Liquid Fire (27 page)

27. Lower Kicking

My breath caught, a fist sailed at my head—and I
backflipped
away from the punch.

Our original plan for the Hilbert Conference, of course, had not involved
any
punching. We’d planned to spend Thursday at Stanford attending talks—though Cinnamon also wanted to hit the Stanford Bookstore’s awesome mathematics section—but after the attacks, campus security asked us to wait for an “all clear” before heading over to the auditorium where Cinnamon would repeat her Berkeley talk . . . and receive her Young Investigator Award.

Instead, we hid out in the one place no one could expect us to be, because I’d explicitly declined the invitation—Stanford University’s Taido club, where Cinnamon, Jewel, and Molokii got to watch me get my ass kicked . . . before we even
started
to fight.

These guys were hard core. The warm-up
began
with a dozen punches, then moved on to Taido’s acrobatics—but where I was used to cartwheels and flips by themselves, sensei Ransu “Paj” Pajari drilled us as if we were in combat, with cartwheel
kicks
and backflip
dodges
.

His fist whistling at my head, I threw myself backward—and two students, holding either side of my belt, gave me enough assist for my body to flip over. I landed awkwardly, wincing—but my physical therapist said Taido’s exercises actually strengthened my bum knee.

“I’d pay money to see you backflip away from a punch in a real fight,” Paj said shortly thereafter to the ring of students, another student ready by him as he spoke, “but I’m drilling your
reactions
. It needs to be instinct. Don’t block with your fists—dodge with your body!”

The student threw a roundhouse kick, and Paj instantly threw himself backward, falling into a defensive tripod, legs folded, one hand supporting him, the other shielding him from the demonstration kick, hovering inches from his face.

“
Foo-koo-tekky
—changing the body axis to avoid contact,” Paj said. His eyes narrowed at the student’s kick, and he said, “You could let it pass over, but his form’s bad. He’s left an opening. Never pass on free. So you decide to take the rib.”

Paj threw his shield hand down and flicked up his back leg, touching the student’s side. “You see,” he said, and I
did—
how the defensive movement set him up for the kick, how the kick set him up to retract the leg, shooting it under his body, spinning upright.

“Sensei,” one of the green belts asked. “What was that kick? It wasn’t
ebi
—”

“
Chai-joe,
” I said with a grin. I loved saying the name of that kick; it reminded me of two of my favorite beverages. “More like a roundhouse kick done from the floor.”

“It’s
shaa-jo
,” Paj corrected. “Otherwise our visitor is correct. Frost, show him!”

I blinked.
Me? And my damn mouth.
I let one hand fall to the floor and kicked up my back leg. I held it up there, pointed forty-five degrees at the ceiling, and the green belt grunted; then I pulled it under me and lurched upright. In short, I had none of the grace of Paj.

At least my dragon tattoo wasn’t bothering me—it seemed to like my exertions.

“Not bad, Frost,” Paj said, perhaps a little too graciously, as I stood there, red-faced, whether from exertion or embarrassment I couldn’t say. “We need to work on your form a bit. You’re not ready to work it into
foo-koo-tekky
. Again!”

After showing us some of Taido’s most advanced kicks, Paj drilled us on its most basic form—
untai no
hokei
, a ritualized solo fight where you imagine a sequence of attackers coming at you, whom you dispatch with the
hokei’s
signature movement, a wavelike motion.

Regardless of how good you are at
untai
, the best thing to do is to narrow your focus and enter the universe of the
hokei
. To
see
the attackers, leaping between them, shooting your hands at their Adam’s apples, landing knockout punches on a third foe, catching him and laying him aside before whirling to deal with the two remaining foes—before returning to the start.

“Good!” Paj said. “Forceful yells, fluid pacing, and believable targets. But you’re bobbing. Halfway through the hokei, your stance goes to shit. Focus on your breathing—it should follow the hokei. Conquer your breathing, and your stance will follow. Next!”

