by Tonia Brown
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Feng said. “I won’t put you in the line of fire. You’re too important. All of you.”
“And you’re too stubborn,” the doc said as he stepped into the meeting cab. “But it doesn’t matter, because you can’t leave.”
“I have to go.”
“You can’t.”
“I don’t have a choice this time. I have to.”
“No, you don’t understand. I’m not saying I won’t let you. I’m saying you can’t. I’ve already stopped you.” The doc patted his vest pocket, that mischievous grin spreading wide.
All at once, Feng looked his age. His face fell into a mask of despair as he eyed the doc’s pocket, then looked out of the window, into the rolling blackness. “You don’t know what danger you’re putting yourselves in. None of you.”
“Then tell us,” Dodger said. “Help us prepare.”
Feng leaped to his feet and grabbed Dodger by the shoulders, staring into his eyes with a look of wild abandon. “You have to let me go. You’re all going to die if I stay here.”
Dodger did his best to hold Feng’s gaze—not an easy task. It wasn’t that he was opposed to looking a man in the eye when speaking to him. No. It was this particular man’s eyes that made the task so difficult. Dodger always thought of himself as a fellow who had seen too much. Now he knew better. The madness that shone from the old man’s eyes at that unguarded moment screamed and howled with an immeasurable amount of fear.
Feng wasn’t just scared.
He was downright terrified.
Dodger didn’t know what Feng had seen, but he was glad he hadn’t seen it himself.
Yet.
“I was hired to protect this line and her crew,” Dodger said. “That means I was hired to protect you too, Mr. Feng. Now, I don’t know what trouble you’ve gotten yourself into, and quite frankly, I don’t think I really want to know. I only know one thing. I am here to do a job, and I intend to do it. Whether you like it or not.”
Feng continued to stare down Dodger for a few more seconds, as if weighing Dodger’s words, or formulating his own comeback.
“You can’t leave,” Lelanea said from Dodger’s left.
How did she always sneak up on him like that?
“Not you too,” Feng said. “You of all people should know better.”
“You can’t leave,” she repeated, “until you give me an explanation. You owe me that much.”
“An explanation of what?” the doc asked.
“There’s no time,” Feng said. “You have to get this line in motion and get the hell out of here. You’re wasting time standing around talking like this.”
Dodger looked out of the open cab door to the gathering storm again. “If you think we’re gonna outrun that storm, you need to think twice.”
“You don’t have to outrun it. Just let me go, and it will pass you buy.”
“No. We put the Sleipnir in motion in this kind of storm, and we run the risk of wrecking her. If there is a brawl coming, then we make our stand here and fight.”
“There is no time. If you don’t go now, you’re going to miss him!”
“Mish who?” Ched asked from the cargo-cab doorway.
“What are you going on about?” Mr. Torque asked, joining the crew in the now-full cab.
Feng ran his hands across his tightly bound hair and stared wild eyed at the crew gathered around him.
“Feng?” the doc asked. “What is all of this about?”
The Celestial looked to Dodger, furrowing his brow as if to say, What do I do now?
Or did Dodger imagine he heard the old man ask that without parting his lips?
“Go on, then,” Dodger said, nodding to the doc. “Tell them what you told us.”
“Hieronymus,” Feng said. “There is a good chance that Washington Boon is alive.”
The doc gasped and held his pudgy fingers to his open mouth as he plopped onto one of the couches. “Alive?”
“At the very least, he is not completely dead.”
“How? I don’t understand.”
“It’s sort of hard to explain. I think someone has his body, has been keeping it barely alive and is holding it captive.”
“Captive?” Ched asked with a snort. “What shon of a bitch would want an almosht-dead body-”
“Where is he?” the doc asked over Ched’s question. The man’s face grew stern with unplumbed depths of anger.
“Celina,” Feng said.
At that single word, Lelanea joined the doc in another gasp as Ched whistled along in a melodic chorus of surprise.
