The Scarlet Empress

by Susan Grant

  Something inside him unknotted. She looked like Cam. . . .

  She was Cam!

  He opened up the doors. Cold air rushed over his damp body, and he welcomed it. He’d worked himself to exhaustion so he wouldn’t dwell overly much on her presence in the palace—or her repeated requests to see him. But, heaven above, he missed her. He dreamed of her. She’d made him laugh. She’d given him hell. He’d never in his life encountered a woman who could do both. Go after her.

  Kyber pressed his lips together. After the debacle with Banzai, was he so willing to be played the fool again?

  Cam is not Banzai.

  He gave his head a shake. No, he couldn’t see her. Not until he was sure his emotions were under control.

  But Kublai could.

  His hand tightened around the door handle. It was madness. It was ill-advised.

  You don’t know where she is headed, or why.

  Hmm. Excellent point. The streets of Beijing were mostly safe, even at night, but a pretty woman out alone? There was always the risk of untoward behavior. He would not tolerate that, or even the risk of it.

  Kyber took a breath and stood straighter. For the sake of national security, he would call on the services of his number one bounty hunter to act as bodyguard. No one took better care of Cam Tucker than Kublai.

  Throwing his towel to the floor, he went in search of clothes appropriate to the mission.

  It was full dark now. Though they contained technology beyond anything in the twenty-first century, the streetlights designed to resemble lanterns cast the Serpent Quarter in a charming glow—atmosphere it probably needed to lend an aura of intrigue. It was one of those areas that by day would appear seedy, but by night glamorous, in a 1940s Casablanca sort of way.

  It took a while to get used to the billboard buildings. That was the only term Cam could think of to explain it. Entire sides of buildings could, in the blink of an eye, explode in a rainbow of colors, or melt into threedimensional scenes, or, as was most common, burst into news and advertisements. They were like old Internet pop-up ads you couldn’t run away from. But as she walked deeper into the Serpent Quarter, the buildings became older, and the perfectly paved streets more rutted. Atmosphere, she reminded herself.

  She ignored the constant barrage of media lighting up almost all available flat, vertical surfaces. Hunching her shoulders against the chill, she drew her leather coat around herself and turned the collar up. She probably should have worn one of the hats she had seen in her closet. All the women had them—ranging from jaunty little caps to enormous flying-saucer affairs. And they weren’t plain old hats, either. They glowed, and played music, or the news, or looked like mini versions of the mediaplaying buildings. Capitalism was alive and well in this kingdom; she wouldn’t doubt some of these women were being paid to carry advertisements as fashion statements.

  Cam stopped on a street corner to consult her map. There were streets, but no traffic on them other than pedestrian. Cars were restricted to the magroads and electric freeways. Above her head, a virtual air force of sleek jets crisscrossed the sky, taking off and landing vertically from the tops of nearby buildings.

  “Headed out for the evening?” asked a pleasant male voice.

  Cam spun around. The man looked familiar. She squinted at him in the glow of the streetlight. “Minister Hong?”

  “Horace.” He smiled and placed his hands behind his back. He wasn’t in his official government outfit but an elegant suit. And it was not the kind of clothing one would wear to the Serpent Quarter, if she actually knew what kind of clothing one wore to an area that looked like . . . this.

  “Horace, yes. What a surprise to see you here.”

  “And you. Do you have plans to stay out for the evening?”

  “It was getting a little boring in the palace.” As an afterthought, she added, “Waiting for Prince Kyber to decide he wants to see me. Are you sure you can’t get me in to talk to him?”

  Hong flashed white teeth. “Why don’t we discuss it over a drink?”

  Why don’t we not, she thought. Hong was a handsome, elegant man of Chinese ancestry; he’d been nothing but polite to her, but there was something about him tonight that made her want to walk in the opposite direction. Very fast.

  She fought the urge to check her watch. If the Rim Rider was in the bar, she didn’t want to miss him. And now it looked like the kindly minister wanted to tag along. “I can’t. Another time?”

  “I know of a place you’ll enjoy.”

