The Dragons of Heaven

by Alyc Helms

  “Jesus!” Jack said as I entered the kitchen.

  “No, just Missy.” I gave up walking and sank onto a chair.

  Shimizu gave Jack a “you talk to her” look as she passed him on her way to the counter. I hoped it was to take pity on me and make me tea. He nodded and sat in the chair across from me.

  “I hope this is one of those cases where I should see the other guy?”

  “Guys,” I corrected before I could catch myself.

  “Plural?”

  “Nine. Wait, no. Twelve. Damn. Made that mistake last night, too.”

  “You fought twelve men?” Jack’s question was slow. Skeptical. Possibly I had a history of exaggerating my exploits just to shock him. Not this time, though.

  “I fought nine. There were twelve. You see the problem now?”

  “Lao Chan let you live?” Jack was quick, I’ll give him that. That was twice now that I should have died at Lao Chan’s hands, but hadn’t. “Why?”

  “His boss, Mr Long, wants to see me. In Shanghai.”

  Shimizu’s teaspoon clattered on the counter. “Mr Long? Is that your–”

  “No.” I said, before she could invoke painful memories. This whole China business was hard enough without thinking about what I’d lost the last time I’d been there. Jack and Shimizu exchanged another look at my curt denial. This was the other reason I didn’t let my worlds mix. They tended to gang up on me when they did.

  Jack took the lead. “Does this have anything to do with whatever you were doing in Oakland last night?”

  “How did you know about that?”

  “It’s all over YouTube. Videos of Mr Mystic disappearing at the edge of the Wall shortly before it went down. I’ve been fielding calls all night, but somebody turned her cell phone off.”

  “She came to find me.” Shimizu handed me a mug, and I drank in the warmth. Some kind of jasmine sencha, sharp enough to jolt my brain into working, but the floral element smoothing over any rough edges. I gave her a grateful smile. Best. Roommate. Ever.

  “And the wall around Oakland just happened to go down while she – excuse me, while Mr Mystic was there? How did you even get in?”

  I avoided the snarky part of his question. “The Shadow Realms aren’t just a copy of our own world. Geographies don’t align in the same way. Whatever the New Wall is, it doesn’t extend across the veil.”

  “So that’s how you expect to get into China to see this Mr Long?”

  I wondered if Jack took classes in frowning, or if it came natural.

  Shimizu curled up in a chair of her own. “Crossing over was dangerous. What if there are more of those things from last night?”

  “Things?”

  I ignored Jack. “It is. And there will be, or worse things. I’ll just have to be faster than they are.”

  “Take lots of glowsticks. I have a box.”

  I laughed, then choked it back. Laughing hurt. “I have to figure out how to get there first.”

  “About that.” Jack rooted through his coat pocket.

  “Hm?” I sipped my tea. It was almost too hot, but the warmth provided another jolt to my synapses.

  “This came by courier this morning.” Jack pulled out a tri-folded letter. Just the letter, no envelope. Jack opened all of Mr Mystic’s correspondence. The dove-grey stationary rustled with the sound of high-quality paper. I caught a flash of silver foil at the upper corner. A logo in crisp, Art Deco lines.

  I took the letter, opening it to confirm my suspicions. “What does Argent want with me?”

  Jack’s lips twisted into a grimace that might have been meant as a smile. “It’s a short letter, Missy. You could read it.”

  “A meeting. Sylvia Dunbarton is in town. I got that. Why does she want to see Mr Mystic?”

  “Maybe she saw him skulking around Oakland on YouTube. Like the rest of the world. How should I know?”

  I waved the letter at him. “You’re you. You know things. What, you think I keep you around for your clean-cut good looks?”

  “No. My cooking. And I know things about things I know. This is Argent, Missy. I have as much chance of figuring out their motives as you do defeating twelve Triad.”

  “I managed nine,” I muttered. Didn’t anybody respect that nine wasn’t too shabby?

  Jack crossed his arms. “I rest my case.”

