Shadows of Falling Night by S. M. Stirling Read Free Book Online Page A

nice meze for a three-hole-privy town like this; I was somewhat peckish. Long time since that kebab stand. I heard you was messed up pretty bad. Didn’t expect you back on your feet this quick.”
    She nodded. “Accelerated healing. Adrian did the Wreakings,” she said.
    Laying on of hands
actually worked reliably with someone at Adrian’s level; it was sort of like transferring his own biochemical
luck.
Unfortunately the cost was high.
    “Always was a good sort. How’s it hanging in Iowa, Jack?”
    “I’m from Wisconsin, you dumb Hill Country shitkicker!”
    Harvey grinned at the other man’s snarl. “Charmin’ as ever, Jack. That was your little cross-country number still smoking a bit out there about three klicks back, right? Someone got their blessings an’ curses and ever-filled purses crossed, or did they just not give a damn about you being downrange of the muzzle?”
    Jack Farmer was favoring his left hand and there was a spot on one cheek that looked a little reddish, which was consistent with putting up the arm to shield his face as he plunged through a growing wall of flames. Both of them smelled a little singed at close range.
    “Let me count the
ways
you cowboying away with a fucking
nuke
has nearly gotten us killed—” Farmer started.
    Harvey chuckled. “Hell, you two helped me get it. Don’t recall you being too behind-hand doing the down-and-dirty boogie when we had that little black flag party in Veracruz with our late buddy Dhul Fiqar. Or thinking it was a bad idea to hit the Council meeting in Tbilisi whether or not we had official permission from the Brotherhood’s not-so-omniscient committee of bickering. I can’t see you two getting’ all weepy about collateral damage the way Adrian would. How’d he talk you around into stopping me?”
    “We helped you before we—” Anjali said.
    “Before you learned Adrienne was alive and was manipulatin’ us all from behind the curtain like the Great and Powerful Oz?” Harvey asked genially. “Great and Powerful Ozzette? Ozma? Whatever.”
    They both started this time, and looked at each other. He laughed, scooped up a few of the meatballs, and chewed. When he’d swallowed:
    “You thought I didn’t
know
? Or that I had some sort of Wreaking planted in my brain? Hell, you can tell from this distance
that
ain’t so. Check on it, I won’t bite. Just be careful ’cause it would be truly tragic if this gun went off.”
    Harvey drank another swallow of the raki as he felt the featherlight touch of their probes, and exhaled in satisfaction as the warmth hit his belly. They looked at each other.
    “He is clean,” Anjali said. Then, cautiously: “As far as I can tell.”
    “Yeah, that’s the way I read it too,” Jack said after a moment.
    Harvey nodded. There was a
click-clack
as he broke the action of the coach gun open, palmed the shells, and set them down neatly on the table. Both the other operatives relaxed infinitesimally.
    “Let me tell you two a little about the wheels within the turning wheels,” he began.
    As he spoke, he wondered what had been going on among the enemy, a category that had ballooned uncomfortably of late.
Something
had happened, or he’d be tooling along towards his target. There had probably been enough wheels within wheels on the other side to make up a fair chronometer.
    ’
cause if you’ve got two Shadowspawn in a room, you’ve got a conspiracy and three double-crosses.

CHAPTER FOUR
    Paris
    “G ood of you to see me before the reception at Great-grandfather’s tomorrow,” Adrienne said. “Just family for this, eh?”
    The problem with being a Brézé,
she thought, looking at the unreadable face so much like a male version of hers,
is that we all look so alike. Well, of course incest is an ancient family tradition. There was even a eugenic justification until recently; now it’s just fun. For some of the participants, at least.
    Her great-grandfather’s brother Arnaud Brézé and she were meeting