by Marty Chan
“Am I invisible?” she joked to the woman with walrus tusks beside her.
The tall woman cocked her head to one side. “You need an attention getter.” She pulled down her maroon tunic and pulled out a few bills from between her breasts. She slapped them on the bar.
The bartender snapped to attention and rushed over. “What’ll you have?”
The tusky woman grinned. “Money. Works every time. What do you want? It’s on me.”
“Uh, thanks. I’ll take two mugs of cider,” Amina said. The woman stroked her tusk and admired Amina’s form. Amina sidled away.
Ehrich found a table and sat on a chair that had not seen the clean side of a rag in quite some time. He signalled Amina to join him then scanned the crowd of drunken revellers in the corner. No sign of Ba Tian’s soldiers.
Amina perched on a chair across from him and ignored the tusky woman’s leering glances. “I think this is going to be a long night.”
“Where else are we going to go?”
“True. But I hate stakeouts. They go on forever.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of his black Bicycle cards, named so for the twin bicycle designs on the back. He practiced his Charlier cut with his left hand, making the one-handed cut seem smooth. Since they had been on the run, Ehrich had been practicing different magic tricks he had remembered from his Robert Houdin book. He rehearsed the tricks to ease the stress of being a fugitive, but more recently, he had taken up card sleights for practical reasons. “Do you mind if I pass the time?” he asked Amina.
“They’re poor travellers, Ehrich. Go easy on them.”
He gave the deck an overhand shuffle, then spread the deck on the table to find the queen of spades and two jokers. “Who wants to win Three-Card Monte?” he barked.
Ehrich flashed the faces to Amina, then placed them on the table with the backs up. He switched the cards from one position to the other and stopped. “Now all you have to do is tell me where the queen of spades is.”
Amina pointed to the middle. He flipped over the card. The queen appeared.
“You win. That’s how easy it is.”
Three men from the revellers reeled toward them from the corner. They were well into their cups and would make the perfect marks for the game of Three-Card Monte.
“Do it again,” the one with buckteeth said, slurring his words.
He repeated the trick and invited the drunken man to find the queen of spades. He pointed to the middle card. Again, the queen.
“Easy,” he boasted to his friends.
Ehrich suggested, “Want to put some money on it?”
The man laughed and reached into his pocket to pull out a few bills. His friends did the same.
Ehrich flashed the cards to the men, one after the other. “Keep your eye on the lady. We have the joker, the queen, and another joker. All you have to do is find the lady, and you win.” He placed the cards one after the other on the table, appearing to have placed the queen in the middle. The drunken man fell for the trick. He stabbed the middle card and threw down two dollars.
Ehrich flipped over a joker. “Sorry. Bad luck.”
The man’s face reddened. “It was there. I know it.”
The queen was on the left. “Next time, don’t blink.” He had reeled in his mark. More money landed on the table as new players joined in. He repeated the trick, and none of the players ever guessed right. Ehrich folded an obvious crimp in the corner of the queen of spades to make it easier to find the card, flashing it to his latest victim. When the player flipped over the card, the men groaned when they spotted the joker with a crimp in the corner.
By night’s end, Ehrich had enough money that they could book a nearby hotel. Part of him felt guilty for taking the travellers’ money, but he consoled himself by thinking that if they could afford to drink, they weren’t as bad off as the travellers sleeping on Morton Street.
The pair left Chumley’s to connect with Mr. Serenity and Ning Shu. They also found nothing about the soldiers. They would try reconnoitering Chumley’s again the following night.
The next night turned into the next week, and still no one showed up. Ehrich didn’t count the evenings as days. He counted them as hands played. Every now and then he deliberately lost to keep the players interested in what they perceived was an honest game and a really bad streak of luck. Amina circled the group, egging them on whenever someone lost the nerve to bet.
Then one night, a scarlet hand tossed in a bill. Ehrich followed the hand up the arm to the face of a muscular crimson man. Ehrich didn’t recognize him but noted the tusks on either side of the man’s nose. This had to be a soldier from Ba Tian’s army. Amina slid in close. First contact.
