Wade and the Scorpion's Claw

by Tony Abbott

  Relieved that Dad had made the call, Darrell started rocking on his feet under the streetlight. “Okay, okay, ‘Prime Time for D.’ Six in the morning. But there’s something else. I can’t put my finger on it. . . .” He stopped. “Becca, the brochure. The museum brochure. You still have it?”

  “Of course.” She fished in her bag and pulled it out. “But why?”

  “Wade, your notebook,” he said. I grabbed it from my bag and gave it to him.

  We watched as Darrell turned the brochure to the page with the picture of Alan Hughes and his wife. He flashed it in front of us. “Alan Hughes died in 1988 after donating the spice box to the museum. That’s like three years after the jade scorpions were stolen from the Forbidden City. Who has a pen?”

  “Darrell, what are you thinking?” said Dad, slipping a ballpoint from his jacket pocket and clicking it.

  Darrell took the pen and started scratching on the brochure.

  “What are you doing? I collect those!” Becca yelped.

  “Don’t you scribble up my notebook!” I said.

  Darrell flipped the brochure around. “Look at this picture of Alan Hughes. Who does he suddenly look like?”

  Alan Hughes had a big Santa beard scrawled on his face.

  “The Wolverine,” said Lily.

  “The Wolver—” Darrell practically jumped at her. “How do you know about the Wolverine?”

  “Dude, I go to the movies,” she said calmly. “And you draw him really badly.”

  “Come on, Darrell,” Dad said. “What are you getting at?”

  “It’s Papa Dean!” he screamed. “Papa Dean is Alan Hughes thirty years later! Sorry about the brochure, Bec, but look at him!”

  It was true. He’d nailed it. The face was the same. The features, the eyes. Alan Hughes, the man who donated the scorpion’s spice box to the museum as a clue for Guardians, was himself Scorpio’s Guardian.

  “But what does that mean now?” asked Lily. “Even if they are the same person, they’re both out of the picture.”

  “Why do you want my notebook?” I asked, snatching his pen away.

  He turned the pages carefully under the bridge light. “Alan Hughes was survived by his wife,” he said, tapping the page in my notebook where I’d copied down the museum’s label for the spice box. “Dolly.”

  “Dolly . . . ,” Dad repeated. “Short for . . .” He suddenly flicked his eyes up at the sky; then he closed them and started rocking slightly on his feet as Darrell had just done. Becca started to say something, but I quickly raised my finger, and she stopped.

  Dad needed the gears to slip into place.

  And they did.

  “Dolly is short for Dolores,” he said softly, turning toward the city, then checking his watch. “Everyone who’s familiar with San Francisco knows that the oldest building in San Francisco is a place of worship, a church, and that that church is called Mission Dolores. ‘Prime Time for D’ is six a.m. at Mission Dolores. We have four hours to get there.”

  That was it. We’d figured it out. We started walking.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Misión San Francisco de Asís, better known as Mission Dolores, stands at the corner of Sixteenth and Dolores Streets.

  We arrived there at 5:46 a.m.

  We had walked the whole way, across the great bridge, down the deserted streets. It was miles and miles. We were dead on our feet and empty of everything. But even being empty, we needed to be together, not in a cab or anything, just us, walking together. Most of the time we didn’t talk, but when we did, we went over what we knew about the relic.

  We were way beyond exhausted before we got there.

  But we got there.

  It was nearing dawn, though the sky had hardly begun to brighten. Just about the time we reached the mission, it had started to sprinkle, and that sprinkle had now become a steady rain. Not to mention that the already-cold air had quickly turned colder. Changeable weather, changing again.

  The narrow, squat building Papa Dean’s clues had indicated as a resting place for Scorpio was built of white stone. Four chunky columns flanked a pair of studded wooden doors. A gallery ran over the doorway and just under a peaked roof of Spanish tiles that gleamed now in the morning rain. A simple cross stood fixed at the peak.

  On a sunny day, the mission might have looked peaceful, even pleasant. In the rain, knowing what we knew, it looked more like a decorated coffin.

  We cased out the mission for a few minutes. No one entered while we hid next to a fence across Dolores Street, at least no one we saw.

