Bound: Chinatown Demons, Book One

by Rhys Ford

  The tremor in her voice wasn’t from age or infirmity. She was terrified.

  “I’m not going to hurt you, grandmother,” he reassured her. But her trembling, while slight, continued. “I don’t have much time.”

  “The dead one is your problem, then?” She nodded toward the still twitching form on the ground, the man’s nerves refusing to let go of life. “I can help with that too.”

  “What’s your price?” Nothing in Chinatown—in any Chinatown—was free, and Xian didn’t have much time to get Spencer to safety. Whatever the old woman wanted, he would give her.

  He had no choice.

  For some reason, his soul insisted Inspector Spencer Ricci was vital to him, and he’d survived on his instincts. Xian knew what he had to do, and the old woman seemed to be a part of that journey.

  Or at least a rock in the road he couldn’t ignore.

  “None of my family gets eaten.” She waved back at the door, her gnarled fingers shaking as she spoke. “No one in my house.”

  Understanding dawned on Xian, and he padded back over to Spencer, assessing the man’s wounds. Moving him was going to be necessary, but he would have to be careful. One wrong shift and the cop’s guts would spill out.

  “That’s not me, grandmother. I don’t feed to the death. That’s… another.” He glanced up at her, shaking his head. “I can offer your house protection, but that doesn’t go far with others. Or I can owe you a favor. Paid to you or someone you give it to. Someone in your family.”

  “Do you have money?”

  “How much money do you need?” Tucking Spencer’s shirt over his wound staunched much of the bleeding. Or worse, there wasn’t much more blood left in him.

  “College. My grandson—”

  “Whatever he needs. Whatever college he wants to go to is his,” Xian promised, gathering Spencer up carefully. The man was mostly muscle and too bulky to be an easy lift, but Xian only had to go a few blocks. “I can send someone for the body. If you hear something outside, do not open the door. Tell me your grandson’s name, and I’ll make arrangements. But tell no one. Not even him.”

  “Thomas Kam. He wants to go to Berkeley, but we do not have the money.” The old woman’s face drooped. “He is a good boy. I want him to do well. I’m giving you nothing and you offer too much.”

  “You’re giving me silence. Tell no one about this. Give me that, and I promise, grandmother, I’ll take care of your grandson. Should my blood turn to dust if I do not keep my word.” He glanced up at the wooden plaque fixed to the wall next to the door, memorizing the number there. “Just keep the door closed. Give me your word you’ll say nothing about this and stay behind the door until the morning comes. I can help your grandson, but he’s not going to celebrate if he’s mourning your death. Close the door and lock it.”

  “Am I safe from you, demon?” she asked softly, navigating the step once again.

  “Very safe,” Xian replied with a grin. “Now go inside. Please. And do not open the door until after the sun comes up. Because in a few minutes, there will be more than demons feeding outside your door, and I do not want them to mistake you for their breakfast.”

  §

  The pain wouldn’t ease off. It didn’t matter how hard Spencer tried to shove it away or even how intently he struggled to embrace the darkness rising up from the back of his skull with its cool lingering touch, something kept him from falling into its velvet comfort. His limbs were gone, or at least he couldn’t feel them anymore, and in the middle of his chest, his heart churned slowly, becoming a cement lump under his sternum. His ribs were on fire, burning with each breath he took, and there was nothing more he wanted than to stop his lungs from expanding against their shattered pieces. But no matter how hard he fought to ease away, he couldn’t shake the tantalizing siren of a husky, slightly British purr and the assurance the world waited for him outside of his closed eyelids.

  “Brian!” The cajoling gave way to a harsh rattle of anger and authority. It wove past Spencer’s brittle hold on his senses, hammering away at the edges of his sleepiness. “I need blood. And hemostats… oh, and gauze. Lots of it. A scalpel wouldn’t be amiss.”

  “Master—” The voice was familiar, a slithery upbeat masculine tone shaded with something Spencer couldn’t identify, and he wondered if he’d somehow wound up in a BDSM club and someone’d made quick work of his entire body for trespassing.

  “Now.”

