Wings of Fire

by Jonathan Strahan; Marianne S. Jablon

“So now I’m your geisha girl? Shit, when you revert to the old ways, you really revert, don’t you?”

  Koga smiled. One of those, not-now-let’s-fight-about-it-later smiles.

  All right, she smiled back. Later.

  “I’ll let you get away with it this time,” she said aloud.

  She kept her voice low so that only Koga could hear her. Giving him a poke in the stomach with a stiff finger, she put her palms together in a prayer position and hurried off to the kitchen with a geisha’s quick mincing steps. Koga rolled his eyes, then walked over to where Stick was sitting. By the time he sat down across from his guest, his features were composed again.

  “This is an unexpected pleasure,” he said. “I’d given up ever having you visit me in my home.”

  Stick gave a small shrug. “Had some business that couldn’t keep.”

  Koga nodded. They waited in silence then for the tea to be served. Laura pulled out a low table and set it between the two men, serving them their tea in small handleless cups of bone china. Not until they were finished their first cup and they each had a second in front of them, did they get to Stick’s business.

  Sitting off to one side, Laura watched them, struck by how much alike they seemed at this moment. She listened attentively as Stick explained the Diggers’ problem, then muttered under her breath something about “slaves and geishas” as she fetched some ink, parchment and a brush so that he could quickly sketch the dragon symbol from the marker that had been left behind on Nicky’s body.

  “Why is it that one need only mention drugs and dragons and immediately it is assumed that the problem originates in New Asia?” Koga said when Stick was done.

  “Maybe it’s got something to do with your yakuza and tongs,” Stick replied.

  “There are other dragons—”

  “I’m only interested in this one,” Stick said, breaking in.

  Koga nodded. “All right. I think it belongs to the Cho tong—Billy Hu’s people. At least it used to. I’ve seen this motif on some of the dishware in their gaming rooms.”

  “Didn’t think you gambled,” Stick said.

  “I don’t. But I like watching sometimes.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  Stick started to rise, but Koga reached across the table to touch his arm. “You never forget, do you? What will it take for you to forget?”

  “Can you bring Onisu back?”

  Koga shook his head. “I had no choice.”

  “You think I don’t know that? Why the hell do you think we’re still on talking terms?”

  “I just thought… if enough time went by….”

  “Don’t kid yourself, Shoki—there just aren’t that many years.” He gave Koga a brief nod, then rose from the table. Standing, he towered over both Laura and the Sensei. His gaze went to Laura. “Thanks for the tea—you served it real well for a gajin.”

  Before Laura could reply, he was outside, the door closing on him. She could hear him on the landing, putting on his boots, but she waited until she heard him go down the stairs before she spoke.

  “What was all that about?”

  Koga shook his head. “Like I said before—an old disagreement.”

  “But who’s this Onisu he was talking about? Why’s he so pissed off, Koga?”

  “Onisu was Stick’s wife, Laura—a long time ago.”

  “And she’s… is she dead?”

  Koga nodded. “Shoki killed her.”

  “But you’re….” Laura couldn’t finish.

  “I know,” Koga said. “Believe me, Laura. I know.”

  Laura began to feel that this was a secret she’d wish she had never learned about.

  “Was she a… a demon? Like I was?”

  “No.” Koga moved to sit beside her. He took her hands in his. “There are dragons,” he said, “that are here as caretakers for the world, Laura. Dragons of earth and fire, water and air; guardian spirits. They live in mortal flesh and some small sphere of the world falls under their protection. But sometimes those guardians become rogues—do you understand? They become what you might have become if you hadn’t learned how to control your demon.”

  “Stick had a wife that was a dragon?”

  Koga nodded.

  “Then what does that make Stick?”

  Koga was silent for a long while. When he finally spoke, his voice was so low that Laura had to lean close to hear him.

  “I don’t really know,” he said. “I just know that once he was my friend.”

  “How could you do it?” Laura asked him. “How could you kill her?”

  Koga shook his head. “You don’t understand. I did it for him. She was his responsibility—just as he was hers. But he couldn’t do it. I had to do it for him.”

