GHOST CROWN: THE TRACKS TRILOGY - Book Two

by J. Gabriel Gates

  “Who?” Raphael asked.

  Chin hesitated for only a moment. He knew the time had come. “It’s a secret Chinese brotherhood—the Order of the Black Snake.”

  “Who are they?” Raphael asked. “What do they want?”

  “They are formidable enemies, Raphael. Sorcerers. They practice a rare form of snake-style kung fu, blended with black magic. They’re using the dark arts to control Zhai. And what the want is the treasure.”

  “This makes no sense,” Raph said, still trying to take it all in. “How did this so-called treasure end up Middleburg? And how do they know about it?”

  Chin was already on his feet and heading for the door, gesturing for Raphael to follow.

  “No time to explain now,” he said. “Come on.”

  As they rode in Master Chin’s rusty old pickup truck on the way into town, Chin gave Raphael his instructions: “Keep an eye out for those men—you and your Flatliners. I must find Zhai and try to free him from the spell the Order put on him. As soon as you see them, call me. Do not attack until I arrive.”

  “We’re going to fight them?” Raphael asked, and Chin could tell he was worried. He saw determination in his pupil’s eyes, but there was fear, too.

  “We cannot let the treasure fall into their hands, Raphael—no matter what. The result would be unthinkable. So, yes. We’ll fight them—you, me, and Zhai. Together.”

  “I don’t think you should count on Zhai,” Raphael replied.

  Chin dropped him at the corner near his house, then headed for Hilltop Haven.

  The heater had been broken for months, and his hands were so cold he was afraid they might freeze to the steering wheel. Still, the day was pretty enough; a pallid sun hung in a faded blue sky above the festering old apartment houses of the Flats. The world seemed serene as he headed up Golden Avenue, passing the stately old brick-front buildings of downtown. On a day like this, he could almost believe everything would be okay.

  The guard at the gate buzzed him in immediately, and the Shao’s front door swung open the moment he rang the bell. A maid ushered him into the living room. Cheung entered a few minutes later, clad in a gray suit, slightly darker gray shirt and a red tie. He looked as put together as he normally did, but Chin could tell he was a little frayed around the edges. The knot in his tie was loose, as if he’d been tugging on it, and there were bags under his eyes. He managed a stiff smile as Chin approached, but it quickly faded when he saw the bandage on Chin’s head.

  “What happened?” he asked urgently, without the usual courteous greeting.

  “Even the most careful and coordinated of us will have an accident occasionally,” Chin answered. Cheung was too wise to believe that explanation, but Chin knew he was also too polite to challenge it. “I have come to see Zhai.”

  “He is not here, Chin. He didn’t come home all night.” Cheung shook his head and his worry was evident. “This is not like him. I had my secretary call all his friends this morning. No one has seen him.”

  Chin nodded. He should have expected as much. He had been foolishly optimistic to think his enemies would allow him any chance to wrest Zhai from their control.

  “Listen, old friend,” Chin told Cheung Shao quietly. “I need to ask you something, and you must be honest with me.” He’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this; he didn’t want to dig into Cheung’s carefully protected private life, but he had to get at the truth. Saying the name of the Order aloud, however, was a dangerous proposition.

  Instead of speaking, he lifted his arm as if to shake hands with Cheung, and then made an undulating motion with it. The sign of the Order. Cheung’s eyes grew wide and the color drained from his face.

  “You know, I could use some air,” Cheung said quietly. “Let’s go out and finish our visit over lunch.”

  Chin nodded and silently followed Cheung into the foyer, where Cheung rang for the maid to bring him his coat. As she helped him put it on, Chin glanced up the stairs. Lotus was there, standing at the banister, looking down on them, her eyes devoid of emotion as they met Chin’s. Then, without a word, she turned away and slipped back into the shadows of the upstairs hallway.

  Shall we?” Cheung said, gesturing to the doorway, and Chin followed.

