Night's Reckoning

by Elizabeth Hunter

  Tenzin took to the air and flew. She emptied her mind of everything but the mental image of the courtyard where her father would be drinking tea and feeding her carp as they darted between the boulders and fountains in her garden.

  “Tenzin?”

  “Shhh.” She glanced down. “Be calm. Be quiet.”

  “Don’t change me,” he whispered. “Don’t you dare.”

  “I’m not.”

  Tears filled his eyes. “You promised me. Do you remember?”

  The pain clogged her throat. She choked out, “I remember.”

  “So don’t you dare.” His voice was barely over a whisper.

  “Ben, be quiet.”

  “I need to tell you something.”

  “Tell me later.”

  He laughed, and a drop of blood stained his lip. “I’m dying.”

  “No, you’re not.” She blinked at the red that filled her eyes. “You’re not going to die.”

  “I don’t feel anything.” His voice was like a child’s. “That’s so weird.”

  “Benjamin, be calm.” She forced back the scream that wanted to burst from her throat. “Just be quiet.”

  His eyes closed and he fell silent. Tenzin moved with inexorable purpose, her mind on nothing but her father in the courtyard.

  He will be there.

  He will be there.

  He will do this for me.

  “Tiny?”

  “Ben, be still.”

  He forced his neck around so he could see her face. “You’re crying.”

  “It’s the rain.” The storm had come on them swift and sudden. She could hear thunder in the distance.

  “It’s red though.” He was starting to slur his words.

  “Ben, be quiet.”

  They were halfway there. Over halfway. She could feel his blood dripping between her fingers. It had slowed but it hadn’t stopped.

  “Tenzin.”

  “I told you to save your strength.”

  “You were right about Johari.”

  Rage burned in her chest. “She did this?”

  “We found the sword. It was with the glass like you thought.” He started to slur his words again. “Glass ca-cash. Case. Like… bubble. Bread. Weird.”

  She didn’t know what he was talking about, and she couldn’t find it in her heart to care. She didn’t care about the sword. She didn’t even care about Johari yet. Soon she would, but for now all she could think about was her father in the courtyard. Drinking tea. Waiting for her.

  “I feel I am needed.”

  Why else would fate have brought him to her? Why had any of this happened? Why did she still live? Why had she survived? Why had he survived until this moment?

  The tears and the rain mixed together. “Everything will be as it will be,” she whispered.

  “Tiny?”

  “Shhhh. You need to be quiet.”

  “I need to tell you something.”

  “Tell me later.”

  “No, I n-need to tell you now.” His voice took on a strange clarity. “I need to tell you now, Tenzin.”

  “Don’t—”

  “I love you.” There was more blood staining his lips. “I love you so much. And I’m dying, so you need to know that. That I love you. I love you more than anyone I’ve loved in my life.” He swallowed hard.

  “Benjamin—”

  The corner of his mouth curled up. “You never talk and now you want me to shut up, but I’m dying and you need to know…”

  The rain lashed her face. She could see the lights of the city on the horizon.

  “You’re… lovely.” He sniffed. “Lovable. You’re… worthy of that.” He started to slur again. “I am too, I think. So when I’m gone, don’t kill anyone, okay?”

  “Be quiet, Benjamin,” she whispered. “Just be quiet.”

  “I wish I could kiss you one more time.” Tears and rain wet his face. “I really wanted one more dance.”

  She put her lips down to his ear, and her tears mixed with his. “Shhhhh.”

  Something broke inside him, and he cried. His body was motionless, but harsh sobs burst from his mouth. “I didn’t want to die yet.”

  “I know,” she whispered. “You won’t.”

  She pressed her cheek to his and let her amnis slip over him.

  “Tenzin don’t… don’t… dooon’t…” His voice trailed off as she put him into the deepest sleep she could risk. His heartbeat slowed. His temperature dropped.

  “Be calm.” She flew past the lights of Shanghai without even slowing. “Be calm.”

