Shanghai Sparrow

by Gaie Sebold

  Forbes-Cresswell nodded. Eveline glanced at her mother, who was still working, her hands relentlessly moving, her eyes glimmering with tears. She looked at Forbes-Cresswell, who motioned her to go on. Another note joined the vibration, a singing hum.

  Holmforth’s moans rose; he began to fling his head from side to side, as though trying to shake something out of it. His golden skin drained of colour, leaving him a pallid yellow, like a tallow candle.

  Someone screamed, outside. Forbes-Cresswell’s head snapped towards the sound, the gun coming up, and Eveline’s foot shot out and caught him in the side of the knee. He yelped and buckled, turning towards her. Gun! Gun! Gun! her head screamed at her.

  The controller Beth was holding caught him in the side of the head and bounced off, clattering to the floor. His hands came up, the gun went off, there was another scream. Eveline dived at his knees and Beth caught his arm, clinging like a monkey, and between them they brought him to the floor. He writhed furiously, trying to throw them off. The gun spun out of his hand, away across the floor.

  Eveline held the finger-stall to his neck, dimpling the skin with the point. “Oy, mister. Mister.”

  “Get off me, you...”

  “Shut up. Feel that?” She pressed, feeling the point push against the bones of his spine. “Now, I seen a chap thrown off his horse, once. Landed with his neck across a mounting stone and you could hear it snap right across the street. Never walked again, that fella. Not a step. So why don’t you stop struggling ’fore I decide to see what happens if I push this right in?” Forbes-Cresswell stilled. “Beth, get the other gun.”

  Beth reached into his jacket, grimacing, and extracted Holmforth’s gun.

  “My buyer will be here any moment,” Forbes-Cresswell said. “And so will Holmforth’s driver; he’ll have heard the shot. He will believe what I tell him. You have nowhere to go.”

  Eveline hesitated. He could be right – if they were found here, with the bodies, it was Forbes-Cresswell who would be believed. And could she bring herself to kill him? How? Drive this spike into his temple, his throat? She didn’t think she could do it, vile little bastard that he was. Thief she might be, murderer she wasn’t.

  “Who was it screamed?” Beth said.

  “Dunno.”

  “Let me up!” Forbes-Cresswell squirmed. He was strong, and she didn’t know how long they could hold him.

  “Eveline.”

  “Mama.” Eveline didn’t look up, not daring to take her eyes off Forbes-Cresswell. “You all right?”

  “Yes, but what are we to do?”

  “I...”

  Something moved in the doorway and Beth’s hand came up with the gun in it, shaking, and Eveline saw Liu, Liu staggering and bleeding. She knocked Beth’s arm up and Forbes-Cresswell heaved, throwing them off, and rolled, his weight on Eveline, so heavy, his hands were on her throat, crushing, she couldn’t breathe, and then something hit his head, crunch, and his hands slackened, his body suddenly heavier.

  “Evvie. Evvie!” There was a crash and a splintering sound, and Mama was hauling him off her.

  “I’m all right,” Eveline croaked.

  Mama helped her to her feet. Her eyes were wide and horrified, a spray of blood across her cheek, one drop hanging in her grey hair like a dreadful jewel. “I...” She looked down at the remains of a heavy carved box, spattered with hair and blood. Ink and small stones and fine lacquered brushes were scattered around it. “I think I’ve killed him.”

  Forbes-Cresswell lay limp, blood and fluid leaking from his head across the tiles.

  “Good,” Eveline said.

  She heard a whimper. Liu was crawling blindly towards them, blood trickling from his eyes and ears and nose. “Lady... Sparrow...”

  “Liu. Oh, shit, Liu, I didn’t know... you weren’t supposed to be there...” Eveline ran towards him.

  Madeleine followed her daughter. “Oh, my poor boy. Oh, dear god.”

  Liu collapsed at their feet. Madeleine took his head in her lap, and tried to wipe blood from his face with her sleeve.

  Beth, seeing the black ink crawl and mingle with the fluid spreading from Forbes-Cresswell’s shattered skull, backed away, dropped to her knees and threw up.

  “What happened? What’s this boy doing here?” Madeleine said.

