by J F Mehentee
Mr Lee stared at me, his eyes like saucers, pleading.
I opened my mouth to counter, and then I closed it. I couldn’t find a counterargument.
‘Sanjay,’ Mr Lee said, sounding like an adult disappointed with a child.
I rubbed my face. I’d heard his frustration. No need to see it.
‘We should stick together,’ I said. ‘After everything that’s happened, I believe we’re meant to destroy the sceptre. And Biyu’s right about us having each other’s backs.’
Mr Lee raised his hand and then slowly lowered it.
‘I understand. We stick together. Which means I’m coming with you.’
Moron, Biyu said.
A knock on the practice door saved me from a kick under the table and further name-calling.
‘If the demoness were back, she wouldn’t knock,’ I said, keeping my voice low. I got up and selected a carving knife from the cutlery drawer. I’d lost my revolver when the Leyakians had sunk Shirin.
Biyu put Cubchick on the floor. The anzu settled on his haunches and peered up at the table and Biyu’s green tea.
‘In case she’s come back,’ I explained.
‘I’m coming, too,’ Mr Lee said, the tattoos on his forearms aglow.
I replied with a nod and strode to the stairs. Halfway down, I resolved to change the frosted glass with a transparent pane. There was no way of telling from the silhouette who waited outside.
With the knife hidden behind my back, I touched the warded doorframe, unlocked the door and pulled it ajar.
‘Sanjay,’ Susilo Tarigan said.
I gave a loud sigh at the sight of the Shani intelligence officer in his three-piece suit. I pulled the door open, and he entered without invitation.
‘My people reported a dragon landing on the practice roof,’ he said, and then nodded at Mr Lee.
I gestured at the stairs, the carving knife still hidden.
Mr Lee led us up to the living area. I entered it last and put the knife back in its drawer while Tarigan gave Biyu a hug. My smile widened when I saw Biyu glare at me. She—nor I—had expected the intelligence officer to be so demonstrative. But then she didn’t know he’d attended her funeral.
Tarigan released Biyu.
‘When I received a phone call from one of our observers,’ he said, ‘I had to come see for myself. How did you—’
Biyu pointed at the table.
‘Sit down, Mr Tarigan,’ she said. ‘I’ll explain while I pour you some tea.’
The Shani intelligence officer walked around Cubchick and sat. He tried to push away the anzu when Cubchick began to rub his chin and then his cheek against Tarigan’s shin. The anzu purred.
After Biyu had finished explaining what had happened, I described our encounter with the demoness.
‘The knife you hid behind your back,’ Tarigan said, ‘you thought the demoness might have returned?’
He’s sharp, Biyu said.
I nodded.
‘That’s why we’re going back to Anganera. We have to collect the sceptre and destroy it.’
Tarigan leaned down and shoved Cubchick away.
‘And you’ll be taking this one with you?’ Before any of us answered, he continued. ‘Today’s the day I have to report the anzu’s existence to the Ministry of Holy and Demonic Magic. I’d leave for Anganera as soon as you can, and I’d take him with you.’
Biyu picked up Cubchick and cradled him.
‘I’ll need an hour or two in the sun before I can fly again,’ she said.
Tarigan waved a hand.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I can arrange for all of you to be on the next flight to Anganera.’ He peered at Cubchick, and his eyes narrowed. ‘This time, you’ll need something bigger than a holdall to hide your kitten in.’
4
A pine travel crate, windowless except for ventilation holes, arrived before either our travel documents or the car to take us to the airport. We left the crate in reception until it was time to leave.
While Cubchick hadn’t resisted being carried in a holdall, he batted his wings and snarled when I tried to push him into the wooden box. Biyu disappeared upstairs and returned with the blanket she’d placed under the table.
‘You have to stay hidden,’ she told him. ‘It’s only until we reach Anganera. Then you’ll see the yakshini again. You liked them, didn’t you?’
I wasn’t sure if Cubchick did. He took a grudging step into the box, surprising me.
‘He’s smart,’ I said to Mr Lee. ‘We have to be careful around him. He understands everything we say.’
