Hank steadied himself against the wall, regaining his own breath. That had been a rough one; he knew he’d be pissing blood later. But still … no fear.
He searched the entire building, including the martial arts school upstairs and the scullery rooms behind the kitchen, to make sure there was no one left to jump him. He ended his search at a smaller, private meeting room, with a separate entrance onto the alley behind the restaurant. The dimly lit space was bisected by an elaborately carved rosewood screen reaching to the ceiling. Stepping cautiously around the side of the screen, Hank found a shrine dedicated to Guan Yu, the red-faced warrior god. Two statues of the furious deity stood on either side of a high-backed chair, its arms formed into arch-backed dragons. He knew this was where the late Mountain Master had sat when issuing orders to his followers on the other side of the grill, his guttural voice even sterner and more forbidding when his face was hidden.
Hank froze, hearing the door open. Quick footsteps entered from the alley beyond the meeting room. He stepped farther back, hiding himself behind the carved grillwork.
“Master! You’ve got to help me!”
The image of a young woman was just visible to him as she prostrated herself on the other side of the grill. By its tapered wooden handle, she picked up the brass ceremonial bell there and rang it.
He peered closer toward the openings carved in the wood. He could see the woman clearly now. A strange feeling moved inside his chest, one that he had never felt before.
“Master—please…”
He grunted in acknowledgment, knowing that if he spoke, his voice would give him away.
The deception worked; she did not know the Mountain Master had been killed only a few moments earlier.
“I don’t know if you remember me, master?” She raised her tear-wet face. Chinese and beautiful. “But I’m Ling—I studied here. At your school.”
He grunted once more.
The woman’s desperation overwhelmed her. Through the grill, Hank could see her trembling, as though her agonies of remorse and fear were like the storm lashing the roof of the building hard enough to batter the structure from its foundation.
“Please…” There were words inside her that she could no longer hold back. She reached out and touched the grill with her fingertips. “There’s no one I can turn to now but you and the triad.”
He made no sound at all. He didn’t need to.
In a hushed whisper, the woman began her story …
* * *
Her parents had other ambitions for her.
Yes, their child excelled at the deadly skills taught at the Mountain Master’s school. So much so, that the master’s intent was to someday make her an instructor, her authority second only to his. An honor, perhaps—but how did that put money in one’s pockets?
No, she would be a lawyer, just as her parents had decided years earlier. Better their child should apply her sharply honed killer’s instinct in a courtroom, rather than in some alley dueling with other schools’ star pupils.
Such was the plan she was bound by familial duty to accept.
“All our savings,” her father told her. He reached across the bare kitchen table and took her hands in his, squeezing them tightly. “All that your mother and I have scraped together. Penny by penny—for you, princess. And more besides.”
From a much worn and handled envelope, her father extracted a sheaf of moneylenders’ contracts. The numbers that Ling could see written on the small square notes appalled her.
“Yes—” He nodded when he saw his daughter’s widened eyes. “The interest alone is almost more than we can pay. But we aren’t worried.” Her father waved a contemptuous hand at the stack of paper. “When you are a successful lawyer, with rich clients—then it will all have been worth it.”
But there was one flaw in her parents’ scheme, and Ling was the first to know it. However incandescent her star had shown under the Mountain Master’s tutelage, in the fierce study of blows and counterblows, lightning evasions and whirling kicks to an opponent’s throat, at the university, in the private school of law that her parents enrolled her into, that light was rather dimmer.
Perhaps her heart was still at her previous master’s school. She had given it there, from the time she had been a little pigtailed girl, and it could not easily be returned to her. Or else, she dismally thought, gazing at the impenetrable language of torts and complaints in the foot-thick tomes before her, or else I’m just no good at this stuff. Whatever the reason, there was not enough money in the world, let alone her family’s purse, to buy her the grades she needed to pass her courses. She was, in fact, the thinnest hair away from flunking out. And no money-back guarantee had been granted with her tuition payment. All that her parents had spent, and all that they owed to the pitiless loan sharks, would be wasted when she crept back in shame to them …
“I can help you.”
Startled, Ling looked up from the wooden rack of hymnals in front of her. She had escaped to the university’s empty chapel for a little while, to try and find an answer to her dilemma. She glanced beside her and saw a dwarfish figure standing in the chapel’s aisle.
“Who … who are you?”
“Name’s aren’t important,” answered the dwarf. “Let’s just say that I’m someone who can help you with your problem. For a price…”
“I … don’t know what you mean. What problem—”
“Oh, come on,” said the dwarf, dismissing her pretense. “I’ve been watching you for weeks. I know you’re having trouble with your classes. And I know your parents are in deep debt. But believe me, killing yourself is no answer for you. Even if it looks like that now.”
She glared at him. Barely taller than her waist, the figure was further deformed by the hump that bowed his back into a lopsided arc. Wiry brown hair covered his angled shoulders. The tailored three-piece suit appeared oddly elegant on one so misshapen, the skin of his hands and neck covered with septic boils and scarlet eczema.