  Laura remembered the demon she had been and how she’d prayed that if she couldn’t be saved, that Koga would kill her so that she wouldn’t hurt anyone else. She shivered. It wasn’t a memory she liked to call up. Glancing at Koga, she saw that he too was remembering. She drew his head against her shoulder.

  “I think I understand,” she said.

  Koga made no reply. He just drew her closer, accepting her comfort.

  FIVE

  It was a high lonesome sound.

  Berlin sat on the back porch of the Diggers’ House, playing one of Joe Doh-dee-oh’s harmonicas that could hit the high notes her own voice never could. The last of the afternoon drained away as she sat there playing—not really thinking, just remembering. And waiting. After awhile, she put the harmonica down and lit up a thin cigar.

  She was waiting for the day to pass. She was waiting for the night to come, when Dragontown would come alive. Joe shifted in the chair behind her, but she didn’t turn her head.

  “It’s a long lonely road,” he said finally.

  Berlin blew out a stream of blue-grey smoke, then studied the glowing tip of her cigar. “What is?”

  “Getting back. Getting even.”

  “What makes you think I want any more than just to know what’s going on and stopping it?”

  “You just wouldn’t be Berlin, then. Is Stick helping you out?”

  She shrugged. “He’s looking, I’m looking.”

  “And whoever gets there first wins the prize?”

  Berlin turned slowly. “What are you trying to say, Joe?”

  “Nothing. It’s just… we had a good thing going here, helping people and everything. I liked the feeling that I was being of some use to somebody, even if it was just to runaway punks and bums.”

  “That doesn’t have to change.”

  “But nothing’s going to be the same anymore, either,” Joe said.

  “I didn’t make the first move.”

  “Nobody’s blaming you, Berlin. I’m just talking. Thinking aloud.”

  Berlin tossed her cigar into the dirt below the porch. “Thinking’s bad for you—remember? You told me that. Anyone who thinks too much, they can’t play the blues.”

  “I’m not talking music, Berlin. I’m talking about what we’re going to do, what we’re going to be when this is all done.”

  Berlin sighed and stood up. “We’re going to be changed—but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, Joe. We’re still going to be helping people.”

  “What people? We had a half dozen hobos here for the free supper tonight. And that was it. People are scared. Talk’s already going around that wherever the Diggers are is not a good place to be.”

  “That’s why I’ve got to be doing something now.”

  She left the porch before he could reply, going to the shed where she wheeled out her scooter. The sun was almost down now, sinking below Bordertown’s western skyline. The rubbled lots around the House grew thick with shadows. She looked back at the House. Joe was right. There’d been almost nobody at the free supper tonight and they didn’t have anybody crashing for the night.

  It sure made things quiet.

  She started up the scooter. The purr of its engine sounded loud in the stillness. She gave the
throttle a rev, then set off across the dirt yard towards the street. Just before she could turn onto the pavement, a small figure detached itself from the hulking shadows of an abandoned delivery truck and waved her down.

  Berlin used one hand on the rear brakes to bring the scooter to a stop, palming a throwing knife in the other. She put the knife away as soon as she saw who it was.

  “Hey, Berlin,” the figure said.

  “Hey, Gamen. How’s tricks?”

  Gamen was one of Sammy’s kids, living up with the rest of them at the old Lightworks building from which Sammy ran the Pack. You could find Sammy’s kids all through Soho, and ranging out into Trader’s Heaven and Riverside—scruffy little Packers in rags and tatters, scrounging a living from the streets or wherever they could. They turned up at the Diggers’ Houses from time to time, though Sammy frowned on that. The Diggers let anybody crash, and Sammy wasn’t big on his kids mixing with the Blood runaways that showed up as regularly as any other kind of kid on the streets.

  “I heard about the burn in Tintown,” Gamen said.

  She turned her big sad eyes on Berlin. There weren’t many could turn Gamen down when she was asking for a handout—not with those eyes.

  “It was a bad scene,” Berlin agreed. “Listen, if you’re hungry, we’ve got plenty of eats tonight. Go back up to the House and ask Joe or Hooter.”