  “I don’t see what Argent has to do with this.” Mostly because I didn’t want to. It was going into the pile of things I didn’t want to deal with, on top of David Tsung, Mr Long, and the past I’d left behind in China.

  Shimizu took the letter from my unresisting grip, reading it for herself. “Your grandfather used to work for Argent? They have whole divisions dedicated to research. If they know about the Shadow Realms, maybe they know you can get across. Figured out you were responsible for saving Oakland?”

  “They also have a better information network than the CIA, so they might know about this Mr Long’s invitation,” Jack said. Between the two of them, they were making it really hard for me to keep my head in the sand. Couldn’t I get a morning off and enjoy my tea and my aches in peace?

  “So what if they do know,” I mumbled against the rim of my mug. “I’m not working with Argent.”

  “You just said you need to get overseas somehow,” Shimizu said. “It’s not like you can just hop the next trans-Pacific flight.”

  “But–”

  Jack gripped my forearm before I could hide behind my tea mug. “Missy, I know how you feel about Argent.” Jack should. He’d heard me rant about it often enough. “But the world isn’t black and white. This New Wall, all the other affected Chinatowns, don’t you get the scope of this crisis? Every corner of the world is affected. They’ve only just started compiling lists of tourists and expats who were in China when the Wall went up. The numbers already put every other hostage crisis to shame.”

  “And not that I’m a die-hard capitalist, but how long can they keep the markets closed?” Shimizu snorted. “Hell, Patrick listed his new iPad on Ebay this morning, and the bidding is already enough to let him take a semester off teaching.”

  I splurted tea. “What? What does that have to do with this?”

  Shimizu wiped the table. “Not like Apple is going to be able to get their parts from Foxcorp anymore. If this goes on, you’re talking the collapse of the tech industry. And all the jobs that go with it. This isn’t the fourteenth century. China can’t just declare Hai Jin and cut itself off from the world.”

  Jack took over the badger-express. “It’s only going to get worse the longer it goes on. Sometimes doing something for the greater good requires compromise – a little bit of sleeping with the enemy.”

  I covered my head as they battered at me from both sides. Jack pulled my hands away, forcing me to face him. “You’re the one who wanted to be a hero. Now’s the time to step up. Shimizu has a point. If you tried to go through official channels, you’d probably get a one-way ticket to Gitmo. Argent can get you to Shanghai. And fast. You don’t have another option. Am I wrong?”

  He was wrong, on almost every count. The ends didn’t justify the means. The how and the why of doing a thing mattered. Sleeping with the enemy was just asking for karmic STDs, and Argent was as crooked as Lombard Street. Everything about this situation screamed “It’s a Trap!” in Admiral Ackbar tones.

  But someone had to go to China and take down this wall, and I seemed to be the best person for the job. Mitchell Masters had extensive resources, but they didn’t pack the kind of economic or political punch to get me to China. Argent did.

  I opened the letter again. Reread the tiny block of text. Did anyone ever come clean out of a deal with the devil?

  I crumpled the paper into a ball. Didn’t matter. That New Wall needed to go down.

  “Fine. Mr Mystic will go to Argent.”

  * * *

  The Argent Corporation tapped into the nostalgia of another age, and, as CEO, Sylvia Dunbarton had nurtured that into a cult of personality. She e
pitomized studio-era Hollywood glamour coupled with old-money British aristocracy. She knew the power of her image, and she used it. But that was just surface. Everything she did had at least five purposes.

  Which was why I didn’t trust her motives for leaving me cooling my heels in the lobby of the Fairmont.

  I’d been waiting long enough to attract several second glances and a few surreptitious phone pictures when the Grande Dame of Argent appeared, flanked by two men in identical dark suits.

  She wore a smart, tailored jacket and pencil skirt in charcoal herringbone, her silver hair cut in a sleek bob and her oxford heels clicking crisply on the marble flooring. Grey fox lined her gloves and collar, but there was something about her air that would have given pause to the most ardent PETA activist. She looked like a character from a Wodehouse novel, but I knew her – or knew of her – and she was far more canny and unsettling.

