by DD Barant
“But one of the biggest cash cows for them,” Stoker says from the backseat, “is counterfeiting. Not just money, either—goods.”
“I know,” I say. “Designer clothing, name-brand electronics, furniture, toys—anything they can make cheaper and crappier.”
“Lems, too,” Charlie says.
“You’re not serious.”
“I am. Low-grade dirt mixed with the sand. Thinner skin, no quality control. Juice ’em up with the life force of a mouse, put ’em to work in factories. They have a life span of a few months, but half of them don’t make it that long—they’ll put too much stress on a seam and burst open. Spill whatever life they have left all over the floor, and the next lem in line will have to sweep up the remains. The leftovers get recycled, of course; wouldn’t want to waste good dirt.”
The car goes quiet for a second.
“Yeah,” Stoker says, his voice hard. “That’s exactly right. That’s the value these … predators put on life. Any life.”
“Unlike you,” Charlie says. “What with your newfound respect for it and all.”
“I never had a problem with lems,” Stoker says. “I killed pires, I killed thropes. Never golems.”
“You’re a real saint,” Charlie says. “How lucky I am to be in your presence—”
And then we’re in the middle of a firefight.
Literally. Bolts of fire blaze through my line of sight, like a meteor shower at eye level. It takes my brain a second to process the fact that I’m seeing flaming arrows flash past, but by then I’ve locked up the brakes and thrown the car into a screaming sideways skid. The DeSoto screeches out of my lane and slams into the side of a bus, bringing it to an abrupt halt. The passenger-side window and windshield shatter on impact, showering me with safety glass.
I’m a little stunned, but unhurt. The side of the bus looks like a giant robot porcupine that someone set on fire. Well, of course, my dazed brain tells me. An ordinary giant metal porcupine is far too mundane for the Jace Valchek lifestyle. Let’s throw in a duck from Jupiter and a talking pickle, then we’ll really have a party.
Charlie has me out of my seat belt and out of the car before I can do more than blink a few times. “Stoker,” I manage. “Where the hell is Stoker?”
Charlie’s running with me in his arms. “I’ll find him,” he snarls, which isn’t good. “First things first.”
We’re on Main Street, right beside a park. I can see an elevated transit system bridging the street, and three thropes with bows crouched on the roof of the station. Now I know where the arrows came from.
Charlie gets us behind a tree in the park, but it’s not wide enough to provide good cover. “Archers,” I say. “On the roof.”
“I see them.” He sets me down gently, then pops a ball bearing into each hand. “But they don’t want us dead. They could have picked us off easily if they wanted to.”
He’s right. The arrows were designed to get our attention, make us stop. I draw my gun and look around for the second team I know has to be here.
But what I see makes no sense at all.
The roof of the burning bus erupts in a rending of metal as a figure at least twenty feet tall bursts out of it. It’s almost as big as a military lem, but looks like it’s made entirely from blue porcelain. Its face is the mask of a leering Chinese demon, the mouth huge and distorted and fangy. It’s got a sword in one hand that could Ginsu a Volkswagen, and it seems seriously pissed.
But not at us. At the thrope archers that just shish-kebabed its ride, and are now sliding down ziplines to the street. And between them, standing in the middle of the street, is Stoker.
Who’s grinning.
And when the archers touch down, execute three simultaneous tuck-and-rolls, and come out of them with bows drawn and arrows nocked—at the giant demon, not him—he begins to slowly applaud.
“Cut!” a voice bellows, and all three archers immediately relax their posture and their bowstrings. The demon lowers his sword, though his scowl is apparently permanent.
“You have got to be kidding,” I manage.
Charlie’s already striding toward Stoker, who puts his hands up defensively. “Slow down, big man. I had nothing to do with this.”
