,” she said, giving me a buss on the temple.

“It'll only be for a few days,” I said. If it weren't for the free rent, I'd be the crappiest roommate alive.

“Uh-huh. Just remember: Klaatu Barada Nikto.”

I grimaced at her as she departed for safer couches.

The quiet helped the translation go more quickly, as it should. Turning off all the lights and working by the glow of my laptop also helped, which shouldn't have been the case, but thoughts and connections just seemed to flow better in the dark.

It had been the same when I'd learned the Shadow speech. My grandfather had spoken it to me growing up the way other people spoke Spanish or Chinese to their kids to help with language acquisition. And I had never thought it strange because to me it was just another language. Albeit one that was best spoken at night, in dark places.

There were many things about my upbringing that were only strange in retrospect.

I texted Abby when the ritual was translated and got the almost immediate response to bring it and Mr Mystic to her office the following day. Which was how I found myself spending my Saturday in a cramped classroom on Berkeley's campus with an avenging angel, an even-more-avenging archaeologist, and a soft-spoken theurge who was probably a lot scarier than she let on, but knew how to make a damned fine cuppa.

“Very kind of you,” I murmured to Sadakat as she filled up my cup from the pot before returning to our task. According to La Reina, the translation I'd done wasn't enough. We needed the nodes. And not just any nodes, but the ones with the greatest impurity in the metal and therefore the strongest resonance with our quarry. We'd broken into work pairs – myself with Abby and Sadakat with La Reina. Abby and Sadakat would hold one of Abby's collected pieces of junk, and La Reina or myself would focus power into it. Shadow, in my case, which amounted to little more than pulling the shadows over it as I did with my face to disguise my features. La Reina held her hands above each piece like she was placing a blessing on it, until the piece seemed to glow with an internal light. Whatever she channeled, it made my shoulders itch and my mouth run dry, hence my need for copious amounts of tea.

The next part was even more arcane to me. Abby would hold her piece with her eyes closed, finger pads running lightly over the metal. Then she would scowl, set it aside, and give it a ranking on the whiteboard we were using to track the process. The scowl, I suspected, was not necessary to her analysis. However, I couldn't begin to fathom how she was determining her rankings.

Abby's approach was less baffling than Sadakat's. She would raise each blessed piece to her mouth and press her tongue to it.

“It is rather like testing a battery for power,” she explained early on in the process after I'd cast several curious glances her way. “I do not have Professor Trent's sensitivity. This one is a five.” She set aside the candle snuffer, smacked her lips together, and made a face. “I believe I will make tea.”

We worked mostly in silence. There were nearly a hundred artifacts to go through, and after the first pass, we had to begin the winnowing process.

“We'll need seven. One for each of San Francisco's hills,” La Reina said when we'd settled on twenty.

“We're using the hills?” I asked, thinking of the diagrams and sigils I'd translated. The scale was… daunting, to say the least. “Isn't that rather spread out?”

La Reina blessed another artifact, a copper kettle that had Sadakat making more of a face than usual after she'd licked it. “We will use the model on the rooftop of the Academy. It has sympathetic resonance with both the city and with our thief.”

“And that will draw her and contain her there?” Abby asked, setting aside a rusty iron horseshoe. She'd opted for the pieces that looked generally unlickable.

“There or Rome.” La Reina smiled. Sadakat giggled. Abby and I exchanged a confused look. La Reina sighed and shrugged, her wings rustling and resettling over the back of her chair. “Sorry. Religious humor.”

“How do you propose to convince Ms Asha to assist once she has been caught?” I asked.

Abby's fists tightened around the lead plumb-bob I was drawing shadow around. “Oh, I've got a few ideas.”

“I will be drawing up a contract with fair terms,” La Reina said, giving Abby a quelling look.

“A contract.” I let doubt color those words.

“It will be binding. As contracts with my kind are.”

Her kind. I couldn't keep from looking at the wings. It was all I could do to keep from reaching out and touching them. I wondered if they would burn me.

The soft music of Sadakat's smartphone saved me from making a fool of myself. La Reina's echoed it a moment later.

“There has been another attack. São Paolo,” Sadakat said. For Abby's and my benefit, I assumed. La Reina was already rising, pulling on the backless leather duster that made her look like a character from a Tarantino film.

“We'll finish here,” Abby said, rising and following the women to the doorway. “Be safe.”

