The Council of Shadows Read Online Free Page B

take on the form of the one they had fed upon to deceive the living.”
    â€œSounds familiar.”
    â€œThe Shadowspawn are the source of all legends. Tbilisi is near their bailiwick, they operate out of Beirut for the most part, and they often get handed jobs like this.”
    He had a slight accent in English; Ellen thought it was charming and distinguished. It went well with his looks, raven black hair, olive skin, a slim build muscled like a cat, and no more than an inch or so taller than her five-six. Of course, he had a slight accent in every one of his many languages, as far as she could tell, including French, which was more or less his first. First if you counted a sort of quasi-Provençal patois from the Auvergne as part of that language; it was what his technically dead but still very vocal great-grandparents had spoken to him in his childhood along with the standard tongue.
    â€œMy Mhabrogast is utterly faultless, darling,” he murmured, picking the thought out of her mind.
    â€œYes, but that’s the lingua demonica ,” she teased. “What they speak in Hell.”
    â€œBah, mere superstition. It may be the operating code of the universe, I admit that.”
    Then he took the reader back and flicked the pages down with one finger.
    â€œMmmmm . . . name of a black dog! They’re even specifying that it’s to elect new members to the Shura al-Khayal !”
    â€œCouncil of Shadows, right?”
    â€œYes.”
    Ellen sighed. “And then they decide on which version of their endof-the-world-as-we-know-it plan to implement.”
    â€œWhich we must stop. I like the world as I know it.”
    â€œSo do I, especially now that I’m with you. I knew the honeymoon couldn’t last forever. Damn.”
    Adrian reached across the table and took her hand.
    â€œOnly in the narrowest sense,” he said, kissing the fingers one by one. “Metaphorically we can keep this up forever.”
    The kisses sent little tingling feelings up into her hand and arm.
    Which is a good sign after a week of really energetic honeymooning, when I didn’t have the collywobbles. And the way Adrian takes care of me then . . . that’s even better, in a way.
    â€œAnd there is nothing we can do immediately. Especially if we do not wish to attract attention. We will move slowly, cautiously, until it is time to strike.”
    Then he leaned back in his chair, completely at ease. Sunlight dappled across his bare torso and loose chino drawstring pants; he tapped a slim brown Turkish cigarette out of a pack on the table and crossed one ankle across his knee. The bare foot was slender, like his hands, and high-arched.
    â€œGag. Retch. Cough,” she said. “Ak. Ak. Pthft.”
    He raised one eyebrow but didn’t put the cigarette back. Instead he held it up before his face, concentrating, frowning a little with a fixed expression in his eyes, which were brown, almost black, save for tiny gold flecks. After a moment smoke began to curl up from the end of the tube, an acrid pungency with an aromatic undertone. She had to admit it wasn’t entirely unpleasant; it was tobacco but very good tobacco, and it had been treated with rum.
    â€œShow-off,” she said again. “You only do that so you can look like a François Truffaut character.”
    He smiled at her through the smoke, drew, and let it trickle out of his nostrils.
    â€œBut, darling, I grew up on Truffaut movies,” he said. “ L’Histoire d’Adèle H. was the first one I ever went to on my own.”
    Ellen blinked; occasionally she forgot that Adrian was over fifty. He looked twenty-something, like her. His breed aged more slowly, even in their original bodies.
    â€œIt’s still a disgusting vice,” she said lightly. “And not even one of the fun disgusting vices. Plus it’s dangerous.”
    â€œIt’s perfectly safe for me,” he pointed out, gesturing