The Red Heart of Jade

by Marjorie M. Liu

  Koni, glancing at him, said, “Every time I begin to have respect for your intelligence, you do something like that.”

  “It’s a gift,” Dean replied. “My powers of survival and intuition are endless.”

  “Ha.” Koni sidestepped a pile of broken glass with a curious mincing motion. He was not wearing shoes. Around them, the ground glittered with yet more glass, odd bits of trash, some dark puddles fed by trickles of water streaming out of hoses where women were washing vegetables and small children. Koni did not complain, but Dean felt the debris crunch beneath his sneakers.

  “You should have given me a pack to carry for you,” Dean said quietly. “It wouldn’t have been any trouble.”

  “I don’t like depending on anyone,” Koni replied. “No offense. I’m just used to taking care of myself.”

  “You’ve been with the agency for more than a year,” Dean reminded him. “You can rely on us, you know.”

  Koni said nothing. Dean did not push. There was no formula for making a man feel at home among a crowd that clung together like family. For Dean, it was easy. Always had been. First meeting and he’d curled up like a little kitten in a warm towel. Wasn’t like that for everyone, but he had been alone too long, and recognized a good thing when he saw it. The agents at Dirk & Steele were the only people he had; the secrets they shared formed a bond no one on the outside would ever understand. Or believe.

  Us against them, he thought. Minorities, hiding in plain sight against the rest of the world. Dirk & Steele might operate in a very public setting, with clients ranging from governments to the poor, but its entire image was a bald-faced lie: that all of its agents, men and women spread across Dirk & Steele’s worldwide offices, were normal ordinary human beings.

  Flesh and blood, yes. Human, yes. But not ordinary. Call it genetics, odd wiring, twists of magic and fate—but the agents of Dirk & Steele had abilities beyond the normal ken of man. And even among them, some were more extraordinary than others. Like Koni and the rest of his kind: shape-shifters, men and women who changed into animals at will. Tigers, crows, cheetahs, dolphins—dragons, too—and God only knew what else. Magic and science, coming together to form miracles embodied by flesh, blood.

  Little more than a year ago, Dean would have thought shape-shifters nothing more than fairy tales, figments of some overactive and highly drugged imagination. Hell, it was hard enough for him to believe some of the shit he could pull off. Anything else belonged in the Twilight Zone. Which was … totally right on.

  Dean stopped at a small booth where an old man hawked cheap clothing. He glanced over his shoulder; the men following them had fallen back, but they were still islands in the surging crowd, staring, eyes cold and hard.

  Gritting his teeth, Dean turned away and grabbed a pair of large foam flip-flops from a bin. He pushed cash into the seller’s hand. No time for bargaining. He dropped the shoes beside Koni, who looked at them, and then Dean.

  “They’re covered in flowers,” he said.

  “Weenie,” Dean said, and then turned away, walking fast. No time to waste—none at all—not with those men following them, and a trail fading fast. He felt Koni move up close behind him, and that was reassurance enough, to have someone watching his back as he approached the apartment building where the last murder had occurred.

  He split his vision, extending his fingers as he glided through the shadows, translating energies as his mind sorted and pressed and peeled, searching for anything familiar—anything at all that was reminiscent of the areas around the fourteen other crime scenes he had spent the past three days scouring. It was not enough to search inside the buildings; sometimes trails could be found outside as well, glimpses into lives that had intersected with the victims’. Sometimes he saw the victims themselves; the trails they had left before dying, not yet faded from the air. People had to go places, after all. Killers used legs. They could not fly.

  Well, maybe some people could fly. But … he hoped not in this case.

  The world inside Dean’s head filled with light: a tapestry, a quilt of intersecting threads, people leaving behind bits of themselves with every step, layering emanations upon emanation, trails of energy and vibration until it almost seemed the air was heavy enough to walk on; a stairway to heaven, to hell, to secrets and lies.