  

  Aimee stood in front of her mirror, going over the kung fu form Raphael had taught her. Her legs were stiff and every muscle in her body ached, but Raphael promised that the more she practiced, the faster she would advance, so she had decided to push herself every day. When the knock came on her door, however, she was more than ready for a break.

  It was her dad, with a stack of mail in his hand. He held an envelope out to her. As she took it he asked, “What are you up to?”

  “Just practicing . . . uh, my cheerleading,” Aimee said, looking down at the envelope and wondering who it was from. “I’m going to try out next semester—I told you.” She hadn’t, but she knew he wouldn’t remember.

  “Well, that’s good news,” he said. “It’s about time you got back to your real life.” He continued shuffling through his mail. When she didn’t say anything, he looked up and nodded at the envelope she was holding. “Aren’t you going to open it?”

  She wanted to say, “Why—are you suddenly interested in my life, for a change, instead of just trying to control everything I think and do?” But things were going so well lately; her dad was paying less attention to her than ever, Rick was busy with football, and she was able to sneak out and see Raphael or hang with Dalton once in a while. She didn’t know who the letter or card or whatever was from and she didn’t care. It wasn’t from Raphael—he was too smart to do something so brazen. “Do you want to open it?” she asked her father quietly.

  “Oh, don’t be silly,” he said, as if humoring a small child. “Go ahead, honey. See who it’s from.”

  She tore the envelope open and took out a lovely, old-fashioned card. It was a pale violet and had a hand-painted bouquet of lavender and the words “You’re Invited,” on the front. She flipped it open and found, in neat, masculine, dark blue script:

  You are cordially invited

  To the home of Orias Morrow

  On the afternoon of November 24th, at 4 pm,

  For High Tea.

  Aimee stared at the card.

  “Well?” her dad asked.

  “It’s an invitation. From Orias,” she said, frowning. “He’s inviting me to high tea, of all things.” The whole idea was ridiculous—who had high tea, in Middleburg, in the twenty-first century, for heaven’s sake? The fact that he was having a tea party seemed strange; the fact that he had invited her was even more perplexing.

  “Do we have to go?” she asked, surprised to find that although she dreaded another encounter with Orias, she was also intrigued by the idea.

  “Let’s see the card,” Jack said, and she showed it to him. “Nope,” he said. “Not us. You. It seems neither Rick nor I are invited. Unless yours is a plus-one?”

  She looked at the invitation again and shook her head. So he’d just invited her. Great. She shrugged and stuck the card back in the envelope. “I’ll call and tell him I can’t go.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I’m grounded, right?”

  Her dad flipped absently through his new issue of Fortune magazine. “Aimee, Aimee, Aimee . . . Orias isn’t one of those delinquents from the Flats. Orias has class. He’s smart, ambitious and richer than God. I think you should get to know him better.”

  “Even though his father kidnapped me?” she snapped, no longer able to control her mouth.

  Her dad shut the magazine and looked at her. “You, of all people, should not want a kid to suffer for a parent’s mistakes, not after your mother—well, never mind. Oberon is dead—he has to be, or he’d have made a move by now. He wouldn’t let Orias take over control of his businesses and properties if he were s
till alive, believe me. Orias has done nothing to deserve being made to feel unwelcome—which is how he’ll feel if you refuse his invitation.”

  Aimee held up the card. “So let me get this straight. You want me to go?”

  “Yes, I do,” he said. “It looks like I’m going to be doing business with that young man, and I don’t think it will send a good message if you don’t show up. Tell you what. Go and have tea with him, and I’ll repeal your grounding. You’ll be off the hook.”

  “Really?”

  “Really!” He grinned, and he looked disarmingly like the doting father she remembered as a little girl.

  “Okay, then—I’ll go.” She was stunned but it was a deal she couldn’t refuse. An hour of swilling tea and eating cucumber sandwiches, and she’d have her freedom back. It seemed like an excellent trade to her.

  “Good,” her father said, and she tried to remember the last time she’d gotten his approval for something. “I’m having lunch with him tomorrow. I’ll let him know you’ll be there.”

