by Chloe Adler
The sighs and sounds of old town were wondrous. Its food stands and old Chinese architecture were completely different from the rest of Shanghai. The doors to the shops and houses were small and thin, rectangular. Red flags spread out across the eaves, fluttering in the tiny breeze.
I stopped dead in my tracks, gawking when we came upon a woman about to wring the neck of a chicken. She yelled at me and shooed me away.
“What was that about?” I asked Alec—under my breath so as not to look crazier to the locals than I already did.
“She said she’s not entertainment for gweilo.”
“Gweilo?”
“It means foreigner in Cantonese.”
“But isn’t mainland Mandarin speaking?”
Alec snorted. “It is but there are crossovers. And to make matters more complicated, there are dialects. In Shanghai we speak Shang-hai-nese.”
I rolled my eyes. “Too much. Okay, so gweilo isn’t derogatory then?”
“Well . . . the actual translation is ‘white devil’ or ‘foreign devil.’ ”
I whirled around to go back to that older woman and give her a piece of my mind but Alec’s hold on my hand became steel.
“Oh no you don’t. That woman has a hatchet to cut off the chicken’s head and I promise you that she won’t be afraid to use it on you.”
My arm was yanked toward an alleyway and I followed him to an apothecary filled to the rafters with rows of tiny bottles, yet after looking and asking, we came out empty.
“Let’s stop at a food truck,” he said, pulling me toward one that was offering food on sticks or over rice. It took everything I had not to press my face up against the glass; behind it were duck bills, feet and other interesting foods I’d never seen in the States.
Alec whispered his order in my ear and I bought enough food for two. We retired on a doorstep, with my back to the street, blocking him so no one could see the food mysteriously rise into the air.
Someone behind me cleared their throat and I twisted around.
“Opium?” a young white guy with an American accent asked, sidling up close.
“Cinnabar,” I responded, just wanting him to leave so we could eat.
“Hangzhou,” he said and walked off.
It looked like we’d be visiting Alec’s old hometown. Here’s hoping the experience wouldn’t bring up as many ghosts as a trip to Sitka would for me.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Hangzhou, it turned out, was a “tiny” little town of over nine million people on a man-made lake in the province of Zhejiang. It was only three and a half hours by train from Shanghai.
Less than half a day later, Alec and I were walking around Westlake in this fairy-tale town, looking for the youth hostel a college student on the train had recommended. We found it perched a short distance from the lake and checked into a private room for sixteen dollars a night.
Hangzhou boasted a fairly famous street of apothecaries called Hefang, which Alec hadn’t visited since he was a teen. Hefang Street was walking distance from the hostel. The little street was crammed with dark herb shops, pharmacies, eateries and an impressive teahouse.
We made our way from one shop to the next with me inquiring, “Cinnabar?” and then “Zhūshā?” upon entering. At each establishment, the man or woman behind the counter would size me up quickly and then shake their heads.
Next we tried entering the stores without saying anything to see if Alec could identify it behind the counter. Many jars were on display at each of these stores but none of them boasted the coveted item.
“I’m afraid that it’s seen as contraband now,” whispered Alec as we made our way out of yet another store. “They probably have it in the back and will sell to a native.”
“Great, and that native is now invisible.”
“Let’s try a different approach.”
In the next store, I nodded to the proprietor and then turned my back to them, pretending to examine a case. Alec spoke in Chinese as though I was the one speaking.
“Wǒ zhèngzài xúnzhǎo zhūshā.”
“Móguǐ!” screamed the proprietor and before I could move, they were hitting me with a broom and pushing me out of their shop.
“What the hell was that?” I asked Alec outside.
He chuckled. “She called you a devil.”
“How did she know it wasn’t me speaking?”
“Probably because my accent is too good and you kept your back to her. We’re a very superstitious people.”
“Maybe she saw my reflection in the window.”
“Well, whatever it was, that one’s a no-go. You want to try another?”
