by Lisa Morton
“Taoist have strange magic. I do not understand.”
Four hours later they returned to the warehouse and were surprised to see what Diana could only think of as an altar, now erected in the middle of the space. Long tables were arranged on an elevated platform, and they were draped with vivid red cloth. Incense was burning, only slightly masking the odor of decomposition with a musky aroma; there were bowls, strips of paper, calligraphy brushes, idols, and, strangest of all, a live chicken tied by its feet and squawking noisily (which caused Mina to strain against Diana’s hands and mew hungrily). Standing over a table nearby, Master Li muttered a chant while making exotic gestures with his fingers.
As Diana watched, intrigued, Yi-kin listened closely to the chant, then leaned to her ear and whispered, “Master Li call on generals of Heaven to seize kap-huet goong-si.”
Li, while still chanting, lifted the poor fowl, picked up a blade and quickly slit the bird’s throat, making certain its lifeblood drained into the bowl. He flung the twitching corpse of the chicken aside, added some sort of powder to the bowl, and mixed it swiftly with one of the brushes, which he then used to inscribe yellow paper talismans similar to the one that Diana had seen him use earlier to save her.
Diana could not help mulling over the ramifications of what she was watching. Although she’d never strictly been a Christian, she was still a modern European, and at first she thought this bizarre ritual rather primitive. Animal sacrifice had been extinct in western religions for hundreds of years, and surely if she found belief in one god impossible then how was she to accept an entire pantheon? And yet the Taoist’s magic had prevailed where her own attempts failed, so who was really the primitive here? Was she learning that each culture had its own good and evil, and that the western crucifix was no stronger than the eastern sutra? Was she witnessing a universal force for good that operated through the symbols of different beliefs?
Diana’s thoughts finally circled back to the one constant she accepted wholeheartedly: Evil existed everywhere on the globe, and everywhere was a murderous, destructive force that must be stopped…by whatever means necessary—and her methods might need to be different each time.
Her concentration was interrupted by a shocking clap of thunder. Next to her, Yi-kin grinned.
“I think Thunder General come,” he whispered to her.
A mighty gust of wind suddenly blew the warehouse doors wide open and there, framed by an intensifying night storm, stood the vampire. The kap-huet goong-si.
The creature was the size and shape of a man, dressed in tattered robes that indicated a Chinese who had once owned considerable wealth, perhaps a warlord or land baron. What had once been a human face was now little more than patches of yellowing bone showing through strips of browned flesh; the most arresting feature of the thing was the eyes, glowing red with tangible malevolence.
Diana shivered, not from the storm but from the presence of an evil so old and all-consuming that no heat could exist in its presence. The thing began to glide forward, not walk, not hop like its ghoulish minions, but simply glide along the floor towards them. Master Li had assured them they’d be safe, but she felt less certain of that now.
Master Li, however, gracefully hefted a long, ornately-carved sword and advanced, still chanting, and moving in a very curious way. At first Diana wondered if the man was drunk, but then she watched his feet carefully, saw the look of concentration on his face, and realized that he was dancing, moving around the vampire in a very specific pattern, and thrusting his sword at it while not actually making contact with it.
“Do you know what he’s doing?”
“He say he ‘dance stars’.”
Diana continued to watch Master Li’s feet (while Master Li reiterated his chant)—seven steps repeated over and over, first one direction then the other, four steps in a square, three steps in a broken line…and she understood.
“’Dance stars”…Li was outlining the shape of the constellation known as Ursa Major—the Big Dipper.
The vampire stopped before Master Li and opened its skull-like jaws, as if trying to inhale. Master Li stumbled, and it swiftly became apparent that he was involved in a titanic struggle with the monster; his chanting became louder, more forceful, his thrusts at the monster more violent. The very air between them began to fill with a reddish mist, which Diana realized with astonishment was actually emerging from Master Li; the vampire was sucking his blood simply by inhaling, pulling it out through the man’s very pores. Now she knew why she’d seen no bite marks on the victim she’d examined.
This abomination is so powerful it need not even touch its victims. She shuddered.
Master Li redoubled his efforts, screaming his chant and slashing with the sword, and the vampire was the one falling back now. The monk reached behind himself with the swordtip and neatly stabbed the talisman he had created earlier, then turned to the vampire; the monster’s jaws snapped closed as the air between them cleared of that horrible moisture. With a final invocation Master Li thrust both sword and talisman at the vampire’s chest, pinning it before it could react. Outside there was a clap of thunder like a hundred cannon-shot, and suddenly the fiend was simply gone. No finally hellish screech, no fountain of stolen blood; it had just winked out of existence.
Outside the storm faded, rolling off into the eastern night. Master Li looked pale and spent. After a moment to regain his breath, the monk turned to Yi-kin and spoke a few words in a soft, weakened voice.
“He say heavenly general have seize kap-huet goong-si and take it to Hell,” said Yi-kin. “He say docks are again safe.”
Diana reached into her satchel and withdrew the envelope of pound notes, which she offered to Master Li with a bow and the gesture of respect. Master Li accepted the envelope, returned the bow, and gathered the few of his things (brushes, bowls, red cloth). Before he left, however, he turned to Diana a final time and stared directly—unnervingly—at her as he spoke. Yi-kin listened, and was apparently rendered speechless by whatever he’d heard. The Taoist offered a final brief bow to Diana, and then left.