And suddenly there’s a film crew. The sides of three white panel trucks slide up, revealing cameras and personnel, the latter of which swarm out and start directing traffic and attending to the actors. A short Asian thrope in a turquoise silk shirt bounds out of one of the trucks and heads straight for us. He ignores me and Charlie and marches right up to Stoker. He glares up at him, hands on his hips.
“What do you think you’re doing, ruining my shot like that?”
“Ruining your shot?” I yelp. I hate it when I yelp, but I’m stressed and angry and off balance. “You shot at us, you Kurosawa wannabe! Where the hell do you get off turning a public street into—”
He dismisses me with an annoyed wave. “I have all the necessary permits for filming a cinema verité scene in a public venue. You’ll be generously compensated for your participation and were never in any danger. But you, sir—” He draws himself up to his full five-and-a-half-foot height and glowers at Stoker. “You have spoiled a carefully choreographed action sequence by your rude carelessness. When threatened by the sudden appearance of an Oni, an innocent bystander isn’t supposed to stand around and applaud!”
Stoker’s still smiling, but his eyes have a hard gleam to them. “Well, that’s always been my problem. I just don’t do what I’m supposed to.”
I take a deep breath and holster my gun, though naturally nobody’s been paying it the slightest bit of attention. “Permits. You have permits to inflict this sort of random mayhem on citizens without any warning?”
“Warning? How am I supposed to get genuine emotion out of passersby if they know what’s going to happen beforehand?” The director shakes his head, annoyed at himself for even talking to me. “I don’t have time for this. Somebody pay this woman and get her out of here.”
A flunky hurries up with a clipboard in her hand. “Ma’am, if you’ll just come with me—”
“Yeah, no, I’m good. How about our car?”
“We’re insured,” the flunky—a thrope woman in her twenties, wearing a headset and dressed in jeans and a baggy sweatshirt—tells me. “I just need you to fill out a few forms—”
More paperwork, terrific. I look over at Charlie, worried that crashing his beloved DeSoto is going to make him go ballistic, but he seems surprisingly calm; in fact, he’s wandered over to the bus—which is no longer on fire—and is looking up at the Chinese demon with his fedora pushed back on his head. The demon has taken off his mask, revealing a lem with a reddish orange hue to his skin and a gridwork of reinforcing wire just below the surface.
“Construction?” Charlie says.
“Used to be,” the huge lem says. “This pays better, though the work ain’t as steady.”
Charlie nods. “Well, you take what comes along.”
“Yeah, ain’t it the truth.”
A small crowd of thropes and pires has gathered in the park, clustering behind the barricades that have abruptly sprung up. Klieg lights flare to life on the tops of the trucks, turning night to day and making me wince.
A man strides forward. A tall, slender pire, Asian, dressed in an expensive and very well-tailored suit of deep scarlet. He walks up to the director and says, “I’ll take it from here, Tommy.”
“Hello, Zhang,” Stoker says. “I didn’t expect such an elaborate reception.”
Tommy looks unhappy. “This is going to put us behind schedule! I’ll have to redo the entire sequence—”
Zhang turns and looks at the director. His eyes are cold and very black. “Then you will. Now go away.”
Tommy’s skin tone gets a little paler, and he fades without another word. He may be the director, but Zhang is clearly the one in charge.
“My apologies,” Zhang says. “When I asked you to meet me here, I neglected to thin
k of tonight’s shooting schedule. Unforgivable, I know. One should always consider the consequences of a plan most carefully.”
Stoker nods. “Yes. I can see that.”
It’s clear what’s going on now. This was no bizarre accident; this was a carefully calculated warning. Stoker plays in a dangerous league, and Zhang—whoever he is—wants Stoker to know he’s somebody to be taken seriously.
Charlie rejoins us. “The car’s a little banged up, but it’s mostly cosmetic. Have to get the glass replaced, though.”
“Allow me to take care of it,” Zhang says. “It’s the least I can do.” He turns to me. “I am Mr. Zhang. And you are?”
