by Alyc Helms
The office building lobby was equally cold and self-important, dominated by a twisted glass chandelier that resembled some sort of strange, tropical sea life. The wall of windows let in fog-grey light from outside, two glass doors opening onto a half-circle parkway curving around a plaza with a dry fountain surrounding a metallic blob of public art. Fog ghosted through the plaza, heading towards the piers and the bay just on the other side of the street. It reminded me of the shadows the night before. I shivered and pulled on my trench coat.
My motorcycle waited in the turnabout. So much for keeping it out of Argent’s hands. “You never answered my other question,” I murmured to Sadakat.
“What question was that, Mr Masters?”
“What was their purpose?”
She gave a little head bobble and a sad, close-lipped smile. “Who can say what is the purpose of such acts? To sow chaos, confusion, fear? Last night’s attack was an act of hate against all the good Argent does in the world. But we mustn’t let their hate stop us. We must stand united to show we are unbroken.”
I didn’t believe her for a moment, but she spoke the words so smoothly that for a moment I almost believed she believed them, save for the twist at the corner of her mouth. “But we both know it’s never as simple as the rhetoric would like us to believe, is it Ms Sadakat?”
She tilted her head. One brow lifted, and she nodded. “No, Mr Masters. We both know it rarely is.”
* * *
I ditched my trench coat with a confused-if-grateful homeless kid at Fort Mason Park and headed for my lawyer’s place in North Beach. Jack would have a better idea how to safely rid myself of the motorcycle and the phone. Perhaps I’d seen a few too many spy movies, but I didn’t feel comfortable keeping anything that had been in the hands of Argent’s techs for any length of time. Jack would also have a better idea of what the hell sort of trouble I’d gotten myself into now.
Jack – or Jonathan Q. Wentworth, III, Esq., but seriously? – had an office in the Financial District that I’d visited all of twice. Once as Missy when Jack first found me after years of searching for Mitchell Masters’s heir, and once as Mitchell when one of the senior partners questioned Mr Mystic’s return. I preferred dealing with Jack in his cozy North Beach townhouse. Half the time I could horn in on whatever cooking-show quality dish he was making when I arrived. Even if I missed out, there were always baked goods left over from the day before.
Sadly, there were only leftover baked goods to greet me today. I took the basket of cheesy muffins down to his office, waiting until the door was locked and the blinds drawn before ditching Mr Mystic.
“You didn’t wait long to stir things up, did you? I thought the plan was to lay low until the New Wall stuff blew over?” Jack set the electric kettle on and puttered with tea things, keeping his back to me while I changed into a loaner t-shirt covered in sparkly Disney princesses and plaid pajama pants in Giants colors. My scalp itched from being crammed under a cap and wig all night. I loosened the braids and massaged blood into my scalp, not caring that it turned my hair into a frizzed-out red fright wig.
“What can I say? I’m a sucker for a dame in a pith helmet.” I took my tea and curled up in one of the leather wingbacks, breathing deeply the steam and woodsmoke in my mug. Lapsang Souchong. Jack had upped his tea game in the past few years. Probably got tired of me bitching about being served Constant Comment.
“Shady dame if she turns on you like that.” Jack sat behind his desk and flipped open his laptop.
“I know. I’m such a cliché.”
“You sure you don’t want me to pursue any sort of unlawful detainment charges?”
“Against Argent?” I shook my head. “I’m feeling pretty grateful they let me go. Don’t want to push my luck.”
“But you still want me to get rid of your bike.”
“And phone.” I’d already handed it over to him. Mystic’s phone was a burner. I don’t keep any of Missy’s information on it, but better safe than… “Shit. I need to let Shimizu know I’m okay.” I looked around as though a phone would magically present itself.
“Already texted her while you were complaining about my taste in nerd chic.”
I relaxed, plucking at my borrowed t-shirt. “It’s Disney and sportsball. I feel like I need a third identity to hide that I ever wore this.”
