by K. T. Tomb
There was a long pause before any of the three men dared to speak. It was Andrik, who had probably been mulling over the plan for a little more than a week, who spoke first. “We’ve got to show that Nora can be useful to Liu Lichuan and the SSS in some way. My thought is that we find and capture a real or even supposed infiltrator into the SSS and have Nora present him to Liu Lichuan. As she presents the spy, she can confess her undying devotion to the cause of the SSS. Anyone fit that bill?”
Andrik looked at Mills first, who wrinkled his brow in thought, but remained silent.
“I know such a man,” Syun Min beamed.
Chapter Six
All of the tension which had been beneath the surface between she and Andrik was forced aside as they moved through the darkness of Shanghai to the place Syun Min told them about.
“Someone will watch you all the time,” he had told them. “It impossible you get inside without disguise.”
Syun Min had no idea what MIs of their class could do. Disguise and blending in was a particular skill which both of them had mastered. They began as bats, penetrating deep into the slums of Shanghai.
For Nora, the slums were like what she imagined Limehouse would look like after it had been ransacked by war. When she saw the squalor, she realized that she, Kate and Mary had lived a life of luxury in comparison. The fact that they were to find Xi Chen in a room in the back of an opium den was no surprise to her. Did opium cause the conditions she saw or were the conditions already there, so that those who sold opium could take advantage of the desperation of those who lived within it to escape? It wasn’t the moment for philosophic analysis as she saw Andrik drop into a secluded alley and transform into his natural form. She followed suit and they crouched in the deep darkness with their eyes scanning in both directions.
“Here comes the fun part,” he said with a broad grin. “Time to blend in and see if we can’t find a way into Xi Chen’s hideout.”
“You first,” she said.
“Not a chance, Nora,” he laughed softly. “I know your aversion to rats. You have to do it or you’ll blow our cover.”
“Will I,” she responded. Rats weren’t the only way to blend into the surroundings of the Shanghai slums, although there were plenty of them to hide amongst.
“Come on, Nora, just do it already.” There was a tone of impatience in Andrik’s voice as he gave the order.
Without a response, Nora transformed into a moth and fluttered down the alley away from him.
“Very clever,” he called out. “When did you learn that one?”
Andrik followed suit and transformed into a moth as well. He was actually proud of Nora. The moth transformation was a difficult one and she had been unable to accomplish it up until that point. No doubt the aversion to rats contributed as a motivating factor. Regardless, their new form was more efficient for slipping past whoever was watching Xi Chen’s hideout, so he had to give Nora some credit for that as well.
Rather than having to search for a concealed opening as they would have had to do as rats, Andrik and Nora flew into the opium den through the front door. In the form of a moth, there was a strong desire to be drawn toward the dim lights of the place which Nora had to fight against. They made their way down the narrow hallway, which had several curtained rooms on either side. Though it was much dingier, the opium den was very similar to the one she used to frequent before being transformed into an MI. Regret and guilt tore at her as she found an opening at the edge of the curtain hanging at the end of the hall and slipped through with Andrik on her tail.
Inside the room at the end of the hallway were nude bodies engaged in various acts while alternately taking puffs from the multi-stemmed hookah in the midst of the room. The various odors of the room hung in an extremely heavy cloud, making it even more difficult for Nora to maintain her form and not transform due to the revulsion that was overtaking her.
She and Andrik searched the room for the hidden door spoken of by Syun Min. Once they’d found the door, things would become a bit more complicated for them, but they’d put together a plan for dealing with it when the time came. A bit of good fortune turned in their favor as Andrik found that the door they were looking for was behind a long curtain which would provide concealment for each of them to transform in turn, though it would not accommodate both of them. It was certainly better than transforming in plain sight, though the hallucinating occupants of the room would hardly suspect anything if two moths suddenly transformed into human forms in their midst.
As a moth, Andrik landed near the top of the curtain where it was attached to the rod and slipped behind the curtain first. He transformed, creating a bulge in the curtain the same size and shape of his form. Timing would be critical if she was to support Andrik as he entered the room, so she landed near the top and slipped behind the curtain as well, maintaining her moth form and waiting until Andrik opened the door and rushed into the room before transforming in the doorway. It would put her a couple of beats behind him, but the process was nearly instantaneous.
Andrik hit the door with enough of his MI force to break both latch and hinges and send the door crashing into the floor of the room beyond. There was a moment of hesitation among the occupants of the room. At that moment, Nora transformed into her MI form and Andrik attacked the nearest occupant, who had just come to himself and was reaching for nunchucks. He never had a chance to use them before Andrik disabled him.
Nora had noticed another occupant reaching for a sword as she took in the room. She rolled past him and delivered a decisive kick to the back of his head rendering him useless. Various weapons were brandished throughout the room, but those wielding them had little time to make use of any of them before they were quickly dispatched and only the man matching the description of Xi Chen was left standing.