  “He wasn’t supposed to be. He was just meant to free whoever Holmforth’d got for the demonstration and put the mannequin there instead, he wasn’t supposed to chase after us, and get his stupid self hurt. Mama, we have to get the dragon working.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what made him sick. It can make him better. Can’t it?”

  “Eveline... I can try.” Madeleine stroked Liu’s brow. “This... this is...”

  “I know. You can make it better.”

  “What about the driver?” Beth said, wiping her mouth.

  Liu muttered something in Chinese.

  “I don’t know,” Eveline said. “Oh, I told him he shouldn’t come... Beth, can you check outside? Take the gun. Can you fire it?”

  “I can fire it. Aiming’s another thing.” Holding the gun as though it were a dead rat, her mouth pulled down in a grimace, Beth went out.

  “Stay with him,” Madeleine said. “Watch him. If he seems to get worse, call out.”

  Beth sat down and gently transferred Liu’s head to her own lap. “You bloody idiot,” she muttered. “What’d you have to go and do that for? Messing everything up.”

  His eyelids flickered but he said nothing.

  “Liu?”

  He was terribly pale. His face shimmered, making her jump; for a moment he was all muzzle and sharp, blood-stained teeth.

  “Liu!”

  And the dragon began to sing.

  The first note was high and sweet, a soft, wavering, aahiiihaaahiiii, the voice of a tiny metal angel trapped in the dragon’s throat.

  Then came a fuller, rounder sound, raum, raum, raummmm, surrounding the lost angel, lifting it on warm friendly wings.

  Liu was very still, now. His breathing was so slow, so faint. Eveline rested a hand on his cheek. He was cool as the tiled floor beneath her.

  “Mama, please,” she whispered.

  Another note, rich and strange. She felt a strange shifting inside her, a kind of blooming warmth. She willed it to go to Liu, to help him.

  Was that a flush of colour in his skin?

  The dragon sang in a ringing, lovely multiplicity of voices, and Liu opened his eyes.

  “WHAT HAPPENED?” BETH said.

  “Mama made it work.” Liu was sitting up, suffering Madeleine to clean blood from his face with a wetted handkerchief. He still looked pale, and kept glancing anxiously at the dragon. “What happened outside?”

  “I don’t know. It’s an awful mess. The driver’s dead, and there’s another man and someone I think was his driver, they’re all dead. Shot.”

  “Did you do that?” Eveline asked Liu.

  “I did not shoot anyone. I may have encouraged them to shoot each other. They were all most suspicious and quite ready to do so at the slightest provocation.”

  “So what now?” said Beth.

  “We can make it right,” Holmforth said. Eveline jumped. She’d almost forgotten about wretched Holmforth, still tied to his chair. Mama’s music had worked on him, too, though he still looked sick, and no-one had wiped his face.

  “Untie me,” he said. “We will send word to the Consulate, to have the Dragon collected. I will explain everything. The other one, the buyer, he may have papers, something... leave it to me. We can still make this work for the good of the Empire. You have behaved very foolishly, but at least...” He glanced at Forbes-Cresswell, then away. “Treachery failed, as it must.” The look he gave Eveline was almost pleading. “You understand, we can still retrieve something from this!”

  “Yeah, right. I think you’re going to be staying right where you are for now, Mr Holmforth. Liu. What you told me about the Queen. About the Gifts. I think... Mama. Mama,
are you well?

  “Yes, my dear. Only...” She looked down at her bloodied hands, and swallowed. “I should like to wash.”

  Eveline wrapped her arms around her mother’s waist, and hugged her fiercely. “You saved me, Mama.”

  “Yes. I had to. But... I killed someone.”

  “I know. But if you hadn’t, it wouldn’t just be me dead.” She drew Madeleine out of the room, beckoning Liu and Beth to follow, hoping that would take them out of range of Holmforth’s blasted sharp ears.

  Once they were beyond the doors, Eveline rubbed her eyes. She could feel a great weight of exhaustion poised at her back, but she couldn’t afford to give in to it yet. “Mama, can you do something to the dragon, if Beth helps? Make it so it will only make pretty noises, ones the Folk will like? Safe ones, like it was just a musical instrument.”

