“No. But it’s really not their fault. They’re under someone else’s control. They’re not the ones that are the problem.” Ben looked as if he was going to start to sulk.
“I tried going after the Triad. It didn’t work out so hot,” I said.
“Only because you failed.” Alex drummed his fingers on the counter.
“Hey!”
“Don’t get your undies in a bunch. I’m just stating a fact. The boy has a point. We need to take out the Triad more than we need to exterminate the
kiang shi
.”
“They have a tendency to dish out some pretty nasty forms of revenge on the people who try to mess with them.” I shuddered. What would the repercussions of what I’d done be? Who else had I put in danger?
“Then we have to make sure that no one realizes that we’re the ones that mess with them.” Ted looped his arm around me.
“Who do you suggest we use as our fall guy then? Who do you really want to sic the Triad on?”
“It’s too bad we can’t make talismans that would make them attack the Triad instead of us,” Ted said.
“What did you say?” An idea was starting to form in my head.
“I said it’s too bad that we can’t make talismans . . .” He started to repeat himself. Was there anything he wouldn’t do for me?
I shushed him. “I heard what you said. Hold on a second.” Why couldn’t we make fake talismans that wouldn’t work? Would anyone be able to tell? I’d carted the fake Kokopelli flute around for a day and never suspected that it wasn’t real. Even Kokopelli had handled it for a while before he’d realized that it wasn’t his sacred object. Would the Triad be able to tell if the talismans were switched out? Would the priests?
I leaned forward on the couch, staring at Alex as my idea began to firm up like a good Jell-O mold. “When you play with fire, sometimes you get burned.”
He smiled as he began to understand what I was talking about. “Hoisted by their own petard? Live by the sword, die by the sword?”
“Talking in clichés and platitudes until the rest of the group smacks your heads together just for the pleasure of hearing them crack?” Ted asked.
I turned to face him. “We get the
kiang shi
to kill the Triad.” Paul’s eyes went wide as the simplicity and beauty of the plan dawned on him as well. “Nice.”
“But if there are fake talismans, the
kiang shi
will be mindless killing machines. How do we get them to stop before they kill us, too?” Ted asked.
“I’m pretty sure I can take care of that,” Alex said. Alex doesn’t need to breathe. Vampires don’t. Oxygen isn’t important to them anymore. On the other hand, he does need to make a show of breathing. It’s surprising how many people will notice when someone around them isn’t breathing. He’s had to train himself to do it as naturally as he can.
Okeydokey. There was step one.
We settled down to the business of making a plan.
WE DECIDED WE WOULD PUT OUR PLAN INTO MOTION THE FOLLOWING night. We figured that Henry and his gang were still regrouping from what had happened, much as we were. They wouldn’t do anything during the day. One of the lovely things about using the
kiang shi
for us and for them was it allowed a certain degree of deniability. I didn’t think they’d give that up in favor of a daytime strike against me or against the people I cared about.
Just to be on the safe side, Ted did a drive-by of my parents’ house and the retirement center. Everything seemed fine. Still, it was nearly dawn when he slipped into bed with me.
Gravity alone made me roll toward him.
“Hey,” he whispered into my hair.
“Hey, yourself.” I wrapped myself closer around him, grateful for his warmth and the solid bulk of him next to me.
“Everything’s quiet out there.”
“Good.”
“Are you okay?”
“Not really. How about you?”
He hesitated. “Not exactly. It feels weirdly right, though.”
“You mean this?” I bumped up against him.
He kissed me, hard. “No. I mean, that feels right but not weird. I meant this other stuff. The stuff with Alex and Paul and . . . you. It feels like I’ve known it all along on some kind of gut level.”
I laid my cheek against his chest and listened to his heartbeat. There was something different about this guy, but it wasn’t supernatural. “Really?”
