Dim Sum Asylum

by Rhys Ford

  “Damn it, could the asshole who made that thing have at least not let it have a death wish?” I skittered forward another step, not liking the rocking under my feet.

  Whoever cursed the statue was intelligent enough to cast a powerful, probably custom-made spell but lacked the common sense to hobble the magic’s inherent need to survive. Magic, a force like water and fire, often looked for any means to continue forward. The statue was no exception, and its owner infused it not only with a fertility spell but also a drive more ferocious than a forest fire. It was going to take any path offered to it to spread its arcane seed.

  It reached the other side, where the bridge’s supports had been lashed to a fire escape trellis, creating an eight-inch jog from the bridge’s landing to the next building’s parapet. Most people living on a gōngyù liked uneven bridges. They were nearly impossible for the average rat to traverse but easily navigated by an able-bodied human or fae.

  The statue fell into the rat category, especially since it appeared it was missing both of its hands and part of one leg.

  Unfortunately, the statue thought any kind of movement was forward.

  And that included down.

  “Oh, come on!” I cried out when the statue inched closer to the edge of the bridge.

  The arch bucked under me, and I flailed, trying to keep my balance. Not for the first time in my life I wished for my mother’s blood to have given me a set of wings. Even if they were useless for flying, they did a kickass job at providing balance. As graceful as I was, gravity still wasn’t my friend.

  Around us, the city continued on. Ferries lit up the water, carrying people across the Bay and beyond to homes tucked into the hills. The Golden Gate sparkled, a jeweled string of steel bands and beams. Chinatown was in full swing, its mysterious lure too great for many a tourist to resist and a comfortable den of depravity and security for those who liked to live in the shadows. I could see my own building off in the distance. A few blocks away, the mangy calico kitten-something I’d pulled out of a dog-bait pen five years ago was waiting for me to return.

  Waiting was probably too strong of a word. Bob wasn’t a waiting kind of cat. She was more of a piss on my bedding if a leaf landed too close to the litter box on the back balcony kind of cat, but she was there. In that building. Amid all of the chatter, neon, and savory aromas, my life waited while I tried to wrangle someone’s fuckup into a plastic bag I’d stolen from an old fae woman living in a shitty four-walled gōngyù shack.

  The statue didn’t seem concerned. If anything, its once immutable porcelain face now smirked at me as it bounced on the bridge’s outer rail.

  I didn’t want it to go over. There was no way that thing would survive the fall. Instead it would explode like a magic stink bomb, and the wind would pick up its dust, carrying its diluted spell into anyone nearby. It would be an ugly night, fueled by sex and jealousy.

  If I thought Internal Affairs owned my ass after I shot Arnett, it would tar and feather me if I brought a lust-fueled rampage to the city’s streets.

  “No. No. Don’t go anywhere,” I cajoled, inching my way toward the statue. If I could grab at least most of it, the spell could be contained. “Be a good… thing. Come here.”

  It was like talking to a deaf old cat.

  “Roku! What are you doing?” Leonard shouted as he jogged up to the bridge. He grabbed my leg, and I hissed, nearly losing my balance. The bridge churned, and I held my breath, expecting to plunge to the cement walk below. “Come back here.”

  “The fucking thing is going to jump. It does that, and that damned spell gets into people’s lungs. You think people are fucking animals now? Wait until their inhibitions are stripped away because some asshole wanted to get laid. It is going to be ugly, Leonard. I promise you that, and it’s not something I want to explain to the police chief. He already hates me.” I shook loose of my partner’s grip and took another tentative step. “This is why people aren’t allowed to do magic without a license. You get shit like this and—”

  The weight of the statue was too much for the span’s railing, and the bridge tipped, its laden side dipping far enough to pitch the cursed porcelain god over the edge. I might have screamed—frustration tends to do that to a man—and in that moment, two things happened.

  One, it began to rain. A pounding, furious thunderstorm I’d not been paying attention to as it crept up on the city and released its watery anger. The statue’s powdery neutralized remains would stick to the sidewalk or drain down into the sewer.

  The second thing was I fell.

