Eternal

by Grant, Alasdair

  I don’t know what he did to my face and body. I don’t want to know. But the memory of the pain still burns in my brain.

  “When I captured the last of Xu Fu’s two thousand,” the Emperor says, “I kept her alive for three years. Eighteen hours of torture each day followed by six hours respite to let her body regenerate. Sometimes I did the honors myself. It’s really quite amazing how much pain the body can take before the mind decides to shut down. I’m sure you’ll be pleased to hear I’ve developed this into an art form. Your pain will be exquisite and memorable.”

  I look into the pits where his eyes should be and see nothing but pure evil. Wherever the dividing line between Harold Chin and the Eternal Emperor once existed, it has now vanished.

  My eyes flicker past him, searching the dark department store.

  “Looking for rescuers?” he asks. “Oh, they won’t be here for at least another hour. And when they arrive, I’ll be more than ready for them. Xu Fu’s little apprentices aren’t nearly as dangerous to me as you are, but every one of them is worth the efforts I’ve put forth to catch them.”

  The Emperor examines his knife. He grabs a corner of my shirt and wipes the blade clean.

  “Such a pretty girl,” he says, taking some of my long hair in his hand and running it through his fingers. “What a waste to destroy something so young and beautiful.”

  I cringe, pull back as far as I can, and don’t even attempt to hide my disgust.

  He laughs, rests the blade against my ear.

  “Certain animals have the ability to regenerate lost body parts,” he says. “Salamanders, for instance, and some starfish. But I’m yet to find a creature that can do it as quickly as you or I.”

  He draws the blade slowly across my ear. I cry out as warm blood trickles down my neck.

  A loud metallic crash breaks his concentration. It echoes through the store, making both of us jump. My captor spins, crouching like a tiger.

  “Don’t go anywhere,” he snarls. “This should only take a moment.”

  While he slinks past a rack of brightly colored silk blouses, I fight to free my arms and legs from his ropes. I rub the wrist cords back and forth against the pillar’s edges, but it’s no use. The concrete is too smooth. I pant from my frantic exertions. There has to be some way to free myself. The department store’s security lights give me a dim but clear view of my surroundings, and I look around for solutions.

  The Emperor has already disappeared. If anyone else is here with us, they’re using cardboard displays and hanging clothing to remain out of sight. How long did Jade manage to stay awake? Long enough for Derek to reach me? If he really has arrived, how skilled is he? Can he overcome an opponent who has had a short eternity to perfect his talents?

  Another thought occurs to me. A more frightening one. Derek might not be here at all. Something in the store could have fallen over on its own. An improperly assembled display stand or something a janitor left leaning against a wall.

  I struggle with renewed desperation. If I have to dislocate an arm to do it, it doesn’t matter as long as I get free. But he’s already coming back. He wears an annoyed expression on his face and holds a hollow metal bar in his knife-free hand.

  “It’s impossible to find good help these days,” he says, shaking his head. “Maybe if your mixed-up world executed incompetent workers, they would learn to put things together right.”

  Part of a display stand. The Emperor taps the square object against his leg. My heart sinks, and my throat constricts.

  “Now, where were we?” he asks. “Oh, yes. Ears. Regeneration.”

  Something moves behind him. I follow the motion, and he follows my eyes.

  “Not alone after all?”

  He turns quickly but not fast enough to see what I’ve seen. A glimpse of blonde hair. A flash of cornflower blue eyes.

  Fear prickles across my flesh like electricity.

  Lily? Now I’m hallucinating. She can’t be here. She’s in the hospital in a coma.

  The Eternal Emperor takes a step forward. I think hard and fast. There’s someone in this store with us, and, if I can do what I’m thinking, I can buy my potential rescuer precious time.

  I stare at Qin Shi’s ear, visualize what I’m wanting to see. I relax my muscles and slowly inhale. I don’t have time to doubt myself—don’t have time for anything but the task.