  She really wanted to escape. Mama’s manners lessons were becoming a more distant memory by the minute. “Another night, Horace. I had my heart set on something.”

  A rock bounced off Hong’s shoulder. He glanced at Cam in surprise, flicking at his suit as if chasing away a fly. “Did you just get hit with a—,” she began. Another small rock sailed over the street and plunked off the side of his head. “Are you okay?”

  “I am. I—” This time he ducked in time: a rock bounced off the side of the building.

  She took him by the arm. “You’d better get out of the street before—”

  Another rock bounced off his chest. People were staring at them. Cam pulled the minister down behind a closed produce stand. He was dabbing at his head. “Has this ever happened before?” she asked under her breath.

  “Never.”

  “Someone’s definitely aiming for you. Is there a group that might have a problem with a government decision you may have made?”

  “The prince makes the decisions. We only act on them.”

  Why didn’t that surprise her? A rock tore through the canopy of the produce stand. “That was close, Horace. Stay here.” She peered out from behind the stand, waiting for the next rock. When it came, she was going to see who was throwing it.

  She waited, intent and alert, her fighter-pilot instincts turning on. Almost on schedule, another rock zinged past. Judging by the sound of a muffled “oomph,” it found its target.

  And she had found hers.

  Someone—it looked like a child, a boy—ducked around the street corner. Cam took off after him.

  The rock thrower popped into view for another launch. Cam jumped him, grabbing him around the waist and pinning his skinny arms. “You ought to be playing baseball.” The rock in his hand dropped onto her toe. “Ow. What are you doing? Do you know that’s Minister Hong? He’s very important. He could arrest you.”

  The boy couldn’t be more than seven or eight. His eyes grew huge at the mention of arrest.

  “Tell me why you were throwing rocks, or I’m going to call the police.” She wasn’t sure how that was done around here, but she’d figure it out.

  The boy struggled. “I didn’t do it. I didn’t.”

  “I saw you with my own eyes.”

  “It wasn’t my idea. It was hers! She paid me to do it.”

  Cam followed the boy’s frightened gaze—and couldn’t believe what she saw: a teenage girl with two long braids darting away at the other end of the alley.

  “Zhurihe!” Cam released the boy and took off after her.

  The girl jumped a low fence. Cam leaped after her. She turned down another alley. Cam stayed on her tail. “Zhurihe! Wait!”

  The alleyway narrowed. A pile of ceramic pots blocked the other end. Zhurihe jumped over the pots, toppling them. She scrambled to her feet seconds before Cam reached her.

  Cam stumbled over the fallen pots. Liquid splashed onto her clothes. It smelled sour, almost rotten, and now it was all over her. Well, this night was a total waste of makeup. After more than an hour spent getting all prettied up in hopes of seeing Kublai, she’d ended up taking a bath in kimchi!

  “Zhurihe! Stop, please.” The girl sprinted once more onto the main sidewalk. “I know it’s you. I won’t hurt you.”

  They darted in and out of crowds of pedestrians, some who watched with curiosity, others with amusement. Zhurihe threw a wild glance over her shoulder—and collided with a large man. Down she went.

&
nbsp; Cam was on her in a second. “Gotcha!” She locked her arms around the squirming girl, squeezing her tighter when she struggled. “My sister—she always runs away,” she gasped out to the shocked man. He seemed more concerned about getting away than worried that Zhurihe and Cam looked nothing alike.

  Cam wrestled Zhurihe into an alley between two old buildings. They spun, fighting and breathless, bouncing off the brick walls. The efforts Cam had spent sweeping up her hair were for nothing, too. It spun tangled and wild, whipping around her shoulders. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice you in the palace? Did you think I wouldn’t recognize you?”

  Zhurihe’s struggles had lessened some, but Cam suspected she had a lot of fight left in her. “And what’s with the clone army, Joo-Eun? Dr. Park told me you were simple, and getting simpler by the day. You’d better be careful who you fool. Not everyone will take the lies as well as I do. I think Dr. Park might want to weed you out of the gene pool, like she did with the others.”

