The Kip Keene Box Set: Books 1, 2 & 3

by Nicholas Erik

  Keene stared at the man, skin and bones and in bad shape, even for a vagrant. The old man clutched his ratty blanket to his chest, but this appeared to be a general tic rather than any fear he had of Keene or Strike.

  “The port,” Keene said. “Where’s the port?”

  “Food,” the man said.

  “It’s no use,” Keene said, turning to Strike. “He wants food.”

  “Give him your shirt.”

  “It’s my only shirt.”

  “You can die in that shirt, when we stay here forever and get malaria. Or mistaken for the British. Or get a scratch and have your foot fall—”

  “Fine.” Keene turned back to the man, who seemed to have patches of gray hair growing everywhere on his head. “No food or money. All I have is this shirt.”

  The man cocked his head, like he wasn’t entirely sure this was a good deal.

  “Good for the summer. Very cool.” Keene took off the white t-shirt and held it out. The man stared down at his own threadbare clothing, then snatched the garment away. “Port?”

  He didn’t say anything, just pointed down the road and then made a quick gesture to the left.

  “Down the road and make a left,” Keene said. “Opium?”

  The man nodded his head and pulled the shirt over his existing garments. Keene gave him a short bow and began walking in the direction. Given the summer heat, having his chest exposed wasn’t all bad. Although it did increase the already considerable number of looks he received from passerby.

  “I think they’re jealous,” Strike said as they hung a hard left at the corner. “Clearly been hitting the iron a lot.”

  “Whatever, white cow,” Keene said, rubbing his arms. The sensation of being watched and talked about in hushed voices gave him an uneasy reminder of his initial days on Earth.

  “I am the one with the gun, you know.”

  “Duly noted.” Far ahead, the road opened up into a wider avenue, at the end of which sat the ocean. Keene accelerated into a brisk walk. “You figure we’ll find something up here?”

  “You always find something at the docks,” Strike said. “Always.”

  Keene got the impression that she was far away, reliving incidents and memories far in the past—or, as fate would have it, the future.

  He cocked his head at the endless triangular roofs going on and on for what seemed like all of time. But someday, not all that long from now, they’d be replaced, renovated, the shops advertising televisions and sodas and cell phones, satellite dishes mounted to the roofs that still remained.

  The passage of time was always a lot to take in.

  More so when it passed in a blink, without a moment in between to process the weight of it all.

  After some inquiries around the docks—which involved Strike taking point and approaching rough looking men of all ethnicities, sizes and temperaments, usually before Keene could suggest otherwise—the pair discovered that a group of Ching Shih’s captains were holed up in an opium den known as the Jade Dragon located towards the end of the docks.

  They’d been warned away from the Jade Dragon by many of the tough men, who had recommended other, friendlier establishments.

  “They really weren’t kidding,” Keene said as he ducked into an alleyway right before the pier ended abruptly, “this is like the end of the earth.”

  He stepped over a carcass of a cat being picked at by other cats, holding his breath and closing his eyes.

  A mix of smoke and shouts filtered out from a doorway in the middle of the alley. The tiny street, little wider than his shoulders, dead-ended without any other entryways or signs of life.

  When Keene got closer, he realized that it wasn’t a doorway at all, but a black silk curtain, faded from the salty air. He brushed it aside and found himself staring into the chest of a very large man, who looked unamused by Keene’s presence.

  “Members only.” The bouncer said in a gruff voice, arms crossed. “This is not the place for you. Or women.”

  He gave a derisive nod toward Strike. In the background, men sang and fought and drank. Another silk curtain hanging behind the great man’s treelike chest blocked the scene, and Keene imagined the situation to be boisterous and merry.

  A bottle shattered, and a man hurled a string of expletives. A pistol shot rang out, and Keene ducked to the ground.

  While Strike still had a gun, and two clips of ammunition, it sounded like the den was thick with thieves—well-armed and rowdy ones, at that. Guns first, questions later was not going to be a workable strategy.

  The bouncer stood his ground, looking down upon Keene with a mix of amusement and disrespect. Without turning around, the massive man yelled for the rest of them to cut it out. The bickering and fighting tapered off to normal levels of drunken disagreeability.

  Keene rose to his feet, brushing himself off. “I thought I, uh, saw a gold coin down there.”

  “Coward.”

  “I’m here for a meeting,” Keene said. “They’re expecting me.”

  “You?” The bouncer snorted. “No.”

  “You don’t even know who I am,” Keene said.

  “Exactly.”

  Keene considered that, perhaps, the man had a point. Stepping back, he reevaluated his options. A meeting was about to transpire, and he needed to find out what they were going to discuss. Retreat wasn’t going to help him get back to the twenty-first century.

  Or stop Lorelei.

  “I’m Captain John Reynolds’ man, come for an update on the situation at the fishing village.” Keene made his voice stern, his lips set in a serious expression. “And I’ve brought the woman to gamble.”

  “Gambling’s too high stakes for you.” Although the bouncer’s posture had softened somewhat at the mention of Reynolds.