  She flew through the darkness. She didn’t stop. She didn’t slow. She didn’t think of anything but her father in the courtyard of her house, feeding the fish. Drinking tea. Waiting to finally pay his debt.

  He will be there.

  He will be there.

  He will do this for me.

  Ben’s eyes were closed, but his heart was still beating when she landed in the courtyard of her house.

  Her father was nowhere to be seen.

  Tenzin lifted her voice and screamed, “Zhang!”

  Jinpa came running. Mei came running. She ignored their cries of surprise and shock. They ran toward Tenzin.

  “Stop!”

  They halted, both holding hands over their mouths.

  “Zhang Guolao!” she screamed again.

  Her father stepped through the doorway of her house. His face was grim and his eyes severe. He took in the situation in an instant. He was old. He had seen battle. He would know the favor she asked of him before she opened her mouth.

  Tenzin gently placed Ben’s body on the ground, propped him on his side, faced her father, and allowed her tears their release.

  She lowered herself to her knees and put her forehead to the ground. “Aabmen.”

  “Min zuvu.” Zhang’s voice was pained. “What have you done?”

  Tenzin crawled on her hands and knees, her face turned to the ground, until she reached her father’s feet.

  She could smell the cooking fires and hear the stomping ponies. Taste the blood in her mouth as his sons laughed and kicked her as she passed through the gauntlet.

  Tenzin reached Zhang’s feet and put her forehead to the ground again, her ears tuned to Ben’s slow heartbeat.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  She pleaded in his mother’s tongue. “Aabmen, I ask this of you.”

  Zhang was silent.

  “My father, I ask you—”

  “Daughter, he did not want this fate.”

  She felt the blood in her veins rise. Felt her fangs lengthen.

  She smelled the cooking fires and heard the ponies. The sound of laughter and the pain as they kicked her. She lunged toward the bronze blade in the soldier’s hand, eager for a swift death. They laughed again. They slapped her. They broke her.

  Until she broke them.

  Ben’s heartbeat steadied her.

  Tenzin raised her eyes to her father’s and spoke softly. “You will do this for me.”

  His face was full of compassion. Sorrow, even. But his eyes were resolute. “My daughter, he did not want—”

  “You!” She flew straight up and looked her sire level in the eye. “You will do this. For me. For your only child. For the daughter who killed your sons. For the warrior who led your armies.” She pointed at Ben, whose pulse was starting to fade. “You will do this for me.”

  Her sire was silent as a stone.

  “Zhang Guolao, I killed your children one by one. Every child of your amnis was laid to the ground and the earth drank their blood.” She beat her breast. “I did that! And now I offer you another.”

  His eyes burned her. “If you are so determined, change him yourself.”

  Her breath stopped. “I cannot.”

  “Why?”

  She screamed in his face.

  “Tell me why, Tenzin.” Zhang’s voice was a whisper.

  “You know why.” Her voice broke. “You know.”

  His face softened,
but his eyes did not. “Daughter, I know this man. He did not want this.”

  “You will do this for me.” Tenzin’s voice was a low promise. “You will change him. You will give him your power and your life. Or you will be nothing to me.”

  He blinked.

  “I will have no father in this life or in eternity. I will not see you. I will not speak of you. Your name will be dead on my tongue, and the language you dream in will never cross my lips again.”

  Zhang’s eyes went wide. “You are my daughter.”

  She gripped his collar. “I will have no father.” Tears poured down her face. “Hear this now: if you deny me this, I will never speak your mother’s words again.” She made her voice the blade that would slay him. “And when the long night comes that your soul departs this body, there will be no one to sing the songs of your fathers that will lead you to your ancestors.”

  His face went blank.

  “You will be lost. You will be nothing.” Tenzin swallowed the hatred that threatened to choke her and whispered, “So you will do this for me.”

  Zhang walked over and gently picked up Ben’s body.

