by Jim C. Hines
“How long does this take?” Harrison asked. “You, drag Isaac over here. Perhaps when her roots taste his blood, she’ll try to speed things up.”
A wendigo yanked me upright. Cold, foul breath puffed against the back of my head as she hurled me forward. My foot caught in the roots, and I fell hard on my side. Dozens of metal legs pierced my skin, driven deeper by the impact.
I looked like a victim from a bad horror movie. My shirt was red with blood, and my skin was swelling, making my movements stiff. Individually, the stings I had suffered were relatively minor, but there were so many. One bee sting was an annoyance, assuming you weren’t allergic. A thousand could kill a full-grown man.
I had landed less than a foot from Guan Feng. My fingers tightened on the knife beneath my sleeve. I was close enough to stab her before anyone reacted, but what good would it do?
Looking up at her, I wasn’t sure I could have done it. She had released the book, and now twisted her fingers into her shirt. Her lower lip was trembling. She reminded me of a frightened child.
“They’ll be all right.” I placed my hand on the base of the tree. “She knows we’re here.”
The look Guan Feng gave me suggested she would happily take over for Harrison’s insects and finish skinning me herself, but after a moment, she reached out and touched the roots closest to the book.
“We’re waiting,” Harrison said.
“Bèn dàn, indeed,” I muttered.
A flash of emotion—amusement, maybe—passed over Guan Feng’s features. It vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
Lena’s hand pushed out through the bark, knocking chunks of dry, dead wood onto the two of us. Her arm muscles strained as if she were trying to scale a cliff. I reached up to take her hand, but the insects stabbed my wrist and elbow, killing that plan.
Slowly, Lena emerged from the tree. Normally, the bark would have re-formed behind her, but not this time. Branches broke away with every movement, and the entire tree creaked, drawing nervous whispers from around us. Neither Guan Feng nor I budged.
Lena gasped for air and stopped, one leg and arm still trapped within the wood. Her eyes narrowed when she saw me. “Get those damned things off of him.”
My head sagged. “I love you, beautiful.”
“I know.”
“You have Bi Wei?” asked Harrison.
Lena wrenched her other arm free. A slender bronze-skinned hand clasped hers.
Metal wings vibrated against my wounds, and then they were gone, returning to their master.
Lena braced her other hand against the tree and pulled, like she was hauling Bi Wei out of a pit. The woman she dragged forth was naked, roughly Lena’s height, but emaciated. Her skin hugged her ribs and hipbones. Atrophied legs collapsed, and she clung to Lena’s arm to keep from falling.
“ Bi.” Tears spilled down Guan Feng’s cheeks.
Another woman stepped forward holding a heavy robe of deep maroon silk, trimmed in gold. Before she could reach them, Lena’s fingers sank back into the tree and pried loose a two-foot length of pale wood, which shifted into a long, curved dagger. She curled her arm around Bi Wei’s throat, placing the tip of her newly created weapon under her chin.
Guan Feng screamed. “Stop! Wei has done nothing to you!”
Harrison simply smiled. “You have no power here, dryad. My pets will strip the skin from your lover’s body, a millimeter at a time.”
Lena matched his smile. “You think you know me because you read an old book? That’s cute.” She shifted her stance, and a wooden tendril punched out of the dirt and circled his ankle.
He snarled and grabbed the root with his hands, trying to rip it loose. Bad idea. More roots moved like serpents, twining around his wrists. I could see smaller tendrils stabbing into his skin, poetic justice for what he had done to me.
“I’ve read Isaac’s reports,” he snarled. “Bi Wei is an innocent woman. You won’t kill her. But you know I won’t hesitate to end him.”
“You know what Isaac wrote about me. You don’t know me.” Lena’s words grew softer. “Isaac Vainio is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, but he makes mistakes. A surprising number, actually.”
“Thanks a lot.” To Harrison, I said, “What do you think Lena will be doing to you while your bugs kill me? I’ve watched this woman go toe-to-toe with an automaton and win. And believe me, you’ve pissed her off far more than that automaton ever did.”
