Steel Crow Saga

by Paul Krueger

  “Quiet,” Lee said again, in Tomodanese. Then: “Sit.”

  The dog sat on her dark-brown haunches, looking up at Lee expectantly…and quietly. Lee grinned, then made to scoop her up again, but Xiulan stepped into her path.

  “I’m sorry, Lee,” she said, her voice inflected with the textures that made it sound genuine. “We can’t.”

  “I’m telling you, Princess,” Lee said, “I’ve got a feeling about this dog.”

  But Xiulan just frowned, eye shining with regret.

  Lee sighed. “Stay,” she said to the dog, then turned to resume their escape.

  “You have…quite the affinity for dogs,” Xiulan observed as they sped along. Behind them, the dog sat at attention, her eyes fixed on them, ears flat. A small whine rose from her and dragged across Lee’s heartstrings like a key across a car door.

  “You get a lot of them where I come from,” Lee said, unable to keep some edge out of her voice. “Spend enough time around them, and you pick up how to talk to them eventually, same as a person. Now shut it, Your Majesty, before your barking’s what gets us caught.”

  As they crept through the mansion, Lee was struck by the contrast between this place and the royal palace they’d just come from. There was no artful sparseness here; the halls and rooms were crammed with art and decoration that all seemed shiny enough on its own, but in concert just made the whole place seem busy. From the looks of things, Lord Kurihara hadn’t had any vision or taste; he’d just wanted expensive things for the sake of having them.

  Those types were Lee’s favorite pockets to pick.

  She eyed all the metal in evidence: The art. The appliances. The little knickknacks cluttering up every tabletop. She couldn’t believe the Dahali hadn’t cleared them all out yet, but she supposed Chetan Parkash probably liked living like a highborn.

  Xiulan seemed to follow her eye. “Lee,” she said.

  Lee frowned. “Gotta eat,” she repeated, but she moved on anyway.

  They skulked through the house, taking the sequence of side rooms and servants’ corridors that would lead directly to the parking lot they’d come from. Lee had seen whole neat rows of cars there, open for the taking. Their patience was its own reward: It allowed them to get the drop on guard after guard, letting Kou make short work of them. One fortunate thing about Kurihara manor was that it seemed to have no shortage of closet space, though Lee supposed the cleaning crew would be in for a hell of a surprise.

  “Why haven’t we encountered more resistance?” Xiulan said as they stuffed another guard into a bathroom and shut the door. “Not that I have cause to complain, of course…”

  Lee had been wondering that, herself. “Near I can tell, it’s probably your fault,” she said. “You’re a princess. They can’t just be sticking you in their ratty—er, dirty brig while they figure out what to do with you. If word ever got back to your dear old dad, he’d have Chetan Parkash’s balls in a bowl of broth before sundown.”

  “Earlier, you’d suggested individual gold-plated vises. That’s quite the downgrade.”

  “So we get the royal treatment,” Lee went on. “Minimum security. Besides, they probably thought once you were caught, you’d just sit in the cell and wait, like a good little princess.”

  Xiulan laughed ruefully. “They weren’t inaccurate, were they?”

  “You said it, not me.”

  By staying low and sticking to the shadows, they were able to reach the side entrance. They only ran into a few more guards, each of whom they ably dispatched as before: Xiulan with strategic summonings of Kou, and Lee with a swift punch in the jaw. Lee wasn’t used to leaving behind a trail like this. Breaking-and-entering wasn’t even really her style, for that matter, unless she knew the place was empty. Xiulan seemed to think of her as some kind of all-purpose criminal mastermind, but her résumé didn’t have much more besides pickpocketing and the occasional con job.

  Still, she had to admit, when it came to being a master thief and spy, she was doing pretty great so far.

  They took up positions on either side of the door, which had a friendly-looking square window. Night had fallen outside, but the moonlight swathed the entire parking lot in a silver glow. It glinted off the domed roofs of the cars, making them glint like beetles neatly arranged in a collector’s case.