  Madeleine frowned. “Well, yes. That only requires ripping out some things, silencing others.”

  “What is your plan, Lady Sparrow?” Liu said. He was still pale, but he looked a little more like himself.

  “To give your Queen a Gift, Liu. Not the spirit of the thing... I still don’t understand that, quite, and it wouldn’t solve our problem anyway, but the thing itself. The dragon.”

  “You want to give her the dragon? I think perhaps the strain of the day has troubled your mind.”

  “Listen to me. You already knew about it; how long before someone else gets wind of it? What about the Folk here, that girl he caught? What do you bet they already know something? We gotta make it look like it was meant for a Gift. Meant to please. Then, if they find out that there was something that made terrible, harmful noises, they’ll think it was a mistake – something that happened while we were trying to make them this special Gift. Can you persuade her that it’s the best Gift she could have, better than anyone else could have got? Then, if someone makes another – well. There’s a chance they’ll think we’re just doing it to try and improve on the Gift, produce something better. For them. You see?”

  Liu frowned, rubbing his chin. “A Gift,” he said, slowly. “A Gift lovingly created, so much admired that people...” – he glanced back at the other room – “that people killed each other for the honour of giving it. And... now, did I steal it? Oh, yes, I think I stole it... it was intended, not for my Queen, but for the dragon god – an attempt to flatter his image and gain his favour. She’ll like that. In fact, it will delight her to think she has deprived him of such a magnificent Gift.”

  “This dragon god, would he be the person you offended, maybe? What will he think of having his present stolen?” Eveline said. “Won’t you get into trouble?”

  “I will ensure he hears a different story,” Liu said.

  “They won’t fight, will they? I mean, go to war, over it?” Madeleine said. “Charlotte’s still there – and maybe others...”

  “Go to war? Against each other? That is extremely unlikely,” Liu said. “They prefer their own hides whole.” He grinned wickedly. “Oh, Lady Sparrow, what a wonderful game!”

  Eveline felt herself smile a little, despite everything. Madeleine shook her head. “A game? Really?”

  “Just ’cos the stakes are high, it don’t mean it ain’t a game,” Eveline said. “Now. I know Forbes-Cresswell won’t have told anyone where he was going, and I bet he told Holmforth not to either, but it doesn’t mean nothing got around, so we’d better hurry before someone turns up looking for them. Beth, you and Mama get working on the dragon. It needs to sing pretty and if you can get it moving, all the better.”

  “Yes,” Liu said. “If you can make it move, I can get it over the border. Otherwise, it will be difficult.”

  “How far do you have to go?” Eveline said.

  “Oh, I can make a passage in most places – the privilege of my position – but from outdoors is easier.”

  “So we don’t have to try and smuggle it onto an airship, then.”

  “Fortunately, no.”

  “What about Holmforth?” Beth said.

  “I dunno, I’ll think of something.” Beth and Madeleine hurried off.

  “It would be better if he were dead,” Liu said.

  “There’s enough people dead. I don’t want more.”

  “Are you sure you have a choice?”

  “Of course I got a choice!”

  “And if leaving him alive brings down on us what we are trying so hard to prevent?”

  “It won’t.”

  “Eveline.” Liu touched her hand with the tips of his fingers, gently, as though she were porcelain. “I honour your gentle spirit. But...”

  “I know, all right? He’s got a maggot in his head about the Folk, Liu. He wants them to pay. He’s still all fired up for the Empire... I’ll have to think.” She rubbed her eyes. “But the main thing is to get rid of that blasted dragon before it gets us all into even more trouble. And we need to do something in case someone comes looking for the old man, too. I s’pose he must have had servants, at least... wonder where they all went?”

  “I should imagine they ran away, but it is possible they may come back.”

  TWO NERVE-WRACKING HOURS later, Eveline watched as the dragon’s head reared up on its long, gleaming neck, and with hisses and clanks and an impressive exhalation of steam, its legs unfolded, raising the sinuous body off the ground.

  Despite herself, Eveline took a couple of steps backwards as the head swung towards her. Liu, at the controls, gave her a cheery wave.

  “If you would be so kind as to open the doors?”

