Jamie Reign the Hidden Dragon

by P J Tierney

  Jamie backed away till he felt the stone of the opposite wall against his shoulderblades. His knees buckled and he slid into a sitting position. The idea that Zheng had a Recollector was paralysing. How on earth could Jamie beat someone who knew everything before it happened?

  A curious thought struck him and he got up and went back to the silk. This time he inspected it from behind. Just as he’d suspected, there were two sets of stitching visible. The first layer showed the story that should have been; the top stitching showed how the story had changed when this Warrior of the Way aligned himself with Zheng.

  He leaned in to get a closer look and noticed a slight discolouration on the bottom panel in the place where his own Spirit Warrior symbol had been stitched on his mother’s panel. This section of the banner didn’t indicate who you were, but who your children were. Jamie held the banner out to the light. There was a pattern of fine holes, as if the stitching had been removed, exactly like on Jade’s belt.

  His heart skipped a beat and the red mist swirled in from all sides.

  Jade was the descendant of Zheng’s Recollector.

  He stumbled as he tried to clear his head.

  Zheng’s high-pitched laugh filled the room and reverberated off the walls. But what scared Jamie more than that terrible sound was the fact it was coming out of his own mouth.

  Chapter 7

  Jamie bolted out of the hall, leaving the red mist behind. He dashed across the courtyard, over the zigzag bridge and along the covered walkway towards the Western Pavilions, his feet barely touching the ground. He burst into his dormitory room, breathless and frantic.

  As Wing and Lucy looked up, he blurted, ‘Jade is Zheng’s Recollector!’

  ‘Whoa,’ Wing said, ‘I know you don’t like her, but seriously — Zheng’s Recollector?’

  ‘I saw it,’ Jamie said, slamming his hand down on the table. ‘And then I heard Zheng again — he was laughing like he’s already won.’

  Lucy screeched, ‘You heard Zheng? Where?’ She leaped up and lunged for the door. She slammed it shut.

  Wing stepped back. ‘Wh-what did you just say?’

  ‘He’s not out there, Lucy,’ Jamie said, slumping into a chair and putting his face in his hands.

  ‘Then where is he?’ she asked, looking frantically all around.

  Jamie took a deep breath. ‘Can I trust you?’

  He remembered his mother’s warning and watched them as he waited for their reply.

  Very slowly, Wing shook his head. ‘Not when it comes to Zheng.’

  Jamie turned to Lucy, who looked surprised by Wing’s answer. ‘Lucy? Can I trust you?’ he said again.

  She grimaced like she was in pain. ‘Well, if we’re being completely honest, then no. I’d sell you out in a heartbeat for a good story in one of Dad’s papers. Half a heartbeat if we could get a feature out of it.’

  Wing shook his head at Lucy. ‘I don’t believe you just said that.’

  She scoffed. ‘What about you? Jamie saved your life. Don’t you think you owe him your trust?’

  ‘I’ve got my reasons for hating Zheng.’

  Jamie knew he did, like the death of his brother for one and of his father for another. Jamie tapped him lightly on the forearm. ‘I know you do, Wing, and I don’t blame you.’

  Jamie was reassured. He took a deep breath and said, ‘Zheng isn’t out there,’ pointing towards the door, ‘because he’s in here.’ And he tapped the side of his head. He waited for their reaction. Both of their mouths dropped open, aghast. ‘I didn’t tell you everything that happened at Sai Chun,’ he went on. ‘After you guys left, Zheng’s spirit escaped his body and attacked me.’

  Lucy and Wing gasped.

  Jamie looked down at the table. ‘His spirit got inside me. I thought I’d got it all out, I really did. And when I got back here, my spirit guide was laughing at me, so I thought it was all good. But it wasn’t,’ he finished sadly.

  There was a long pause as Lucy and Wing considered his words. Then Lucy shrieked, ‘You’ve got Zheng’s spirit inside you?’

  ‘Shh,’ Jamie said, darting a look over his shoulder. ‘I haven’t got all his spirit, just a bit. Like a germ or a bug or …’ His voice trailed off as he searched for the right word.

  Wing edged away and put his hand to his shoulder wound. ‘Like an infection?’

  Jamie nodded.

  Lucy looked like she might vomit. ‘What did Master Wu say?’