“Sure. But Alec?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you miss not living here? Or anything about this city at all?”
“Hangzhou is remarkable and it will always be lodged in my heart. I miss the lake and the pagodas, the cherry blossoms in the spring and the flowering magnolias. But I don’t miss the ghosts of my past.” He squeezed my hand.
I squeezed back.
We tried several more stores with results similar to the first. Over lunch Alec taught me the phrase in Chinese and I practiced it before trying another shop. They looked at me like I was insane and refused to respond, which was probably best since I wouldn’t know what to say next anyway.
By the end of the day we were both spent and ended up at the youth hostel restaurant, defeated.
The restaurant was nice and unassuming with wooden tables and benches for eating, painted red walls and red lanterns. I sat down at an empty table and ordered two plates. The waitperson didn’t even look at me strangely.
“Gaijin are known for stuffing themselves,” Alec said softly in my ear.
“If you weren’t invisible right now,” I whispered back, “I’d give you a piece of my mind.”
“I’d rather have a piece of your—”
“Jared?” came a tentative, yet familiar voice.
My heart quickened. Only Burgundy knew I was here. Looking up, I almost dropped my glass of water. “Sam?”
“Jared, I’m so sorry to sneak up on you like this.” She plopped down next to me on the bench. Her companion, the dark-haired Mitchell, sat across from us.
Had I not grown up with my sister, I probably wouldn’t have recognized her. She’d cut her hair very short and dyed it black. She wore thickly rimmed glasses that took up most of her face and the scar on her cheek was—gone. Mitchell’s appearance was also significantly altered.
“What’s going on?” I asked her, the anger bleeding out of my voice. I was happy she was okay but she’d lied to me, abandoned me twice and was probably the reason our parents were dead. Not my favorite person right then, so I gave them both my best hairy eyeball.
“I’m sorry, Burgundy told me where to find you.”
“Why would she do that?” I hedged, scooting away from her toward Alec, who put his unseen arm around me protectively.
She paled. “Look, I’ve made some pretty big mistakes and I want to make amends.”
“Amends? For getting our parents killed and my mate kidnapped and tortured? Not to mention the vandalism and destruction of safety and trust.”
Alec squeezed me tighter to him and I inhaled deeply. The tickle of his breath hit my ear. “You called me your mate in public,” he whispered softly and I shivered, unable to respond.
“I’m so sorry. I want to explain.” She held her hands out, palms up.
“Right now, I don’t give a fuck about your explanations,” I said through clenched teeth.
“I know. I know.” She ran her fingers through her buzz cut, chanced a glance at Mitchell and then stood up. “You’re right, I’ll go.”
I reached out and snagged her arm so fast she almost fell. It was involuntary, caused by the look of sadness and regret on her face. The look was real, unless that woman had spent the last six years taking acting lessons. Alec was right. Sam was practically crippled with remorse, and even if I chose to forgive her, it did
n’t mean I was bound to forget.
“Abridged version. Now.” My voice was gruff.
“I . . .” Sam looked away as actual tears fell from her eyes. Eyes the same color as mine. She licked her lips, pulling her upper lip into her quivering mouth. “I’m an asshole. A total and complete asshole. I destroyed both of our lives, Mitchell’s life and countless others’.” The tears poured down her face freely. “I am the reason Mom and Dad died. I’m selfish and a coward.” She sniffed and Mitchell handed her a napkin. She blew her nose into it.
“Before you agree with your sister,” he said, “I have something to add.”
Sam didn’t look at him but I did. His eyes were fierce. Protective.
“Sam and I fell in love back in high school. She bonded to me. She won’t tell you that but I will, and having grown up with a megalomaniacal father bent on destroying her race, I knew exactly what that meant. The only way to keep your sister safe until we figured out how to run away together was to assimilate her into the church.”
“So basically you hired my sister to ferret out and kill her own kind? Nice.” I growled.