“That has not been a concern to this point. They attack with speed, not violence,” La Reina snapped. I flinched at how dismissive she sounded at Abby's concern. “If past experience holds, they will have already left with what they came for.”

Sadakat's response fell into the silence following the
snap-whump
of La Reina's wings as she stalked away. “We will take care, Professor Trent. We should be back in a day or two.”

“We'll be ready,” Abby said.

We re-tested several more pieces before I dared give in to curiosity. “La Reina does not seem to like you very much.”

“Well. I am an atheist.”

Cognizant of the symbolic irony, I handed her a tin can – worms not included. “Does that imply that she really is… what she appears to be? Or that she merely believes she is.”

Abby's laugh echoed in the empty classroom. “Masters, you do
not
want to fall down that theological rabbit hole. Believe me. If only for what it implies about you and me.” She studied the closed door as though she could still see the two women standing there. “Sadakat believes she's the real deal.”

“And yet they seem friendly with each other.”

Abby's searching look focused on me. “Why shouldn't they?”

“Because… well…” I mimed the flow of Sadakat's hijab, already feeling rather stupid in my assumptions.

A stupidity Abby confirmed. “Abrahamic religions. They believe in the same god. Sadakat's more likely to get in trouble for her magical practice than her association with an angel, though there are interpretations of the Qur'an that allow for it as long as it is used to fight evil. I think working with La Reina helps her justify herself.”

“Of course. My mistake.” I poked through the collection of our top twenty, pulling out the ones Sadakat had evaluated. Something about the conversation, about Abby's irritation and curt responses, failed to sit easily with me. There was something more. Something I was missing. I took a shot in the dark.

“Were you and La Reina–?”

“Complicated,” Abby snapped, then just as quickly leaned back in her chair, groaning and rubbing her eyes. “We were… complicated. You wouldn't understand.”

Bullseye. I clutched the copper kettle in my lap. “Actually, I think I might have some familiarity with that particular flavor of complicated.” Congressing with perhaps-gods from a tradition you weren't a part of… Abby and I could form a support group of two.

She shook her head and took the kettle from me. “I don't think that's likely.”

“Mm. Ask me about my ex sometime. At least you don't have kids.”

“No,” Abby murmured, closing her eyes to feel out the resonance. “I just have Asha.”

I waited until she was done feeling over the kettle. I suspected she took longer than necessary because she knew I was waiting. When she finally put the kettle in the “yes” pile, I said, “It strikes me that I've asked you several times about your history with Asha, and you have avoided answering.”

Abby's hand hovered over an iron spearhead and a lumpy gold cup with what looked like bee-women on it. She opted for neither. “And I'm not answering now. Not when you're being like this.”

It took me several moments to comprehend her meaning. Most times, I didn't think of myself as an act anymore. “Ah,” I said. I rose and locked the door before removing my hat. I left my wig in place, but I banished the shadows around my face and relaxed from my formal posture into something far more casual. My neck popped when I swiveled my head in an indulgent circle, which helped. Mitchell wasn't really the neck-popping sort. “Better?” I asked, accent somewhere between before and after.

Abby chuckled and leaned back in her chair. “Yeah.”

“So?”

“She's my sister.”

That, I hadn't expected. “What?”

“Half.”

It only took a moment for the math to catch up with my surprise. “So does that mean you're a–”

“Yeah. On my father's side. Mom's a research librarian at Bryn Mawr.”

I sank back into my chair, smoothing non-existent bumps from my fedora. “How'd that happen?”

Abby traced an old doodle on the edge of the desk. “The usual. Back in her undergrad days, Mom had a fling with a hot international student. He went home. She raised me alone. When I graduated from high school, I decided to try to get in touch with him. Found Asha instead.”

I peered at her. “And instantly hated her guts?”

Abby gave me a startled look. “Huh? No. She was the cool older sister I never had. I deferred admittance to go stay with her in Bangalore. We traveled all through India. That's how I fell into archaeology. All those sites. All that history. And it was mine.”

“And your father?”

“We met. I thought he didn't like me. What he actually didn't like was me traveling with Asha. Or rather, Asha using the stupid American college student as cover for a year-long thieving spree.” Abby rolled her head back, studied the ceiling. “Asha pissed off a lot of people that year. And so did I, though I had no idea at the time.” She grimaced. “Americans, you know? Fucking tourists. Anyways, trouble caught up with us. Our father intervened. Asha and I got away. He… didn't.”

“How do you mean?” I asked, though I suspected I knew.