Queen's Gambit

by Karen Chance

  You haven’t really lived until you’ve been chased down a sidewalk by a human-sized bowl of noodles that is brandishing chopsticks menacingly.

  But there was nothing like that now. There were still billboards scattered around, what looked like hundreds of them. But most contained script only, without an image in sight. And many were completely empty, with just a few, ragged pieces of paper fluttering in the breeze.

  It made me wonder why anybody would bother to remove old ads in a time of war, but there was no one to ask, at least not until we figured out where we were going.

  I finally parked us by a huge, neon yellow sign advertising beer. It was a human-style LED variety, of the type that was still spotting the darkness here and there. But while it was bright, it kept switching things up every minute or so, sending alternately yellow, blue, pink and aqua tinted light dancing over the car, and making the map almost impossible to read. And that was before a passing rickshaw clipped us and sent us spinning into the stream of traffic again.

  Rashid gave a sharp little scream when I abruptly dropped us the hell out of there and looked for another bolt hole. That wasn’t easy as my requirements were: no crumbling buildings, no neon, and no pirates, which left out eighty percent of the city. But I finally located one under a levitating restaurant with festoons of lights draped along the balcony, and got my map out again.

  The problem was that nothing in this city was fixed anymore. The damaged buildings had left plenty of people homeless, and that had only been exacerbated by the fact that the battle had done a number on the shield that kept this place safely wedged in non-space. The fighting had torn holes in it in places and weakened others, leading people to worry about their block suddenly being consumed by a new fissure.

  As a result, thousands had fled their homes for the skies, living above the city rather than in it. That wasn’t as unusual here as it would have been most places, as supernatural Hong Kong had always been a city of bridges. Forced to grow up instead of out due to the constraints of the shield, it had long had the habit of parking shops, eateries, and even housing on the thousands of bridges that connected many of the buildings.

  I guessed it wasn’t much of a stretch to go from living on a bridge over a big drop to just living over the drop, but it was damned inconvenient for us. It meant that, not only were there crazy, repurposed vehicles flying around, but also repurposed housing. Not that most of the houses were flying, but they were definitely in the way.

  “There’s another one,” Rashid said, excitedly pointing off to the right. “That’s what I saw before. Are people really living there?”

  “Looks like it.”

  I could kind of understand his surprise. Floating off to our left was a group of old, rusted out buses that had been gutted and turned into makeshift apartments. They had curtains, window boxes, and somebody’s deck chair on a roof, and were surrounded by a bulwark of worn out tires. They were linked together by some walkways made out of wooden siding and the whole thing had been tethered to a burnt-out skyscraper so, I assumed, that it wouldn’t float away.

  The sky was full of similar rough-and-ready living spaces that hadn’t been there when my map was written. To make matters worse, where people went, others had followed to cater to them. Meaning that I also had to dodge floating restaurants, bars and snack shops.

  Some of those were fairly compact, with just a counter in front where you flew up to get your order. Others boasted stools affixed to the bottoms of the counters, leaving the patrons’ feet dangling over nothing at all. And a few were taking alfresco dining to a whole new level, by parking levitating platforms out from their cookshops for those who wanted a better view and a shorter lifespan.

  Yet there were people eating at them, and more ordering take-out, with vehicles of all descriptions buzzing about like flies, probably because most of the makeshift apartments didn’t have stove tops.

  Louis-Cesare waved one of the returning take out guys over and got a menu. He perused it while I tried to read the damned useless map by the light of a swag of bare bulbs hanging off the diner’s balcony. I tugged them down a little lower, but it didn’t help much, yet I didn’t dare move further up.

  Hong Kong was currently the Wild, Wild East, and I didn’t want to get decapitated while trying to figure out where the hell we were!

  “Is there a problem?” Rashid asked, his voice making it clear that he already knew the answer.

  “No,” I said, not needing help from the backseat driver, who I hadn’t planned to bring along anyway.

