The Empress's Tomb

by Kirsten Miller

  “Hear anything?” I whispered.

  “It’s quiet. I think we’re alone.”

  Beyond the dungeon lay a maze of hastily constructed cubicles. We crept through the corridors, peeking into cramped pens that had recently housed human beings. Each was empty but for a single mattress, and the concrete floor was splattered with paint. Multicolored footprints led in circles, and we found a small, bright red palm print on one of the plywood walls.

  “Looks like we’re too late,” said Kiki. “The kids have been moved.”

  “What do you think they were doing here?”

  “Given the evidence, I’d say they were painting.”

  “Your powers of deduction astound me,” I teased. “Any idea what they were painting?”

  “Well, the splatter seems to be concentrated in a corner of each cubicle. They were probably working at easels.” Kiki dropped to one knee to study a single smear of blue paint on the floor. “Ultramarine. It’s a pigment made from crushed lapis lazuli, and it isn’t cheap. The kids weren’t just painting to pass the time. We should check upstairs and see where we are.”

  A flight of rickety stairs led to the ground floor. When we reached the landing, we saw the sun pouring through massive holes in the roof. Aboveground, the building was nothing more than a hollow shell. The floors and windows had been ripped out, and only four crumbling brick walls kept the structure standing. Pigeons cooed from a hundred nooks and crannies. Their feathers and droppings had transformed the ground into modern art. Kiki tried the front door of the structure, ramming her shoulder against the wood when it refused to open. A man passing by was startled by the ensuing bang, and the bucket he’d been carrying slipped from his fingertips. Foul, gray sea cucumbers flopped out on the sidewalk. I stared past the construction zone tape at the scene in front of me. We were just down the street from Oona’s house.

  “Coincidence?” I asked Kiki, knowing what her answer would be.

  “There’s no such thing. Let’s go get the girl. Since we’re already here, we might as well ask Oona to translate.”

  • • •

  Oona’s brightly dressed bodyguard stormed down the stoop without giving a second look to a miniature thug spray painting his tag on the side of the building. She was lugging a bulky suitcase, and she wasn’t smiling.

  “Is Oona home?” Kiki repeated the question in Mandarin when the woman ignored her.

  “No,” the woman replied rudely in English. “She’s having lunch with her father.”

  “She’s at lunch?” DeeDee’s blood boiled.

  “Do you mind if we wait upstairs for her?” I asked.

  “Do what you want. I don’t work here anymore.” The woman shoved past us and disappeared down the street.

  “Why would Oona get rid of her bodyguard?” Betty wondered.

  “Why do you think?” Luz huffed.

  Looking up at the second floor, I saw Mrs. Fei watching from a window. I gave her a wave, and she came down to greet us. We hadn’t made it past the foyer before Mrs. Fei grabbed the girl we’d found in the tunnels and scratched at the paint on her arms. Then she took her patient by the chin and studied her tongue and eyeballs. Once she was satisfied, Mrs. Fei led us upstairs and dragged the girl to the bathroom, where we heard water running in the tub. When she returned, Mrs. Fei spoke with Kiki in Mandarin.

  “The girl is healthy,” Kiki translated. “Just dirty. Mrs. Fei wants to know if we’d like some tea while we wait for Oona.”

  Oona barged through the door. “The wait is over.” She was wearing a short sable jacket over a gray pencil skirt. Her long black hair was twisted into a chignon and pinned with a diamond-encrusted comb. At the base of her neck, the skin was red and covered in tiny bumps. “Long time no see. I didn’t know you guys wanted me in your little club anymore.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” Luz demanded. “The alarms in the Shadow City went off two hours ago. You should have been with us.”

  “They did?” Oona looked genuinely surprised. “What happened? Why didn’t somebody call me?”

  “We did call you,” DeeDee told her. “You didn’t bother to pick up.”

  Oona was in no mood to be taken to task. “What is this, some sort of intervention? I was having lunch, and it was loud in the restaurant. I must not have heard the phone ring.”

  “Or maybe you just didn’t want to interrupt your afternoon with Daddy,” I said. “You two sure are spending a lot of time together, aren’t you?”