  Dean waded through soul prints. He took measure of the adding echoes, opening himself to remote glimpses of lives that were ordinary, full of television and playing children and families at tables—a man singing karaoke like a wounded dog—a woman sitting naked in front of a computer—dishwashing and arguing and sexy ups and downs—lives that were quiet—wild—lonely—

  —violent—

  —deadly—

  Dean froze. Just a glimpse, an awful premonition. He had walked through the thread so quickly that was all he had time for.

  No, he thought. I can’t be that lucky. There’s no way.

  No way, not a chance, not a flaming turd in hell. Not after three days and a personal apocalypse. Dean turned, looking hard. Light tangled; it was impossible to know which thread he had touched—just that it was there, somewhere, in the mess.

  He took a deep breath and cleared his mind, trying to steady his heart and hands. His chest throbbed, but he pushed down the pain, the memories attached with it, the uncertainty. No fear, no doubts. Not now. Dean swallowed hard and took a step. Looking for a victim.

  The reaction was instantaneous; a punch to the gut. Images overwhelmed him. Dean forced himself to remain still, but the rush was hard, harder than anything he had ever felt, and he wanted to run, to turn away, to shut off his mind. Instead, he let himself taste ash on his tongue, and gazed upon a vision of a dark room, a body on the floor with duct tape wound all around like a mummy’s skin, bandages sticky, gray. The floor was black and wet around the body, which was mostly torso; like a potato with stumps.

  Movement. A hulking body silhouetted by a window. In one fat hand, a sheaf of papers; a photograph, the face too blurred to see. In the other hand, a bulging plastic sack from a local bookstore. The mouth of the sack was open. Dean got a good look inside. He saw blood. Other stuff.

  And then, light. Fire.

  Dean moved. He left the thread at a run, but the echo remained with him as an imprint, a stamp upon his mind, a screaming line pulling and pulling like a rope. Koni called out, and then suddenly was at his side, racing with him down a narrow unlit walkway between a clothing shop and a DVD parlor. Instinct guided Dean, the trail inside his head tugging like a rope. The air smelled rank; it was difficult to see, but ahead of them a fluorescent bulb flickered over a wide metal door. Bingo.

  Dean reached beneath his shirt and unclipped his gun. He held it out to Koni, but the shape-shifter did not take the weapon.

  “I don’t do guns,” he said, breathing hard.

  Dean stumbled. “You shitting me? When did that happen?”

  “I thought you knew. I told Roland when he hired me on. It’s why he usually puts me on surveillance.”

  “Fuck.” Dean clicked off the safety. “No one told me. I just assumed.”

  Koni flicked his wrist; the knife appeared like a bright spot in his palm. Dean did not know how he had hidden it without sleeves.

  “Hypocrite,” he said.

  “Differences in philosophy,” Koni replied, glancing over his shoulder. “Those men stopped following us.”

  Bad. No way those men would just drop off. Not unless they had a good reason. And any reason good for them could not possibly be good for Dean and Koni.

  The apartment building’s door was unlocked and they barreled through, racing up the stairs. Dean tried to catch that familiar thread, reaching out across the space between himself and the victim’s present: a remote view. He managed a glimpse, and saw their target was no longer in the apartment. Above them came a scuffing sound, large and loud.

  Dean grabbed Koni’s shoulder. Both men stopped, breathing hard, listening. The person above hesitated on the stairs. But instead of
coming down, he began to go up. Fast.

  “Shit,” Dean hissed. His legs and chest hurt. Breathing was damn hard in this heat; running worse. Koni passed him and leaped up the narrow metal stairs four and five at a time, nimble, light-limbed. Gold threaded through his rippling tattoos, black feathers shimmering down his arms. Dean gritted his teeth and pushed harder. He did not know exactly what to do once he reached the roof, but those were the breaks. He would just play it by ear. Like always. Plans were for sissies.

  Koni reached the roof access door before Dean. He waited there, crouched before the heavy metal. Sweat rolled down his skin; he tore off his tank and discarded it. His drawstring pants hung low over his hips, loose and ready to strip off in case he needed to make a quick shift.

  “He knows we’re here, doesn’t he?” he whispered. His eyes glowed.

  “We’re not on fire yet,” Dean replied, though that was small comfort. The both of them were going to be dead fast or find themselves very surprised.

