by Alyc Helms
I pulled a face at that. Sometimes the cultural divide that separated us was harder to face than the divide caused by my own mistakes. “I think I’m more comfortable with you kicking me to the curb when I mess up.”
“I will leave such things to Mei Shen.” He hugged me, careful of my shoulder. I sank into it for a moment before – carefully – squirming away.
“I have to go. La Reina is waiting.” I looked down at my shirt, half of it stained bloody and one entire shoulder gaping open. My suit and trench were hopeless. I’d dumped my wig several nodes ago. I took my hat from Mian Zi and set it on my head. “You think she’ll notice I’m not quite myself?” I said in a Dick Van Dyke mockery of Mr Mystic’s usual accent. Oi, it’s a jolly ’oliday.
Mian Zi’s lips twitched. “I think she might.”
“Shit.” I touched my face, my exposed braided hair. I’d always been so resistant to cutting it or dying it black, and now I was reaping the consequences of that reluctance.
“Here. This might help?” Mian Zi took off his suit coat and helped me into it with minimal shoulder jarring. It was a bit long in the sleeve, but close enough to pass.
And it reminded me of something. The Lady. I touched my face. If she was… we were… connected by blood, then it stood to reason that I might be able to do anything she could do. Didn’t it?
I closed my eyes, passed my hands over my hair. My features I could disguise with shadow, but–
“Even better,” Mian Zi said softly.
I opened my eyes. “It worked?” My hair felt the same to me. Whatever I’d done had to be illusion. A trick of the light. Or, rather, a trick of shadow.
“See for yourself.” Mian Zi swiveled the mirror on my bike. My gut rolled. I looked like what I’d always pretended to be: Mr Mystic.
And now it was time to act like him. “I must be on my way,” I murmured in his voice.
“Go.” Mian Zi helped me onto my bike. “We will do what we can to give you time.”
* * *
The stairway pass-through between houses and the hiking trails circling Mount Davidson weren’t made for motorcycles. I didn’t care. I shredded my way up the steps and looped around the curve of the mountain. My tires kicked up dirt and rocks as I rode up the narrow, ungraded path to the massive white marble cross at the summit.
La Reina scowled at me when I roared up to her and cut the engine. Her wings puffed and settled. “You have no respect for what is holy, do you?”
The wooziness of pain and blood loss had faded somewhat thanks to whatever Mian Zi had done, but I still lacked anything resembling patience at being told off just now. “Upsetting gods seems to be a bit of a hobby of mine.”
“Hm. So it seems. I called for backup. You look like hell.”
Like hell. She didn’t know the half of it. I’d refined my shadow illusion to hide the worst of my injuries and exhaustion. I could afford to look weak in front of my kids, but La Reina was Argent, and I was still Mr Mystic. Now more than ever.
“You are too kind. Shove aside.” I was used to the drill by now – the construction cones, the neatly dug five-by-five, the gravel backfill, the ritual sigils burned into the rocky substrate with hardened pitch, the titanium node at the center. I hopped down and stomped around a bit, but whatever blood had coated my boots from kicking Lao Hu, it had long scraped off. The node flared with shadow flames thanks to my own blood spattering about, but there was no orange-flame brightness to counter them.
“Bollocks.”
“What?”
I levered myself out of the pit. “I’m going to have to fight him again.” I peered down the hill. Would he come up that way, following my trail? Or, knowing what I was up to, where I was likely headed, would he circle around and come from the trees that surrounded the cross on three sides? I passed a hand over my eyes. They itched with exhaustion. When La Reina’s hand landed on my uninjured shoulder, I jumped.
“Are you allowed help?”
Forget my previous irritation. She could castigate me all she wanted. “Are you allowed to give it? On the disrespecting holy shrines front, getting into it with an ancient cat god so that you can use him in a blood ritual is not precisely… hm. I suppose it would be problematic to use the word ‘kosher’ in this instance?”
“Decidedly so. And he is not God.”
