by Marjorie Liu
The receptionist led Soria to a room near the top of the stairs. It was plain inside, with a neatly made bed, a window, and a small bathroom that smelled like a mix of perfume and old urine. Soria dragged money from her pocket, and pushed it into the other woman’s hand.
“For you,” she said, and then gave her another, smaller, bill. “And for him, when he asks.”
The woman narrowed her eyes but said nothing. She merely hitched up her skirt, revealing pale skin and bruises. She stuffed most of the cash into her underwear. The rest, she placed inside her bra. Soria watched in silence, and then held out her hand for the cell phone.
The receptionist hesitated. “Businessmen sometimes lose their money here, or passports. He gives them this phone when they are desperate to make a call home to families. But it does not work. Just makes them owe more money.”
“Ah,” Soria said, not entirely surprised. “My options?”
The woman reached inside her suit for a small pink phone covered in glittering trinkets. “This works.”
“He will know.”
She shrugged. “Give me a little more money.”
Soria smiled. Maybe this was part of the scam, too. But she would rather be scammed like this than by the greased-up man downstairs. “I want to test the phone and see if the call goes through.”
The woman gave the cell to her, and Soria—awkwardly, one-handed—began to dial home and then stopped, realizing that it might not be safe. Someone could be tracing calls to her home. She cleared the screen, and then punched in the number of a local pizza delivery place in Stillwater that she knew by heart. She had been living off ham-and-pineapple specials for a year now. Easier than leaving the house.
Soria started breathing again only when their voice mail came on. It sounded remarkably mundane. Homesickness razored through her heart.
“Do not take long,” said the receptionist, pocketing more cash. Her gaze drifted over Soria’s empty sleeve. “This is not a good place.”
She left. Clutching the cell phone in her sweaty palm, Soria closed the door with her shoulder. No locks. She leaned against the battered wood and slid to the floor. Took a deep breath, finally allowing her tight control to slip. Shudders wracked her. She had spent the past year as a recluse. Being thrown so hard back into the game, without support, was not how she had imagined returning to Dirk & Steele.
Scratch that. She had not intended on returning at all.
Her hand trembled so badly she almost dropped the phone. Ghost fingers wanted to reach up and dial. She could feel them, straining at the end of an arm that had been cremated, and shut her eyes, banging her head gently against the door.
It will pass, in time, she heard Karr rumble. Other people had said the same thing to her, but none with that same sincerity and calm, as though they truly believed it.
Soria gritted her teeth, and used her thumb to carefully, awkwardly, dial the number to Roland’s private line. He would have to change it after this was all finished—not soon, but eventually. No way he would want a place like this having his digits. His fault, though, for not providing a three-band phone before she left San Francisco. He had promised that one would be waiting for her in Beijing, but that hadn’t happened, and Soria had never gotten around to asking Serena.
The phone rang twice before it was answered, but the breathless, slightly frantic voice on the other end did not belong to Roland.
“Eddie,” Soria said. “It’s me.”
He exhaled, sharply. “Are you all right?”
“No. Is Roland there?”
“Hold on.” Eddie began shouting, his voice and footsteps fading. Moments later, she heard another click.
“I’m here,” Roland growled. “What the fuck happened?”
“You tell me,” she snapped, wishing she still had her other hand so that she could give him the finger. “There was an attack on the facility. I had to free the shape-shifter they’d locked up, and run.”
“You freed him?” Roland dragged in his breath. “Goddamn it, Soria. Where are you now? All I can see is the ass end of some hotel room.”
Mind reader, remote viewer. Roland was capable of seeing the surroundings of anyone he had a connection with—and a telephone conversation was good enough for a complex viewing. All he needed was something to focus on.
“Erenhot.” She heard sharp laughter in the hall, and her heart lurched. “Border city between Mongolia and China. I’m borrowing a phone to call you.”
“Serena’s not there?”
Soria wanted to strangle him. “Do you have any idea what you sent me into?”
“A controlled situation,” he replied tightly. “That’s what I was promised.”
“Bullshit.” She dug her heels into the floor, pushing back harder against the door, suddenly afraid someone would try and open it. “If you had thought it was so controlled, you wouldn’t have paid someone outside the agency to watch my back. Why did you do that, Roland? What were you so afraid of the others finding out, that you couldn’t send them with me?”
Silence fell, and very softly, Eddie said, “Roland.”
Soria had not known he was still on the line. Roland whispered, “Eddie. Hang up. Now.”
“No,” replied the young man. “First Long Nu, then this—”
Soria heard a loud click. Moments later, more shouting. Eddie was still holding his receiver because his voice was loud and clear when he suddenly said, “How could you expect me not to notice? You should have seen the look on your face after she—”
His voice broke off, followed by a faint grunt and a scuffling sound. The next time Eddie spoke he sounded very far away and muffled. Angry, too, which took Soria by surprise. Eddie rarely lost his temper.
Roland breathed like he had been running a marathon. “You still there?”
“I’m sitting in a Mongolian whorehouse because I have nowhere else to go,” Soria snapped. “And what does Long Nu have to do with anything?”
