The Red Heart of Jade

by Marjorie M. Liu

  Bad memory. Dean’s chest burned like a bitch. He wondered if the rest of him was glowing, because Miri was still staring like he was a ghost and the other man couldn’t take his gaze away, either.

  “Well,” he said. “This is unfortunate.”

  “What’s unfortunate is your life,” Dean said. “But what’s gonna get you killed is the way you treated that girl behind you.”

  “Really?” A grim smile touched his mouth. “You have no idea what is happening here. The importance of it.”

  Dean ignored him and glanced at Miri. “You hurt?”

  “No,” she said. “But I think I’m insane.”

  “Good enough, sweetheart.” And then he flicked his gaze right, to the dimly lit interior of the room behind her, and wondered if she understood, if she could still read his mind with nothing but a look.

  And she stared, lifted her chin, and he knew the answer.

  Miri flung herself backward, deeper into the hotel room, out of range and out of sight. The man turned to follow. Dean fired his gun.

  It was a point-blank shot. The bullet entered the man’s shoulder. High impact, high velocity—he should have been blown off his feet, but instead he staggered, folding, gun still in hand. And then, careful, like an unwrapped doll, he slowly, slowly, straightened. His shoulder looked like hamburger. Blood poured down his chest. He did not seem to care.

  Dean fired another round, another wounding shot. The man ate the impact with a swing, a twist, another spurt of blood, all the while his eyes growing colder, paler, almost white. Dean remembered energy, power, and shifted his vision, seeking out the wounds. Sparks flew from the gaping holes. Not typical.

  “You have made a terrible mistake,” whispered the man, as he bled and dripped. “Simply terrible.”

  “The only mistake I made was not shooting you in the ’nads.” Dean aimed low. “But I can fix that.”

  “No,” the man said. “Not like that.” And he fired first.

  For a moment, the world slowed; Dean imagined the bullet racing toward him, cutting the air, and somewhere nearby he heard a scream. His, maybe, though it sounded exceptionally feminine. And then time sped up and his chest exploded into fire, burning—burning—and he looked down and saw the bullet press above his heart, suspended still and hot in the air. Dean imagined a glow through the cotton of his shirt, and thought, Holy shit. Take that, you son of a bitch.

  The man stared, something dark passing through his face, a darkness mixed with wonder. He aimed his gun at Dean’s head, but that was it, game over; he never got a chance to pull the trigger. Miri ran out from behind the wall, so fast she was a blur, and jammed a pillowcase down over the man’s head, blinding him. She jabbed something small into his neck. A syringe.

  Dean moved in, lunging for the gun while Miri grappled with the man’s free arm, trying to wrench it back, to hold him down from behind. The scent of blood washed over Dean like heat. His hands were slippery with it. He punched the man’s wounded shoulder, driving him to his knees.

  He was finally able to take away the gun, and the moment he had it, he slammed the butt down hard on the other man’s head, again and again until the man stopped struggling, collapsing limp on top of Miri. Dean grabbed the front of the man’s shirt and hauled him off her. Miri scrambled away, heading immediately for her clothes, holding them to her body. Dean, face hot, heart burning, turned his back. He rummaged through the man’s pockets but found nothing: no wallet or cell phone, not even another weapon. The man’s chest rose and fell with even breaths.

  Miri appeared at Dean’s shoulder, dressed in jeans and a navy blue tank top. She held a very long telephone cord, and had a look on her face that gave Dean a serious case of memory lane as he watched her loop the plastic around her hands, gazing down.

  “He’s still breathing,” she said, and her gaze slid sideways to Dean’s chest. He looked down. Nothing. No magic. No wild rings of fire or leaping leprechauns. Just the shirt. Optimus Prime and the Autobot logo. “More Than Meets the Eye” was taking on a whole new meaning. Miri made a small sound and tore her gaze away, looking again at Robert.

  “His bleeding stopped,” she said grimly. “That’s not natural. He’s going to wake up, isn’t he?”

  “Maybe. Are you going to tie him?”

