The Dragons of Heaven

by Alyc Helms

  Most of the others were not that smart. They craned their necks to see around their fellow triads. One by one, their jaws grew slack and their eyelids sagged half-closed. They started to sway back and forth, heads bobbing in time with the snake’s.

  Except Lao Chan, who still faced Johnny. Perfect distraction. I crept closer, but still not close enough. Thanks to the lanterns, the shadows didn’t extend to the center of the room. I’d have to come out. Expose myself.

  “Tell Xuan Wu to stop,” Lao Chan said. Johnny gave a one-shouldered shrug and resumed his sitting position. I crept around the back of his cage, so I’d be on the right side for the swipe. Everyone except Lao Chan was entranced now, swaying in time with the snake like some beginning belly-dancing class.

  Lao Chan checked his watch and sighed. “I wish you would be more cooperative, Sifu Cho, but as you will not.” He reached over to the table, nearly punching me in the chest as he grabbed an unused robe.

  No time for much finesse. I reached out into the light and yanked the knife free. Flipped it one handed, ran my thumb across the blade and slammed the blooded knife and my hand against the mesh of Johnny’s kennel. Heat and light flashed, enough to make Lao Chan and I both flinch away. I sank back into the shadows, ready to flee into the Shadow Realms if this didn’t work out.

  The flare of light dimmed, revealing an empty kennel. I’d been training with Johnny long enough that I knew what to expect next.

  Lao Chan did not. He urked with surprise when Johnny appeared behind him and caught him up in a body hold. While Lao Chan struggled, Johnny jerked his head at me.

  Get the others. Right.

  The flash of light had broken the mass hypnosis induced by the snake. Several of the younger, fitter attendees threw off their robes and lowered into fighting stances. Johnny turned and backed up, using Lao Chan like a shield.

  “Now. Why don’t you explain to me how this is for the good of Chinatown?”

  Lao Chan ignored the question. “Somebody else is here. Helping him. Find h–urk!”

  I couldn’t go back the way I’d come, so I continued around the room, slamming the knife against the hawk’s kennel. I would have preferred the chow, now barking herself hoarse, but the bird was the next in line. Another flash of light, and she was free. She blinked out of her cage and reappeared above the line of fighters advancing on Johnny and his captive. She swooped down at them like Hitchcock’s best extra. They raised their arms to shield their faces and eyes from her talons. One dared to swat at her. A beat of those great wings, a sickening crack, and the man was on the floor, clutching his arm to his chest.

  I used the distraction to circle to the chow’s cage, sacrificing stealth for speed. Bad call. Someone caught my arm as it emerged from shadow and used my surprise and their momentum to slam me back against the wall.

  David Tsung. He peered through the concentrated shadow, eyes widening as though he could see my face.

  But that should be impossible. The shadows should have made that impossible. Shouldn’t they?

  No time to worry. I opened up that ever-present conduit to the Shadow Realms, and pseudopods of darkness erupted from the wall behind me, suckered like octopus tentacles. They lashed around Tsung’s arms and legs; he released me with a shout. I ducked out of the way, and the pseudopods slammed him into the wall, once, twice, as though they were trying to drag him back with them. A third time, and he went limp. The pseudopods slid back into the wall until they were only shadow again, one of them giving me a little wave as it disappeared.

  I hate it when the shadows get cheeky. Like I need the reminder that there’s some kind of sentience there.

  David Tsung slid to the floor, his groans attracting the attention of several triads who weren’t dealing with Johnny or the hawk. What I needed was another distraction. I slammed the knife against the mesh of the chow’s kennel.

  There is no skirmish that won’t be made more confusing by the addition of a large, barking dog. Especially when that dog can grow to the size of a pony, with jaws as wide as a great white’s and teeth to match.

  Utter pandemonium. I slid over to the snake’s cage and pressed the knife to it. The flash of light was almost anticlimactic amid the chaos caused by the other guardians and the flailing triads.

  “Let’s get you out of here. Follow me.” The snake slithered back to the box-filled hallway. I skulked behind, casting a glance over my shoulder.

