by Alyc Helms
“I think they must use this for drilling. At night, I mean. There are weapon racks.” Mei Shen waved back the way we’d come. And then she stumbled back against the barrier fence, eyes wide and lips slack.
I uncapped my Sharpie, ready to re-inscribe the wards in the hope that the permanent marker was mightier than the sword.
Mei Shen’s grip on my wrist stopped me. “The lighthouse. It’s working.”
“It’s what?” I whipped around fast enough to get a neck twinge, but the old lighthouse rising above the parade ground wasn’t doing anything beyond posing prettily for pictures.
“On the other side.” Mei Shen’s gaze flicked nervously around us. I could barely hear her over the wind. She held her hair off her face and looked back across the bay. “The light, they’re using it to bolster the bridge.”
“The who… the what, now? You mean against the Voidlands?” I followed her gaze, but all I saw was the fog-devoured Golden Gate. I scrubbed at the marks on my arm, wishing I could see whatever she was seeing, wishing I’d brought some sanitizer to remove the markings on the fly. I didn’t know what I could do to stop another earthquake, but dammit I had to try.
The look Mei Shen gave me reminded me of her father at his most annoying, that timeless look that somehow conveyed both infinite patience and impatience. “What else? I cannot believe you’ve lived here all this time, and yet you had no idea the threat this city faces daily.”
Parents take heed – even more obnoxious than having a teenager who thinks she knows everything is having a teenager who probably does know everything. Or at least a more sizeable chunk of everything than you do. “Maybe instead of training for the snarky comment, snort, and eyeroll triathlon, you can tell me about it in detail? After we get off this island?”
Mei Shen slumped against the fence and pressed her fingers into her eyebrows. “You are right. I should not blame you for what I refused to confide in you. David told me the same many times over. I have been… stubborn.”
So much for suggesting we not do this here and now. “You’ve been upset with me. And for good reasons.” I smoothed her hair, as much as the wind would allow.
“I know why you had to leave. I do not blame you for that.”
For that. Not for that. “I should have said goodbye to you and Mian Zi.”
She raised her head. Lowered her hands. “Would you have been able to leave if you had tried?”
Possibly not. That had certainly been my thinking at the time. “I should have said goodbye.” I pulled her into my arms. After a moment of resistance, she returned my hug with rib-bending strength.
“So,” I whispered into her wind-tangled hair after I’d gotten control of my tears and my voice. “What do you want to bet that whatever’s powering that lighthouse has something to do with Argent’s stolen tech?”
Mei Shen pulled away, wiping her eyes even as she chuckled. “Maybe we shouldn’t have skipped the Power House.”
* * *
The bridge had lost its battle with the creeping fog by the time we tracked back and exited the tour in the proper fashion so we could return our headsets. The exit spat us out into an impressive and slightly unnerving souvenir shop. It was the prison uniform onesies for toddlers that pushed it over the edge of respect, I decided. There was something more than slightly abhorrent about turning human misery into kawaii cuteness and then selling it at an obscene markup, even if the money did go to park restoration and maintenance.
Battling the current of a wave of newly arrived tourists, Mei Shen and I trudged back up the hill toward the Power House and the Model Industries buildings. I thought about Johnny’s balance-of-place. Alcatraz’s history going back almost two centuries was one of pain and human degradation, but not always. At the start – at least, the start of European occupation – it had been meant to be a home for a lighthouse.
“How long have they been here, the Conclave?” I asked Mei Shen, huffing because the hill’s grade was a little too steep for easy conversation.
“The Shadow Dragon Triad avoided having much to do with the island, but even the earliest records indicate it was a place of darkness.” She hugged herself to contain her shudder. “It is only in the past half century or so that there have been any signs of organization, which makes me think that the Conclave moved in around the time the prison was being closed down.”
“Moved in. Or took over. But the lighthouse working, that’s new?” I slowed as our progress was blocked by a gaggle of teenagers with their eyes and thumbs glued to their smartphones.