I rose and returned to the line of students. Out in the theater seats, Cinnamon, Jewel, and Molokii watched. Jewel was staring at me, wide-eyed—then giggled as Cinnamon leaned and muttered something in her ear. Only Molokii was unmoved, nodding at me gravely.

“Thanks for joining us,” Paj said, shaking my hand after closing the practice with a formal stretchdown and a whole bunch of bowing. “You just pop up everywhere. I think I’ve seen you in every studio but Fort Lauderdale.”

“Thanks,” I said, wiping my brow with a towel. “I’m surprised you remember me. I’ve only been to the headquarters once when you were there.”

Paj cocked his head at me. “Full sleeves and a Mohawk,” he said, still smiling, but his eyes penetrating. “Six-two, but you carry yourself like six-six. You
want
to stand out.”

I smiled tightly. Behind me, I heard Jewel snicker. Finally I said, “Can’t argue with that.”

Then I hopped down from the stage to land in front of Jewel, Cinnamon, and Molokii.

“Ow,” I said, regretting it the moment I landed. “My knees. My thighs. My
ass—
”

“I can help with that,” Jewel said. “You know, check for damage—”

“Oh, behave,” I said, checking my phone. “Officer Ridling texted me the all-clear, but we’re in the conference’s afternoon break.” I smiled at Cinnamon, then tousled her hair until I disheveled her headscarf. “We’ll just have to while away the time in the Stanford Bookstore.”

“Yaay!” Cinnamon said, bouncing.

“Haha! Phoo,” I said, wiping my face again. “Just give me a minute to wash up—”

“You know, I can help with that too,” Jewel said, the smile becoming devilish.

“Behave,” I said. “Really. Behave!”

“Don’t wanna,” Jewel said.

Fifteen minutes later, we emerged into a winding path lined with bicycles that led us back on to the beautiful Stanford campus. We soon lost ourselves in branches and leaves and cottage-like classrooms roofed in Spanish tile. Stanford was a warren, a living Escher print unfolded and flattened out upon itself, M.C.’s delicate etchings of impossible buildings coming to life in a maze of arched arcades and cozy buildings fashioned from warm, rough-hewn gold stone.

It was here, by an empty bird fountain, sitting on a redwood park bench with a plaque that read SMILE, that Savannah and I had shared our first kiss “away.” The Bay had been our first trip together, the first time it had finally hit us we could really be together as a couple.

I glanced at Jewel, trying to jam her octopus hat back down over curls which kept trying to pop the hat off. What a delight she’d proved to be. Five months since Calaphase died, three years since I left Savannah-turned-Saffron. Maybe it was time to open a chink in my armor—

My phone rang. “Yes,” I said curtly.

“Frost? Carnes,” came the reply. “What’s the word on Buckhead?”

“Dude!” I said. “We last spoke, what, twenty-four hours ago? Give me a break.”

“
Higher
-ups,” Carnes said bitterly, “in the Wizarding Guild are leaning on me. If you recall, you asked if I wanted another arrangement. I
do
want another arrangement. I want to help your friend Jewel, and I want your help. But my superiors are demanding a quid pro quo.”

“Where is this bookstore again?” Cinnamon asked.

“All right, all right,” I said, glancing over at her. “I’ll call him.”

“Don’t you know?” Jewel asked, adjusting her hat.

“But you haven’t called him yet,” Carnes said. “I mean, as of right now?”

“I thinks it’s that way,” Cinnamon said. “Down to the left—”

“No,” I said. “It’s down to the right—”

“What?” Carnes asked.

“Really?
Fuck!
I’m all turned around—”

“Just a minute, baby,” I said, stepping slightly away.

“
What?
” Carnes said.

“Sorry, I’m in the middle of two different conversations.” I hung back a bit and let Cinnamon, Molokii, and Jewel get ahead. As their conversation about missed turns and Dover books faded, I put the phone to my ear again. When I did, Carnes was laughing.