  “Yes,” she said. And after a moment’s hesitation Miri moved in, looping the cord around the man’s neck like a noose, pulling hard and turning him face first into the floor so that she could straddle his body. Miri held the plastic in her teeth as she yanked back his arms, and Dean helped her tie the man’s wrists behind his back, binding them high in a choking knot. He remembered Miri at eight years old, practicing this move on a doll. He remembered her at fourteen, doing the same to a bully on the playground—and getting away with it, too, because she was a girl and the boy whose ass she kicked was too embarrassed to place blame.

  She doesn’t look any different, he thought to himself. Twenty years, and her face is almost the same as the last day I saw her. Give or take a few lines around her eyes.

  Dean holstered his gun and slid the second weapon into the back of his jeans. He pulled his T-shirt and jacket over it, and left Miri for a moment to go into the bathroom for a wet rag. She was waiting for him when he came out, standing just beyond the door.

  “I want to know what’s going on,” she said.

  “Ditto,” he replied, and handed her the rag. “Wash your face, babe. You have blood on you.”

  She grimaced and pushed past him into the bathroom. The light was better, and he could see the shine in her black hair, the gold in her skin. There was a crease between her eyes, and after a moment, he realized she was just standing there, staring at him in the mirror.

  She did not say anything. Simply looked into his eyes with all that cool strength fading, melting away into the wild diamond glitter of their first locked gaze. In shock before, maybe. Just pretending to be in control.

  And then she twitched, a sharp jolt, like a body startled from a dream. Dean held out his hands. Miri shook her head, putting more distance between them, moving until she hit the glass door of the shower. Her hand touched the marble wall and she swallowed hard.

  He saw it coming, flipped the toilet seat up just as she turned, staggering, shoulders heaving. She fell to her knees and gagged.

  She stayed down there for some time, and Dean soaked and wrung out another warm rag. At the last moment, though, he hesitated before touching her. He did not know what to do, how far to push. It had been twenty years. Twenty years and now this, with violence to boot. Jesus. What a fucked-up night.

  Dean split his vision, opening his mind, reaching out to listen to her quantum song. Her thread was light and airy, a sweet energy thrumming against his soul. Perfect harmony, just as he remembered. He knew how Miri felt better than he knew himself. He had spent the past twenty years remembering, keeping her alive inside his head.

  Alive. She was alive all this time. And you never knew it. Of all the people in the world you needed to find, it was her. And you couldn’t.

  He checked the area around her body. No trail. Her energies were self-contained. Just like the murderer he had been hunting.

  No, Dean thought. Miri could never do that before.

  Not Before that night. Before he’d lost her.

  Dean could not wrap his mind around the idea. He did not want to. He moved close, dropping to the floor beside her. He touched her hair.

  “Miri,” he whispered. “Mirabelle.”

  She wiped her eyes, but did not look at him or say a word as she pushed away from the toilet. She took the rag he offered, but did not use it. She stared at her hands instead, small and golden, pressed flat to the floor.

  Her silence hurt. It drowned the pounding of his heart, the roar in his ears. He wanted to lie down in that silence, press his forehead to her knees. Beg for a word.

  And then, quite suddenly, her pinky reached toward him. Just one twitch, but Dean held his breath and edged close, brushing his
finger against her finger. He almost expected fireworks; somewhere distant, angels singing. But no, just skin. Warm, lovely skin. Miri sighed, and then her hand turned over and her fingers trailed themselves into his open palm, closing gently like a warm wing; meeting, rubbing, twining.

  “Miri,” he breathed.

  “No,” she murmured. “I don’t want to know. Not yet.”

  Dean understood. He couldn’t take much more of this, either. He picked up the rag from the floor and wiped her face, smoothing away her tears, the blood still around her mouth. Miri touched his chest, the spot above his heart. Dean caught her hand.

  “I didn’t imagine that,” she said.

  “No,” he said, feeling sick about it.

  They both heard a groan. Miri jumped, gazing at the open bathroom door. A tremor ran through her body, but after a brief moment, her mouth tightened into a hard line, and it was old times again, seeing that stubborn light in her eyes. And then she turned that piercing gaze on him and it was like being pinned spread-eagled under a scalpel and a hot lamp.