“What did he say, Yi-kin?”
When Yi-kin turned to her, his eyes were haunted. “He say demon on other side of gateway have your husband.”
Diana’s knees nearly gave way. Fortunately Yi-kin caught her, and after resting on the sturdy young man for a moment she composed herself and led them away from that awful place.
Chapter XVI
May 27, 1880
Canton, China
On the day following the exorcism of the vampire, Diana reported to Antonia that the docks were quite safe again (although someone would need to collect the bodies found beneath the Hinton’s go-down, following Master Li’s instructions for burial). She didn’t elaborate on what had transpired, and to her credit Antonia didn’t ask.
The next day Diana found out that British troops outside a small portside Chinese town had just killed several peasants who had protested opium importation. The British had thus far refused to hand over any of the soldiers involved in the incident, and Diana knew they never would.
It was of course news throughout Canton, although Diana was quite sure it would never reach England. Even if it did, it would be dismissed as a simple “disciplinary action,” something designed to keep “John Chinaman” in line.
Diana began to hate the British.
Although she’d become very fond of both Yi-kin and Canton, she felt increasingly that she didn’t belong there; in fact she felt that none of her countrymen belonged there. But she also felt repulsion at the idea of returning on a British ship, via more examples of arrogant imperialism (as in India), and so she made a startling decision:
She would return to England—which was still her home—by way of the Pacific and America.
Besides, there were two gateways in America, and she was impatient to get to them. She desperately wanted more news of William. If he were truly being held captive by a demon in the netherworld, she wanted to know the na
me of that demon. She wanted to know how to reach it—and she wanted to know how to kill it.
And she’d always had a curiosity to see the United States.
She informed Antonia that she would not be returning home on a Hinton Company vessel. Antonia reacted coolly, and Diana suspected that the young woman was embarrassed at breaking down in front of Diana after her experience with the goong-si, and she was likely stung by the Taoist’s triumph after her refusal to meet his price. Diana mentioned that she wanted to go to America, and Antonia said she would arrange passage for her out of Hong Kong on an Occidental and Oriental Company steamship, bound for San Francisco. Antonia seemed somewhat eager to make the travel arrangements, and Diana thought—sadly—that her friend would probably be happier to see her go.
Diana sought out Yi-kin before she left. She found him in an office, looking over a number of documents. He looked up, smiling, and she had a pang at the thought of leaving this young man behind.
“Yi-kin, I just wanted to tell you that I’ll be leaving Canton soon.”
He stared down at the floor, his voice low. “I am also leaving.”
“Yes, you’ll be bound back for England, I expect—”
“No,” he blurted out, cutting her off. “I am leaving Hinton Company.”
“To go where?”
“I do not yet know.” Finally he looked up at her, and his handsome young face was creased in pain. “When we are in Calcutta, you ask me about opium. And I say it is legal, so I do not think about it. But now…I do think. You are right, siu je. Opium is very bad. I cannot do this work. I will find another job.”
And with that Diana had a sudden inspiration. She didn’t stop to think about the ramifications, or the difficulties built into the idea; she simply asked:
“Yi-kin, would you like to work for me? I’ll pay you more than whatever you’ve earned here. I promise you’ll never have to transport opium.”
Yi-kin’s face nearly split apart from the resulting grin, and he literally leaped over his desk to bow to her. She waved at him to stop. “Yi-kin, really, that’s not necessary—m sai….”
He happily pulled off his Hinton Trading Company cap and jacket and hurled them onto the desk. Then he asked just one question:
“When we leave?”
The New World
Chapter XVII
June 20-21, 1880
San Francisco, America
Diana, Yi-kin and Mina arrived in America three weeks later, on the date of the summer solstice.
They’d left Canton on a ship belonging to the Hong Kong and Canton Steam Packet Company, and arrived in Hong Kong that evening. Captain Hughes had been right—although a British colony, compared to Canton, Hong Kong felt primitive and dangerous, and Diana was hardly unhappy to leave it behind. Their Occidental and Oriental steamer was a comfortable vessel that had crossed the Pacific without a hitch in a speedy twenty-two day voyage that was warm and pleasant. Diana enjoyed strolling the deck, and was somewhat alarmed to realize that she was acquiring a brownish tone to her face and arms; although she secretly thought it rather becoming, she also knew it would be frowned on back in London. Englishwomen were simply not supposed to expose themselves to the elements.
Yi-kin and Diana continued their mutual language studies, each becoming more fluent in the other’s tongue, and Diana also taught him more about the lore of the gateways and fighting spirits that came through them. Yi-kin asked about the American gateways, and Diana told him there were two. The closest was in the Pacific Northwest, which she reckoned to be not far from a town called Tacoma that she’d located on a map; that gateway supported not only ancient Indian legends of a mythical Thunderbird, but also more recent whisperings of a tall, hairy, lumbering beast much larger than a man. The other gateway in the United States was located in West Virginia, and was the center of a number of tales of a winged, moth-like man.
