by JC Kang
They crossed a street and entered another alley, when the hairs on the back of Tian’s neck prickled.
Chapter 5
With the Blue Reaper reaching for the door, Yuna stood to the side, knife in hand. At the other end of the room, Auntie Luo had just finished laying blankets across the hot kang platform to create an insulated path to the window. Little Mikayla was slung on her back. How insane was this, trying to stall a skilled assassin? Yuna was supposed to be assisting Jie on a mission, not saving a two people of no consequence to the realm.
Then again, they were family. Not, not family. The clan was family. But they were blood. Mama’s blood. Using the clan’s Mockingbird’s Deception technique, Yuna mimicked Luo’s voice. “I’ll be there in a moment. I just need to—”
A red line of molten metal formed on the metal latch. The door crashed open.
Heart leaping into her throat, Yuna prepared to stab the Blue Reaper. If he didn’t know she was there, she’d try the No Shadow Cut.
He didn’t enter.
Yuna shot a glance to the window, where Aunty Luo now had one leg outside. She looked back, and—
A dagger broke the threshold and spun through the air toward the frightened woman, who was now looking back, eyes wide with horror. The blade lodged into the side of her stomach. She cried out and tumbled back onto the kang. Mikayla lay pinned beneath her, bawling.
The Blue Reaper strode in, his cloaked form breezing by. Yuna waited for him to pass, watching that spot at the base of his neck where a stab would paralyze him. It was a little out of her reach, so she leaped up and thrust. The blade turned on something hard, wringing her hand.
He spun around. Between the brim of the hat and the scarf over the rest of his face, his eyes locked on hers. When he spoke, it was in heavily accented Hua. “You, again!”
He’d left his flank open. It was the perfect opportunity. With a snapping twist of her wrist, Yuna slashed at him with the zigzagging No Shadow Cut, but he jumped out of range.
Yuna silently cursed herself. Master Yan could execute the technique so fast, the blade didn’t even cast a shadow. In practice, she’d nearly pulled it off against Tian with a training knife, but Tian was Tian.
The Blue Reaper was something else altogether. He drew a dagger with a gloved hand, probably the same with which he’d gutted Andris. She darted in with three quick cuts, but he evaded and countered. Pain seared in her forearm. She’d barely seen his attack, and it was more luck than skill that he hadn’t severed anything important. She disengaged and looked.
Left-handed with a left lead, he had a greater reach with his longer blade and arm. She’d usually take a defensive approach, but now she also had to defend the others. In the corner of her eye, Luo’s blood was soaking into the blankets as she struggled to turn and let wailing Mikayla out from the hot blanket. For her part, the girl was clawing for that old ragdoll.
Angling to his flank, Yuna feinted with a stab. The Blue Reaper’s sidestep put his back to the door, and Yuna interposed herself between assassin and prey. At least that had worked. She yelled over her shoulder, “Get out!”
Eyes blooming with understanding, the Blue Reaper advanced with a frenzy of stabs and slashes.
Yuna leaped back onto the kang, one foot landing on the insulating blanket, the other stomping down on his hand, pinning it to the hot surface.
He roared and yanked back. Smoke wafted off his glove as he shook it and glared. “Little cunt. You’re going to die slowly.”
“You’ll have to catch me first.” Yuna kicked the pot, sending simmering stew at him.
He spun and swept his cape out, shielding himself from a scalding splash.
Turning around, Yuna scooped up little Mikayla in her sling and jumped through the window, into a smoke-filled, narrow alley between the back of the rowhouses. She was heavy in Yuna’s arms, and the landing sent a flare of pain through her ankle. Behind her, Luo was screaming. Mikayla went deathly silent. Had she been stabbed? No, she was all right.
“Where did your daughter go?” the Blue Reaper was asking in a husky voice.
Preoccupied with deflecting the stew, he must not have seen them escape. Yuna had to keep Mikayla quiet. She wrapped the sling to keep the child pressed to her chest, and patted her on the back. After a few hobbling steps, she fought through the pain and broke into a jog. Emerging onto a side street, she looked around.