  Keene had decided he’d had enough. He stepped forward, his head almost pushing into the larger man’s chest. He poked the man with his finger and said, “The three outsiders that arrived on shore threaten the deal Ching Shih and my employer have worked so hard to broker.”

  “And what deal is that?”

  “I do not discuss official business with men whose arms are bigger than their brains,” Keene said. “And one more thing. I will gamble, and the woman is my buy-in.”

  “Cash only.”

  “Look,” Keene said. “I’m trying to win what I have back. See? I gambled away my clothes.” He pounded his bare chest to signify what a degenerate he was, hoping that it would convince the bouncer that an easy mark had wandered to the door.

  “The woman,” the guard said after a moment of thought. “She is one of the three who escaped the Red Flag Fleet?”

  Keene saw his in to the meeting—how he could seal that he was, in fact, Captain Reynolds’ “man.”

  “Yes, she’s worth a lot,” Keene said, the gears beginning to turn. “Very good, you know.” He gave the man a wink and a nudge.

  “Looks better for work than for whoring.”

  “She can dig ditches with the best of them,” Keene said.

  “And what became of Lao, Ren and Lu?

  Shit. Keene thought on his feet. “Who?”

  “Our brothers tracking the three invaders.”

  “I’m not good with names.” Keene gave him a dismissive wave. “They all died. Bad water.”

  This took the bouncer off-guard.

  “I forgot to mention,” Keene said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. He stood on his toes and leaned in as close as he could to whisper, “She’s a princess. She adores pirates.”

  The bouncer gave Keene an odd glance, pushing him away before he called over his shoulder to the crew. A series of nodding affirmations and surprisingly rational voices came back. The bouncer considered the counsel, then stepped aside, gesturing to Keene that he could enter.

  He patted Keene down and found no
thing before giving Strike a shrugging nod, like she posed little threat. Keene grabbed Strike’s hand and stepped forward, ready to brush aside the curtain. She resisted, planting her boots in the alley’s cracked bricks.

  “What’d you tell them,” she said, trying to shake loose from his grip. “Let go.”

  “You’re my prisoner. From our ship. They think I’m with Reynolds, and I’m giving them an update on, well us. And you’re a pirate loving princess.”

  “What?”

  “Just go with it,” Keene said. “At least until we find out about this deal.”

  “Do you even know what you’re playing?”

  “Is there a problem?” The guard said. “Your princess is very demanding.”

  “That’s how princesses are,” Keene said with a grim smile. In English, he said to Strike, “Come on.”

  “Like hell.”

  “I told them you’re a princess. They’re all very excited.”

  “To be their whore? No.”

  “Don’t worry, they’re not interested.”

  “What do you mean, not interested?” Strike stopped trying to run down the alley, and glared at the bouncer. “Tell me what that means.”

  She tried to punch the man, but he caught it with a bemused look.

  “I guess either everyone here is gay or Ching Shih has her men trained real well,” Keene said.

  Strike got control of her other arm back and huffed. “Fine.”

  Keene nodded at the bouncer, and finally he lifted the curtain aside. Plumes of thick smoke with a distinct floral aroma wafted past Keene’s head as he walked inside the murkily lit den.

  Men lounged on cushions on the floor, smoking from pipes and staring at the ceiling. At the far end of the den, in a corner surrounded by standing men, came all the action and noise.

  Keene tugged Strike along through the misty haze.

  “You owe me for this shit,” she said as they came closer, the sounds of intoxicated revelry growing louder. “I swear to God, you owe me a lot.”

  “Don’t worry,” Keene said. “I’m a pro.”

  He stepped up to the table, edging in between two smallish pirates, and smiled at the group of men seated at the table. Keene saw dice and cards. That was a good start. Most of those games were quick to pick up, or could at least be cheated.

  “I’m Reynolds’ man. There’s a meeting.”

  “Your Chinese is impeccable, Mister…” the apparent leader of the group said.

  “Keene.” He figured that his reputation did not precede him in this time.

  “Business is no fun. First you play.” The rest of the group looked up at the bold foreigner, halting their game. “The shirtless man wishes to play for the girl?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you have already lost your shirt.” Laughs from the assortment of rough characters and bandits.

  “Then it should be an easy decision for you,” Keene said.

  “And if you win?”

  “We have our meeting. And perhaps you tell me what my boss Mr. Reynolds is up to.” Keene allowed a mischievous twinkle to set into his eyes.

  “That is quite the order.”

  “She’s a princess,” Keene said, pushing Strike into the dim light so the men could get a look. “Smart, hard worker. Crafty like you wouldn’t believe. The deal is fair.”

  “No princess I’ve ever heard of,” the leader said, and the men laughed. “But okay. We will play your game.” He beckoned towards a young boy, no older than fifteen, from the corner. The gangly youth almost tripped on himself in his hurry to heed the leader’s beck and call.

  The head of the group whispered into the boy’s ear. Then he patted him on the back, and the lanky runner set off, bursting out of the Jade Dragon with astounding speed.

  “I have sent for confirmation that you are who you say. One can never be too careful.”

  “Of course.”

  “You understand that three men of mine were supposed to come tonight to this very meeting. Instead, I see you in their stead, and you proclaim they are dead.”