Xi Chen had stayed back from the initial attack and waited for his opportunity to attack. When he did, he had two sai swords and he moved swiftly. Two ordinary mortals might have been ripped to shreds in moments by the sai master, but his lightning-fast movements were a bit too slow for the likes of an MI. In the space of a shallow breath, Xi Chen was flat on his face with Nora pinning him to the floor with her knee in the middle of his back. It was quite obvious that their captive was struggling to get breath to reenter his lungs.
Without hesitation, Andrik quickly bound Xi Chen’s hands behind his back, and then Nora jerked him none too gently from the floor.
“You’re coming with us,” she snarled.
Andrik opened a second door which led down a short hallway, into what appeared to be a darkened butcher shop and Nora dragged their captive through it and out into the dark street beyond. With Andrik as a lookout, they made their way, dragging their captive out of the slums toward the main center of Shanghai.
“You’re alone from here on, Nora,” Andrik told her.
She nodded her agreement. To complete their ruse, she had to drag Xi Chen to meet Liu Lichuan by herself. “I’ll see you with a report in a few days.”
Chapter Seven
Alone and without the support of Andrik, Nora handled Xi Chen on her own. Her MI strength made her more than capable of handling the task, but Xi Chen, who had caught his breath sometime before was growing a great deal more brazen with her.
“What you want with me?” he asked.
“I want you to keep your mouth shut and use your own feet a little bit so I don’t have to drag you as much,” Nora retorted.
“You becoming weary?” he laughed.
“Not hardly. I just don’t see the point in exerting any unnecessary effort.”
“I think you tired. I wait ‘til you more tired, and then escape.”
“I wish you the best of luck with that.”
“Where you take me?” he said after a long pause.
“Liu Lichuan,” she replied casually.
“I not think so,” he responded and immediately made an attempt to sweep her feet out from under her with a well-placed kick.
&nbs
p; Nora anticipated the move and used Xi Chen’s movement against him, sweeping him past her and onto his back on the hard, stone street. The air rushed rapidly out of his lungs once more as she added plenty of force to the maneuver.
With wide, fearful eyes, which begged for air, he looked up at her with his mouth agape as he fought for breath.
“I think I like you better this way,” she responded, jerking him to his feet once more, not concerned about whether or not he ever caught his breath. She had gone along little more than a block while dragging her captive when she was accosted by someone who appeared to have been stationed as a sentry for Liu Lichuan. She made that assumption because of the dagger the man had attached to his side; the Small Sword Society trademark.
“Who are you? What you doing here?” he asked as she approached.
“I want to see Liu Lichuan,” she responded.
“Who this?” he asked, indicating the captive Xi Chen.
“The reason I want to see Liu Lichuan,” she responded.
“What reason he want to see you and this man?”
“He’s a spy,” she said shortly. “Maybe one of Hong’s or some other triad group.”
“You catch him alone?” the sentry asked, looking around with suspicion.
“Yes,” she replied simply. “He’s coming along willingly enough so far, but he’ll probably become a little rebellious as we get close to the palace.”
“There are more men to help along there,” the sentry told her. “We wait here a moment for my partner. He come back from that alley soon.”
“I can manage,” she replied.
“Perhaps, but I must accompany you or they not let you through.”
“I will go on ahead,” she replied. “I doubt you will have any trouble catching up to me.”
The sentry agreed and Nora started out dragging her captive forward.
“What are you?” Xi Chen asked. “Some demon or something?”
“Or something,” she replied.
“The one who with you before is demon too?”
“I think you imagined that someone was with me before,” she responded.
“There was other man with you before,” he countered.
Nora, using one hand, lifted the man off of his feet until his face was well above her head and hissed a stern warning as her eyes fluoresced. “It would be better for you if you imagined seeing the other man, understood?”
Nora placed the mental suggestions in his head. She wasn’t sure if it was the mental suggestion or the imminent threat which had done the trick, but Xi Chen quickly agreed that she had been alone when she’d captured him.
She had barely set Xi Chen back on his feet when the sentry caught up to them.
“We need hurry,” he said. “Is not good I am away from my post very long.”
The sentry grasped the other arm of Xi Chen and helped pull him along as they picked up their pace. Others joined in to lead the captive to the palace as they got closer, but the original sentry would not give up his place. He had been part of the capture and he wanted to be recognized for his efforts by the leader of the Small Swords Society.
The excitement surrounding the arrival of the captive and the whispered rumors made gaining an audience with Liu Lichuan quite simple and Nora quickly found herself, along with about a dozen men who hoped to obtain some credit for the capture, before the SSS leader in a large room of the palace.
“Who is this man you have brought to me?” Liu Lichuan asked, eyeing her with both suspicion and admiration.
“He is Xi Chen,” Nora responded. “I suspect that he is one of Hong’s spies. Perhaps Hong is developing a plan to eliminate you just as he did Yang?”
A shadow of worry spread across the face of Liu Lichuan as Nora spoke. He had heard of what had happened to Yang and his family, who had made too many people in the Heavenly Kingdom uncomfortable. Neither Yang’s family nor Yang would make anyone else in the Heavenly Kingdom uncomfortable again.