  Tenzin waited.

  And waited.

  Zhang looked at Tenzin. Then looked at Ben. He put a hand on Ben’s pale cheek. “I will do this for you.”

  She fell to the ground and put her face to the earth. “Aabmen.”

  “Send the humans away,” he said. “And leave.”

  Her eyes flew up to his. “I will not.”

  “From this night forward,” Zhang said, “he will be my child.”

  She put her head back to the ground. “I understand.”

  “Know that I will never command him to forgive you.”

  Tenzin felt her heart move. She closed her eyes and felt Ben’s pulse inside her own body. Her heart beat in time with his. Thump. Thump. Thump. Her chest ached with the pain of it, but she welcomed that pain.

  Then Ben’s heart faltered.

  She closed her eyes. “Do it now.”

  26

  She heard his heart struggling. She heard it fall silent.

  And then nothing.

  Tenzin sat frozen in the courtyard, under the light of a waxing crescent moon. She held her breath, lifted her face, and prayed to the moon once more. She prayed to the stars and the sky. She prayed until the thin, golden thread of new amnis wound its way through her house and into the courtyard where she waited underneath the tangerine tree.

  She’d sent Jinpa and Mei away from the house for the next day. Zhang and Tenzin would fly Ben to Penglai at dusk the next night, only hours before he would wake and become aware of what she had done.

  Tenzin clung to his amnis. It was warm. Golden. It grounded her and gave her focus.

  An hour after Ben’s heartbeat had gone quiet, Zhang called for her. He stood in the doorway of her home and allowed her inside. “He is as he will be.”

  Tenzin walked into the house, noting the changes even before she saw him. His scent was different. His energy, once so ebullient, had deepened to a low, thrumming pulse she could almost feel against her skin.

  Zhang had cut the black diving suit from his body and washed him, placing him on a pallet in her meditation room.

  Shining boy.

  Tenzin knelt down and brushed his hair back from his forehead.

  One day you will be infinite.

  His skin was pale with only a shadow of the summer tan he’d carried from Italy. The bruise on his lip would heal by morning. Every injury he’d worn was healing before her eyes. The wound from the sword. The gash in his belly. The nerves in his spine were knitting back together, fed by amnis that had been on this earth for over five millennia.

  Old scars would remain, but his body was durable now. His mind was eternal.

  “I need to tell you something.”

  She had wanted to be the one to wash the seawater and blood off him. Wanted to care for him as his body transitioned from mortal to immortal.

  “I love you. I love you so much.”

  Would he remember?

  Of course he would. He remembered everything.

  “I have let you see him,” Zhang said. “Now you should go.”

  “He will forgive me.” Tenzin didn’t move. “If it takes a century, I will wait.”

  “A century?” Zhang’s eyes were pools of sorrow. “Oh, my daughter. I have waited far longer for forgiveness.”

  She looked up at her father. “Do you compare my actions with yours?”

  “I would not claim that.” Zhang sat across from her, Ben stretched out between them. “You acted out of love. I acted with only self-interest.”

  “Yes.” She combed her fingers through Ben’s tangled curls.

  “But I am sorry for my actions,” Zhang said. “I have carried regret for millennia. And you will never be sorry for this. You will never apologize for taking his life.”

  “No.” She stared at Ben, memorizing every inch of his skin. The angle of his jaw and the exact arch of his brow. The soft curve of his lip and the faint bruise where she had bitten him, angry, afraid, and confused by the surge of emotions he elicited. “I regret nothing.”

  “Then we will both wait,” Zhang said. “And we shall see who is forgiven first. You need to go. His immortal life is my privilege and my responsibility now. We will leave at dusk for Penglai. I want him to wake on the island.”

  “Of course.”

  Ben’s life belonged to Zhang now, though Tenzin would make good on any number of threats if her sire put pressure on Ben to be anything other than what he was.

  You don’t know what he is now.

  He could be a threat.

