“It's a box!”
“You want luxury? Next time, go first class, cheapskate.”
That fucking bitch! She was mailing me to China. She was goddamned lucky that I had no interest in pissing off James. If not for that, I'd be grabbing a cab back to the loft and sticking her ass in a box.
“You waiting for an engraved invitation?” the vampire attendant asked impatiently.
“No, I'm going,” I sighed, climbing in and trying my best to find a comfortable position to lie down in. “Just make sure my bags don't get lost.”
“Won't be a problem,” he said and started tossing them in with me. I didn't pack heavy, but still. What had merely been an uncomfortable fit was now a tight uncomfortable fit.
“What the fuck, man!?” I yelled in outrage.
“Sorry. Your papers specify one and only one box. Take it or leave it.”
However, that last part wasn't really an option. Before I could say another word, the zombies placed the lid back onto the crate, and I could hear them nailing it shut.
There was a knock on the top of my makeshift tomb, and I could hear the attendant yell, “Whatever you do, don't try to get out until they open it up. Once you're in China, a truck will take you to your destination, and your contacts will release you. If you try to get out beforehand...well, let’s just say the Chinese can be a little trigger happy.”
Great! “What if I have to go to the bathroom?” I yelled back.
“Heh! I hope for your sake you didn't drink anything before getting here.”
* * *
My iPod made it about three quarters of the way through the flight before finally crapping out. Not that I had much of a chance to relax and enjoy the music. The loading process was brutal in and of itself. I must have been dropped at least three times. As for the flight, aside from some brief layovers to refuel, it was a real motherfucker. The pilot was either a daredevil or an idiot, as he seemed to make it a point to head straight into whatever turbulence he could find. Even had I not been afraid of flying before, I sure as shit was now. After my music died, I did the only thing I could think of to pass the time...mentally kill Sally over and over again. By the time we finally landed and I could feel my box being unceremoniously loaded onto a truck, I had come up with some pretty ingenious scenarios for her untimely demise. Ultimately, though, I kept coming back to using a wood chipper to do it. There’s nothing like the classics.
The truck ride took another eternity, during which I had to assume we were either moving along unpaved roads or the driver had a serious fetish for potholes. Straw or no straw, all I knew was that my entire backside was full of splinters. I was just about to start hoping that one of them would eventually be long and sharp enough to pierce my heart when the truck finally stopped at long last.
I could feel my box being lifted up and then dumped onto the ground. Jesus Christ! Was it too much to ask for somebody to tape a fucking ‘Fragile: do not drop’ sticker onto me?
What followed was some muffled conversation. I couldn't make it out. No surprise there. I was in China after all...or at least I hoped I was in China. It would be just my luck to have been delivered to the wrong place. Right now there could be some poor schmuck in Alberta, Canada, thinking he was about to unpack his new end table, when whoops...sorry, but we shipped you a pissed off vampire by mistake.
The muffled conversation started to sound like a minor argument for a few minutes; however, it finally abated, and I could hear the truck start up again and drive off. I patiently waited for what would happen next, hoping against hope that there wasn't a ‘Do not open until X-mas’ sign on my new home.
For the first time in over twenty-four hours, though, luck was with me (don't ever ask me about the whole needing to go to the bathroom thing!). I could hear the top of the crate being pried off. Now all I had to do was hope that it wasn't high noon outside. The top began to move, and I could see bright light starting to stream in. Oh shit! As it was lifted off, I gave a yell of panic and reached up to shield my face with my arms.
A second or two passed, and I finally noticed I wasn't going up like wood shavings covered in gasoline. I slowly lowered my arms and realized the light was artificial. As my eyes adjusted, I made out the face of James, as well as a few others looking in at me. Most of the new faces looked bemused, no doubt at my little panic attack; however, James' expression was more one of confusion.
“Dr. Death?” he said with his Bostonian accent, using my old coven name. “What are you doing here?” Despite his confusion, he reached down and offered me a hand. I took it, as being wedged into a tiny box for over a day doesn't exactly leave one all that limber.
As I slowly peeled myself from my wooden prison, I replied, “You sent for me. I'm here.”
“No. I didn't.”
“Yeah. Sally told me you did. I just spent the last day wedged into that thing because I thought it was an emergency.”
“Why didn't you just book a private charter, like we normally do?” he asked, still confused.
“That was an option?” I asked, starting to feel a different kind of smoldering going on behind my eyes.
“Of course. This isn't the eighteen-hundreds you know. We only do that vampire in a casket thing on short hops or emergencies anymore. Ghastly way to travel.”
“Yes, it is,” I agreed dryly. “Let's back up for a second. You didn't send for me?”
“Why would I? I shot Sally a message asking you to contact me, but I was expecting a call or maybe an email. Certainly not you arriving all gift wrapped like this.”
“But Sally said...”