“He will be taken away and questioned,” the SSS leader ordered. He added a final statement with a grave tone to the order. “Do not worry about being too gentle.”
When Xi Chen had been removed, Liu Lichuan spent a few moments questioning the sentry who had accompanied her while bringing in Xi Chen. After his report, he was rewarded for his diligence as a sentry and his efforts in accompanying Nora, and then Liu Lichuan turned his attention back to her.
“Is it true that you brought this man in by yourself?”
“It is,” she replied simply.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“I am Nora Kelly,” she responded in a soft tone. She allowed her eyes to fluoresce softly as she spoke. It was time to transform into the role of a seductress. “But you may call me Nora.
“You are not Chinese,” he responded. “You are from the concession, then?”
“Yes,” she responded, moving closer to him subtly.
“You are British?” he asked. She could see that her presence intrigued him greatly.
“I am Irish,” she responded. “But I was in the British concession when I overheard this man reporting to a superior. I pursued him and caught him, knowing that you would be pleased to have him in your custody.”
“Forgive me for staring,” he smiled after some moments, “but I have never seen such flaming, coppery hair nor such brilliant green eyes before.”
“It’s the Irish in me,” she replied, turning her eyes toward the floor in a gesture of fake shyness. She extended a toe and swept it in a gentle circle in front of herself to enhance the ruse before looking up at him again and fluorescing with a bit more intensity. She could see the lust growing in his eyes, but she did not speak.
“I am in need of someone who can perform the very personal service of making certain that I am well protected,” he responded in a suggestive tone.
“I would be only too pleased to provide that service for you,” Nora responded.
Chapter Eight
“She’s no ordinary mortal, that is clear,” Han Ba growled as she spoke to the three advisers who had come to her chamber with the report concerning the capture of Xi Chen.
Xi Chen was not a spy for Hong, but for her. She was rather disappointed that such a highly acclaimed sai master and professional spy had been so easily bested by a woman. This woman, she had been informed, was of rather an unimpressive stature with bright, copper-colored hair, and had been seen dragging Xi Chen to the palace in Shanghai. When the men who had been a part of Xi Chen’s team were questioned, they could remember nothing of the attack upon their hideout behind the opium den.
She had established loose connections with Hong and the Heavenly Kingdom, but she had done so to achieve her own personal objectives. Her hope was to ride along on the coattails of Hong and the Heavenly Kingdom as they sought to overthrow the Qing Dynasty. When the opportune moment arrived, she would execute a similar maneuver as the Manchus had, unleash a secret army of her own, and usher in the reestablishment of the Dashing Dynasty, which had very short lived. She had already participated in helping to start rumors about Yang and executing his removal from the Heavenly Kingdom. Han Ba had humbly inserted herself in Yang’s place through some very subtle means and not a few powerful, mortal/immortal mental suggestions.
Because she herself was an MI, she recognized that the strength of the woman who had brought in Xi Chen alone was no mere mortal. No ordinary woman would have been able to pull off such a feat. She needed to take a closer look at the MI who had arrived on her scene.
“What do you know about her?” she demanded of the advisers.
“We know little more than her name and the fact that she seems to have been taken in by Liu,” one of her advisers reported.
“We assume that she is of Irish descent, given the features we described earlier, so we conclude that she has come from the British concession,” another adviser added.
“A very hasty assumption, don’t you think?” she hissed. “Red hair and green eyes can be
found in Irish immigrants all the way to America and it is not uncommon for the French to have similar features. You will have to do better than that.”
“Agreed,” responded the third advisory of the group, who had not been so hasty to add his voice to the observations of the other two.
“My concern is that Liu might be seeking to strengthen his own position through the formation of an alliance with one or all of the foreign powers in the concessions of Shanghai. After all, he had certainly been quick to seize Shanghai when he might have pursued a coup attempt in a much easier location.”
“But Liu is allied with the Heavenly Kingdom, whose stated objective is to be rid of, among other things, the foreigners and the poison they have introduced into China. Why would he ally himself in such a way?” the advisor, who had been last to speak, asked.
“Need I remind you that even I have allied myself with the Heavenly Kingdom as a means of meeting my own objectives? Liu might not be any different, though he has demonstrated few outward signs of decreased loyalty. It is his rather lily-white image in the Heavenly Kingdom which raises my suspicion the most.
“Speaking of his reason for aligning himself with foreigners who have introduced ‘the poison’, as you called it, have you forgotten that Liu Lichuan was one of their best customers until he was ‘supposedly’ converted to Christianity. I’m telling you, gentlemen, none of what you see and hear can be so simple and easy. There are forces and motivations at work beneath all of this and we must look deeper in order to uncover them.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Let’s discover all that we can about this woman, who I have my doubts is a mere mortal, or at the very least is a highly trained agent of some sort. We need to tie her back to one of the concessions and uncover whatever link or alliance might be in the process of being formed between whichever concession it is and the Small Sword Society. Once we have adequate information, we will be better able to deal with the situation.”