  It was the question Jamie had been dreading. He looked down at his hands. ‘I haven’t told him yet.’

  ‘Are you mental?’ Lucy said. ‘You’ve got to tell him. If Zheng’s here, Master Wu has to know.’

  Jamie put his head on the table. ‘I can’t tell him,’ he said in despair. ‘Master Wu told me that once a spirit takes hold of you, you’re never the same. It changes you and you can’t fulfil your purpose.’ He looked at Lucy and bit down on his lip to hold back the tears. ‘What if I can’t be the Spirit Warrior?’

  He left his greatest fear unspoken: that if he wasn’t the Spirit Warrior, did that make him nothing again?

  Lucy put her hand on his forearm. ‘You need to tell Master Wu so he can be prepared.’

  Jamie pulled his arm away. ‘But what he said isn’t true. My dad was possessed by a rogue spirit and he got rid of it and he’s exactly the same as he’s always been.’ He set his mouth in a firm line. ‘So there’s got to be a way to get it out of me and still be, you know … me.’

  Lucy sat down at the table, seemingly deep in thought. ‘Ask your dad,’ she said. ‘Communicate telepathically with him and find out how he got rid of his spirit.’

  ‘Telepathically?’ Jamie scoffed. ‘I can’t even communicate with him when we’re in the same room.’

  Jamie noticed Wing had edged as far away from him as he could. ‘So when you’re not yourself, you become Zheng?’ Wing asked.

  Jamie nodded.

  ‘Is it horrible?’ Lucy asked. ‘Being him.’

  Jamie squeezed his lips tightly, then said, ‘I do horrible things, I know that, but when I’m him it sort of feels good. It’s hard to explain.’

  Wing lunged at Jamie, pulled him to the floor and clawed at his eyes and his mouth. ‘Good?’ he spat. ‘It feels good to kill people?’

  ‘No!’ Jamie shouted, dodging the blows. ‘But when I’m him, I’m not scared. And I’m scared all the time, Wing. I’m scared I’ll screw up this whole Spirit Warrior thing. I’m scared you guys will all see through me and I’ll have to go back to my dad. I’m scared Jade will kill me. But what scares me most is that I’ll never, ever know my mother.’

  Wing stopped punching.

  ‘I’ll never have what you have,’ Jamie said. ‘I see how your mother looks at you. She’d do anything for you, Wing.’

  Wing got off him. ‘That’s because I’m all she has left.’

  They were all silent. Jamie wiped his eyes; Wing wiped his. Then Lucy gave a small smile.

  ‘When Sun Tzu said in The Art of War that you should know your enemy, I don’t think he meant this closely. How are we going to get Zheng’s spirit out of you?’

  Jamie sighed. ‘I’ve been thinking … a spirit’s released when you die, right? Well, my dad had to be revived twice when he was in hospital, so maybe that’s how he got rid of the rogue spirit, by leaving it behind when he came back to life.’

  Lucy said, ‘We’re not going to kill you, Jamie.’

  Jamie glanced at Wing, who gave a small shrug, like he could go either way.

  ‘I don’t think I have to die,’ Jamie said.

  He thought back to the night in Sai Chun when Mr Fan had captured the spirit of Zheng’s Remote Viewer. He’d told Jamie that the body left behind would be in a coma. If Jamie could somehow put himself in a coma without dying, his spirit would be released. And when he came back into his body, he could leave the black bugs on the other side.

  ‘I just need to be in a coma,’ he finished.

  ‘It’s worth a shot,’ Wing
said, lifting up a stool to feel its weight and balance, as if he was about to put Jamie in a coma right now.

  Lucy took the stool off him and put it back on the ground. ‘That’s the difficult part,’ she said, ‘knocking you out without hurting you.’

  Jamie said, ‘I thought getting me back would be harder.’

  Lucy grinned and shook her head. ‘Weren’t you paying attention in healing class?’

  Jamie gave her a blank look.

  ‘The instructions right beside the cure for insomnia?’ she prompted.

  She rummaged through the stack of books on Wing’s desk and pulled A to Z of Ailments and their Cures from the bottom of the pile. She opened it, and Wing and Jamie leaned in to look at the slightly splattered page. On one side was Insomnia: cure for and on the other …

  ‘Incapacitating coma: rousing from,’ Lucy read aloud.

  Jamie smiled; he could have kissed her. She gave a small shrug like it was nothing.

