Romance with a Bite

by Tamsin Baker

And so Hana would fight for the lost souls of this continent, no matter what blood flowed in their veins—Phoenix Clan, demon, vamp, wolf or otherwise. Even if she’d have to do it alone. She worked her way down the girl’s body in silence, fingers shaking only a little. Hana’s hands stilled when she noticed a fresh marking on the girl’s lower back.

  Chapter 3

  A black symbol had been stamped into the young girl’s flesh—a circle, slashed through with several angry lines. It wasn’t the mark of any Clan on this continent, but something about it raised the hairs on the back of Hana’s neck, unease and a tickle of familiarity skittering down her spine.

  The skin was raised and pink around the tattoo, suggesting it had only been inked in the last few days. Hana kept her hands moving as she memorised the pattern, not wanting to draw attention to it in case anyone walked into the morgue. Maybe it had nothing to do with what had happened to the girl, but Hana noted each detail anyway.

  After her shift, Hana stopped in at her loft apartment above a hawker market in Turtle Quarter. After her grandmother had died, Mama Singh had found her brawling in the streets and had taken Hana in, an exceptional act of kindness in a cruel world. Mama Singh allowed her to rent a room in exchange for pulling a few shifts a week in the kitchen.

  Brow sweating as she tended the fragrant wok, Mama Singh looked at Hana. Ignoring the impatient Turtle younglings holding out their cardboard cones for filling, she reached into the crate below the wok, carefully grasping a flask patterned in bright images of all the Clans.

  Her hand covered the phoenix with its brilliant wings flashing in flight, but Hana could feel it there, calling to her. She wished not for the first time for the freedom to fly, like her Fae ancestors had. Mama Singh filled up the flask with fragrant noodles and handed it to Hana and she nestled it inside her jacket, nodding her thanks.

  The big woman wiped the sweat from her brow as she murmured, voice low, “When will you take out the other flasks, girl?”

  Mama Singh knew that Hana kept an empty urn to honour her sister in her loft. Another that contained the ashes of her grandmother. They’d lain under her bed for years now. When Hana didn’t answer her, she called at her retreating back, louder, “You owe me five shifts now, girl!”

  But Hanna was already back in the laneway, weaving her way between Turtles with their green hexagonal shell marks on their cheekbones. The vision of the girl’s hands tipped in pink, the symbol on her back, the guffawing of her idiot colleagues bounced around in Hana’s head.

  She needed to move.

  Hana ran lightly across the cobbled laneways of downtown Jade City, the bluestone slick and wet with the tropical rainstorm that promised to ease the humidity that had laid thick over Jade City all day. Rain kissed her face beneath her hood.

  Orange lanterns strung between shopfronts flashed in her vision as she darted around doorways and stalls that spilled out on to the street, the preparations for the impending New Year all around her.

  A burly man in the teal leathers of Dragon Clan stood outside a popular gambling den, his dark features bathed in the glow of the neon lights pulsing above him. He scowled as Hana splashed through the gutter, spattering his combat boots with mud. Her instincts urged her to lunge forward right as his fist brushed past her cheek. She spun around a corner, adrenalin surging through her, and leapt up onto the second rung of a fire escape.

  She couldn’t resist sticking her head back around the corner and flipping off the glaring Dragon heavy. Her face was well enough hidden under her hood. His muscles strained against blue-green leather, his face threatening violence. She smirked and shimmied up the ladder, ignoring the burn of the tattoo branding her upper arm. The tattoo that said, as much as she despised Dragon Clan and its masters, the Tigers, both Clans owned her.

  She was far enough away from the Justice Precinct, and low enough in the pecking order to get away without being recognised. She hoped. Sometimes she couldn’t help a little show of defiance. The thought sent shimmers of heat rippling from her collarbones to shoulder blades, and she shut down the direction of her thoughts with an iron wall in her mind.

  Her cover was everything. Not worth blowing for an arrogant piece of crap Dragon heavy. She concentrated on climbing the ladder, confident he wouldn’t come after her. To him, she was small fry. His job was to guard the gambling den. She posed no threat to it right now.