  “Nearest I can figure,” Lee said, “our best chance is to make a break for the nearest car, hope for the best, and try not to die.”

  Xiulan eyed the ground outside appraisingly. “Do you know the mechanisms of a car door lock?”

  Lee held up her borrowed knife.

  Xiulan shook her head. “I’m acquainted, at least on a theoretical level, with their inner workings.”

  “Think you could hot-wire one, too?”

  Xiulan’s eye shone with reluctance. “Theoretically.”

  Lee grimaced. Theoretically wouldn’t have ever passed muster with any self-respecting crew on a job like this. But she guessed they didn’t have a choice. “You think you can do it, you make the run.”

  “What will you do?”

  Lee glanced at the knife again. “Make sure we’re not followed.”

  Xiulan nodded, absorbing this. Then she hung her head and started laughing.

  “What?” Lee said warily.

  “It’s just…” Xiulan let out another laugh, tinged with disbelief. “We arrived in Tomoda this morning.”

  The absurd truth of it hit Lee like a policeman’s baton, and suddenly she couldn’t help but laugh, herself. “Guess we’ve had ourselves quite a day, haven’t we?”

  “I’m rather averse to living a boring life.” The princess sighed. “Shall we count to three, then?”

  Lee cracked the door. “Three.”

  They burst outside, skimming low to the ground. Xiulan peeled off left to break open a car, while Lee banked hard right. She tossed the knife to herself, caught it backhanded, and casually jabbed it into the first tire she saw. It let out a surprisingly loud hiss, but only for a few seconds. By the time it subsided, Lee had already moved on to the next car.

  The tension in her rose with each tire she stabbed. The longer they stayed out in the open like this, the more likely someone would happen on them by accident, or discover one of the bodies they’d left behind and raise the alarm. But every time she glanced over at the car they’d chosen for escape, Xiulan still knelt at the door, fiddling with it.

  As she finished up the third row of tires, she heard a click far behind her. Her skin came alive with electric tingles, as she expected to come face-to-face with the barrel of a Dahali gun. But when she turned, she saw that it was just the car door, which now stood slightly ajar. Xiulan had stuffed herself into the car, and stuck one hand out to urgently beckon Lee to follow.

  “Were you successful?” Xiulan said as Lee threw herself into the backseat.

  “They’ll have a hell of a time chasing us,” Lee said. “But I made me a fair bit of noise, so we’ll probably be hearing alarms…” She paused, listening.

  “What is it?” Xiulan said.

  “Nothing,” said Lee. “Normally it’s just that with my luck, the alarms wait until I’m talking about them to actually—”

  The air filled with rising sirens.

  Lee hung her head. “Tell me you’ve got that hot-wired.”

  “As of yet, it’s been reluctant to yield to me its—”

  “Long walk to ‘no,’ then,” Lee barked.

  “Why do you always say that?” Xiulan shouted back.

  From outside the car came angry shouts in Dahali and the telltale tromp of boots. In the car’s rearview mirror, she saw troops falling in, hands aglow.

  “What happens if a hexbolt hits this car?” Lee said.

  “Theoretically, anything,” Xiulan said as she fiddled with a tangle of wires. “I know little of Dahali sorcery, save t
hat it involves the direct channeling of soul energy.”

  “More theories.”

  Xiulan grunted. “I take it we’re about to be treated to a practical lesson?”

  “Only if you don’t hurry the fuck up, Your Majesty.”

  “It’s an honorific, you know,” Xiulan grumbled through clenched teeth. “Why do you only call me that when we’re—”

  A bolt of white light slammed into the rear window. Cracks spiderwebbed through the glass. More filled the air around them, as if their car were caught in the epicenter of a gigantic firework. The entire vehicle groaned and swayed with every impact.

  “Damn it!” Xiulan threw the wires down. “All the books in the world will never convey the technical realities of a procedure.”

  Lee ducked as another hexbolt deepened every crack in the rear window. “If you spent as much time hot-wiring as you did saying all those big words, we’d be out of here by now!”