  “Shouldn’t we help?”

  Though it didn’t look like Johnny and friends needed much help now that they were free. The Triads did, but I wasn’t inclined to assist them.

  “This is Chinatown business,” said the snake, leading me up the stairs. The fire door swung open of its own accord. “You should stay out of it.” And then he slithered back down the stairs to rejoin the fight.

  Ungrateful little hisser.

  * * *

  I waited out on the street, but Johnny didn’t follow me out; he didn’t have to. As Guardian of Chinatown, he had the run of the place. Literally. He could tap in to the ley lines, or whatever it was he used, and be wherever he wanted to be within the confines of the Dragon Gates. It was akin to my connection with the Shadow Realms. Except a lot cooler. And safer.

  So I went back to the kwoon, let myself in, and waited.

  It was a long wait. I tidied the equipment area, frightened dust-bunnies out from under the free-standing lockers, and tried to meditate, which had the opposite effect of what I was going for and just set me to pacing. Outside, it grew dark.

  It was a very long wait, but that didn’t stop Johnny from starting in as soon as he arrived. He burst through the door and came storming into the practice space.

  “You are a special kind of stupid, Missy Masters. What were you about, coming after me? Did you even have a plan?”

  I gaped. Yelling was not what I’d expected, but I held my ground, ignoring the way he loomed over me. Johnny intimidated the hell out of me, but that was a matter of power and skill: he had more. Chest thrusting didn’t cut it with me. I had more. Barely.

  “The plan was reconnaissance. I didn’t come after you. I was following some kids who turned out to be the lantern-carrying fellows. Didn’t have much else do to, since you didn’t show up for practice this morning. You’re welcome by the way.”

  Now he remembered to be a little gracious. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Thank you.”

  “Better.”

  “Even though I’m not sure you bumbling in and freeing us was the best thing.”

  “Why? What did you learn from Lao Chan?”

  “I didn’t learn anything from him, except that he’s even more pissed at you now.”

  “Me?” Shit. David Tsung had recognized me somehow.

  “Mr Mystic. That’s who he thinks was there.” Johnny turned from me, putting away the mop and broom I hadn’t gotten around to storing myself. Classic stalling tactic. He wasn’t going to share anything else.

  I grabbed his arm. “Johnny, will you just tell me what’s going on?”

  The universe was determined to deny me the answer to that question. A crash from the street interrupted us, followed by a siren, and the whistle and crack-boom of fireworks.

  “What the hell?” Johnny pushed past me and drew the shade on one of the narrow, floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the street-facing wall of the kwoon. I followed and peered over his shoulder.

  Hell was right. People flooded out into the streets, draped out of upper-story windows, and called at each other in a babel of dialects.

  The crash was easily explained. Some enterprising souls were getting their loot on. The window of the big souvenir emporium across the street had been shattered into Spiderglass, several men emptying the contents of the emporium into shopping carts with all the organization of a fire brigade. Not local boys, if the hair nets and wife-beaters were anything to go by. And besides, the store had to be under Triad protection. Nobody local would dare touch it.

  Still, what the hell did they
think they were going to do with piles of colorful brocade silks? Give them to their mothers and sisters and aunts as Christmas gifts?

  I peered up at Johnny. “You want me to meet you down there or just wait up here? There’s a lot of them.”

  “Might as well head down. We need to find out what’s going on after I school those punks.”

  Johnny closed his eyes, and I took a step back. Both gestures were unnecessary to what came next, but they gave it the proper gravitas.

  Except… nothing happened.

  “Johnny?” Johnny should have been able to pop away from the studio and rise up from the pavement below for his planned pwnage. Unless something was wrong.

  “Something is wrong.” Johnny’s whisper echoed my thoughts. “China is… not there.”

  I stumbled back another step. “What? How? Why?” Impossible!