  “You’re just like him,” she said, her voice breaking on the words. The crease deepened in her forehead, her hands curling tight against her thighs. She looked at him and all he could see was pain, the bright heat of tears. “You can’t be real. You can’t be my Dean. This is a trick.”

  My Dean. He blew out his breath and said, “I’m not like that man out there, Miri. I’m not. But everything else? Maybe. And maybe you aren’t real.” Though, if this was an illusion, then good God he wasn’t saying no.

  “But you were dead,” she whispered hoarsely.

  “You were dead,” he said, and touched his forehead. “Dead here, Miri. Dead everywhere.”

  She knew what he meant; he could see it in her eyes. Dean stood and helped her up. “If there’s anything you need, grab it now.”

  “Where are we going?” Her eyes were wild but her voice was calm, steady, like her hands.

  Dean said, “Out of this building. It’s not safe here. There are more men waiting downstairs for you. I don’t know what you’re into, Miri—”

  “I’m an archaeologist. I’m not into anything.”

  “Yeah? Well, someone wants you, and bad. There must be a reason for it, too. That kind of thing doesn’t just happen for nothing.”

  Nor did he like the implication of having a shape-shifter serial murderer setting on fire and eating the very men who just so happened to have Miri’s photograph and location. Men who might, at any moment, get tired of waiting downstairs in the lobby for a woman who was most certainly not going to show up.

  Dean peered out the bathroom door, but Miri grabbed his arm and pulled him back in close, tight. He felt her warmth run over his body, pool low in his gut, and every coherent thought in his head went screaming out of his ears. Standing so close to her, feeling her hand through his jacket sleeve, was practically an invitation to some kind of explosion. His brain hurt.

  “That man out there told me his name is Robert,” Miri explained quietly. “He said he was hired to kidnap me and steal something. An artifact.”

  “What kind of artifact?”

  “A four-thousand-year-old piece of red jade, extracted just this morning from the body of a mummified woman. But, Dean, I don’t have it. My friend does. And he may be in danger. He may already be …” She did not finish. Dean tugged on her hand.

  “Later,” he said. “Tell me when we’re out of here.”

  He left the bathroom. The man—Robert—was still on the floor, the pillowcase over his head. There was blood everywhere, but it was not as fresh as it could have been. Dean imagined the man’s shoulder was already beginning to heal. He saw metal inside the flesh; the bullet. He thought it moved, told himself it was his imagination, but after a moment he glimpsed a twitch, and realized with dull horror that the man’s body was rejecting the bullet. In fast motion.

  Gee, he thought, totally disgusted. Where have I seen this before?

  Dean crouched beside Robert. He felt Miri behind him, staring.

  “Dean,” she said, and her voice was so low, so hard, he knew she could see the bullet, too. Robert made a sighing sound, and rolled his shoulder.

  “Remarkable, isn’t it?” he said, his words muffled, the white pillowcase puffing out around the area of his mouth. “I am like that dreadful television commercial, the one with the ugly rabbit. I just keep going and going.”

  “Isn’t that special?” Dean drawled. “Of course, you’re the only one in this room tied up like a pig, so I don’t know if you eating a bullet is all that much to brag about.”

  “I noticed you had much the same ability.”

  “And I noticed you shot me in the heart, you son of a bitch. At least I didn’t try to kill you.”

  “Oh, if only,” said Robert, and then, more softly: “Dr. Lee? Are you there?”

  “Don’t you talk to her,” Dean warned.

  “I’m here,” Miri said, ignoring him.

  “You’re in danger,” Robert said. “You need to go now. You need to find that jade that is so cleverly not in your possession, and you must run.”

  “I think you lied to me, Robert. I think you know more about what’s going on here than you said.”

  “No, my dear. But if you run, that’s just another chance for me to find you again. But if you get caught by the others …”

  “What others?” Dean asked, though he already had his suspicions. “What do you know?”