  A ruby teardrop falls from the ceiling, strikes my captor’s ear, and splatters across his shoulder. Qin Shi looks up, examining the ceiling. He extends an index finger and rubs it across his ear. When he removes it, it’s coated with moist red blood. He looks puzzled for a few seconds then looks at me and grins.

  “I underestimated you. You’ve mastered basic shui and huo. I suppose you’ve picked up a little jinshu, too. That would explain the noisy distraction a few moments ago, but silly parlor tricks like blood dripping from ceilings won’t save you from what I have in store.”

  He snaps his fingers and the remnants of my illusion fade away.

  “Let’s finish what we’ve started. Shall we?”

  Lily—I don’t know how, but it’s her—rises from behind a clothing rack with a look of terrified determination on her face.

  “Run!” I scream. “Run, Lily! Run!”

  “Nice try,” the Emperor says. “But your little friend is probably already dead.”

  Lily’s metal bar slams into the base of his skull, and the invincible Eternal Emperor crumples to the floor.

  I stare at Lily. She stares back. Both of us are crying.

  SIXTY

  六十

  JENNA

  “Lily… How…”

  She shakes her head. “Too much to tell.”

  She glances down at her handiwork and looks like she’s about to be sick. Blinking tears away, she snatches Harold Chin’s knife off the floor and uses it to cut me free. The moment I’m loose, she casts the weapon aside, and we sob and embrace.

  “You’re awake!”

  “The other Lily… She…she figured out how to do it. We saw what he was doing to you and I came to save you.”

  “How long? How long have you been linked?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe an hour.”

  She’s still in a hospital gown. She didn’t even have time to change.

  Harold Chin stirs behind us.

  “He’s not dead!” Lily gasps.

  He can’t die. At least not this way. He lifts his head and stares at us in momentary confusion. His eyes are Harold Chin’s again, but they’re already beginning to dilate.

  “Run!” he coughs. “Save yourselves!”

  I turn to flee but something on a nearby shelf catches my eye. I pause long enough to grab Yeye’s fan before seizing Lily’s wrist and pulling her after me.

  We knock a stack of orange jeans off a shelf and tip over two silver-skinned mannequins. Risking a glance over my shoulder, I see Harold Chin on all fours, shaking his head dizzily. He lifts his face, locks gazes with me, and the Emperor’s hatred blazes through his dilated pupils.

  “This way!” Lily pants. “I left the door unlocked!”

  That’s right. Her mom’s an assistant manager here. Lily must have gotten in with her mom’s keys. We dash through a maze of aisles, leaving the Emperor far behind.

  Lily must have hit him hard to daze him this long. The “Yellow Beast” is parked on the sidewalk outside. Lily presses both hands against the door’s push bar. Almost free!

  The door vibrates but doesn’t open.

  “I…I don’t understand. I left it unlocked.”

  Her mom’s keys dangle from a springy key-chain bracelet around her wrist. She fumbles frantically to find the right one.

  “Attention shoppers…”

  We hear the voice over the intercom and freeze.

  “…we’d like to direct your attention to our lively fall fashions. We guarantee you won’t be able to leave without one of them grabbing your attention. Or grabbing you.”

  Something with a vagu
ely human shape moves with a limping gait through the semi-darkness toward us. It’s joined by another figure. And then another.

  “Hurry!” I exclaim. “The door! Get it open!”

  Lily forces a key into the lock. It won’t turn. She takes it out and stares at it.

  “This one should work. It worked before.”

  She tries a second key and a third.

  They’ve almost reached us now. They walk like hungry zombies with stiff, shuffling movements. Somehow the Emperor has turned a faceless horde of fashionably-dressed mannequins into an impromptu bingmayong army. Their joints weren’t meant for walking, but this doesn’t stop them from closing in on us.

  “Jenna…”

  Lily turns to me, waiting for me to tell her what to do. I grab her arm, pull her away from the door, and we run down an aisle to the left.

  “It’s a shame,” the Emperor’s voice echoes over the intercom, “that you didn’t have a few more centuries to develop your amplitude skills. You might have evaded me. You might have been able—for a time—to conceal yourselves from my all-seeing vision. But it won’t end well for either of you tonight.”