“I haven’t come across any indication that it has been in use.” A shadow of a cloud passed overhead. Mei Shen frowned up at the sky, flinching at whatever she saw that I couldn’t. “We should not talk about this here. We should–”
“Look out!” Someone charged from behind me, tackling Mei Shen into the crowd of teenagers. Their tumble took down several boys with them under a rising cacophony of What the fuck, man?’s. I lunged after Mei Shen’s attacker, grabbing two fistfuls of dark suit jacket and pulling him off her with mama grizzly strength.
I recognized David Tsung the moment after it was too late to pull my strike.
He doubled over my fist like a deflated balloon, gasping for breath and grabbing for my forearms to keep me from striking again. I skipped back a few steps, not following up, but not quite willing to let my guard down, even if he was a semi-known quantity. “What the fuck?” I asked, echoing the boys around us.
“Run… The ferry… We have to–”
Mei Shen’s shriek shut us both up. The boys who had been helping her to her feet scattered like startled sparrows, leaving her alone in the middle of the road, batting and flailing at something that nobody could see.
Nobody except David Tsung. “Get… off… her!” Still struggling with basic body functions like breathing, he nevertheless stumbled toward Mei Shen. I realized that whatever was attacking her, he could see it. Which meant he could fight it.
I stopped one of the kids from taking a retaliatory swing at him. “You lot, get out of here!” I shouted, pushing two more back. Tsung had grabbed at air and seemed to be running through a solo kata, but I could see the tension, the jarring impact of each strike, that indicated he was fighting more than air and imagination.
Mei Shen, too, and the reaction of the teenage boys was to nudge each other and smile as their understanding of the interruption went from crazy-guy-attacking-a-woman-that’s-fucked-up to this-is-some-of-that-cool-flash-mob-shit.
At least, until Mei Shen grabbed her head and fell back, heels scrabbling for traction on the road as something invisible dragged her away at speed.
“Get out of here!” I yelled at the boys, and sprinted after my daughter. Tsung followed not two paces behind.
Whatever held Mei Shen dragged her down the escarpment and through the doorway of the Power House. Her ass and kicking feet left a trail in the dust covering the concrete floor of the cavernous room. Scant sunlight filtered through the broken panes, but most of the space was grey and grim and cold as concrete. Even with the ward scrawled down my arm, I could sense the thickness of the shadows here, like smoke at the back of my throat. Whatever had Mei Shen, I still couldn’t see it, which left me feeling as helpless as any tourist. I opened my pack, digging for the only thing I knew might help.
Tsung surged past me to deal with the entity attacking Mei Shen. I grabbed her ankle and popped the cap on my Sharpie one-handed. Ducking to avoid being kicked in the face, I started scrawling the wards up her shin. I managed two sigils before she was ripped from my grasp. She had her hands to her throat, her face red and edging toward purple. Tsung was flat on the ground, pinned by nothing I could sense.
I was useless to them. Helpless. And alone. Whether through disinterest or arcane discouragement, the crowds outside hadn’t followed our scuffle. I was on my own against forces I couldn’t touch or see.
“Fuck this.” I left my pack spilling across the floor and scrambled to my feet, darting for t
he broken paned windows. I had nothing on hand to remove the Sharpie and no time to do it prettily. But experience told me I didn’t need pretty. Padding my elbow with my coat sleeve, I slammed it through one of the window panes. If I survived the day, the National Park Service was going to get a hefty donation from Mr Mystic to assuage my guilt for the vandalism. I snatched up one of the shards that had broken free and shoved my sleeve up. Sending a quiet thanks to Shimizu for making sure I kept up on my tetanus booster, I slashed the jagged edge across the marks on my arm.
In the dimness that descended after my shredding of the ward, my blood shimmered like living darkness, like the Lady’s skin and gown. Where before there had only been the noise of Mei Shen’s struggles, now the cacophony of a menagerie of shrieks and wails deafened me. I watched in fascinated horror as my blood dripped to the ground, birthing a tide of strange, scarab-like creatures. Their shells glistened like candied apples, as bright as my blood had been dark. As bright a red as Mei Shen’s shimmering skin in this place of darkness.
