Grit & Shadows Boxed Set: Urban Fantasy and Horror Collection: Volumes 1 - 3

by J. D. Brink

  Five minutes go by and I start to wonder if she’s coming back.

  Finally, she reappears in the window. She taps the glass twice, recedes into the room. I cautiously come out of my hiding place between two dumpsters, check through the glass to make sure she’s alone, and go inside.

  Her eyes flash playfully and she throws a bundle of clothes at me. “I think they’ll fit,” she says. “This way to the guys’ locker room.”

  I follow her through a door and into a narrow aisle with green lockers on either side, showers and toilets at the far end. “I’ll guard the door,” she says, leaning against the jamb and watching me.

  I strip off my jacket. She quietly gasps, either at my bloody, bandaged shoulder or the gun poking from my pants. Maybe both. I turn away and she’s instantly behind me, tracing the Jack of Spades on my back with her fingernail. “There’s no real hurry, is there?” she asks my ear, her body close to mine.

  Why can’t I find women like this when I’m not running for my life?

  “Another time, Maria.”

  Sixty seconds later, I’m wearing the dealer’s uniform with a red Dynasty vest. The vest, I hope, will cover any stains that leak from the wound beneath. I sling my lucky jacket over one arm.

  “Ah-ah,” Maria warns, pulling a clip-on bow tie from her pocket and fixing it to my collar. “That ratty old coat is a dead giveaway, love. Lose it.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Then what’s the point of a disguise? I can’t promise any conjugal visits when they catch you.”

  “Wait,” I say. “I have an idea.”

  The elevator jerks into upward motion. I wipe at my cheek again, hoping it’s lipstick-free and not quite sure that ditching Maria was the right choice.

  “Want me to come with?” she’d asked, hands behind my neck, dark eyes staring up at me. As much help as she might have been, she’d also have been a liability. And there’s no reason for her to get hurt, shot, or arrested. Maria didn’t like it, but I left her behind.

  The elevator doors open now on the sixth floor and I push my service cart through, a large platter with a shiny, polished dome on top. My jacket’s hidden beneath it, artifacts in the lining and Lavern waiting between the folds.

  Edgar’s room was 629, almost at the end of the hall. I take a right out of the lift and—

  Shit.

  Two men in red blazers are walking away from me. One is short and as bald as the dome on my cart, the other tall with a black buzz cut, military-style.

  I’m the Jack of Spades, I tell myself. I can do this.

  I have to.

  Eyes forward, face relaxed, I push the cart towards them.

  The pair stop at the next room on their path and knock.

  The bald one notices me. “Hey. What the hell are you doing?”

  “Just following orders, man,” I say, using my best Skunk impression.

  “Jus-just a minute,” the taller one stutters. They’re both coming toward me now with determined expressions.

  Tingles light up my fingertips. Lavern is within reach. All I have to do is pull this lid and pull her out.

  But that’s not the best play here.

  The three of us meet in the middle of the hall.

  “What is that, r-room service?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They’re not supposed to be sending you guys out,” the bald one says. “We’re at red alert, for Christ’s sake!”

  Red alert? Suddenly these guys don’t seem so threatening.

  “Don’t blame me, man,” I tell them. “I just do what I’m told. Room 629 called up for tomato soup and I have to deliver it.”

  Baldy frowns. “Tomato soup? Who the hell gets a craving for that?”

  That’s right, nothing interesting under this lid. No reason for you to peek inside.

  “You said 629? I don’t think we’ve ch-checked that room yet.”

  “Might as well check it now,” his partner says.

  They escort me down to Edgar’s room and explain that teams are canvasing the floors, on the hunt for suspicious characters. So am I. This room is the last place I saw Alma, where she was supposed to wait for us. Of course, I could do without their company. It occurs to me that I should have prepared a note that I could pass off to her.

  Baldy knocks, announces that it’s security at the door.

  No answer.

  He takes a master key from his pocket. Wish I had one of those, I tell myself, and consider trying to lift it. My sleight of hand game is pretty good, and these two don’t seem like the sharpest pair in town.