On cue, Cubchick backed out of the crate and darted up the stairs.
Biyu swore and followed him.
‘How observant of you,’ Mr Lee said.
We both concentrated on the stairwell and listened to a one-sided negotiation.
Cubchick appeared at the top of the stairs and waited for Biyu to pick him up. Her silk bathrobe hung from his mouth.
Biyu reached the bottom of the stairs and put Cubchick down. The anzu looked from the crate and back at her.
‘Oh, pardon me, your majesty,’ she said, yanking the blanket out of the box.
The anzu trotted into the crate with his head held up and the bathrobe trailing between his legs.
‘Wool not good enough?’ Mr Lee said.
‘He ran out of the bedroom with it.’ Biyu said, then bolted the crate’s door.
Still the thief, I thought to myself.
Thirty minutes later, there was a knock at the door, and Mr Lee announced, ‘Kids, our lift has arrived.’
Locked in the boot, Cubchick out-whined the car’s electric motor. The three of us, meanwhile, remained silent. Mr Lee had insisted on sitting with Biyu, and so I occupied the front passenger seat. I watched the city roll by and wondered if, after we’d—somehow—destroyed the sceptre, the Shani would abandon us, leave us to deal with a thoroughly pissed off demoness.
A glimpse in the wing mirror told me we had a more pressing problem.
‘I’ve seen that black car before,’ I told the Shani driver. ‘Last time we went to the airport, a similar one followed us.’
The driver checked his rear-view mirror.
‘That’s not one of ours,’ he said, too casually for my liking. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll have cars tailing them. If they try anything funny, our people will intercept. I’ll take a slight detour to make sure the others know we have a tail.’
I sat up and checked the rear-view mirror and saw Biyu holding her father’s hand.
‘Please, everyone,’ the driver said, ‘don’t all turn round. It lets those tailing us know we’re onto them.’
We took the next turn-off.
Neither Biyu nor her father moved for the rest of the journey.
We drew up to Departures and stopped beside a set of double doors leading into the hall. The driver ordered us to wait. Other cars parked behind us, and we watched their passengers get out. The driver nodded to one of them.
I heard brakes screech. Everyone turned, including the driver. A blue car had cut off the black car by pulling in front of it at an acute angle.
‘Out you go,’ our driver announced.
Out on the walkway, I saw four Shani rush over to the black car, their guns drawn.
‘No time to watch the show,’ our driver said, and slammed his door. ‘Inside—quickly as you can.’
We bundled into the hall, two Shani lugging the travel crate close behind. I didn’t know which flight we were booked on. So, I waited close to the departure board.
‘Gate Seven,’ the driver said. ‘No need to check in.’
I heard a growl.
The crate the two Shani held began to rock. Cubchick roared, making the ground shake. Cracks webbed the polished concrete beneath them.
‘Something’s wrong,’ Biyu said. ‘Something’s upset him.’
As if to confirm her suspicion, three rapid snaps filled the air. Splinters of wood spun from the crate’s far side. The Sha
ni closest to me dropped the crate, twisted and fell. Men and women I’d mistaken for travellers reached into jackets and raincoats. They pulled out lightening pistols, their weapons aimed away from us and towards my left.
Two more snaps.
A bullet tore a corner off the crate.
‘They’re firing at Cubchick,’ Biyu said. Her voice deepened as she grew. The seams along her linen jacket’s sleeves and round her shoulders tore and burst open.
Mr Lee swerved round the fallen Shani and knelt behind the crate.
Screams echoed throughout the hall. People ran in all directions.
‘Drop it,’ Mr Lee said to the Shani still holding the crate. ‘He’s too big a target in this.’
Biyu thrust her sinuous and still expanding body between the bullets and the box.
I diverted qi to my forearms and hands. I shoved the intelligence officer out of the way, grabbed the door’s latch and groaned in frustration.
‘Someone put a fritting padlock on the door.’
Before I could grab the padlock to pull it off, Mr Lee drove a fist through the roof of the now rattling crate. He pulled his hand out and a large chunk of the pinewood roof with it.