  “We shouldn’t have a problem getting inside,” Dad told us. “Many churches are open day and night for people who need a quiet place to pray.”

  That sounded like what we needed just then. I kept realizing that the investigator hadn’t called back yet, and a voice in the back of my head told me that might not be a good thing.

  “Let’s go,” Darrell said, his voice nearly gone.

  We crossed the street and the grassy median in between the lanes and walked up the red stone steps leading into the church.

  Dad was right. The doors were open.

  The long, narrow room inside had rows of wooden benches, a peaked ceiling, and a tall, richly decorated altar at the far end. The space smelled of candle wax, damp stone, and scented smoke, even this early in the morning. The smell might also have simply been the odor of the past. The feeling in there—the walls so old, the dimly colored early light, the almost overpowering hush of the room—made me think of the cave in Guam again. We were near a relic now, just as we had been then. And just like the cave had seemed a couple of days ago, we were now in a holy place. I thought of Sara, mostly Sara, but also about Becca and her arm.

  It was silent for minute after minute; then there was a noise, and the hairs on my neck bristled.

  His chiseled cheekbones and long black hair caught the candlelight. Of course I knew by now that Feng Yi had never died in his fall from the pagoda. That had been part of his big scam to get us to give him time to find the Guardian. But it was still a shock to see him.

  “It took me quite a while, putting the clues together,” he said softly, raising a pistol into view. “First realizing who Papa Dean was, then having my agents in Shanghai scour their databases for information, all to give me the simple fact of his wife’s name. Dolores. The rest was a leap of intellect, which I have become quite good at. You have brought the key? I hope you have brought the key. You, Wade, managed to snag it from me, during my . . . escape.”

  “No,” I said.

  “No,” Darrell repeated, shifting back and forth on his feet. “No way.”

  “Alas,” Mr. Feng said quietly. “Then you will perish.”

  “There are five of us,” said Dad.

  “Five mortals,” Feng Yi said, sneering. “A poor showing against my legendary Star Warriors.” He hissed, and a dark shape rose soundlessly from the pews to our left. Then another on the right, and another behind us. Twelve in all, the shrouded fighters under Feng’s command, each of whom held an array of sparkling stars.

  “You will not escape alive, I promise you that,” Feng Yi threatened.

  “We don’t have the key,” Dad said. “Wolff has it.”

  Feng Yi shrugged. “Then it will arrive soon. And we shall see if the fourth jade scorpion holds the true Copernicus relic.”

  “It’s killed so many people,” I said. “Andreas Copernicus died because of it. If the legends are true, what makes you think it won’t kill you, too?”

  Feng Yi waved his gun hand as if swatting a fly. “It is one of the twelve relics of the astrolabe. Its value is beyond your imagining. You should be grateful I am taking it away from you.”

  “You murdered Mr. Chen and stole his hand,” said Lily bitterly. “You tried to kill Papa Dean. You tricked us the whole time. You and your dumb henchmen. You’re not superheroes. Just creeps.”

  Mr. Feng’s face stretched slightly into a thin smile. “Vaults can conceal, museums can c
ollect, time can hide, but people? People are the weakest link in any secret. You should have bowed out before coming this far. You are trying to play our deadly game, but you are, alas, merely a father and his little family—”

  “Stop saying that!” I shouted. “We got this far, didn’t we?”

  Feng Yi’s smile faded. “You did. So let us go the rest of the way and await Herr Wolff in the treasury behind the altar, where Mr. Chen’s hand will be of use.”

  Why he didn’t just do away with us then and there, I didn’t know. Did he need us for something?

  He gestured behind us with his pistol, and while his warriors remained in the nave, we preceded Feng to a small door directly behind the altarpiece. With a dull thwack, he blew off the handle and pushed the door open. The church’s treasury was narrow. Each wall held a number of vault doors, some with electronic lockers, others with combinations.

  “This is where the church stores its precious objects,” Feng Yi said. “I wonder if they know what exactly they might have here. The hand’s ‘fingerprints’ will show us. . . .” He smiled at one vault. “There.”