  The stutterer pulls a gun, they count down from three and rush into the dark room. I follow and turn on the light.

  Empty.

  “You sure they called from this room?”

  “That’s what they told me,” I say.

  The room looks the same way I left it: safe open in the closet, Edgar’s bag next to it, the bed made but wrinkled, and his tooth brush lying in a puddle of water on the sink. No sign of Alma.

  “Who’s ‘they’?”

  “You know, they, them.” I shrug. “Guess I won’t listen to them again.”

  “No one’s supposed to be getting any room service anyway,” Baldy says, finding Edgar’s nudey magazine in the bedside drawer. “Why don’t you just wait outside for a minute? We’ll walk you back downstairs.”

  “Oh, that’s not necessary. I found my way up here—”

  “No, no,” he insists. “You shouldn’t be wandering around by yourself. You obviously don’t know all the shit that went down here tonight.”

  I have a feeling they’re going to thoroughly search Eddie’s magazine before coming back out to rescue me.

  A few minutes later and I’ve involuntarily joined their little search party. I linger in the hall, trying to figure out how to sneak away. Meanwhile, they check three more rooms, only one of which has an occupant—and he didn’t order any tomato soup either.

  Then the three of us are back in the elevator, going down. The stutterer is trying to tell me the story of what happened in room 205, exaggerated of course, and that there’s still some “tough bastard” on the loose who dove through a plate glass door from a second story balcony.

  “Probably hopped up on PCP,” the other says. Does he know what he’s talking about, I wonder, or did he just get that from an episode of Miami Vice?

  “So the police are here?” I ask.

  “No, not yet. There was a fire in town and everyone’s over there. They said they’ll get someone over here as soon as possible, but they figure we got it handled for now.”

  “Yeah, som-som-someone else took charge here. Gov-government agent.”

  That doesn’t sink in until we reach the basement and the elevator doors open. Nagashi is standing in the middle of several red blazers, taking reports and giving orders. He smiles when he sees me and hooks a finger in the air. My escorts think he’s gesturing to them and the three of us approach together, me still pushing my cart.

  “Mr. Leopard. Still on the prowl?”

  My escorts eye me, confused.

  I have nothing to say.

  “Follow me.”

  Twenty-One

  Nagashi turns and walks away. I see little choice but to follow. It occurs to me that I could use Lavern to take him hostage, but I’m not sure where I’d go from there. And there’s something in those storm cloud eyes of his that’s disarming. I feel like threatening him would be futile.

  He leads me into a rear storage room. My cart clangs against the swinging metal doors, scraping along their edges. The room is dimly lit with steel-frame shelves erected like dinosaur skeletons in the shadows, stocked with boxes of canned foods and aprons, table cloths and napkins. There’s an old desk in the middle, a frayed chair behind it, and two sturdy boxes in front of it, their corners crushed where people have sat on them. On the desk are playing cards, three hands of poker tossed down in a hurry.

  On the opposite side of the room is an exit leading out into
the night.

  Nagashi sits down behind the desk. “What’s under the lid?”

  I roll up, come to a stop, and lift the dome.

  “Can’t leave my lucky jacket behind.” I take a seat on one cardboard box, my leopard skin in my lap, Lavern just under the fold. Could I put a bullet in Nagashi and make that door before anyone else gets here? Probably, but I’m not sure I have the nerve to kill, and there are things I need to know first.

  Nagashi scoops up the playing cards on the desk, shifting them in his hands. When he looks up at me, his grey eyes are almost catlike, reflective—there’s light in them.

  “What did you come here for, Jack? An old set of wooden cards?” He pinches the deck between thumb and fingers and sprays the cards across the desk. I make note of the faces flipped up: Queen of Hearts, King of Clubs, Jack of Spades, a Joker.

  “That’s why I’m here,” he admits.

  “You’re not with Japanese Customs,” I say flatly.

  “No.”

  “Some other government agency? Japanese yakuza? Hong Kong mafia?”