“She must have heard incorrectly,” he said dismissively. Somehow I doubted that. “Oh well, I guess you can stay for a bit. But there's dangerous work afoot here. I'm afraid no more than a day or so, and you'll have to head back.”
“Please tell me you're not stuffing me back into the box.”
“Of course not. As long as you have your passport, it shouldn't be an issue.” I was silent for a moment, and then averted my eyes. “You didn't bring your passport, did you?” I quickly shook my head. He chuckled, and then patted the top of my packing crate. “Well then, I'm afraid we'll probably need to hold on to this.” He then turned to the others and said something I couldn't understand, probably in Chinese. A round of hearty laughter followed.
“I assume that was at my expense,” I said.
“Sorry, my friend,” he replied with a smile. “But things have been pretty stressful here. I'm afraid we take our laughs as we can get them.”
Speaking of here, I finally took a moment to look around. I was in what appeared to be a large circular tent. It was mostly bare except for some other crates off to the side. Apparently, this place was for storage. James was dressed warmly in what I guessed was native garb. His three companions, all males of distinctly Asian origin, were dressed similarly.
“Care to introduce me to your friends, James?” I asked. He raised an eyebrow at that. “I abolished that rule months ago,” I explained. “I didn't think you went by Ozymandias anywhere else.”
“Oh, yes. I heard you had overthrown Night Razor. Congratulations on that, by the way. Oh well, I suppose you're right. James it is. However, I hope you don't mind if I keep calling you Dr. Death. I know it's hokey, but after a while I found myself growing used to it.”
“Knock yourself out.”
“Excellent,” he said, and then turned to his companions. “May I introduce you to Nergui, Bang, and Cheng-gong.” I tried not to smirk at that second one. I bet he was a real hit with the ladies.
The one called Nergui turned to me and bowed. “It is an honor to meet you, Freewill Dr. Death.”
“Thanks! Nice to meet you, too,” I answered.
James then said, “Nergui is the only one who speaks any English. So I'm afraid you won't get much conversation out of the other two. Unless, that is, your Mandarin is up to snuff.”
“I'm lucky to speak English,” I replied, nodding in the direction of the ot
her two.
“Well, why don't you wait here for a bit, and we'll see what we can do for lodgings for the night,” said James.
“Sounds good as long as you can point me towards the nearest bathroom first.”
* * *
James gave me instructions to wait where I was, and then left with the two non-English speakers, leaving me with Nergui. He said it was in case I had any questions, but I had the feeling it was to keep an eye on me and make sure I didn't wander off. He needn't have worried too much. I wasn't quite up for any major exploring. Being a native of New Jersey and a current resident of Brooklyn, anything below the rating of suburban was more or less alien to me. I had no intention of walking around the wrong tree and winding up hopelessly lost.
In the meantime, I slowly made the circuit of the tent and tried to engage Nergui in small talk.
“So...how long have you been here?” I asked. Yeah, it was lame, but sue me. It's not often I find myself stuck in a tent in deepest darkest China, talking to what I presumed was a Mongolian vampire.
“It has been my honor to serve the Khan for these past three and a half centuries,” he replied in a neutral voice. OK, so I was dealing with another heavy hitter here. If James wanted me to stay put, there was no way I was getting away from this guy.
“That's Ogedai Khan, right?” I asked.
“We do not address him by his proper name here. He is simply the Khan,” Nergui said with that same tone. I wasn't getting much of a read off this guy. Hopefully, I wasn't going to say anything to insult him. I'd hate for my first outdoor view of China to be of myself getting bashed against a rock.
“Sorry. Not trying to be insulting. I’m just curious,” I said, trying to covering my ass. Nergui simply nodded at that. “Is he really the son of Genghis Khan?”
“Indeed. The Khan is the chosen son of the great Temüjin. He keeps his spirit of conquest alive in our hearts, if perhaps not in our actions.”
“That is so freaking cool!”
“Explain this ‘freaking cool’ you speak,” he said, again without a trace of emotion. Damn, this guy could teach Ed a thing or two. He was stone cold. Of course, maybe I shouldn't jump to conclusions. It could just be that I was a stranger and he was speaking in a non-native language.
“It's a phrase from my country. It means it's really great to know, I guess. I mean, it's not every day you get to talk about a person straight out of the history books in the present tense.” Yeah, I was rambling.
Nergui again just nodded. “You are young, Freewill. In time, these things will become common for you.”
“I guess it’s safe to assume you know all about this whole freewill thing.”
“Many do,” he said. “It has been a long time since one such as you has been seen. Our seers have spent much time trying to divine what it means.”
“I don't think too much of it,” I said dismissively. “I think it was just luck of the draw. I got turned, and it just happened to be a coincidence.”
“No such thing,” he said with an air of finality. I decided not to argue with him for obvious reasons. Time to change the topic of discussion.
“So, Nergui, right? What do you do for the Khan?”