Their boat docked in San Francisco, and after collecting their baggage and checking themselves through customs, Diana was happy to discover that San Francisco was not unlike her beloved London in many ways. It was summer but there was a hint of chill and fog. Around them the streets were bustling with activity and handbills were posted everywhere for various artistic events, and there was a charming layer of industrial grime laid across everything.
On their voyage over Diana had read that one thing San Francisco possessed, which London did not, was an instant feeling of wealth. The 1870s had been the “silver age” for San Francisco, and the city now supported a large and active wealthy class. They were easy to spot all round them now on the streets, the men with their gold-knobbed canes and silk top hats, the women with their colorful parasols, Watteau half-shoes laced up the front, and silk stockings. A scandalous new accessory, the “garter” (or, as one advertisement Diana had read coyly referred to the leg accessories, “g.rt.rs”), was everywhere in shop windows, some pairs selling for as much as one hundred American dollars.
They hired a cab, and asked for a hotel recommendation. Their driver asked Diana what her price range was, and when she assured him that price was no object he recommended the new Hotel del Monte for her—but said Diana would have to drop her boy off elsewhere, since the del Monte was “an upper class place that won’t take no Chinee.” Diana politely informed the driver that she had no interest in staying at a place that would not accept Yi-kin, no matter how upper class it might be otherwise. The driver frowned, but suggested a place called the Powell Arms, and off they went.
There was such a boisterous quality to the city; live music emanated from bars, placards announced stage productions, and newspapers trumpeted arrivals by European and Asian princes, celebrities and scholars. Quaint carriages called cable cars took patrons up and down some of the steep hills, and Diana saw mansions that easily outshown her old estate manor in Derby, what with their parquetry, cloisonné ornaments and tapestries.
The Powell was an acceptable hotel, somewhere in between middle and lower class, but they were reluctantly willing to provide a room for Yi-kin, only so long as Diana paid in advance. She’d hoped to find that she’d left the ridiculous prejudices of the British behind in Canton, but apparently they were just as prevalent in America.
After all, this did begin as another British colony, she reminded herself.
Their rooms at the Powell Arms might have been less than what Diana was used to, but they were clean and tolerably comfortable. After getting settled, they exchanged money, did some shopping for a few supplies, and bought Yi-kin a western-style suit, complete with a new hat called a Homsher, which they were told was popular here in the States. Diana thought her assistant looked quite charming in the suit, but she had to tip the tailor extravagantly before he would serve “John”—as he insisted on referring to Yi-kin (and apparently all other Chinese men).
They learned the city had a thriving Chinese area, and after a delightful search Diana was happy to enjoy a Cantonese dinner with Yi-kin in a restaurant where neither of them was treated to mutterings or sideways glances. The restaurant, with its beautifully-carved teak tables inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and superb wait-service, almost made up for the bare-amenities of their hotel rooms.
After a restful night, they spent the following day making travel arrangements; Diana was intent on sealing both of the American gateways. Unfortunately reaching the Washington state area would be somewhat difficult, involving a combination of ship, rail, and carriage. After attending to that gateway, they would need to return to San Francisco by similar fashion, then venture east by rail. Diana had read exciting accounts of rail travel in the United States aboard the fairly new Southern Pacific and Central Pacific lines, and so she looked forward to heading east; she was quite sick of sea travel, and didn’t relish the boating part of the trip to the Pacific Northwest.
By late afternoon they had secured reservations and purchased tickets, and would be departing for Washington the following day. Diana would be sorry to leave San Francisco so soon, but she would not be sorry t
o bid farewell to the treatment Yi-kin was receiving, where he was universally referred to as “John” and laughed at, ordered about, or (once) threatened with stoning. Yi-kin accepted the various slurs with astonishing grace and reserve, an attitude which both impressed and frustrated Diana.
They left their rooms in the early evening in search of a new restaurant; Diana was determined to find a fine western-style establishment that would allow Yi-kin entry. As Diana exited her room, Mina was curled up in a sweet, warm ball on the bed, sleeping soundly. Diana ruffled her fur, promised to return with a lovely piece of fish or chicken for her, and received one small purr of contentment before Mina resumed her nap.
Their search for a non-Chinese restaurant that would accept Yi-kin’s presence proved fruitless, and so they enjoyed another meal at one of the excellent Chinatown eateries. It was nearly nine p.m. as they returned to their rooms at The Arms.
Their accommodations were on the second floor, and could be accessed via either a staircase or a wrought-iron elevator. They heard Mina clearly from the bottom of the staircase.
“Madame, you’ll have to silence that animal,” the desk clerk told her as she raced by him. “Madame—!” he called after her.
She didn’t stop to answer…because Mina only howled like that in the presence of a creature of the Netherworld.
They rushed up the stairs, Diana cursing her voluminous skirts. Yi-kin reached the landing well before she did, but waited, bouncing on the balls of his feet as Mina’s wild screams continued assaulting their ears. Now there was another sound, too—a low, ominous hissing.
Diana finally reached the top of the stairs, and together they ran down the hallway. She already had her keys out by the time they reached the door, and they hesitated as she inserted the keys in the lock.