  He grins, leans back in his chair. “You perform dark deeds in lonely hotel rooms, so I must, too? You’re either cops or robbers in your world, is that right?”

  “Something like that. Which are you, if I may ask?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, Jack. But I do want to be honest with you. I’m probably the only one who will be. And you might just have the courage to accept what I am.”

  “First, where’s my partner?”

  “Your friend’s little gun held three shots. He put one in Mr. Jackson in that first storm of bullets. I had obviously convinced Jackson to work for me by that time. That left two rounds in his gun, one for each of us left standing. Is that what you’re thinking? And yes, he did fire both, but...” He holds his hands open, pats his chest: he’s unharmed.

  “You haven’t answered my question.”

  “He’s in the casino infirmary, but what he lacks in blood he makes up for in spirit. Your friend will live long enough to know the pleasures of prison life.”

  Nagashi leans forward, the light above casting shadows over his face. “Or I could arrange for the two of you to leave,” he offers. “Your friend will go to the Saipan hospital, stabilize. You’ll stick around for a few days, then I help get him out, free of any charges, and you both go home. All you have to do is give me the tiles.”

  I feel the weight of the gun in my lap, calling to be used.

  “Bullshit,” I say. “You don’t have that authority.”

  “You’d be surprised by what I’m capable of.” He says it with the same confidence I saw before, that knowledge of power.

  “Who the hell are you?” I demand.

  He rocks back in his chair. “Do you know what they are, these tiles?”

  Again, he’s failed to answer my question. I answer his anyway: “Relics, from ancient China. Each has an I Ching trigram on it.”

  “Correct, although one set does little good. You need both. An ordained oracle would draw one tile from each set and make a hexagram. Proper interpretation can then foretell the future.”

  “So it’s a fucking fortune cookie,” I snap. My hand slips between the folds of my jacket.

  He continues: “They were a gift from the Jade Emperor of the Heavens to the first mortal emperor of China, Fu Hsi. Both sets were delivered together in a bronze box carried on the back of the Ch’i-lin. That would be your ‘beverage spirit’. Do you remember the remaining Mystic Animals? Please, Jack, indulge me.”

  I seethe for a moment before answering. “Dragon, Phoenix, and Tortoise.”

  “Very good.” He smiles like a satisfied teacher addressing his star pupil. “It wasn’t long before Fu Hsi’s bloodline fell from grace and lost the wisdom necessary to be trusted with such potent artifacts. So the four Animals were sent to steer the carvings into safer keeping. Of course, over the centuries, they’ve fallen into and out of the right and wrong hands several times.”

  “Fascinating,” I say dryly, fingering Lavern’s trigger.

  “You don’t yet see the significance.”

  “No, I don’t. But I would like to know where they are,” I say, bluffing. “And where Edgar is, and where Alma is.” Lavern flashes out of her hiding place, her sights trained on Nagashi’s head. “And I’d like to know now.”

  He doesn’t seem to mind, doesn’t even blink. “Allow me to finish my storytelling, Jack. Then I think you’ll have more answers than you’ll know what to do with.

  “Once upon a time,” he pauses with a patronizing grin, apparently using this phrase for my benefit, “centuries ago, there was a master alchemist working to solve the mysteries of the universe, as all good alchemists do. But he was old and couldn’t work alone, so he took on three apprentices. These three suffered for years, kicked like dogs and worked like slaves—as apprentices often are—learning the mystic arts the hard way. Now the ultimate goal of Chinese alchemy, almost universally, was always to discover the Golden Elixir, the mystic potion that would bestow everlasting life. This was accomplished by refining cinnabar.”

  “A red mineral that contains mercury,” I say, remembering my readings, “which is poisonous.”

  Nagashi’s head rocks gently from side to side. “True, I suppose, by today’s standards of chemistry. Perhaps because modern science lacks mystery, unlike classical alchemy. They would have called it quicksilver, not mercury.”

  “Nonetheless, a lot of them died from poisoning themselves on that shit.”