Behind Harrison, the cat crouched, metal tail lashing through the dirt. I wasn’t the only one to call out a warning. Guan Feng and one of her friends shouted at Harrison to stop, but the cat was too quick. It bounded toward Lena and leaped for her face.
Lena’s toes curled into the roots as her left hand shot out to catch the cat by the throat. Lena grimaced, but kept her knife to Bi Wei’s throat while the cat dug steel claws into her wrist and tried to rake her arm. Lena stepped to the side, dragging her prisoner along with her, then swung the cat in an arc, smashing it against the oak tree like she was beating dirt from a rug.
She tossed the remains of the metal cat at Harrison’s feet. It looked like someone had run over a garbage disposal. Broken legs twitched, and with every movement, small gears and scraps of metal popped free. “Don’t do that again.”
Harrison snarled, and the insects on his body began to buzz. Two wendigos started toward Lena. She spun, keeping Bi Wei between herself and the closer of the wendigos. I lunged forward and stabbed my knife into the other’s thigh. It wouldn’t have worked on a full wendigo, but this one’s armor was weak. The blade slid through the cracks in the ice, into the flesh beneath. It backhanded me to the ground, then howled and clutched its leg, where the knife appeared to have taken root.
A cloud of insects rose from Harrison’s body, but as one, their bodies locked up and they fell into the dirt. The roots twined around Harrison’s limbs stopped moving. Lena’s forehead furrowed, but the roots no longer responded to her will.
Four students of Bi Sheng stood with their books open, whispering to whatever presences lived within those pages. Had I been able to see their magic, I knew I would have seen four ghosts suppressing both Harrison’s magic and Lena’s.
Harrison tore the roots from his limbs and started toward Lena. Bloody welts marked his forearms, and his pants were shredded.
Guan Feng jumped to stand between him and Lena. “Everyone stand back.”
Lena’s knife never wavered. They might be able to stop her from reshaping the wood, but I doubted they could prevent her from stabbing the blade through flesh.
My hands shook as I ripped the lifeless millipede from my throat, prying one segment free at a time. Blood made the metal slippery, and the damn thing had dug in pretty good, but I finally got it free. I flung it onto the ground, and Lena smashed it with her heel.
Lena kept her attention on Harrison. Bi Wei was breathing so fast I thought she might hyperventilate or pass out. She had one hand on Lena’s arm, but lacked the strength to pull the knife away from her neck. Her head moved in frightened twitches, like a rabbit trapped by wolves.
“Do you remember your name?” I asked. She stared blankly. I mentally kicked myself. Torture had apparently messed with my faculties. Of course she wouldn’t recognize twenty-first century English, and my knowledge of Mandarin was limited to a few simple phrases from a trip six years ago. “Ni jao…shen ma ming zao. No, wait. Ming zi?” Dammit, where were my books? I needed a universal translator.
“Isaac Vainio?”
The hairs on my arm stood straight up when she spoke my name. There was no recognition in her eyes, but for an instant, contempt edged her voice. Not only did something within her know me, it hated me. What the hell had Lena brought back? I reached out and touched her arm, and a dozen weapons jerked toward me.
I pulled away. That one touch had confirmed my hunch. The power flowing beneath Bi Wei’s skin was like the pages of a magically active book.
She spoke again, but I understood nothing. Whatever her friends had done,
it had suppressed my ability to understand other tongues. Guan Feng answered in the same language.
If they had blacked out my magic, what had they done to Lena? “Are you all right?”
“It’s not pleasant,” she said tightly, “but I’ll survive.”
“What now, Porter?” asked one of the men in accented English. “Will you kill her and finish what Gutenberg began?”
“No.” Kill her? I wanted to talk to her. Lena had just restored a woman centuries old, one who had vanished into magic and somehow survived. I had a thousand questions. How had she held on to who she was? Had she been aware of the passage of time, able to observe the world? I wanted to ask about her magic, the students of Bi Sheng, her conflict with Gutenberg. I would have been utterly content to spend the next year learning from her.
Lena snorted.
“What?”
