Jade Tiger

by Reese, Jenn

  Shan jumped an instant before the tiger.

  She opened her eyes. Her hands wrapped around the rim of the door frame above her, and she swung her legs up.

  The tiger flew past below her, an orange and black streak. It leaped on Leopard Man and bit into his throat. The tiger's rear claws raked the man's belly, digging deep into his flesh and scooping it away.

  The man's eyes widened. He reached for his waist and fumbled for the device he'd destroyed earlier. He gave up and tried to yank the tiger off his body, but his strength was already starting to fade. He punched it in the ribs. The tiger's body shuddered, but it didn't let go. The man punched it again. More broken bones.

  "Now!" Shan yelled to Ian.

  Ian stood by the security door, his face slack with horror as he watched the evisceration. At Shan's words, he wrenched his gaze from the terrible scene and yanked open the door.

  Shan swung her legs and used the momentum to flip to land far to the right of the struggling duo. She hesitated an instant, fighting her urge to help a fellow human being in need. But if she did help Leopard Man, it would just be to kill him a minute later.

  Besides, she was rooting for the tiger.

  Ian held the door open. Shan ran around the perimeter of the room, hurdling a smashed pillar, and made it to his side. She pulled the door closed behind them, and, in that last flash, she saw the tiger rip its head away from the man's neck, a huge chunk of flesh still gripped firmly in its jaws.

  The door snicked shut.

  "Are you all right?" Ian's arms were on her again, providing a blast of solid warmth that made Shan shudder. Dust clung to his cheeks and formidable nose.

  "I'm good, I'm fine," she said, appalled at the quaver in her voice. "Really. We need to keep moving. The alarm--"

  Ian kissed her.

  His lips pressed hers with an almost overwhelming intensity. Shan felt the tension in her body slide away in the wake of him. His lips. Ian. Shan gripped his jacket, the back of his head, and returned the kiss with a ferocity that surprised her.

  Eventually, Ian pulled away. His eyes glowed in the shadow of his brow. With one thumb, he traced the air over the gashes on her cheek. His lips twitched, like he wanted to kiss the wounds away.

  "Okay," he said. "Now we can go."

  Shan's pulse pounded in her throat. How could she be so happy after just seeing a man killed before her eyes? After being tossed into pillars and walls and clawed by a tiger?

  She was either insane, or something far, far worse.

  Ian took her hand. "Where to?"

  "Anywhere but here," Shan said. "I tripped the alarm, and they're going to find the body when tattoo guy doesn't return to the fight."

  They headed down the corridor, Ian in front. Despite his disheveled appearance, he was by far the more normal looking of the two of them.

  Footsteps. Shan pulled Ian into an alcove and held him tight against her body. She could feel his breath along the top of her ear, warm and regular, and her own heartbeat strong in her chest.

  "All clear," Ian whispered.

  "The portrait gallery," Shan said suddenly. Ashton had appeared by her side, but she hadn't heard him coming down the hallway. True, she'd been preoccupied by the discovery of his Jade Circle connection, but it was worth a shot.

  "Portrait gallery?"

  "I'm hoping for a secret entrance or something," Shan said. She grinned at Ian. "But boy, does that sound silly when I say it out loud."

  Ian's eyes glinted in their shadows. "Not to an archaeologist, it doesn't. And not when you're talking about a whacko like Ashton. Lead on, MacDuff."

  "I'm not Scottish, in case you haven't noticed." Shan walked quickly and quietly through the corridors. Ian, with all his crane influence, kept up admirably.

  "Not Scottish?" Ian whispered in mock outrage. "Everything we've had together is a lie."

  Shan motioned for Ian to stand in the shadows as another pair of servants walked past their corridor. When they were gone, she slipped into the new hallway, pulled open the curtains to the portrait gallery, and motioned Ian inside.

  "You have a thing for kilts?" she asked as he brushed by her.

  "Only when you're in them."

  Shan almost laughed, but caught herself in time. Who thought infiltrating the lair of an international crime lord could be so much fun?

  She let the heavy velvet curtains drop behind her and paused to let her eyes adjust to the near darkness. Ian was already moving along the right wall, examining the picture frames and touching the wall in various places.