  Jamie ran his finger down the list of ingredients: dried seaweed, ginseng, three drops of betel leaf tea, fish berry, butterbur, the legs of two orb spiders, dried and crushed. He turned up his nose, then saw Lucy and Wing were both nodding as if this was all quite reasonable.

  ‘You’ve got all this stuff?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course not,’ Lucy said. ‘Mr Fan has.’

  ‘So,’ Jamie said, ‘all we need now is a coma. A safe one,’ he quickly added as Wing reached for the stool again. He racked his brain. Unconscious but not injured … He grinned. Just like Master Wu’s movie, The Pin of Death. ‘We could use a demuk.’

  Lucy scoffed. ‘You want one of us to insert a pin into the back of your neck so precisely that it incapacitates your entire nervous system? You do know we’re twelve, right? I doubt even Mr Fan could do it. Well, not without killing you.’

  Jamie shrugged. ‘Either way, I get Zheng out of me.’ He looked at Wing. ‘And out of Chia Wu too.’

  Wing didn’t miss a beat. ‘I say we give it a try,’ he said.

  Lucy shook her head and backed away from the table. ‘I’m having nothing to do with this — it’s crazy. I’ve a good mind to tell Master Wu.’

  But Jamie didn’t think it was so crazy. He remembered what Jade had told him: their lives were intertwined. That hadn’t happened yet, so he knew he would survive the coma, or hoped so at least.

  Later that night, after a dinner of abalone and black bean, Wing and Jamie left Lucy stomping around the room and mumbling to herself. They crossed the zigzag bridge to the Eastern Pavilions and cautiously approached the long corridor that led to Master Wu’s office. Mr Fan’s pavilion was off to the side and there was a light on inside. Jamie and Wing looked at each other: who would be working at this hour?

  They stayed in the shadows and edged towards the line of light that spilled from the crack between the two doors. Jamie blocked out the first layer of sound: the crickets and the wind. He searched for the second layer and heard the clinking of glass vials, and beneath that a lone voice muttering softly: ‘… point five grams per kilo … so if he weighs forty kilos that’ll be twenty grams.’ There was a clink as the glass vial touched the metal scales, then the grinding sound of a pestle against a stone mortar.

  Jamie leaned towards the light and peeked through the crack. A figure dressed all in black was working at the bench, her back to the door. But Jamie knew who she was; her ponytail gave her away.

  He and Wing stood in the dark, watching and listening. Jade was following instructions from a large book, but doing her own calculations on a piece of paper. She nodded in a self-satisfied way, then packed up quickly, gathering the glass jars together and shoving them into the cupboard. She screwed the lid on the jar that contained whatever she’d been concocting and hurried towards the door. Jamie and Wing didn’t have time to leave, so they stood as still and straight as they could, their backs hard against the wall. They sucked in their bellies and held their breath.

  Jade hurried out of the room, carefully holding a bronze dragon-shaped jar in the palm of her hand and looking at it as if it might explode.

  When they were sure she’d gone, Jamie and Wing slipped inside Mr Fan’s room. Jade had forgotten to take the piece of paper with her notes on it. It was a page torn from a textbook showing the weight and height of an average twelve-year-old boy.

  Jamie and Wing stared at each other. In unison they turned and rushed to the cupboard Jade had just closed. Jamie reached in and removed the last of the jars hurriedly placed there. It was powdered aconite root. He swallowed and stared at the jar.

  ‘You know I’m too small to be average, right?’ Wing said.

  Jamie nodded.

  ‘That means she’s trying to kill you,’ Wing said. ‘You’ve got to tell Master Wu.’

  Jamie bit his bottom lip. ‘I tried to tell him before.’

  ‘He didn’t believe you?’

  Jamie shrugged. ‘Said she was just fulfilling her purpose.’

  ‘Whoa,’ Wing said, bracing himself against the workbench. ‘You think her purpose is to kill you?’

  ‘Our lives intertwine,’ Jamie said.

  Wing gripped the edge of the workbench so tightly his fingertips turned white. ‘Then she’ll have to go through me first.’

  Jamie and Wing collected the ingredients they needed, then measured, ground and mixed them in the quantities the book described. They worked carefully, knowing that Jamie’s recovery depended on getting this right. If the mixture didn’t succeed in waking him from the coma, he would probably die.