In a low voice, she said, “You’ve just been tortured, you’re surrounded by people who wouldn’t hesitate to kill you, and to top it off, you’re standing in front of a naked woman. If I’m not mistaken, all you can think about is the history lessons you could learn.”
I flushed, then gestured to the woman with the robe. She stepped forward, her every movement as slow and careful as a surgeon’s. Lena kept her knife in place while Bi Wei slipped her arms through the sleeves and hugged the robe shut.
“Isaac isn’t the only one who will pay for your choices today.” Harrison had regained some of his composure, but his face and neck were red with barely restrained rage. “Doctor Nidhi Shah lives at 189 Depot Street, yes? Apartment C, according to the Porters’ records.”
Lena went utterly still. “Sooner or later, one of the people you’ve crossed is going to catch up with you. You should pray very hard that it’s not me.”
The woman who had carried Bi Wei’s robe hissed in frustration. “Enough, all of you!”
Harrison whirled. “Have you forgotten what the Porters did to your ancestors, Crystal?”
Crystal stood like a statue. “Never.”
I would have been thrilled to see this kind of split within Harrison’s ranks under other circumstances, pretty much any circumstance that didn’t have Lena and me in the middle of that conflict.
Despite what Lena had said, I doubted she would kill Bi Wei. Lena was exceptionally protective of those she saw as victims, and Bi Wei had nothing to do with our current situation.
“Toss me the keys to the truck,” I said. Every second we stood here was another chance for the situation to explode. “I want my books back, too.”
A man tossed a set of keys on a Rubik’s Cube keychain into the dirt in front of me. “Your belongings are in the back seat.”
“Tell Bi Wei to cooperate, and we’ll let her go,” said Lena.
Guan Feng did so. At least, I assume she did. I hated being unable to understand what people were saying. August Harrison simply stared as if imagining the many inventive ways he could kill me.
Lena moved toward the trail, the knife never wavering. The circle parted to let her pass.
“Wait.” I shoved the keys into my pocket, then dug in the dirt at the base of the tree. The roots were dry and crumbled like cork. Lena had killed this tree in the process of restoring Bi Wei. One strong wind, and it would come toppling down. I just hoped it would wait until Lena and I were out of reach.
I brushed the dirt away from Bi Wei’s book. Roots passed through the cover and pages like giant worms. I grabbed the broken millipede from the ground and used the blade to saw through the roots, trying to cut the book loose without ripping or damaging anything.
“Please don’t,” Guan Feng called. Despite everything, the anguish in her words made me hesitate.
“I’m sorry.” I severed the last of the roots, jammed the millipede into the dirt, and pulled the book free. If she hadn’t hated me before, she certainly did now. But I needed time to study and better understand what we were dealing with.
Bi Wei was remarkably calm as we retreated to the parking lot, especially for someone who had been reborn only minutes before. Though who knew what she and Lena had shared during that process? If it had been anything like Lena’s restoration of me, Bi Wei would have had a nice little mind meld. She would know Lena was unlikely to harm her unless absolutely necessary.
When we reached the lot, I carefully set the book into the back seat of the truck. Harrison and the others stopped at the end of the trail. Pretty much every gun was pointed my way, and I was certain their magic was prepped to take us down if we gave them the slightest opening.
I pointed to an older woman with a black handgun. “Do me a favor and shoot out the tires on the rest of these cars. It’s nothing personal, but I really don’t want you all following us.”
It took a frustratingly long time, and we had to wait for her to reload twice, but eventually she put a bullet through the last tire. I opened the truck’s tailgate and kept an eye Harrison and the rest while Lena and Bi Wei climbed into the back.
“You promised you’d let her go,” Guan Feng said.
“And we will, just as soon as we get a mile down the road. Assuming nobody and nothing tries to follow us.” I climbed into the truck, started the engine, and opened the window to the back. “Ready?”
“Don’t drive too fast,” Lena said. “Potholes and knives don’t mix.”
I toyed with the idea of trying to take Bi Wei with us. It wouldn’t be the most honorable move, but she was dangerous. She might have the shape of a woman who disappeared five hundred years ago, but she carried something else inside. She had become the embodiment of everything I had learned to fear these past months. Of everything Gutenberg had feared since the founding of the Porters.
