Jamie Reign the Hidden Dragon

by P J Tierney

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jamie said, a note of frustration in his tone.

  The helicopter banked to the left, tilting the window towards the ground. They could see Jade clearly again.

  Lucy’s newspaper rustled and she peered over the top of it. ‘She’s telling you to use telepathy,’ she said.

  Mr Wang smiled at his daughter. She gestured towards the boys and rolled her eyes.

  The helicopter flew over the southern wall of Chia Wu and out over the ocean. It passed over the rocky headland that had claimed the raven boat and its passengers. Jamie thought of the freezing vortex that had chased him from the water, the raven on the boat and the raven Recollector’s silk in the Celestial Hall, the one that had probably ended with Jade’s symbol until she unpicked it. He didn’t know if he wanted to open up a telepathic channel between his spirit guide and whatever Jade was linked to. Confronting her in this realm was one thing; taking a battle to the spirit world was another thing entirely.

  ‘Can you do the telepathy?’ he asked Wing.

  Wing stammered something about a headache and not feeling very well. Jamie accused him of being scared; Wing scoffed; and Jamie countered with a louder scoff.

  Lucy said, ‘Oh, stop it, you two. I’ll do it.’

  She put her newspaper down and Jamie noticed she carefully tore an article out and put it in her pocket. She moved the newspaper aside, rearranged herself to get comfortable, leaned her head back against the soft leather seat and closed her eyes.

  She breathed deeply for a few minutes, then frowned. She waved her hand around like she was writing in the air, and Mr Wang dug in his briefcase for some paper and a pen. She frowned some more, made a strange face and gave a little shrug, then she took the pen and drew a square on the paper. She put a cross in the middle to divide it into quarters and coloured two opposing squares within it black.

  She held it up and squinted at it. Then she reached for her father’s bag and dug around. She pulled out a pencil and discarded it, then dug till she found another pen — red. She put that one to the side too. Eventually she pulled out a highlighter, smiled and coloured the two remaining squares yellow.

  ‘There,’ she said, handing the piece of paper over to Jamie.

  He looked at it, bewildered. ‘Is this it?’

  Lucy nodded.

  Wing leaned in. ‘Does it mean anything to you?’ Jamie shrugged. ‘It sort of looks like a maritime flag.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Wing said. ‘What’s yellow and black?’

  Jamie thought hard. Maritime flags were flown on boats so you could communicate with other vessels. It was a whole colourful language with the flags having different meanings depending on the order they were flown in, if the boat was at sea or in dock, or a thousand other conditions that Jamie had trouble remembering. But basically each letter of the alphabet had its own corresponding flag. Jamie looked at the yellow and black square again. ‘It’s code flag L.’

  ‘L?’ Wing said. ‘Doesn’t tell us much.’

  Jamie continued, ‘It could also mean the boat’s in quarantine. No-one gets on, no-one gets off.’

  ‘Right,’ Lucy said, going back to reading the newspaper. ‘Very important stuff.’

  Jamie held the slip of paper in his hand and hoped Jade’s meaning would soon become clear.

  He pressed his forehead against the window and watched as the water changed from aqua to turquoise to almost black at its very deepest parts. He saw reefs and small islands, and the long wake left by a tiny craft charging along the surface.

  They crossed from water to land at the southern end of the territory and Jamie searched for Sai Chun. He spotted the familiar curves of the bay and the old temple on the headland. He saw the long narrow rooflines of the fishermen’s houses and the convex lines of The Swift in port. He sighed when he spotted the square pattern of the Leungs’ courtyard and the blue tarpaulin on its unfinished roof.

  The helicopter followed the shoreline around to the west and before long Jamie was looking down at an unfamiliar bay. It was wide and sweeping, with massive concrete breakwalls to protect it from the ocean swell. Inside the walls were moored line after line of gleaming white boats. There were little runabouts and the instantly recognisable rectangle of a Boston Whaler; there were timber motor cruisers of various sizes, some with their ensign flags flying aft; and larger cruisers fitted out for big-game fishing with a chair and rods mounted on the stern. There were trawlers that made The Swift look like a child’s bath toy, racing boats, research boats — indicated by the massive satellite dishes and aerials positioned on top — a cruiser with the unflattering proportions of an apartment block in its side and a catamaran or three. But all of them, including the apartment block, were small compared to the massive white superyacht moored at the very end of the marina.