  “I’m not here for eats,” Gamen said. “Sammy sent me.”

  Berlin’s eyebrows went up. “What’s Sammy got to say?”

  Gamen scuffed at a lip of broken pavement with a dirty shoe. “Well, I seen something in Tintown and when I told him, he told me to come and tell you. Nobody else, just you.”

  “What did you see, Gamen?”

  “A High Born. I saw a High Born on the back streets of Tintown just a little while before the fire started up.”

  Berlin regarded her steadily. A High Born. In Tintown. It wasn’t totally preposterous—but she had to take into account the source of the information. Sammy was a pure townie bigot. He hated Bloods. It could be just like him to make trouble between the Bloods and Diggers, because he wasn’t that big on the Diggers either. He’d lost a kid or two to the Diggers—not enough to make them his enemy, but enough so that he wouldn’t mind them having a little war with the Bloods.

  “Did you see this?” Berlin demanded. “Or did Sammy just tell you you did?”

  “Come on, Berlin. I wouldn’t shit you.”

  The big eyes met her gaze without blinking. Berlin sighed. With those eyes—especially on a streetkid—there was no way to tell if Gamen was lying or not.

  “Okay,” Berlin said. “Thanks for the tip, Gamen. Tell Sammy I owe him one.”

  “What about me?”

  “I thought we were friends,” Berlin said. “Friends don’t owe each other.”

  Gamen thought about that for a moment, then her grimy face brightened. She gave Berlin a quick salute before vanishing into the deepening shadows. Berlin sat on her scooter, the engine still idling, while she thought about what this new information could mean. A High Born in Tintown. And pearl came straight across the Borders from Elfland. If only she could trust Sammy’s reasons for passing the info on….

  She thought it all through one more time, then shook her head. There just wasn’t enough to go on. Putting the scooter into gear, she pointed it towards Dragontown.

  Berlin knew her way around Dragontown. She knew the twists and turns of its narrow streets. She understood the safe blocks and those that were off-limits even to her. She could read the pulse of the streets and the Dragons that patrolled them in gangs of twos and threes. But the vibes were wrong tonight.

  She could feel angry eyes watching her from the tea houses and shops she passed by. The paper lanterns seemed greedier than ever with their light tonight, leaving dark pools of shadow that spilled beyond the mouths of alleyways to eat away at the streets. There was a high buzz of anger in the air that grew into an ever-stronger whine with each Dragon she passed. It wasn’t until she ran down Locas in the gaming district that she found out what was going down.

  “What chew doin’ here, Berlin?” Locas demanded, dragging her off the street into an alley. “Chew crazy or somethin’?”

  Locas was a thin dark-skinned youth, half Chinese and half Puerto Rican. He lived in the barrios out past Fare-you-well Park borough, but usually spent his evenings cruising the streets of New Asia.

  Berlin shook off his grip. She’d left her scooter chained up in an alley out by Ho Street, before entering Dragontown on foot.

  “You think I’m crazy? What the hell’s going on here, Locas?”

  “Oh, man. Don’t chew know? Word’s out on chew, babe. Chew gone lobo on us. Calling in the bulls from uptown. Word’s all over the street. Chew know the uptown fuzz don’t bother with us—not ’less they got somebody to point out who’s who an’ what’s what.”

  “People are believing this shit?”

  “Hey, we’re not talkin’ one rumour here, babe. We’re talkin’ everybody sayin’ the same thing ’bout chew.”

  “Well, everybody’s wrong. Come on, Locas—you think I’d turn anybody in?”

  “I tol’ ’em chew wouldn’t—but there’s too much talkin’ goin’ down, Berlin. Chew stay here too long tonight an’ the uptown bulls gonna get your pretty little head delivered to ’em in a box, chew know what I’m sayin’?”

  Berlin leaned weakly against the alley wall.

  “Jesus Christ,” she muttered. “The whole friggin’ world’s turning upside down.”

  “Ain’t that the truth. Chew gotta split, babe. Chill right outta here.”

  Berlin nodded. “Okay. I get the picture. I’m gone. But before I go, can you tell me something?”