“How did you find him?” Dodger asked.
“By scrying,” Feng said.
Dodger shook his head. He had gleaned a little about such things from the mountain of books he had tackled over a lifetime of reading, but wasn’t completely familiar with the process.
“Simply put,” Feng said, “I used magic to spy on someone. I should’ve done it ages ago, but I knew I would open myself up to trouble if I did.”
“And that is how your enemies found you?” Dodger asked. “You opened yourself up to be seen by them.”
“Yes, and they aren’t the only ones. Whoever has Boon’s body saw me too. He knew I was watching him. Somehow, he could sense me.”
“Who did you scry on?” Lelanea asked. “Who has Boon?”
“I think you know him as Commander Rex.”
Which made all sorts of sense when Dodger stopped to think about it. Who had been a thorn in the doc’s side since Boon’s demise? Who sent the dog men after the line? Who set up the robbery at Sunnyvale?
C.R.
Commander Rex.
That left about a million questions to answer, with one topping the list.
Why?
“Ched,” the doc said in the most commanding and serious tone Dodger had ever heard the man use. “I want inside of that town before sunrise.”
“I don’t shee how,” Ched said. “We are almosht a full day’sh ride from Cshelina.”
“You heard me. Just make it happen.”
Ched sighed. “Even if we open her up, we might make it in a little under twenty hoursh, but it’sh gonna be a push.”
“Then push her.”
“We ain’t got the water for a nonshtop-”
“We can divert it from the potable tanks,” Lelanea suggested.
“Even then, it’sh gonna be-” Ched began.
“Must you always argue with me?” the doc asked.
“Excuse me,” Dodger said.
The crew stopped jabbering and looked as one to him.
“Forgive me for asking this,” he said, “but isn’t Celina where, well, it happened?”
No one said anything. They just stared.
“I’m new here and all,” he said, “but doesn’t it seem like kind of a coincidence that his body is exactly where you all thought it wasn’t this whole time?”
“I realize how it looks,” the doc said. “But if there is a remote chance that we can find Boon, then we have to go.”
“Sir, I hate to be the one to say this, but it has all the earmarks of a setup. If this Rex knows so much about the crew, then certainly he knows all about Feng here and his special talents. Rex must’ve been prepared.”
“We can’t assume-”
“Dodger is right,” Feng said. “When I located Rex and was able to see him, he was ready for me. I don’t know how that son of a gun did it, but he knew I was planning on scrying on him. In fact, he sent me a message.”
“Message?” the doc asked. “What kind of message?”
“He held up a note. It read,” Feng paused as he flicked his gaze to Dodger, then looked back to the doc. “Bring me Dodger by sunset tomorrow, or Boon dies. Again.”
It was now Dodger’s turn to gasp or whistle or make any number of surprised noises. Yet he didn’t. It wasn’t that he wasn’t all sorts of surprised. He sure as heck was! But still, there was some part of him that half anticipated this. Almost expected Fen
g to say those very words. Almost wanted to be the one drawn into the web.
To be the fly to Rex’s spider.
The mouse to his cat.
****
back to toc
****
Chapter Two
On the Run
In which Dodger formulates a plan
“When were you plannin’ on telling ush that part?” Ched asked.
“I wasn’t,” Feng said. He looked to Dodger again as he crushed the paper on which he had been writing in his fist. “I was planning on talking to Dodger about it before I left.”
“I see,” Dodger said.
“I don’t,” the doc said. “He must think we are idiots. I mean, what on earth would make that man possibly think that we would just wander, willy-nilly, into such an obvious …” The doc’s words drifted away under the rumble of distant thunder as he pieced together what the rest of the crew had already figured out. “Oh, I do see. You were going to talk to Dodger about it in private, because you knew Dodger would willingly wander into a trap if there was a chance he could rescue Boon.”
“And he was right,” Dodger said. “Let’s get this train in motion, or we won’t make our deadline. We shouldn’t keep our host waiting.”