  From the air, they saw it in all its shimmering white glory. It had six tiered decks, with a swimming pool near the bottom and a helipad on the top. On the waterline was a tender — a smaller boat, used for day trips and usually carried in the hull of the superyacht — which was still twice the size of The Swift. The superyacht’s side storage hulls were open, creating a dry dock for a fleet of jetskis on one side and a deck for lounge chairs on the other.

  Jamie’s eyes were wide, trying to take it all in. He’d never seen anything like it. He squinted at the black letters on the stern, but had to wait until the helicopter was closer before he could read them. The superyacht was called the Lady Lucy.

  Wing pulled away from the window, stony-faced. ‘Nice boat, Lucy.’

  Lucy made a show of inspecting her fingernails till Mr Wang nudged her with his toe. She giggled. ‘It is, isn’t it?’

  ‘Nice?’ Jamie breathed. ‘That boat isn’t nice. That boat is magnificent.’

  Questions tumbled out of him one on top of the other. What was her length and top speed? What was her draught? How many crew did she need? He quizzed Mr Wang about the size of her engines as they disembarked, and the ballast while they walked down towards the marina. Mr Wang seemed happy to answer, rattling off statistics and specifications.

  They’d reached the dock, and Mr Wang was listing the watercraft onboard — six jetskis, the tender, a Boston Whaler, a whole flotilla of sea kayaks and one kid-sized canoe — when Wing interrupted.

  He pointed up to the rail near the bridge and said, ‘So, Luce, is that where you hang over the side to puke?’

  Jamie snorted through his nose and Mr Fan coughed to disguise a laugh. Mr Wang was the only one brave enough to laugh out loud.

  ‘You’re just jealous,’ Lucy huffed.

  ‘I would be,’ Wing said harshly, ‘if I didn’t know you vomited every time you went onboard.’

  Lucy looked surprised then bewildered at his tone. ‘Wing?’ she said gently.

  Mr Fan rested his hand on Wing’s good shoulder and squeezed. Wing reluctantly closed his mouth and glared at Lucy instead, then looked down and kicked at a rock.

  Lucy arched her eyebrows at Jamie. He shrugged; he had no idea what was eating Wing.

  Mr Fan moved the conversation on. ‘So, Deiwei, I believe you have made one of these beautiful vessels available to us?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mr Wang said, and he turned to Jamie and held his arms out wide. ‘Take your pick.’

  Jamie’s mouth dropped open. ‘Take my pick?’

  Mr Wang nodded. ‘You’ll be operating it, so you might as well get something you’re comfortable with.’

  Jamie scanned the fleet. ‘Any one of them?’

  ‘Except the Lady Lucy,’ Mr Wang said. Then he smiled and added, ‘You’ll never get her through the Penglai Straits.’

  Jamie figured there were around sixty vessels to choose from. He quickly ruled out anything over fifty feet as it would be too big to handle through the straits, and anything under twenty-five because it would be too small to take everyone from Chia Wu, not that they really did need it to escape like Master Wu imagined. But hey, he thought, you never know. He eliminated anything with a mast
or an outboard, and narrowed it down to three or four motor cruisers.

  He pointed one out to Wing. ‘The SeaRay over there looks good. What do you think?’

  Wing stared blankly at him. ‘Take your pick,’ he said. Then he looked out at the marina and added, ‘All these boats just sitting here and I risked my life year after year on that little sampan.’

  They were all struck silent by the pain in Wing’s voice and realised how it must look to him. Jamie reached out to his friend, but Wing shied away. Jamie didn’t blame him; he knew what it was like to think your life meant nothing to the people who were supposed to care most about you.

  Eventually Lucy said, ‘I thought you liked the little sampan.’

  Wing looked at her. ‘Have you ever been to sea in a boat that small? No-one likes a sampan that much.’ He turned to Jamie. ‘Choose a good boat,’ he said bitterly. ‘You’re too precious to be lost in a typhoon.’

  Mr Fan put his arm around Wing and ushered him away. Jamie couldn’t make out what Mr Fan was saying, but he hoped he was apologising for all of them and telling Wing he was precious and valued. Even then, he knew it would take a lot more than words to make things right.

  Mr Wang gestured towards the closest cruiser. It was white with a blue hull and probably a little over forty feet. ‘I don’t know her name, but she’s as good as any.’