  We come to a jewelry counter and duck behind it. We press ourselves into a corner, clinging to each other for support. The unnatural clomp, clomp, clomp of fiberglass feet grows louder. If I had a few of Mistress Jiu-Li’s throwing stars and her explosive telekinesis skills, I could shatter our pursuers’ legs. But I have no stars and no skills and their echoing footsteps are already surrounding us. I hold my breath, waiting—hoping—for them to pass by. Instead the footsteps stop a few feet away, and the store fills with nerve-wracking silence.

  “By now,” the Emperor says, “you should understand that I’ve merely been toying with you and can destroy you whenever I want. You can’t hide from me. It’s useless to try. Even that skillfully fashioned jade necklace can’t block my mind-sight.”

  I clutch the necklace. He didn’t think to take it from me. I also have…

  A glass display case explodes above my head. Lily shrieks, and fiberglass arms flail across the shattered counter. The bingmayong-mannequins reach for us with inflexible fingers as I snap Yeye’s war fan open.

  I take off the nearest fiberglass arm with a desperate swipe, but a hand punches through a case to our left, spraying glass in our faces. Jewel-encrusted ladies’ wristwatches scatter across the white floor tiles. We crawl through the mess, ignoring the jagged shards cutting into our bare palms and exposed knees.

  More arms and legs block the way at the jewelry counter’s exit. Fiberglass feet in high-heeled shoes kick viciously at our faces. I stand, screaming in defiance, and lash out with a modified Wind Dance move. I decapitate two speckled-gray mannequins, but their heads are unnecessary. Half our attackers never had heads in the first place.

  The arms are the greatest danger. One determined mannequin viciously clubs me across the shoulder blades. I stagger into a second mannequin’s jointed arms, and it crushes me against its unyielding bosom.

  The war fan tumbles out of my fingers. Lily reacts quickly, snatching it off the floor and severing my captor’s arms. Somehow we manage to dodge between the others, receiving only a few blows before breaking out into empty space.

  I’m hyperventilating. None of this can be real. And yet I already know how all-too-real my nightmares are.

  “Sooner or later,” Qin Shi’s voice cackles above us, “you’ll be forced to admit there’s no escape.”

  He’s right, but I refuse to give him the satisfaction of knowing it until every option has been expended. Those options, however, are rapidly dwindling. More demonic mannequins wind through the aisles, driving us backward between shelves and metal racks. They finally corner us near the dressing rooms.

  I hear his laughter before I see him. His footsteps echo. Lily and I look at each other, tears shining in our eyes, and that’s when the sounds of crashing glass, rending metal, and squealing tires fill the store. Lily’s Yellow Beast careens down an aisle. Splintering shelves fly off its fenders and clothes-laden racks roll into walls. Like an angry yellow steer, the “Beast” plows through animated mannequins, bouncing them off its hood.

  The battered Pacer screeches to a halt and a back passenger door flies open.

  “Get in!”

  We stare at Derek.

  “In! Now!”

  We don’t wait for a third invitation.

  “Shut the door. Hold on tight.”

  I grab the handle and close the door behind us just as he slams the accelerator pedal against the floor. The AMC’s drive belt screams, and the stench of burning rubber fills the cabin. Derek races the car straight up the aisle and takes a hard right. Something strikes the passenger window next to my head, punching a hole clear through the glass. A stiletto heel. The designer shoe is still attached on the opposite side of the window.

  “Down!” Derek yells.

  We duck in our seats as another shoe strikes. This one shatters the window completely, flies over our heads, and continues out the other side.

  A face flashes by. The Eternal Emperor’s. I glimpse clenched yellow teeth and soulless eyes. Derek makes another sharp turn. Sliding up in the seat a little, I look ahead and see twisted support bars and empty frames where entrance doors once existed. Derek flies over a glittering bed of crushed glass and the Pacer flies out the store’s front door. We careen between concrete barriers—which have somehow been flung to the side—and continue across the parking lot until something in the engine explodes and flings the hood open. Derek pushes the brake pedal, and we screech to a shuddering halt.

