by Alyc Helms
If that was true, it was only a matter of time before the tear gas and rubber bullets came out.
“This is bad,” Shimizu said, looking up. Bodies and cement blocked us on all sides. The underpass stank of car fumes, urine, and fear.
“Yes it is.” I kept my arm about her waist. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to make it back to the bike.”
“Some rescue.”
“Hush, I haven’t completed it yet. You don’t critique a maestro halfway through a composition.”
“This is why people prefer Skyrocket and think you’re a has-been. He’d have had me out of here by now, no excuses.”
“I’ll put a rocket pack on my Christmas list.”
The banter helped relieve the anxiety as we were pushed further and further along Broadway. We both took a deep breath as we came out the other side of the underpass and back into open air. A line of cops with orange kettling nets blocked off the side streets, keeping us moving along the main thoroughfare. At least half the crowd had cell phones out, brandished like cameras – hoping to catch their fifteen minutes of fame with some police violence to post on YouTube.
And then, at no cue I could discern, the police gave it to them.
Shrieks arose in reaction to the whump of canisters being launched, and smoke plumes followed. Shimizu and I, and the entire group we’d been shuffling along with, was shoved forward into the line of cops.
The police were not happy about being shoved closer to what I presumed was the invisible barrier around Oakland’s Chinatown. They shoved back with their batons and their nets. I wrapped my arms closer around Shimizu, both so as not to lose her, and to protect her from elbows, fists, and batons.
The crowd surged again, pressing us up against the police and moving us all closer to the barrier. The same kind of barrier that had singed hapless chickens in Indonesia and crumpled shipping barges. Who knew what effect being mashed up against it would have? I didn’t want to find out. We pushed back, not just Shimizu and I, but everyone under threat of being crushed. No good. The streetside crowd had too much collective mass, meanwhile the police between us and the barrier did their best to keep us all from being crushed and killed against its invisible force.
This could only end badly. I shouted against Shimizu’s ear. “Hold on!”
Fearing I might regret it, I pulled us both into the Shadow Realms.
The rush of blood roared in my ears as I staggered forward and fell to my knees. Everything was so quiet here after the madness on the other side. And dark, and calm. No flashing red lights or smoke or confusion. Just a dark and twisted landscape and a moon like a great eye glaring down at us.
Shimizu gasped. The moon blinked.
Oh. No. That really was an eye.
My grip slid down to Shimizu’s hand. “Run.”
Stumbling to my feet, I pulled her after me into a labyrinth of twisted columns. The creature behind us shrieked like a Nazgûl on steroids. Shimizu’s hand in mine was cold and slick.
A rush like the flapping of bat wings sounded above us. I ducked and rolled, pulling Shimizu down with me. She hadn’t known to roll. She splayed out on the ground. Another shriek and rush of wind. The monster was coming around for a second pass.
Perhaps coming here had been a bad idea after all.
“Can we go back to the riot?” Shimizu asked, as I helped her to her feet. We huddled back against one of the towering columns.
“I need some source of light.” The darkness here wasn’t absolute – not to me – but whatever part of itself our attacker had blinked, it was now closed. No more glaring moon. The ambient light wasn’t nearly enough to escape the gravitational pull of the Shadow Realms.
“I have something.”
I could just make out her bent silhouette as she dug through her bag, looking for something. “Cell phone will be dead by now,” I told her. “And lighters don’t give enough light. I usually carry sparklers, but…”
She shushed me and kept digging. The creature’s shriek drowned out the rattle of pens and cosmetics.
A sharp crack and an eerie glow. Shimizu’s face lit from below, like a children’s campfire tale. If the campfire were blue and purple.
“Will this work?”
“Do I even want to know why you have glowsticks?” I asked, to cover my self-disgust. Glowsticks. Why hadn’t I ever thought of that? I wrapped my arms around her and dove into the light, just as the something flappity snapped its jaws around where we had stood.