“Jace Valchek.” He doesn’t offer his hand, and I don’t offer mine. We nod at each other instead. “And this is my associate, Charlie Aleph.”
“Greetings. I understand we have business to discuss.”
I glance at Stoker, who gives me a barely perceptible nod.
“I suppose we do,” I say.
“Then please, follow me—civilized persons do not discuss important matters in the street. Your vehicle is still operational?”
“She’ll drive,” Charlie says.
“I’m parked a short distance away. The black Mercedes.” He nods again, then turns and walks away.
We return to the DeSoto. The outside still has a few white clumps of fire-suppressant foam clinging to it, but the broken glass has been swept away. The bus is in the process of being towed, the giant lem still sticking up through the top like a big blue jack-in-the-box. He taps the flat of his sword blade against the roof idly as he goes; clang clang clang went the trolley.
We get in the car, and this time I let Charlie drive. He doesn’t argue, but he gives Stoker a long, hard look before sliding behind the wheel.
“So this is the guy?” I ask.
“This is the guy,” Stoker says. “Mr. Zhang is the Four Thirty-eight for one of the biggest Triads on the West Coast.”
“Four Thirty-eight?”
“They’re big on numerology. Four Thirty-eight is his rank, which also translates into the title Incense Master. He’s their chief shaman.”
“And why is he willing to speak to you?”
“He owes me—more important, he owes the FHR. We negotiated some substantial weapons deals for him, and he doesn’t want to risk losing us as go-betweens.”
“Wait—I thought you’d left the Free Human Resistance?”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t know that.”
Charlie starts the car and follows the black Mercedes that’s just pulling away from the curb up the street. It’s a pire’s car, so the windows are all heavily tinted.
Zhang turns left off Main, passing under a large Chinese arch, and we’re in Chinatown proper. Stalls line the sidewalks, hawking everything from BBQ duck to imported rice cookers. Neon restaurant signs hum and flash overhead, reflecting off the conical bamboo hats that most of the bustling crowd seems to be wearing—even in half-were form. Steam wafts up from vendors’ carts, and the air is rich with the smell of a hundred dishes cooking.
We creep slowly through the crowded streets, turning right, then left, then right again. The buildings are all old, brick or wooden structures crammed tightly together. A thick fog rolls in, cutting down visibility and reminding me how close we are to the ocean. Before too long all we can see are the two red taillights in front of us, glowing like demonic eyes.
I don’t like this. I give Stoker a hard look, and he seems uneasy, too. “What’s going on?” I snap. “Where the hell are we going?”
“Take it easy. Zhang wouldn’t—”
A shudder passes through my body, making me gasp. I can tell Stoker feels it, too, and Charlie slams on the brakes a second later.
I pull the Ruger out. The Mercedes’s taillights have disappeared in the thick mist ahead of us. “Zhang wouldn’t what?” I demand of Stoker.
“Lure us to Yomi,” Stoker mutters. “Went there himself, and dragged us along on his tail.”
“Yomi? Where the hell is Yomi?”
“You just answered your own question.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen Stoker look worried, but that’s what’s on his face now. “Jace, Yomi is the term for the Japanese underworld. In other words—Hell is exactly where we are.”
SIX
“How about that,” Charlie says. “After all those years of people telling you to go here, you finally went.”
“Me?” I say. “You’re the one who was driving. How can someone drive through the gates of Hell without noticing?”
“What gates? I didn’t even see a sign.”
Stoker starts to open his door. I grab his arm and stop him. “What are you, crazy? We’re completely exposed—there could be anything lurking in that fog.”
“If he wanted us dead, he wouldn’t have taken us here,” Stoker says. “And this car won’t provide much protection anyway. Not against what lives here.”
If we really are where Stoker claims, that’s no doubt true. I let go of his arm and get out the other side. Charlie joins us.