A handful of workers straggled home, laughing and chattering. All the rumors of the Blue Reaper spoke of him attacking lone people, either in back alleys or in homes. Out here in the open, she and the child with Empath potential might be safe. Limping out into the middle of the road, she sat down, cut a strip of cloth from her dress, and wrapped her ankle. Mikayla whimpered. Passersby walked around her, with only a few affording her a curious glance, and none offering to help.
When she stood, she tested her weight on the injured ankle. The pain had eased, and her gait improved as she trailed a group of Hua men.
“The Blue Reaper reaped another one of the Flukes,” one said to his friend.
Flukes…they were the little white worms that crawled through shit. It wasn’t a term she remembered from her infancy, but these men were comparing Nothori people to them. Her fists clenched of their own accord.
“One less parasite.” The other laughed. “If the Emperor won’t expel them—”
A third snarled. “The Emperor only cares about money. The companies bribe the court with silver, because they pay the Flukes coppers.”
“And the Triads are just as useless,” said the first. “They were supposed to chase the Flukes off. Instead, they just sift them.”
Yuna’s stomach twisted. It just wasn’t fair. The companies reaped profits off cheap labor, and instead of blaming the companies, the locals blamed the Nothori. As if that weren’t enough, the Triads exploited them as well.
She looked up to the Iridescent Moon. Waxing to half; she had to cross over the trench and meet up with Jie.
What to do with the now-sleeping Mikayla? Even now, the weight of a stare fell on Yuna’s back. Had the Blue Reaper reacquired her? Waiting to catch her alone? She took a surreptitious scan of the area, but saw no sign of him.
For the time being, she stuck to the middle of this major thoroughfare, walking against the flow of people toward what looked to be a marketplace. Maybe she’d see Mama.
Maybe it would be better not to. Not with Yuna’s mission to protect the clan. The people who really cared about her. Her real family.
With the sun about to set, vendors were already forming a caravan out of the square, protected from covetous locals by Fang enforcers in their black tunics. Shoulders aching, she moved the sleeping child to her back.
She reached the marketplace, where dirty Hua boys and girls ran about, kicking a ball. No Nothori kids were to be found, either excluded or just too scared with the Blue Reaper targeting them. A bridge lay at the far end. She hurried as fast as she could with her injured ankle and Mikayla’s weight, shifting the child back and forth, from front to back, as her own spine tired.
A Fang stood guard, tattoos exposed, yelling across the trench. “You wouldn’t dare come across. We’d send you downstream so fast…”
Yuna looked to the other side.
A Red Dragon flashed an obscene gesture. “The last time we crossed, we shat over half your territory!”
“Hardly half. You got two houses, for a couple of hours.” The Fang’s back was to her, his coin pouch out for everyone to see.
If the men were stationed there to keep each other out of their respective territory, they probably wouldn’t care if she crossed. She slipped by the Fang, swiping his purse along the way. She tucked it behind her, between her back and Mikayla in the sling.
The bridge, which had looked like stone at a distance, was actually little more than several planks of wood nailed together. Lacking any kind of guard rails, it rested on footings that rose out of the trench. It held firm under Yuna’s and Mikayla’s combin
ed weight.
“Hey, you little shit! You didn’t pay the toll!” The Fang’s hand breezed past her ponytail, catching only air as she took several quick steps toward the middle. He followed after them, his weight causing the wood to bow. Looking over her shoulder, she timed his next step…
And jumped just as his weight shifted. Coiling, she thrust her legs into the plank. Her ankle protested, but the reverberation sent his arms flailing. Timing the vibration, she sunk her weight again. The resulting crest threw him off the side and into the muck below.
Chortling, the Red Dragon on the far side pointed. “The shit is drinking downstream!”
The Fang surfaced, covered in sewage. He shook his fist at her. “Shit-sucker, I’m going to hunt you down, fuck you raw, and then slash your throat and send you downstream. Then I’ll do the same thing to your little friend.”
Yuna shuddered. How could life be so cruel?