  “Lady Basingstoke. A pleasure, as always.” I rose, sketching a small bow. The wait had sparked a simmering irritation, but appearances must be maintained.

  “Titles, Mitchell?” She took my hands, kissing the air above each cheek. “It has been a long time, but I thought we were better friends than that.”

  “I did not wish to presume,” I murmured, pulling away. “As you say, it has been a long time, and I couldn’t be sure you’d forgiven me.”

  “For not saying word one since your return? For turning your nose up at Argent and going it on your own? No, I shan’t forgive you for that, but I’m certain you have your reasons.” She rapped me on the arm. The gesture needed a fan, but she somehow made it work without one.

  “Reprimand accepted. Why did you wish to see me?”

  There it was, the flash of steel in her pewter-grey eyes. She smiled, but it didn’t quite reach them. “Right down to business?”

  “I am a busy man, and as you might be aware, my city is in something of a pother.”

  “The world is in a pother. But then, you always were a bit myopic about such things. Come, let’s not trade barbs unless there’s tea to soothe the wounds. They make a passable cuppa here. Join me.”

  The last was a command rather than a question, and the way she took my arm and led me off, the both of us flanked by her guards, brooked no refusal.

  Without a doubt, Sylvia Dunbarton, Lady Basingstoke, Grande Dame of the Argent Aces, was even more recognizable than Mr Mystic, even in my home city. As we made our way through the lobby to the hotel dining room, Sylvia’s purpose for not meeting me in her suite became clear. Heads turned. Phones snapped pictures and took video. Tweets flew. Within moments, half the city knew. Mitchell Masters was reconciling with Argent, news at eleven. How do you know? The internets say it is so.

  The hotel had been kind enough to cordon off a small section of the restaurant for our use alone, but that only drew more eyes. We were clearly visible – on display, even – to the other patrons enjoying their afternoon tea. I pried my arm out from under Sylvia’s grasp to pull out her chair. The guards tensed as I leaned close to murmur in her ear.

  “I presume there’s more purpose to your invitation than that little PR junket?”

  She smiled up at me, response equally cool. “Please. Argent hardly needs you. If I cared to have you back on our rosters, you’d be back.”

  She laid her serviette across one knee, waited for me to take my seat, and then lifted the teapot. She poured like a master, or at least one to the manor born. My irritation built as she prepared my tea. She stirred in milk and sugar with nary the clink of a spoon, then handed me the cup and saucer. I took a sip, but it did little to soothe my foul mood at being played.

  “What do you want?”

  “China.”

  “I think the Chinese might object.”

  The corner of her mouth twitched, a tiny crack in her façade. “Rumor has it that you’re responsible for Oakland being free, and possibly San Francisco as well?”

  That little rise at the end. She was fishing. Her information network wasn’t all it was rumored to be, then. “So you do get your intel from YouTube.”

  “We’re not the only ones. You’ve gone from being a quaint bit of nostalgia to a hot commodity in the intelligence community.”

  “And you called dibs?”

  “You’d prefer I left you to the wolves? Argent’s claim means that others won’t be asserting theirs. Besides, you do owe us rather a lot.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. Not because it was true, but because I didn’t know if it was true. Mitchell Masters’s notes on Argent had been rather thin on detail. Argent’s secrets remained secret. I toyed with the brim of my fedora, worn indoors despite propriety. And yet still I felt exposed to Sylvia’s sharp eyes. She knew Mr Mystic, but did she know him well enough to mark me as an imposter? Why had I agreed to this meeting again?

  “It might be that I have the means to end this – if I can get to Shanghai – but I won’t allow you to jeopardize this chance. You take me and my contact in, you drop us with gear outside the New Wall, maybe one of the islands off the coast, you let me assess the situation on the ground and handle it my way. That’s it.”