“ ‘Assimilate’ is the wrong word.” Mitchell did not back down. “We both pretended. We’ve been pretending for six years, warning Signum when we could, helping some escape. We’ve never killed anyone, but if we didn’t report a few of them, we’d have been discovered—and Sam would’ve been killed.”
“We talked Landry out of killing as many as we could,” Sam added. “We convinced him it was too risky, that he’d be caught and thrown in jail, destabilizing the movement without its leader.”
I barked out a laugh. “Maybe it would have been better if you’d let him get caught. Why not just turn him in?”
Mitchell looked down, not meeting my eye. “It’s not only ourselves that we’re protecting. It’s . . .”
“His younger brother,” finished Sam.
Protecting a sibling was a language I spoke well. “I see. Blood ties are deeply rooted.” Samantha, damn you.
“I wish it were simpler, black and white, but most things aren’t. My father’s a monster. I know that better than anyone. He had my mother killed when I was a young boy because she didn’t agree with his methods. He may be my blood, but after discovering his blackened heart, I never loved or trusted him . . . and I’m the only one who can look after Jeff.”
“His brother,” said Sam.
Nodding, I said, “So what are your plans now? Why are you here?”
Sam exchanged looks with her mate. “We’re trying to find a safe place for us to live and bring his brother over. We’ve been looking in all the cleared territories; this is one of them. We were looking in another part of China, but when I found out you were here . . .” Sam’s wet eyes met mine.
“The Trackers leave a few guardians in the largest cities to keep a watchful eye,” Mitchell added. “In China they’re stationed in Shanghai and Beijing.”
“Hangzhou is one of the many cities on this continent that are considered ‘small.’ “
Nine million was small? “What about Xia—Alec’s dad—or me? Why don’t they let us be?” Alec removed his arm from my shoulder.
“The Trackers let Signum live under the radar as long as they live like mundane humans. If vampires bite civilians, if shifters shift, if witches cast spells—then the Trackers come looking.”
“Or if someone does something they don’t agree with, or worse . . . they happen to be gay,” I snarled.
The look on Mitch’s face was pained. “How many ways can I say it? My father is a racist, homophobic nutcase.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” I said.
“Do you want to hear us out or not?” Sam asked. And I sat still, not saying another word.
“One of the guardians living in Shanghai became pregnant. She found Dr. Wong, who agreed to give her an abortion. They’re illegal in China, so it was a big deal on all counts. His license could have been revoked and the girl could have died.”
“Instead he put a target on his family and himself,” I finished.
“Pretty much,” agreed Mitchell.
“You haven’t told us why you’re here,” said Sam.
“Why should I trust you?”
She sighed. “You shouldn’t.”
Mitch leaned in. “Look, Jared, you don’t really know me but I do know your sister. I’ve lived with her for the past six years. She’s a good person who was caught up in an unfortunate situation.”
I nodded, hearing him, but not yet ready to listen.
The next day, we all walked to Hefang Street together. My sister and her boyfriend knew their way around better than I did. Alec stayed by my side. We weren’t going to tell Sam and Mitchell he was here. They might be trying to make amends, but trust was a long way off.
Mitchell led us down a small, unassuming alleyway that Alec and I hadn’t ventured down before. A few yards into it, Mitchell and Sam paused outside a tiny shop entrance and rang a bell. The proprietor came to the door, pulled the curtain aside and peered out of the glass at us. Replacing the curtain, she left without opening the door. We all exchanged looks.
I turned to walk away but Mitchell held up a palm, telling me to wait. The smells of boiling noodles and soy sauce wafted up the alleyway. Several minutes later the woman pulled the curtain again and looked at us through thick spectacles perched on the edge of her nose.
Mitchell waved and said something in Chinese. She shook her head, narrowed her eyes and dropped the curtain.
“This isn’t going to work,” I said, and then the lock turned on the other side of the door and it opened.
