The Council of Shadows (39 page)

This time he did let himself snarl. The low, guttural sound filled the house of death.

 

 

“Oh, my,” Ellen said as they walked through the door. “Doesn't
this
bring back memories.”

Adrian's house west of Santa Fe was large but not a palace, a low-slung, sprawling single-story thing built of genuine adobe as well as concrete and steel, in a style that mixed the area's traditions with a restrained modernism. The door was tall and sheathed with copper, facing the drive along the ridgeway that led to this point where cliffs fell from steep to sheer on three sides. She looked at the door.. . .

“Silver underneath?” she said. “Plus a little something for people rude enough to use explosive door knockers? I noted the fields of fire outside this time! And the cliff protects the other side.”

“Silver, but of course.” He grinned at her; she could tell he was enjoying both her wit and her pleasure in it. “And ceramic-steel composite sandwiched in between.”

“In fact,” he went on, “this hill is mostly silver ore. Not very rich silver, there was an attempt at a mine once but it did not pay, not enough precious metal spread through far too much very hard rock. Still, it is . . . was . . . why I picked
this
spot.”

“And I thought it was the view,” she said dryly. “Your being-high-up fetish.”

“This from one with a tie-me-up-and-whip-me fetish?” he said, and ducked as she swiped at him.

Then he threw the bags through the door and swept her up to cross it; they were kissing and laughing as he bore her into the hallway beneath the vaulted exposed-metal roof. She leaned into his shoulder, enjoying the steel-cord strength of his embrace; then his arms locked hard around her and there was a nip at the base of her throat, and a hard suction. She shivered as warmth seemed to flow out from the bite, like scented soap suds in a bath of hot water sliding over her skin, leaving her whole body warm and flushed in an almost unbearable relaxation.

“Ah,” she said a moment later, shuddering. “Now,
that
was what I call a welcome home.”

“Welcome home, then,” he said, striding through into the living room.

That had a glass wall overlooking the vast blue distance northwestward. That fell away to the high plain below in a tumble of boulders and canyons, juniper and piñon, home to eagles and deer and coyote. The room was spotless—Adrian's housekeeping service—but had the slightly lifeless feel to its air that came of long vacancy, with only a very faint scent of satchets and pine ash from the hearth.

God, it's nearly a full year since I stormed out and Adrienne caught me!
she thought.
Not that I actually ever
lived
here, unless you count the odd overnight.

“Well, put me down and we'll get unpacked,” she said.

“Not quite yet,” he said, setting her on her feet in front of him; the arms stayed around her, but now the hands roved.

“Mmm, nice . . . but we do need to get unpack—
Yeeek!
”

He pulled the dress up over her head, then down again behind her with a single strong jerk that pinned her arms tightly. Another two, and the bra and panties went flying in silken wisps; she had a moment's pang as she remembered the Parisian shopping expedition they'd managed to squeeze in, when she'd gone berserk in the lingerie section of a boutique on the rue Saint-Honoré.

“Adrian. . . God, that feels good.. . . Adrian, the
door's
still open! And we're in front of a
picture window
!”

“Fresh air and sunlight are good for you, wench.”

A push between the shoulder blades sent her staggering forward; the arm of a couch struck her across the thighs, and she pitched forward with her toes just touching the slate flags of the floor. Goose bumps rose in the chilly air, and at the touch of the leather cushions on her belly and breasts.

“Ooof!” Then she wiggled. “Like the view, masterful Shadowspawn, sir?
Ow!
”

That at a stinging smack across one buttock, before he gripped her hips with a power just short of real pain, or perhaps slightly across the border.

 

 

Sometime later she stretched and giggled; she could hear Adrian's heart thudding against her back, but the weight was going from fun to not.

“Okay, playtime's over, let me up.”

He rose, sighing, and she laughed again; she had a beautiful view of part of a sunset, if she craned her head up until her neck hurt. The way she was positioned she also couldn't rise, unless she was willing to roll onto the floor and run around with everything swaying and/or exposed.

“Get me back on my feet, would you, honey?”

“Oh, perhaps I should leave you like that while I make dinner. You look quite fetching that way,
ma belle.
”

Ellen laughed again. “Another time, when I don't need to pee. Earwax! Earwax!”

“Ah, before the omnipotent power of the mighty safe word, the evil sorcerer has no choice save obedience.”

“You betcha, lover.
I'm
in charge here, and don't you forget it!”

“Never, my sweet.”

It was hard to sound authoritative with your stern high in the air like this and a cold breeze on intimate places, but Ellen thought she'd managed it. Adrian helped her up with gentle force and freed her from the macramé of clothing. She stretched and they exchanged a long, slow kiss.

“Now let's have a shower, and then I shall lounge about in a fluffy robe drinking hot cocoa before the fire while my adoring Paris-trained love slave makes me dinner and lights the candles and opens the wine,” she said.

His yellow-flecked eyes shared hers for a moment, then went a little cool.

He shrugged. “Sorry. I was just thinking how good it would be if we were really coming home here now, with nothing to do but live our lives.”

“I have every intention of living our lives regardless,” she said. “Besides, I was raised to do things. Gentlewoman of leisure will be fine later; there's a world that needs saving . . . and I really do have to pee now.”

 

 

“Oh, God,” Ellen said, waving her wineglass at the polished cocobolo wood that lined the big elevator. “A secret elevator in the back of the
bedroom closet
leading to the
underground lair
? Shouldn't this be in a volcano on a tropical island, or something? Either that or give onto a wilderness with a lamppost and a talking lion.”

Adrian grinned at her, lounging back against the wall with his arms crossed; the ventilation system was so good that she didn't even mind the fact that he was smoking, much.