  Oona reached under her jacket and scratched furiously at her neck. “Like I have a choice? While you guys have been running around looking for squirrel boy, I’ve had to do my own detective work.”

  “Detective work?” Luz scoffed.

  “I’ve never seen a detective wear sable,” Betty muttered softly. It was a powerful blow, and Oona looked stunned.

  “Well, I guess you’ve all made it clear how you feel,” she said.

  “What are we supposed to think?” DeeDee stated matter-of-factly. “You won’t answer our calls, and you spend all of your time shopping and going to lunch with a man who might want to kill us. You even fired your bodyguard. What’s up with that, by the way? Don’t need the protection anymore?”

  “For your information, I gave her the boot ’cause she has sticky fingers. I found one of my best rings stuffed under her mattress. Kiki, how much more of this crap do I have to take?”

  Kiki was quiet for a moment.

  “You’re in over your head, Oona,” she said at last. “Whatever you’re trying to do, you have to let us help. Something big is going down. Think about it. Your father shows up after all this time; then Kaspar disappears and Sergei Molotov is spotted in town. I know it all looks random right now—but there could be a connection.

  “And that’s not all. We just found a Taiwanese girl in the Shadow City. She led us to the basement where she and the other kids had been locked up. Guess where it was?”

  “Where?”

  “In the abandoned building down the street from your house.”

  “Really?” Somehow, Oona didn’t sound shocked. She seemed happy.

  “And you say you didn’t see anything?” DeeDee couldn’t hide her skepticism.

  “I saw construction workers going in and out all the time.”

  “Did you notice anything strange today?” asked Kiki.

  I could see a memory flicker through Oona’s mind. “They woke me up this morning. They were hauling a bunch of crates out of the building. It couldn’t have been past eight o’clock.”

  “That must have been when they moved the kids to another location,” I said.

  “What did the girl say?” asked Oona. “Did she know who kidnapped her?”

  “She doesn’t speak much English,” said Kiki. “That’s why we’re here. We need you to translate.”

  Oona scowled. “Of course. I should have known that’s why you came.”

  We suddenly heard two cries of joy in the hallway and found Yu and the Taiwanese girl locked in an embrace.

  “Looks like they’re happy to see each other,” Luz observed.

  “Friends usually are,” Oona snipped. She listened to their conversation for a moment. “Her name is Siu Fah. She and Yu were schoolmates.”

  The girl saw us watching and pointed at Kiki. Yu gave Kiki a once-over and both of them giggled.

  “What did they just say?” I asked.

  “They were talking about how much Kiki resembles the star of a famous kung fu movie called Cute Little Demon Girl.” Oona couldn’t help but grin.

  “Tell them it’s just a coincidence,” Kiki said. “Then ask Siu Fah how she escaped.”

  Oona questioned the girl. “She says her captors told her that Yu had died, but she never believed them. She knew he’d found a way out, so she snuck into the room where he’d been kept. She searched whenever she could, but it took her more than a week to find the trapdoor.”

  “What did her kidnappers look like?”

  We waited impa
tiently for Oona to translate. “They were mostly Chinese. She says she saw their boss only once.” Oona hesitated and looked around at the rest of us.

  “Go ahead. Ask her,” Luz demanded.

  Siu Fah spoke for two full minutes before Oona began to translate. “She says he was a pale man with black hair. He was always dressed in a suit. She thinks he spoke Russian with some of the men.” I couldn’t tell from the look on her face if Oona was relieved or disappointed.

  “Molotov,” Kiki spat.

  “What were they painting?” I wanted to know.

  “Painting?” Oona repeated pensively before posing the question to Siu Fah. “She says she doesn’t know what the other kids were painting. She was never allowed to look. But she was ordered to copy a work she’d never seen before. It was a picture of a fat lady looking into a mirror that was held by a little boy. She finished it a couple of days ago and they took it from her. She thinks it’s been sold.”

  Kiki’s brow furrowed. “Sounds like a painting by Peter Paul Rubens. The Toilet of Venus. I think they were copying famous works of art.”

  “Ask her if she has any idea where they took the other kids,” said DeeDee.