  Her shoulders sang with the burn of effort to scale the side of the building. She landed lightly on her feet on the rooftop. Better to make the rest of the journey up here, unseen, where she wouldn’t be tempted to tell Dragons or Tigers, or anyone else who pissed her off, what she really thought of them.

  Her sister and grandmother had taught her to make her way around downtown below ground, in the secret tunnels that could take you to nearly any place in the city you needed to go. Most establishments didn’t even know of the secret trap doors, but Hana prided herself on knowing exactly where to look. Her success rate so far was pretty damn good, if she did say so herself.

  But the phoenix locked away deep inside her despaired a little more each time Hana ran the tunnels. She couldn’t bear them tonight.

  Readjusting the warm flask inside her jacket, she pushed down the guilt that assailed her. Between the grunt-work she did that allowed her access to the Justice Precinct and the secret, hidden work she did to protect the remnants of her Clan, she couldn’t really afford the time she was taking right now.

  She usually allowed herself this personal indulgence once a month only. Her grandmother had been a fierce Phoenix Clan rebel in her day. Hana needed this trip to remind her what Gran had fought for. To remind herself she fought to prevent what had happened to her sister from happening to anyone else. Why Hana walked the jagged—and illegal—line that would land her in a whole world of hurt if she was found out.

  Despite what the green dragon-scale band stinging her upper arm communicated, Hana had the heart of a Phoenix. She just had to keep it hidden down in the secret, hidden depths of her soul if she wanted to survive.

  But she’d never give up the cause, no matter how dangerous, how much she put herself at risk. She was a soldier, and soldiers made sacrifices. Her grandmother had taught her that.

  From the rooftop she could see the twists and turns of laneways filled with hawker markets, shopfronts, gambling dens, and fight clubs. Smoke curled from chimneys and steam played off the river that cut their city in half. The Indigo.

  Hana breathed in the scent of evening air, mixed with the familiar tang of the hawker markets, smoke from the cooking fires and the sweet scent of illicit substances being smoked in the gambling dens and fight clubs.

  The white metal sword, the symbol of the Tigers, was nowhere to be seen, but Hana felt it all the same—the creeping corrupt presence in her city.

  And there, to the west, the rubble of Phoenix Quarter, which had been destroyed in an ancient battle centuries ago. The Tiger Queen had ordered the rambling ruins to be kept as a reminder and a warning against the existence of her people. She shut down the sorrow that sang in her heart.

  Hana needed this. The rush of air past her face, the heart-stopping fear of leaping from one shingled roof top to another, the puzzle of finding a hand hold here, a foothold there, the scream of her muscles as she pulled herself around an ashy chimney. It all kept her body and mind busy. It was the one time she truly felt free.

  Chapter 4

  Hana had to work hard to control her instincts on the rooftops. It felt too much like what she imagined it would be to fly. Flying made her think of the Phoenix, made her shoulder blades tingle with the imprint of the impossible, an invisible phoenix blasting from the pale skin of her back in bold red and gold. Or maybe it was because of where she was headed, who she was going to see.

  Forbidden, forbidden.

  The words beat like a drum in her blood. On the outskirts of the city, the land crept upwards and she followed the curve, like the coils of a snake, staying on the rooftops as long as she coul
d. The last leg she made through a forest of silver birch that gave way to ancient giants of the forest… the pines.

  Here, she was in the shadow of the Tiger stronghold, the high ground looking back over the city, holding strategic advantage. From here, the Tigers could survey the kingdom they crushed under their heels, and make sure it stayed there.

  The sharp edges of modern architecture, a monstrosity of glass and steel, threw a shadow over the cemetery that inched up the steep incline, meeting the east edge of the Tiger’s compound wall. The Jade Palace cast a shadow not only over Hana’s body, but her soul as well.

  The phoenix rattled in its cage deep in her being. She used that strength, the bird that sung in an eternal night before a dawn it still longed for. Still held out hope for. It warmed her, gave her courage to climb a pine on the edge of Tiger territory.