Not your god, I kept myself from saying. I was not so foolish as to look a gift-angel in the Metatron. “In that case, I would welcome–”
I didn’t get the chance to say what I would welcome. Lao Hu burst from the trees. I tackled La Reina to one side, but he wasn’t going for us. He slammed into my motorcycle, sending it rolling down the steep incline in a series of crashes and groans and a spray of broken plastic and metal bits. I cringed at the noise, fighting fury and helplessness. Now, even if we managed to get Lao Hu to bleed on this node, I had no way to get to the last node at Land’s End.
I scrambled to my feet, circling to one side of Lao Hu while La Reina looped the other direction, splitting his focus. Lao Hu rolled and came up snarling, all orange and black fur, yellow teeth and yellow eyes. Or, eye. The other was swollen shut, the fur on that side of his face matted, the white ruff under his jaw stained a rusty color. Mei Shen must have done that. My gut clenched around the fear that he might have injured her in return.
I flexed my wounded shoulder, testing how much movement I had, how much I could push it. Even that slight movement sent a deep pain shooting through my back and arm. I bit down on a hiss. Not much, then. This was going to have to be a kicking fight.
“My offer still stands,” I told Lao Hu. I widened my half of the circle to put the ritual pit between us. “Help me attune the last two nodes, and I’ll be your catnip.”
“You offer to make a bargain with me when you have no coin,” Lao Hu said. I forced myself to keep an eye on him and not to glance at La Reina creeping around his blind side. “You are wounded. You have no way to flee.” His whiskers twitched. “And your friend must think I’m stupid.”
He lunged to one side, paw swiping at the air where La Reina had stood. She was already aloft, great wings flattening the fur along Lao Hu’s back and sending leaves and dirt flying in little vortexes. She raised a sword that glowed with copper fire and hurt my eyes to look upon. Lao Hu’s too, by the way he hissed and spat. She brought the sword down, driving him towards the pit. I moved closer to the edge, making myself bait.
Lao Hu was too cunning for that tactic. He feinted to one side, then bolted the other direction when La Reina brought her sword down to block him. His claws dug great furrows into the hard-packed ground as he scrabbled around the pit. His back legs kicked up a spray of dirt, leaves, and wood chips. I lowered to a half crouch. He bounded off the cross and came at me. Falling back, I planted a boot in his gut and flipped him over my head and into the pit.
And got dragged in with him when his claw snagged my trousers.
We were a mad tangle of kicking, clawing, biting, until suddenly I was alone in the pit, flat on my back and staring up at a receding Lao Hu. Great, tawny wings seemed to sprout from his shoulders, giving him the look of a flying sphinx. Save for the part where he dangled from his ruff like a giant kitten.
Not for long. He twisted in La Reina’s grip, biting, bringing his huge claws up to shred her wings. She screamed, the high and piercing cry of a raptor, and they both plummeted from the sky.
I crawled out of the pit. La Reina had caught her descent on the arm of the cross and was lowering herself to the ground. Her slide left long, bloody streaks down the white marble. The lower half of one wing was shredded, dripping blood and pinfeathers. She sagged to one knee, using her copper-flamed sword to hold herself upright. “Where?” she searched the clearing behind me.
“He landed back in the trees.” And very likely on his feet.
La Reina staggered to her feet and turned to scan the trees. “Is the node attuned?”
I shot a confirming glance over my shoulder. “Yes.”
“
Then go. You are of no more use here.”
“But–”
“He doesn’t want me. Go. I forgive you.”
Which only made me feel worse. I sprinted down the hill at an only slightly out-of-control run, following the scarred furrow carved by my bike. I was under no illusion that it would still run, but the hill backed onto a residential street. Perhaps I could… what? Ask a friendly weekend warrior for his hog? Carjack someone? Assuming I could make it to street level before–
Lao Hu hit me at a full run, sending both of us into an uncontrolled tumble. My hat flew off. I ate dirt and fur in equal measure, but at least the rolling impact made it impossible for him to do much extra damage. We slammed into someone’s back fence, Lao Hu taking the brunt of the impact. I kicked away and started running.
And then something caught me around the waist, and my pumping feet lifted from the ground, wheeling in midair. A hat slammed on my head – my fedora – cutting some of the glare and increasing my confusion.