  “True, most were not very good at their trade. Three of these four died, as well. After years of work and research, and with the aid of his trio of apprentices, the master finally purified a single tiny vile of the elixir. And one of his students, the youngest, poisoned them all in order to take it for himself. But no one born mortal can ever be truly ageless, and over the centuries he’s learned that a black heart will give even an immortal man wrinkles.”

  “Over the centuries?”

  “Yes. He was born during the Ming Dynasty, before your country was a country.” He gives me another smug grin. “But I don’t want to make him sound too impressive. His power, after all, was all stolen, not earned. All gained by treachery. Being a student of mysticism, though, he knew about ancient artifacts like the two sets of eight, and set about finding them. When he did finally find one, lifetimes later, the Mystic Animals were dispatched by the Jade Emperor to retrieve it. To make a long story short, he was then seduced by the Phoenix in womanly form, who stole the tiles away from him. Ever since, he’s been smitten with her—that is the phrase, isn’t it? I’d say he’s ‘fallen in love,’ but, really, it seems more like lust to me.”

  I swirl Lavern around in the air, drawing an imaginary circle on Nagashi’s narrow forehead. “I’m afraid I don’t see the point of these fairy tales. I’d like you to answer my questions now.”

  A patient look, a long blink. “Very well. Let me draw it out for you, Jack. The last incident I described took place in Shanghai when your American Civil War was nearing an end. By 1949, both sets of tiles were safely stored in a monastery in Tibet. Tortoise was disguised as a young pupil there so he could keep an eye on them. Then the iron hand of Communism threatened to crush Tibet and take the artifacts for itself. The monks sent the two sets in different directions. Tortoise reported this loss and he and the other three spirits went on the hunt. The alchemist’s apprentice, who’d tracked them to the monastery but couldn’t get inside, saw his opportunity. If he could capture the tiles first, he would have the perfect bait for luring Phoenix to him again, in the hopes of seducing her. Decades later, your Ms. Ming came into possession of the wooden deck of eight. The black-hearted one tracked it to her, assumed the name Poh, and became her lover, thus setting his trap.”

  “You can’t bullshit a bullshitter, Nagashi. Who do you think you’re talking to? I was a magician’s apprentice once, too. I know what’s behind the smoke and mirrors.”

  “Oh?” H
e looks amused. “Then tell me who the other players in my magical drama must be.”

  I think about it for a second and my mouth goes dry. “Wait a minute. You’re saying… Alma is the Phoenix?”

  He smiles, the proud teacher. “Very good. I knew you would be the one to understand.”

  “You’re ridiculous,” I say. Yet I feel pinpricks on my skin, like sweat just breaking. “Just because I see where your fairy tale story lines are running doesn’t mean I’m buying into your delusion.”

  “How else do you explain my surviving your friend’s last stand?”

  “Eddie’s bullets obviously went into that other head case.”

  Nagashi shakes his head. “Poh is still quite alive, I assure you.”

  “Edgar doesn’t miss at that range.”

  “I didn’t say that he did.”

  I start to feel claustrophobic, choked by all this strangeness. The darkness around us is suddenly thick and heavy. I feel it on me like a wet blanket, threatening to smother me. And his intense grey eyes are so calm and knowing, almost convincing.

  I get to my feet, if only to be reassured by the solid ground beneath them. Lavern takes fresh aim at his face. “Okay,” I say, “then who does that make you, pray tell?”

  He leans forward again, this time tilting his head back to look up at me, fully lighting the sharp angles of his face. “The Dragon.”

  My next breath is cold in my lungs and I cough on it.

  Asian dragons rule water and weather, I remember. His storm cloud eyes…

  I force a laugh. “There’s a flaw in your story, Nagashi. Wouldn’t that put you and Alma on the same side?”

  “Yes, it does.”

  Sweat slides down my cheek.

  “No.” I feel lightheaded now. “You’re not making any sense. So...” A feeling of cold betrayal stabs at my heart. What if...? “So, you’re telling me there’s an immortal conspiracy to steal black-market coffee table coasters? That’s—”