  That had been Hassani’s idea, probably to protect his interests. And since we were currently such good friends, I didn’t see how I could turn him down. Especially since the Middle Eastern Mr. Clean back there and his bearded buddy hadn’t exactly asked. They’d shown up on the tarmac with bags packed.

  So they could damned well keep their opinions to themselves!

  “Then why did we stop?” he asked, tempting fate.

  “I’m hungry.” It was true; dhampir metabolisms were a bitch.

  Of course, it was also true that I didn’t know where to find a floating whorehouse in all this, despite the fact that I’d read the map right. It was supposed to be right here! But there was nothing of the kind in view, at least not as far as I could tell.

  But the skies were busy with neon, zipping with rickshaws, and crowded with floating apartments, so who the hell knew? How anybody was supposed to find anything in this, I didn’t know. And that was assuming our destination hadn’t just floated off to moor somewhere else.

  “Give me the map,” Rashid demanded.

  “Get your own.”

  “You are obviously lost—”

  “I’m not lost. The damned brothel is lost—”

  “We are going to a brothel?” That was Bahram, suddenly acquiring an interest.

  “Not anytime soon,” Rashid said, under his breath.

  “I’ll find it, okay?” I said, and snatched back the map that he’d tried to steal.

  “Why are we going to a brothel?” Bahram inquired, as Louis-Cesare held up a hand.

  I was about to answer when one of the guys at a nearby dim sum shop opened a door on the side and kicked out a set of wood stairs. They’d been folded up under the door, out of the way. But now they spread-out and down, allowing me to see that they were held together by sturdy metal hinges on the side of each step.

  Rotating hinges, I realized, as the thing snaked around the skies for a moment, until the waiter pushed it in our direction. It reached all the way to the rickshaw and then some, falling another half story below us. And allowing the man in his fresh white apron to run down and stop by our side.

  He took out a small note pad and looked at us inquiringly.

  “Char Siu Bao,” Louis-Cesare said. He held up a thumb and two fingers. “Three, yes?”

  The waiter guy nodded and wrote on the pad.

  “Beer,” I said. “And we’re gonna need more of those barbeque buns.”

  “I just ordered three,” Louis-Cesare protested.

  “But I’m going to eat two orders myself.”

  “I, too, would like barbeque buns,” Bahram said, leaning forward.

  Louis-Cesare looked over his shoulder at Rashid, and cocked an eyebrow enquiringly.

  “I would like to get where we are going!” Rashid said, and stole my map.

  I decided to let him have it, because I couldn’t figure it out and eat at the same time.

  “Char Siu Bao. Four,” Louis-Cesare corrected, holding up a thumb and three fingers.

  “Six,” Bahram corrected. I looked at him. He shrugged. “I have an appetite.”

  “Not for those,” Rashid said, his eyes searching the map.

  “Why not?”

  “They have pork.” He looked up at Louis-Cesare. “They do, yes?”

  “Usually.” Louis-Cesare looked back at the menu. “Har Gow—shrimp dumplings?” He looked at Bahram.

  “They are mukhruh,” Bahram said sadly
. “Not forbidden, but—”

  “Not encouraged?” Louis-Cesare guessed.

  Bahram nodded.

  Louis-Cesare went back to perusing the menu. I leaned over the seat to look at the map. It was upside down, which gave me a new perspective, not that it helped.

  I got out my phone.

  Phone connections had been restored with the reopening of the city’s portals, allowing me to get a signal. I texted a friend: Your map sucks. And waited.

  “Curried fishballs?” Louis-Cesare suggested.

  Bahram made a face.

  “Fung Zao?”

  “What is that?”

  “Chicken feet. They are deep fried, then marinated, then steamed. They come with a black bean and chili sauce.”

  “They eat the feet?” Bahram looked shocked.

  “They’re quite good.”

  He appeared dubious about that. But then he shrugged. “I will try.”

  “Fung Zao, two,” Louis-Cesare told the waiter, who nodded.

