There were times where it was enough to make her dream of running away from home. In her dream, she’d sneak out in the middle of the night, board a ship to Cymru, and rush her way to victory in the Trials at Cistonia stadium. The fantasy always ended with a huge crowd of people cheering her on, while the rest of her family had to sulk at home in despair, full of remorse at all the demands they’d made, all the pressure they’d put on her. They’d be sorry, then—but it’d be too late, and they’d have to make do without her.
Of course, she’d never gone through with it—and even if she had, it wouldn’t have worked so neatly. You couldn’t just waltz into Cistonia stadium and sign up for the Trials; there was a whole system of regional preliminaries you had to work through to even get that far. And the Trials were an annual event she’d have to wait for. Her resentment could never survive that long. Hugh would do something cute, or Dad would do something goofy, or June would come to her for advice, or Family Game Night would kill it off if nothing else did. The fantasy had only ever been that—a mental escape when she got stressed out. She’d never have run away for real.
But some kids did more than dream about it. Joy remembered the ink sketch that the Guardsmen had shown her. This Sue May—maybe she was much less sensible than Joy had been at her age. Or maybe she’d been smitten with a rotten louse of a boyfriend who’d dragged her into this. Joy remembered a near miss with Belle on that front, one that ended only when Belle realized he’d been cheating on her. It had taken some careful maneuvering on Joy’s part to lead her to that revelation without appearing to, but she knew Belle wouldn’t have believed it if she or June had just straight-up told her. Maybe Sue May didn’t have big sisters watching out for her.
Or maybe Sue May’s family was even worse than that. Maybe there were drug or alcohol problems at home, and that’s why she’d left. Maybe she’d been abused. Joy hoped it wasn’t that. It shouldn’t be—Sue May’s family cared enough to contact the Guard and distribute those fliers. The Guardsmen had said the family had been very worried, hadn’t they? Even if there were problems at home, surely it was better to stay and try to work them out, rather than starve out the streets. Yes, Joy would definitely keep an eye out—
“Having trouble finding something, Miss?”
Joy started and spun around to find two broad-shouldered men standing right behind her. They were too well-dressed to be sailors or dockhands, but not nearly well enough to be gentry. They had small bruises and adhesive bandages on their faces and hands, and their expressions were anything but helpful. Everything about them screamed “Triad Thugs.”
Chapter 29
Disrespect
“Oh, hello,” said Joy, resolving to be polite and friendly, despite the men’s appearance. “Actually, I could use some help. I’m a freelance reporter, working for the Dodona Gazette, and I just have a few questions—”
“Well, I don’t answer questions,” said the man. “All queries related to Mr. Fang’s businesses gotta go through official channels. That means you gotta go downtown and speak with Miz Chow. So, Miz Reporter, why you nosing around here instead, huh?”
“Ah. Um… so you two work for Mr. Ben Li Fang, then?”
“I didn’t say that. Don’t you go printing that I did,” said the first thug, eyes narrowing. Joy got the immediate impression that she was not dealing with the sharpest tack in the drawer. Well, at least he made up for it by being big and mean-looking.
“Oh, you’re right,” she said. “You didn’t say that. Well, I didn’t know about needing to go downtown, but since I’m here, maybe you could help me out, just a little bit. I was looking for—”
“Ain’t answering no questions from no reporters,” he said.
“Yes, I understand,” she said. “But these aren’t questions about Mr. Fang or his business, it’s about an incident from three nights ago—”
“What? What do you know about that?” The thug advanced on her, forcing her to backpedal to keep a safe distance. His partner hung back, leaning against another mooring, looking bored, but it was a dangerous sort of boredom, like a jungle cat lounging in a tree, pondering on whether it should pounce and rip out your throat, or just take a nap instead.
Joy needed to keep everyone calm. There was no reason not to be calm. “I don’t know anything about three nights ago,” she said. “No one will answer my questions.”