Ehrich played, but he couldn’t concentrate. He threw the cards down in the wrong order. He lost. The hulking man tucked the money into the inside pocket of his ebony silk jacket and walked away.
“Must be losing my touch,” he announced as he gathered his cards. “That’s enough for one night.”
“Not until I win my money back,” a drunken man said. He grabbed Ehrich’s wrist and pulled him back down.
Ehrich tried to pull away, but the drunk had a firm grip. Amina waved at Ehrich and started to follow the red man.
“Hey, she’s sending him signals,” the scrawny friend yelled.
“What? No.”
“She’s in on it. The fix is in.” He wrapped his arms around Amina.
“Let go of her!”
“I don’t cotton to cheaters!”
Tempers flared as the bettors jostled one another to throttle Ehrich and Amina. Meanwhile, the man in the silk jacket disappeared into the crowd. Rough hands grabbed at Ehrich’s throat and pushed him back into the rank patrons. One man grasped his shirt and reached for Ehrich’s money. Bills flew out, and a few punches rained on the back of his head. He threw an elbow back and caught someone in the nose.
He jumped forward, but a hand caught his collar. Amina fended off her attackers, but there were too many in the room, and they needed to go after the red man.
“Eighty-six!” Ehrich yelled, recalling the code word the Chumley’s staff had used when they knew a raid was coming.
He wasn’t the only one who knew this code. The patrons scattered, rushing toward the back door and the secret passageway. Apparently, the tunnel had proven useful again. Ehrich wondered if perhaps it led to a different exit. Only the drunken man and his friends remained to grab the rest of the money from Ehrich.
Amina threw off the last of her attackers and grabbed his hand. “There he is.”
They joined the crowd going into the passageway. The back of the red man’s head was just visible over the shorter patrons. He wore his long black hair in a braided queue. They followed him into the narrow corridor and eventually emerged through a small door that opened onto a street beyond the tavern. Bright sunlight blinded Ehrich. They had been in Chumley’s all through the night and well into the morning.
The red man slipped away from the fleeing patrons and marched toward the Hudson River. Ehrich hooked his arm around Amina’s to pose as two lovers on a morning stroll.
Their prey joined another man in a similar silk jacket and flared black pants with white cuffs. He stood on the corner facing the Hudson River. The masts of the merchant ships dotted the horizon, dwarfed by the Statue of Liberty looming over them. The pair conversed for a moment, then turned north along the river. The two men did not venture far.
Amina let out a low whistle. “They’re not even in the city. That’s why we haven’t found them.”
The soldiers had stopped at a pier where small boats were moored. There they untied the lines holding a small craft and pushed off on the Hudson River.
Amina grabbed Ehrich’s arm. “Come on. We’ll need to find another boat.”
“Hold on,” he said. “Wait until they clear the pier. We don’t want to arouse any suspicion.”
Amina waited. The ship floated away from the Statue of Liberty, out of the shipping lane
s and to the north.
Ehrich scanned the pier—no witnesses. He headed to the nearest skiff, hopped on board, and helped Amina board. Then he tossed the line and pushed off. He found some oars under the bench and began to row after the skiff, keeping back a healthy distance. The boat rolled against the waves of the choppy river. Under the grey sky, their boat barely seemed to move. Amina had found another set of oars under his seat and was helping him row.
“Do you think they’re hiding across the river?” he asked. Ehrich’s arms were aching by now, but he’d found a rhythm.
Amina grunted as she pulled the oars. “Must be the reason we haven’t spotted them until now.” Suddenly, she checked her stroke, staring over Ehrich’s shoulder at the soldiers’ boat. “Stop!” she hissed.
Ehrich cantilevered the oars out of the water. The soldiers had stopped in the middle of the river. Ehrich and Amina ducked low in their boat and peered over the prow. The men didn’t seem concerned with anyone around them. Instead, they seemed to be staring up at the sky.