  “And beer,” I added, glancing in the back. “Unless—”

  “Tea,” Rashid said, still frowning at the map.

  Bahram frowned. “I will have—”

  “Tea,” Rashid said firmly.

  Bahram sighed. “Tea.”

  The waiter nodded, turned around, and tripped lightly up the stairs.

  My phone dinged.

  Where you at, short stuff? I read.

  Underneath the Little Pig Mongolian Hot Pot.

  “Are you sure that is the name?”

  That was, of course, Rashid, reading over my shoulder.

  “Why don’t you go up and check?” I asked, smiling.

  Rashid stood up, grabbed hold of the edge of the restaurant and levered himself up.

  “Are you hoping he’ll fall off?” Louis-Cesare mouthed.

  I looked back innocently.

  But, of course, he was a vamp. He didn’t fall off. He did surprise a diner at a table by the railing, however, who screamed and dropped a beer.

  Bahram caught it and drank it quickly, before his friend got back.

  Sending some guys, my phone informed me.

  What will they look like?

  You’ll know them when you see them.

  But how will they know me?

  Babe.

  That was it. That was all I got. I frowned at it.

  Then I shrugged and put my phone away.

  Rashid rejoined us. “It is called ‘Little Pig Mongolian Hot Pot’ he informed Louis-Cesare, who ignored him both because he didn’t care, and because our food had arrived.

  It looked like the dim sum place was doing a bang-up business, and was churning the food out. They must have already had everything made; they’d just needed to dish it up. Which they’d done in traditional white to-go boxes, which Louis-Cesare handed around.

  “What is this?” Rashid asked, holding up something from one of Bahram’s boxes.

  “Fung Zao,” I said, my mouth full of barbequed pork.

  “And that is what?”

  “Good!” Bahram said, looking surprised. And dug into his feet.

  A large, shiny, floating limo glided toward us, not bothering to dodge anything as we, and everyone else in the skies, had been doing. But then, it didn’t need to, as everybody gave it an extra wide birth. It reminded me of a shark cutting through the ocean and fish suddenly remembering somewhere else they needed to be.

  Only it wasn’t a shark that decorated the face of the man who looked out of the back window, after it silently lowered.

  I didn’t know him, but I knew that tat. A beautifully rendered tiger prowled across the cheek of a handsome Chinese guy in an expensive suit. The tat matched the one I’d put on before we landed, because Kitty was not only security in these parts; she was my calling card.

  I held up an arm, and my own tiger growled a little at his, before the two recognized each other and settled down.

  “Dorina Basarab,” the man said, and bowed his head slightly. “If you will come with me?”

  The door was opened and a hand extended. I grabbed my buns and happily scuttled over. Louis-Cesare followed, despite not being asked, and got away with it because he always did; it was a talent.

  But Rashid found the door closed in his face.

  “What—we are with them!” he said indignantly.

  My new guide popped an eyebrow worthy of Mircea. “I was told to pick up two senators. Are you a senator?”

  “I—no, but—”

  “Then you can follow us.”

  “But—but—we don’t know how to drive this thing!”

  “You were just saying you could do better,” Bahram said, around a mouthful of feet.

  “I did not!”

  “Yes, you did, just a minute ago—”

  “Be quiet!” he was told.

  He may have been told other things, as well, but I didn’t hear them. Because our ride was smoothly gliding across the skies, which seemed much less chaotic with tinted windows and soft music tinkling in the background. And champagne on offer.

  “I left my beer,” I realized.

  “Bahram will no doubt handle it,” Louis-Cesare said, accepting a glass of bubbles for us both.

  I smiled and ate pork buns.

  I could get used to this.

  Chapter Thirty

  Dory, Hong Kong

  “Okay, how did I miss this?” I asked, after Louis-Cesare helped me out of the limo.

  It looked like there was already stratification taking place in the new, floating city. The rusted-out buses we’d passed earlier were nowhere to be seen, nor were there any tire buffer zones. Instead, the limo pulled smoothly into a berth beside what reminded me of a dockside village, only there was no water. It floated on air instead, high above the ruined cityscape, like a manmade island complete with greenery and a central fountain.