  He left then, shutting the door behind him, and Aimee stared at the invitation. The prospect of seeing Orias was a little scary, but at least it was a party—she wouldn’t be alone with him.

  Because, as much as she loved Raphael, she was afraid of what might happen if she were alone with Orias for too long.

  

  Chin sat with Cheung in a private upper room of Spinnacle, one reserved for VIPs—which typically meant either Cheung or Jack Banfield. The room was comfortably appointed with a large, rectangular table of beautiful wood and several expensive-looking leather couches, most of them facing a large picture window that looked out across the rolling fields and forests north of town. It was a nice space. Chin could see why it was reserved for the most valued clientele.

  Cheung sat with a glass of Cognac in front of him; it was the first time Chin had ever seen him drink. He stared down into the amber liquid for a long time before he finally spoke.

  “Are you one of them?” Cheung Shao finally asked.

  The silence sat heavily between them for a moment.

  “I was once,” Chin said, gazing out the window, across the bleak, barren fields. “A long time ago.”

  Cheung Shao looked up from his drink, directly into Chin’s eyes. “But they kill anyone who leaves.”

  “They try,” Chin agreed. “And they almost always succeed.”

  Cheung sighed, long and slow, and then sipped his drink again. “They will kill me for talking to you,” he said.

  “Maybe. But if you don’t tell me the truth, Zhai may end up dead. Or worse . . .”

  Cheung was silent for a long time, but when he started speaking again, he didn’t stop.

  “I’ve told you that my father was a simple fisherman—uneducated—but he always made sure I went to school. And I was smart. The best in my class. The best they’d seen in the school, for many years. When I was old enough, I moved to Hong Kong and became a stock trader, determined to make my fortune. I married and we were happy and soon Ming was pregnant with Zhai. Chin, I was never so happy, before or since. I was good at my job, but unlucky. When I lost the fortune I’d made, I was too ashamed to tell my wife. So I made one last try to get it back—at an illegal gambling parlor. I was losing—fast and big—but I was wearing an expensive suit, so they extended me a line of credit. The more I tried, the more I lost. At last, I gave up and went home. Still, I couldn’t bear to tell Ming the truth. Every day I put on my suit and left in the morning, as if going to work. I did odd jobs—carrying wood, painting buildings—whatever I could find. But it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t pay my gambling debts, and one day I went home to find Ming—”

  Here, Cheung paused for a long time, trying to steady his voice and stave off the emotion. Finally, he finished in a hoarse whisper:

  “I found Ming dead. Zhai—he was only four years old—had a note pinned to his shirt that said, ‘Pay us or he’s next.’ So I took him and we fled. The Order found me three days later, living on the street with Zhai. The man who approached me was wearing an old-fashioned derby hat—and a tattoo of a snake ran up both his forearms. He was kind, and he was charming. He bought lunch for me and Zhai, and I explained my situation to him. He told me he could take care of it. He could buy my debt from the owner of the gambling house, and all it would cost me was devotion to the Order of the Black Snake. I thought what he promised was impossible, but I swore if he could help me save my son’s life I would do anything. He came back half an hour later with a letter from the leader of the Hong Kong Triad that said my life, indeed, had been signed over to the Order of the Black Snake.

  “I had heard whispered stories about the Order—everyone had—but I never believed they really existed. I asked the man what I would have to do for them.

  “‘We’ve heard how smart you are, Cheung Shao,’ he told me. ‘We are going to put you in place for a very important job. You will live like a king, in a mansion. You will have a fortune at your disposal. You will have a beautiful wife. You will run our companies in America, which will give you great power. Everything under the sun a man could desire will be yours. And one day, when it’s time to do that very important job, we will come to you.’”

  “That’s how you and Zhai got to Middleburg,” Chin guessed.