“You can’t be serious,” Lelanea said. “You just said it was a trap.”
“I realize that, ma’am. But now at least we know what the bait is. As well as the prize.” Dodger shut the outer cab door and glanced around a moment, taking stock of the situation. “First things first. Ched, get at the helm and get us moving. That storm is gonna be a gully washer, but I trust you can keep us on course.”
“Aye, Sharge,” Ched said. “I reckon I can keep her on the shtraight and narrow while you fight the good fight.” The driver slipped through the door toward the engine cab.
“Speaking of fights.” Dodger turned his attention to the Celestial. “Feng? You need to explain what is coming for you so that we can be ready.”
“Demons,” Feng said. “Demonic assassins, to be more exact.”
“Demons riding on a storm?” the doc asked. “Well, that is a new one to me.”
“It’s more complicated than that. They aren’t just riding the storm. Lei Gong and his gang are the storm.”
Dodger tipped his head to the Chinese names. Names he recognized thanks to years of reading mythology from many cultures around the world. “Lei Gong? The Duke of Thunder?”
Feng nodded to Dodger. “You never cease to amaze, Mr. Dodger.”
“I appreciate that, but back to the demons. I thought Lei Gong was-”
“Just a myth?” Feng asked over Dodger.
“I was going to say a god, but that will do.”
“You are correct on both accounts. The God of Thunder and his family are, technically, part of my culture’s mythos. This Lei Gong is a vengeance demon that took on the persona of the myths. Made them come alive, as it were. He and his ilk offer their services to mortals in exchange for life essence.”
“Which means?” the doc asked.
“Folks pay them part of their remaining life to settle debts.”
“Then they are hired guns,” Lelanea said.
“That is one way of putting it.”
“So it’s not a dragon?” Mr. Torque asked.
“No,” Feng said. “Not everything Chinese has to do with dragons.”
“Then you lot should stop painting them all over everything.”
“Demons,” Dodger said, nodded his understanding just as the train jolted into motion. “You must owe a hell of a debt for someone to send a pack of demons after you.”
“You have no idea,” Feng said with a cocky grin. “But, as I said, that is a story for another day. Right now, we have to prepare for their arrival. You folks wanted to stand and fight? Well, you’re going to get a fight you will never forget. If you live long enough to make it a memory.”
“Sounds like a challenge,” Lelanea said.
“Challenge isn’t the half of it. Lei Gong is bad enough, but we have three others to contend with. His wife, Dian Wu, is able to conjure lightning at will. Their twin sons, Youn and Yoo, are in control of rain and wind, respectively.”
“They have the whole storm theme quite sewn up,” the doc said. “How marvelous.”
“A dragon would’ve been marvelous,” Mr. Torque said, crossing his arms, obviously unimpressed. “Demons are just blasé.”
“Blasé?” Feng asked. “Did you not hear me say ‘demonic assassins’?”
“You have to admit,” the doc said, “this isn’t the first time we’ve faced off against demons.”
“Not these kinds of demons,” Feng said. “You’ve fought the diluted bastard children of the kind of demon Lei Gong is.”
Mr. Torque gave a tinny sigh. “Then, definitely not a dragon?”
“No! But I can promise you’re going to wish we were up against a dragon. Because at least a dragon has a weakness. These foes don’t even know what the word ‘weak’ means. No chink in the armor. No eyehole in the helmet. No deadly love for coffee.”
“I hate to be the only one who …” Dodger started, then paused as he went back over that last line. “Did you say deadly love for coffee?”
“Of course.”
“It is a well-known fact,” the doc said, “that dragons can’t resist a good dark roast. But unfortunately for them, the seed of the Coffea plan is toxic to their physiology.”
“Like an allergy?” Dodger asked.
“If you know of any allergy that makes your face melt when you come into contact with the offending allergen, then yes. Yes, it is just like an allergy.”
