Dragon in the Snow

by Forrest Dylan Bryant

  “My dear Captain, I believe it’s time we made our exit from this stage,” said the Professor, as he pushed the throttle up to full.

  “Quite so, my dear Professor. Please steer us to those rocks up ahead... not those; aim for the next outcropping.”

  With the flotilla gaining on them by the minute, the fireboat cleared the north end of Yerba Buena and made for a low, rocky seawall surrounding a broad swath of landfill: it was the artificial island being built for the World’s Fair. The Baroness’s plane had just touched down at the far end and was now taxiing rapidly towards the fireboat.

  Doyle and Armbruster were not athletic men, but they clambered over the rocks and ran across the soft soil with the speed and fervor of Olympic medalists. They gained the airplane and pulled themselves inside just as the sharp reports of distant gunshots began to reach their ears, but were up and away before the shooters could get in range. Armbruster claimed the seat next to the Baroness, leaving Doyle to hold on as best he could in the plane’s hold as they flew at top speed over San Francisco, away from the Bay and out over the open ocean.

  * * *

  The blue Delahaye had only a slightly harder time getting clear. With the Oakland side of the bridge blocked by approaching police, Sonny’s only option was to go forward, into San Francisco. He gunned the motor and sped along the suspension span, dodging small piles of construction equipment and startling a work crew that had paused to watch the strange antics of the airplane and fireboat.

  “No police, she says,” grumbled Rosie, remembering the Baroness’s words. “Now we’re running from them, too. Is there anybody who ain’t after us?”

  “That is a very good question,” replied Sonny, his voice surprisingly calm amidst the tumult. He swerved to avoid a coil of cable and added, “I think we shall be fortunate just to get off this bridge.”

  But Sonny was, once again, fortunate. As on the Oakland side, construction of the bridge’s suspension span was essentially complete. There were no gaps or weak spots on the road, and only a single small gate blocked the egress to San Francisco’s streets. This the Delahaye dispatched easily, although the front fender took a serious dent.

  Once on the street, Sonny applied the same skill he’d displayed in New Jersey to lose the police, who had never come close enough to get a good look at the car anyway. Slowing to match the speed of regular traffic, Sonny worked his way across town and then slipped onto a southbound road, taking the long way around the Bay back to his starting point. He cruised at a leisurely pace down the San Francisco peninsula, heading past the airport and through quiet suburbs to the sleepy, orchard-filled town of San Jose. The group stopped there briefly, buying some fresh fruit from a roadside stand for their lunch, then drove back up the Bay’s eastern shore towards the port at Alameda, the embarkation point for their Pacific voyage.

  * * *

  In the evening, having described a vast circle down the coast, eastward to California’s Central Valley, and then back north and west, the Baroness made a smooth approach to San Francisco Bay, acting as if she’d had nothing to do with the afternoon’s drama. She freely identified herself as the Baroness Angelica de Rothburg, just returning from a morning flight out of San Francisco Municipal, in a risky but necessary move. There was a worrisome pause from the tower, but the plane was cleared to land without further question. The Baroness soon touched down at the Alameda airfield, where Sonny, Hank, Sid and Rosie waited with open arms.

  “We did it!” said Hank with unconcealed glee. “We really did it! We beat ’em!”

  “We did,” said Sid, “but this is just the beginning. So far we’ve only had to face a few of those creeps. What happens when we get to China? We’ll be walking right into the middle of an army. And we still don’t know what this is all about.”

  That little speech dimmed the mood considerably, replacing the group’s euphoria with businesslike determination.

  “How are we getting to China, anyway?” asked Rosie. “I ain’t got a passport. And if those guys got to us on the train, won’t we be sitting ducks on a boat?”

  “Don’t worry,” said the Baroness, “It’s all been attended to. As I told Hank a few days ago, my friend Mrs. Murphy is very efficient. She airmailed these to us care of San Francisco General Delivery last week...” She reached into her handbag and produced seven crisp new passports. Each carried a special stamp from the U.S. Government, a kind of diplomatic visa available to only a handful of Uncle Sam’s very special friends. Franz de Rothburg had been such a friend, and approval of the passports had come directly from the White House. At Hank’s chastising look, she smiled and added, “I already had her working on this the night we left New York. Don’t worry; I arranged our way out of here all by myself.”