“Let it go, Missy. More important fires to put out.” He turned his laptop so I could see the screen. A muted YouTube video showed dark, blurry images wrestling with other dark, blurry images. “I’m not sure if this was deliberately leaked by Argent or if they don’t have as much media control as they want folks to believe, but someone posted cell footage of the rooftop fight. You fighting what look like Nazgûl alongside a few of Argent’s best. Whether you like it or not, public consensus is that Mr Mystic has rejoined the fold.”
I sipped my tea in the hope that it would settle my churning gut. No such luck. “I’ve never much cared for what public consensus said. Me or Mr Mystic.”
“There’s more,” he said, and underlying those ominous words, it’s worse.
“What?”
“Photos of Mr Mystic having a quiet tête-à-tête with a young Chinese woman. Photos of the woman departing with Mr Long’s delegation just before the attack. The story being put about is that last night’s attack was some sort of retaliation for the New Wall. Even split as to whether it’s a Chinese group with radical leanings or one with covert state sponsorship. Either way–”
“My kids are being blamed.”
Jack shut the laptop. After Shanghai, when I’d told him that the fifteen years I’d gained during my first trip to China also included two kids, he’d been completely thrown. Now he barely flinched. He’d come a long way in a few months. “Nobody’s being blamed yet. Argent still has control of the story.”
That wasn’t as much of a comfort as it might have been. I rubbed my face. “What about the Shadow angle?”
“The usual spread. A few people believe. Most think it was staged effects and fear tactics. In this case, folks think that the attackers threw in some Shadow-type special effects because you were involved.”
I sat forward. “Have you had any luck finding out where Tsung lives? Where Mei Shen is staying?”
Jack spread his hands. “My property search-fu is not that good. They have all of the Shadow Dragon Triad holdings and subsidiaries to hide behind. We had a hard enough time tracking those when the San Francisco branch was being run by Lao Chan, and your daughter is a lot smarter than he ever was.”
And even if I could find where they had been staying, there was no guarantee Mei Shen would be there anymore. She’d been taken by – or left willingly with – Mian Zi. I had no doubt she’d be safe with her brother, whatever their philosophical differences, but only so long as he was safe.
If Jack didn’t have the chops to find Mei Shen, then he definitely wouldn’t be able to find out where the Chinese delegation was staying or put me in contact with them. And I didn’t think Argent would be forthcoming. However, they weren’t the only ones Mian Zi would have had to work with to make this visit possible. “Right. I think I’ve got my next step, then.” I downed the rest of my tea, even though it was still a fair way to scalding.
“Okay. You going to share with the rest of the class?”
“Nope. I’m going to find me the teacher.”
* * *
I borrowed a hoodie and left Jack’s the way I usually did – by rooftop, under the cover of darkness. Since it wasn’t yet noon, I had to make the darkness myself. The gloom imparted by the fog made it easier. I crossed rooftops to the end of the row of houses and slipped down a drainpipe, sauntering toward Russian Hill as easy as you please.
Two local news vans were parked in front of Mystic Manor when I got home. They usually came out whenever Mr Mystic hit the news, trawling for B-roll. I diverted down the back alley to avoid being caught in my borrowed jammies.
Shimizu was out, our bottom floor in-law empty. I scra
wled her a quick note and didn’t bother poking upstairs to check in with the other housemates. With the possible exception of Patrick, our resident grad student and pothead, none of them knew about my secret double life. They had no reason to be concerned that I was involved in last night’s attack. The only thing I’d find upstairs was the usual grumbling about the media surveillance.
It was a relief to be back in my own clothes – oxblood docs, leggings, an overlong button-down that wasn’t covered in glittery Disney princesses. I ran my head under the tap and brushed out the worst of the kinks. Wet, it just about matched my docs. I’ve trailed so far behind on fashion that I practically set it again. I retrieved my cell phone – Missy’s cell phone – and sent a cryptic text to Abby: You owe me. Then I grabbed a coat and scarf, and headed for Chinatown.