  As small as the statue was, it was heavy, heavy enough to break the windshield on our sedan, and definitely weighed enough to buckle a bridge’s tenuous hold on its moorings. I wasn’t prepared for the bridge’s sway, and I tumbled back, unable to keep my footing when the planking rocked.

  Physics really did suck.

  The skin around my teeth tightened, terror making my spit slick in my mouth. I twisted around, throwing out prayers to grab at any bit of the building’s brick façade. My hands skimmed the rough stone, scraping my fingertips and palms. There was nothing under my feet. Nothing but yards of empty space and the promise of a painful ending.

  Something firm snapped around my wrist, and my shoulder popped, strained to the point of breaking at the sudden jerk. I swung, then slammed into the side of the building, and my ears rang from the impact. A rushing whistle of wind screamed about my head, and through the aching pain, I heard my partner yelling my name.

  “Grab my arm, Roku!” Leonard’s face came into focus amid the swirl of brick, mist, and rain. “Hold on to me!”

  His other hand dangled near my face, but some sensible, conscious part of my frightened brain told me his forearm was better purchase. An odd detached whisper from somewhere inside of me wondered why he’d called me by my first name, and not just once. That pondering slipped away when Leonard jerked me up, dragging me along the building’s side. My feet kicked into motion a second later, and I dug my sneakers in for traction, climbing up the façade as Leonard pulled me over.

  I’d never felt anything as sweet as the tar paper and gravel beneath my hands and knees right at that moment. At least not until Leonard grabbed me in a tight embrace.

  He caught me up, wrapped his arms around me, then dragged a hand through my sweat-damp hair as the storm raged over us. The rain was cold, shot through with ice crystals, and despite the storm’s pounding, neither of us made a move to find cover.

  Trent Leonard felt good—too damned good—pressed against me. His thickly muscled body curved into mine, and the sear of his breath whispered over my face, burning its touch into my skin. My heart was still going at a machine gun–fire beat, and my body roiled with the stink of a fearful sweat, but the tightness in my mouth was gone, replaced by a hunger for the man holding me.

  I was going to put that down to the lust spell carried on the lingering fragments the statue left behind, but the telling burn along my back and the tightening of my balls reassured me that no, my wanting Trent Leonard was my own.

  Water sluiced over us, and the heavy weight of his hard cock pressed into my hip as he rocked me and sighed. I affected him as much as he affected me—or watching someone almost die got Leonard’s rocks off. My shoulder hurt, and my cock was probably hard enough to pound nails into the swaying bridge behind us, but I was alive. And being held by a partner I’d only had for one day who’d not only saved my life but brought my blood up to boil.

  “Pele’s teeth, you fucking scared me,” he finally gasped. We were both shivering, and my teeth chattered loud enough to nearly drown out the sirens drawing in on us. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

  “Seemed like it.” I wasn’t ready to let go of him, lying to myself it was because my legs were wobbly. “Wasn’t on my to-do list when I woke up this morning, Leonard.”

  “I just yanked you up off the side of a building.” He slapped my back lightly. “I think you can call me Trent.”

  “Y
eah. Okay, Trent.” I laughed, catching on to his curse when I reluctantly pulled away. My body ached, pain and pleasure mingled in too tight for me to separate, but I had to get some space between us. Shooting my last partner was bad enough. Fucking the next one would be just an invite for trouble to move in. “Let’s go and see what that damned thing’s done to the street. We should have caught a break and the spell’s gone because its vessel is broken.”

  “What are the odds of that happening?” His voice sounded strained, rough with a promise I wasn’t willing to act on.

  “Odds aren’t good,” I replied, shaking some feeling into my arm. “That’s one thing you’re going to have to learn about working Arcane Crimes. The odds are never in our favor.”

  Seven

  “WOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOO! Way to go, MacCormick!” The mountain that was Senior Inspector Brian Yamada pounded me on the back with a piglet-sized fist, rattling my brain and sending shock waves of pain through my already tender shoulder. “Some cops start a riot, but no, you had to go and start an orgy!”