  The Baroness Angelica de Rothburg led the group of adventurers across the Alameda airfield, back towards the waters of San Francisco Bay. There, lit up and gleaming, sat a large airplane: a shiny new Martin M-130 Flying Boat. It was called the Shanghai Clipper, the painted name on its nose barely dry, and it stood ready for its maiden flight.

  * * *

  Several miles away, at the end of a dank alley in the heart of San Francisco’s Chinatown, there sat a grubby little tea shop with a familiar name: The Golden Star. Jars of dried leaves in a rainbow of colors lined the walls: teas for every ache and ailment, teas to improve virility and fertility, teas to help sleep or stimulate wakefulness. The shopkeepers also sold more exotic items, but only if one came with a reference, and only if one asked in the proper way.

  In the back room of the tea shop, the tall Chenggi massaged his aching jaw and watched morosely as his battered men worked to repair their waterlogged radio. He had only barely managed to flee the Yerba Buena house before the authorities arrived, leaving his hired thugs asleep in their bunks and sneaking away by means of a hidden sailboat. He was not looking forward to restoring the radio and reporting his failure. He knew what the response would be. But he had sworn to die for the Black Dragon, and as soon as the radio was repaired, that pledge would come due.

  Chapter XV

  DEMONS OF THE NIGHT

  —

  THE SHANGHAI CLIPPER hopped across the Pacific in stages, beginning each leg shortly before sundown and landing the following morning. The Clipper’s crew had not planned to carry passengers on her shakedown flight, but many things are possible for a price. So the Baroness and her party had the large cabin — capable of accommodating thirty people — all to themselves.

  Nobody got much sleep on the first night, which took the adventurers from San Francisco to Honolulu. It was the first time in a week that all seven of them had been together, and the hours evaporated in a swirl of talk, laughter and congratulations.

  But as the plane reached ever deeper into the endless expanse of blue, flying onward to Midway Atoll, Wake Island, and Guam, the mood became pensive, then anxious. Each morning they awoke closer to the unknown, nearer to the source of the nameless evil that menaced them.

  * * *

  Sometime after midnight on the trip to Midway, with her seat dimly illuminated by a tiny yellow lamp, Angelica de Rothburg plucked a small photograph from deep inside her handbag and regarded it in silence. There were three people in the snapshot: a much younger, skinnier version of herself; her father, looking grand yet impish as always; and between them, with one arm around each, a tall, strapping fellow named Simon Marstead-Blake. She often looked at this photograph when she was alone.

  Angelica was fourteen years old when she learned the true nature of exploration. By then, she had already been at her father’s side for more than ten years — ever since her mother had died on board the RMS Lusitania, torpedoed by a German U-Boat off the Irish coast. Her father, the Baron Franz de Rothburg, did not want Angelica raised by timid servants or strict nannies. He figured any child of his should be brave enough to follow him into tombs and over mountains, and smart enough to learn from books, careful observation and real life experience. She quickly proved him right. />
  They were in Upper Egypt, following the broad turns of the Nile in search of a lost city, when she first beheld Simon Marstead-Blake. It was July, 1926. Fresh out of Cambridge, Simon was blond and strong and handsome as the devil, with a roguish smile and a jocular manner. For Angelica, it was love at first sight, a sensation new and bewildering to her young mind.

  Simon was brought on as the expedition’s lead digger and interpreter — although the Baron’s skill with ancient hieroglyphs was unparalleled, his Arabic was never any good — and she would watch with admiration as, shirtless and sweaty, Simon would issue confident orders to the native workmen, then lend his own toned muscles to the effort. Most men in his position simply yelled and watched and collected their pay. Simon was devoted to the young Baroness, but not amorously; he had a fiancée his own age back home, and he doted on Angelica as he would a baby sister. She had no wish to be his sister. So Angelica, with all the spiteful fervor of any girl her age, prayed to the gods of old Egypt that Simon and his fiancée might somehow be permanently separated; then, she believed, she might claim his affections for her own.