“Yeah. Really. You know, it’s probably from growing up with a father who thinks he’s about to go and address the United Nations while wearing an aluminum foil hat, but I never really felt like anybody had my back. These guys, well, when we were out searching for you, we were a team. We each had something we could do and we all counted on each other to do it.” He turned onto his side and scooched down so we were nose to nose. “And as for this? Well, it feels like I’ve been waiting for this my whole life.”
I SLEPT FOR MOST OF THE DAY. ALEX HAD BEEN RIGHT. I WAS exhausted, physically and emotionally. Ted left with a kiss and a whispered promise to be back at some point after work. I didn’t stumble out of my room until hours later. The place was empty. For a second, I bristled. Where was everybody? What did a girl have to do around here to get a grilled cheese sandwich and some tomato soup?
I made a piece of toast and a cup of coffee. It didn’t taste as good without a lecture to go with it, so I put in extra sugar. I’d need all the energy I could get tonight.
Paul and Ted showed up almost simultaneously, dressed ridiculously alike in dark jeans and black T-shirts.
“You two should really call each other before you leave the house,” I said as I let them in.
I started assembling my gear: sticky rice, a dagger and a hunting knife, an amulet or two. I wasn’t sure what else to put in. I sat back on my heels to think. “Where’s Alex?”
Paul picked up my dagger and examined it. “He’ll meet us there as soon as he can leave his bat cave.”
“I thought he couldn’t turn into a bat.” Ted crouched down to check out my arsenal, too.
Paul shot him a look. “You are such a newbie. It’s only a saying.” He gave Ted a playful punch in the shoulder that would have knocked a smaller man to the ground.
Ted opened his mouth to protest, but Norah came out of her bedroom in an outfit that can only be described as Cosmopolitan Ninja. She was wrapped in black from head to toe, except the parts in between that showed her cleavage and her midriff. “I’m going with you.”
“No.” I started putting items into my backpack.
“Yes. I’m done being left home and lied to. I want to see what it’s all about. You don’t have to protect me, Melina. I’m a big girl.”
I turned and looked at her. At five foot seven and about one hundred and twenty pounds, she most decidedly was not a big girl. She was a twig that a
kiang shi
could snap and suck the marrow out of as a snack.
“No.” I zipped up my pack, then checked the knife strapped to my ankle to make sure it was secure.
“How are you going to stop me?” She had her arms crossed over her chest and her hip cocked.
I turned and gave her my full attention. “You don’t know what you’re getting into. This isn’t a game.”
“And I’m not a child.”
I was about to argue the point, but Paul broke in. “We don’t have a lot of time. Let her come. It’s her funeral if she gets in the way.”
As attempts at manipulation went, it was way below even his standards. I turned to look at him, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes. Damn it. He wanted her to come with us.
“Anything happens to her, it’s on your head, Fido,” I said and walked out the door.
I could hear Norah jumping up and down and clapping behind me and knew she looked like one of those cheesy beer commercials with girls and their hair bouncing up and down. If I thought it would have bothered Paul at all, I would have come back to the apartment just to slap him.
Sophie and Ben were waiting at the bottom of the stairs. I closed my eyes and tried to gather my strength. “Let me guess. You’re coming with us.”
They both nodded. Ben held up a bag of sticky rice. “We’re ready.”
It was like sending a kid in to take the SATs with a slide rule. They had no idea what they were getting into, and regardless of what they thought, they were woefully unprepared. I told them so.
Sophie crossed her arms over her chest. “We helped make the plan. We want to help execute it.”
“Isn’t it enough to be the brains?” I asked. “Trust me, being the brawn isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
She pressed her lips into a hard firm line and nodded toward Norah. “You’re letting her go.”
True enough. “Well, come on, then. Daylight’s burning and I want to be ready.”
We split up between Ted’s truck and Paul’s van. My car was deemed to still be too conspicuous and I didn’t argue. I watched Norah and Sophie and Ben pile into the van, and then turned to Paul. “What the hell are we doing here?”
He sighed. “I’m not entirely sure myself. See you at the temple.”
