S Stirling - The Council of Shadows

"Enough, and knowledge of how to make more. The Council may plan to step in as saviors; instead they will be exposed, and their numbers are so few that even the Power would not be enough, not against a humanity knowing what they are and united against them. Nothing is certain, but it may be the turning point in this long war!"

"Well, that's good to hear. At least this wasn't a complete wash."

"No. And-" He frowned.

"Aha! That's your portentous frown."

"I had a flicker. When Etienne mentioned the children. Something…yes, portentous. A shadow from the future. Something involving them; some decision I will make concerning them. That is…is becoming…a crucial point on which much will turn."

"What sort of decision?"

He smiled. "That is impossible to know at this point."

She punched his shoulder; it was like striking a layer of resilient hard rubber through the fine cloth.

"In other words, you know it'll be important, but not how. And you don't know whether deciding one way or another will make things good or bad!"

"It is often that way when many adepts surrounded a nexus. The most fortunate choice will gradually become clear."

Ellen made an exasperated sound, and then a little squeak as his hand gripped the nape of her neck.

"Perhaps you worry too much, and about the wrong things, my sweet."

Ellen fluttered her long fair lashes. "Why, whatever could you mean, good sir?"

Dream.

The sense of sick dread got worse as the flames erupted through the door and Eric Salvador was flung back to lie helpless in the dust of Afghanistan that had eaten so many soldiers' bones in so many wars. This time he could see the figure who walked through the fire.

It was a woman, young, naked, her face doll-like and pretty, with slanted eyes, hair piled up on her head in an elaborate coiffure that looked Asian. If he'd seen a picture like that he'd have gotten horny. Instead he felt as if giant fingernails were screeching down slate everywhere in the universe, as if he should run and run and run, and there was a stink that wasn't physical at all, and he retched hopelessly.

"Who's been a naughty boy?" she crooned. "Naughty, naughty. I'm naughty too, sometimes."

Then she knelt by Johnson's body, only it wasn't Johnson anymore, it was Cesar, and he was naked too. They rolled in the dust, coupling like dogs, but Cesar was screaming. When she raised her head, blood masked her mouth and dripped from her chin and poured from Cesar's throat. Yellow flecks sparkled in her dark brown eyes. "I just love brave men," she said. "They're delicious!'

"Christ!"

This time there were cigarettes under his searching hand. Eric fumbled the lighter twice. The dark coal glowed like an eye as he sucked in the smoke. He fumbled for the light switch and sat with his feet on the floor, then pulled the smoke into his lungs again, coughed, inhaled again. After a while his hands stopped shaking, and he looked at the time. It was just three o'clock, which meant he'd been asleep a bit less than two hours. The air in his bedroom smelled close, despite the warm breeze that rattled the Venetian blinds against the frame of the window. Sweat cooled on his back and flanks.

He looked at the phone. "I'm not going to call. Cesar puts up with a lot, but he's not sleeping alone this last month. I can't tell him I had a bad-"

The phone rang. He picked it up. ?Jefe?

"There's anyone else at this address?"

"Get over here. I've got something you need to see. About the Breze case."

Eric Salvador knew something was wrong. He could feel it, a prickling along the back of his neck. Cesar's house was completely dark except for the light from the street lamp, which was very damned odd even at three thirty, since Cesar had just called him. His partner's new Chinese import was parked in the driveway; the ground between the road and the house was gravel, with a few weeds poking through. The neighborhood was utterly quiet, and the stars were bright. A cat walked by, looked at him with eyes that turned into green mirrors for an instant, and then passed. Nothing else moved.

Shit, he mouthed soundlessly, and pulled his Glock 22, his thumb moving the safety to off.

Then he touched the door. It swung in. He crossed the hallway, instinctively keeping the muzzle up and tucking his shoulder into the angle between the bedroom door and the wall. Then the smell hit him. He looked down. It looked black in the low light, but the tackiness under his foot was unmistakable.

"Are you certain, Herr Breze?"

"Yes, I am, Herr Muller," Adrian said. "And no offense, but how often have we had this little conversation over the years?"

The conversation was in English, the easiest common language. Professor Duquesne had boiled with indignation for an instant when it turned out that Muller's French was only passable, worse than Ellen's. The middle-aged German banker spoke English with near-complete fluency, if also with an accent that reminded her irresistibly of Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds, which one of her roommates studying classic film at NYU had played obsessively despite complaints. He even looked a little bit like the actor, though heavier-set, and with thinning blond hair combed over the top of his head.

It was a good movie for its day, even in 2D. But not thirty-six times!

Muller sighed. "I hope our wealth-management section has not disappointed you, Mr. Breze."

The Commerzbank Tower gave an excellent view of downtown Frankfurt, being nearly a thousand feet tall, complete with open gardens every twenty stories or so and a central atrium. Muller's office had a prestigious amount of exterior window, and let you see that unlike most European cities the center was dominated by skyscrapers, if not to a Manhattanesque degree.

"I've never been to Frankfurt before," she said, partly to defuse the heavy tension. "It's very high-rise. Not at all like most central cities over here."

"Ah…there was extensive rebuilding after the Second World War," Muller's secretary said with a discreet cough.

She was named Saracoglu and she was youngish, about Ellen's age, with even more of an hourglass figure. The cool gray business suit tried to play that down; she had black hair cropped very short, gave off an air of efficiency and was almost as dark as Adrian. There was a slight guttural accent to her English, German and French.

Ah, Ellen thought. Speaking of wars. Even in the twenty-first, that was a bit tactless of me.

Urban renewal courtesy of the 8th Air Force and the RAF, and the rebuilding in the three generations since had reached for the currently gray and drizzly sky around the gray and flowing River Main.

Less for the historical preservationists to preserve. Though in a lot of Europe stuff that looks like it was medieval or Renaissance or baroque is post-1945 restoration of buildings that were blasted down to the basement. Prague's the only one that wasn't heavily damaged, if I remember correctly.

There was silence for a moment and then Adrian addressed the banker:

"Quite the contrary, it's been very satisfactory. I have my own reasons for new arrangements that are not, strictly speaking, of a business nature. Let's leave it at that."

The decor in the big room was old-fashioned icy-modernist with very subdued PoMo flourishes, probably because times hadn't been flush enough to redo since the last renovation in the early years of the century. Muller's desk was a glittering expanse of dark stone, for example, and so was the oval conference table. On a plinth there was a small sculpture that looked like a length of bronze intestine, and a faint smell of the flowers in Bohemian crystal vases.

"In good conscience I cannot advise moving substantial assets into gold at this point, much less distributing them as you propose," Muller said. "And why pay a premium for coin and small bars? And silver…not a good investment at present."