  She was watching the day the men dug just a little bit too deeply into the cliff face without shoring up their work, pushing their luck just one hammer blow too far. She saw the roof cave in. She saw Simon, her first love, die.

  For the first time she realized that exploring wasn’t just fun and games: it was deadly. If tall, handsome Simon Marstead-Blake could die then her father could die too. She herself might perish upon some parched desert or lonely peak, with no one even to bring her body home.

  If the Baron had such thoughts he never let them show. His attitude was always a curious mix of devil-may-care frivolity and serious scholarship. Perhaps, she reasoned later in life, it was the danger that kept him at it in the first place. Having grown up as he did, confined in the oppressive atmosphere of old money and high responsibility, with every need attended to and every stray cough summoning a dozen of the finest physicians, maybe he needed this danger — needed the freedom to die — as a way to feel alive.

  The British reporters in Cairo had a field day. Though young, Simon Marstead-Blake had already captured the attention of a gossip-hungry public. A good marriage into a titled family, a seat in Parliament, these and more were expected for the young man’s future, now lost forever. The Baron was accused of throwing Simon’s life away, putting him in danger simply to further his own glory. And when young Angelica, wracked by grief and misplaced guilt, imprudently let something slip about her mock prayer to Anubis, she too was savaged in the Fleet Street press. Public humiliation was heaped upon her broken heart as the papers claimed that she had invoked the “curse of Ancient Egypt” to avenge rejection by her would-be lover. Angelica never forgave them for their invasion, for their lies. No journalist would gain access to the Baroness ever again.

  She was lost in thought when Doyle sidled up to her, glancing at the photo in her hand. “Quite a handsome beau,” he said, trying to start a conversation. He regretted it instantly and slunk back to his seat, his face red and stinging from the daggers her eyes had thrown at him.

  * * *

  On the far side of the cabin, Sid Friedman was having his own battle with dark thoughts. Rosie sat beside him, trying to coax the demons from him.

  “I can’t get that island out of my mind,” he said. “I feel like I let the whole team down.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, honey,” she replied. “We did everything we could. There’s no way anybody followed us onto that train; they must’ve been tipped off when we got to Chicago...”

  “That’s not what I mean,” he snapped. “Or not just that. I mean the rescue. Everybody was so brave. Everybody was a hero. Except me.”

  Rosie was taken aback. “That’s not true, Sid. We all did it together.”

  “Did we? Did we really? Think about it. You and Hank knocked out every one of those hired thugs. Heck, you took care of Fish Face with your bare hands. Sonny drove us to freedom and got us away from the cops. The Baroness flew a bombing raid. The Captain and the Professor took care of those Shadow spooks. And what did I do? I stood there and watched. I even pretended to sell you all out to them.”

  Rosie saw something terrible in Sid’s face. He really believed it. He thought he was a weak link in the chain. She grabbed his hand, wrapping it in both of hers, and looked into his eyes.

  “Listen to me, Mister Writer Man. Stop talking nonsense. We need you; maybe more than anybody else in this gang. Who brought us together in the first place, huh? Who told us all to stop thinking like scared little kids and start thinking like Clark Savage Jr.?” Rosie saw Sid’s eyes refocus at the mention of Doc’s full name and she moved in, her voice becoming firm.

  “Who came up with the idea to split into three teams? Okay, you and I got caught, but without that plan we never woulda got outta New York. There would’ve been no rescue ’cause we’d all be black smoke now. And they’d have that rock, and it would’ve all been for nothin’. So don’t give me that malarkey about not bein’ important. You’re our leader.”

  She leaned forward suddenly and kissed Sid, tenderly, on the lips.

  “You’re our leader, and I’m so proud of you.”

  She kissed him again — a long, deep kiss — and flicked off the light.

  “Get a room,” mumbled Doyle.

  * * *

  The report was waiting for him in Shanghai.