  "So, Mr. I'm-an-expert-in-secret-doors, what do I look for?"

  "Anything out of the ordinary," Ian said.

  Shan frowned at a portrait of Alexander the Great. "Gee, that's helpful."

  "Oh, and irregular dust patterns on the floor."

  "That's better." She crouched and studied the floor in the almost non-existent light. She couldn't see any dust at all. Shan dragged a finger across the marble and studied that. There it was. A fine coating of dull gray.

  She continued along the left wall, prodding, poking, and examining everything she could. The scratches on her cheek burned, but she resisted the urge to risk infection further by touching them her dirty hands. Of course, an infection was nothing compared to rabies. When she got back to Los Angeles, she'd need a fast appointment with her acupuncturist.

  When? If. If she got back. Shan's delusions about surviving the weekend had been shredded with each roar of that tiger. Victor Ashton wasn't just an artifact dealer. He was a killer. And with three of the jade animals in his possession, he'd be a pretty tough person to stop.

  "I found something."

  Shan joined Ian by the portrait of Bruce Lee.

  "Light scrape marks on the marble. See?" He pointed to something on the floor.

  "No, but continue anyway."

  He did. Ian was clearly in professor mode, focused and adorable in his excitement. "And look here. See these smudges? The opening mechanism must be difficult to find, even if you know the general area. Those are fingerprints. And look, there's another set over here."

  "Wow, archaeologists are useful," Shan grinned.

  Ian placed his hands to either side of Bruce's portrait, and in roughly the same position as Bruce held his.

  "And we say the magic words--"

  "Abracadabra?"

  "No. The magic words are 'Oh, god, I hope this isn't booby trapped.'" Ian pressed his hands into sensors that remained--to Shan's eye--completely invisible.

  Click.

  A slender piece of the wall near Ian swiveled and became a door.

  And just inside that door--shadowed, bloody, and unconscious--lay Buckley.

  CHAPTER 14

  "Bucks!" Ian pulled the door all the way open and dropped to his knees beside his friend. "Bucks, wake up."

  "Is he breathing?" Shan alternated her gaze between the hallway behind them, Buckley, and the dark corridor ahead.

  "Yes, and his pulse is strong." Ian lifted up one of his friend's eyelids and whispered, "Please, Daniel, wake up."

  Shan's gut twisted at the sound of Ian's quiet fear.

  Ian moved his fingers to Buckley's head and started to prod near the coagulated blood. Buckley groaned, and his eyes fluttered open.

  Shan exhaled. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

  But wait.

  If Buckley was here--

  "Lydia..." Buckley lifted his arm to point down the secret passage, winced, and lowered it again.

  "His arm is broken." Ian's voice had gone monotone.

  Shan stopped breathing. Her heart simply refused to beat. Not Lydia. Not Buckley. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. This was her quest, her demon. Ian was a part of it now, but that was his choice. What choice did Lydia and Buckley have, with so much life and happiness before them? They were sitting ducks back at The Way of the River. She should have sent them somewhere else. Somewhere safe.

  "Ian, take him back to the room." Now her own voice was d
ead as well. "I'm going after Lydia."

  Ian stood and stepped aside so that she could pass. Her shoulder brushed his chest as she stepped over Buckley. When she turned in that tiny corridor and looked back, Ian's face had been consumed by shadows. Shadows that went far deeper than just the absence of light.

  Shan's spine tingled, her brain suddenly fuzzy with an old memory, an old pain. The night the Jade Circle had been destroyed had felt so much like this night. Her parents had passed in the hallway. Her father had taken Shan and the tiger and fled to America. Her mother had turned and fought, and then her mother had died.

  They'd never seen each other again after that night, never had the chance to kiss, or talk, or fall asleep in each other's arms.

  Shan's throat was thick. She stared at Ian and tried to throw everything in her heart at him through the space between them. His face with its shadows was a wild mirror of her own: dark, pained, distorted with a mixture of anger and need, and...