“Yeah? Well, they better not, if they know what’s good for ‘em,” said the first thug. “And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll quit asking. In fact, that’s what you will do. You’re trespassing on Mr. Fang’s private property. You need to leave.”
“What?” Joy said. “This is private property? I didn’t see any signs.”
“Well, you’re seeing one now,” said the thug, tapping at his chest. “I’m the sign, and the sign says, ‘Scram!’ You got a problem with that?”
“It’s not that I have a problem, or rather… it’s not that I don’t believe you,” Joy lied. “But without a sign—a regular sign, I mean—it’s hard to know where the borders of Mr. Fang’s property are. So I can know when I’m trespassing and when I’m not. And, besides—”
“Oh, I can help ya there,” said the thug. “Look to your left.”
“Okay,” said Joy, and looked left.
“Now look to your right.”
Joy looked right. “Okay.”
“You see all that?”
“Um, yes,” she said.
“That’s all Mr. Fang’s property, and you’re not allowed there. Now, beat it!”
Joy closed her eyes and took a long breath. This was absurd. She was absolutely certain that she was not on private property, and that Benny the Shark did not own the entire waterfront, east to west, and that these goons had no legal right to chase her off. She was also certain that neither of these assholes gave a single shit for what her legal rights were. They only knew that they were bigger and prepared to be violent and that meant they were right, no matter how ridiculous their arguments were. And she was getting so tired and fed up with big, loud, aggressive bully-boys showing up and arbitrarily dictating where she could go and what she could do and who she could talk to and making her entire life a hundred times more difficult than it needed to be. She was so fed up and frustrated with the whole business that she could scream.
But she wasn’t going to scream. She couldn’t do that. Because, in the end, however fed up and frustrated she was didn’t matter one bit. No amount of anger from her would make these thugs any less big or potentially violent or impervious to reason. She could just take her rage and eat it, because she had no other choice.
Maybe she could change the conversation? “Okay, listen,” she said. “I think we’ve had a misunderstanding here. All I want is—”
“Only misunderstanding here is you not leavin’ when you’ve been told to,” said the thug. “Now, are you clearing out, or will you be needing an escort from us?”
“No, no escort is necessary,” said Joy. “But first, I just need to check—”
“Okay, escort then,” he said, seizing her by the upper arm and dragging her along. Joy felt it cutting off circulation to her hand and forearm. That really hurt.
“Ow! I—wait!” Joy said, trying to dig in her heels, to no effect. Bits of her combatives courses from her supplemental training were popping back up into her head, but part of her was sensible enough to know that escalating this situation would be a terrible idea. Trying to actually fight them would be a last resort, one that almost certainly wouldn’t end well.
But the sort of half-resistance she was doing only served to irritate the thug. He stopped pulling for a second, only to shake her.
“Right, you’re gettin’ on my last nerve, lady. I’m gonna say this one more time, and—”
“Lir’s Balls!” Joy snapped. “I’m just a tabloid reporter tracking down Red Specter sightings. There’s no need for any of—”
The thug just sneered at her. “Bitch, I don’t care if you were the—�
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“Wait! What did she say?” For the first time, the skinnier thug spoke, appearing at the bigger one’s side.
“Who cares, Chen?” the first thug said. “We just gotta—”
“No, Yang—I heard her say it. You did too. You heard it.”
“Who cares what she said,” said the bigger thug, whose name was Yang, apparently. “It’s a bunch of—”
“I care,” said Chen. “And if you had any sense, so would you. We must hear this. You, say it again.”
Joy took advantage of Chen’s distraction to pull her arm free from Yang’s grip. Chen was staring at her with a feverish intensity that made her wonder if this was actually a positive development.
“Um, all I said was that I was trying to interview people who’ve spotted the Red Specter—”
“You see! You see! You hear that?” Chen rounded on Yang, crowing in triumph. “He is real. He is here. People have seen him. He’s the one behind all of this. Will you admit it now?”
“Bullshit,” said Yang. “She don’t know nothing. This is—”
“She is a reporter,” said Chen. “From a newspaper. You tell me that isn’t proof? Would they print it if it wasn’t true?”