  Zhurihe made a sound of such raw pain that Cam loosened her grip. Zhurihe spun away from her, cheeks red from tears and exertion. Cam knew she should be furious with the girl for all the lies, but the expression on Zhurihe’s face broke her heart.

  “I’m sorry,” Cam said. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  Zhurihe bit her lip, appearing to fight to compose herself. “But you are right. They could make the decision to kill me with no more authority needed than that required to put down a pet. That’s all we clones are to them—disposable workers and pets. Experiments, all. Prince Kyber, the entire cabinet—they have the power to change it but they don’t. I have the power to make them notice us, and I will.”

  “Cloning is still new then.”

  “Yes, but there are thousands of us, and more every day. We are feared and valued. We are freaks and wonders of scientific accomplishment.” Zhurihe turned her head. Her breathing ragged, she ran her hands up and down her arms. “With the human race now the creator of life, who needs God?”

  “We need God to make sure we don’t kill people like you,” Cam said quietly.

  Zhurihe’s chin came up. “You called me a person.”

  “Isn’t that what you are?”

  The girl’s distraught expression changed to the smile Cam had once counted on to lift her flagging spirits in the bleak days after waking from stasis. “You’re also a liar, Zhurihe, and a cheat. A controlling, mean little wench. Maybe you clones are more human than anyone thinks.”

  Zhurihe’s lower lip trembled.

  “You hurt me, Zhurihe. You told me everything was gone when you knew this was here.”

  “I knew if you thought this existed, you’d want to come here.”

  “And there’s something wrong with that?”

  “You would have wanted to find Banzai Maguire.”

  Cam’s heart stumbled at the mention of the name. “What do you know about her that I don’t?” Her temper flared. She snatched the girl by the collar and half dragged her close. “You know how much she means to me. If you lie this time, Zhurihe, I’ll . . . I’ll—”

  “I know nothing more than you do—I swear it, Cam. This time you have to believe me. She disappeared after leaving the kingdom. Before that, I helped her free Tyler Armstrong from the dungeons. They escaped, and almost died trying.”

  “Almost died how?”

  “Assassins. UCE. It happened in New Seoul.”

  So, they made it only as far as the former South Korea before running into the bad guys. Not good. Cam had suspected Kublai was exaggerating in order to keep her close to the palace, overstating the dangers elsewhere in order to force her loyalty to this nation as opposed to the others. Now she saw she may have been wrong.

  She’d also been wrong about Zhurihe—very wrong. Her hand twisted in the fabric of the girl’s collar. “All those times you were leaving me on the farm, you were working double shifts at the palace. Going back and forth by magcar, right? Bree likely knew you by your palace name—Joo-Eun.”

  Cam tightened her grip on Zhurihe’s collar. The girl wheezed in the affirmative.

  “And the entire time you were fixing to help her leave, you were consoling me, telling me that she was dead—and probably telling her the same thing!” Cam pushed her away in disgust. “I can’t figure out whether you’re a pathological liar or a spy.”

  “I am neither! I wanted only to keep Bree safe. And you, too, Cam. I have my reasons.”

  “As selfless as you think your cause is, it doesn’t give you the right to play with other people like chess pieces!”

  “But I—”

  “Shut up, Zhurihe. Just shut up.” Grief and resentment threatened to take over. Cam took a couple of steadying breaths. Frowning, she demanded, “And why the hell did you pay that boy to throw rocks at Minister Hong?”

  “I wanted him to leave you alone.”

  They regarded each other warily. “Is Hong dangerous?”

  “Stay away from him. Don’t listen to him. He’s not to be believed.”

  “How do I know you’re not lying again?”

  “Trust me.”

  “I’m supposed to trust you?”

  Zhurihe’s face turned white. “Have to go.” She spun on a heel, braids whirling, and ran off into the night.

  “Zhurihe! Wait!” Cam started to chase after her when a heavy hand landed on her shoulder, holding her back.

  “It’s not polite to keep a date waiting, pretty one.”