  And then she turned and left him there. Left Ian. Left her sense of balance, of rightness, her hope for any sort of future at all. Shan walked down the pitch-black hall, her hands on the walls in front of her to lead the way.

  Duty was an ugly, life-crushing word.

  But duty was all she'd ever known.

  Ian watched Shan go. In less than a second she had been subsumed by the darkness.

  Her eyes.

  Dear god, her eyes had been so full. Full of pain and loss, full of longing and maybe even love. Yet she had turned and left him, as he always knew she would. Shan could no more walk away from this fight than the stars could walk away from the heavens. Ian knew it. He had always known it. She'd never been anything but honest about what she wanted.

  He'd just been hoping her wants would grow to include him.

  Ian knelt and helped Bucks to his feet. Daniel leaned against the wall, his left arm cradling his broken right arm in front of his chest.

  "They showed up right after you guys left," Buckley said hoarsely. "They took Lydia. They hurt Xia real bad. She might be dead. I couldn't--"

  "Can you walk?" Ian asked briskly. He needed Buckley to stop talking, to stop compounding the fear already spreading like a virus through Ian's mind. Shan needed him to be strong. For Shan, he could be anything--even that.

  Bucks looked at him, swallowed, then nodded.

  "Good. I'll try to set your arm as soon as we get to the room. We have to move quickly."

  Bucks nodded again and whispered, "Lead on, Mac--"

  "Don't."

  He'd never see Shan again. Her eyes had told him that, and somehow, he believed her. He felt a lump swelling in his throat.

  Shan. Beautiful, fierce Shan...

  He headed back up the hallway, toward the curtain and the more public areas of Ashton's fortress. Buckley followed. Ian saw Shan's haunted eyes watching him from every painting along the wall. He forced himself to stare straight ahead.

  "Dash, wait."

  Ian stopped just before the curtain. "What?"

  Bucks shifted his weight. Even in the darkness, Ian could see the dark, swollen bruises on Buckley's broken arm.

  "I can't just go hide while Lydia's in there." Bucks ran his good hand through his crew-cut hair.

  "Shan will save her," Ian said. Shan could do anything.

  "But I'm her fiancé, Dash. I should be the one that rides in on the white horse."

  "With a broken arm?"

  Buckley looked down at the arm pressed against his chest. "Yeah, well, I don't have much choice about that."

  "If we go charging in there after Shan, we're just going to make things more difficult for her," Ian said. And there was no way he was going to let that happen, regardless of Bucks's surprising display of honor.

  "I know," Buckley nodded. "But I heard One-eye talking to some other guy--Ashton?--and I think I know where there's another entrance."

  Ian looked past Buckley and the watchful eyes of a dozen portraits. Somewhere back there in the darkness, Shan was headed into the worst danger of her life.

  Danger she was going to face without him at her side.

  Ian turned to back to Buckley. "Well, why the hell didn't you say that five minutes ago? Let's move!"

  The secret hallway ended in a posh, well-lit corridor lined with yet more artwork. Shan took off at a run, picking hallways at random and checking every door for sounds within.

  Meeting rooms, offices, meditation nooks. This is where Ashton ran his business, the part of it not meant for the prying eyes of government. She should have asked Buckley where Lydia was. She never thought this place would be so big.

  Shan burst through a door at the end of a short hallway and into a huge spa: high ceilings, a mud pool at the far end, hot tubs, cool dips, a waterfall across one entire wall, and massage tables.

  Shan's breathing jerked to a halt.

  Suspended in front of the waterfall wall was Xia. Chains hanging down from the ceiling and up from the floor ended in thick cuffs around her wrists and ankles. Her head hung, limp. Blood trickled down her naked body in dark rivulets and congealed in a pool below her feet.

  She looked dead. Sweet mother, she was dead.

  Next to Xia, Lydia was strapped face-down and naked to a massage table. One-eye stood behind her and a dragged a thin knife through the flesh of her shoulder. Lydia's muffled screams echoed softly in the cavernous serenity of the room.

  One-eye looked up when Shan entered and smiled.

  "You found my little present," One-eye said in Mandarin. "I'll have two more ready for you in a few minutes. Would you care to wait?"