  “Get out!”

  We tumble onto the pavement, Derek grabs each of us by an arm, pulls us to our feet, and we run. When I look over my shoulder, I see that the Yellow Beast’s front grill is bent like a horseshoe and scalding steam hisses from its broken radiator. I barely have time to process the image before Derek forces me face down against the warm asphalt. A millisecond later, an ear-splitting explosion shakes the parking lot, and a hot wind blazes over my back.

  We stay where we are for several moments. When we get to our feet again, the night is illuminated by an orange ball of billowing flames. The flames rise from the wreckage that was once Lily’s car.

  “Come on,” Derek says. “We have to get out of here.”

  We follow, unquestioning, until three figures detach themselves from the shadows and approach us.

  “Mistress Jiu-Li,” Lily gasps.

  “Mistress Song,” I exclaim.

  Jade’s teachers look at us a moment before glancing at each other and laughing.

  “Yes,” Mistress Song agrees, “I suppose you associate those names with us.”

  “I hate to interrupt this heart-warming reunion,” Derek says, “but he’s near. We need to get these two and ourselves far away.”

  Mistress Jiu-Li’s denim jacket-clad look-alike gestures toward the burning Pacer.

  “I see you’re still unable to operate a vehicle without destroying it. It’s a good thing we brought the van instead of the Mini Cooper.”

  Derek gives her a sneering smile, and Mistress Jiu-Li’s doppelganger smiles mockingly back.

  “Let’s go,” the Mistress Song look-alike says. “We’re running out of time.”

  Lily and I follow the trio, but Lily pauses at the parking lot’s edge long enough to stare back at the bonfire.

  “My dad’s going to kill me,” she whispers.

  In the near distance, sirens start wailing. I wonder if our ordeal is just ending or is yet to begin.

  SIXTY-ONE

  六十一

  JENNA

  I don’t know where we are other than that we’re in a warehouse somewhere near Anaheim. They gave us something to eat shortly after we arrived, but I don’t remember what it was. Lily sits quietly beside me on a large wooden crate. The fluorescent light over our heads illuminates the bloody smears across her face, and I notice one of her wounds is still oozing. A glass sliver protrudes from her scalp. I
carefully pick it out, and the wound heals almost immediately.

  “The other Lily found a way to link her mind with yours,” I say.

  She nods.

  “How are you feeling about that?”

  Lily shrugs. “I don’t know what to feel.”

  I understand that sentiment. I’ve spent a long time working through it. She’ll have adjustments to make.

  “You saved me from horrible torture,” I say.

  “You would have done the same for me.”

  “That’s what best friends are for.”

  We’re silent a few moments until curiosity prods me to speak again.

  “How did she do it, Lily? Was it accidental? Did she figure it out on her own?”

  “It was the codex.”

  I’m not sure what to make of this or what to say.

  “She’s not who you think she is,” Lily says.

  “I…don’t understand.”

  Lily shakes her head. “I can’t explain. It’s too confusing. The other Lily is going to tell Jade. You’ll understand soon.”

  I consider pressing her for more details, but she looks so tired and lost I decide against it.

  “How did you get out of the hospital?” I ask instead. “How did you get the car? Doctors don’t just let people pull out their IVs and leave. And I’m sure your mom didn’t hand you her keys and tell you to have fun saving Jenna from the evil Emperor.”

  This elicits a smile.

  “The other Lily helped me with that,” Lily says. “She has certain…skills.” She shakes her head again. “I don’t know how she did it, but she gave me some of her knowledge. I used it to steal the keys and get out of the hospital unseen. My mom and dad and all the hospital staff must be going crazy right now…”

  I grab her hand and squeeze it.

  “You shouldn’t have come for me,” I whisper. “If he’d caught you, he would have tortured you the same way he planned to torture me.”

  She shudders. “I know. But I couldn’t just sit in that hospital and wait for him to murder you.”