Of course they would, thought Joy, though now didn’t seem to be the best time to point it out, not while Chen was the only thing between her and Yang’s vise-grip.
“I don’t care if they put it up on Chontos in flashing lights ten-feet tall,” said Yang. “Ain’t no way I’m gonna be pestering the Boss with your half-baked funny-pages ghost story bullshit.”
“Ignorant fool,” snapped Chen. “Your blindness will be the end of us all.”
“Oh, so I’m ignorant? I’m just dumb gutter trash, not like you, Chen,” said Yang. “You think you’re better than me, is that it? I notice you don’t call me Lao Yang. Don’t think I haven’t noticed that.”
“You are not older than me,” said Chen, in precise, clipped tones.
Joy tried to edge away from the two men without being obvious about it. They were both staring eye-to-eye, inches away from each other. Apparently just mentioning the Red Specter’s existence was enough to set off some long-standing beef between the two men. She wasn’t sure if this was going to improve her situation or not.
“Oh yeah, that’s right,” said Yang. “You’re used to being a big shot, aren’t ya? Back in the old Imperial Army. What was it again? Lieutenant? Major? Well, guess what—it don’t mean shit any more, does it? Imperial Albion is gone, and now you’re nothing more than a common dirty criminal, just like the rest of us. You get that, Chen?”
“I am aware of my rank, and I am aware of who I am now,” said Chen. “But also I am aware of who I was, and what happened in the war. Unlike you, I remember what it was like for a unit that caught the attention of the Red Specter, and it was exactly like this—everything begins to go wrong. Supplies, rations begin to disappear. Then your informants go, and the locals become too frightened to be seen with you. Then soldiers disappear. No bodies—they just vanish into thin air. And all the while, you can feel it happening; the Specter’s wrath—the force of his hatred. It is a constant, oppressive feeling of eyes on the back of your neck; a gaze that will leave you cursed. It the same as what I feel now. I try to warn you, but you—”
“Hey, maybe you wanna shut the fuck up now, Chen?” Yang said, glancing in her direction. “Since we’ve got a reporter here, and—”
“No, I will not ‘shut the fuck up,’ Yang. I am tired of your foolishness—”
“I’m foolish? You’re one shooting yer dumb-ass mouth off in front of—”
“No—we are going to deal with this now. I say you are a fool because only a fool would ignore the wisdom, hard-won in the field, that I try to give you,” said Chen. “But you know nothing of this, nothing of the real strength of your Xia culture. You have no inner strength, no true pride. I see it when you kowtow to Ah Nei Wei.”
“Kowtow? Bull,” said Yang. “And what do you care about that? You’re the one who’s all ‘rah-rah Albion Empire.” Wouldn’t she have outranked you, even in your old job?”
“That woman is a disgrace. She brought great shame to the Empire,” said Chen. “She was one of their great mistakes, one of the mistakes that led to their end, and she will do the same to us. It is her presence that draws the Red Specter. It is all her fault. She will—”
“Oh, really?” Yang said. “Well, if that’s what you really think, why don’t you try saying that right to her face? I’d love to see that. You gonna do that, Chen? Walk right up to Ah Nei Wei and call her a shameful mistake that ended the Empire? You gonna do that?”
Chen glared back at Yang, but said nothing in response. His face was like a stone statue.
“Yeah, I didn’t think so,” said Yang. “You make out like you’re some kinda big shot, but you don’t fool me. You’re scared of her, aintcha?”
“I am not scared,” said Chen.
“Yeah, you are. You know she’d wipe the floor with your punk ass if she wanted to. Just admit it. Admit that all your War Hero bullshit is just that: bullshit, and the truth is you’re nothing but a coward who—”
The word “coward” proved to be Chen’s breaking point. He shoved Yang hard in the chest, Yang shoved back, and then the two were at each other's throats.