We came across in an alleyway, rolling over asphalt. A few looters yelped at our appearance, leaving a half-empty produce truck abandoned at its loading dock.
“We’re in Chinatown,” Shimizu whispered, looking up at the signs that were mostly in Cantonese. They were dark; no eye-straining neon. So were the streetlights, and all the windows. Shimizu’s glowsticks were the only light in the world.
Of course. Cut off from electricity as well as everything else. Probably water, too. What about sewage?
Somebody, or a lot of somebodies, had not thought this through.
“How did we get into Chinatown? I thought that barrier thing–”
“Doesn’t cross over into the Shadow Realms, it would seem.” I stood, brushed myself off, and repositioned my hat, making sure the shadows around my face were still in place. I helped Shimizu to her feet. “Which isn’t right. I’ve never run into a ward that didn’t extend across the veil. Especially not a ward of this size, strength, and complexity.”
I made for the opening of the alleyway. Shimizu followed. “I guess the world is going to have to start believing in this magic stuff now,” she said, voice shaky and high. For all that she was my closest friend, Shimizu didn’t often get glimpses into Mr Mystic’s world.
“Why?” I hesitated at the mouth of the alleyway. The streets were mostly empty apart from a few people scurrying by with their heads down. Oakland’s Chinatown was quiet and afraid. “Consider how many people don’t believe in global climate change or evolution, and there’s much more evidence for those things. Besides, the spin doctors are already working their magic. Blaming this on some kind of force field technology. People tend to believe what they want to believe and then accept the evidence that supports it.”
Shimizu pressed against my back, peering around my shoulder. “I didn’t realize Mr Mystic was such a pessimist?”
“That was cynicism, not pessimism.”
“Either way, it’s annoying. What now? Cross over somewhere safer and try to get back to your bike?” From the waver in her voice, she didn’t like the idea of re-entering the Shadow Realms much better than I did.
“We could.” We were inside now, and Oakland’s Chinatown wasn’t nearly as large or as well-organized as San Francisco’s. If I could find the right people, exert the right leverage, I could find out where they’d taken their guardians and free them like I’d freed Johnny.
Assuming any of this was connected to the ritual I’d foiled at The Garden of Willows.
“You’re killing me with that hesitation thing,” Shimizu said, poking me.
“I think I may be able to destroy the wall here.”
“Oh.” Shimizu let out a shaky breath. “Then we should do that.”
“Should we? Right now, this area is protected.” And Xuan Wu’s admonition to mind my own business still stung, reminding me that I would always be the interloper where China was concerned.
Shimizu flicked my ear. “Right now, this area is without services. Do you know how long it takes for dysentery and cholera and other sanitation diseases to develop? Not long. China’s big enough to have infrastructure. Oakland isn’t.”
“We take down the ward, those riots could spill over. They’ll need more police to keep the peace, and many people will wonder why Oakland and San Francisco are unaffected, but nowhere else. We’re talking Homeland Security and internment camps.”
Even as I ticked off the reasons I shouldn’t meddle, I was on the move. Shimizu followed close behind. Non
e of the scared tourists scurrying in the direction of Broadway paid us any mind.
“You’re going to help, though. Right?”
“Yes, because it’s one thing to stay out of China’s business, but this isn’t China. It’s Oakland, and these are American citizens being held captive in their own city. We’ll suss out China later. Come along.” I dragged her across the street, dodging a few stray tourists.
“Where are we going?”
I pointed at the darkened shop sign for an apothecary. “It occurs to me that even villains have to buy their ritual candles somewhere.”
* * *
I’d figured right. The apothecary turned out to be the Incense Master for the Oakland branch of the Shadow Dragons, and not at all pleased that the ritual Lao Chan had sent him had interrupted Cake Boss.
