“Over here!” Yi screamed even though there was no chance of the woman hearing her.
“What are we going to do?” the nurse asked, her voice shaking. She stood on tiptoe at the door of Danyael’s room, her attention fixed on the door that kept the jiangshi out of the secured wing. “They’re coming through—aahhh!” She stumbled back.
“Help me.” Yi dragged the couch across the door as the pounding began on the door of Danyael’s room. Anything moveable was layered in front of the door.
The pounding doubled as more jiangshi had joined in. The two women exchanged stricken glances and backed away from the door, which vibrated from the impact.
Danyael gasped.
Yi spun around to see him convulse, struggling against the cuffs that kept him restrained. His dark eyes flashed open—dilated and unfocused—as he screamed.
There was nothing human about that sound.
Oh, God, they were losing Danyael too.
He was losing.
Yi leaned over him as the machines monitoring his heart rate and brain activity recorded the spasmodic surges. “Please, Danyael,” she pleaded. “You can’t give up. You have to keep going. You have to get through this.”
Glass shattered, and the nurse shrieked. The woman stumbled backward as the furniture blockade gave way to the unstoppable tide of jiangshi.
Yi straightened as twelve jiangshi fanned into the room. They moved deliberately as if they somehow knew they were in the presence of someone different.
Danyael, perhaps—an alpha empath.
Or she—their unwitting creator.
They spread out, closing in upon the two women and the bed on which Danyael struggled against the throes of madness. The blankness on their faces should have been a welcomed change from the apparent insanity that had driven them into attacking the laboratory, but it was not.
No cruel malice. No evil intent.
Just people stripped of the thin veil that made them human.
And Danyael was transforming, becoming one of them.
Gunfire rattled down the corridor. The sound was the most welcoming Yi had heard in her life. “Here!” she screamed.
The jiangshi jolted, as if shocked by the sound of her voice, and lurched toward Yi.
The woman Yi had seen through the security cameras stepped through the doorway, a machine gun braced against her shoulder. Her expressionless face was more shocking, more jarring than the jiangshi because of the cool intent in her violet eyes.
Death—neither random nor unthinking—had entered the room.
The lights blinked out.
Rapid gunfire tore through the darkness. Yi shrieked and ducked down beside the bed. Her mind registered and counted each burst of sound.
Three seconds later, the lights flared on and the gun fell silent.
She rose to her feet, her gaze swiveling around the bloodied room. The twelve jiangshi lay dead, their chests—their hearts—punctured with bullets. She and the trembling nurse were untouched.
“Zara…” Danyael’s whisper was scarcely audible. His next scream tore further away from the precarious edge of sanity. His exquisitely cultivated psychic shields cracked. Panic and terror skittered into the room, so tangible as to be almost physical.
The woman who had entered the room swung the rifle up and ran to the bed. She flung herself over Danyael. “Shhh,” she breathed against his cheek. “I’m here.”
He stiffened as if electrified by the contact.
The panic swamping the room peeled back, like mists dissipating in sunlight. Danyael relaxed against the mattress. His eyes still unseeing, he turned his face toward her, seeking closeness, craving her presence. “Zara…”
“You need to get through this so that I can kill you later.” Zara’s voice cracked on a broken laugh. Their fingers entwined as she shifted to spoon against him.
The corners of Danyael’s mouth tugged into a ghost of a smile as his eyelids fluttered close. His shallow breaths evened, and slowly deepened as he slipped into a near coma.
“Is he…?” Yi inched closer to be bed. “Is he alive?”
“Yes,” Zara said. She pulled a smartphone from her utility belt. “Xin, where are you? To hell with the explanations; I’m going to kill you.”
“Danyael volunteered. In fact, it was his plan.”
Zara scowled at Xin, but did not move from Danyael’s bedside. “And you listened to him? He makes terrible plans.”
Xin shrugged. With the premier safe, she could take a moment to rest—although there was nothing restful about being around a master assassin primed to defend her husband, even if it meant killing everyone in the process. Calming Zara down was as important as taking the city back from the jiangshi; with Danyael out for the count, Xin was the only one who had a passing shot at it.
The helicopter had dropped her off at Excelsior Labs where she found lab technicians and the military engaged in a massive cleanup exercise. It appeared that the chaos Zara single-handedly wreaked had exceeded the damage unleashed by several dozen jiangshi.
She looked up and met Zara’s gaze. “On the contrary, Danyael comes up with amazing plans, if only because he’ll do the things that no one else is brave enough or crazy enough—”
“Or stupid enough to do,” Zara finished scathingly. “At least it’s over.”
Not quite. Zara notwithstanding, the situation still simmered like a cauldron on the verge of boiling over. The premier and other key officials were under Yu Long’s team’s protection at the mayor’s mansion. The jiangshi were contained in buildings, all entrances sealed, all lights and other possible sources of physical stimulation extinguished. Soldiers and policemen patrolled the perimeter with orders to shoot anything that tried to escape from containment, but so far the situation had been quiet.
Not for long. Not if Danyael can’t develop the antibodies…
It would be all for nothing.