"nicetalkingtoyouguysseeyoulaterbye," murmured Joy as she turned on her heel and left the scene at a brisk walk. Don’t run, not yet. Predators were attracted to running prey. She remembered that from somewhere.
Unfortunately, the brawling thugs blocked the only escape route that didn’t lead into stacks of cargo crates, which formed a gigantic maze. These were huge piles of stuff wrapped up in netting, or massive boxes that were bigger than her apartment. Joy assumed this was a holding area for cargo waiting to be transferred elsewhere, and the scale of it managed to send a tiny sliver of awe through her rising panic. Amazing what that crane golem made possible. But her primary concern with the huge stacks was their use as cover, so she could get out of sight of the dangerous men and circle around to flee the area. She had almost reached the corner of one of the stacks when she heard a shout behind her. She broke into a run as one of the thugs yelled, "She's getting away!"
Chapter 30
Secret Cargo
Joy sprinted around the corner and down an aisle made of stacks and stacks of trade goods. Her heart rebounded against the inside of her rib cage as her heels clacked against the concrete. Joy had some practice at long-distance running as part of Kallistrate basic training, though as non-infantry, she’d gotten the abbreviated version of that, but this was the first time she’d ever had to run for her life. Her legs felt like they weighed nothing. She was practically flying. She tore her way through the cargo-maze, skittering on her pump heels as she took the corners, using her arms to push off the cargo-piles, trying to keep an internal sense of which way was which until she could lose those Triad thugs.
Why in the world were they chasing her, anyway? Did they even know? Well, she wasn’t going to stick around and find out. She heard them in the stacks behind her, yelling at each other, and screaming abuse at her, and what they’d do when they caught her. That sounded like Yang, and it only made her more determined to not get caught. Not getting lost was another story. There was so much stuff here. You’d think it’d be better organized, but as far as she could tell, it had been strewn about randomly, with no rhyme or reason to the pathways through all this junk. Maybe there was a system she wasn’t appreciating while running through it full-tilt.
A part of her had to wonder just what was in all these casks and crates, though from the smell of one really unpleasant aisle, she guessed that at least some of it was fertilizer. Or, since she heard mooing from between the slats of one of those huge room-size crates, maybe it was just cow manure. How long had those cows been cooped up like that? Poor cows, but she had her own problems to deal with.
She emerged out into a nexus of sorts, with a choice of three aisles going forward,
one straight ahead, and two more to the left of it; two more aisles on her left going back the way she’d come; or she could just go left and keep going and… wait, was that the way out? That looked like a view of the street from here. Joy turned towards the exit just as Chen ran out from the center aisle to stand right in front of her, and then turned the wrong way, running over to check the exit, and the two far left aisles. His back was towards her, but he was blocking the way out.
Joy froze for a second, held her breath, did the fastest tiptoe she could manage across to the rightmost aisle, and resumed her sprint as soon as she was out of sight. She heard a shout from Chen, followed by the slaps of his shoe leather striking concrete. Had he heard her? Had he seen her? She had to assume so. Ahead of her she saw a T-junction, and a flash of movement on the ground go off to the right. She’d spooked a cat. On an impulse, she followed it. Maybe it knew the way out? She turned right at the junction, to get a glimpse of black fur at the end of the aisle as it darted left and disappeared. She chased it down to find….
…A complete dead-end junction, with a huge stack of broken or empty barrels ahead, a barrier of cargo-netted packages to the right, and a solid wall of those room-sized containers to the left. This was a dead end. She heard shouts behind her. Chen and Yang. They’d be around the corner any minute. She was trapped.
The stray cat was there with her. It looked back, meowed at her, and scampered up a lumber beam to the top of the cargo wall, where it hunkered down and stared at her. Joy looked at the beam. One end had fallen off a larger stack of lumber to hit the ground, while the other remained at the top of the pile.
The base had wedged itself between random piles of bric-a-brac. The beam had been stable enough to support a cat, but would it handle a small Xia freelance reporter? Only one way to find out.
The Legend of the Red Specter (The Adventures of the Red Specter Book 1) Page 19