Another snap.
My father-in-law fell backwards.
Snap, snap.
A shriek emerged from the crate. The box stopped shaking.
Some Shani returned fired.
‘Get him out of there, Sanjay,’ Mr Lee said. He sat on the floor clutching his upper arm.
I yanked off the padlock. The crate’s door came off its hinges, too. Cubchick lay on his side. Blood stained his wings and Biyu’s bathrobe. I lifted him out. On my right stood a wide pillar of ironwood. Qi pulsed into my legs. Before I started to run, the firing stopped.
Over on my left, fifteen feet away and up on a mezzanine overlooking the mayhem, three men stood over a prone figure. Only one pointed his gun at him.
‘Dad,’ Biyu cried. She floated over the crate, her body shrinking.
Mr Lee let go of his arm and waved her away.
‘It’s just a flesh wound,’ he said. ‘Stop fussing. This old soldier has suffered worse.’
The Shani formed a cordon round us.
I lay Cubchick on the ground, then pulled the bathrobe from under him.
I lifted his wing. Some of his primary feathers were mangled. I examined the lone entry wound. Blood leaked from it. Like a cool draft against my fingertips, qi escaped from the wound, too.
Mr Lee approached. He no longer clutched his arm. He must have used his qi to numb the pain and staunch the wound.
‘Cubchick’s losing blood fast,’ I said, waving my palm over the anzu’s body. An unpleasant twisting in my wrist made me stop and close my eyes. ‘I can sense the bullet. It’s lodged between two vertebrae.’ I lowered my hand two inches and experienced a pinching sensation inside my wrist. ‘It also severed an artery.’
Mr Lee held his open hand over the same spot. He stared at me, his expression dour. He shook his head.
‘What?’ Biyu said. ‘You’re not going to just give up on him?’
‘No, Biyu,’ Mr Lee said. ‘But there’s nothing we can do here. We need to get Cubchick back to the practice. We have to operate on him.’
But that wasn’t the entire the reason Mr Lee had shaken his head.
‘He’s lost too much blood,’ I said. ‘He won’t last the journey to the practice.’
‘Then I’ll fly him,’ she said, reaching forward to pick up Cubchick.
Mr Lee grabbed her arm.
‘The bullet’s lodged in his spine. He needs to stay immobilised. You could paralyse him with a single wingbeat.’
Biyu’s third eyelids swept across her eyes.
‘Then what are we going to do?’
I remembered a trip to the temple district, a kitten’s broken tail and how Toojan had removed it without using surgical tools. I looked from Mr Lee to a fraught Biyu.
‘The temple district is closer to the airport than the practice,’ I said. ‘We have to immobilise Cubchick, stop the blood loss and get him to Toojan. He’ll remove the bullet.’
5
Our ambulance driver took a slower but straighter route to the temple district. Two police cars sandwiched our vehicle. With sirens blaring, they regulated our speed by forcing the cars in front of us to the side of the road and prevented those behind us from overtaking.
Meanwhile, Cubchick, in a coma I’d induced, lay on a stretcher. Untroubled by his own wound, Mr Lee worked to regulate Cubchick’s heart rate. I controlled the anzu’s breathing.
One of the paramedics sat with the driver, while the second sat next to Biyu, who wore nothing but a Shani officer’s raincoat. He watched us work and clutched his copy of the non-disclosure agreement the Shani had forced him to sign before we’d set off.
‘Are you sure about this?’ Mr Lee said.
I understood his scepticism about taking Cubchick to an eight-year-old monk. But he didn’t know the little monk, and he hadn’t seen what Toojan could do when the sorcerer side of him took over.
‘Even if we knew a vet,’ I said, ‘do you think they’d know their way round an animal that’s supposed to be a myth? If anyone can help Cubchick, it’s Toojan.’
Mr Lee gave me an earnest nod, causing me to swallow. My father-in-law considered me a fellow healer and not his former apprentice.