“Idiot,” muttered Oakland’s guardian, a wiry woman of middling years who told us to call her Judy. I was fairly sure I recognized her from Doris Han’s monthly pai gow night. After I’d explained the breadth of the crisis, she’d agreed that down was better than up where the ward was concerned. She clutched a fluffy red hen to her chest while I freed the other two guardians: a sleek, red-point Siamese cat and Mrs Liang’s fourth grade pet turtle, if the painted letters on his shell were any indication.
“He was just following orders,” I said, feeling almost bad for the apothecary, who still couldn’t get Cake Boss even now that his cable was working. Every channel had someone reporting on the New Wall Crisis.
“Not him.” She tucked the hen under her arm and took the turtle from me. The cat stalked out of the storeroom, butt held high and tail twitching with feline disdain. “Lao Chan. I bet he didn’t know any better than Zufong here what the ritual would do.”
“You don’t think it came from him?”
Judy had mastered that same look that Doris often gave her brood. The one that could make any human being feel twelve again. “If they managed this in Oakland and the other Chinatowns, then they did the same ritual in China. Do you really think even the Triads have the power to capture and hold China’s guardians?”
No. I didn’t. But I’d been hoping my suspicions were wrong. Three years had gone by, and I still wasn’t ready to face my past. Hell and damnation.
“Why you? And Johnny? I follow the others: red bird, black turtle, white tiger, but you–”
“Dragon. Guardian of the East. All the city guardians have a dragon ancestor.”
That answered that. Whoever had done this in China had to have the power to capture a dragon.
And not just any dragon.
“I need to talk to Johnny again,” I said, taking deep breaths to control the fury and the fear and the trembling that came with. No doubt now who’d done this. I would end him and anyone who had helped him.
“You should talk to Lao Chan,” Doris grumbled.
“I can’t find Lao Chan.”
“Is that all? Here.”
She thrust the chicken into my arms, handed the turtle to Shimizu, and tore a page out of the apothecary’s ledger, scribbling out an address. “There. And when you go, tell him no moon cakes for him this New Years. Lock me in a cage, will he? Hmph.”
Moon cakes. I refrained from telling her that I doubted any conversation I had with Lao Chan would touch on moon cakes. I exchanged the chicken for the address. Glanced at Shimizu, who was making googly-faces at the turtle. She lowered him and shrugged. “Well, I’m definitely not the kind of back-up you’re going to need. Go get Johnny and Andrew. I’ll be fine here. There’s a clinic on Webster that I’ve done some work for in the past. Probably could use another pair of hands.”
“We will keep an eye on her.”
Shimizu nearly dropped the turtle when he spoke. His little feet swam about in the air, as if that could save him from a fall.
I snorted a laugh at the look on Shimizu’s face, the humor breaking through my head-pounding fury.
Too many families. I had too many families, and I had to figure out how to protect them all. Which meant sometimes trusting them to take care of themselves.
“Stay safe,” I told her, bypassing the turtle to give her a hug.
“The turtle talked,” she squeaked.
“So he did. Welcome to my world.”
I turned and strode out of the apothecary. My world. Time to save it.
* * *
San Francisco’s Chinatown was not as I’d left it. Bush Street running past the Dragon Gate was no longer lit by electric paper lanterns and strings of fairy lights; instead, there was the red and blue strobe of a police blockade. It stretched down to Stockton and snaked up the western edge of Chinatown. The governor hadn’t yet called in the National Guard, but it was only a matter of time. People were frightened, and when people are frightened, they tend to do stupid things – like go to war against their own citizenry.
Too many bodies and flashing lights to slip past them in the shadows. Instead, I headed up Dashiell Hammett Street, skirting the edge of the district and looking for another path through.
Unlike the police, I wasn’t limited to a single plane. I looked up, evaluating the possibilities: distance between fire escapes, convenient overhangs, that sort of thing. Jack’s constant jibes about safe climbing environments weren’t far off. Urban running is not for the faint of heart, and I’d taken my share of tumbles over the past few years. I wouldn’t be swinging Spiderman-style between high rises. Just leaping to my death across a street-wide chasm of potential pain.