  Sylvia’s smile tightened. “I hardly think so. At the very least, I need more information. How did you get across into Oakland? How did you take down the New Wall? Is it technology or sorcery? Is the Chinese government responsible for this? That’s the consensus in Turtle Bay, and I could do with some solid evidence to refute it. I don’t think you comprehend just how close some fingers are to that button.”

  “Is there really a button, Sylvia?”

  “This isn’t a laughing matter, Mitchell.”

  “No. It isn’t.” I sighed and pushed aside my tea. Let Sylvia be insulted. We both had something the other wanted, but my something was more valuable. “The CPC isn’t behind this.”

  She jumped on that. “You know who is.”

  “I do. And not even Argent is strong enough to touch him.”

  “Evidence?”

  “My word. Just tell whoever is asking that it’s an underground interest. Then get me across the Pacific and drop me off the coast of Shanghai. Preferably with a parachute and a raft of some sort. I’ll find my way from there.”

  Sylvia refreshed my tea for the benefit of the several reporters that crowded the archway leading to the lobby. Watching her assess, assimilate, and calculate was a tiring business, though that might have been the bruises talking.

  “You can take others across with you, yes? You’re taking your contact? If we brought forces along–”

  “No, Sylvia.”

  “But a small, tactical team. My best Aces–”

  “I said ‘No’.” She had gracious doggedness down, but few could beat me for implacable when I put my mind to it. “I’ll be taking one person. My go-between. I have no intention of antagonizing people who already don’t look kindly on me, and I especially don’t want to take more Westerners in without the Chinese government’s permission. You may be confident in your ability to deal with the ramifications of that. I’m not. You send me with one pilot, and I’m not taking any of your people across with me.”

  Sylvia eyed me for several moments, but I could read nothing of what she was thinking. Then her eyes raised heavenward and she gave a tiny shake of her head. “Impossible man. You always did turn up queer where China was concerned. Fine. A pilot. My best. I’ll even make sure to give you a parachute that works.”

  * * *

  Argent’s private airfield was an hour southeast of the bay, surrounded by fields of spinach, strawberries, and broccoli, guessing from the stink. One would hardly think it was October, here in the middle of California’s bread-basket.

  I made David Tsung drive.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” he asked, breaking our self-imposed silence as we were guided through what I hoped was the final set of security gates after our identifications had been checked and checked again. Annoying, but better than being forced to fight a dozen men to prove who we were.


  No, I wasn’t still a little bitter about Lao Chan’s test. I winced and stretched out my knee, grown stiff during the drive.

  “I am fairly certain this is a horrible idea, but I’m afraid I see no other options. We’ll airdrop into one of the accessible coastal islands and take a raft across. You know how to paddle, right?”

  “Shouldn’t you be asking me if I know how to parachute?”

  I liked David Tsung less each moment I was with him. Possibly because I suspected those glances he kept stealing were aimed at my chest, as if that were the most unbelievable element of my guise. “Perhaps your people should have considered issues of transportation before instigating this mess,” I snapped, crossing my arms.

  “My people?” He returned his attention to driving, creeping down a line of silver-grey hangars tall enough to block the view of the rest of the base. I couldn’t read his eyes behind his sunglasses, but his lips pursed into a flat line and his knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. “You seem quick to – holy shit!”

  The car lurched to a stop as we rounded another corner and came out onto the airfield. Tsung’s hand shot out to check my forward momentum. The seatbelt caught and jerked me back. I strained against it, craning my neck to peer up at what had startled him.

  An angel in gold armor and flowing white robes rode the thermals above us on widespread wings. She led a squad of troops wearing jetpacks through a series of aerial drills.

  Tsung twisted to one side as much as I did to keep the angel in sight, lowering his sunglasses even though it meant squinting against the daylight. “Is that–”

  “La Reina de Los Angeles. Yes,” I said, as if it were perfectly normal to see the heavenly host at a training base in central California. I straightened when Tsung and I nearly bumped heads trying to keep the woman in sight. Releasing my restraint, I opened the car door and got out. Ostensibly to stretch my legs, but also to take in the full scope of Argent’s operations, unhindered by the chassis.