San Francisco’s an odd conglomeration of twenty cities mashed into one seven square-mile area. The fog curling around the northern shore of the peninsula nudged up against Russian Hill, but it didn’t follow me into Chinatown. By the time I hit Broadway, the afternoon was clear and warm enough to make me question the need for my coat. I wasn’t fooled. Another half mile or half hour and I could be in soup again. Gotta love microclimates.
The Chinatown streets were relatively empty of tourist traffic. Tourism had nosedived in the wake of the New Wall crisis, everyone afraid that another set of barriers might go up and trap them in Chinatown, but it had been slowly recovering. I suspected last night’s attack had squelched that small resurgence. You could taste it in the air, the renewed tension, more enervating than any fog. A few shopkeepers made a halfhearted attempt to lure me into their emporiums, but they backed off in what I suspected was relief when I waved them off in Cantonese.
If I needed any more indication that all was not right with the world, I got it in the form of the CLOSED sign on the door of the Dragon’s Pearl.
I slipped round back and was relieved to see that the kitchen-side door was still open. The scents of five-spice and sesame oil wafted out, chasing away the rank alleyway smells of sweet rotting garbage and sour urine. I nodded at a few regulars on their way out. So, the Pearl wasn’t open for tourists, but Doris was still feeding the locals. And more likely providing a safe center for them to come and share news, comfort, and concerns.
I bypassed the kitchen and headed up the narrow back stairway to the second floor.
Johnny Cho was in the middle of his open class. Students of all ages and a variety of backgrounds – mostly Chinese, but also Korean and a few laowai like me – faced off in sparring pairs. With his bleached-and-dyed hair – fire red and purple these days – he might look like an escapee from FanimeCon, but there wasn’t a better sifu in Chinatown. Johnny had to have noticed me coming in, but he paid me no mind. He passed between the rows of students offering correction and encouragement.
I frowned at Johnny’s back as I pulled off my boots and stuffed them in one of the few open shoe cubbies. He was never this nice to me in our training sessions. My corrections usually came with my cheek pressed to the mat and his knee pressed into my spine. Encouragement was provided by not wanting to end up with a mat burn permanently reddening my cheeks.
I knelt by the mat as the class progressed, watching. Learning. If Johnny was feeling ornery, he’d test me on one of the forms he was reviewing.
I cultivated patience as the class ended and the students dove in to their various cleanup duties, sweeping the mat, cleaning the mirror and the windows looking out onto the street. In pairs and threes they finished up their chores and drifted out. It seemed like every damn one of them needed to talk to Johnny, and Johnny seemed in no hurry to move them along. Finally, the last student – a teen boy with more bone than muscle – bowed at the edge of the mat before shoving on his shoes and kwoon jacket and pounding down the stairs to catch up with his friends.
Johnny snapped his towel at me to get my attention. “Took you long enough to come by.”
Whatever patience I’d cultivated fled. I hadn’t slept enough to put up with this nonsense. “Excuse me for being in Argent custody all night.”
Johnny wiped his face, stepped off the mat, bowed, and tossed the damp towel in the laundry bin. “And you came here looking to take it out on someone?”
“I came here looking for my kids.”
Johnny sat in lotus, knees nearly touching mine. Like Jack, he’d only learned about Mei Shen and Mian Zi after my return – my second return – from China, but we hadn’t talked about them. I was pretty sure he was pissed at me for keeping certain details of my first trip a secret. If having it out now with Johnny was the price I had to pay to make sure my kids were safe… sure. I’d pay that. This silent staring contest, on the other hand…
“I know you must know where Mian Zi is, at least. He would have had to pay his respects to you when he arrived. If not for himself, then for his people.” Mian Zi had taken over the People’s Heroes, China’s state-sponsored version of Argent. With a population of over a billion and a culture not as steeped in rationalist dogma, China had a respectable pool of gifted individuals to draw on. Only the best made it into the People’s Heroes, but even the best owed respect to the Masters who predated China’s Mao-induced surge into modernity. Like the City Guardians. Like Johnny.