  Back in the dormitory, Jamie placed the prepared concoction on the table, then selected the longest needle from Mrs Choo’s sewing kit and handed it to Wing.

  ‘We’re really going to do this?’ Wing asked.

  Jamie pressed his lips together. His stomach was churning. ‘I’ve got to get rid of Zheng.’

  Wing’s hand was trembling. ‘Yeah, but if I miss the exact spot, I could end up paralysing you, for good.’

  Jamie steadied Wing’s hand. ‘I trust you, Wing.’

  ‘Well, then, you’re mental.’ He put the needle back on the table.

  Jet swung down from his perch on the rafters and grabbed the needle, eyeing it with what looked like trepidation. Jamie held his hand out for its return. Jet edged away from him, taking the needle with him.

  ‘Is that a good enough sign for you?’ Wing asked.

  It sure was. ‘Maybe we should just sleep on it,’ Jamie said.

  In the morning, Jamie woke to a painful stinging sensation in his fingers and discovered the sheets were streaked with blood. Jet and Wing were gone. He stumbled to the door where he almost tripped over Wing, who was curled up in the doorway, snoring.

  ‘Wing!’ Jamie cried with relief.

  Wing woke up, startled, and leaped to his feet. Jet was clinging to him.

  ‘You slept out here?’ Jamie said. ‘Both of you?’

  Wing looked down.

  ‘Did I hurt you?’ he said, hiding his blood-streaked hands behind him.

  ‘No, you didn’t hurt us,’ Wing said quickly. ‘It’s just that I, um …’

  Jamie lowered his eyes too. ‘You couldn’t be in the same room with me and Zheng.’

  ‘That’s not it,’ Wing said, ‘I wasn’t scared of you. I, um, I didn’t mean to go to sleep. I wanted to make sure Zheng didn’t make you do anything stupid.’

  ‘Like hurt someone?’ Jamie said.

  Wing looked Jamie in the eye. ‘Like hurt you.’

  Jamie bit his bottom lip. He brought his palm and fist together to bow. Wing gasped at the sight of Jamie’s hands. The tips of his fingers were shredded and the flesh on his palms was jagged and torn.

  Jamie held his hands out to him. ‘You’ve got to help me, Wing, or stop me at least.’ He went back to the table. Jet had returned the needle to the tabletop, beside the jar with the revival concoction in it. He held them out to Wing. ‘Please.’

  Wing glanced over his shoulder, then closed his eyes and moved his lips
in silent words. Seconds later, Lucy came bursting from her dormitory room and charged across the courtyard, cradling an open book against her chest. She raced up the stairs to the boys’ room.

  Jamie looked from her to Wing. ‘Can you guys do telepathy?’

  Lucy shrugged. ‘Can’t you?’ She saw Jamie’s hands. ‘What did you do?’ she asked.

  Jamie trembled. ‘I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure all the blood is mine.’

  She took a deep breath and said, ‘Let’s hope so.’

  She put the book on the table, open at the relevant page, then took the needle.

  Jamie asked, ‘You’re going to do this? I thought you wanted nothing to do with it?’

  ‘Well, I’m not going to let him do it,’ Lucy said, gesturing towards Wing, who at first baulked, then made a face that seemed to say she had a point. ‘If you’re serious about a demuk, then I should do it.’ She lowered her eyes and added in a whisper, ‘Because I really want you to come back, Jamie.’

  He gave her a small smile and said, ‘I know, Luce, me too.’

  She carefully studied the diagram showing exactly where to insert the needle, then found the corresponding place at the back of Jamie’s neck.

  ‘Ready?’ she said, and she drove the needle in.

  Jamie’s knees buckled and he saw the floor rushing towards his face. Violent torrents of air pushed against his body and into his ears; it felt like being in a wind tunnel. Then, quite suddenly, it was quiet and he was floating. He looked down through a glaringly bright light to where his body lay on the floor of the dormitory. Blurry shadows rushed to attend to him — Lucy and Wing.

  There was a loud buzzing in his ears, like the static between radio frequencies, and the high-pitched laugh he loathed. Black bugs darted all around him.

  Above the incessant humming came the soft lilting voice of his spirit guide. ‘Are you ready, Jamie?’ Before Jamie could answer, the Great Guide said firmly, ‘Now.’