The Red Dragon laughed, this time even more mockingly. “Come on across and find her.”
She reached the other side, where the Red Dragon held out an arm, barring her way. Thin wisps of fuzz covered his upper lip, and his disheveled mop of black hair gave him a boyish look.
“You made the right choice,” he said, “coming over to this side. Now you’ll have to pay the toll.”
She held out her open hands. “I don’t have anything.”
“That’s what they all say.” His hands roved over her, lingering in areas a gentleman’s wouldn’t on any woman, and certainly not on an eight-year-old girl.
Though Black Lotus training sometimes involved getting undressed in front of others to desensitize initiates and eliminate all sense of modesty, anger still surged into her face. When he spun her around, she switched the Fang’s purse and her knife to the front fold of her robe. “I told you, I don’t have anything. I’m new here. Looking for the magistrate’s office.”
“You really don’t have anything.” Shaking his head, he squeezed her rear with one hand while pointing with the other. His voice sounded almost sympathetic. “So many squirts like you. Orphans, who need to feed a little brother or sister. I have a sister, too.”
So that’s what he thought of her and Mikayla. Siblings. Something which could be used in the future. She nodded.
“Don’t worry. We’ll register you with the local magistrate. See that line of rooftops?”
Her gaze followed his finger. Indeed, a row of several stone buildings capped with red tiles rose two stories above the wooden hovels surrounding it. Compared to the Fangs’ single tower, it was almost magnificent. Setting Mikayla down to ease her aching back and shoulders, she nodded.
The little girl’s knees wobbled. She clutched the ragdoll to her chest with one hand, and clung to Yuna’s hand with the other.
“That all belongs to us. Actually, everything, everyone, on this side of the Trench belongs to us.” He laughed, then took her hand. “Come, we’ll take care of you.”
They’d take care of her, as long as she did what they wanted. And this particular goon probably wanted child’s flesh. Yuna suppressed a shudder and resisted his pull. She pointed to the bridge, where the Blue Reaper would cross if there was no guard to stop him. “Don’t you need to stand guard?”
“Nobody will cross at night. Too easy to slip and fall.”
Or he just wanted to be the one to force himself on her, and maybe even on Mikayla, in some dark alley. Without little Mikayla to care for, he’d be easy to lose. “My Da told me never to trust a stranger.”
“My name is Lin Gu.” He bowed his head. “Now we’re not strangers. What’s your name?”
Using her real name might help, if Mikayla’s older sister Rumei remembered a cousin. Maybe he even knew Mama. She bowed back. “My name is Feng Yuna.”
His expression showed no sign of recognition, remaining as expectant as before.
She started to speak, but froze.
Further upstream, if the sludge could be considered a stream, came the sound of wood striking stone. Yuna peered into the shaded valley formed by hovels on either side of the trench. A dark figure was midway through a pole-vault from the Fang to Red Dragon side.
Her pulse jolted. Given the size, no doubt it was the Blue Reaper. Lin Gu undoubtedly had ill intentions, but with a Red Dragon escort, she’d have a little protection from a more dangerous threat. Or at least someone she could push into harm’s way.
And in the meantime, she could probe him for information about Faceless Chang and Mikayla’s sister, Rumei. Or maybe even Mama.
Chapter 6
Jie’s every nerve tingled as she and Tian moved deeper into the alley. She held up a staying hand.
Tian froze. “What is it?”
“Shhhh.” Jie’s nose wrinkled and her ears twitched. Hiding among all the other foul smells hung a new scent. Water trickled in the distance, just above the din of conversations muffled behind closed shutters.
Wringing his hands, Tian sniffed like one of the White Temple dogs. No doubt his poor human nose wouldn’t pick out much beyond the Trench’s persistent stench.
She tapped and drew across his wrist. Man urinating ahead. He was picking up the code pretty quickly, so maybe he understood.
His face contorted, and he peered down the alley.
He might not see it, but indeed, someone in a tunic was pulling their pants up. He turned toward them. A local? The houses weren’t large enough for a privy, so perhaps he was just out there to relieve himself.