“I am one of his assassins.” Nope, forget what I said earlier about jumping to conclusions. This guy was hardcore.
“So that must be an...interesting job.”
“It is what I am.” Gah! This small talk thing was quickly fizzling out. Maybe time to do some minor wandering after all. At the rate this conversation was going, we were going to just wind up glaring at each other in silence. All things considered, I figured that was one of Nergui's specialties; however, it most certainly wasn't one of mine.
I walked over to the opening of the tent. “Is it OK if I step outside?” Figured it was safer to ask than to just try it and wind up with this guy tackling me and putting me into a chokehold.
Nergui again nodded. Damn, that was getting maddening. Not quite on the same level as Sally's eye rolls, mind you, but annoying nevertheless.
I stepped outside of the tent. I could hear quiet shuffling behind me that said Nergui had followed. No doubt about it, James had him keeping an eye on me. The question was why?
Ah, screw it! Enough with the paranoia. This was the first real foreign country I had stepped into in a long time. Time to get a look at the place. Interestingly enough, the first thing that caught my attention was the sky. I had never seen the stars or the moon so crisp and bright. Hell, in Brooklyn you were lucky you could see the sky at all on some nights. The sight was pretty breathtaking. So this was what it was like to live in a place that wasn't constantly lit up by halogen lamps and neon. This was something you wanted to share with someone special. Bad thought, as my mind immediately went back to her. Grrrr! Even thousands of miles away, my inability to ask a single simple question to her haunted me. OK, that was enough of the sky. It was depressing me now.
The area immediately around me was populated with more round tents similar to the one I had emerged from. I'm sure I learned their name somewhere in either history class or on the Travel Channel, but for the life of me couldn't remember what they were called. All I remembered was that they were apparently a popular Bedouin type of dwelling. Wherever I was, this was neither a large nor a permanent settlement.
I took a few more steps to get a better look. The area we were in was somewhat reminiscent of the time I had gone out to Vegas, or more specifically, the parts of the Mojave I had seen. The immediate vicinity was sparse but broken up by the occasional vegetation. To one side (East, West, or whatever...I didn't have a compass on me) the desert stretched as far as the eye could see. Normally in the dark, this wouldn't be very far at all; however, darkness isn't an issue for vampires. With the exception that all of the colors were heavily desaturated, I could see every bit as well as if it were broad daylight.
On the far side of the village, if you could call it that, were several large rocky outcroppings that led up to some more hilly terrain. I started wandering over to them. The whole thing was pretty damn cool now that I thought about it. Here I was in some nomadic village out in the middle of nowhere. It was like I had stepped out of my life and into the middle of an Indiana Jones movie...and not that lousy crystal skull one either.
I was so caught up in the fantasy of it all that I hadn't noticed that I wandered outside the edge of the settlement. I was standing close to one of the large rock formations, thinking about maybe being adventurous and attempting to scale it, when I heard a *thud* noise to my left.
I took a look around. Considering how barren the terrain was, it wasn't too hard to find what I thought to be the source. There was a large rock nearly the size of my head lying in the dirt no more than ten feet away from me. Maybe it rolled down from one of the larger boulders. Although, if that had happened, I probably would have heard it. The way this had sounded was if it had just dropped from the sky. Oh well. I'm sure these things were common out here. It’d take a little more than some loose rocks to scare off this city boy. I mean it's not like...*thud*
What the? I turned back, and there was another rock, similar in size to the first, on the ground where I had just been standing a few moments ago. If that thing had hit me, it could have shattered my skull like a chicken egg. One fallen rock was something, but two was getting a bit odd. I turned my eyes up towards the nearby hills and took a look around, scanning the area. Nope, nothing out of the...what the? I could have sworn I had seen movement out of the corner of my eye, like something dark had just ducked out of sight.
OK, I was probably just creeping myself out. It was time to get a grip and relax...and of course, that was when something grabbed my arm.
* * *
Let's face facts: you knew it was Nergui all along, didn't you? Well, I didn't. So I shrieked like a little girl when I felt his big, meaty fist fall onto my shoulder. The cry was cut short, however, as his other hand quickly came around and covered my mouth.
“It is not safe out here
. Return with me,” he said into my ear.
I tried to save whatever grace I had left, which wasn't much. I pulled out of his grip and hissed, “Jeez, dude! Did you have to sneak up on me?”
“I did not sneak. If you did not notice, then perhaps the fault lies with you,” he said, and then turned back towards the ring of tents.
Grrrr! Damn him and his ninja logic!
I caught up to him, lest I stand there acting all pissy and wind up getting my brains bashed in by another of the magical raining rocks of Mongolia. “So why isn't it safe?” I asked.
“Because it is not.” (Oh Jesus Christ!)
“Care to elaborate?”
“You are in the Wanderer's charge. If he wishes for you to know more, then he shall be the one to tell you.”
“The wanderer?”
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