Opening Acts

by SFnovelists

  *** ***

  Shan ducked under an uppercut and snapped a backfist at the man's temple. He blocked and tried to grab her wrist at a pressure point. Twisting, Shan snaked her other hand around and reversed the hold.

  Stalemate.

  This man was good. Probably the best she'd fought in years. And there was something about his face that tugged a memory she couldn't place.

  She spun. Kicked to the chest. Blocked. Jumped over a speeding foot. Raked his face. Twisted out of his grip again.

  Shan leaped up and back, did a somersault in the air, and landed in a low snake stance on one of the desks in the middle of the room, her hands open and waiting.

  The wounded man, probably a professor at the university, judging from the button-down and khakis, hadn't made a noise in far too long. How had he managed to score that bloody gash across her opponent's chest? Amazing for someone untrained in martial arts. Especially considering that she hadn't even scratched the bastard yet, let alone drawn blood. With any luck, the professor would live. Shan wanted to ask him about his fight, and find out what he knew about the crane.

  No, she just needed the information about the crane. That's all she had time to worry about, wounded man or not.

  Her one-eyed opponent, breathing hard, thrust his heel into the table leg of Shan's desk. The desk rocked forward, suddenly unstable. Shan used the momentum and angle to launch herself at the man. She flipped over him and landed with her back to his. Her right arm whipped back, and she hooked two of her fingers in the man's mouth. She yanked hard and crouched low, throwing the man over her shoulder.

  One-eye yelped. He slammed into another desk covered in boxes. The whole thing collapsed in an implosion of wood and small plastic bags.

  Behind her, the wounded man moaned and said something. Shan turned to look. Just the facts? What the hell did that mean?

  A chunk of wood collided with Shan's face, and she stopped wondering. She fell onto her back and kept rolling until she was on her feet again, ready.

  Her enemy swung the table leg at her again. She ducked low as it whooshed overhead, then focused her mind on the leopard. Its thick muscles. The power it drew from the earth. Years of meditation helped her find the leopard's strength in her own body and harness it. Shan spun and kicked backward, releasing a scream of focused energy. The man's weapon smashed in two, and he stumbled backward, surprised.

  "You…" he said in Mandarin, his eyes wide. Up close, Shan pegged him as late thirties, early forties…and so familiar. There was something about that fiery scar around his eye that made her suddenly think of green tea.

  No time for that. She needed to stay focused, keep her mind empty, and feed the leopard energy she had built. Shan curled her fingers into leopard's paws and struck.

  One, two, three- solar plexus, throat, and nose. The man only blocked the first two. A spray of warm red caught Shan across the face.

  She pressed her advantage.

  They whirred and tumbled, kicked and sprang into the air. Shan slammed hard into one of the heavy metal shelves lining the wall, and another cry went up from the crumpled form at the other end of the room.

  "Artifacts!"

  Well, now that made a lot more sense than her first guess.

  The man's fist found her stomach. Shan doubled over with a gasp. His booted foot followed, faster than she could even see, and connected with her skull. Shan was knocked sideways onto the floor and the multitude of smashed objects littering it. Something sharp slid into the skin of her thigh.

  "Your mother was better," the man said. She smelled his arrogance more thickly than his sweat or her own blood. Shan's mushin, her empty mind, flooded with heat. This pig had fought her mother? Had he been there that night, the night Shan had fled her home? Or had he fought her years later, in a different place, or even recently?

  "Is she- "

  He dropped his heel onto her chest in a flash of motion. Pain detonated across her torso. Shan felt frozen in time, unable to move or even tell her body to keep breathing. The pain held her like a straightjacket, wrapped tight around every muscle. The man swung his foot off her chest and smiled.

  "It is so much better if you die without knowing," the man said.

  Finally, Shan's arms agreed to listen to her brain. She pushed herself backward, her wounded thigh leaving a slug-trail of blood across the floor. Above her, a three-foot-wide window was sandwiched between two towering shelves. And, unfortunately, barred from the outside. Shan backed into the space, keeping her eyes on the bastard in front of her. A lever. There was always a lever to release security bars. Her left hand slapped the wall behind her until she found a dented, hollow rectangle of metal wedged almost behind the left shelf. And in it, a solid rubber pedal.

  Shan wailed from the pain as she shifted her position and snapped the pedal down. He bought the distraction. A faint click from outside the glass told her the bars had been released from their lock.

  The man grinned wildly now. Most people stopped to gloat during a fight, given half a chance. It made them vulnerable. Shan preferred to wrap things up before stopping to chat. Far more practical.

  "Where are your animals now?" the man said. "You Jade Circle bitches are nothing without your little statues."

  He grabbed the front of Shan's crimson blouse and hauled her to her feet. Shan whimpered again, her body limp, her eyes wide with feigned fear. Blood continued to dribble down her leg. He wasn't tall enough to keep her off the ground, but she stayed light on her feet, letting him do most of the work to keep her upright.

  "I think I'll take your eye first," the man said, "to replace the one your mother stole from me." His breath smelled of greasy fish. Her mother had taken his eye. Her mother would always be a better fighter.

  This was not the time.

  Shan let the thoughts flow away from her, like a river into the ocean, until her mind was empty- a vessel waiting to be filled. Only then did her mind and body act as one.