  Kublai! She spun around and there he was, standing in front of her: all six-foot-two, tattooed, irresistible bit of him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The next thing Cam knew, she was sitting at a dark corner table in the Hollow Heart. Kublai pressed a cold pack to her wrist. “I didn’t even feel it,” she said. “I think I bashed it when I tripped over those pots.”

  He wrinkled his nose. “Kimchi.” She tried to tug her hand away, but he held fast. “Apply the ice a little longer.”

  “I want to wash up. I stink.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  She sighed and let her head sag onto her hand. A lank strand of hair fell over her eyes, and she blew it out of the way. “I haven’t had many days worse than this, Kublai. The prince refused to see me for the sixth consecutive time—or the tenth, depending how I count. Then I chase down the boy throwing rocks at Minister Hong and—”

  “Minister Hong was in the Serpent Quarter?”

  “Yes. And I was as surprised as you are to see him there.

  Anyway, I chased down the boy tossing the stones and—”

  “A child was throwing rocks at Hong?”

  “Yes, but someone else told him to do it, and—”

  “Who did?”

  “She . . .” Cam stopped short of giving an immediate answer. There was the question of Zhurihe’s double identity, something she hadn’t fully puzzled out yet. Until she had a better idea what was going on, she’d best not share too much and risk putting Zhurihe’s life at risk. Kublai was loyal to the prince. If he were to learn of deceit going on in the palace, namely Zhurihe’s deceit, it could get the clone killed—if Dr. Park didn’t get to her first. As many wrongs as the girl had committed so far, Cam didn’t think she deserved to die for them. Her instincts told her that while Zhurihe couldn’t be trusted, she wasn’t evil. “It was an older girl,” she said finally. “A teenager, and she kicked my butt.”

  “I think it was the other way around.”

  Cam made a sound halfway between a huff and a snort. “Let’s just say she had the advantage of being younger.”

  “And not having been in biostasis for a hundred and seventy years.”

  Leaning on her hand, she smiled up at him. “You give good pep talks.”

  His thumb moved over her arm, tracing the line of the ice pack. “You’re Rim Rider material, you know that?” he said.

  She leaned closer. “You might find Rim Riding with me more fun than going with Nazeem.”

  He watched her with that enigmatic expre
ssion of his. “Fun wasn’t the first word that came to mind.” He reached for the strand of hair that kept flopping over her eyes and tucked it behind her ear. The filmy white embroidered blouse she’d somehow not stained in her pursuit of Zhurihe slipped lower, baring one shoulder. His fingers dipped from her hair to her bare skin.

  She couldn’t breathe the entire time those fingers circled over the rounded part of her shoulder. That touch went a lot deeper than what was obvious. One lingering, almost regretful caress, and that magical contact vanished.

  She exhaled through her nose. Breathe deep; that’s it, Cam. “How did you know I was in the Quarter?” she asked when she could speak.

  “I saw you walking here, crossing the square near the palace.”

  “And you followed me? You saw Hong, the rocks?”

  He shook his head. “I’d lost sight of you, and came here, hoping you might remember the name of the pub. When you didn’t show, I went looking for you.”

  “I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me. I got that impression when we split at the palace.”

  “But you came looking for me nonetheless.”

  “I needed a friend.”

  His lips compressed. “And I, too.”

  “Listen to us, a couple of morose . . . well, I can’t say drunks because we haven’t touched our drinks.” Two tall glasses of beer sat bubbling between them. “Let’s just say a couple of gloomy souls.” She folded her arms on the table and leaned forward. “So, when are you riding out again?”

  The candor in his expression faded, like someone had pulled a curtain across his soul. “I’m awaiting the prince’s word.”

  Cam made a face. “That makes two of us. He won’t talk to me. All I want is five minutes of his time to see what he can tell me about Bree’s disappearance.”

  “Maybe he has nothing to tell you.”

  “If so, I want to hear it from him. I did find out something on my own, though. Bree got as far as New Seoul, and survived a brush with the bad guys.”