  “Lee, you aren’t listening: I can’t do it,” Xiulan said. But it wasn’t her words that gave Lee pause; it was her tone. Rather than the heights of hysteria, she was speaking in the flat, even tones of despair. “Ruomei was right: I’m the White Rat, and we’re clutched in the talons of the hawk.”

  Lee bit the insides of her cheeks. The hexbolts outside had stopped, which meant only one thing: The Dahali were closing in on foot. They’d played all their big surprises to get out of their cell this time. If they got caught again, there was no way Parkash would give them even an inch of wiggle room.

  She inhaled. “Shang Xiulan,” she said. “If you don’t prove me wrong about how worthless you inbred excuse of a royal class are by hot-wiring this fucking car, you’re not getting another damn kiss out of me.”

  Xiulan’s head whipped around like she’d been slapped by an invisible palm. With a growl, she grabbed two wires and forcibly twisted them together.

  And the engine in the rear of the car roared to life, before settling into a low purr.

  Xiulan’s eye snapped wide in disbelief.

  Lee kicked the back of the driver’s seat. “Go!”

  Xiulan swiveled around, then slammed a booted foot onto the gas pedal. The entire car surged forward so suddenly, Lee had to throw her arms out to stop herself from breaking her nose on the seat in front of her.

  She swerved wildly to avoid a charging Dahali soldier. “Was that worth a kiss, Inspector Lee?” Xiulan said.

  “Get us out of this one alive, Princess, and kissing’s the least of what I’ll do to you.”

  She turned back to laugh at the sight of their pursuers trying to chase them with flat tires.

  But instead, she only saw a four-legged silhouette sprinting through the headlights.

  She knew what was about to happen just before it did.

  A hexbolt slammed into the dog as she ran, cutting her off mid-bark. She fell right to the ground with a sharp whine Lee could hear over the din of battle.

  Lee threw herself at the driver’s seat. “Turn us around.”

  “Have you taken leave of your senses, Inspector Lee?” Xiulan said. “We need to—”

  “Either you turn us around, or I’m throwing myself out that door and going back myself.”

  Xiulan gaped. “For a dog?” But then she exhaled and threw the car into a sharp power-slide with a yank of the hand brake.

  With the headlights now facing their pursuers, Lee could see their ranks swelling. If they so much as stopped, their car would be overwhelmed by bodies and hexbolts alike.

  “Speed up,” Lee said.

  “What do you intend to do?” Xiulan said.

  Lee sighed. “Something fucking stupid.”

  Xiulan sped up.

  Some soldiers fled while others stood their ground and unleashed a deluge of hexbolts. One took the left side mirror clean off, while another splatted right into their windshield, turning it almost opaque white with microfissures. Xiulan cursed and swerved, but Lee shouted, “Close your eyes!” She hoped Xiulan obeyed, because she hurled her borrowed knife straight at the cracked windshield, and the entire pane shattered. Sharp, glittering shards of glass flew back into the car, and Lee turned just in time to avoid a mouthful of them.

  Then she threw her door open.

  The wind roared against the opening, and she had to brace her feet against the seat so she could keep the door open with her hands. Struggling mightily against the weight of it, she leaned her head out to get a glimpse of the dog. They were coming up on her any second now.

  Something white-hot rushed past her cheek, slamming into the door a mere inch from her hand. The entire car door bent too far on its hinge. Lee let go as the entire thing peeled right off the side of their newly minted jalopy and skidded into their wake.

  Another one screamed past her, singeing some of her short hair as it flew wildly in the wind. She ignored it, though she couldn’t stop her memory from reminding her what a direct hit would feel like…especially at this speed. But she refused to let that distract her for the next three…two…one—

  Less deft hands than hers would’ve shattered their fingers on the asphalt, or missed their target entirely. But fingers were all Lee had ever had, and in that split second she wrapped them around the prone dog, then yanked herself back into the wreck of a car they were driving. The creature shivered in her arms, barely alive.

