The Red Heart of Jade

by Marjorie M. Liu

  “What did you see?” he asked Ren.

  “Your dreams,” Ren said. His skin glistened with sweat; muscles flexed beneath his smooth golden skin. “Your dreams are not right, Dean. They’re not dreams at all. Miri is the same.”

  She stood. She had to. There was something is his voice that made her need that steadiness, the illusion of control and grounding that her feet could give her. Moving with the boat, swaying.

  My body, my mind, my thoughts—

  “Tell me what that means,” she said, and Dean edged near, reaching for her hand.

  “Memories,” Ren said. “In both your heads at night, what you think are dreams. They’re memories. Extraordinary memories.”

  Dean stepped forward. “Don’t bullshit me. The things I see—”

  “Are not what you think they are. They’re not just dreams.”

  There was no way to call him a liar. Miri did not even consider the possibility. There was too much conviction in his gaze. Koni rose from his chair. Golden light streamed from his eyes, flowing down his cheeks like tears; in its path, darkness. Feathers that pressed and faded like fleeting shadows. He looked ready to fight—or take flight.

  Magic. So much magic.

  “How can you can say these things?” Miri said to Ren. “How can you see our dreams?”

  “How can Dean hold a kid’s teddy bear and find her halfway around the world? How can Koni turn into a crow?” Ren shook his head. “Each of us is different, Dr. Lee. And based on what I saw, you’ve got your own secrets, things even you don’t know about.”

  “Then you better tell me,” she said. “Right now.”

  Ren closed his eyes; the rising sun made his skin glow. The air suddenly felt too hot, all the cool of night passing away as humidity crawled across Miri’s body. Silk stuck to her back. It was hard to breathe.

  “Someone’s taken your memories,” Ren said. “Someone’s buried down both your lives, and whoever did it was so good, the only way you’ve been able to access anything is through your subconscious.”

  “No,” Dean said. “No. Roland’s been in my head, man. He would have found any tampering.”

  “Not this,” Ren said. “I told you, this is good work. The only reason I found it is that I know dreams.”

  Dean sat down hard, dragging Miri into his lap. She did not protest; his body was too tense. She thought he needed someone to hold, and frankly, she felt the same. She was not entirely sure what Ren was saying; his words were clear, but the meaning was too strange. Tampering? Memories instead of dreams? And just what had she been dreaming last night?

  Bones. Sand. Chains. Darkness in my mouth, swallowing my heart. Something cold beneath my back, all over my body. Stone. Water. No clothes and somewhere nearby a man on the ground, a man buried in iron.

  “Ren,” Miri said. “There’s no way the dreams I had last night could be memories. No way. I’ve managed to accept a lot over the past couple of days, but that’s too much. I know my life. I remember my life.”

  “So do I,” Dean said, but there was a thread of doubt in his voice, and Miri craned around to look at him.

  “You think it’s true,” she said.

  Dean hesitated. “I don’t know.”

  Ren threw himself down into the chair Miri had vacated. He held out his hand and Koni gave him his tea. He swallowed it down in one long gulp and then tossed the cup back to the other man. His eyes were still bloodshot, but clear, focused. “Believe me or not, I don’t care. But I’ll tell you this. If I’m not right, then there’s still something strange going on, especially between the two of you. You have the same dreams, man. You have the same dreams.”

  Miri felt sick to her stomach. Again, she looked at Dean, and found him staring at her.

  “There’s a circle,” he said softly, as though speaking just to her, as though no one else in the world existed but the two of them. And maybe, Miri thought, maybe that was true.

  “Sand,” she said. “Bones.”

  “Something holding me down. And nearby a woman, and she’s crying. She’s crying so hard it makes my heart break. And I have to go to her. I have to help her.”

  “But there is a darkness,” Miri breathed, and her throat hurt, her eyes burned, and she closed her eyes against Dean’s changing expression, pressing her forehead against his neck.

  You thought there was nothing left to surprise you and that anything else could be accepted, that you could ride out the craziness. But this, now?