  Cheung Shao nodded. “Two members of the Order put us on a boat in China, and two other members met us when we arrived in America. They brought us to Middleburg. They escorted me to the mansion they had waiting for me, and everything they promised came true. A large share of several companies, including Middleburg Materials, had been purchased in my name. A year later, I met Lotus. Everything was as they said it would be, and I was happy. They went away and I forgot about them. There was no contact as long as I submitted a profit-and-loss statement twice a year to their agent in Hong Kong. Most days, I could even forget that I belonged to them.”

  Cheung tilted his head back and downed the last of his drink. Chin’s heart ached for his friend, but he knew there was nothing he could do to ease the pain of the past. All he could hope to do was bring Zhai home safely and help to avert a future tragedy.

  “They’ve come back,” Cheung said.

  “I see.” Chin finished his soda water. “What do they want you to do?”

  “If I tell you more, they will certainly kill me.” He signaled the waiter for another drink and then looked at Chin, in agony. “Do you think they have my son?”

  “I don’t know,” Chin answered. “But I will find him.”

  “If he’s still alive. When the Order is done with Middleburg, I wonder if any of us will be.”

  

  Chin called Raphael as he drove away from Spinnacle. “Any news?” he asked eagerly. “Any sign of Zhai—or the Snakes?”

  “Nothing,” Raphael said quietly. “We covered the Flats—twice. There’s no sign of the Shao Construction guys, either, or their equipment. It’s like they vanished.”

  An odd, vacant feeling crept into Chin’s soul as he stared out his frosty windshield. They hadn’t vanished, he knew. They were Snakes and snakes were patient, coiled in their holes, waiting to strike.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  It was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and the energy in the Middleburg High cafeteria was manic as everyone went from table to table talking with friends, taking good-natured snipes at each other, and generally getting amped up for the long weekend. But the mood at the Toppers lunch table remained sullen.

  “I bet he got mono,” D’von said in his low, bass voice. “Cle’von, you remember when our cousin got mono and he couldn’t leave the house for three months?”

  Cle’von, chewing a huge bite of sub sandwich, nodded.

  “I don’t know,” Dax said, drumming his fingers on the table. “You all know how responsible Zhai is. He’d have to be half-dead not to even call.”

  Rick
managed to keep his temper in check, but he was losing patience with all this talk. No one had heard from Zhai since the weekend and he hadn’t been in school Monday, Tuesday, or today. Rick and Bran had called his house, but the maid said only that Mr. Zhai wasn’t home and no one else in the family was available.

  But Rick wasn’t worried about Zhai. What was pissing Rick off was that no one had thought to suggest he lead the Toppers—at least until Zhai returned. But he kept silent, biding his time. If there was one thing he’d learned from his father, it was how to do that.

  “Well, there’s one way to find out what’s going on real quick,” Bran said in his cool southern drawl. “We ask Li.”

  A few heads nodded in agreement and Michael Ponder said, “Oh yeah . . .”

  Even though Li was one of the hottest girls at Middleburg High, there was an unspoken rule among the Toppers that their leader’s sister was strictly off limits. And as difficult as it was, they studiously ignored her on the rare occasions Zhai invited her to go with them somewhere, only stealing looks at her when they were sure he wasn’t paying attention.

  Li. It pissed Rick off that he hadn’t thought of it first—but if Li could tell them if Zhai had gone out of town or something, that might prompt a vote for Rick to be their interim leader. And he had plenty of ideas about what he would do with his newfound power.

  “What do you say?” Bran said to Rick. “Let’s go ask her.”

  Rick nodded, swiped his mouth with the napkin and rose. He and Bran headed over to the table in the corner where Li sat with two girls who were only pretty enough to accent her exotic beauty, and the little wussy guy who followed her everywhere. Rick didn’t remember his name.

  When Rick and Bran stepped up to the table, the conversation ground to a halt. Li’s friends blushed and the kid—Weston, that was it—sat up straighter. Only Li seemed unaffected by their presence. She looked up at Rick and he saw playful defiance in her dark eyes. It struck him again how beautiful she was. Like her mom, she was a total freaking fox. While Rick stared, Bran, always the talkative one, struck up the conversation.