Long Nu. An enigmatic old woman, a shape-shifter, described by the others of her kind in terms usually reserved for royalty, sex addicts, and the villain of every bad Hong Kong movie ever made. Soria had never met her, but she’d heard plenty. The old shape-shifter had made it her mission to preserve her kind from extinction, and had allied herself with Dirk & Steele’s elderly founders in order to do just that. It was hardly coincidence that she was sniffing around Roland, especially now.
A bad feeling trickled into Soria’s gut. Shape-shifter reaction to Karr, if Serena was any kind of example, was radically unpleasant. And vice versa. Whatever the history, it went deep—but the hate seemed irrational, based more on a network of stereotypes that any attempt for real truth. You know they’re all like this was not a good foundation.
Roland sighed. “She’s a troublemaker, that’s all. Worry more about that man you freed. You called him a shape-shifter?”
Again, anger stirred. “You should know.”
“No,” he said coldly. “I do not.”
Soria was not entirely certain she believed him. “His name is Karr, and he can definitely change his shape. He doesn’t consider himself to be a shape-shifter, though—not like Serena. Who, by the way, wants him dead.”
“That, I did know,” he muttered. “Is he a threat?”
“Why don’t you come here and find out?” Soria replied harshly. “Oh, but no. I forgot. You’re too scared to leave the house.”
Roland made a hissing sound. “You know if I could change things—”
“You wouldn’t,” she interrupted coldly. “If there was ever a chance and opportunity to actually … be there when I needed you, when it wasn’t on your terms, you had it. You had it for a month while I was in that hospital. And you never—”
She stopped, swallowing hard. “We need help, Roland. Now. I don’t know who broke into the facility, but they meant business. They wanted him—and me—alive.”
He was silent a moment. “Robert?”
“Gone now. Certainly not here.”
Soria heard more drunken laughter in the hall. Roland muttered, “Can you get to Beijing?”
“That’s the best you’re offering?”
“Can you do it?”
“By train, maybe.” She hesitated. “You’re hiding things from me.”
Roland made a small, frustrated sound. “Where’s the shifter now?”
Soria closed her eyes, utterly weary and just a little heartbroken. “Go to hell, Roland. And thanks for nothing. I’ll contact you when I reach Beijing.”
She ended the call, and clutched the cell phone to her chest.
Son of a bitch.
Roland Dirk had thrown her to the wolves.
Chapter Seven
Karr did not move for a long time after the woman left him. He tried, but the vastness of the sky suddenly seemed less like freedom and closer to a cage, and the lights of the city, as if they were the stars themselves, acted as an anchor, a chain. He stared at the spot where the woman had finally, distantly disappeared, and could not shake himself loose, no matter how much he wished.
Thousands of years. Thousands.
The woman had said the words to him, and he had not believed her—and even arriving here, seeing this city glowing in the night, had not immediately proven anything. Karr had ventured into cities during the war: human settlements carved with beauty and violence from river valleys and mountainsides, the world re-created in fire and stone. Humans could do such things, and he had lost himself in those places; but never for long. His size and golden eyes had always made him a target—of those who thought him gods-sent or, more often, a monster. Either way, he’d always ended up feared and alone.
But not alone like this. If the woman’s words were true, if such a vastness of time had passed, then there was nothing left of the world Karr knew. Nothing of the people he had left behind. Not Tau and Althea, or all the others he had seen just before being buried in the tomb. Losing Tau hurt the worst, though. His brother—not in blood—but in friendship. A friendship that Karr had betrayed.
You had them kill you. You gave up. You left them behind. And now you grieve?
Yes, he grieved. It was a fool’s grief; he knew that. He grieved because he was still alive, and no matter how compelling his reasons for taking his own life the first time, it seemed like a coward’s choice now. He could have chosen exile. He could have walked into the wilderness and never returned to his people. But he had asked for death. And now he was the one who had been left behind.
There are ways to know for certain, whispered an insidious voice. Ways you can search beyond yourself to see if any of your kind exist.
So tempting. All it would require was meditation, a trance. Blood magic. Small words for a dangerous act. But even now, desperate, he was not ready to take the risk of losing his mind. He was so close to losing it already.
Karr knelt in the grass, his fists pushing against his chest, rocking forward until his brow touched the ground. He stayed like that, struggling to breathe as if the night and the stars and the entire world were sagging, collapsing, falling inward to crush his heart. He had seen ruins during the war, lumps and fragments of civilizations living only in legend. He had walked upon the bones of temples, had killed in those places and bled. But now … You are the fragment. You are the relic.
Perhaps. But he had a choice now. A similar choice to the one he had been given before: die or live.
Death is not an option, whispered a voice inside his heart. Get up. Get up and do something. Find your people, if they still exist. Learn what you must. Learn why you are still alive. If it is a gift, then do not let it go to waste. Follow the woman.
Karr lifted his head, staring at the city. Soria’s scent burned through him. She was everywhere: on his skin, in the grass, carried by the wind. He could taste her on his tongue.