  The buildings were wood, I guessed because it was lighter and quicker to build, but they weren’t houses. The ones I could see from the outskirts looked like nightclubs, bars and restaurants, with a few shops littered in between. There was a movie theatre, a couple of dueling karaoke bars blasting waves of sound back and forth, and even a miniature night market down the center.

  It was a floating entertainment complex, I realized, and appeared to have a large clientele.

  The limo was secured by a little gate in back of the berth, and we exited straight onto one of the wooden sidewalks that connected the buildings. They were broad and a little bouncy, but perfectly walkable. On either side, there were shrubs in pots and squares of grass in planters, on what, now that I looked at it more closely, did seem to be a base of old tires. But they were covered by the sidewalks and greenery and thus almost invisible.

  “How do you keep from floating off?” I asked our guide, whose name—I shit you not—was Elvis.

  “Engines underneath. Enough to move us about, when we need to.”

  “Why would you need to do that?”

  “Hot spots,” he said, which didn’t tell me anything, and he strode away toward a large building before I could ask.

  It was nothing special on the outside, not that any of the buildings were. There hadn’t been a lot of time for decoration, I guessed, or even painting. The bare wood had mostly been left the way it was, except for a few signs and some ads rippling across the surface of the boards.

  In this case, the ads had gotten an upgrade, with the two scantily clad, cartoon cuties who hedged the door encased in large gold frames with solid backgrounds, giving them the look of paintings. Except that these paintings moved: dancing, gyrating and blowing kisses, I guess to entice visitors. Fun, I thought—right before one spotted Louis-Cesare.

  A 2-D leg immediately emerged from the wall, stepping down onto the sidewalk in a six-inch, bright red, platform heel. A wiggle and a grunt later, and the rest of the body followed, clad in a red, floral pattered cheongsam, which barely managed to contain the unlikely curves within. The body was still 2-D for a second, but then she
shivered all over and fluffed out to full size.

  And full-size was no joke, because she was wasn’t Chinese, but rather a svelte blonde Valkyrie type who latched onto Louis-Cesare’s arm with a hand tipped in two-inch long, bright red nails.

  “Back on the wall, Svetlana,” Elvis said, sounding annoyed.

  Svetlana ignored him. “Aren’t you a handsome one?” she purred at my hubby. “And so tall. I love a tall man—”

  “Did I stutter?” Elvis demanded.

  She pouted at him. “I’m bored! All I ever get to do out here is wave at people. I want to go back inside—”

  “You can go back inside when it’s your turn.”

  “Hey, cutie.” A pair of jet-black nails latched onto Louis-Cesare’s other arm. “Well, aren’t you the one?”

  I did a double take, both because the voice was low and husky enough to be a man’s, and because—

  “Shit!” I said, stepping back a pace. The newbie was a Betty Boop clone, which was not fun in person. Not at all.

  She’d looked kind of adorable on the wall, where I’d have assumed, if I’d had time to assume anything, that she was advertising some sort of cosplay. But no. The head was hugely oversized, and the eyes were massive and glassy and staring. The body was tiny by comparison, ludicrously so, and completely black and white except for a little gray shading here and there.

  “You can ask for me at the desk,” she told Louis-Cesare huskily, who was just standing there, appearing vaguely stunned. “They put me out here, but if you ask—”

  “Back on the wall!” Elvis said, sounding pissed.

  And then he said something else, but I didn’t hear him.

  “Auuuggghhhh!” I screamed, when something jumped down from the roof and knocked me to the ground. I was back on my feet in a second, and pulling a gun—

  On a giant pair of tits.

  I stared at them for a moment, speechless. The tits had legs, encased in black fishnets and ending in red stilettos. They did not have anything else. They were just a fully realistic, hugely oversized, pair of boobs that had just pushed me back to the ground and were now trying to motorboat me.