  She settled into a branch midway up the tree, making sure she was covered by the thick spruce and hidden from keen Tiger eyes. She’d chosen a tree as close to the burnished gold mausoleum as she dared and left her hood up, even though Gran would have hated that.

  She brought out the thermos from within her jacket, nestled the steaming noodles into the cradle of the tree. Her grandmother’s favourite meal.

  “I’m sorry, Gran,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I can’t leave these for you, but it’s your favourite. With the special shrimp and egg. I’m even learning to make the egg net the way you showed me.”

  Hana had spent many hours in her grandma’s company, learning to cook in the family tradition. Hana’s parents had died early in her life, the way many hidden Phoenix did when they were denied allegiance to their Clan, and so her grandma had raised her.

  The scent of chilli, lemongrass and ginger steamed from the thermos and Hana closed her eyes, remembering her gran’s bright green eyes, crinkled in the corners, as Hana cursed and danced around the kitchen as yet another batch of dumplings stuck to the pan.

  The hours she’d watched her gran’s deft fingers fold dumpling wrappers and mince fillings and listened to her romantic stories about the glory days of the Phoenix Fae. Then the tragic tale of obsession, love lost, and a fall from glory so spectacular that it echoed down the centuries until the present-day Phoenix were nothing but a maligned and feared Clan that hung onto existence by the ragged nails of their fingertips.

  A Clan who had forgotten who they were, had lost the power of the essence of the Phoenix.

  To practice or identify as Phoenix was outlawed. Hana did not dare get any closer to the gold mausoleum. She sent a thought to her sister, whose ashes had scattered to the wind as the call of the Phoenix had turned her insane, causing her to leap to a fiery death. Hana liked to think her spirit remained here with her gran as well, since there’d been nothing left of her for them to cherish.

  So, Hana honoured her family from afar. Anything else would breach the conditions of her existence. As far as the other Clans were concerned, the Phoenix were too dangerous to exist in this world, and the faster they sprinted towards the cliff of extinction, the better.

  Chapter 5

  Her phoenix felt calmer inside her after Hana’s jaunt on the rooftops, her visit to Gran, and she made her way back downtown to Quan’s den.

  Everyone was welcome in Quan’s club, no matter what their bloodline, so long as they fought by Quan’s code. No weapons, no vendettas, no gambling. And drinking only from his bar.

  Quan was one of her gran’s oldest friends—a Turtle, which kept him off the Tiger’s radar—and he and Hana were pretty much all that was left of the Phoenix underground. He never acknowledged what he must know Hana was, but if there was a kid who needed help, and Hana could provide that help, he would subtly let her know.

  He looked up from ringside where he was wrapping a young man’s hands, covering the bruised knuckles and scars.

  “What’s it to be tonight, Ba-nana?” Hana grimaced at the nickname. “A few whiskies with an old man, or a round in the ring with the young ones?”

  He tipped his head meaningfully towards the young boy who glared at Hana with hazel green eyes from under a mop of flaming red hair.

  “I’ll take him on, Quan.”

  “Well...good luck to you then, good luck to you both,” he murmured.

  “Give me five,” she said to the glowering young man as she headed to her locker in the back room to quickly change and wrap her own hands.

  They looked in little better shape than the boy’s, with old scars and new bruises from her week on the beat. She came here most nights after her shift to help Quan with the kids, and to help herself. Fighting visible enemies rather than her invisible demons felt nice for a change.

  She faced the boy in the ring, and they both circled around each other, testing and getting to know the other’s tells. He came in hot and raging, and she dodged out of his way with light steps. She thrust a turning back kick his way and he blocked it with a deft swipe of his arm across his body. He was quick.

  She grinned at him. He glowered back. She tried out a few jumping roundhouse kicks, scraping by his red hair and blocked his jabs as he got in close. She landed an uppercut on his chin and saw the respect begin to glimmer along with the glower in his eyes.

  After a few rounds they were both out of breath, and Hana thought she’d turned down the rage in his eyes a few degrees. Satisfied with that, she tapped her hands to his and bowed.