  But Shan was already moving, already running toward him, already in her zone of readiness. One-eye could drop to his knees and beg for forgiveness, and it wouldn't save his life at this point. Not after what he'd done to Xia. Not after whatever he was currently doing to Lydia.

  For all his condescending banter, One-eye seemed surprised at her speed. Maybe he thought she'd head to Xia first, or try to free Lydia. Instead, she went for his throat.

  One-eye slashed with the knife just as Shan leaped into a flying kick. She cleared the massage table easily, and her right foot smashed into One-eye's chest. She felt One-eye's knife blade slice into her calf. The pain followed in a fiery wake.

  Shan landed, spun, kicked again. One-eye blocked, but barely. She kicked again. Punched his face, solar plexus, and groin. Whipped her body around and lashed out again with her other foot. He stumbled back, struggling to block the onslaught of strikes.

  Right hook. Uppercut. Spinning back kick. He had no time to counterattack. Blood soaked through Shan's pant leg. Jump kick. Spearhand. Thrust punch to the heart, knifehand to the neck.

  One-eye backed into Xia's dangling body and swung it in front of Shan. She stumbled and slipped in the puddle of Xia's blood on the floor. One-eye punched with his knife. Shan back-flipped to get out of range.

  Shan stood and tried to wipe the slick blood from the bottom of her shoes. It just smeared. Instead, she kicked off her shoes and gripped the cool floor with her bare feet.

  "Not much of a talker," One-eye sneered. "Neither was your mother. I got this one to scream, though." He motioned toward Lydia with his knife hand. "I'll get you to scream, too. It's the least I can do to pay back your mother for my eye."

  His words meant nothing. They wafted over her like a foul smell, nothing more.

  She could not be touched by such things now.

  Ian ran his hand over the fish's head, carefully avoiding the stream of water shooting out of its mouth, and looked for the opening mechanism. Buckley leaned against the alcove wall next to him, his breathing heavy.

  "You don't remember anything else?" Ian prodded the wall near the fountain. He lay his cheek against the smooth plaster looked for seams or bumps in the paint.

  Bucks grunted. "Why would they explain how to open it? They both already knew."

  "Still, there's got to be something else you can tell me." Ian ran his hand over the fountain sculpture again an
d tested each one of the fish's rusted bronze scales. "Some archaeologist I turned out to be. I can't even find a hidden passage when I know where to look."

  "You're a damn good archaeologist, Dash," Bucks said with surprising conviction.

  "Where did that come from?"

  Buckley shrugged. "It's been a shitty twenty-four hours, and I've had a lot of time to think."

  Ian found a loose scale near the fish's tail and pressed it. Nothing. Either it was just a loose scale, or there was another trigger to find. "And you've been thinking what?"

  "That you don't deserve all this shit," Buckley said. "And neither do I."

  Ian snorted and looked at Buckley. "And Shan does? Or Lydia?"

  "Shan and Lydia are part of that Jade Circle thing," Bucks said. "They knew what they were signing up for."

  "Bullshit."

  "Not bullshit, Dash." Buckley sighed heavily. "Look, they're part of that ancient women's club. No boys allowed. Yeah, we can peek through the windows, but we'll never be invited to the slumber party." He stared at Ian and said solemnly, "We'll never be truly equal."

  Ian went back to the fountain. He didn't want to keep looking at Buckley, and he sure as hell didn't want to keep listening to him. Especially when he was starting to make a twisted kind of sense.

  But curiosity kills more than just cats. It nabs a fair number of archaeologists, too.

  "All right, Buckley, just what the hell are you getting at?"

  "There's a boat," Bucks said quietly. "A secret boat." His friend's eyes were intense orbs of black. "I know where the boat is, and I think we should get the fuck out of this place."

  A boat, Ian thought. A boat that could get Shan and Lydia off this rock before morning.

  "I have to tell Shan," Ian said. "She needs to know about this option." He ran both hands over the molded bronze waves supporting the fish. Come on, mechanism...

  Buckley shook his head. "It's no good. She'll never leave here without those jade statues, and Ashton'll never let her have them."