  “My connection. It’s just… glancing off. Like there’s something in the way.” Another crash rose from the street, followed by a woman shouting. We both looked. Doris Han had emerged on the stoop of the Dragon’s Pearl to harangue the boys across the way. The boys circled up and stalked toward her, which broke Johnny and I both out of our shock.

  “Later. We can figure this out later.” He hopped out the window and dropped down the fire escape to land between the looters and Doris.

  “You know the stairs aren’t just there for decoration,” I called, and then followed him down the fire escape.

  There were too many men for them to be impressed by our acrobatics, but Doris was happy to see us. She backed up into the Pearl’s doorway as the looters shifted to face Johnny and me.

  “You got a problem, Mr Miyagi?” A Virgin Mary tattoo wept on the muscled forearm of the speaker. I winced as he cracked his neck left and right. Awful sound.

  Johnny ignored the question. Sort of. Seemed he was still in a teaching mood. “Missy, what do I say about pre-fight banter?”

  I almost pitied the looters. If they hadn’t already gone wrong trying to loot the emporium across the street from Johnny’s studio, then their spokesman had sealed the deal when he opened his mouth. Call Johnny Bruce Lee. Call him Jackie Chan or even Dragonball-Z. But don’t ever call him Mr Miyagi.

  “That it’s a good time to take off your watch so it doesn’t break during the fight?”

  “No.” Wham went looter number one as Johnny blurred into motion, grabbing him by the Virgin Mary and flipping the attached body over. The man convulsed on the pavement, struggling for air. The other looters looked almost as shocked as their friend. They backed away from Johnny. Well, and who could blame them? Johnny was out of their league. “Don’t bother with it unless you’re good at it.”

  Johnny hauled the downed man up and shoved him toward his buddies. “Anyone else want to give old ‘Miyagi’ a try?”

  Nobody did, not even the ones with the tell-tale bulges of weapons under their wife-beaters. They scattered. I golf-clapped. “Have you ever been in a fight that lasted longer than ten seconds?” He hadn’t even broken a sweat.

  Johnny’s eyes flicked away. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Not a real one. Not in a long time. I prefer this kind of fight. They’re easier to walk away from.”

  “Hey, guys?” Andrew’s voice interrupted us from the doorway of the Pearl. The entire Han clan had gathered behind Doris, including the girls. I guess the Girl Scout thing was over.

  Andrew beckoned us in. “You’re going to want to see this.”

  * * *

  “This” was the television, but it turns out that there’s a lot of space between seeing something and understanding it.

  Doris was the first to break our silence. “How… how is this even possible?”

  The talking heads continued to yammer Orwellian newspeak: saying much, meaning nothing. They couldn’t answer Doris’s question any more than Johnny or I could. We’d been huddled around the flat screen in her living room for I couldn’t begin to guess how long, gaping in silent disbelief apart from the occasional “oh god” When faced with the incomprehensible, language didn’t just become inadequate. Sometimes it broke down completely.

  It said a lot about what a rock Doris was that she could manage any kind of coherence. “This has to be a joke, right? A hoax?” She turned to Johnny, then to me, the only other adults – since her baby, Andrew, didn’t count and never would.

  Stage one: denial.

  I shook my head. I didn’t have an answer, but I knew it wasn’t a joke. Johnny’s connection to China was blocked, and now we knew why.

  “…Repeat, some sort of barrier has gone up, encircling the entire nation of China. We’re getting initial reports from correspondents in Taiwan, India, the Philippines, and Kazakhstan that this… this… force field… does in fact seem to be blocking the whole of China, including Tibet and Hong Kong. We don’t yet have any…”

  “I don’t think it’s a hoax, Mrs Han,” Johnny said, turning away from the streaming commentary. Some enterprising soul had already thrown together some shock graphics asking “Great Wall or Great War?” I hoped there was a special hell for people like that, stirring the pot when the crisis was less than an hour old.

  “Then… How? How could something like this be possible?”

  Johnny didn’t have a chance to answer. Andrew already had his laptop open and seemed to be getting information more quickly than the network news fellow.

