by Joanne Pence
But if they stayed, would they be picked off one-by-one as the bodyguards had been? He simply didn’t know. The hour was late, but no one felt sleepy. The people no longer with them—Taft, Carter, and Renata—weighed too heavily on everyone’s minds.
“You know,” Jianjun mused, “all that’s going on here is oddly familiar. I realized it when I listened to Hank and Stuart’s story along with the creepy Chinese word, yaojing. A yaojing can be a plain old everyday demon, or it can mean a seductive female demon, a Chinese version of a succubus.”
A succubus, Michael thought, could explain what he had encountered as Irina. “What do you mean that it’s familiar?”
“There’s a well-known Chinese story called Fengshen Yanyi. It’s translated as Investiture of the Gods, although I don’t know what ‘investiture’ means.”
“It’s a ceremony to give an honor or a rank to someone,” Kira explained.
“Ah! Okay, that fits. Anyway, it’s a horrible story, centuries old. Lots of torture and mutilation, kinky sex, you name it. Real ugly stuff. These days, you can find it as an anime and also as a really popular TV series in China.”
“I’ve watched that story on TV,” Az’har said. “It’s good. It’s what you Americans would call cool.” He smiled broadly and his sisters giggled.
“Renata once mentioned the story to me,” Michael said softly, struck again at the senselessness of her death. “She never explained it.”
“So,” Kira said, facing Jianjun, “are you going to tell us the story or just tease us about it?”
“Especially the kinky sex part,” Hank said, then guffawed. No one joined him.
“What’s interesting about it,” Jianjun said, “is that for years, probably centuries, people thought it was pure fantasy. But now, there’s some thought that it contains a lot of history—except the part about demons, of course. Anyway, it’s the story of the last emperor of the Shang dynasty, King Zhou Xin, who lived more than a thousand years before Christ, long before Buddha, and even Lao Tzu.”
Jianjun told them the story of the king who insulted a goddess and how she sent three demons—a Thousand Year Vixen, a Nine-Headed Pheasant, and a Jade Pipa to destroy him and his dynasty. Jianjun didn’t give them graphic detail about the horrible tortures dreamed up by the fox-demon who came to be called Daji, but he didn’t need to. Their imaginations filled in the blanks. “Daji was so cruel,” Jianjun concluded, “that not even the goddess Nüwa could stomach her or her two fellow demons, so she put them in a pearl and banished them to somewhere around what we call Inner Mongolia, which was considered the outer darkness to the Chinese people. There they remained for all eternity. And that, as far as I know, is the end of the story.”
The listeners remained quiet as they pondered all he had said.
“We came across the story in our studies of the pearl,” Stuart said. “Some say the pearl Marco Polo stole is the one the goddess put the three demons in.”
“It does fit,” Michael agreed.
“It’s just an old fantasy,” Hank insisted. “I’m sure there are lots of similar ones in every culture.”
“Well, I’ve never come across any story like that in my studies. It would be a Freudian psychiatrist’s wet dream to analyze,” Kira said with a nervous chuckle. “I wonder if any of us will be able to sleep tonight.”
“It’s just a TV show,” Az’har told her.
“Is it?” Paziliya murmured, her eyes wide.
As night fell, and the constant rain continued, nerves grew increasingly short. Everyone made sure they were always in each other’s sight, even to use the outhouse. Food was now down to a few power bars and the soup left in the church that morning.
Finally, hungry, they ate the cold soup and drank the cold tea, saving their power bars for an emergency.
Eventually, everyone settled down to sleep, deciding that Jianjun, then Michael, then Polk, would keep watch. They rigged up a string from the porch indoors and attached it to whatever metal they could get their hands on. If anything at all happened outside, the watcher could pull the string and alert everyone inside.
Michael woke up before he needed to, aware of Kira’s tossing and turning in her sleep. Thoughts of fox-demons from Jianjun’s story and how a fox tried to bite her in Florence played in his mind. He put on his heavy jacket and went outside to relieve Jianjun. “Any problems?” he asked.