Follow the woman, though she might be your enemy. She can harm you no worse than you have already harmed yourself. Learn what you can from her. Even if there are others of your kind still alive, you cannot find them without knowledge of this world. You must know how things stand.
As always, information was vital to survival. Karr staggered to his feet—and winced as the scar in his side throbbed, sharply. It happened again, the pain more powerfully centered in his gut, and it was so like being stabbed that Karr bent over, clutching at his side, half expecting to feel a blade embedded there. But, nothing. Just air.
He closed his eyes, lost in memories that pressed tight and cold: his friends—Tau, especially—tight-lipped and shaking.
Do it, Karr mouthed, feeling the words move through him again. Before I hurt anyone else. Kill me, as I killed your wife. He remembered baring his throat to Tau, expecting claws, teeth, a ravaging. But a sword had slipped quietly into his stomach and that was enough. He had let himself be thrown into the tomb, locked inside the coffin. Bleeding out, alone in darkness. Drifting into nightmare.
The pain eased. Karr kept his eyes closed, becoming aware again of Soria’s scent. A good distraction. He pictured her in his mind, heard again her voice. His name, on her tongue. He had not yet tried to say her name. It felt too personal to do so, though she was free enough with his. Hearing her speak his name was what had stopped Karr from entering the city with her.
Again, he was a fool. For one brief moment, hearing Soria call out to him had filled Karr with an unexpected sense of belonging, as if it was natural to travel with her, to be in the here and now with her. Never mind the rest. He had forgotten all of it, lost in the simple fleeting pleasure of being himself … with Soria.
The connection he felt to her frightened him, and he had given in to that fear. He had battled and overcome so many weaknesses—only to be unnerved now, by a human woman?
You cannot trust her, he told himself. No matter how much you want to.
But he needed her. Either way, he was damned.
Clutching his side, Karr followed her trail into the city.
He kept to the shadows as much as he could. He wore his father’s skin, the skin of a lion, though his tail was long and serpentine, edged in a razor spine of golden scales. No wings. He did not need them, and for once his body had obeyed.
Scents crowded his nose, bitter and strange: human, but mixed with something else that scalded the roof of his mouth, especially when those odd enclosed wagons of varying shapes and colors roared past the shadows where he hid. He watched them all, unable to determine what propelled their wheels. Perhaps the wind set them in motion, or mere thought. He took nothing for granted—especially not when he saw men and women perched atop impossibly delicate rods made of iron and air, with two slim wheels spinning underneath. And there were similar, bulkier transports that also traveled on two wheels only much faster, releasing the same acrid scent as the wagon. He saw horses once: at the side of the road, hauling carts. They seemed out of place, as much relics as himself. He did not linger. The horses started screaming when they smelled him, trying to bolt.
The wagons—all those humans on wheels—sped down streets made of smooth, flawless stone, bordered by monoliths that blocked the sky—so many, of such height and size that Karr could not imagine the lives surely lost to build them. Lights burned everywhere. Cold light, shimmering bursts of silver shining from tall posts that bordered the road. Some were filled with color, glowing and twinkling with a brilliance he had never witnessed beyond jewels, or the petals of flowers.
Lightning, Soria had said. Harnessed and controlled.
There are places of light and thunder, Karr recalled his father saying. Above the clouds where your mother soars. You will see them one day. You will steal fire from the sun.
Or fire from another world, he thought, struggling to follow Soria’s scent.
He lost the trail on the outskirts of the city, and found in its place the acrid bitterness of a wagon’s exhaust. He considered this, briefly, imagining that she must have entered one to ride, as he had seen other humans do. It was a problem. All the wagons smelled the same to him, with only minor
differences, and tasting those incremental distinctions required time. It was difficult to linger over the scent when there was so much activity along the road. He was not small, not in any form, and it was hard enough hiding with so many lights. Holding very still behind bushes and in the nooks between buildings was tiresome. And ineffective. Karr suspected he had already been seen.
Be wise, go back. If she returns and finds you gone, she will think you have left for good.
But he dismissed the idea. He could not quell the urgency growing stronger within him, perhaps nothing more than his grief becoming desperation. Or something more. He had suffered similar instincts during the war, and Soria had been attacked this night as well. He could picture every detail, every grimace and fall of light on her sweat-soaked brow. He could recall with perfect clarity the scent of her fear.
We share a common enemy. An enemy that might be here, searching for them both. He could not take the risk. She was his only connection to this world, for good or ill.
Giving up on subtlety, he crouched in the open with his nose pressed to stone. He chose a rare moment when the road was nearly empty of wagons—twin lights shining at him from a distance—but there were still humans out, perched on their strange wheel-machines, and they stopped, staring at him in horror and shock. None were armed. Karr closed his eyes, inhaling deeply.
At the side of the road, at the exact spot where Soria’s scent disappeared, he detected a trace of burned metal, like the inside of a blacksmith’s stall. It was a corrosive smell, and beneath, in the stone, was something earthier: the manure of a pack animal, horse or donkey. The wheels had rolled through shit. He could taste it.