“Thought you never went anywhere without that fedora of yours, Old Man,” said my rescuer in a soft, Midwest drawl.
“Tom?”
“Yup. Figured I’d show you what a real rescue looks like.” He looped around, and I caught sight of La Reina leaning against her blood-streaked cross. She gave us a feeble wave. Right. Backup. She’d called it. “Was that a tiger I saw you fighting?”
“Yes. And he took a rather good swipe at my shoulder, so if you wouldn’t mind…?”
“Everyone’s a critic,” Tom grumbled goodnaturedly. He shifted his grip to lessen the strain on my shoulder. “Now, let’s see about getting you to a hospital.”
“No.” I would have loved nothing better, but… “This isn’t done yet. I need you to take me to Land’s End.”
Fifteen
Land’s End
David Tsung wasn’t waiting for me when Tom landed at the edge of Land’s End. Sadly for me, Lao Hu was.
“Go.” I pushed Tom behind me as though that would make him leave. As though anything could turn him from doing what he thought was right, even if it was suicidal.
“But–”
“You need to go back for La Reina. I have this.” It was a lie, but if Tom had a weakness, it was believing everyone else was as honest as he was. I wondered if that was a flaw in his programming or intended design. “Go on.”
“I better see you at HQ tomorrow, Old Man. I got a prisoner with your name on him and a passel of questions.” With a final, stern look at Lao Hu, Skyrocket launched into the air.
“Your friend has no scent,” Lao Hu said softly. He lounged in the middle of the rock labyrinth. He must have been lying right on top of the bloody node, which meant it was almost certainly already attuned to Alam al-Jinn. All I had to do was attune it to Shadow.
“Yes, he takes clean-cut, all-American very seriously. How did you know we were headed here? How did you get here before us?” I kept my distance, assessing. The flat shelf of Land’s End dropped off about ten feet beyond Lao Hu, a precipice much steeper than the slope we’d tumbled down at Mount Davidson. At the bottom would be rocks, if I was lucky and the tide was out. Rocks and the churning Pacific Ocean if the tide was in. Either way, I didn’t want to test my luck by getting into a tussle up here.
Nor did I dare try my luck across the veil. Fog drifted past us like an army of ghost brides. We’d crossed over the fluctuating border of the Voidlands. I didn’t know how well Lao Hu functioned there, but I knew I would collapse into helpless terror if I tried crossing over into that place.
Lao Hu lapped at his side. He’d cleaned away most of the dirt from our fall and the blood that had matted the fur at his shoulder. His eye was still swollen shut. “I have known where you would be at every step. Or did you think the djinni did not share your entire plan with me? I had hoped that your master would come to your aid somewhere along the way, but I did not credit how great a coward he would be.” Lao Hu’s tail lashed. Idly. He was done with our cat-and-mouse. “It was a good chase. I think Lung Di does not deserve a champion such as you.”
“You and me both,” I muttered. And here I thought I’d been playing Lao Hu all along. This is what I got for thinking I was smarter than a god. “So you always meant to attune the nodes? You were just toying with me with all that nonsense about letting the Voidlands expand?”
He shifted, and I caught a glimpse of the last node, burning with orange fire but not yet dampened by shadow. There was nothing for it. I’d have to go in. “Of course. I am a Guardian, after all.”
Right. “What happened to David Tsung? Was he here when you arrived?”
“Lung Di’s toady? He was. He fled. I let him.”
I let out a shaky breath and hoped that Lao Hu would attribute any change in my scent or heart rate to fear. Well, he should. I was still very afraid. I searched the ankle-high rocks of the labyrinth, looking for something out of place. I spied it at the mouth of the labyrinth, a rock that was too small, too round, too pale to match the others.
Hesitantly, I approached the labyrinth. My hands hung loose at my sides. I did my best to keep my attention focused on Lao Hu and not my true target, lest I give it away. The curling tail tip proved to be a useful early warning system. It twitched. Lao Hu sprang. I snatched for the irregular stone and yanked it out of the ground.