  Mounted on one plain gray metal door, almost at floor level, was a mechanism with five pads in the position of a left hand.

  Someone yelled from the church nave. There were several sets of feet running down the aisle and among the pews, followed by the whump-whump of shots being fired. Then came a quick string of Chinese words in a voice I knew too well. The words ended with “Galina Krause.”

  A flurry of movement followed. Then silence.

  Feng Yi’s eyes widened when Markus Wolff stepped into the vault, the black satchel over his shoulder, his gun pointed at us.

  I smelled the stinging odor of gunpowder wafting in with him.

  “Markus!” Feng Yi said, throwing on a fake smile and pointing exaggeratedly to the vault. “I have found it for us. You see? The vault that holds the Scorpio relic!”

  Leathercoat didn’t fall for it.

  “I see many things, Feng,” Wolff said calmly. “Your betrayal, for example. You should know that Galina has only contempt for traitors. Your Star Warriors seem to comprehend this. Only two of your holy dozen remain. I suggested they stand by to remove your body.”

  Wolff raised his pistol; Feng Yi sneered and grabbed Becca roughly. “I will kill her! Kill her, do you understand! Open the vault. Hurry!” When he pushed his pistol barrel into Becca’s neck, she winced, and I wondered if he had forced us into the treasury as some kind of leverage. Dad felt me move and held me back, held us all back.

  In the quiet moments that followed, Wolff let out a sound between his teeth. His body tensed. For the first time since I’d seen his dead eyes in Honolulu, they seemed to flash with anger. He stared at Becca so intensely as if he intended to bore directly through her. Finally, he unshouldered the black satchel and removed the prosthetic hand. He carefully placed its fingers one by one on the five pads of the safe door, pressing his own on top of them to ensure the connection. We waited while an old clock on the wall of the treasury ticked toward the hour. Time seemed to slow to nothing.

  Nothing moved. Nothing sounded. Nothing.

  Then the mission bells struck the hour of prime.

  One, two, three . . .

  The first peals rang through the room, shuddering the walls and floor. Then came a subtle trembling behind the vault door.

  Four, five . . .

  “Like clockwork,” Feng Yi said, his face gleeful, crazy, half in candlelight, half in shadow, and his pistol firmly at Becca’s throat.

  We couldn’t move.

  Six . . .

  The door of the safe clicked and swung open.

  Glimmering inside, in the faint glow of the treasury candles, was the pale figure of a jade scorpion.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The scorpion figurine was intricate and exquisite, what I could only imagine was a priceless example of Ming craftsmanship. The scorpion had eight legs, a short, curved tail and stinger, and a pair of razor-like claws.

  Though I couldn’t touch it, couldn’t even get near it, I felt in my fingers and hands the weight that it possessed. The air in the room trembled around us, as it does when exposed to the beauty and mystery of a true relic. The scorpion sat poised on the floor of the safe like a living thing ready to jump.

  “Is it the true relic?” Dad asked. “Or a decoy?”

  “After five centuries, no clues remain to determine this,” Markus Wolff said, admiring the figurine with wide eyes that now had a little life in them. “The piece must be tested in a laboratory, shielded against radium poisoning, and the shell removed. Even if it does not contain the true relic, its markings may lead us to where the relic hides.”

  While some of us were feeling the magic of the figurine, I could see the anger building up in Darrell. In the way he stood. In his fiery eyes. His inability to keep still. “So,” he growled, “after all the stupid searching. The people hurt and killed. It could still be . . . nothing?”

  “Or it could be the one!” Feng Yi murmured as he removed the scorpion from the vault. He held it to the candle, but the flame flickered and dimmed mysteriously. Even from a few feet away, I saw the jade appear to be on fire from inside, dulling all light in the room, as if it were its own miniature sun. My knees felt weak. Could the real relic be right here with us? Was this the Scorpio relic of Copernicus?

  “I have laboratories in China,” Feng Yi said, his eyes flashing. “If this figurine holds the true relic, I will begin my own search—”

  The bullet from Wolff’s pistol whizzed past Becca’s face and into Feng’s shoulder. The impact whipped him around. Becca screamed, and I leaped to her despite myself and pulled her to us. Her bandage was bloodstained, her arm weak.