  “I hope you’re satisfied!” Xiulan shouted, then threw the hand brake again. Shouts rose outside the car as it went into another controlled slide, drifting around the narrow bend between rows of parked, disabled cars. The car, top-heavy and vertical as it was, teetered for a moment on only two wheels before settling back down hard on all four. And then they were off into the night, hexbolts in their wake, but thankfully no cars.

  Which left the poor dog in Lee’s lap.

  “We have to help her,” Lee said. She stroked the dog’s flank, and the animal whined in response.

  “Where would we go?” Xiulan said. “The Tomodanese hold animal spirits equal to human ones, but they’d never help two humans like us. And if the Dahali are willing to ship me back to Shang, then surely our own troops would be doubly so.”

  “We can’t just let her die!” Lee shouted. That wasn’t good. She was losing her cool, really losing it. People who did that were never long for Lee’s world.

  “We have no recourse,” Xiulan said. She sighed. “Why do you even want to save this dog so badly?”

  Lee didn’t answer. She rocked in her seat, and rocked the dog with her. She didn’t know what else to do. Her mind whirred as she tried to think up a way to save this one. But she only knew thieving. She didn’t know anything about science, and she didn’t know anything about…

  About…

  She sat upright. The dog whined again.

  Lee caught Xiulan’s eye in the rearview mirror. And with all the gravel she could muster, she said, “Teach me how to shadepact again. Right now.”

  “We don’t have anything we need,” Xiulan said. “The incense, the cloths, The Nine Truths…”

  “That’s how the Shang do it,” Lee snapped. “Do I look Shang to you?”

  Xiulan’s mouth creased. Bitterness flooded every bit of Lee’s being. Her partner was picking one hell of a time to remember she was a royal.

  But then Xiulan’s voice grew very soft. “It might not work.” Lee had to strain to hear her over the roar of the whipping wind. “But I’ll help you try. Lay your hands on her.”

  Carefully, Lee obeyed, letting the dog’s shallow breaths bounce her palms up and down.

  “Good,” Xiulan said. “That’s the first step in creating a bridge between her soul and yours. Once you do that, it’s imperative that you maintain that connection. Without it, your bond will falter and fail, and she will die.”

  “I remember that bit,” Lee said, a bit more testily than she’d meant. “W
hat do I do now?” She’d been given the steps before, but the more she grasped at the memories, the more easily they eluded her.

  Xiulan hesitated a moment before answering. “What comes next is much more intuitive,” she said. “We’re speaking of souls—a component of yourself you will never find on an anatomy chart, but which is nonetheless essential to your existence. It’s like…” She thought. “Close your eyes.”

  “That didn’t help last time,” Lee said. Closing her eyes was the last thing she wanted to do. Hell, she barely even wanted to blink. She felt an overpowering need to keep eyes on this dog, because one blink was all it might take for the dog to stop fighting and give in.

  “It will help you focus on my incredibly calming voice,” Xiulan snapped. “Now do it.”

  Lee spared one last worried look into the dog’s increasingly misty eyes. And then, hesitantly, she shut them. She tried to reach for that calm place inside herself again, but it was nowhere to be found. It had been impossible to find when all she had to deal with was the world’s scariest rooster under her arm. Now she was fresh out of another prison cell, in a speeding wreck of a stolen car, and cradling a dog at death’s door. How were closed eyes and a couple of deep breaths supposed to make her just up and forget all that?

  The harder she worked to achieve calm, the more that calm eluded her. Every time she created a gap in her thoughts for emptiness and silence to go, instead more thoughts would just flood in. And in her hand, she felt the dog’s breaths growing shallower and shallower.

  “You’re not trying hard enough,” Xiulan said. “Your mind must be in order so you can focus. Find that focus, or she’ll die.”

  “The dogs take you, I’m focusing!” Lee shouted, but she felt hopelessness creeping in. This was pointless. Hers wasn’t an orderly mind; if anything, order made her uneasy. It reminded her of shiny Tomodanese jackboots, and the Shang boots that had tromped over Jeongson’s soil before them. She’d spent her life running away from order. It’d never meant “calm” for her. No, she’d always found her peace in—