Xin drew a deep breath. It shuddered through her chest. “How is he doing?”
Zara’s jaw tightened. “Not great, until I arrived.”
Xin nodded. It matched Dr. Shen’s reports. Danyael had teetered close to the edge of madness—the outcome uncertain—and then Zara had shown up.
“He needed to know it was safe to physically let go—that I would catch him when he fell. Now he can fight the battle where he can win it—in his mind.”
“He’s drawing strength from you? But you’re not psychic.”
Zara’s voice transformed into a silky purr, a warning that she was losing her patience, typically a prelude to someone losing his or her life. “Love isn’t a psychic power.”
No, it was not, and it was far more powerful than any psychic power. Xin allowed herself to relax into a smile. If anyone could pull Danyael through the hell he had put himself through, it would be Zara.
She glanced around the bedroom. The twelve jiangshi bodies had been removed, the spilt blood hastily mopped up. The smell of disinfectant and alcohol, however, scarcely covered the metallic stench of blood. “I think you shocked Dr. Shen.”
Zara arched an eyebrow.
“Twenty-four perfectly placed shots in three seconds. In pitch darkness. She’s wondering if you’re even mortal.”
“I had a moment to see where everyone was before the lights went out.”
“A fraction of a second.”
Zara looked puzzled. “How much time does anyone need?”
Xin chuckled. “If they’re you, not much.” She reached over her shoulder to massage the tight muscles in her shoulder. “I’m going to sit with my mother.”
Zara’s tone gentled. “How is she?”
“Not herself.” Xin tried for a chuckle, but the sound was weak.
“I’m sorry.”
“She bought me the time I needed. She saved me.”
“You didn’t expect it.”
“No. All these years, I thought her indifferent. I was wrong.” Xin shook her head. “She was distant, not indifferent. I’d wish I’d known.”
“Did you hate her?”
“No, I didn’t, but I didn’t realize I loved her either.”
Zara shrugged; she said nothing, but the look in her violet eyes was cool and assessing.
“I didn’t feel anything,” Xin said. “I made the mistake many people do—associating love with warm, fuzzy feelings.”
Zara laughed. “I don’t know who you’ve been talking to. There is nothing warm and fuzzy about love. As far as I’m concerned, love is the overwhelming desire to shoot anyone who so much as squints at Danyael or Laura.”
“It’s not safe to be loved by you.”
“Oh, it’s perfectly safe to be loved by me. It’s just not safe for the people around the ones I love.”
Xin chuckled. “And it’s not about the words, either. My mother was never good with words, and neither was I.”
“Do you know how many times Danyael has told me that he loves me?”
“Every day? Several times a day?”
“Once, and it was under duress. He’s endured so many broken promises; the words mean little to him. He won’t say them, but I don’t need him to. Every time he looks at me, I can almost hear him whisper it. Every time he touches me, he’s screaming it. When he falls asleep, his head on my shoulder, it rises like a prayer.”
Xin’s throat clogged. “It’s…beautiful.”
“It’s simple. People speak from their heart in many different ways. We just have to learn how to listen.”
20
The night passed into dawn with regular reports from Yu Long, General Wang, and Police Chief Chen. Several jiangshi had broken out of the buildings, but the military had driven them back with spotlights and foghorns, without additional casualties. Dawn brightened to the light of full day, but people huddled in their homes, waiting word that they were free to resume their daily activities, that everything had returned to normal. The city shrouded in unnatural quiet, as if it held its breath.
Waiting.
Finally, the one report Xin had been awaiting arrived: Danyael had regained consciousness twelve hours after being injected with shuang kuangxi. She rapped on the door and was gratified to hear Danyael’s voice call out softly, “Come in.”
She pushed the door open and walked into the room. Danyael’s shoulders slumped with exhaustion but he sat upright in the bed. Zara stood next to the bed, her arms folded across her chest and her eyes narrowed into slits. Her stance was, no doubt, the reason the young nurse fumbled repeatedly in her attempt to draw several vials of Danyael’s blood.
Xin smiled. “How are you doing?”
“Grateful to be alive,” Danyael said.
“After the dumbass stunt he pulled,” Zara added.
“He was the only one who could do it,” Xin said.
“You mean he was the only one who would do it,” Zara said.
And of course, she was right, too, Xin reflected.
Zara scowled at the nurse. “How much more are you going to take?”
The nurse turned bright red and dropped the empty test-tube she held.
Danyael shook his head. “Zara, leave her alone. You’re angry with me. Focus on me.”
“Damn right I’m angry with you. I’m furious! What gives you the goddamned right to risk your life—?”
“You’re an assassin. You go to work with a sniper rifle, two handguns, three daggers—”
“Four.”
“—and you’re asking me that?”
“The big difference—” Zara purred. “—is that I go to work fully expecting to come back alive. You do stupid shit where the odds of dying are a ninety-nine to one, and then hope—on a wish and a prayer—to nail that one percent.” Her voice snapped back into pure rage. “Damn it! I can’t leave you, can I? The moment my back is turned, you rush out to save the world. And you don’t even speak their goddamned language.”