  The other voice—Carter’s voice—rippled with strength, a strong push refusing all arguments and wavering. If he could move, Spencer probably would have gone looking for whatever the medical examiner wanted, even if he had no damned clue where it was—or even where he was.

  “You’re shot!” The other man argued, and Spencer felt his gut turn, another wave of pain blurring the edges of his consciousness. “The cop can wait, Xian. I need to—"

  “If I ask you again, I’ll be reaching out to your family for another assistant,” Carter replied. The edge in his words cut through even the steel clamp of Spencer’s pain. “Now, Brian.”

  The agony rolling through Spencer’s body subsided for a moment, leaving him gasping from the lack of its constant, razor-sharp throbbing, and he surfaced, pulling free of the clinging shadows enveloping him. It was a mistake. He knew that as soon as he blinked and caught Carter’s finely-sculpted features, his white hair loose around his face while his hands ran over Spencer’s torso. The same delicate long fingers Spencer watched begin to unwrap the mummified victim they’d found at the restaurant were now probing Spencer’s torn skin, searching for what, Spencer didn’t know.

  “Aren’t you the dead doc? Can’t you wait a little bit until you start taking me apart?” He coughed, splattering blood and spit over Carter’s tense features. “Fuck, that hurts.”

  “Let’s try to keep your fluids in you and not on me. I’m surprised you can even speak. How are you even awake?” Carter did something to Spencer’s side, and the pain rose again, bright, sparkling bits of anguish bursting through his nerves. “Brian, what part of now didn’t you understand?”

  Everything came rushing back to Spencer, tendrils of awareness through the layers of pain. Flashes of walking uphill, searching for something to eat in a still, silent Chinatown when cold steel peeled apart his flesh. Then Carter—a terrifying menace of teeth and rage-filled eyes—ripping out a man’s throat, blood gushing past the man’s jagged flesh, covering Carter’s chest. Carter hadn’t changed. His T-shirt crinkled as he moved in and out of Spencer’s tight line of sight. The drying blood flaked off, sprinkling slightly damp deep brown specks over Spencer’s shoulder and arm. But he couldn’t find enough strength to move. He could only watch in horror when a softly-fleshed hand drifted into view, its fingers clenched around a bright, glittering scalpel.

  “Wait…,” Spencer slurred, his shoulders barely moving an inch although he put all his strength into pulling back. “Don’t—”

  “You’re dying, Ricci,” Carter said, grasping the scalpel. His eyes were too dark, swallowing up Spencer’s resolve with a glance. “And don’t take this wrong, but… shut up. You’re jiggling the parts I’m trying to patch up.”

  “You’ve been shot—” The other man grumbled something else, but Carter didn’t spare the still unseen Brian a single look. Brian continued, outside of Spencer’s view but louder, more insistent. “Carter, I know you’re busy, but you’ve a hole in your side.”

  “That’s what the hemostats are for.” Holding his hand up, Carter brought the sharp edge of the scalpel down across his palm, digging the tip in deep. Hissing, he drew his fingers together to hold the blood welling up out of the slice and glared down at Spencer. “You better be worth this, because… it would be a hell of a lot easier just to let you die, Inspector.”

  Despite all of the blood on him, Spencer could smell Carter in the air. The pungent sweetness of the man’s skin and then the punching rush of a metallic gold scent when Carter held his blood-filled hand up to Spencer’s side.
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  “What the fuck are you doing to me?” Spencer couldn’t get his tongue to work properly, slurring the sounds together around in his mouth. Carter didn’t appear to hear him, and he struggled against the lethargy creeping into his bones.

  Odd things were coming into focus, the world yawing and heaving in and out in fractured segments. He finally caught sight of the other man, a familiar, oddly anxious face Spencer placed as being at the morgue when he’d consulted with the medical examiner. The walls were sometimes brick, and sometimes a faint ivory-gold wash over sleek panels. The lights were bright—mostly—dimming when Spencer tried to keep his eyes open to watch whatever the hell Carter was doing.

  His tongue was beginning to lay flat against the roof of his mouth, and no matter what Spencer did, he couldn’t seem to loosen it. Breathing was hard, and he repeated himself. His words came out garbled and thick. “What are you doing?”