  “You come train with Quan every day,” she puffed. “You’ll have a mean side-kick on you in no time.”

  The boy flushed and glowered.

  Couldn’t win them all. Quan grinned at her from behind his bar.

  “Poncoyo, stop tormenting the young one and come over here. This drink has your name on it.”

  Hana hated the taste of whisky, but she downed the shot in one go. This was part of their routine. They sat in silence as Quan poured them both another finger of his choice of poison. The stragglers slowly cleared out, until just Hana and Quan remained.

  “So that boy you set me on?”

  “I’m watching him. Dragged him in from Nell’s Bar, about to go a few rounds with a Dragon Clan heavy.”

  Hana whistled.

  “Any sign of…fire?” She kept her voice low.

  Sometimes when kids hit their late teens, when younglings traditionally hit Clan maturity, even when they’d lived their lives as Dragons, Tigers, Turtles or Snakes, they showed signs of having Phoenix blood somewhere in their past. The consequences could be disastrous.

  They started flaunting the rule of the Tigers, challenging authority, getting into fights, committing crimes, going crazy.

  She winced, remembering Lylah, her sister, leaping from a building, wings of flames all around her. That had happened years ago, but Hana carried that loss with her as a scar against her heart each day. Tried to use the anger, the rage, and channel it towards saving others the way she hadn’t been able to save Lylah.

  If Quan and Hana could get to them, sometimes they could re-direct that energy into the fighting dens. If they could capture their trust for long enough, sometimes they could explain what was happening to them. Help them re-integrate into society. Keep their heritage secret, keep them safe.

  Sometimes.

  “I sense it on him, strongly.”

  Hana swore. “Do you think he’ll come back tomorrow?”

  Quan grinned. “He seemed to like having his ass whipped by an older, attractive Dragon Clan lady, so I don’t see why not.”

  Hana scowled and swung her shot glass playfully at Quan’s head.

  “Any other news, Quan?”

  “Your forked-tongue friend left a message for you.”

  “Oh?”

  “Mmm. He said to meet you at the usual place. Nine pm.”

  Chapter 6

  She took out the black, slinky dress and the platform, strappy sandals that were the closest to high heels she could bring herself to slip into. The outfit and several others like it hung in the lockers that she rented from Quan at the den for occasions
just like this. With smoky kohl eyes and a red biker jacket, her ebony hair falling in long, curling waves, she looked nothing like the Hana who worked justice. No severely pulled back hair, no plain blue uniform in sight.

  This Hana indulged in espresso martinis and was propping up the bar at Korn nightclub when Silver walked in and slipped into a barstool next to her. Hana inhaled coffee as though it were essential to life, so the martini wasn’t too much of a stretch. Tonight, she didn’t bother pretending to sip. For a few hours maybe she’d just be a girl in bar, with not a care in the world apart from where the next martini was coming from.

  After she’d dealt with Silver.

  Silver, with the forked tongue of his reptile Clan, whispered truths and untruths into ears for a suitable price. He had a way with gossip, and an uncanny knack for knowing exactly where to be, who to be with, to overhear snatches of conversation that someone would pay for. In the complex underworld of Jade City, it was a knack the Clans would pay top dollar for. Hana traded Silver in his favourite currency. Secrets. She threw Silver a bone when it came to news from the Justice Precinct that impacted the Snake Clan.

  “So, my pretty,” he gestured to the blush of red high on her cheekbones, courtesy of the young man she’d gone a few rounds with. “What trouble has Miss Poncoyo gotten herself into this time?”

  She rolled her eyes as Silver’s danced with mischief. He liked to pretend they were friends. Whatever kept him coming back to Hana with solid intel was okay with her.

  “I can take care of myself, Silver, you know that.” She feigned boredom, circling her finger around the edge of the martini glass. “So, what’s up?”

  Silver twiddled with the goatee that shimmered with gold, then bronze, then seemed to settle on a searing white. He was thinking.

  “This one’s going to cost you big, darling”.

  “That good?”

  She leaned in, inviting his confidence.

  He brushed the hair away from her shoulder, making a show of murmuring in her ear.