A low-hanging cloud appeared to be moving against the wind and was now hovering over the men’s craft. Ropes dropped from the bottom of the cloud toward the boat. The crimson men grabbed the lines and looped them through the oarlocks on the sides and ends of the skiff. They then seated themselves at either end of the boat and gripped the sides as the cables began to retract up to the cloud. The men steadied their craft, maintaining balance, as water poured off the sides and the boat rose higher and higher.
Ehrich squinted at the cloud. The outline of what at first seemed like a whale soon took the shape of a massive airship. Ehrich noted the outline of the balloon and guessed the lines were coming from the gondola attached to the bottom of the giant air bag.
“They’re hiding in the sky,” Ehrich said.
“Great! We’ve found them, but how do we get up there?”
Ehrich had no idea.
ENEMY OF MY ENEMY
The floating boat brought to Ehrich’s mind a grand illusion Robert Houdin might have executed. The craft disappeared into the cloud, which now began to drift north along the river, against the wind.
“They brought an airship here?” Ehrich asked. “How did they transport it through a portal?”
Amina shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Hey, they’re floating away.” He pointed at the departing cloud.
“We can’t follow them,” Amina said. “They’re too fast.”
“Yes, but now we know where they send their scouts to the city. All that’s left is to stake out the pier. Let’s head back.”
He rowed to the shore. As the boat rocked up and down on the water, he kept his gaze fixed on the cloud floating against the wind.
v
Reunited with their group near the Hudson River Tunnel Project, Ehrich and Amina informed the others of their discovery. Mr. Serenity rubbed his bald head, bewildered. “By Jovian’s Anvil, how do they manage to hide the airship?”
“I don’t know,” Ehrich answered, “but the cloud moved with them. It was the perfect camouflage.”
“My father’s forces used fog machines to camouflage our troops on open battlefields,” Ning Shu explained. “Wouldn’t be too hard to rig a machine to hide a vessel in the sky.”
“I’m worried, Ning Shu. Are you sure that if we get on the airship, the generals will listen to you?” Ehrich asked.
“Trust in me, Ehrich.”
“Your father seemed intent on gaining control of Demon Gate. It’s the only stable portal that connects to multiple dimensions, and I’m sure the generals will also see its value. How are we going to sway them from this mission?”
She pulled the jade tael out from under her green robes. “The generals answer to the House of Qi.”
“Isn’t that just a weapon?” Ehrich asked.
“No, this is the seal of the House of Qi. My ancestors bore the symbol to mark their claim to their birthright. Whoever is a member of the House of Qi rules the army. In the absence of my father, I command the forces.”
Amina squinted one eye at Ning Shu. “If you come out into the open with contradictory orders, the generals will suspect you’re up to something.”
“They did not see me rebel against my father during his assault on Devil’s Island. They have no reason to doubt me.”
Ehrich argued, “But they’ll question the new directive.”
Ning Shu slid the jade tael under her emerald robe. “They are like one of those large ships in the harbour. They will eventually move in the direction you want, but you have to be patient.”
Ehrich led the group away from nearby Dimensionals. “Do you think the generals are tired of war?”
“We are a loyal people. This flaw has cost us dearly. When my mother died, Ba Tian lost his moral compass. He led my people with him down a mad path.”
“What do you mean?” Mr. Serenity asked, leaning closer.
“My father did not strike first. Marauders from another dimension wanted our realm. They sent assassins to kill my father. My mother sacrificed herself to save him. The killers fled, but he tracked them to the first portal. He realized this attack would be one of many.”
“Why did he wage war on the other sectors?” Amina asked.
“To send a signal that the House of Qi was formidable. Personally, I believe he wanted to avenge my mother.”
“Don’t your people question his motives?”
“He tells them he seeks resources so our people will not starve. In my realm, we say, ‘when your mouth is full, you cannot criticize.’ As long as my father fed the people, they supported him.”