“He did. Two days ago. He was supposed to move on to New York today.”
I groaned and ran my nails over my scalp. It still ached from a night in braids and wig. “Do you know where they were staying?” I couldn’t believe that Mian Zi had moved on already. Not after last night’s attack. Not when all the action was here.
Johnny looked down at the floor, then back at me, mouth twisted in an odd smile. “You really can be dense sometimes, Masters.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but shut it at his next question: “Why didn’t you tell me about them? Three years you’ve been back, and I know something gutted you in China, but… kids? With one of the Nine?”
“Surprise,” I muttered. I hadn’t said anything because I’d wanted to avoid this very conversation. Even after three years, the pain of walking away from Jian Huo and my kids…
I couldn’t look at Johnny. I dreaded the question I knew was coming.
“And you left them?”
I sagged in on myself, folded my knees up so I could hug my legs and rest my chin on them. Johnny didn’t say after Mitchell left you? He didn’t have to. That thought had dogged me for three years. Part of the reason I’d taken on my grandfather’s mantle was to escape the realization that when shit got too hard for me to cope, I’d done the same.
Or maybe I just thought that if I could understand my grandfather and why he’d left me, then it would make leaving my kids not so bad.
“It… wasn’t the same. They had their father.” I studied my twisting fingers as though they were the most interesting thing in the world. “And it wasn’t like it was easy for me. But I couldn’t stay. Not after…”
“Mei Shen says you left without saying goodbye.”
I lifted my chin. “When?”
Johnny lifted one shoulder. “We hang out sometimes to play Kingdom Hearts. Don’t change the subject.”
“Well, when you learn that the man you loved used you as a walking baby incubator, let’s see you make good life choices,” I snapped.
“When you have kids, you can’t afford to make bad life choices.”
“Thanks for the free advice.”
“And you didn’t tell me. I thought we were… and you didn’t tell me. I could have helped. I could have reached out to them and made it easier. For all of you.”
I hated Johnny the most when he was right. I hugged myself and let out a shaky breath. “So what do I do now?”
Johnny rose to his feet and held out a hand to help me up. “Accept that you messed up and that your kids have every right to be pissed at you. And go downstairs.”
I took his hand. “Downstairs?”
“Like I said. You can be dense. Can you imagine Doris Han closing her restaurant for
anything less than a State visit?”
Five
Light and Shadow
I would have dashed downstairs with bootlaces trailing, but Johnny made me take the time to do them up proper. He said his insurance didn’t cover broken necks in the stairwell.
The kitchen staff – half of them part of the extended Han clan – barely looked up from their steamers and fryers when I hurried through. However, the two agents at the door to the dining room stopped me cold.
“Private function,” one of them said, holding me firmly by the shoulder in a grip that could easily dislocate with the proper application of weight and leverage. I tensed, ready to down him, but Johnny came up behind me and tapped the back of the fellow’s hand like we were sparring students.
“It’s okay, Franz. She’s with me.”
The agent released me and let Johnny lead me past. I looked back at the two men – both definitely Chinese.
“Franz?” I asked Johnny.
“One of them got uppity about me being Korean, so I’ve been calling all of them that. Annoys the hell out of them.”
I stifled a chuckle. “Johnny, don’t ever change.”
The dining room of the Dragon’s Pearl was an open space that hadn’t been redecorated since some time in the mid twentieth century. Red dominated – carpet, drapes, upholstery. The chairs were flocked gold, the table cloths a startlingly crisp white, and all the wood was dark and heavily carved. And none of it mattered. Folks didn’t come to the Pearl for its decor.
The tables in the main room were placed together as closely as Doris could get them and still allow the dim sum carts to pass. She refused to get rid of the carts and go to table service the way so many places did these days. But today, all those tables were empty. Crisp. Set. Waiting. Empty.