“No. You don’t need to be here yet,” Jianjun said. “You can get a little more sleep.”
He sat beside Jianjun on the porch. “It’s okay. Besides, Kira’s tossing and turning—a nightmare, I suspect. Things seem to have progressed between you two. You should go to her.”
Jianjun sucked in his breath, but didn’t answer.
Michael waited, then said, “You never complain, but I get the feeling things aren’t great at home.”
Jianjun nodded. “True, and I’ll admit that I really like Kira. A lot. But I’m not fooling myself. If it wasn’t for this crazy situation, she wouldn’t look twice at me.”
Michael didn’t like his friend putting himself down. “You can’t be sure of that.”
“Yeah. I can. But it’s nice to be someone’s hero for once in my life.” He gave a wry smile.
Michael gripped Jianjun’s shoulder. “Don’t go selling yourself short. Get in there, put your arms around her, and let her know you’ll keep her safe.”
Jianjun grinned. “If I’m getting advice about my love life from you, bro, I’m really in a sorry state.”
“So true,” Michael said with a chuckle as Jianjun went back inside.
Not five minutes later, Dilnar came out, carrying a pillow and a blanket. “I saw Jianjun come in, and knew you were alone out here,” she said. “It’s not safe.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.
She placed the pillow beside him and sat. “I want to help.”
“Your brother will be angry.”
“No, he will say I’m brave, guarding him and my sister as they sleep.” She yawned, lay her head on the pillow then turned on her side, her back against his hip and leg, and shut her eyes. “My eyes are tired, but I’m listening for danger.”
“I’m sure you are,” Michael whispered.
He knew better than to trust her, but at the same time, he didn’t mind her company, even if she was already asleep.
About an hour later, he was startled by the sound of the church door opening.
Stuart, coatless and barefoot, walked out the door, across the porch and out into the night. He was sleep walking or under control of some evil force. Michael watched with almost a sense of awe as Stuart headed out the gate.
Michael quietly woke Dilnar. “Go inside,” he whispered.
“What?” she reached for him.
He helped her sit up, but saw how sleepy she was. “Go inside.” With that, he quietly left her and followed Stuart, his skin prickling. He heard a strange sound, one that wasn’t the wind or the rain which had lessened a bit, but sounded like footsteps. Was that foolish girl following him out here? He turned to order her inside, but she wasn’t there. No one was. Moonlight shone through a break in the clouds.
When he turned back, Stuart’s pace had quickened. A ghostly mist, rolling and roiling in the wind, floated towards Stuart.
“Stuart!” Michael tried to run, but the wind held him back even as it swallowed his voice. “Stuart, stop!”
Stuart’s step slowed.
“Come back here!” Michael shouted. He somehow managed to move forward, but his feet stuck to the mud with each step as if he were wading through molasses.
A figure approached the sleep-walker. It was the Chinese woman Michael had seen in Kashgar—the one who so strangely stared at him across the market square. Now, she moved closer to Stuart. Her teeth turned to fangs and her fingers into talons.
“Stuart! Wake up!” Michael yelled as loud and forcefully as he could.
The woman vanished.
Stuart’s eyes opened, and he stumbled back
wards until he fell in the mud. He sat there, dazed, until Michael reached him and helped him stand. “You were walking in your sleep. You need to get back inside, you’re freezing out here.”
“I saw her.” Stuart’s voice quaked in fear as his fingers gripped Michael’s arms. “I saw Daji. She’s here.”
Chapter 45
A scream ripped through the church.
Everyone immediately sat up. None of them slept well or deeply after waking in the middle of the night when Michael and Stuart returned to the church. Michael told of Stuart’s sleepwalking and that Stuart claimed he saw “Daji”—the name of the demon in Jianjun’s tale.
“It was a nightmare,” Kira had exclaimed, and glowered at Jianjun. “Sleepwalking and a nightmare caused by a certain someone’s scary tale.” Despite her statement, the others decided that, from that time forward, no one should venture outside alone, and that Polk would take his watch indoors, seated at a window.
“Where’s Polk?” Michael asked.