  They did so. Holmforth, still tied to his chair, who had spent the last hours alternately scolding, begging, and threatening, wrenched furiously at his bonds. “You can’t do this! You can’t! Thieves! Traitors!”

  They ignored him as the dragon began its stately progress out of the building. Beth sighed. “Oh, it’s so wonderful. If only it wasn’t so dangerous. Are you sure there isn’t another way?”

  “Can you think of one?” Eveline said, a little more sharply than she meant.

  “No,” Beth said wistfully. “It just seems such a terrible waste. They’re not even going to appreciate it for what it is, for all the work that’s gone into it; they’ll just think it’s a pretty toy.”

  “If they thought anything else, we’d all regret it,” Eveline said. “You sure we found all the notes?”

  “I think so.” Beth glanced at the pretty porcelain stove where a bunch of papers was burning merrily. “What about the notes he says he gave Forbes-Cresswell?”

  “He’d not have kept them at the office – too good a chance of someone else finding ’em. I s’pose we’ll have to check out his gaff when we get home. And his room at the Consulate.”

  “You’re going to sneak into the Consulate?”

  “Have to, won’t I?”

  They followed the dragon out into the courtyard.

  Beyond the gates the sun was setting, a fat red coin on grey silk. The light caught the mobile silver wires that hung about the dragon’s mouth, turning them to bloody streaks. Liu paused the beast, and turned its head to Eveline. Steam curled from its nostrils.

  “You will be careful,” Eveline said.

  “Of course I will,” Liu said. “Do not worry, I think it will work.”

  “You’d better go, then.”

  “Yes. Goodbye, Lady Sparrow of Shanghai.”

  “Zhù nĭ hăoyùn, Foxy.”

  “Luck?” Liu grinned. “Luck is for those who are not as clever as us.” He pulled another lever, and the dragon reared up on its hind legs, making Eveline gasp and Beth give a little moan, and with sudden, astonishing, fluid grace, it was out of the gate and moving across the road, a sinuous vision of gleam and vapour in the flat, empty landscape.

  And strangely, another road – a thing of mist and whispers, but a road, winding across the plain and rising up at a slope the land did not accommodate – began to form itself before the dragon’s feet.

  Suddenly Eveline realised that the dragon’s tail had something cling
ing to it, some ragged lump of cloth – had it caught on something?

  No. It was Holmforth, gripping the moving tail with both hands, working his way up the spine.

  “Liu, look out!” Eveline yelled, knowing that it was impossible he could hear her.

  Beth fumbled out the gun she had shoved into her pocket.

  “No!” Eveline said. “You might hit Liu! Come on!”

  They began to run, Madeleine in their wake.

  Liu had not noticed his passenger. The dragon was pacing elegantly up the vaporous road. Holmforth inched up its backbone, his face alight with fervid determination.

  The dragon reared up. The air shimmered and swirled like the surface of a pearl.

  “Liu!”

  But it was too late. The dragon surged forward, the air shivered, and then there was a flash of painful, brilliant green light, and something tumbled down through the empty air and landed in the wet field at the girls’ feet.

  Clothes. A Norfolk jacket, tweed trousers.

  Holmforth’s clothes, sinking into the mud.

  “They’re moving...” Beth whispered.

  “Maybe they fell on one of them fancy birds, like we saw?” Eveline picked up a stick, and lifted the edge of the jacket.

  It was a hare. Crouched inside the shirt, the collar loose around its neck, eyes wide and dark with terror, ears flat to its narrow head.

  “Oh,” Eveline breathed.

  “Why doesn’t it move? Is it hurt?” Beth said.

  “No,” Madeleine said, catching up to them. “It’s probably confused. Come away, girls.”

  “It’s him, isn’t it?” Eveline said.

  “I don’t understand,” Beth said.

  “I do,” Eveline said. “He tried to enter without permission. And he wasn’t Folk enough for that. That would probably have pleased him, poor sod.”

  “Eveline, my love.”

  “Sorry, Mama.” The hare kicked out suddenly, and ran, briefly trailing a fine linen pocket handkerchief from one leg, before it was gone, zigzagging into the long grasses.

  “Will he turn back?” Beth said.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”