  She felt Dean’s hands push into her hair, fingers warm against her scalp. He pressed his lips to her forehead and said, “So we have the same dreams. You say that it’s memory. Dude, the last time Miri and I were together was when we were kids. We got separated at sixteen, and before that? Nothing like this shit happened. There’s no way. We lived in the fucking middle of Philly. No sand. No circles. No people with chains.”

  “I can’t explain it,” Ren said. “All I know is that I left my body for a swim last night, and got sucked in hard by your heads. That doesn’t happen often, man.”

  Miri drew in a ragged breath. “I’ve had this dream for a while now, Dean. It’s been more intense lately, but even when I was little, there was always the darkness.”

  “I remember,” he said, and she knew he would, because the shadows had always crept upon her in the night, more oppressive than simple air, and once upon a time she had told him this, confessed, and he had stayed the night, sleeping on the floor beside her bed. Keeping guard while she rested.

  “Didn’t see anything,” Dean had told her the next morning, the grimmest and most hollow-eyed ten-year-old she had ever met. “But don’t worry, Miri. I still believe you.”

  He had always believed her. Trusted her.

  “Nothing’s changed,” Miri said, looking up and staring at the men. “We still need to find the last piece of jade. I think if we do, the rest will fall into place. We’ll find how … how we fit into this.”

  “You think it’s related?” Koni asked.

  “Can’t take anything for granted,” Dean said. “Not after everything that’s happened.”

  “But that still doesn’t explain how,” Ren said. “Or why.”

  Miri pulled back just far enough to look into Dean’s eyes. He matched her gaze, and it was no longer like the old times, but instead something new, something she had never seen before—and she kissed him hard, biting his lip, dragging him with her as she slid off his lap and forced him to stand. And when he was on his feet, his hands hot on her body—so much heat, the world on fire—she broke off the kiss and said, “Let’s finish this, Dean. I want to finish this now. I don’t want to waste any more time.”

  Not on this. Not when we have so much more to do with our lives.

  And he said, “Yes.”

  Hong Kong’s airspace, much like its economy, operated under different regulations from the rest of Mainland China, which ruled out the use of the private jet. Miri was disappointed by that. She was in a much better mood to appreciate luxury, given the future of violence looming over her head.

  They left Ren behind in Hong Kong. He offered to come along—almost insisted—but Dean refused. Too much risk. And besides, there were other ways for him to follow that did not involve the body.

  Miri, Koni, and Dean flew into Chengdu early that afternoon on an Air China flight. They had to leave their weapons behind—all their firepower gone, though Miri thought it just as well. Bullets had been useless thus far, and were nothing more than an invitation for someone innocent to get hurt.

  Chengdu, besides being the capital of Sichuan Province, was also an industrial city, and it showed. Miri knew for a fact that its main industries covered everything from machinery to chemicals to agriculture, but the sky was thick enough with smog that she thought, perhaps, the production of edible organics had taken second fiddle to other processing industries.

  Koni left them almost immediately after they stepped through the airport’s massive sliding doors. He tossed a small duffel to De
an, and then, much to Miri’s shock, reached down and hugged her.

  “I’ll be around,” he said quietly. “Don’t you worry, Miri.”

  “That’s my line,” Dean said, but he said it with a smile, and Koni grabbed his hand and pulled him in, too, crushing her between them both.

  And then he let go and without a word or glance, stalked away, tattooed arms swinging, hands clenched into fists.

  “That’s a first,” Dean said. “He usually shits on the windshield as a sign of affection.”

  “You and your friends,” Miri replied, but there was a warmth in her heart as she watched Koni leave, a warmth that she felt for Ren, and whoever else had taken care of Dean, who had given him a home that she could so clearly see meant the world to him. She did not doubt he loved her, but Dirk & Steele had given him something she had not been able to, and that was a mission, a sense of destiny and purpose and focus, and that was a beautiful thing.

  Even if she did not entirely trust them.