Everyone, including Stuart and the Uyghur performers, went out to look for him. The storm had again grown fierce. All made sure they stayed in sight of at least one other person.
Some twenty minutes later, Az’har and his sisters called out. Michael was first to reach them. Polk lay at the bottom of a rain-soaked pit, face down in the water. Snakes, each a foot long with black and yellow bands, crawled over him. Everyone had been near that spot on previous days, and no pit had been there.
Michael saw Az’har’s arm around Paziliya, but Dilnar stood alone. She was shaking like a leaf, her face tear-stained and etched with horror. He went to her side. “It’s all right,” he said. “We’ll protect you.”
She wiped her eyes. “I know,” she whispered. “I know you will.”
“Good God!” Jianjun cried when he reached the pit. “That’s one of the tortures from Fengshen Yanyi, the book I told you about.”
“It’s the work of the demons,” Hank said. “They’ve gotten rid of the men I hired to defend us.”
“What if we’re next?” Stuart’s eyes were round with fear.
“I can’t take it,” Kira whispered. “Whatever is behind this is horrible. If that means they’re demons, fine. I’ll believe it, if that’ll make them stop. I don’t care anymore. I just want it to stop!” All pretense of the rational psychologist was gone, and she folded her arms, rocking slightly.
“I agree,” Hank said. “I’m getting the hell out of here, whatever it takes.”
“Me, too,” Stuart said.
As they headed towards the vehicles, the others joined them. Kira, as one of the lightest of the group, got into Michael’s van and started it. She slowly stepped on the gas while everyone else pushed, even the Uyghur performers who still looked in shock from finding Polk’s body. But the truck scarcely budged. It was as if something was holding it back, pushing in the opposite direction. They packed gravel under the tires, but it still wouldn’t move. The more the wheels spun, the deeper the ruts grew. The same happened when they tried to free Hank’s truck from the mud.
Dejected, they went back to the church. Hank lit the candles on the low table. The Uyghurs, as if sensing the mood of the group, took out their instruments and played a slow, haunting tune. No one said aloud what they all knew—that something demonic held them there.
“Why don’t we send the three of them down to the village to buy food,” Hank suggested, nodding towards the musicians. “They’re Uyghurs. The villagers won’t hurt them.”
“How can you say that? The villagers saw them with us,” Michael said. “They’re in as much danger as we are.”
“We’ve got to try something!” Hank yelled. “We can’t just sit here and starve. We’ve got weapons. Let’s use them!”
“Are you crazy?” Jianjun scoffed. “We can’t hold off a whole village.”
“Stop,” Kira said. “It does no good to argue with each other.”
Michael leaned back against the church wall and listened to the music. It was the only bit of comfort in this otherwise miserable spot. From time to time, Dilnar put down her instrument and danced, at other times Paziliya did, and once both together while Az’har alone played. The dances were slow, delicate, seductive, and all of them watched. But then the incessant pounding of the rain on the roof and the thundering of the wind through the eaves grew so loud, they drowned out the music, and the Uyghurs stopped their performance.
Outdoors, the midday sky had turned dark. With that darkness, Michael felt a creeping uneasiness and dread descend over him, a dread that seemed to come from some deep, ancestral terror. He felt alone in an unknown world, a place held by the dwellers of the mist, a place where demons lurked.
“They’re here,” Hank whispered. “I know that they are, and as much as I believe I have protected myself from them, they know me. I can feel them.”
“Don’t let them pull your mind away from this world,” Michael said. “Control your thoughts. If you give in to them, it’ll be all over for you. This place, all that’s happening is not a part of our usual world. When a man in the village, Hajji, described this monastery to me, what he described is not what we see here. This world is illusion, but that doesn’t make it any less deadly.”
“How do you know this?” Stuart asked.
“How else did a Nestorian monk find me in the freezing mountains of Kyrgyzstan? How did I find a monastery which no longer exists? Why did monks feed and welcome me when I arrived here? The monks are trying to help secure the philosopher’s stone. That’s the only explanation. But the demons want it as well. Brother Sirom didn’t make a mistake sending us here,” Michael said. “He knew this is the spot where our confrontation must happen. But you’re correct to say the demons are already with us.”