Cubchick was still in danger, but I felt calmer now, less shaky, and better able to replay what happened at the airport. Our Shani driver confirmed my theory that the Leyakian sniper had concentrated his fire on the crate. Anyone unfortunate enough to have got in the way was also hit.
After her encounter with Cubchick this morning, the demoness must really want the anzu dead. I recalled something Toojan had said about the demoness and Cubchick when we’d last visited him: When she learns it imprinted on Biyu and not Yeong-tae Pak, she’ll seek its destruction.
The ambulance slowed. The police sirens no longer blared. Biyu looked up and through the tinted windows.
‘We’re in the temple district,’ she said.
Biyu went up front and gave the driver instructions for where to stop.
No sooner had I heard the grind of the handbrake, the backdoors swung open and Toojan’s head just poked above the ambulance’s floor. Mr Lee and I began to wheel the stretcher forward.
‘Leave that,’ Toojan said. He waved a hand above his head as if swatting a fly.
I found myself standing inside the dimly lit temple and outside a circle of monks, all of whom sat. In the middle of them lay Cubchick and a seated Toojan. An eleven-foot golden statue of a meditating monk sat behind the circle and loomed over the proceedings.
My legs wobbled at the sudden shift in location. I held out my hands to steady myself and clung to Mr Lee and Biyu. We held hands until the displacement wore off.
The monks chanted as Toojan ran his hand along Cubchick’s spine. I remembered the kitten and how Toojan had pulled off its broken tail. I hoped the little monk, his forehead furrowed, wouldn’t need to resort to anything so extreme.
‘You did the right thing bringing him here,’ Mr Lee whispered.
I shuffled forward two steps for a closer look.
Some feathers had fallen onto the white cotton sheet he lay on. Most likely a trick of the limited light, it looked to me as if the entry wound had closed a little and Cubchick’s breathing had become deep and regular.
I wrapped a reassuring arm around Biyu.
After fifteen minutes of standing, the three of us sat down. I checked Mr Lee’s wound.
The bullet had entered and exited the top inch of his left bicep. Mr Lee had directed his own qi to numb the pain and to stop the bleeding. With his attention on the anzu and not himself, he hadn’t started the healing process.
I pressed my palm against his bicep and kept it there until he nodded his consent for me to treat it.
Wait, Biyu said. Let me help.
She got up, sat beside her father and placed he
r arm across his back, her fingertips pressed to his shoulder. Mr Lee turned to Biyu and nodded.
Biyu lent a small amount of her qi to the healing, which made her father drowsy. Together, we lowered him onto his back. I continued to work while Biyu pumped more of her energy into him. We both smiled when he started to snore.
I finished working on Mr Lee in time to see Toojan slide his fingertips beneath Cubchick’s feathers. In the same moment he withdrew his hand, the chanting stopped.
Mr Lee kept snoring.
Toojan held up the bullethead. He bowed to the monks. They returned it, rose and dispersed in all directions.
Biyu and I stood to join Toojan.
When we reached him, Toojan said, ‘This is the demoness’s doing. She won’t rest until the anzu is dead.’
Biyu knelt before Cubchick and stroked his head.
‘Will he be all right?’
The lines on Toojan’s young forehead deepened.
‘That depends,’ he said. ‘He’s out of danger, but he’s weak. Sanjay, give him one of your qi tablets every hour until you reach Anganera.’
If Cubchick was so weak and required a regular dose of qi, moving him seemed a bad idea.
‘Wouldn’t it be best if he stayed here?’ I said. ‘We have no idea what we’ll do after Governor Utsmani hands over the sceptre.’
Toojan pursed his lips and shook his head.
‘The anzu will never recover or realise his destiny if he remains in Bagh-e-Khuda.’
Why did I get the impression we were being instructed instead of advised?
‘What is his destiny?’ I said.
Toojan crossed his arms and cocked an eyebrow.
‘You know I don’t answer such questions. Discovering why we’re in our present incarnation is an integral part of achieving our life’s purpose. The anzu is like us. If he is true to himself, he will understand his purpose and fulfil his destiny. Any prior knowledge of what he must do might cause one of you to misdirect him or divert him from his true path.’