  “What chew want, Berlin?”

  “Who’s this belong to?”

  She pulled out the lacquered wood marker and dropped it into his hand. Locas sidled up to the mouth of the alleyway, gave it a quick look, then returned to her side.

  “It’s an old marker,” he said. “Used to belong to Billy Hu’s people—chew know who I mean? We’re talkin’ tongs here, babe. What chew want with them?”

  It was too dark to see his features, but Berlin could read the suspicion in his voice.

  “You heard about our house in Tintown?”

  “It’s a fuckin’ shame. Nicky was okay.”

  “Somebody left that on Nicky’s body.”

  Locas weighed the marker in his hand, then passed it back to her.

  “Somebody’s makin’ trouble, an’ not just with chew,” he said finally.

  “I’ve got to talk to Billy Hu, Locas. Can you set up a meet?”

  “I’ll see what’s brewin’—talk to some people.”

  “I’d appreciate it,” Berlin said. “This is shaping up into a major fuck-up.”

  “No shit. Everybody’s gettin’ a hard-on for chew, babe, an’….”

  His voice trailed off. Berlin turned to see what he was looking at and watched them fill up the entrance of the alleyway. Dragons. Four, no five of them.

  “Get out of here,” she told Locas.

  “Hey, Berlin. I—”

  “Blow!”

  As he started to shuffle away, Berlin shifted slightly into a loose yoi, or ready, stance and faced the Dragons. She really didn’t need this. She had to be careful—not hurt them too badly, because that’d just make this whole mess worse—but they weren’t going to be operating under any such limitations.

  “You got a lot of nerve,” one of the Dragons said, “showing your ass around here.”

  He was enough in the light so that Berlin could recognize him. Jackie Won. Half the gangs in lower Dragontown answered to him. Beautiful, she thought.

  “You’ve been hearing a lot bullshit, Jackie,” Berlin replied. “Let me go before someone gets hurt.”

  Jackie laughed. He looked at his companions. “You hear that? She’s afraid of hurting us.” His hard gaze returned to Berlin. “We’re not afraid of a little pain�
�’specially not when you’ll be the one feeling it.”

  Berlin didn’t bother replying. Stay cool, she told herself. Don’t get mad. Don’t go tearing them apart. But there were five of them and they were already fanning out. There was no way she could take all five without tearing them apart.

  “Two things,” she said quietly. “And I want you to remember them both. Whatever you heard on the street about me’s bullshit.”

  “This is so scary,” Jackie said with a grin. “What’s the other thing, dead meat?”

  “You don’t fuck around with Berlin.”

  They never saw her first move. She just flowed to one side of the alley, grabbed up a couple of garbage can lids, flung them like discs at the Dragons, then leapt up to the fire escape that was hanging above her. Two Dragons went down as the lids spun into them. The other three rushed forward and she dropped down amongst them.

  She drop-kicked the first, trying to hold back, but she heard his thigh-bone snap under the impact of her foot. The next she took out with a lightning blur of punches that left him wheezing and choking on the ground. When she turned to Jackie, he was already committed to a whirling kick.

  She came up under his attack, a pointed fist firing into his groin. As he started to fall, she flipped him over her back, then came up to face the first two she’d taken out with the garbage can lids who were now back on their feet. A low growl came up from her diaphragm—a rumbling sound that turned into a panther’s cough. The two Dragons looked as though they were going to stand their ground, but as soon as she took a step towards them, they both fled.

  A pinpoint of heat burned in the center of Berlin’s head, licking at her thoughts like a fire. Her eyes glimmered eerily as she studied her downed foes. She took a step towards the nearest one, then stopped. Bowing her head, she took one deep breath after another until the heat cooled, until the light in her eyes died, until the rumbling sound in her chest fell still.

  Close. She’d almost lost it. She’d….

  She looked down into Jackie’s shocked eyes. There was a flicker of fear behind his pain. Perfect. Now the Dragons were really going to be after her ass. She broke eye contact with him and headed deeper down into the alley at a gliding walk. She was going to have to disappear for awhile. It was that, or go after all the gangs in Dragontown before they came after her.