Mei Shen. I saw now that a half dozen Conclave knights had descended on us. Two had pinned Tsung. The other four held my daughter. Or tried to. In the Shadow Realms, she was not quite human woman nor quite dragon. Her scaled skin glowed like coals, ruby bright on the surface, each one edged with darkness like soot – my blood mixed with her father’s. Her limbs were lithe, unnaturally long, and the knights smoked and bubbled wherever their shadow flesh met hers. But there were enough of them, with enough single-minded determination, that they held her in spite of the smoke that rose from any contact. One of them had her pinned with an arm around her throat, and even as I got my bearings, I saw her eyes roll white and the glow of her skin fade.
“Help me,” I whispered to the scarab swarm milling around my feet. My arm still dripped blood, birthing more of the creatures. I remembered Templeton, remembered what the Lady had said, reinforced by my days cramming over the Shadownomicon. Names. Names mattered here.
“You are the Blood-Dimmed Tide.” I wasn’t sure whether to cringe or take a queer, feminist pride in the first name that came to mind. But what was said was said, and the scarabs seemed to respond, growing brighter in response to being named. Louder. Hungrier. “Help me free my daughter from those bastards.”
As eagerly as the blood had gushed from my arm, the tide of scarabs rushed forth. I followed in their wake, dribbling more scarabs behind me to add to their number. I hadn’t been quite sure how useful a swarm of insects might be, no matter how menacing they looked. I should have had more faith in the special brand of awful the Shadow Realms seemed inclined to produce. The knights had released Mei Shen, dragging out rubbery sheets to bind her. Undaunted by their numbers or size, the scarabs swarmed over their feet and up their legs, moving like a single, bubbling pool of the blood from which they were formed. Three of the knights screamed and were silenced by a thick vanguard of scarabs sliding down their throats. The fourth knight danced about in a parody of a jig, trying to stomp the tide. A few scarabs were caught under boot, flattened like copper souvenir pennies, but they sprang back up the moment the knight stomped away and quickly overwhelmed him as they had his fellows.
The two knights on Tsung lost their hold. He surged up. The knight he shoved into the swarm was quickly overrun, and just as quickly the lump of that knight’s body settled flat, as though he’d been devoured. I grappled the last knight. He made the mistake of trying to escape my hold by twisting my injured arm, releasing a second swarm of scarabs right into his chest. I turned away before I had to witness what they were doing to make him scream like that.
I wrapped my scarf around my arm. I needed my wits more than I needed a few more scarabs. With the knights distracted or downed, I rushed to Mei Shen’s side. Tsung was already there, already rousing her from her faint. She swayed, woozy.
“We need to get out of here.” I looked around for my Sharpie, but I must have dropped it on the other side, along with my bag, which had my emergency stash of glow sticks intended for emergencies just like this. “Fuck.”
“We can carry her out. If we can get to the ferry…” Tsung said, not realizing my reason for cursing.
I ducked to sling Mei Shen’s arm over my shoulder, hissing at the burn of her skin, like metal heated in the sun even through several layers of clothing. Tsung grunted as he took the other side, but he raised no complaint as we helped a groggy Mei Shen out of the Power House.
Gone was the sunny day, the tourists, the white-wheeling gulls – although I thought I spied the black shadows of cormorants overhead.
Sure, Masters. Those are cormorants. Keep telling yourself that.
“Wards… can you…?” Mei Shen gasped. She regained her footing, still gripping my shoulder to keep her balance.
“Dropped my Sharpie. How’d you get off the ferry?” I asked Tsung, glaring at him over Mei Shen’s head. Actually, “How did you know we were here?”
“Somebody booked the tickets on my credit card.” His glare was all for Mei Shen. “I told you it wasn’t safe to come here. I told you–”
“You can tell me all you want after we get out of here. Before–” A howl rose up all around us, horrible and hollow and pitched at the edge of hearing – Cthulhu’s cover of whalesong’s greatest hits. Mei Shen groaned and rested her forehead on Tsung’s shoulder. “That. They’ve sounded the alarm.”