  “That is the truth.” Well, at least part of it.

  “One does not survive in this world long without proof, Mr. Keene.”

  It was now clear to Keene that this man neither fully believed his story nor had any intention of giving him any sort of useful information. For now, however, they would play—until he could confirm that Keene was, in fact, a liar. Killing a man in the employ of Captain Reynolds, who had important dealings with Ching Shih, was an untenable risk.

  “Until then, we shall play and enjoy ourselves. I am sure it is nothing but a formality.”

  The leader said it with a glint in his eyes. He ushered away the rest of the table, amidst grunts of protest, sending one man into the back to procure a different game.

  This pirate, whose beard reached almost his knees, disappeared behind a silk gold curtain into the back of the den. From what Keene could ascertain, it was the only other room than this main area in the entire building.

  Keene waited, trying to keep an easy smile pasted on his face while the game was retrieved. His thoughts whirled, wondering how he had gotten into this strange place filled with pirates. Then again, if he’d had any other options, such a move wouldn’t have been his first choice.

  Or even his next to last one.

  His eyes burned from the density of the opium smoke. The bearded man returned bearing a plain wooden box, which he handed to the leader.

  “Sit,” the leader said. “I am Lao.” He beckoned for two other men to also take a seat at the table, so that four total players would engage in the game.

  “Keene, as I said before.”

  “Yes, I remember.” Lao shuffled the pieces across the black wooden tabletop. “I do not often forget.”

  “Great.”

  “I will play,” Lao said a dramatic voice, “and I will win.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Tell me, Keene,” the leader said, undoing the latches of the box and shaking out the contents on the table. “How is your mahjong?”

  Keene stared at the tiles, a sinking sensation knotting his stomach. With a weak smile, he said, “Excellent.”

  “Good. For no one in Guangzhou has beaten me in four years.”

  Keene gulped and nodded. Mahjong. He might’ve heard the word once before. But the rules of the game were a mystery that rivaled the intricacies of time travel, fate and the nature of existence. Strike laid a hand on his shoulder and whispered in his ear.

  “Is she protesting?”

  Keene gave a sigh of relief. “No.”

  “Then may we begin?”

  “If it’s all right with you,” Keene said, “I’ll have her play in my stead.”

  A chorus of laughter erupted, then Lao said, “Certainly. Under one condition.”

  “Name it.”

  “She must draw opium into her lungs,” Lao said, procuring a ceramic smoking apparatus shaped like a dragon, “as a substitution penalty.”

  Strike slid into the chair, grabbed the pipe and used a nearby candle to light the sticky brown substance inside. She held her breath for a long time, the group’s eyes growing wide first with curiosity, then with a grudging respect.

  She exhaled, her eyelids drooping slightly, and said, “Let’s get on with it.”

  The tiles clacked across the rickety table as Lao dealt them out, Strike swaying slightly in her chair as the game began.

  18 | Interruption

  Keene watched the flurry of tiles being played and drawn and piled and discarded, entirely unsure whether Strike was emerging victorious or being crushed by Lao, self-proclaimed mahjong expert of the Guangzhou docks.

  An interruption from the mountainous bouncer halted the game, Lao standing abruptly and rushing off to the entrance. The other men
drank and smoked, murmuring amongst themselves about the suddenness of Lao’s departure.

  Keene took the opportunity to speak with Strike, crouching on the ground and leaning close to her ear. Not that anyone could understand him, anyway. But he didn’t want to take the chance.

  “How’s it looking?”

  “Warm. Very warm.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “This is some good dope.”

  Keene nodded, looking at her pinned eyes. The tiny black specks reflected the dim torches. He watched as she again took the pipe and lit it with unconscious familiarity. A cloud of smoke ejected from her lungs and hovered in the air.

  She held out her arm and offered it to Keene. “Here.”

  “I’m good, thanks.”

  “It feels good, Keene. Keeney. Captain Keene. The Keenemaster—”

  “I bet it does.” He warily watched her head nod back and forth, bouncing to an imagined beat only she could hear.

  “More for me. Chasing the dragon.” She gave the rest of the men an easy smile, and they grinned back, junkie companions forged in a fire of refined poppies and games of chance. Strike’s head drooped lower and lower, her eyelids struggling to resist gravity as the pipe made round after round.

  Keene shook her. “Strike.”

  “Sleepy. I want to sleep under the stars.”

  “You’re torched.” He tried to grab the pipe from her, but her dull eyes snapped to attention, the blue within shining fiercely. She struggled against his grip, batting his hand away.

  “It’s the cover,” she said, the first semi-lucid statement she’d uttered in the past ten minutes.

  “We’re not going to make it out of here, you keep this up.” Keene began to see that his own chances of getting any information were dwindling. His eyes scanned the misty den, past the bearded dope fiends, faded cushions and tumbling of dice.

  The backroom appeared completely unguarded.

  Keene glanced over his shoulder. Lao and the guard were deep in conversation, the silk curtain concealing a third party who apparently held enough clout to interrupt the flow of the game. He strained to hear, but the banter at the mahjong table, lax and droning, made it impossible.