“Okay,” Dodger said, holding up his hands in defeat. “I don’t want to seem like a coward, but I have to admit that these storm-riding demons sound right frightening to me. No wonder you’ve been on the run.”
“It’s not too late for that either,” Feng said. “Just let me go, and they will sense I have left. Lei Gong and his gang will pass you on by. You’ll be safe, and-”
“You’ll be gone,” Lelanea said.
Feng looked to the floor rather than face them. “Yes.”
“And you won’t come back,” the doc said.
“I can’t,” Feng said. “Not after they know I’ve been here. They will mark this place.”
“You opened yourself to them by trying to help us,” Lelanea said. “We will share the consequences, because we are family.”
Feng finally looked back up to them. “That’s exactly why I don’t want you involved. Because you’re family. You don’t know how dangerous these demons are. They aren’t just out for blood, they are out for vengeance, and they will rip through each one of you to get to me.”
As if to emphasize his point, a great flash of lightning lit the cab to a brighter degree, followed by a tearing clap of thunder.
“Then we will just have to rip right back,” Lelanea said. “I suppose a claw for a claw is in order here.”
Feng’s eyes shot wide as he shook his head at her. “No. I can’t ask such a thing of you.”
“You aren’t asking. I am offering. You’ve always told me it was a gift, not a curse. Then consider this action just a lady sharing a gift.”
“Ludda?” the doc asked. “Are you certain about this?”
“If I can help in that way,” she said, “then I am willing.”
“That’s more like it,” Mr. Torque said, clapping his metal hands in glee. “It’s about time this got interesting.”
Dodger looked from Lelanea to Feng and back again. As far as he knew, there was only one curse she could exploit in order to help out. Only one gift she could share. “Did she just offer what I think she just offered?”
“Yes,” Lelanea said. “She did. And how about the rest of you? What do you plan on doing to help?”
“I know I won’t be much use in combat,” the doc said. “But I have a number of inventions that should prove helpful, even against your high-powered demons. The silver ammunition ought to h
ave some effect on them, and I have a few electrical-dampening contraptions that could aid you, Mr. Dodger.”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Dodger said. “I don’t reckon we have a whole lot of time to learn to use new equipment, and I am just as likely to blow myself up as I am to figure it out. I think I will stick with my guns.” He felt Lelanea’s eyes burning twin holes through his jacket, but he didn’t correct himself. As far as he was concerned, the guns were his as long as he held the job.
The doc cleared his throat. “Do remember that silver is deadly to many kinds of beasts. Even the ones on our side.”
Which explained why the woman was staring him down. Dodger swallowed his contrition rather than apologize aloud.
He took a moment to look about the meeting cab, to the doors and windows and roof hatch. “I know we are in a rush, but I wish we could stop and get somewhere more secure. This train is gonna be hard to defend with so many openings.”
“She isn’t as vulnerable as you think,” the doc said. He stepped over to the nearest window and pushed a small button just beneath the ledge. A metal shutter rolled over the window with a resounding snap.
Dodger pointed to the shutter. “Do they all have those?”
The doc nodded with a proud smile. “Every door, hatch and window is equipped with a steel shutter coated in silver on the outside, to keep trouble at bay.”
“And you didn’t think this was something your security man should’ve known about?”
The proud smile fell into a guilty grimace. “I’m sorry. It just never came up.”
Dodger couldn’t get mad at the man. And not just because the doc was his boss. It was just sort of hard to get worked up over something that probably seemed so trivial to such a vast intelligence. “Not a problem, sir.”
“I suppose I would do well to tell you that she is also equipped with a LAD—a Lightning Absorption and Dampening system. I’ve installed a set of special rods along the Sleipnir’s roof to draw off the undesirable effects of a thunderstorm.”
“Lightning rods?”
“Oh no.” The doc chuckled at Dodger’s naivety. “These are better than just plain old lightning rods. These actively attract and wick away the effects of a lightning strike. It’s quite a sight to behold. They practically suck strikes out of the very air … Why are you grinning like that?”