  Siu Fah’s voice grew sad. “She doesn’t know. She was trying to save them, but she failed,” said Oona.

  I felt a tug on the back of my jacket. Mrs. Fei waved me into the kitchen. I waited until no one was looking and slid inside.

  “The building you talked about. It belongs to Lester Liu,” Mrs. Fei whispered.

  “How do you know that, Mrs. Fei?”

  “We lived there when Wang was a baby.”

  “Does she remember?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Mrs. Fei.

  “Where’s Ananka?” I heard Betty ask in the hallway. Mrs. Fei put a finger to her lips.

  “Just getting a glass of water,” I called.

  • • •

  Five of us left Oona’s apartment and filed out onto the sidewalk. A few blocks away we stopped for a quick consultation.

  “I guess we didn’t get the goods on Lester Liu,” Luz said.

  I had to tell them. “He owns the abandoned building. Don’t ask me how I know that. I just do.”

  “Just what we need—more secrets.” DeeDee sniffed.

  “But Siu Fah described Sergei Molotov,” said Betty.

  “Do we really know that for sure?” DeeDee asked solemnly. “How do we know our translator was trustworthy?”

  “You think Oona was lying?” The possibility hadn’t occurred to me, and I chided myself for being so gullible.

  “I’m just saying that none of us speak Hakka,” said DeeDee. “We have no idea what that girl really said. She could have described Lester Liu to a T and we wouldn’t have known the difference.”

  “Oona’s definitely up to something,” Luz insisted.

  “That fur she was wearing cost a fortune,” Betty added.

  “Do you think Yu and Siu Fah are safe with her?” asked DeeDee.

  “Shut up! All of you.” It had been a while since I’d seen Kiki lose her temper, and I’d forgotten how terrifying she could be. Her eyes were wolflike and her hair wild. Bright blue veins throbbed beneath the skin of her forehead. “Is this how you talk about your friends? None of you have any idea how hard this has been for Oona. Do any of you know what it’s like to grow up without a family? Of course you don’t. Maybe Oona is tempted. Maybe she wants to have a father like everyone else. As far as I’m concerned, there’s only one thing that matters. Right now we don’t have a single shred of evidence that she’s done anything wrong. So what if she’s Lester Liu’s daughter? I knew that when I invited her to join the Irregulars, and in the past two years she’s done nothing to make me question her loyalty.”

  “I was just trying to be logical,” DeeDee defended herself.

  “This is life. It isn’t a science experiment. People don’t always act logically.”

  “They don’t tend to change, either,” DeeDee said. “Don’t forget—Oona’s spent a lot of time on the wrong side of the law.”

  “She’s right,” I added softly.

  Kiki stared at us all with disgust. Then she spun around and marched toward Canal Street, leaving us standing in shock on the corner.

  “Somebody’s a little sensitive,” said Luz.

  “Kiki doesn’t have parents either,” DeeDee pointed out. “She thinks she knows how Oona feels. She can’t see what’s really going on.”

  • • •

  That night, I received two urgent e-mails. Both were addressed to four of the Irregulars. Oona’s and Kiki’s names hadn’t made the list. The first message came from Betty and contained a link to the New York Society Journal Web site. There I found three pictures taken at a posh party the previous Saturday night. They showed Lester Liu arm in arm with Oona. Both were smiling for the cameras. The caption beneath the photos read Philanthropist Lester Liu and his stunning daughter.

  Luz had sent the second e-mail. According to her surveillance equipment, at exactly 8:00 p.m., all the bugs in Lester Liu’s mansion had stopped working. Fifteen minutes later, the pigeon cameras had gone dark.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Assassin on the Loose

  At seven o’clock the next morning, the bitter odor of burning coffee wafted into my bedroom. I threw on my robe and tiptoed to the kitchen to investigate, expecting to find a bushed burglar or an undersized princess. Instead, I discovered my mother sitting at the table, sipping from a PBS mug. She said nothing when I offered a hoarse “good morning,” but continued to study a copy of the New York Daily News that lay open in front of her. Even with the paper upside down, I had no difficulty identifying the woman whose picture graced page two. It was Livia Galatzina, the exiled Queen of Pokrovia and Kiki Strike’s aunt.