  There was a car waiting, hired by Ren. The driver was a small compact man with smoke pouring out of his nose and mouth. He called himself by an English name: Steven. Miri thought if it had just been her, he would have used a different moniker, something traditional—but Dean was clearly foreign, and so it was a foreign name to make it easy on the “simple” Westerner, Steven gave Dean a box. A gift from Ben. Inside was a gun and holster.

  It was a ten-hour drive to Jiuzhaigou, on a narrow winding road through the mountains of northern and central Sichuan. There was a local airport, a way to get to the park faster, but Dean did not want to fly. He wanted to take time, with the jade in hand, and test the lines of energy in his head as they traveled. Make sure they were going in the right direction. Build and strengthen the connection. Perhaps, even, discover more information. Miri hoped he would. She wondered, too, if she should not handle the stone herself, but held herself back. She was afraid of what she would see, of what would happen, and for once, she let that fear guide her.

  The mountain road was narrow, but heavily trafficked with tourist buses, compact cars, and the occasional donkey pulling a cart. Steven enjoyed passing the buses while oncoming traffic rushed directly at them—playing games of chicken, which always had one or two cars clinging to the edge of cliff faces, dancing air on brinks of oblivion. Higher and higher they climbed, surrounded by the relics of ancient walls and temples perched on mountaintops—and at the bottom, the wide river, cutting a ribbon through the land. Villages perched precariously; Miri saw fields hacked out of mountainsides, planted with corn and wheat and fruit trees. Only one water source: the river. Women trudged up the steep mountain paths from river to field, yokes on their shoulders. Some children followed, hauling the same burdens, the same weights; tiny girls with rosy cheeks, no older than five or six, bearing it all and staggering.

  They traveled through towns, the occasional small city—houses tucked into hills. The bumpy road passed through plateaus, green places of easier living where fields of sunflowers, the largest she had ever seen, pushed and pushed skyward like crowns of gold, and the houses clustered with their roofs shining under glimpses of sun, shining like the river, which still wound and pulsed, diverging into irrigation ditches planted thick with the grain fields. They stopped, once, at a lonely restaurant. The low wooden building had a friendly feel, with plastic tablecloths and a courtyard full of trees. Fresh fruit for sale: local white peaches and nectarines, plums and grapes that had to be peeled before eaten. Koni, though they kept an eye out for him, did not make an appearance.

  They stopped at a hotel just before dark, with still another five hours to go. It was a nice place, a little overdone with marble floors and thick creamy pillars, but it was clean and modern and had a restaurant. Nice views, too, of the gloomy green mountains. It advertised itself as run by locals, but while the girls working the front desk were surrounded by Tibetan kitsch, the manager who came out spoke his Mandarin with a distinct Taiwanese accent. Still, it seemed nice enough, and at least it was a place to rest.

  Later that night, as Miri lay in Dean’s arms, she pressed her cheek against his chest, listening to his heartbeat, and asked, “How do you explain us? How do you explain why we feel the way we do? Still, after all this time?”

  It took him a long while to answer. So long, in fact, that at first she thought he was asleep. But then he sighed and pulled her closer.

  “It’s the kind of thing that’s hard to talk about, Miri. But the way I see it, the best way I can say it, is that some people have friends and it doesn’t mean much. You hang out, you do stuff, and maybe you think it’ll last, but distance tells. A little bit of time, and you stop thinking about that person. They’re just a memory, sometimes not even a good one, and after a while you forget everything except a name, and then maybe even that.” He stopped, rolling them over so that he propped himself up on his elbow to look into her face. The room was dark, his eyes nothing but shadows, but she felt the gentleness of his touch as he stroked her face, the quiet heat of his skin as he rested his finger against her neck. She touched his hand, holding it, and in a soft voice Dean said, “But sometimes it’s different, Miri. Sometimes you find a friend that gets under your skin so you can’t think how you lived without her. You can’t imagine a life without this person because it’s like losing an arm, and if you do lose that person, it’s the same as cutting off a piece of you. You still feel the ghost pains, the echo. You still feel that presence to the point you turn around to look for it, talk to it, but hey, no go, ’cause she’s not there. And you think, fuck. How am I going to live the rest of my life like this? How in the hell, when the part you need so bad is gone?”