Turn back? Tian tapped on Jie’s forearm.
She shook her head. No time. Let’s go. Maybe local.
His head bobbled back and forth, and he scrawled a pattern on her palm. Long way to urinate.
Long way. Yes, given the length of the alley, he would’ve had to walk a long distance to relieve himself. Unless he’d climbed out of the window. But why climb out, when he could just piss out of the window?
I know, she tapped. She moved his hand to the small of her back, where she clasped a knife. “That’s what this is for.”
“Oi! Who are you?” Given the man’s confident tone and lengthening saunter, he was probably a Red Dragon.
“Just taking a short cut to our uncle’s,” Jie called.
“What do we have here?” The man came up to them, a broadsword slapping up against his thigh. Though the color was hard to discern in the low light, his tunic looked just like the other Triads’, and he wasn’t wearing the Blue Reaper’s signature hat and face scarf. “It’s not safe back here. I could’ve been the Blue Reaper, coming to reap a couple of squirts.”
Jie bowed. “We’ll be more careful.”
Up close, the man had several scars on his beefy forearms. “I’m headed the same way. I’ll take you.”
“That’s very kind of you,” she said. Though up to now, none of the Triads had been kind or helpful without some other motive.
“The Red Dragons are here to protect you.” He grinned. “But I can only take you one at a time. Boy, you stay here.”
Expression contorting, Tian tapped his chin. He grabbed Jie’s arm with both of his hands and pulled her back. “I’m scared. I need my sister.”
The kid might be getting better at many of the clan skills, but acting wasn’t one of them. No doubt he was worried about her, and for good reason. The Triad’s muscled frame made him two and a half times her size, and his weapon and long arms gave him significant reach advantage.
Pushing Tian behind her, Jie took a few steps back. Enough was enough. These Triads were growing tiresome. How onerous life must be for the locals, especially the women and girls, to have to put up with them on a daily basis.
Despite his bulk, this one moved with the grace of a trained fighter. A former soldier maybe; but instead of seeking out work as a caravan guard or a mercenary in a foreign army, he’d come home to prey on the weak as a Triad.
“I can’t leave my brother alone. He—”
“I told him to stay here.” He seized her wrist and yanked her away from Tian. Pain sea
red in her back as the stitches on her spine and shoulder pulled. Her knife slipped from her fingers and fell into the dirt. With a kick from his huge foot, he sent Tian flying down the alley and into the side of a house. He pulled her down the path as if she were a little dog, and her shorter legs stumbled along.
She wouldn’t stand a chance if she couldn’t reestablish her footing. Despite decades of Black Lotus training to remain calm under pressure, her heart raced.
Shutters cracked open, sending lights dancing through the alley before they quickly shut again. Scooping up her knife, Tian jumped to his feet and ran after them. With his stumpy legs, he might not catch up; and lacking short blade training, maybe that was for the better.
Feet unable to find purchase, stitches searing, Jie staggered as the huge Triad dragged her. He’d probably done this to several girls already. How terrified they must’ve been in their last moments.
She took a deep breath. She wasn’t a helpless little girl. Sooner or later, he’d come to a stop, to do whatever he intended. And then—
“Stop!” Tian yelled. Despite his extra weight, poor conditioning, and shorter legs, he was gaining ground.
“Persistent little shit.” The Triad looked over his shoulder. With a snarl, he came to a halt.
Jie lunged feet-first into him. Locking his knees with one leg and his ankles with the other, she turned her weight over and squeezed him with a scissoring motion.
His grasp on her wrist loosened as he fell to his knees. The momentum sent him face-first into the dirt.
If she’d timed it wrong and he’d been prepared for the initial attack, he might’ve been strong enough to resist the scissor-kick. As it was, she drew his dagger and rolled on top of him. His body coiled, but went flaccid when she set the weapon to his carotid artery.
“Let me guess,” she said, “you are the Blue Reaper.”
“Of course not.” His hands clenched and unclenched. “I’m not wearing a blue hat and face scarf.”
“Stay still, or I’ll slash your throat.” Jie nicked him.