The fog’s a little less thick now. The buildings around us are run-down and abandoned, dark windows edged with teeth of broken glass, brick walls papered with torn, fading posters full of close-packed kanji script. The street we’re on isn’t paved, just smooth, hard-packed dirt. There are no streetlights, but the mist itself seems faintly luminous.
“What can we expect?” I ask Stoker tersely.
“Demons, unquiet ghosts, Kami spirits … and they can come in just about any form. But they won’t neccessarily be hostile. The Japanese version of Hell is surprisingly nonviolent.”
“I’ll keep that in mind when dealing with the locals,” Charlie growls.
“So, no fire and brimstone?” I ask.
“No. Unchanging gloom and dreariness is about it. For eternity.”
“As long as a giant horned demon isn’t going to appear and try to eat my head.”
“Oh, they have those here, too. But they have one very specific job.”
“Which is?”
“Guarding the exits.”
Of course. I look behind us at the way we came, and see nothing but the road blurring into the fog; if there’s an exit back there, it’s not visible. “So we’re trapped in Hell. One where I don’t even speak the language.”
“Look on the bright side,” Stoker says. “At least we’re not dead.”
“Oh, joy,” Charlie says. “I may break into song.”
“Nice to know things can always get worse,” I say. “Being among the living means we have a shot at leaving, right?”
“Presumably,” Stoker says.
I’m starting to get the whole “gloomy” thing. “What’s Zhang’s game? Why has he done this?”
“He must know I’m no longer with the Free Human Resistance. Whoever could deliver me to the authorities would be able to ask for a lot in return. Especially alive.”
Brilliant. I’m not even the target here, I’m just collateral damage. “So we’re in cold storage until he cuts a deal.”
“Maybe not. I wanted to meet with Zhang because he claimed to know something about the missing pire children. Maybe he does; maybe he doesn’t want me prying any further.”
“We’re stuck here either way,” Charlie says. “Unless one of you has a ‘get out of Hell free’ card in their wallet?”
“We need to find one of those exits,” I say. “Monsters or not, we can’t leave without knowing where the door is. Stoker, any ideas?”
“Yomi’s supposed to be located underground. Look for an entrance to a tunnel or maybe a staircase going up.”
“We went under an overpass just before the fog got really heavy,” Charlie says. “That must have been it.”
“It probably won’t look the same from this side,” Stoker says. “Might be a bridge, an arch, even the door to a building.”
“We’ll try the obvious first,” I say. “Head back the way we came. Maybe we can just drive over the guy guarding the tollgat
e.”
We get in the car and Charlie gets it turned around. Down the road we go.
No magic overpass shows up. No bridge or tunnel, either. We drive until we hit a T-junction in the road, and then stop. The buildings on either side look much the same, and so does the road. There’s no sign.
I sigh. “Terrific. Should we go left to Nowhere, or right to Nothing?”
I look out the window, tapping my fingers against the Ruger’s barrel in frustration. I can see furtive movement behind tattered gray curtains in a window, an indication that we’re not alone. I wonder how long it will be before the souls of the dead venture forth to check out the new residents, and if they’ll send a formal representative or just kind of show up in a group. I wonder if they’ll bring us a fruit basket as a gesture of goodwill, and if all the fruit will be dead and rotting. I wonder why my brain comes up with these things when it should be concentrating on the situation at hand.
And then the situation changes.
Zhang descends from the sky like a hanged man dropping through the trapdoor of a gallows. He jerks to a halt directly in front of the car, about six feet off the ground. He’s dressed the same, but his eyes are burning a spectral white and I can see his skull glowing through his skin.
“Greetings, esteemed guests,” he says. “Allow me to welcome the Bloodhound and the Impaler to the realm of Yomi.”
“You forgot me,” Charlie growls. He opens the door and gets out of the car, and I know why; he doesn’t have enough room to pitch one of his ball bearings while he’s in the driver’s seat. I get out, too, taking aim at Zhang’s midsection.
“You are hardly worth noticing, man of sand. But your mistress and her companion are well known to me, indeed—”