  Dean stopped. Miri held her breath. Finally, he said, “When I thought you died, it wasn’t like losing a limb. It was like losing a whole fucking body and I was just this ghost, cruising along in the world. It got better. I won’t lie to you about that. I didn’t stop grieving, but I did remember who I was again. I never fell in love, though.”

  “That’s a long time to not have love.”

  “I fooled around. Did some stupid shit.”

  “What kind of shit?” Miri asked, because he stopped so abruptly she had a feeling it was something pretty embarrassing. “Not drugs or anything, right?”

  “No,” he said, and she heard the scowl in his voice. “It’s just … I had a lot of sex. I did it because I thought it would make me feel better—but it just made it worse. I kept thinking about you, which after a while felt pretty sick, because first you were dead, and second, I kept remembering you at sixteen. Which, when you hit a certain age, just seems wrong. So I stopped. Sleeping with women, that is. I just … didn’t do it anymore. Which, uh, didn’t mean I lost my drive. I was still, um—”

  “You don’t have to reassure me,” Miri said dryly. “I am completely convinced of your manliness.”

  He grinned, though the smile faded. “Yeah? I put on a good act. All my friends think that sex is the only thing on my mind.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “Well … yeah. But the point is they got no idea I haven’t been with anyone in years.”

  “Years,” Miri said. “How many years?”

  “A lot,” he said, somewhat warily.

  “My God,” she said. “You went celibate because of me. You were a total monk.”

  “A monk with Playboys, Cinemax, and nightly dates with the magic fingers. But yeah, I basically kept it private.”

  “Huh,” Miri said. “I don’t think I was quite as extreme.”

  Dean looked mildly uncomfortable. “I don’t need to hear this. Really.”

  “I did think of you the few times I had sex, so I suppose—”

  “Miri,” Dean interrupted.

  “Well, you said you slept around. And besides, what I got from those men wasn’t any picnic.”

  Dean grunted. “That almost bothers me more.”

  “At least you’re consistent.”

  “Hey. I never said I was perfect.”

/>   “Ah,” she replied. “But you are perfect for me.”

  He kissed her, and they spent the next half hour wrestling on the bed, making out in random heated spurts that left Miri breathless and tingly.

  “Miri,” Dean said, during a short break when his hands remained still and his mouth was not busy. “After all this is over, I want to get married. I want to make this permanent.”

  She smiled. “You realize, don’t you, that I would stay with you for the rest of my life, regardless of any marriage contract?”

  “I don’t care. I want it legal, I want it on paper, I want it to be legitimate and traditional and all that shit. I want the whole fucking world to say, hell yeah, those two are hitched.”

  “You’re so romantic.”

  “It’s only going to get worse from here on out,” Dean said, and pulled her in tight for a hard kiss.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Miri dreamed of darkness that night, a dark that was not a simple and unaffected night, but something heavier, something living that moved with purpose and skill and grave intent. She could not struggle, could not open her mouth to scream, and in her dream the darkness settled upon her chest, peeled back her glowing skin to feed.

  She woke up. Stared at the ceiling, trying to calm her heart, to breathe through her nose so she would not disturb Dean. He lay beside her, passed out. Miri, watching his face, carefully edged out from under the covers and walked through the shadows into the bathroom. She closed the door and turned on the light. Did her business, washed her hands. But when she looked at herself in the mirror, she could not move. For a moment it was like looking at a stranger.

  And then, even more so—for a brief moment her reflection seemed to waver, the world falling away as her face disappeared in the glass, replaced by another woman with the same eyes, but with different skin and hair. Lips moved—words—and behind her, Miri saw a snowcapped mountain—lights, rippling iridescent.