Hadn’t somebody once told me that people who choose to become adventure heroes have serious psychological issues? Why hadn’t I listened?
I slipped into the deeper shadows cast by the buildings. San Francisco’s architecture lent itself to rooftop running; I had my pick of fire escapes. I mounted one, clattering my way to the top story and hauling myself onto the flat rooftop.
The first leap is always the hardest. Once you get into the rhythm of the running, fear goes out the door. Momentum hurls you forward when common sense might scream Stop, you fool! The secret of flying is forgetting to fall.
We should all learn so much from cartoons.
I took a deep breath, centered my chi, and sprinted at the chasm between buildings. I used a small utility box as my springboard to the squat air conditioning unit abutting the roof’s edge. The thin metal casing buckled under my foot as I launched myself into free space. I had no spare thought to worry about the noise. My entire being was focused on the decorative swoop of the rooftop across the way. It curved out to me in welcome. I strained to catch it, because the alternative was…
My grip strained as momentum threatened to rip tendons and muscle and bone. I swung my legs and used the change in vector to heave myself up over the curved awning. I hung over it, a bit of laundry left out to dry, and stared down at the street far below. Good lord, I was a madman to have risked that.
But a madman now in Chinatown. I hauled myself up and slipped along the edge of the rooftop. I couldn’t descend to the streets just yet. The police might spot me, or less savory elements looking to make trouble.
I slid down another fire escape, made a smaller, easier leap – barely a hop, really – across a narrow alleyway, and then a drop and roll onto another, lower rooftop. I came up with one hand atop my head. My hat remained in place. Brushing dust and city grime from my coat, I watched the building across the street with narrowed gaze.
The Pearl was closed, the windows dark. So was Johnny’s studio, but that didn’t mean anything. Doris Han would be holed up with her brood in their third floor apartment. Johnny would be out patrolling, but he’d know when someone broke in.
Or would he? How much of his guardianship depended on his now-blocked connection to China?
I lowered myself off the rooftop, crawling down the face of the tacky consortium that had served as my perch and dropping into the empty street. Somebody had already put plywood over the window that Virgin Mary and his friends had smashed earlier that day.
I crept past th
e Pearl’s kitchen door in case Doris had decided to cook away her anxiety – woman could hear questionable comings and goings from twenty paces – and slipped into the studio.
I needn’t have worried about waiting for Johnny. He was already there, kneeling at the head of the mat and limned by the faint light coming in from the streetside windows.
“Mr Mystic,” he said in greeting before I could blurt my business, warning me with those two words that we were not alone. I looked to the other end of the mat. A man knelt in the same position as Johnny, concealed by the shadows. I knew him.
David Tsung.
“I didn’t expect to see you again, Mr Tsung.”
He stared at me as though the darkness were no more impediment to him than it was to me. He shook his head. “Incredible.”
Johnny fell back on his butt with a groan. “Well, this is fucking inconvenient. What are you doing here?”
I hesitated, not sure who I should be watching: my gaping enemy or my sifu, who was currently pulling at his hair spikes like he only did when I’d annoyed him.
“I think that is a matter best discussed in private.”
“She even has the accent down,” Tsung murmured. “How long have you been pulling this off?”
She? And the way he blinked and stared, with the same incredulous recognition as in the Garden of Willows.
I threw my hat at Johnny and dropped my act. “You gave me away?”
“You did that, Masters. He saw you in the basement, getting your shadow on. I’ve just wasted the past twenty minutes trying to convince him that he was mistaken, and you barge in.”
“How?” I demanded. Johnny ignored me in favor of rubbing his face. I turned on Tsung. “How? And while you’re at it, give me one good reason why I should let you walk out of here with my secret.”
My empty threat made him snort. “You won’t kill me. Everyone knows Mr Mystic has developed a conscience since his return.” He held up his hands when I took a step toward him. The only thing that was saving him from an ass-kicking at this point was that I still had my shoes on and didn’t dare cross the mat to get to him.