  The thick yellow paper trembled in his long, manicured hand; the beast tattooed on his arm was alive and writhing with fury.

  Total failure. The Baroness and all of her associates were gone; the singing stone presumably still with them. The entire San Francisco operation was in shambles, perhaps unrecoverable. Casting the paper and its silken wrapper aside, the Black Dragon forced himself to think, looking out over the vast, ugly city spread before him. He blocked out the thought of its crawling populace and focused instead on its lights, twinkling in multitudes like the stars over his homeland.

  At first, he had been puzzled by the Baroness’s actions. Why, if she had the singing stone, would she bring it closer to its source? Why not hide it away, bury it, cast it into the sea? There were two possibilities: either she was truly ignorant of its meaning, its terrible power, or somehow she had solved a riddle even her father had not cracked: how to wield the stone as a weapon, making it serve her own ends. It was an alarming thought: with that knowledge, she could undo everything.

  She had gone to San Francisco. That in itself was disturbing, but inconclusive. But now her auto and her airplane had turned up abandoned in a city called Alameda, in the same place where the trans-Pacific seaplanes docked. That meant, almost certainly, that she was coming to China.

  To Shanghai.

  To him.

  If she had divined the secret of the stone, the danger was grave indeed. But she was an amateur, a mere child. He was Wo Then-Liang, the dread Black Dragon.

  He had not lost. Indeed, with the stone coming ever closer he was on the cusp of victory, total and eternal. The Age of the Black Dragon was nigh!

  But first, he would have to give the stone and its bearers a proper reception.

  The Black Dragon spun away from the window and issued his orders.

  Chapter XVI

  A DARING EXPERIMENT

  —

  MIDWAY ATOLL IS a collection of flat, minuscule islands surrounded by a thin reef, mostly uninhabited and largely devoid of interest. It was just what Professor Armbruster was looking for.

  Still determined to analyze the strange artifact Sid’s captor had called a “singing stone,” the Professor had spent most of the trip from San Francisco huddled over a small table in the Shanghai Clipper’s cabin, working with Captain Doyle to improve their invisible-light device, the fluorospectrocitor. But spare parts were hard to come by on a working, airborne plane. So with the Clipper moored in the lagoon and their friends safely stowed in the tiny Pan-American Airways hotel, Armbruster and Captain Doyle struck out in se
arch of Midway’s hidden gold: surplus equipment from the local U.S. Naval installation and the Trans-Pacific Telegraph Company.

  They returned that afternoon laden with long coils of copper wire, bulbous vacuum tubes and other electrical equipment they could use to boost the power of their little device. By the time the Clipper landed at remote Wake Island the next morning, the machine Sonny had once likened to a sunlamp and bedspring had become a two hundred pound Frankenstein’s monster of galvanic experimentation, crackling with exotic energies that made everybody nervous.

  The Baroness was more reluctant than ever to allow the scientists near the cylinder, but Sid was enthralled by the fluorospectrocitor and argued vigorously on their behalf. Rosie and the plane’s crew also came out in favor of letting the scientists have a go at the stone, if only to get the weird electrical contraption away from the plane: it was fouling up navigation and making Rosie’s hair stand on end. Hank and Sonny sided with the Baroness, but found themselves outvoted.

  The scientists set up their machine half a mile from the Wake Island Pan-Am residence and carefully removed the singing stone from its canvas wrappings. Sid gasped when he saw it. The stone’s glow was clearly brighter than it had been in New York, or even in San Francisco; the pulsing green light was now vaguely visible even in full sunshine.

  Doyle adjusted the machine while Armbruster growled instructions and warnings: “My dear Captain,” he said, “do try to use what little brains God gave you and align that armature properly. Fifteen degrees. Surely you can count that high; use your toes if you have to.”

  “My dear Professor,” retorted Doyle, “If it weren’t for my inspired design refinements, the fluorospectrocitor would still be an utter failure, suitable only for turning children blue. Where did you learn to draw a schematic, anyway, in a kindergarten? No wonder it’s indecipherable, you’re probably more used to finger-paint.”