“Do you really believe yourself to be the first young lady to find herself sinking beneath the weight of the law?” The dwarf rubbed his scabby chin with a spiderlike hand. “I’ve known hundreds of people like you in my time. And usually, I’m the only one who can ease their fear.” He displayed a yellow-toothed smile as he slipped into the pew beside her. “So long as they’re willing to give me what I require.”
She found herself repulsed by the hideous figure. But stayed there all the same. “What kind of help … are you talking about?”
“The kind that doesn’t unfairly prejudice people, simply because they have no brains or talent.” The dwarf tapped the edge of the pew with a yellow fingertip. “I can give you the answers to all your exam questions in advance. And believe me, with my help, you’ll pass your bar exam at the head of your class. Then you’ll be a fully fledged lawyer. Just like your parents dream of.”
“And … the price?” She turned her nose up involuntarily, fearing it would be something physical.
The dwarf saw the expression of disgust on her face, and almost hissed at it. “It’s not your body that I want, but something else,” he said in a sharp, insulted tone. “I look at you as an investment. I won’t ask anything of you straight away. But be aware, by shaking my hand, you agree to pay me whatever I ask for when the day arrives. Though rest assured … By that time you’ll be a big success, and you’ll be able to afford it easily.”
An apprehensive shiver ran through Ling’s body. The thought of doing any kind of deal with him made her uneasy. But faced with the prospect of shame or suicide, she knew she didn’t have an option.
Sensing her acceptance, the dwarf extended his scabby hand toward her. “You’re making the right decision,” he said drily. “After this, your success will be sealed.”
She took his disgusting hand and shook it. And just as he’d promised, there was no looking back.…
Thanks to the dwarf’s help, Ling passed her exams at the top of her class. Her mother wept, and L
ing almost crushed her father with a hug when she laid the ribboned diploma on the kitchen table. A year later, as her career took off, her parents sent her postcards from the Bermuda cruise she’d sent them on. The year after that, she accepted a prestigious position in the city DA’s office.
Five years passed, five years of success and its concomitant rewards. And in that time, she didn’t hear a single word from the hideous dwarf. In the end, she even began to hope that he might have died or forgotten her. And that the debt she owed him would never have to be repaid.
It turned out to be a vain hope.
There had been time for a boyfriend by then—and a little more. Following a brief fling with one of her fellow lawyers, who soon took up a job oversees with a new wife, Ling found out that she was pregnant. She didn’t even bother to write and tell him what had happened—she was making enough money on her own to take care of everything.
Her aging parents were unhappy about the absence of a wedding ring on Ling’s hand—but overjoyed by the birth of their grandchild, a beautiful baby girl she named Ren-Lei. Before her maternity leave from the DA’s office ended, Ling engaged a nanny for her daughter, a skilled young woman named Anna, hired from the most highly recommended household personnel agency in the city. Anna’s salary was a major expense for Ling, but clearly worth it; the woman’s professionalism was obvious, and she seemed to adore the baby who had been placed in her charge. Ling wasn’t even sure why she took the precaution of installing a hidden video camera in Ren-Lei’s nursery, its tiny wide-angle lens hidden in the stuffed belly of a decorative teddy bear, up on the highest of the room’s toy shelves.
With every concern taken care of, Ling returned to her office with the district attorney, immersing herself once again in all the subpoenaed grand jury investigations that had stacked up while she had been gone. She might have preferred to have been at home taking care of Ren-Lei herself, but a lifestyle such as the one she had created for the two of them, and for the baby’s grandparents, did not come cheap. There were bills to pay. But as long as Ren-Lei thrived in Anna’s care, then all the little family’s days passed happily enough.…
Until this morning. When Ling woke up and went into the nursery, and found the crib empty—and a note on top of the rumpled pink blanket. The roughly scrawled words read, Your debt’s paid—I’ve taken what’s mine. There was no signature at the bottom of the note, just a star-shaped symbol, crudely drawn by the same angry hand:
Frantic, Ling pulled the hidden video camera down from the shelf, the other toys scattering around the floor. On the LCD screen that the teddy bear opened to reveal, Ling watched as her trusted nanny escorted an ugly little man into the room. The digits in the corner showed that it all had taken place after midnight, when Ling had been sound asleep in her bedroom. The horrid figure that she remembered from five years ago had been too short to reach into the crib. Instead, Anna took the baby and placed it in his arms, then dropped the note he gave her onto the blanket. They left together, the nursery now empty and silent.
A flood of memories surged through Ling’s mind. Weeks before, when she had watched the nanny settling the baby down for a nap, Anna’s long hair had swept down over one shoulder, leaving the back of her neck exposed. Right at the nape, a tattoo no bigger than the woman’s thumb, in plain blue-black ink—and exactly the same symbol as the one on the bottom of the note.
* * *
“I couldn’t go to the authorities.” Kneeling on the other side of the carved grillwork, Ling kept her head bowed. It was obvious she still believed she was talking to the Mountain Master. “By then, I’d seen the same symbol on the DA’s ring as well. And on an amulet around the police chief’s neck. The dwarf must have people working for him all over this city. People he’s helped, who owe him favors.”
Concealed from her sight, Hank gave a monosyllabic grunt.