  Perhaps he made some sense because Carter nodded, fixing him with a deep, dark, soul-stripping gaze as he rubbed his hands together, spreading the blood over his palms. “I’m probably going to bring you the worst pain of your life, but with any luck, it won’t be the last thing you feel. I am sorry, Inspector, but this is quite necessary.”

  Giving Spencer a wistful smile, Carter took a deep breath, plunged his hands into Spencer’s knife wounds, and the lights withered for Spencer one last time before the pain claimed him again.

  §

  “I don’t mean to second-guess you…” Brian trailed off, obviously choosing his words as carefully as he could. But from the stuttering and fits of his tongue against the roof of his mouth, it didn’t sound like his mental thesaurus was doing him any favors.

  “And yet, here you are,” Xian replied drolly, feeling for the bullet lodged somewhere near his hip. He was flexible, but the angle was wrong for him to do it himself. “While you’re deciding how to chastise me for bringing the inspector here, grab the scalpel over there. I’m going to need you to cut this open and fish the bullet out. It’s closer to my back than my front.”

  “Wait, actually cut you open?” His assistant paled, his Adam’s apple working a furious jig up and down his throat. “I don’t—”

  “We cut people open every day. This isn’t any different. I might even be as dead as the people we take care of. No one really knows. Or at least, no one’s told me one way or another.” Xian twisted about, trying to see if he could reach the spot himself if Brian turned out to be too weak-willed. “You went to school to learn how to cut people open, remember? It’s not very hard. If anything, just do a better job than whoever stabbed Inspector Ricci here and I’ll be happy. Just hurry up. I’d rather it be cut from me than wait for it to be shoved out. That always happens at the worst times, and nowadays, it makes it hard to go through airports with bits of metal floating about.”

  “Mas… um… Carter, I don’t know if I can—”

  “Scalpel, Brian.” Xian nodded toward the tray. “Just grab the one I already used on my hand. Not like I’m going to catch anything. Let me just try to figure out the trajectory so you’ll know exactly where to go in. Oh, and bring the hemostats. You might have to go digging.”

  Brian hit the floor hard, a floppy bag of damp, cold-sweat-covered flesh collapsing with a loud thump. Xian regarded his assistant and sighed heavily, reaching for the scalpel sitting on the far end of the coffee table he’d perched on once he’d used his blood to cauterize and heal Spencer’s injuries.

  The man lying on his couch worried him more than his unconscious assistant. Despite the room’s massive louvered windows being clamped tight against the outside chill, goose bumps ran across Xian’s bare chest and back. Spencer Ricci brought something dangerous with him, an unknown and unfamiliar whisper of need and darkness too tempting for Xian to ignore.

  Since he’d first seen the inspector at the restaurant, surrounded by the chaos of crime scene technicians, uniformed cops and the odd appearance of a dismembered mummy, Xian was struck at the opaqueness of the man. Even unconscious, with no eyes on him and no awareness of the world, his rough, worn face held its secrets. There was no softness in his features, even in sleep. Relentless was the word Xian immediately thought of at that time, and nothing he’d seen since then changed his mind.

  If anything, the man lying on his couch, bloodied and torn from being caught unaware, was still as much a predator as Xian—if not more.

  It was probably the reason he’d risked himself and his own secrets to save Ricci from death. There were so few predators who served to protect the innocent. Xian couldn’t stand the thought of losing even one. There was also the matter of Ricci’s slow glances raking over Xian’s face and body. Xian was curious to dig at those roaming stares, stupidly wondering if the man was simply unable to not look at people as if he wanted to peel them apart or if there was something else there, something dangerous and fiery Xian would probably regret delving into.

  “What are you carrying with you, Ricci?” Xian whispered to the man sprawled out in front of him. “Humans aren’t that complicated. Everything comes down to sex, coin, or power. Which one drives you, huh?”