  Wounded, Feng Yi waved his gun wildly. We all ducked, and he lunged past us into the church, still clutching the scorpion. Wolff turned. There came a second shot, and a third.

  We rushed out into the nave.

  Feng Yi was writhing on the floor, the bloody scorpion a few feet away, just out of his reach. Wolff trained his pistol on the two Star Warriors now. Then he removed a lead box from his satchel. Slipping on a single, left-handed protective glove, he started toward the scorpion.

  I didn’t have time to think. I didn’t try. I was running on instinct. “Galina Krause is not getting it!” I yelled. “Never! Not after what she’s done to Sara. Or to Becca!” I bolted past Wolff.

  “Wade!” my dad shouted. “No!”

  I snatched the scorpion from the floor, Wolff’s gun on me.

  “You cannot!” Feng Yi cried. “The poison! The markings—”

  Wolff aimed at my chest. “Give it—”

  I threw the figurine down.

  As in the cave where Vela was found, all the air in the room was sucked away. Even when the scorpion shattered on the sacristy’s stone floor, I heard no sound. Even when it was clear there was no iron scorpion inside the figurine, I heard nothing. Staring at the fragments of jade on the floor, I nearly collapsed. There was no relic. It was the fourth decoy.

  For a long moment, Wolff stared me down with his dead eyes. Then he turned to Feng’s men. “There is nothing here for you now,” he said calmly. “Your leader has fallen. Take him away, or die here.”

  The two men fixed each other with a look. The game had changed, and they’d understood. Without a word, they hoisted Feng Yi limply between them and carried him from the church.

  Dad, Becca, Darrell, and Lily stared at me as Wolff slowly collected the remains of the scorpion in the box. He placed the box into the satchel and slung the satchel over his shoulder. Slipping his gun into the side pocket of his long coat, he turned away.

  My father cleared his throat. “What about us?”

  Wolff turned, his attention riveted on me. “Wade Kaplan, you may have known the scorpion was a decoy or may simply have been lucky. The Order will reassemble it for its clue. Until then, I have other business.”

  Becca gripped her bloodstained bandage.
She was practically sobbing. “You’re letting . . . you’re letting us go? Why?”

  Wolff gazed at her stonily. “Why? The French call it carte blanche.” His eyes flickered toward my face. “In war, one uses what one can to win, a lesson you are learning for yourselves.”

  He paused to breathe in the scent of the candle wax and gunpowder, then concluded ominously, “If I need you again, I will find you.”

  “What about my mom?” Darrell demanded. “Sara Kaplan. Where is she?”

  “Of her I know little,” Wolff said, “save that she is no longer in South America as you, and your investigator, seem to believe. I’m afraid that’s a trail that will remain cold. Until Galina gets what she wants.”

  “It’s not true, you creep!” Darrell shouted. “The detectives are going to find her—”

  I stopped Darrell by rushing up to Wolff myself, staring in his face, and whispering to him, “You opened the vault when Feng threatened Becca. Why? What is it about her? I know you don’t lie. Tell me!”

  Wolff gazed at me, his eyes again as dead as before. Then he took three steps toward the mission door and paused. “These are tiny questions. Ask yourselves but this: Where is the twelfth relic?”

  “The twelfth relic!” I said, flashing suddenly on what Galina had said in my dream. “What does that mean?”

  “What, indeed,” Wolff said. “The answer to that is the answer to everything. Vela, the others, all will come into our possession eventually.” He put his hand on the door and pulled it open. It was raining heavily outside. Smiling, he added, “And now you know far too much to live very long.”

  He walked out of the church as he had walked into it, silently.

  For a moment, we were all too stunned to speak.

  Then Lily turned to me. “That was . . . Wade, tell me you knew that wasn’t the true relic. Tell me! You could have made us radioactive!”

  My knees felt like Jell-O. I sat down in a pew. “It had to be a decoy. It didn’t match what Hans wrote in the diary. That the scorpion relic had a long tail, not a short one. Only we have the diary, so only we knew that.”