  “There’s a blogger here in Thailand who says it’s dangerous but not fatal. Some farmers sent their chickens running into it. They bounced off. Singed a few feathers, but they’re mostly fine. There’s pictures.”

  We left the television and crowded around his Mac. The pics were cell phone quality: a broad-faced Thai farmer holding up a hen with a bare, singed patch of feathers on her breast. An arrow laid over the images pointed to a supposed shimmer behind the farmer’s shoulder that I could imagine seeing if I stared long enough.

  The page blanked away, replaced by another one.

  “Hey!” I protested. Andrew shushed me.

  “These guys are live-blogging the whole thing. They’re geology students from Laos, just happened to be near the border doing some surveys on electromagnetic variation. They’re running tests with their equipment.”

  “Any results?” I asked, trying to read over his shoulder. The technical terms were flying fast and furious as one of the students recorded their findings.

  “Whatever it is, it’s not electromagnetic,” Andrew said, skimming back over the record. “Not even measurable by most of their equipment, though they had some recording stations on the other side, and now they can’t get a signal. So it’s cutting off communication.”

  Another window popped up, showing video of a shipping barge. I leaned to one side, as if that could let me see the window that had been obscured. “What are you–”

  “Watch,” Andrew said. I did, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. A minute passed in silence before any of us figured it out.

  “Oh god,” I whispered as we watched the front end of the barge crumple like a tin can. The video was silent, taken from too great a distance to tell how the people on the barge fared. In some ways, that was worse.

  Behind us, the television kept spewing its form of news: “…Emergency meeting of the United Nations. The Chinese representative to the UN has released a joint statement signed by the Chinese ambassador to the United States and several other prominent Chinese officials denying any knowledge of or collusion in the creation of this New Great Wall, and requesting the aid of the world community to find the terrorists responsible…”

  “There’s a site here that says it’s India’s fault ‘cause they’re jealous of China,” said one of Andrew’s younger sisters, who had followed her brother’s example and pulled out her tablet.

  “Michelle, put that away!” Doris snapped.

  “But Andrew–”

  “We don’t need gossip and fear. India didn’t do this. It’s inhuman.”

  Johnny caught my eye again. We both kn
ew that Doris had meant “inhumane”, that she couldn’t conceive of a person who could do something so evil – something so sure to cause worldwide panic and war and collapse. But Johnny and I knew of a wider world. We knew there could be explanations that went beyond the scientific. And we knew that if this was magic, Doris was absolutely right. No human sorcerer could have created a ward on this scale.

  I touched Johnny’s elbow and pulled him away, leaving the Hans to huddle around Andrew and his laptop like refugees around a garbage-bin fire.

  “What was the ritual Lao Chan was trying to do?”

  “It didn’t cause this. Couldn’t have. Caging a bunch of local guardians…” Johnny shook his head. “It couldn’t create a ward that strong. Besides, you stopped it.”

  True, but I refused to believe the timing was coincidence. So what had I stopped? How was it linked?

  “I should go,” I said, little more than a movement of lips. “You-know-who should be a presence out there tonight.”

  “Yes, because Mr Mystic is known for his fair and balanced attitude toward China.”

  Given the state of his world at the moment, I could forgive Johnny the sharpness of that comment. “And in this case, that might be a good thing. He’s positioned to speak to both sides. Maybe he can nudge the warmongering extremists somewhere closer to center.”

  Which was possibly true, but wasn’t why I needed to leave. I couldn’t sit around and do nothing. Finding Lao Chan had just become my top priority. Maybe San Francisco’s Incense Master didn’t have the power to do this, but the head of the Shadow Dragons? Yeah, this had his stink all over it.

  FOUR

  Up a Hill

  Then

  Jim and Jill were on their honeymoon. They were from LA. Tanned and fit. Jim was an editor at one of the studios, and Jill taught t’ai chi and power yoga. As the only other person under fifty on the tour, I became something of a lifeline for Jill. I got to hear about their wedding in excruciating detail. Jill referred to herself as Bridejilla, which made her laugh, Jim wince, and me want to vomit blood.