I glanced down the dark ribbon of road that led to the ferry slip, now filling with Conclave knights flooding from the guardhouse. The coyote brush on the hillside to our right rustled, a thousand soft hisses roused by the eerie clarion. Whatever flapped above us darted down. We ducked, but not fast enough. Something sharp skittered across my cheek, like a record needle skipping. A few more scarabs dribbled to the ground and milled about in confusion.
“So much for the ferry,” Tsung said, eying the gathering knights. They hadn’t seen us yet, but it was only a matter of moments before the needle-beaked bird things drew down attention. The only clear route was the ruins running next to the road, the Officer’s Club and the glass-black bay beyond that.
Watching the orphaned scarabs scuttle aimlessly gave me an idea. “Can you get us across to the real world?” Tsung hesitated. Nodded. “Then maybe a distraction to lure them away from the ferry?” I said and squeezed my scarf-bandaged arm. The pain helped me focus my whispered call. I’d done similar things to summon shadow in the real world, or when I called Templeton, but this was different. This wasn’t an alien monster I’d temporarily bound to my will, or a friend who helped me out of his goodwill. This was something mine. Something of me, but separate.
I could contemplate the unsettling ramifications of that during the same later that Tsung was going to use to yell at Mei Shen.
Out of the shadows of the Power House came a shining, satin-bright flood of scarabs. Their hard carapaces clacked against each other, the rising crescendo of their chittering like an alien invasion. The orphaned scarabs at our feet perked up and joined my Blood-Dimmed Tide as it coursed down the black road to meet the gathering knights.
“You made a cockroach army,” Tsung said, deadpan.
I scowled at him. “They’re scarabs.”
“Whatever you need to tell yourself to let you sleep at night.”
Later. I’d also tell him where he could shove his opinions. Later. For now, I led the way down the escarpment into the roofless shell of the Officer’s Club.
The blackened walls rose into the sky like decaying teeth sprouting from rocky gums. Beyond the rocks, the shadow reflection of the bay shifted in slow, thick ripples. The surface shone black as pitch and nearly as viscous. Tsung and I helped steady Mei Shen as we climbed down to the gully that had once been the ground floor. I frowned out at the waters. I was even less eager to test them than I would have been if we’d stood on the other side of the veil.
“Where’s a raincoat raft when you need one?” I muttered.
“Now what?” Mei Shen asked, then answered her own question. “I can fly us out o
f here.”
“No!” Tsung and I said in tandem.
“You’ll only draw attention and pursuit,” he explained.
“And you’re woozy enough that you might crash us into the drink,” I continued, because it looked like Mei Shen might argue with Tsung’s logic.
Mei Shen crossed her arms, a sure sign that she was digging in for an argument. The next stage would be her doing what she wanted to do anyway. Which was probably why she and I had ended up here in the first place, with David Tsung rushing to the rescue. I needed an alternative that didn’t require waiting and hoping my scarab army could lure the knights away from the ferry platform. I picked at the scabbing-over scratch on my cheek and released another drop of blood.
It was smaller than the others, barely larger than a Japanese beetle, the runt of my scarab swarm. He balanced on my fingertip like a cabochon agate.
“Hey. Um.” Names. “Rover.” Ugh. I sucked at this. “Red Rover? Is there somewhere we can hide? Or some way off this island? A boat? Something?”
The blood scarab circled my fingertip, then its carapace opened up to reveal shadow-thin wings, and it flitted off into the thick coyote brush at the base of the wall.
Holding my breath in case my luck gave out, I slid down the incline and dug into the brambles. A narrow stairway of tarry black stone descended into the earth, ending in a rusted grate. Rover hovered above one of the crossbars as though waiting until I’d seen him, then he flitted off again into the darkness beyond the grate. The tiny ember spark of his carapace quickly faded in the shadows.
I tamped down on a eureka-style shout. My little scarab had led the way to the legendary catacombs of Alcatraz.
“Hey!” I hissed up at Mei Shen and David Tsung, still engaged in a contest of wills that Tsung would never win. “If you two are done flirting, I think I’ve got us a way out.”