  Jamie gave a slight nod.

  ‘Take her for a test run before you decide,’ Mr Wang said.

  Jamie climbed aboard. He stood on the teak deck admiring the perfectly trimmed corking between the timbers. On the bridge, everything was clean and new and shiny. It smelled like plastic. He longed for the smell of oil and grease that rose from the steel deck of The Swift on a hot day.

  He fiddled with the seven different levers on the captain’s chair, making it higher and sliding it forward, adjusting the lumbar support and the angle of the cushioning under his thighs so he could sit comfortably, reach all the controls and see over the bow — a usually unachievable combination. It wasn’t like sitting in the captain’s chair on The Swift, where he had to wedge his feet halfway up the control panel just to see out the windscreen.

  The engines started first go and Jamie nodded to Mr Wang’s marina master, who released the mooring lines. Jamie backed the cruiser out from the dock, then headed beyond the breakwall. The cruiser was fast; she skimmed across the surface, trailing a long white wake. She slid into turns and sent sheets of water skywards.

  Jamie hated it. He needed a boat he could trust. He didn’t want a boat that skimmed; he wanted one that held onto the water, that wouldn’t blow away in a storm. He needed a boat that could pound through the biggest swell, cling to the face of a wave, but still outrun the weather.

  ‘But it’s new,’ Lucy argued as Jamie handed back the keys. ‘And clean,’ she added.

  Jamie tried another boat. It was sleek and sat low in the water. When he powered her up, she roared and her bow pointed skywards. The choppy swell pounded into her exposed hull, sending violent shudders through everyone onboard.

  ‘You might want to check the trim on that,’ Jamie said as he returned that set of keys too.

  ‘But it’s got a toilet,’ Lucy whined. ‘A real one that flushes.’

  Jamie tried a different design. ‘Brand new, out of Europe,’ Mr Wang said.

  It was solid and squarish and felt better than the previous one, but it was also heavy and sluggish. There was something else about it too, something Jamie couldn’t quite put his finger on. He thought that if boats had personalities, this one would be the kind to tell you when it wanted to go faster, not the other way round.

  ‘Did you see the galley?’ Lucy said hopefully as Jamie placed the keys in the marina master’s waiting palm. ‘A full-sized wok burner — can you believe it? And a shower and —’

  ‘I know,’ Jamie said, ‘and a toilet that flushes.’ Passing up a flushing toilet was a big deal even for him, but pass it up he did. ‘Have you got anything a little older?’ he asked Mr Wang. ‘I don’t know … maybe a tug or something?’

  ‘A tug?’ Lucy cried. ‘All these yachts and you want an old tug?’

  She was right: it seemed like madness. But what he really wanted was a dual-engine tug with a steel deck and spare pumps. He wanted The Swift. She’d got him out of more trouble than most sailors had ever got into, but more than that, he could trust a tugboat. There was a strength to a tug that belied its size and Jamie liked the idea of that.

  He turned to Mr Wang. ‘I’m confident with a tugboat.’

  Mr Wang looked at Jamie then at his daughter. ‘If a tugboat’s going to keep you safe, I’ll find you one.’

  Lucy threw her arms up in the air. ‘Great. An old tug might be fine for you boys,’ she said. ‘You can pee over the side.’

  Chapter 9

  They stayed the night at the Wangs’ home, which wasn’t just a house but a whole compound. The main home was sprawling, with wings that were angled to take best advantage of the ocean view. Jamie was shown to a guestroom that had two beds and its own bathroom. Jet jumped up on the one closest to the window, claiming it for them both. He hoped he’d be sharing the room with Wing, but Wing and Mr Fan still hadn’t returned.

  It was just on dusk when the noise of a car on the gravel drive drew Jamie and Lucy to the front of the house. They saw Mr Fan get out first, a small padded bag swinging from his elbow, then he lifted Wing’s lifeless form from the back seat. Wing’s torso was draped in a hospital gown and his head lolled with every hurried step as Mr Fan rushed him towards the house.

  ‘What happened?’ Jamie asked.

  Mr Fan shushed him but gestured for them to follow. He carried Wing to the guestroom and laid him on the second bed. Wing didn’t stir. He was very pale and his lips were grey.