  Koni opened the door, crouching low while Dean swung past with both arms out, guns aimed high. A hot breeze clipped his face, carrying a scent: ash, bitter and metallic with blood—and there, directly in front of him, framed against fluttering laundry and a sky penned in by glittering skyscrapers and rusting clouds, was a large man, one of the largest Dean had ever seen. A white gelatin belly hung over tight shorts, propped up on legs thick with muscle, and higher, broad shoulders brushed silver hair, heaving into a rolling face wide and flat and hard with fat. A mean face, a meaner body, and for a moment Dean was once again a little kid facing up to one of the glue-sniffing, crack-smoking, steel mill bullies who used to hang out on his street back in Philly. His sight shifted; the man rippled into a thread. Quivering fast, almost double, like there were two of him at extremes, wrapped up tight, coiled, with one side dark, thicker than the other. Quantum vines tangled, maybe fighting. No harmony. Just a big damn mess of hard times.

  But he had no trail. His energy was completely self-contained.

  And he carried a blood-spattered plastic sack in one hand.

  Dean opened his mouth, ready to make the obligatory statement of “Surrender, you asshole,” but Koni made a strange choking sound that kicked his gut into high alarm. His finger tightened on the trigger. Forget words. The white flag of peace could go to hell.

  “No,” Koni gasped, standing and stepping in front of him. Dean tried to move, to see around his taller body, but Koni pressed his chest against the gun and said, “No, you can’t.”

  “Fuck you doing?” Dean said in a low voice.

  “Look at him,” Koni said, all cool grace and calm gone from his face. He sounded like he was begging, which was unnatural, bizarre, because Koni was a man who asked for nothing. “Look at his eyes, Dean.”

  Dean looked. For a moment, it did not register—it was too strange, too unexpected. But then, the glow. Two pinpricks of light in shadow. Golden. Hot.

  “Oh, shit,” Dean said. The man in front of them was a shape-shifter. A fire-starting, got-a-bag-of-bloody-bones, shape-shifter. Dean wanted to pull out his hair. These were the guys the agency was supposed to find and protect—like Koni, like Hari back home. But if a shape-shifter turned murderer?

  Nothing has changed. He kills, he pays. He tries to hurt you, hurt back. Those are the rules of the game. Live first, ask questions later.

  Dean tried to keep his thoughts black, to go Yoda and push away the fear, the confusion, but the murderer smiled and that was almost enough to stop Dean in his tracks and contemplate jumping off the side of the building. Sharp teeth poked over his thick bottom lip, sharp and long and white, and though his eyes glowed brighter, Dean imagined the light was cut with black, a ghost darkness, bleeding and bleeding like ink against his eye. Dean’s gun grew hot. The man’s smile widened, stretching his mouth wide, stretching and stretching, until the sides of his face bulged with some horrific grimace.

  Fuck this. Dean raised his weapon and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Just clicks. Quiet, deadly, clicks. The metal burned his skin, and though he tried to hold the gun, it seared and reflex took over. He let go. Watched the weapon clatter to the ground. Thought, I’m so dead.

  “Dead and gone,” said the man softly, speaking for the first time. His voice was thick with teeth, surprisingly gentle. “Ash. Quickened flesh. You should have left me alone. Please. You should have let me be.”

  “Stop,” Koni said. “As a brother—”

  “Your brotherhood means nothing to me.” Golden light spilled over the man’s eyes, gold running into darkness down his skin … and in its path, an even brighter whiteness, ridged and hard and gleaming like mother-of-pearl. Scales. Scales were pouring from his fat belly button and pushing outward across his gelatinous body while that hard-lined forehead receded and the meaty jaw jutted far and farther, until Dean felt like Conan the Barbarian in the temple of the Snake King, watching James Earl Jones go cobra de capello on his ass, and it was bad—real bad—worse than the creepiest creep-show horror of his childhood nightmares. He could not believe this was happening. He smelled smoke and his skin felt hot, like he was beginning to glow and glow, and he thought of his dream, the fire, and he felt paralyzed with the memory—the first time in his life, unable to move, to think, except to remember what it felt like to burn—

  And then Koni was there in front of him, shoving hard, and before he knew it they were both falling backward through the door behind them, tumbling down the stairs. Dean hit the landing hard, but had no time to recover; Koni grabbed the back of his shirt, dragging him down another flight. He could not get his feet under him; his ass got a beating and the air was knocked out of his lungs, along with bits and pieces of skin and maybe some rattled portions of his brain. He held his guns loosely, fingers off the triggers.