And we were off.
WE GATHERED BY MY FAVORITE DUMPSTER BEHIND THE BOK KAI Temple. The shadows had gone beyond long by the time Alex came inching along the edge of the building, careful to stay out of the direct sunlight. “Ready to get started?” I asked.
Alex loosened his collar and sidled over to me. “We have a little problem.”
I looked at the ragtag crew assembled in the shadow of the Dumpster. “Ya think?”
He shook his head. “Bigger than that.”
I sighed. “Hit me.”
“I can’t go in.”
I chewed on that for a second. “Do I have to get George to invite you?” I didn’t think George would be terribly happy to see me again. Let’s face it. George was never happy to see me. There was no reason to think that this moment would be any exception. Bringing a werewolf and a vampire with you didn’t make you the most welcome guest.
“Wouldn’t help.” He looked embarrassed. I’d never seen Alex look embarrassed. I’d never seen any vampire look embarrassed. It was a little weird. Kind of like a worried werewolf. “It’s sacred ground.”
I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it myself. I bonked myself in the forehead. “I don’t suppose it matters that it’s not your religion.”
He shook his head. “Apparently not. I can barely stand close to the building. There’s no way I’m going to be able to enter it.”
“Alex, nobody else can hold their breath that long.” So much for our great plan.
“You don’t think I know that?” he hissed.
“What do we do now?”
Ted walked up next to us. “About what?”
“We have a problem.”
“So what do you need me to do?” Ted asked.
“That depends. How long can you hold your breath?”
Ted had apparently been on the swim team in high school and started rattling off something about hypoxia and yardage and we stared at him. Finally, he said, “I can hold my breath for a really long time.”
I LED MY GANG OF MERRY MEN AND WOMEN UP ONTO THE DUMPSTER and into the office. Well, all of them except Alex. He stayed down below, crouching in the shadow of the Dumpster, ostensibly acting as our lookout.
I’d been worried that the window would be locked this time. By this point, George must have figured out how I was getting in. Yet the window remained unlocked. Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much. I don’t think George had been nearly as unhappy to see me as he pretended to be.
I scrambled through first and made sure the place was empty and unoccupied. Norah came through next with a tug from me from above and a shove from below from Paul. She started to protest about the hand on her rear, but I held my finger to my lips to shush her. She scowled but kept silent.
Sophie was next in, looking a little surprised at how easily she had vaulted through. She still had almost no idea of what kind of powers she was going to have. For that matter, I wasn’t too sure myself. Just because I had developed a certain way didn’t mean that she would. I bit my lip as I wondered if Mae would have known what was next for Sophie. Who would help her now? I could barely help myself most days.
Ben scrambled through after her, looking pale and as if he might finally be wondering what he’d gotten himself into. I didn’t have much sympathy. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been warned.
Then came Ted, his shoulder muscles bunching as he pulled himself through the window. For a second, I thought he’d get stuck and totally flashed on Winnie the Pooh in Rabbit’s window, but he gave a little twist and made it in.
After that, Paul had similar shoulder problems to Ted’s, but also ended up inside without a problem.
I held out my hand and Sophie gave me the set of fake talismans that she and Ben had spent the afternoon creating. “This one has the symbols for prosperity, happiness and longevity.” She pointed to the top one. “We looked them up on the Internet.”
“Super. I’m sure that will make everyone feel much better,” I whispered back.
I took the stack before she could start translating the rest of them and left my posse hiding in the office as I scampered down into the sanctuary to switch out the yellow talismans with the set of fakes. Sophie and Ben had done an impressive job. If I didn’t know which was which and didn’t have my special set of Messenger senses, I wouldn’t have known which set was real and which was fake. It was exactly like Kokopelli’s flute. Unless you really looked, you wouldn’t be able to tell the real ones from the fake ones. I was counting on Henry Zhang’s men not looking very hard or George Zhang’s fellow priests either.