“So, where's the button?”

“There's a minor Wreaking in the control circuits. Unless someone more of an adept than I comes along, the door will not open and the elevator will not operate except for those whom I, mmmm, put on the list.”

“So how do
I
do it.”

“You are on the list. Just think
open
or
down
.”

He blew smoke at the ceiling; she schooled her thoughts, concentrating on
down.. . .

“Eh, voilà,” he said, as the sinking feeling began, gesturing with the cigarette.

She had to admit it did give a nice period touch to the retro glamour of his black turtleneck and pants tucked into ankle boots. So did the sheathed knife and automatic, but she knew now that he was almost never willingly unarmed; it must have been a real effort to conceal the fact when they were first dating. She
had
known that he owned guns and went to a range, and mildly disapproved.

You aren't Granola Girl anymore,
she thought. Then something occurred to her.

“Honey?”

“Mmmm?”

“Feeding means you really want to make out, and vice versa, right?”

“Yes. The drives are powerfully linked. Harvey has some interesting speculations on the evolutionary pathways.”

She snorted and shook her head; yellow hair still slightly damp from a shower and long soak flew around her shoulders.

“Harvey can keep his big Texan nose out of my love life. The reason I asked was . . . well, when we made love before, when I didn't know. . . wasn't that sort of hard on you? I mean, you must have wanted to bite me
really
badly.”

“Yes,” he said, his voice bleak.

“God, Adrian, you must have willpower like a titanium steel forging!”

He shrugged eloquently. “If I did not, I would be a very bad man. Very bad indeed.”

“Yeah, I got some idea of that with Adrienne. But it sort of makes me feel guilty. I never had much respect for cock teasers, and there I was being an involuntary
vein
teaser.”

He winced. “Now
you
are inflicting pain, my love,” he said. “There is nothing I would change about you, except possibly the occasional pun. It is a low taste. I would expect better out of someone with your education.”

She grinned. “What can I say? You can take the girl out of Swoyersville, but you can't take the Swoyersville out of the girl.”

The lift came to a halt and the doors slid open silently. Ellen whistled quietly.

“How deep are we?”

“Several hundred feet below the level of the house, and rather more in from any surface, except for the escape tunnels.”

Her imagination poised the weight of hard rock over her head. The corridor before them gave no hint of it, except for the lack of windows. The ceiling was smooth groin-vaulted plasterwork, and easily fifteen feet high; the walls were stucco, except for a strip of Mexican mosaic tile along both sides. The floor was pale streaked marble, with a rug down the center that felt hard under her slippered feet; gaily dyed sisal, with an African look. The recessed lighting brightened automatically as they entered, and the air was a perfect seventy degrees with just enough humidity to be comfortable.

Ellen smiled a little at Adrian's boyish pride in his ingenuity as he showed her around. The living quarters were bigger than the house above; if you included some shutdown chambers rigged dormitory style, several dozen people could live here in moderate comfort. There were kitchens, storerooms with supplies sufficient for years, workshops, an armory that even now made her mind stutter a little with the illegality of it all, but which included bows and swords and an array of knives, garrotes and assorted implements of preindustrial mayhem.

“The Power,” he explained.

“Right, the more complicated, the worse,” she said, and touched a rocket launcher. “I suppose guidance systems are dead easy?”

“Even Harvey or his friends. . .”

“Jack Farmer and Guha?”

“Them, or hundreds of others . . . could make them do loop-theloops. Still, they are useful in some situations, particularly for a first strike if you can take the target by surprise.”

There was even a swimming pool, doubling as a multithousandgallon water reservoir. That was perfectly sanitary, with the right filtration system. The understated elegance of polished stone that surrounded it was just a
bonne bouche
, she supposed.

On the way back to the library-den she spoke:

“Hate to have the lights go out.”

“Industrial-type stack fuel cells,” he said, pointing over one shoulder. “The natural gas comes from beneath us, a trickle but good for a century or two, and there's a backup diesel system.”

“Ah-hmm,” she said, nodding her head and pursing her full lips. “
Definitely
ought to be in a volcano. And you should have a Nehru jacket and be stroking a white Persian cat.”

At his look Ellen made a disgusted sound. “You are the least genresavvy man in history!” Then she caught his grin. “Or the most deceitful.”

“In fact, I
helped
build a base in a volcano, for the Brotherhood; helped with the Wreakings for concealment and protection. That was in a remote part of Ecuador, mountain jungle east of the Andes. The local tribes were headhunters not long ago. It even had a monorail.”

“Go
on
!”

“Yes . . . no, I lie about the monorail. But it was in a volcano; for the geothermal energy.” His face sobered. “Like this, it was a preparation for . . . something like Operation Trimback. That is why it is a Faraday cage, as well as having lab-level air filters. Proof against anything but a direct hit with a nuclear bunker buster.”

“Ouch.”

He cleared his throat. “Come, let us return to the surface. The
ragoût
will be ready soon, there is just enough time for me to do the asparagus. But we may well be sleeping down here for the next few days.”

“Why?” she said. “It's comfy, but just a teensy bit . . . psychologically stuffy.”

“The silver, my love. If Michiko is really attending to the matter of these detectives herself, it will be very good concealment; she will be expecting the Wreakings I set and will not pay much attention to them. And according to that so-valuable file I lifted from the dead man's computer, his partner intended to come and have a look around here, and it would appeal to Michiko to kill him on my ground; but this underground section has many sheltered exits, some of which give excellent overwatch positions on the house, which we could reach without being detected. I am afraid we are using Salvador as a tethered goat to lure in the tiger.”