An unholy crash sounded above me, followed by a deafening yowl and the screech of claws scraping metal. I scuttled back on my ass. Lao Hu remained within the confines of the labyrinth. A shining, translucent dome had risen around him on all sides. Sparks rose from his claws as he raked them down the inside curve of the dome over and over like a cat trapped on the wrong side of a door.
Which was, in effect, exactly what he was.
“What did you do? What is in your hand?” he snarled.
Slowly, I rose to my feet and held it up for him to see. “It’s an egg. Goose, I think. Looks too large to be chicken. It also happens to be the key to your cage.”
That got me more incoherent snarling. I waited it out. “I was wrong. You are exactly the filth Lung Di deserves as his champion. Let me out.”
“So you can kill me? Explain to me the benefit of that?”
Lao Hu stopped clawing at the translucent shell and sat back on his haunches, tail lashing. “You will never attune the node if you do not. If I cannot leave, you cannot enter.”
“If you cannot leave, I don’t need to attune anything. With you as anchor for the other nodes, the Voidlands should be well contained.” I was very aware of the irony of the current situation. I’d been infuriated by Lung Di’s imprisonment of the other Guardians. I’d been horrified by what I’d helped do to Asha. I’d been disgusted by what the Conclave had done to Skyrocket. And yet here I was, considering doing the same thing to Lao Hu. I rolled the egg from one hand to the other, studying it instead of my prisoner, searching for some other way. “I am sorry,” I said. “This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.”
“You mean you hadn’t planned to trap me as your master did? And yet that key and these wards belie your claim.”
“I mean I expected to arrive ahead of you and trap myself. Then, if you wanted me, you’d have to agree to attune the node to get to me. I didn’t intend to leave things out of balance.”
Lao Hu remained silent for several moments, his claws flexing into the ground. “So set me free and attune the node. I promise not to end you until you have done so.”
“Yeah, that’s not going to happen.” I lowered the egg. “Back in Shanghai, I freed you from a trap you allowed yourself to be lured into. The other Guardians gave me a pass for releasing them, but you threatened me and my friends. This time, I’m going to free you. And you are going to abandon this vendetta against myself and Lung Di.”
“If you think I will–”
“I think you will, and I think you’ll be grateful I’m not demanding that you put yourself further in my debt,” I said over whatever pointless threat he’d been about to make. I had a cat in a closed box. We b
oth knew there was only one way this would end.
“Very well,” he whispered, so low that I barely heard it over the crash of the ocean below.
“Your word.” I said.
“You have my word, Lung Bao Hu Zhe. My vendetta against you – and Lung Di – is ended. Nor will I seek retribution against those who aided you this day.”
“Good.” I slammed the egg against the translucent dome. They both smashed and dripped to the ground in a slightly goopy mess. I watched, entire body tensed and ready to flee, as Lao Hu stood and gracefully padded out of the circle. His shoulder bumped my arm as he passed, which was threat enough to make my heart beat double time, but he didn’t attack.
Right then. Egg dripping from my fingers, I strode up to the node and scraped my nails across one of my many wounds to bring up fresh blood. Holding the dripping gash over the titanium orb, I looked into across the veil into the Voidlands. I wanted to see this.
It started as a flicker of flame and smoke, meeting at the center of the node and collapsing in on itself. The orange flame grew brighter and brighter, the smoke darkness devoured that brightness, becoming so black it was impossible to focus on, even for me. The miniature star collapsed into a pinprick, throbbed, and then burst out beyond the confines of the node. The orange and black mottled sphere expanded to encompass me, Lao Hu, the shelf we stood on, and further and further out. Everywhere it touched, the Voidlands cringed and retreated. Across the bay, on the landside horizon, the leading edges of other novas expanded out to overlap with the one centered on Land’s End. And then the furthest edge met the Land’s End edge, crossing at the Golden Gate.
I tore my gaze from the Shadow Realms, raised my arms to shield my face from the wash of summer heat as the Golden Gate blazed with light on both sides of the veil. The heavy fog burned away under the onslaught, echoing the searing back of the Voidlands. By the time I dared to lower my arms, the lightshow was over, the sky was clear. The sun balanced on the horizon like a ball on a stick. The sky around it burned gold, the sea beneath black in comparison.