  “Only that there are more things in heaven and earth, Mr. Campbell, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

  Dean’s breath caught. “You know my name.”

  “I know who you work for,” Robert said, his disembodied voice floating up from the pillowcase. “What a shame that you do not know as much.”

  Dean stood. His body hurt. His mind felt worse. This was not something he wanted to hear, not anything at all he felt capable of contemplating.

  Why are you surprised? It was only a matter of time. You knew all the agents of Dirk & Steele had been exposed.

  Knew it because his best friend and colleague, Artur Loginov, had recently been kidnapped and tortured by a group calling itself the Consortium—a corporate crime syndicate run by psychics, just like Dirk & Steele. Only ruthless, hungry for power, wealth. And, apparently, from what had happened to Artur, quite eager to recruit from the ranks of the agency, by any means necessary.

  Real charmers. Dean felt warm and fuzzy just thinking about them. It didn’t matter, either, that Artur and his new wife, Elena, had managed to ruin the Consortium’s power base. Another, even more mysterious, organization remained—and its intentions toward Dirk & Steele were still as yet unknown. It couldn’t be good, though. Dean did not feel that lucky.

  And now this. He was painfully aware of Miri standing close behind him, and turned to look at her. She met his gaze, eyebrows raised, and he could see the question rolling across her face, a loud and singular What the hell is going on?

  He wished he could tell her. He wished a lot of things were different.

  “Who hired you?” Dean asked Robert. “It wasn’t the Consortium, was it?”

  “The Consortium?” He sounded genuinely surprised. “I would never work for them. I have some standards.”

  Dean grunted. Dirk & Steele’s agents had been sheltered like babies. “Who, then?”

  Robert did not answer. The bullet popped out of his shoulder and rolled onto the floor. Miri stifled a gasp and took a step back.

  Priorities, Dean told himself, staring at that slug. Forget questions. You need to get Miri out of here. Now.

  Dean crouched. “Fine. Don’t tell me who’s paying the bills. But you come after Miri again and I’ll finish what we started. I don’t care how many bullets it takes. I don’t care what I have to do.”

  “You don’t have enough bullets to get your way,” Robert said. “You don’t have enough life in your body to take her from me. I have a job to do. You have no idea what that means.”

 
; “I don’t consider that a problem.” Dean backed slowly away, guiding Miri to the door. She did not fight him, only paused to grab her purse. She opened the door just a crack, listening, and after a moment slipped from the room. Dean followed, flipping off the main light switch as he left. Robert disappeared into darkness. No protest, no movement. But there was a promise in his silence.

  The hall was very quiet. Dean did not like it. “There should be more people. We were shooting guns, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Robert told me this floor was empty,” Miri said. “That his employer had rented it out. He said I could scream and no one would hear.”

  Dean wanted to do some screaming of his own, but behind them, out of sight and down the curving hall, the elevators chimed. The air was silent enough to hear soft soles scuff marble. No echoing clicks of heels or flats; their footfalls hit the carpet, disappearing into a muffled ominous silence.

  And then, voices. Men. Too soft to understand, but Dean heard a click, the ratchet of a gun chamber loaded, the sounds of locks sliding and a door opening—a key, they got a fucking key— and he grabbed Miri’s hand and tugged her hard. She did not hesitate, did not argue or ask questions; her color was back, her gaze focused, strong.

  They entered the stairwell at the end of the hall. Dean carefully shut the heavy door and pointed down. They went quietly at first, on light feet, but after two floors, gave it up, risking bones and twisted ankles and heart failure as they raced down the stairs. Only once did he catch Miri looking at him, and it was just like when they were kids, the two of them running with the wind in their blood, something bad on their tails. Bullies, thugs, his uncle.

  Careful. You don’t know her anymore. She doesn’t know you. She has a whole other life you’re not part of.

  Maybe. Probably. Only, there was a miracle running beside him and he could afford to throw out a line, reel in the possibilities. Anything was possible now. All he had to do was hang on. Hang on tooth and nail. Fuck everything else. Figure out exactly what was going on and take care of the problem. Take care of Miri, even if it killed him.