  ‘He’s much sicker than we thought,’ Mr Fan said, and he squeezed his lips together like he was trying not to cry. ‘The doctors scrubbed out the wound … the pain was horrendous.’ He shook his head. ‘The screams … They gave him antibiotics, but the infection is in his bone now. If he doesn’t respond …’ Mr Fan’s voice trailed off.

  He put his face in his hands. ‘I should have known,’ Mr Fan said. ‘Oh, of all people I should have known what he was going through.’

  Lucy and Jamie looked at each other, his worried expression mirrored in Lucy’s.

  ‘You couldn’t have known,’ she said kindly.

  Mr Fan looked up at her and pulled the collar of his robe till it exposed a raw and gaping hole from a burn. ‘I too have met one of Zheng’s Charged Summons and even I cannot heal it.’

  Jamie’s stomach heaved. Mr Fan got that wound in the years he’d been looking for Jamie. And if someone as gifted in healing as Mr Fan couldn’t heal a wound from a Charged Summons, what hope did Wing have?

  ‘It’s almost instinct now,’ Mr Fan said. ‘I constantly self-heal so the wound doesn’t spread. I don’t even realise I do it.’ Tears welled in his eyes as he looked at Wing, so pale and so frail in that bed. ‘I’ve been trying to treat Wing’s wound when I should have been showing him how to manage it.’

  Lucy placed her hand on Mr Fan’s shoulder. ‘He didn’t complain, Sifu,’ she said, using his title to show respect. ‘None of us knew.’

  Mr Fan said, ‘But I should have known.’

  ‘Can we heal him?’ Jamie asked, gently lifting the hospital gown from Wing’s chest. He looked so skinny and fragile lying there in just his kung fu pants, his skin grey like the colour of old congee. His ribs protruded, the dressing was damp and yellow, and a carved amulet that was around his neck was crusted with dried blood.

  Mr Fan leaned in, brushing at his eyes to peer closely at the jade.

  It seemed to Jamie to be in the shape of a phoenix. ‘A talisman?’ he asked.

  Mr Fan flinched as if startled. ‘Um, yes,’ he said. ‘Some sort of talisman.’

  Jamie frowned as he thought. ‘I didn’t know he had one. I’ve never seen it before.’

  Mr Fa
n nodded pensively and finally said, ‘I’m sure I have.’

  ‘Well, it’s pretty disgusting,’ Lucy said, gesturing towards the dried pus clumped on the finely plated thong. ‘All those germs can’t be good for that wound.’

  Mr Fan nodded and gently lifted Wing’s head to remove the amulet from around his neck. He passed it off to Lucy, who held it at arm’s length till she could drop it safely into the cooler bag. She wiped her hands furiously on her training pants.

  Wing moaned as Mr Fan repositioned his head on the pillow. He gestured for Jamie’s palms. ‘Help hold off the infection until the antibiotics kick in,’ he instructed.

  Jamie concentrated till a light emanated from his palms and focused it onto the wound for as long as he could. He held them there until his arms trembled. Eventually he had to stop to rest and recharge.

  Mr Fan moved in then, and cut the bandage that held the dressing in place. He lifted away the blood-and pus-soaked wadding, which released a stench of rotting flesh. Lucy dry-retched.

  ‘We are to change the dressing every four hours,’ Mr Fan said. He gestured towards the small cooler bag he’d brought in from the car. ‘And give him a shot of antibiotics every six hours.’

  As Mr Fan stared at the exposed wound, tears welled in his eyes and he fumbled with the cooler bag. Jamie eased Mr Fan away and took over. He searched through Mr Fan’s satchel and found a medicated cleaning solution, which he used to douse a sterile cotton wad. He dabbed at the wound: it was a big, angry, red gouge, pinpricked with pus.

  When Jamie had cleaned the wound, he placed both hands above it again and asked his spirit guide for help. The Great Guide had helped him heal Wing before. Jamie willed a white light from his hands, but all he managed was a heat haze, which did nothing to help Wing. Jamie squeezed his eyes shut and tears ran out from under his lids.

  He rebandaged the wound, then sat at the side of Wing’s bed to watch over him. Jet sat beside him, and after a while he moved to sit on Jamie’s lap.

  Wing didn’t wake for dinner. Jamie sat by his side as the moon tracked across the night sky. At 10 pm he changed the dressing. The pinpricks of pus had grown into swollen, distended blobs the size of peas. They were about to burst.