“It was my blood, which made it my problem.”
“Your blood was stolen from you. It wasn’t your fault.”
Danyael shook his head. “This isn’t about laying blame. It’s about fixing the problem.”
Zara spun on Xin. “You put him up to this.”
Xin shrugged. “He asked me to trust him. I did.”
“Well, that explains it.” The anger melted out of Zara with a sigh. “I can’t keep watching you almost die. It’s getting old. You keep this shit up, and you’re not going to get old.”
Danyael chuckled.
Zara scowled. “Getting a lecture from an assassin on increasing your life expectancy is not funny.”
“It is a little funny.” He extended his hand to her.
Still wearing a scowl, she stepped without hesitation into his embrace and buried her face against his shoulder. “It’s not fair how you can stop all the arguments with your empathic powers.”
“I’m not.” He stroked Zara’s hair, his eyes closing as he relaxed in her arms.
The contentment and tenderness on Danyael’s face made Xin’s throat clog with tears. Who ever imagined that the assassin and healer would find such fulfillment together?
The nurse gathered the vials of Danyael’s blood and slipped out of the room. Xin followed her to the laboratory where Dr. Shen and her research technicians gathered. The research assistants began work immediately, extracting the antibodies from Danyael’s blood and preparing it for analysis, prior to mass production.
Another two hours passed before Dr. Shen held up a small vial of translucent liquid—the precious antibodies from Danyael’s blood. She looked up at Xin. “We will need to test it, make sure it works, before sending it into production.”
“My mother is ready, whenever you are.”
They walked out of the room together, their shoes tapping on the white tiles. Xin broke the silence first. “Why did you extract the tracking chip?”
Dr. Shen stiffened.
“Twenty-eight years ago, you surgically removed the tracking chip that had been implanted in me at birth. Prior to that, I suspect you removed it from Ching Shih, too. You gave us a chance to escape. Why?”
She looked stricken. “Does she know?”
“No. She thought you were hurting me.”
“And she was right about that.”
“And wrong about other things. She was wrong about you.”
Dr. Shen’s faint smile transformed her face. Xin’s breath caught; she had seen that kind of smile on Ching Shih’s face—the wistful pride of a parent in a child’s accomplishments. “I watched her over the years, her potential untapped.”
“She didn’t know who she was.”
Dr. Shen waved the protest away. “Most people don’t have the luxury of knowing what they accomplished in a previous life, but it doesn’t stop them from pursuing their potential. No, Ching Shih just never cared to do anything with her life, but then you were born.”
Xin’s eyes narrowed.
“Your arrival changed her. Ai Li carried you for nine months, and nurtured you for two years after that, but Ching Shih claimed you—the way a first wife might claim the child of a lesser wife as her own.”
“Why would she do that?”
“At first, it may simply have been to have the one thing no one else had. Ching Shih was the dominant personality in the household; everyone—even her tutors—gave way to her. I thought she would eventually tire of an infant, but she did not. Her attachment to you grew until it became real, and with it, her discontent, as if she knew that life in the compound would never be good enough for you. She wanted more, for you, if not for her. For months, she wavered—torn between a desire to give you something better, something more, and fear of leaving everything she knew. I realized it was merely a matter of time before her love for you exceeded her fear of the unknown, so I removed the tracking chip from you the way I removed it from her many years earlier.”
Xin heard the soft tones of something familiar in Dr. Shen’s voice. She had heard the same in her mother’s. “You loved her like a daughter.”
“My work
left time for nothing else. She started out as ‘work,’ but in the end, she became all I had.”
“And you let her go.”
Dr. Shen’s smile was touched with sadness. “In the end, you always let the ones you love go.” She pushed open the door to Ching Shih’s room.
Ching Shih had probably been asleep, but her eyes flashed open the moment Xin and Dr. Shen entered the room. The madness glittering in her eyes did not manifest in physical frenzy, but as the unrelenting focus of a predator preparing to pounce. She struggled against her restraints when Dr. Shen injected the antibody-infused blood serum into her veins, and then slumped back against the pillows.
“How long do you think it’s going to take?” Xin asked quietly.
“Not long. Danyael was exposed to an unbelievable amount of shuang kuangxi, and his blood is potent. As soon as we know it works, we can have it in production within an hour.”
“Bypassing months of randomized controlled trials and peer reviews.”
Dr. Shen shrugged. “Real life doesn’t work that way. You make the best decision you can and live with the consequences.”
Xin relaxed into smile. “I thought you were little more than an obedient flunky. I’m glad to see I was wrong about you.”
“Not far wrong. I went along with research I knew to be ethically questionable, not because I was afraid to speak up, but because I, too, wanted to know if I could undo the damage of aging and extend lives indefinitely. It’s the next barrier…the last barrier.”
Xin shook her head. “There will never be a last barrier. Humans aren’t built to be content.” She folded her arms across her chest. “What will happen to that research?”
“It’s not going to stop, if that is what you’re asking. We’re not conducting live blood transfusions—”
“A technicality, nothing more. You’re still defying the intent of the law.”
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