  We’d come back to a rumble of cheers, mockery, and teasing at the station. It was a long, shameful walk through the bull pen, then a creaky stumble up the stairs to get to the loft. It was late, so the place was nearly empty except for a few of the clerks and, of course, Yamada, who was notorious for finishing up his paperwork at the last possible minute. My desk was as I’d left it, but my partner’s now sported a bunch of sex toys, lubricant packets, streamers, and for some reason, an army of bobbleheaded rabbits nodding each time someone bumped his desk.

  As cop initiations went, it was pretty subdued. I didn’t think Leonard had really taken it all in. He was too busy staring down Yamada.

  Yamada, in true Brian fashion, didn’t pay my new partner any mind. It was like a pebble glaring at Fuji in the hopes of getting the mountain to move. I’d have laughed if it wouldn’t have hurt my ribs.

  “I was going to get you a blow-up doll, but Valdez talked me out of it.” Yamada sighed and looked longingly at my office chair. “It would have been great. I even had a roll of duct tape.”

  Another pound on my back left me gasping, and it looked like Yamada was about ready to go another round with my spine before I could object. Leonard—Trent—stepped up behind me, growling deep in his chest, but I waved him off, used to Yamada’s manhandling. I wasn’t sure what to do with Trent’s protectiveness other than be annoyed. Sure, he was larger and more muscular, but I had cunning and, well, underhandedness in my bag of tricks. And I wasn’t that bad in a brawl or knife fight. Yamada, on the other hand, was a whole ’nother level of combat, and it was far easier to take the battering affection than insult the forever-grinning bear passing itself off as a cop.

  The slap came, shoving all the air out of my lungs, and Yamada’s congenial face twisted into a grimace. Of course, the manly whimper I made when he hit me probably hadn’t helped shore up my dubious reputation for being stoic, but it did make Yamada back up a few steps.

  “Oh man, sorry. Heard you got hurt. Don’t know what I was thinking,” Yamada whispered apologetically. The next back slap was lighter, a wallop instead of a full-out concussion grenade going off across my shoulders. So I rode another wave of pain with gritted teeth, but I was grateful he hadn’t pulled me into a hug. “Medical see you yet?”

  “No.” I hated being poked and prodded, especially by a newbie tech who hadn’t seen me before. I liked the shamans and priests in C-Town more than an actual doctor, because at least I knew I wasn’t going to be given stuff just to see how it worked on me. “I’ll go by later. Maybe. We’ve got paperwork to—”

  “MacCormick!” Gaines bellowed from downstairs. “In my office! And bring the new kid I gave you!”

  “Shit.” As if I wasn’t already hurt enough, I wouldn’t be able to sit down after the ass-chewing Gaines was probably going to give me. Even Yamada shuffled back a few feet as if I’d suddenly donned leper robes and started begging for alms.

  “Maybe it’s not too late to hit up Medical.” My partner looked pained. I had to give Trent this, he wasn’t a stupid man. He’d been at the Asylum for all of five minutes and already knew when Gaines’s bark was going to follow with a bite.

  “Avoiding the man doesn’t help things. It just pisses him off more, and then you’re doing shit like mopping up the front walk while it’s raining.” My upper arms and back ached from the muscle memory of doing just that when my thirteen-year-old brain thought I could mouth back to my mother over the phone, thinking I was safe because I was staying at Gaines’s house while she worked out of state for two weeks. It rained a lot the whole time she was gone, so the mop and I became very good friends. “Let me do the apologizing. He might go easy on you if you keep your lips shut.”

  “I’m not going to let you take the fall for this. No pun intended.” Trent yanked up the rolling gate to the ancient lift connecting the station’s two upper floors and its lower levels, grumbling at me when I limped into the car. “We were both on the job. Sure, you’re senior, but I should have known—”

  “You didn’t know enough to bring your own tea leaves and salt,” I reminded him. “There’s going to be a learning curve. He knows that. Trust me, Trent. Right now, that’s a raft you want to climb onto and cling to, because what we’re heading into right now will be a tsunami of a shitstorm.”

  By all rights, my godfather should have been home eating dinner or passed out on the couch after a beer and some ice cream. It was that late, but that wasn’t his style. No, as soon as he’d gotten word we’d fucked up the investigation, he’d probably unpacked his briefcase and ordered in a kettle of wonton soup.