  “Stop,” he croaked.

  “No fucking way,” Koni said, still dragging him. “I’m not going to end up a crispy crow.”

  “We need to stop him.”

  “Then we need another plan. I’m no kamikaze runner.”

  Dean struggled to his feet and leaned against the wall. He gazed up through the stairwell, peering through the narrow space between the railing to the roof. He did not hear anyone coming after them, and glanced at Koni, whose eyes were pinpoints of wild light.

  “He’s not following,” Koni said.

  “There’s not another way off that roof,” Dean replied, but Koni gave him such a hard look that he felt obligated to once again revise everything he thought he knew about this case.

  “Don’t say it,” Dean said. “For God’s sake, man. My brain is going to explode.”

  Koni shut his eyes. “He’s a dragon, Dean. That means he can fly.”

  Dean, still holding his gun, pressed the edge of his palm against his forehead. His brain felt like it was leaking through his eyes.

  “A dragon,” he muttered. “Fuck. Do you know him?”

  “I have a friend in California named Susie. You know her?”

  “Don’t give me that. You guys are supposed to be almost extinct.”

  “Which means we don’t exactly get around to throwing block parties for each other,” Koni snapped. “The only reason I know that man up there is a dragon is because of the kind of shift he was going through.”

  Dean fought down a shudder. “Please don’t tell me this is typical behavior.”

  “It’s not. And I would never have imagined it if I hadn’t see it with my own eyes. The murders are bad enough, but I smelled the blood on him, Dean. I could smell it from that bag. He’s let the beast take over. He’s gone into the animal. Forgotten his humanity.”

  “Or maybe it’s the opposite,” Dean said grimly. “Maybe he’s more human than animal. Or maybe I don’t give a shit. Either way, he’s fucked up.”

  “And he’ll take all of us down with him. He didn’t care who saw him shift on that rooftop. A dragon, and he didn’t care. Shit. They’re supposed to be the levelheaded ones. And if he did fly off this building …�
� Koni stopped, raking his hands through his hair. “Do you know how serious that is?”

  “Yeah.” Dean knew all too well. All of them survived on secrets. Staying out of the public eye, never drawing attention: There was safety in that.

  But now one of the shifters was a mass murderer, and Dean had discovered why he burned his victims down to ash: to hide the signs of feeding.

  And some of those people were alive when he started chewing.

  “The latest victim is just a few floors down,” he said, swallowing hard, trying not to puke. “Practically a neighbor to that other guy I came to investigate. The scene will be fresh. I need to be there.”

  “And if he comes back?”

  “We fight,” Dean said. “Or run. Whichever comes first.”

  They moved quickly down the stairs, listening hard for the tread of pursuit, and on the fourth floor entered a narrow hall. Flickering fluorescent lights hurt Dean’s eyes, and the air was hot, sticky. He heard television sets, loud voices, children crying, and smelled grease, smoke. For a moment the smell turned his stomach; it reminded him too much of his cooking chest, the cooking body in his vision, the bag of blood and parts. Vegetarianism was definitely in his future.

  The victim lived at the end of the hall. His door stood ajar. Koni pushed it open.

  The room was dark inside. The ceilings were low. There were no bars over the windows, but the glass was dirty. Plants covered the sill. The ceiling fan turned. Dean smelled garlic. He shifted his vision, revealing a network of energy as he walked through the lines, turning and turning. He felt the echoes of a hard death, the presence of darkness, hunger, fire. A great black stain covered the floor of the living room. Ash. Dean almost opened himself to more vibrations, more of the victim’s story, but he thought about fire—and truly, at the moment, he had no stomach for it.