But she was also a refugee from a magical war that had been erased from our history. She hadn’t asked for any of this. She hadn’t known what she would bring back. More practically, I didn’t have a clue how we’d be able to hold her. Lena couldn’t keep a knife to her throat forever, and Bi Wei’s magic could flatten any spell of mine.
We pulled away at a leisurely pace. I split my attention between the road and the mirrors, watching for any of Harrison’s metal pets.
After five minutes, I stopped long enough for Lena and Bi Wei to get out. Lena walked Bi Wei to a birch tree at the side of the road. She twined the branches and roots around Bi Wei’s wrists and feet, and molded a wooden blindfold as well. Another branch held the knife to Bi Wei’s throat.
I slammed the gas pedal to the floor the instant Lena was inside. The rear tires spun out, raising a cloud of dirt as we tore down the road. I didn’t know what Bi Wei could do, but I didn’t expect Lena’s precautions to hold her for long.
I watched the rearview mirror, but nobody appeared to be following us. Not yet. But they would. And next time, they would have all of Bi Wei’s power to back them up.
13
I pushed open the door of the Dearborn Martial Arts Academy. A bell jingled overhead, the sound a gentle contrast to the sharp yells of the people within.
The floor was pale, waxed wood. Strips of cypress segmented the white walls. Black-and-white photos of Japanese men with swords hung by the front window. Red-and-gold banners decorated the far wall, along with the flags of Japan and the United States.
The students were moving back and forth in pairs, swinging bamboo swords at one another. They wore metal masks and heavy padding to protect their necks, shoulders, and chests.
A man in a loose black uniform stepped away from the two women he had been helping and approached me, his smile warm and welcoming. “Can I help you?”
I dug a crumpled coupon from my pocket and showed it to him like it was a permission slip. “I’d like to learn to fight. Your advertisement said I could get a free lesson.”
He barely glanced at the coupon. “Why?”
A thousand answers danced through my thoughts. Because it would make me more attractive to Nidhi. Because according to Nymphs of Neptune, fighting was part of who I was. Because physical exertion made me
feel good, whether it was working in the garden or making love to my partner. Because I could, and because there were so many people who couldn’t. My forehead wrinkled as I sorted my reactions, searching for the words.
“There’s no wrong answer,” he said. “But if you or someone else is in trouble, we should talk about that right now.”
“Someone’s always in trouble,” I said without thinking.
He studied me, then chuckled. “That’s true enough. Were you hoping to study kendo?” He gestured behind him. “We also offer classes in aikido and women’s self-defense.”
I nodded eagerly. “Yes, please. All of them. I have money.”
I cringed inside. It was money Nidhi had given me. I didn’t want to keep taking money from her. Not for this. I would have to look into finding work.
He continued to frown, and I braced myself for rejection. Instead, he took the coupon and said, “Remove your shoes and socks, and place them beneath one of the chairs by the wall.”
While I hurried to obey, he turned and barked, “Ryan!”
A lanky boy with blond hair backed away from his partner, bowed, and ran toward us. He bowed again. “Yes, sensei.”
“Take our new student…” He paused.
“Lena.”
“Please take Lena through the basics of etiquette and stance.”
“Stance?” I asked.
“Everything begins with stance. Power, balance, movement. All the strength in the world is little use without stance. Once you learn to take root, you’ll be able to apply your full power to every strike.”
I curled my toes, feeling the dry strength of the wooden floor, and smiled. “I can do that.”
IT TOOK ME TEN minutes to make my way from the back roads to Highway 28. I called Nicola Pallas the moment I figured out exactly where we were. I gave her a mostly complete account of what we had learned, including the location of Harrison’s camp. “I don’t know how much magical whoopass you have on call, but I recommend sending all of it.”
I was unsurprised when Pallas called back a short time later to tell me the camp was abandoned. Harrison and his followers had known their cover was blown the second I escaped. They hadn’t been able to take their vehicles, and they had left the majority of their supplies in their cabins, which I took as a consolation prize. The inconvenience didn’t make up for what they had done to Lena and me, but it was a start.