“What about the soldiers who witnessed the ravages of war?”
She shook her head. “They are loyal to the House of Qi. No general or soldier would dare to speak against the House of Qi. The shame would be too great.”
“A poor excuse,” Amina said.
Ning Shu leaned against the brick wall. “A few generals might welcome a change in direction. Ling Po has stood by my father’s side since I was a child. He served my father long before the assassination attempt. Ling Po may be our best ally.”
“As long as we can find him,” Ehrich pointed out.
v
The next two days tested the group’s patience. In pairs, they staked out a different pier along the Hudson River, hoping someone would luck out and catch one of the crimson scouts headed into the city. Ehrich worked with Amina at the northern end while Ning Shu and Mr. Serenity scouted the docks near the Hudson River Tunnel Project. Days wore on until a week passed with no success.
Late one night, Ehrich and the others huddled around a fire barrel the street vendors used to keep warm as they peddled their wares. He beckoned Amina closer to the fire, and the glow illuminated the high cheekbones of her ebony face. He stared at her in the orange light, but looked away when she glanced at him.
“What do you think our odds are of finding Kifo?” he asked.
“If Ning Shu is right, he will try to reconnect with the generals,” Mr. Serenity said.
“Now that he’s no longer in my brother’s body, they won’t recognize him. They’ll see him as an intruder.”
“Maybe they’ll kill him,” Amina said.
“I hope not.”
An awkward silence followed. Mr. Serenity and Ning Shu walked to the river. Amina lingered. She rubbed her hands over the fire.
“If I close my eyes and shut out the buildings, I’m in the woods near my parents’ home. I can almost smell the pine trees I used to climb. At night, my sister and I would start a small cooking fire in the woods while we hunted wood rats. Sometimes, we lucked out and caught a few at the start of the hunt. They are small and fast, and only come out after dark. Cooked properly, they are delicious. Other times, we’d sit by the fire and warm our hands and tell tales of the nights when we did catch the rats. When we tired of true stories, Aleira resorted to tall tales to scare me.”
“You, frightened? Hard to believe.”
Sh
e smirked. “My sister fuelled my fear with stories of spirits in the woods. She told me the spirits took little girls who strayed too far from the light. They ripped at the girls’ souls and cast them into an abyss, where the victims would remain alive in utter agony for all of eternity.”
“Sounds like the perfect older sister.”
“Ehrich, she scarred me for life.”
“That’s what older siblings do,” Ehrich said. “I remember once scaring the dickens out of my brother. We were awake far later than we should have been, and I warned Dash about the ghost in our apartment. At first, he didn’t believe me, but I knew he eventually would. I spun a story about a former tenant who had been driven mad during the Civil War, and how this tenant had shut himself off from the world in the very room we slept in. He howled just like the wind blowing outside our window. When I saw my brother bundle up under his blanket, I knew he believed. I told Dash to stay near the candle because the ghost only came out at night. Without the protection of the light, we were at the mercy of the spectre. And when Dash was good and wound up, I blew out the candle. Oh, how he shrieked and squealed when I grabbed his leg in the dark. I can still hear his screams.”
Amina smacked Ehrich’s arm.
“Ow. What did I do?”
“That’s from all the little brothers and sisters who had to put up with their older siblings’ stories.”
“Stay near the fire, Amina. You know what happens if you don’t.”
She chuckled.
“I’ll take the first shift tonight, Amina,” he offered. “You sleep.”
“If I can after your story.” She clutched the jacket closed around her body and huddled against a wall. Ehrich stayed up. He hadn’t been able to sleep at all; his brain buzzed with the possibility of forcing Kifo to restore Dash to his body. He had feigned calm around the others but alone in the dark, he was consumed with his obsession to catch Kifo. He would have rather searched the streets for the man with the Infinity Coil, but he promised to help his friends. Maybe assisting them could ultimately lead to locating Kifo, but he couldn’t be sure which strategy would be the most effective. Unable to still his thoughts, he let the others sleep through the night.