“Lì shí,” she said, motioning for us to enter.
The inside of her shop was long and narrow with a counter on one side, reminding me of the times I’d tagged along with Chrys or Sadie to magic shops back home. Scents of spice mixed with mold filled the air and for a moment, I had to cover my nose to keep from sneezing. The display counters boasted glass shelves lined with tiny, old-fashioned bottles, like we’d stepped back in time. Each bottle contained herbs of every color, dead bugs and an assortment of other items I could not place.
The wall behind the counter was lined with shelves holding large bottles. Several contained dead snakes.
Mitchell pointed to one of the bottles, the liquid inside dark and viscous. “That’s a special drink, a notably rare form of ginseng.”
The proprietor’s eyes lit up and she immediately poured him a tiny glass from the attached spigot.
He smiled broadly at her, held the glass up in thanks and threw it back. “Wow, extraordinary,” he said and then repeated his praise in Chinese, adding, “Xièxiè.”
He spoke to her in Chinese again, pointing to me, and I smiled. The woman nodded curtly without smiling back. She walked over to the far side of the case and peered into it for a minute before pulling out a rather large, corked, glass bottle. It was filled with what looked like sparkling red sand.
“Cinnabar,” whispered Alec in my ear.
The woman let Mitchell hold the large jar up to the paltry light filtering through the high front windows. The lower windows were covered with an opaque curtain, just like the door.
“Is it illegal for her to sell all this stuff?” I asked Mitchell.
“No, it’s not illegal, it’s just kept hidden from gaijin.”
At the word gaijin the woman grabbed the bottle back from Sam and almost threw us out. Mitchell had to talk her down, explaining what he’d said and assuring her that I, in particular, wouldn’t tell any other gaijin about her store.
“How much to do you need?” asked Mitchell. The woman dug a little wooden spoon in to weight some out for me.
I checked the note I’d made on my phone. “Two ounces.”
He conveyed my request and she weighed it out, folded it into a small paper pouch and handed it over.
I took out the requisite amount of yuan, which was about three dollars’ worth. A small price to pay to save the man I loved, who squeezed my
hand at my side.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I was back in the room packing up when Alec hugged me from behind. “I will never get used to not seeing your handsome face,” I responded.
“Good.” He bent down and kissed my neck. “Hey, so I know it’s our last night here and I was wondering . . .” He stopped and started kissing me again. My shoulder and neck, running his fingers along my arms before reaching in front and grabbing my chub.
“Anything you want,” I sighed deeply, letting his body hold mine up.
“Anything?” he teased, licking the outer shell of my ear while rubbing my crotch.
“Right now, yes.”
“All right, you asked for it. I want to go to the local sex club.”
I spun around so quickly, I practically knocked him over. “Dammit, I wish I could see your eyes right now. Are you shitting me?”
“No. I know that being poly is important to you. I also know you like to watch, and while I’m invisible, it’s something I want to try.”
“Hey no, no.” I reached out, my hands hitting his chest, then moving upward until I was cupping his face. “I don’t need that. I need you. And part of us as mates is never expecting the other one to do anything that would make him uncomfortable.”
His hand found my cock again, and he squeezed and rubbed it. “I want to do this, Jared. I need to know, for me.”
Several hours later, I found myself showing my ID at the door to a very posh-looking doorman in downtown Hangzhou. He unhooked the red rope and let me pass.
“That doorman was checking out your butt,” Alec whispered into my ear and I laughed.
“Can you blame him?”
“Not at all.” He cupped one of my cheeks in his hand.
The bar area and dance floor were reminiscent of the V but not as lavishly decorated. The floors were painted black and the walls, a natural brick. One of the brick walls was the canvas for a brightly painted face of a woman wearing a traditional Chinese headdress. Another woman perched seductively over the bar, painted in profile, casting us a come-hither look over her shoulder. These paintings were ginormous, covering most of the walls they decorated.