  Adrenaline pumped through my system. My hands quivered as I poured coffee into the last clean dish in the house and took a seat at the table. My mother pushed the paper toward me and stood up to refill her cup. The headline read Assassin at Large in Manhattan.

  AUTHORITIES HAVE CONFIRMED that a woman sought in connection with the fourteen-year-old murder of Crown Princess Sophia of Pokrovia has recently been seen in New York. In early November, a sixty-year-old woman was admitted to St. Vincent’s Hospital, where she was treated for an infected bullet wound. In accordance with New York City law, nurses fingerprinted the patient and reported the incident to police. The fingerprints were later identified as belonging to Verushka Kozlova, a former member of the Pokrovian Royal Guard who allegedly poisoned the country’s royal family more than a decade ago, before vanishing without a trace.

  According to police reports, Ms. Kozlova disappeared from St. Vincent’s before her arrest could be secured. Witnesses claim she was in the company of a small, unusually pale girl who gave her name as Trixie Drew. Some have suggested that the teenager bore a strong resemblance to the now legendary Kiki Strike. Unfortunately, the hospital’s security cameras show no sign of Kozlova’s companion, and a nurse who photographed the girl with a cell phone camera later discovered that the image had been mysteriously erased.

  While the teenager’s identity remains unknown, one remarkable possibility has been suggested. Reached for comment in St. Petersburg, Russia, the exiled Queen of Pokrovia rejoiced in the news that her sister’s murderer has finally surfaced. Queen Livia also speculated that Ms. Kozlova’s companion might be her niece, Katarina, Sophia’s only child. Though it has long been thought that the child was murdered along with her parents, Queen Livia now admits that Princess Katarina disappeared the day of the assassination. “If my beloved niece is still alive, I urge her to return to her family. I will treat her as my own daughter and ensure that she is recognized as the rightful heir to the throne of Pokrovia.”

  Queen Livia has offered a $100,000 reward for any information leading to the capture of Verushka Kozlova.”

  On the opposite page, I spotted a short article about the mysterious disappearance of New York’s giant squirrels,
but there was no time to read it. I glanced up to see my mother staring at me, and I knew my acting skills would determine my fate. I tried to look bored as I tossed the paper back across the table.

  “So every pale girl in the city is Kiki Strike now? This is nuts, Mom. I’ve got to get ready for school.”

  “Then you won’t mind if I phone Principal Wickham this morning and check that you’ve made it there?” my mother asked. I was ready for my close-up.

  “Be my guest.” I sniffed sarcastically. I took one last swig of my coffee and headed for the bathroom.

  • • •

  Of course, I had no intention of going to school. I turned on the tub faucet and tried calling Kiki, but only got through to her voice mail. I took the fastest shower on record, and as soon as I was a reasonable distance from my house, I bought all the New York newspapers and hailed a cab. When I rang Kiki’s bell, she answered immediately. For the first time since I’d known her, I saw real fear in her face.

  “I thought you were Dr. Pritchard,” she said. “He should have been here ages ago. Verushka’s had a rough morning.”

  “Haven’t you heard?” I felt my first rush of panic and my heartbeat pounded in my ears. Kiki read the newspapers religiously, and I’d expected her to be ready with a plan. My cell phone rang. Betty’s number flashed on the caller ID. “I’ll call you back in a minute,” I told her. As soon as I hung up, Luz’s number appeared on the display.

  “Heard what?” Kiki asked. I passed her a copy of the Daily News. Her eyes flew over the type. “Where did that old hag get a hundred thousand dollars?” she scoffed. “Call the Irregulars and ask them to get over here. We need to clean the place out. Tell them to leave the weapons. Just take our personal belongings. I’m going to get Verushka.”

  “What about the doctor?” I asked. “How will he know where to find us?”

  “The doctor’s a rat,” Kiki shouted as she sprinted for the bedroom. “I bet he’s already spent Livia’s reward.”

  “What are we going to do with Verushka?” I called, though I already knew there was only one option. But if Lester Liu and Sergei Molotov were connected somehow, it didn’t seem wise to take Verushka to Oona’s house. “Kiki, do you really want to—” I started to say.