  She planted her left foot on the floor and thrust at his knee with her right heel. He screamed. Shan grabbed his right bicep with one hand and the cloth covering his left shoulder with the other. Dropping her weight, she rolled onto her back and thrust upward with both arms and a leg, throwing him behind her.

  The man soared through the window, smashing glass and wood, and slammed into the bars outside. They swung open with the deafening scrape of rusted metal on metal and crashed into the stone facade of the building. Shan protected her face from the shower of sharp rain. When she opened her eyes again, the man was gone.

  Shan shook off the shards and splinters without using her hands. It was so easy to drop one's guard at the first respite from fighting, and so easy to get dangerously hurt because of it. She stood up slowly, keeping her weight off her wounded leg, and looked out the window.

  Some mangled bushes two stories down stared back up at her. She scanned the quad, looking for limping martial arts bad-asses. No luck. Too bad she hadn't broken his kneecap. That would have slowed him down enough for her to finish the job.

  But he'd definitely be back. Shan needed to find the statue and get herself, and the professor, out of the building before the thief did.

  As if on cue, the professor groaned. Shan glared into the trees a few more seconds, then turned and shuffled over to the man. Her leg hurt, but it wasn't serious. The rest of the bruises she'd discover tomorrow or the day after.

  The man was sitting up against a shelf, his face hidden in his hand. At first glance, nothing looked broken. His limbs looked straight, and he seemed to be breathing fine. Internal injuries weren't out of the question, though, given the professor's blood-stained chin.

  Shan eased into a crouch in front of him, ignoring the complaint from her leg, and gently pried his arm from his face.

  "Here, let me look."

  The man was a lot younger than she'd expected. "Professor" always summoned images of pipe-smoking, white-bearded old men. Probably since she'd never gone to college and had a chance to debu
nk the stereotype. But no, her professor looked mid-thirties, with short, unkempt brown hair matted with blood in odd places. At first she thought he'd gotten a gash along his face, but it was just his almost painfully sharp cheekbones poking out from a layer of drying blood. Shan pressed two fingers to his brow, cheek, nose, and chin, feeling for fractures. He shivered, probably from shock, and let her search.

  His whole face was covered in angles and ridges. She turned it from side to side slowly, trying to get a better look. It always remained hidden at least half in shadow. Shan blamed his nose. It rose long and thin and proud, demanding her attention from every angle. Especially with the blood, the man looked like some doomed fairytale prince, European-style.

  "Can you see me?" Shan asked. "Try to focus on my eyes."

  He looked up at her, the full moons of his pupils ringed ever so slightly in warm brown. Eye dilation and shivers, Shan thought. Definitely shock. Definitely not good.

  A police siren wailed in the distance, and then another. No doubt they were headed this way. But Shan couldn't afford to chat with the cops. Not when some poor security guard with a broken neck lay waiting down the hall.

  "You're doing well," Shan lied. "Just keep trying to focus. What color are my eyes?"

  His pupils retracted slightly.

  "Greeb," he said.

  "Good- "

  "Green," the man corrected. "With flecks of yellow."

  The man smiled and, miraculously, almost every severe angle on his face dissolved into a boyish roundness. Only the nose stubbornly kept its shape.

  "Ian," he said. "And yes, I think I can walk."

  "Good. I'm Shan." She stood up and held out her arm. "We can't afford to wait for the police."

  Ian grabbed her hand, and Shan pulled him to his feet. His fingers were long, his palms huge compared to hers. Standing, he stood at least half a foot higher. Ian grinned and looked down at their hands. Shan smiled back patiently, even as the heat rushed to her face. Good ol' half-Asian blood probably kept Ian from knowing that, though.

  "Look, Ian," she began, "we need to go now. Fast. Before that man comes back. But I can't leave without the statue he was looking for. A small, jade crane. Do you know where it is?"

  Ian's grin faded, replaced by a new wariness that creased his brow and turned down the edges of his mouth. "So you're a thief, too? I thought you were one of the good guys. My mistake." He took a step past Shan, but wobbled.

  Shan snaked an arm under his to steady him. "I am one of the good guys. Get me that statue, and I'll explain everything."

  "Everything?" He arched an eyebrow. "I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt because you saved my life, but I'll definitely need answers."

  "Fine," Shan said. "You'll get answers." She felt the weight of him on her shoulder. His warmth soaked into her neck and arm, down her ribs and across her belly.

  "Good enough for me," Ian said. "Now let's get the hell out of here."

  "The statue- "

  "Isn't here," he said. "It never was."

  Shan looked at him. The shadows were back, hiding his eyes and the whole far side of his face. Was he just protecting the statue, or was it really someplace else? Her mother, when she'd been near the Jade Circle, had been able to discern truth from lie, to see through any ruse. Now the Circle was broken, and Shan had only her own instincts to rely on. Instincts which had proved more adept at fighting than diplomacy.

  And absolutely pitiful at reading attractive men.

  But regardless of Ian's intent, she'd never be able to search the room before the police arrived. Maybe this was just the break she needed. After all these years of searching, she still had only the tiger statue that she'd started with. And now she knew that someone else was looking for the Jade Circle animals, too. If Ian knew about the crane, maybe he had other information as well.

  "Lead on," she said finally. "It looks like I'm going to trust you, at least for now."

  "Excellent," said Ian, "because I think I'm going to pass out."