Ling raised her face, damp with tears. “I went back to my office, master. And I did everything I could to find the dwarf myself. I’ve been through every file I can lay my hands on, trying to find out who he is. But it’s like he doesn’t even exist. I haven’t found any clues about him anywhere. Not a name, or an address, or anything else, despite how weird he looks.”
Hank gave another grunt, affirming that he understood all that she had told him. He remembered the dwarf in the limousine. It has to be the same guy …
“Master, you and the triad are the only ones I can turn to now. I’ll give you whatever you ask for. But you have to help me! For the sake of Ren-Lei!” She laid her hand on the grillwork, a fraction of an inch from Hank’s face. “I’m so frightened for her. And I know … I know it’s all my fault…”
He felt as though his heart were breaking. Something more than the woman’s beauty captivated him.
“I will help you.” Hank couldn’t stop himself from speaking aloud. “I’ll kill the dwarf for you, and bring your baby back.” He put his own hand against the grillwork, one fingertip just able to touch hers through the perforated metal. “I swear—”
She leapt back, crouched as though to strike, the fury in her eyes showing past her upraised fists. “You’re not the master!”
His voice had betrayed him.
“Who are you? Show yourself!”
Hank stood up and stepped out from behind the grillwork. The woman’s eyes widened as she beheld his towering form.
“I’m a friend,” he said simply. “You don’t know me yet … but it’s true. I can help you … Listen to me, and I’ll—”
“There’s blood. All over you.” Her eyes widened, as though she were struck with a sudden realization. Ling ran to the door leading to the restaurant, opened it, and beheld the silenced wreckage beyond. She stared at the shattered tables and chairs, and the lifeless bodies, red pooling across the tiles. “You killed them … all of them…” That was when she spotted the Mountain Master, his corpse floating in the aquarium tank in the distance, sightless eyes gazing through the glass at her.
“The master…” Her hate-filled gaze turned back toward him. “You killed him … you killed my only hope.”
Hank shook his head. “No. Like I said, I can help you, too…”
“And why should I trust you?” She looked at his reddened hands. “A murderer. A killer. That’s all you are.” Her eyes locked on his. “Now … now there’s no one…”
She turned and ran. All he could do was reach, trembling, toward the empty space where she had been. He heard the back door slam open, then her racing footsteps disappear into the lightless silence.
“Wait—” Hank knew he had to go after her. To protect her. With a deity’s stern regard, Guan Yu watched as he pushed aside a stack of chairs and headed for the alley, too. He collided with the garbage cans, knocking them over onto the wet cobblestones. “Don’t go—” He ran after the woman, barely visible through the slanting rain.
* * *
“You blew it.” Nathaniel’s voice was filled with contempt. “What the hell were you thinking?”
He stood near the carved screen. Invisible to them, he had been able to watch everything, hear everything, that had gone on between the woman and the hit man.
Through the room’s doorway, he caught sight of himself in one of the restaurant’s mirrors that had been left unshattered by the battle with the Mountain Master’s students. He could see the expression of concern on his face’s reflection. “These people don’t mean anything to you,” he told himself. It was the rule that Death, his own master, would have quoted to him, if that pale, emotionless entity had been there. “Don’t get involved.”
It was a good rule—the best rule—and a person didn’t need millennia of cold experience to know it.
He picked up one of the chairs and set it upright. He sat down, folding his arms across the back of the chair. Tired—for the last few hours, he had been following the trail of death through the city, just as his master had instructed him to do. Given what had just gone down here with that seven-foot-tall killing machine, he figured he
had pretty much found the epicenter of the night’s fatalities. Just observing—he had arrived at the restaurant while the fight had been in full swing—had worn him out. It seemed ironic to have returned at last to the world of the living, only to see that many people get iced.
But there had been more to it than that. It had been listening to the woman’s story; that had taken something out of him as well. Her name was Ling; he knew that much about her. And her baby had been taken from her. That was the story she had told, through her anguished tears, to the giant hit man. Ren-Lei; probably a cute kid, if she took after her mother. Nathaniel figured the baby probably did. A sad story, but he had heard ones just as sad before. His life so far had been full of sad stories.
But this one had hit him hard for some reason. He laid his chin down on his arms and thought about it. At last, it came to him. She’s looking for her baby, thought Nathaniel. She’ll go on searching, forever. She’ll never stop. That’s what his own mother would have done—he knew it, he absolutely knew it—if she had still been alive when his drunken father had given him to Death. She would have come and found him. No matter what it took.
He got up from the chair and went over to the shrine. He looked down and saw the little drops of water, dark on the tiles below the screen. Those were her tears, he knew. He knelt down and touched a fingertip to one. Then he touched his chest. The pain was still there. It would never go away.
“You really are an idiot,” he softly told himself. But if the injury he had sustained, the weakening of the sacred pins that held his own soul inside himself, made it impossible to help anyone whom fate had drawn to his master’s world, the realm of the dead …
Then maybe he should help someone here. In the realm of the living.
He stood up. He closed his eyes as he brought his wet fingertip to his mouth.
And tasted the salt of a mother’s tears.
Death's Apprentice: A Grimm City Novel Page 9