  He is a threat.

  He is not.

  He is a wish.

  Tenzin rose and walked to the door, taking comfort in the waves of amnis she felt growing stronger by the hour. He would be strong. He would be so strong.

  “Tenzin.”

  She turned at the door.

  Zhang’s gaze was like iron. “I have not sired a child in over three thousand years.”

  “I know.”

  “He will be powerful.”

  “Good.”

  “He will be angry with you.”

  She nodded. “I also know that.”

  Ben wouldn’t be the only one. Tenzin walked to the library and opened a cabinet where Ben had stored a spare tablet. She propped it in against the bookshelves, pushed the button, and woke the device.

  “Waiting for voice log-in.” Cara’s voice was a sharp reminder that life continued outside the walls of her house.

  Tenzin took a deep breath, suddenly overcome by everything that had happened in only a few short hours. She put her head in her hands and breathed out. In. Out.

  “You’re lovely. Lovable. You’re worthy of that.”

  He would not think so now.

  Tenzin blew out a sharp breath and felt the air draw near her skin, brushing her back and neck, swirling softly against her face as if to comfort her.

  “Waiting for voice log-in,” Cara repeated.

  “Log in Tenzin.”

  “Waiting for two-factor authentication.”

  Tenzin placed her face in front of the tablet camera, wondering if she looked the same as she had twenty-four hours ago. How could she? She had everything and nothing she had wanted.

  “Identity confirmed. Welcome, Tenzin. You have twelve new voice messages and thirty-four new text messages.”

  She didn’t have the energy to read. “Show voice messages on-screen.”

  One from Ben. She would save that for when she needed it.

  Two from Fabia.

  Three from Chloe.

  Three from Giovanni.

  Two from Cheng.

  One from Beatrice.

  “Call Giovanni Vecchio.”

  She waited while the encrypted video messaging system connected. She glanced at the clock. It would be nearly noon in Los Angeles. Would Beatrice answer or Giovanni?

  Giovanni’s worr
y-ravaged face appeared on the screen. Blue-green eyes went wide when they saw her face. “Tell me he’s alive.”

  “My boy.” Tenzin swallowed hard and tried to control her face, but it was useless.

  Giovanni’s voice was rough. “Tell me he is alive.”

  She closed her eyes. “He is alive.”

  The unspoken question hung between them.

  Tenzin opened her eyes. “He is Zhang’s now.”

  A pained grunt, as if he’d been punched in the stomach. “But he is alive.”

  She nodded.

  “He is Zhang’s.” Giovanni’s eyes narrowed. “The wound in his back—”

  “Already healed.”

  A shadow of relief.

  Tenzin lowered her eyes. “If I call Cheng, will you tell the others?”

  “Yes.”

  Silence lay like a thick fog between them.

  “He told me”—she cleared her throat—“he said he didn’t want to die.”

  “No one wants to die.” Giovanni’s voice was cold. “But you take dying words as permission.”

  The screen went black.

  He was wrong. She knew it wasn’t permission. She had done it anyway.

  She called Cheng. He was in his cabin and Kadek was with him. “Tenzin, what—?”

  “Send Kadek away.”

  There was silence. A minor protest from Kadek, but she heard his footsteps departing and the door opened and closed.

  “Tell me.”

  “Zhang did it.”

  He answered with a string of low curses. “Your father gives nothing without price,” Cheng said. “What did you have to promise?”

  “To continue being his daughter.” She wiped a hand over her eyes. “Cheng, tell me what happened after I left.”

  “It was Johari. She is gone. I cannot tell you where. By the time we put everything together after you flew away, my men couldn’t find any trace of her.”

  “She has the sword.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Are you sure?”

  “Ben told me. They found it. She was waiting for the opportunity. She took it and tried to kill him.”

  “Did she?”

  It was a fair question. If she had wanted Ben dead, she could have slashed his neck. She could have cut the hoses that let him breathe underwater.