“God, I hope not,” Jianjun murmured.
“I had hoped for some sign, something that would tell me where to put the stone, a sign that would tell me it was safe to leave it here,” Michael said. “But there’s nothing. I believe that’s why we have to confront the demons ourselves.”
“Confront them?” Hank shouted. “You’re crazy! We’ve spent our lives trying to stay clear of them.”
“But, as you said, they’re here now,” Michael said. “You know it as well as I do.”
“What I know is this,” Hank said, drawing a handgun and pointing it at Michael. “Give me the pearl. I’m leaving here if I have to walk. I’m heading to a place I know I’ll be safe.”
Stuart picked up one of the rifles and stood beside Hank, pointed the rifle at Michael and the others.
“Hank, Stu—don’t be crazy,” Jianjun shouted.
Michael looked at the two men holding firearms on him. He should have known. Their auras were black now.
“We want the stone,” Stuart yelled. “Give it over, or we’ll shoot and take it anyway!”
Michael faced Stuart. Something bothered him, but he had no choice except to play it out. “So he’ll turn you into a killer, too, is that it?”
Stuart looked shocked. “What are you saying?”
“You got more than you bargained for in all this, didn’t you, Stu?” Michael asked. “But so did the men who were following me in Florence and Rome, and then ended up dead. Why did you kill them, Hank?”
Stuart gaped at Hank.
“He’s wrong!” Hank bellowed. “I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about. I haven’t killed anybody!”
“Your private eyes, or whatever they were, are dead, Hank,” Michael said calmly. “They were shot as soon as they left the police station.”
“What? Nonsense! No! I …” He looked at Stuart, his eyes wide, questioning. “Stu?”
Stuart swallowed hard, lifting the rifle a bit higher, as if to better aim it.
“What did you do, Stuart?”
Stuart ran his tongue over dry lips. “They were learning too much. They would have kept the stone for themselves. Who knows what damage they’d have done. So I paid someone to stop them.” He faced Michael. “All we wa
nt is the philosopher’s stone. Nothing more. We’ve studied alchemy for ten years. The old Egyptian fakir said there was a way to save us from the demons, but when he grew angry, he refused to do it. With our studies, we learned how.”
Michael looked at both men with disgust. “You know it’s about more than that.”
“It was step one.” The rifle in Stuart’s hands shook violently.
“Shut up, Stu,” Hank said.
“No, they should understand that we would use the stone to grant to us the ultimate desire of all alchemists—immortality. But that meant we would do good things. That’s all we ever wanted. We never wanted to hurt anyone.”
“No? Then why did your people attack us in Kyrgyzstan?” Michael asked. “It was clear they were no highway bandits.”
“We paid them to rob you, and get the pearl,” Hank said. “Nothing more. We thought it would be easy, but when you and your guides shot at them, we came up with a different plan. We ‘saved’ your friends from the second attack”—he nodded at Kira and Jianjun—“knowing that, with them, we’d find you. And we did.”
From the corner of his eye, Michael saw that Jianjun was slowly inching closer to Stuart. “I want to go back to why you two are still alive. Are you demons now, or simply doing their dirty work—killing people, hunting me? I doubt you’re demons because it seems they can’t attack the owner of the pearl which tells me the demons are using you to do it for them. The question is why?”
“We’re our own boss,” Stuart cried, sounding on the verge of hysteria. “We fight the demons.”
“Sure you do.” Michael smirked. “That’s why you killed two men in Florence, and you delivered your bodyguards to the demons to kill in bizarre ways, which seems to be a specialty of theirs.”
“It’s not true,” Stuart cried. He was on the verge of tears. “We never meant for anyone to die.”
Hank raised his gun. “And no one else needs to die. Not if you give us the stone. But if you don’t …”
Jianjun was closing in on Stuart, so Michael concentrated on Hank. “All right! This has gone far enough. And you’re right. The pearl isn’t worth us dying. I’ll give it to you, if you let us go.”
