S. Stirling - Shadows of Falling Night

She nodded grimly and made no foolish objections; that would be dangerous enough, and she had nothing to prove-not when she’d attacked a giant squid with a machete not forty-eight hours before.

When the others dispersed to get some rest, Ellen looked a question at him.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I do not think it would work , taking them with us as shields. Too much is at stake, and my sister…she loves them in her fashion, but she is ultimately a solipsist.”

“Yes, and-”

She stood very still for a long moment. Adrian waited, his eyes locked on her.

“We’re starting at the wrong end. Look, Adrienne is planning on being there , at the meeting, right?”

“Yes, she must.”

“And she’s going to blow it up while everyone’s doing the UN From Hell bit…she must know when Harvey’s going to blow it up, that is.”

“Yes.”

“Look, lover, we’ve got to find out how she plans to survive that . If we find out that, we’ll find out where the bomb is, or get a lever on it. We can work back from that.”

He seized her, and the kiss left her breathless. “And that will be for you and me.”

“That was a stroke of genius you had,” Adrian said, looking around the interior of the Rustaveli Theatre.

A few Shadowspawn lounged there already, and a slightly larger number of renfields seeing to the arrangements. Ellen winced as they walked past the manager, who was middle-aged and portly and probably normally a dignified-looking man. He was looking down at the body of one of the theater attendants, with tears trickling down his cheeks.

A renfield cuffed at him and snarled in Russian; probably get rid of that and be quick about it , because after a moment he bent clumsily, grasped the dead woman’s wrists and began to drag her out.

“I really do not like saving this bunch from getting fried,” she said. “If only they didn’t have a city as a human shield.”

As a theater, it all looked quite nice, in an old-fashioned way; about eight hundred seats, with three levels of boxes extending around to the horseshoe-shaped section at the rear, and a broad stage. On that workers and technicians were erecting…

Yup, that’s an altar, she thought queasily. Carved altar. And they’re putting down a waterproof surface around it. And those scared, cute-looking people at the back in the handcuffs are going to have a starring role in the production, so they’re making them watch, and the carvings show what’s going to happen to them…though I doubt they really believe that, because some of the things are impossible without the Power and nightwalking.

“I know what you mean, but needs must,” Adrian said.

He walked over to one of the renfields. “The seating arrangements,” he snapped.

The man looked like he wanted to object; he glanced into Adrian’s face and tapped his tablet instead. A printer nearby spat out hard copy, and Adrian took it without thanks.

He’s usually unfailingly polite to waiters and ticket agents and bellhops, Ellen thought. But here, I can see why he’s a bit…abrupt…this time.

“This is the Brézé area; this is the speaker’s podium below the altar,” he said. After a long moment:

“I can think of only one way for her and her supporters to leave the theater fast enough to catch the others by surprise.”

“How?” she asked, baffled; that had been puzzling her.

He looked down. She did too…and then remembered Adrienne walking out of walls in Rancho Sangre to take her by surprise.

The bitch loved it when I screamed in shock. I got so I twitched every time I saw something moving out of the corner of my eye.

“But isn’t that dangerous?” she said.

“Hideously,” Adrian said. “One mistake and you suffer the Final Death.”

Then, a deep breath. “Come, we do not have much time.”

Night was falling. Tbilisi wasn’t very cold, but it smelled like it might snow, mealy and damp and densely overcast. Eric looked up at the building.

“That would be perfect,” he said.

It was new; still under construction, in fact. In the States it would be a middling office building, but it was larger than average here. This was mostly a low-built town, even more so than say Albuquerque.

“And the contractor couldn’t figure how his computer lost the file,” Peter went on. “That was a good idea.”

He looked up at the building again. “We’ve got to decide quickly. And I don’t want to go up against someone who can Wreak without an adept.”

“Not to mention the way Adrian always talks about him. That is one serious badass and I want the odds in our favor,” Eric agreed. Thank God Peter isn’t trying to be Action Man. “Time to get backup.”

He took out his phone. Under his stoic exterior he could feel the sweat trickling down his flanks. Unless he missed his guess, up there was a nuke with a man sitting by the controls ready to hit the switch.

He tapped the number. Then again, then again…

“Shit! Boss isn’t answering! I’m getting full bars here, too!”

“Back to the theater,” Peter said. “He may be somewhere reception is bad.”

They turned and trotted, pushing through the crowds on the sidewalk and ignoring the throaty Georgian imprecations in their wake. It was only a third of a mile, anyway. They were running against the clock and they’d better win, or they’d be trying to outrun a fireball, and failing.

“What do you want?” the manager said, in heavily accented English.

He was slumped behind his desk in the cheerful, cluttered office whose walls were posters where they weren’t bookshelves. There was a stale smell in the air, as if he hadn’t bathed in days, or as if he was exuding a heavy musky scent of despair.

Adrian replied in gargling Georgian. He didn’t just speak it; his body language adapted, gestures growing wider, hands moving more fluently. Ellen could see whatever he was saying break through the apathetic misery of the man’s demeanor, until he virtually flung himself at a file and brought out a roll of old blueprints. He and Adrian spoke quickly and traced their fingers over sections of it, then the man took a pen and sketched rapidly. Adrian nodded, and spoke again.

The man walked quickly out the door without looking back. Adrian snarled a laugh.

“Occasionally virtue is its own reward. I could not have gotten cooperation like that by compulsion-not without time, and Wreaking.”

“What did you tell him at the end there?” Ellen asked.

“That he should leave, get his family, and head south as fast as he could. And I laid a minor Wreaking on him, to fool a casual probe with the Power.”

She looked down at the plan. “That’s not marked as a passage,” she said.

“It isn’t; nor will there be any records or municipal permits-though with money, you could do that anyway here. But that man…his name is Botso…says that there was construction here last year. Very mysterious, with government agents telling him to ignore it. This is a very old city; there are many unrecorded catacombs. He has marked where he thinks the entrance is. Come, quickly.”

Her breath caught; they were heading to confront Adrienne in whatever lair she had prepared. I thought I killed her last time. Maybe I can actually do it this time. Hooray, as long as I survive it. Vengeance is sweet but I’m not suicidal about it.

Down, down. One spot where Adrian’s arm stopped her before she could turn a corner.

“What?” she said softly.

“Tōkairin retainers. Where they are keeping Michiko’s body…perhaps to make a point during the deliberations.”