  The smell of chicken broth permeated the hallway before I even got close to his office door.

  I was going to stick my head in first, but Trent barreled forward in typical military fashion. His ass clenched and his back stiffened as he knocked on the doorframe. The spiderweb scars on his face paled on his skin, and I worried he’d pass out from holding himself as tightly as he was.

  “Breathe,” I cautioned. “You’re too big for me to catch if you pass out.”

  “Is everything a joke to you?” he hissed back.

  “No, just the things I can’t control.” I knocked harder, then stuck my head through the open door. “You wanted to see us?”

  His desk was covered with reports, maps, and a huge see-through takeout container with about a cup of soup left in it. Gaines looked at me through his gold-rimmed glasses, scowling so furiously it made his eyebrows look like they were engaged in a battle to the death. His heavy silver-streaked walrus mustache was damp, and I suspected he’d been slurping straight from the soup container rather than using a spoon.

  “Did you eat?” he barked, pointedly ignoring Trent.

  “I figured we’d catch something later.” I kept my partner behind me, more out of preserving our working relationship than anything else. Gaines was angry, but it was a personal anger, and for all his level-headedness, I wasn’t sure if he was going to lash out at Trent because I’d been stupid enough to follow a cursed statue out onto a rickety bridge. “After we finish up our paperwork on the case. I’ve got Forensics going over the—”

  “Get in here and close the door. Both of you. I want to yell at you and not have to worry about anyone hearing me call you a stupid buttwipe.” Gaines put the lid on his soup and moved it to a cluttered table behind him. “Sit. Those chairs should be filled with your asses right now so we can talk about the fuckup you two had today.”

  The chair squeaked under me when I sat, but Trent remained standing. Gaines pointed at the other chair, and he edged closer to it. I didn’t know my partner well enough to guess what he’d do in most situations, but from what little we’d shared and the Youth Scout attitude he’d thrown at me all day, it was a pretty good bet he intended to throw himself on the proverbial sword.

  Inspector Trent Leonard did not fail me.

  After clearing his throat, Trent pulled his shoulders straight and snapped, “Th
is afternoon was my fault, sir. I was ill-prepared for what happened and—”

  “Sit down, Leonard. You haven’t been here long enough to take any of MacCormick’s blame. So get your ass in that seat and let Roku tell me what happened.” Gaines didn’t wait for Trent. Instead he jabbed the air at me with a pen. “You, talk. Leonard, I’ll tell you when I want to hear from you.”

  “Begging your pardon, sir,” Trent cut in softly before I could begin my tale of woe. “While MacCormick’s my partner and outranks me, I’m still an Inspector. I was assigned to this division to be a cop, not sit quietly and knit while my partner takes the blame or the credit for anything we’ve done.”

  Gaines studied Trent for a long moment, probably wondering how he could walk with the balls he was carrying between his legs. Then my godfather looked at me. I shrugged, then stretched my legs out, waiting for someone to make the first move. Gaines eventually grunted, “Fair enough. How about if Roku digs the hole, and you can jump right in next to him when it gets deep enough?”

  It must have been enough for Trent, because he sat down and waited for me to slit my own throat.

  With the exception of the rampant hard-core dick awakening I got from Trent, I told Gaines everything, including the part about the old assassin’s threats and how his wings nearly dragged on the floor from the weight of the red stars he’d punched into them. It took me about fifteen minutes in all to document the debacle, with the occasional murmur from Trent about points I’d missed.

  “Forensics says there’s not much they can do with what they scraped off of the sidewalk, but they’ll do their best.” I shrugged, then regretted it when a twinge inched along my shoulder blades. “That thing moved, Captain. Most cursed things lurch and stumble, but this full-on galloped. I don’t know what kind of magic kept that spell going, but whatever it was, it cost the caster a lot. That kind of magic drains. How the Hell is the caster even still alive?”

  “I thought once the magic is in something, it’s there to stay. Not with animation spells?” I shook my head no, and Trent leaned forward in his chair, his face as serious as Gaines’s. “So wait, the person who created the statue we chased is what? Dead? Drained?”