  The scalpel was too far away, so Xian slid down the table, bringing himself close to the inspector. Hunger tugged at his core, reminding Xian he’d already lost blood healing his rescued cop and slicing himself open would only make matters worse. The man he’d killed by the tearoom was too foul to drink from, his blood curdled from poison and something sick deep inside his soul. There were some people whose very flesh would salt the earth when buried, and Xian suspected the Chinatown thug he’d taken down was one of them. Debating if he could reasonably leave the bullet inside of him until it forced its way out, Xian reached around again to feel at the place he intuited its exit would have been if the projectile completed its journey through him.

  He’d been tempted to pull Ricci over the line of humanity, the same wide River Styx he’d been dragged across back in the days when he’d scrambled to catch the eye of a wealthy man in the hopes of being fed one more time. When his creator’s mouth sealed over his throat, plunging sharp fangs into his flesh, Xian had no choice but to let his life be stolen away, terrified of fighting a man who could destroy everything he knew with a single word.

  Xian would rather Death take Ricci than steal away his choice. Eternity was… dreary, and finding something to focus on, something to move forward with, proved to be more difficult each passing year. He wouldn’t wish that on anyone, even one as seemingly strong-willed as Spencer Ricci.

  It was still tempting. Just as tempting as the man himself.

  A soft moan from near the far end of the table made Xian pause, and he waited for Brian to emerge from his faint.

  “Are you alive, Brian?” he murmured sarcastically to his prone assistant. Just beyond the press of his fingers against the small of his back, Xian could feel the hard lump of the bullet buried deep into his muscle. “If not, thump the floor and I’ll see if one of your cousins can take your place. Or do I have to call your father to come help me get this out?”

  “Why do you threaten me with my father every time I do something you don’t like? I fainted. You know how I am about blood sometimes,” Brian grumbled, his annoyance thickening his words. Even hidden from Xian’s view, irritation flickered through the young man’s next groan. “God, why are you such an asshole? I try so hard.”

  “You do,” Xian acknowledged. “Now try a little bit harder and come help me cut this damned thing out. With the way things go in my life, I’ll be autopsying a gunshot victim and it will pop out right when I have a sea of cops watching me. I don’t want to have to explain how the inspector’s bullet ended up someplace it had no reason to be.”

  “Yes, Master.” Exhaling a heavy sigh, Brian sat up, then tried to smooth his hair with a slow pat. “You could have at least caught me.”

  “Don’t call me Master. And that’s precisely why I didn’t catch you,” he countered. “I was hoping the floor would knock some sense into you. And since
you’re up, grab some extra towels. This bullet is deep. It’s going to bleed a lot, and the last thing I want to do is mop the floor.”

  “Right, like you even know where the mop is,” Brian muttered, slowly wobbling to his feet. “And if I puke on your feet doing this, just remember, you’re the one who wanted my help. Is he going to be okay? The cop, I mean. Because if he’s not, we’re going to have to figure out what to do with his body.”

  “Brian, him dying is the least of my problems,” Xian replied, leaning forward to give Brian a better view of his back. “I’m more worried about what I’m going to do with him if he lives.”

  §

  Breathing was painful, but Spencer forced himself to inhale slowly, keeping each hissing pull as shallow as possible. His skin crackled with every minute motion he made. Even trying to draw moisture from his parched throat and tongue set off a new wave of ache. Rivulets of dull, throbbing red pain coursed over his body in a rolling tsunami, seeking out every fissure and channel of his crackled, dry flesh. Blinking was out of the question, and he sure as hell had no plans to ever stand upright.

  Not for as long as he lived.

  For however long that was, because if the pain wasn’t confusing enough, he sure as hell couldn’t make any sense out of the fragments of memory bombarding his mind, a blitzkrieg of explosive revelations carved out of a block of sheer horror and force-fed into Spencer’s thoughts.

  Slowly, he became aware of certain things. One side of his body hurt a hell of a lot more than the other, and something hard held his right arm immobile, a hot prick digging into the inside of his elbow, the persistent ache overcoming the dulled lows of pain in between his breaths. His heartbeat pounded in his ears, a thrush-thrush-thrush more along the lines of a dripping water torture than the reassuring rhythm of his continuing life.

  “Gah.” Probably not the best first word to scrape off his tongue, but it was the best Spencer could do. Another breath in, and the exhale was much better. “Fuuuuck.”