“ ‘Catches’ you at a bad time?”

“In theory, no,” I said, following the three of them closely as they wound around the garden. If I remembered right, this would come out right in front of the church, in the middle of the Quad, and from there it would be easy to get our bearings back. “You were asking?”

“I’m not asking—my boss, the
Professor,
is,” Carnes said. “He likes to stay informed, but since, in his words, ‘A fae god’s visit won’t be announced on Wikinews,’ he asked me to ask you for an update. Though I don’t understand why he won’t just ask you when he sees you—”

“When he sees me?” I asked, rounding the corner. Cinnamon, Jewel, and Molokii were ahead of me, my tiger hopscotching over tiles inlaid with numbers—but the main cobblestone surface of the Quad was nowhere in sight—only a long arcade of stone arches. I’d gotten us completely lost. “Our schedule’s filled to the brim. I need some advance notice—”

“Wait,” Carnes said. “Aren’t you at Stanford to see him now?”

“No,” I said, picking up the pace. Each time I turned the corner, I got more and more confused—an Escher print, this was. But each time, my three companions were farther away—gaining on them, I wasn’t. “Wait, how did you know we’re at Stanford? No one knows—”

“I didn’t,” Carnes said. “
He
did.”

“Oh, hell,” I said, bolting forward, chasing after my baby as she, Jewel, and Jewel’s friend rounded the corner. But when I turned just after them, they were already at the opposite end of an impossibly long arcade of brown stone arches, seemingly farther away now than ever.

And then Cinnamon, Jewel, and Molokii turned the corner . . . and were gone.

I stared. What the hell had just happened?

I whirled around. The archway I had just darted out of had disappeared, replaced by a wide path lined with luxuriant jasmine bushes. I whirled again, and the long arcade I’d seen my friends disappear on was gone, replaced by a classroom building nestled among paths and trees. It was a perfectly normal classroom, two stories of warm brown stone topped with Spanish tile . . . but attached to it, looming over me, making my skin crawl in a way I couldn’t quite put a finger on, was a tall, windowless, three-story tower.

I swallowed.

I looked at my cell phone for reassurance—but the call with Carnes had been dropped.
Shit.
Cautiously, I stepped up beneath the archway, and saw a dark green double door. On the right hand door was written, in neat, white letters:

LIGOTTI HALL

Building 26A

Department of Alchemy

Post no flyers or posters

Then the left hand door opened on its own.

———

“Oh, hell,” I muttered. “Let me guess. The warm welcome . . . of the ‘Professor.’ ”

28. The Computer Wizard of Ligotti Hall

I stepped through the dark green door—and backward through time, my nose assaulted by competing wafts of memory: the tang of desiccants from Emory University’s Department of Chemistry, and the eclectic spices of the Harris School of Magic. Here, at the Stanford Department of Alchemy, those smells mixed, but the feeling was the same.

The wave of nostalgia was not limited to my nose. The colors, fonts, and logos were all different, but otherwise, the room I entered was a perfectly normal front office of an academic department: mail slots and message boards, ratty couches by a well-worn copier, a wide cracked oak counter shielding a pair of administrative assistants.

The younger assistant, a trim Hispanic man, was busy hitting on a Scottish version of Hermione with purple hair and a nose ring. I wondered what the point of their flirting was; as far as I could tell, they were
both
gay. I turned instead to the wiry-haired senior assistant and cleared my throat—and the assistant and student both gave me appraising looks. Were they gay or bi? I realized that I’d slapped a label on them, just like I’d accused Jewel of doing to me.

“Excuse me,” I said, reddening. “I’m Dakota Frost. The Professor is expecting me.”

“Which one, dear?” the senior assistant asked, pleasantly but distractedly, still scribbling on a Garfield pad. “There
are
thirteen—uh, twelve professors in the Department.” When I didn’t respond, she looked up sharply. “Oh, dear. You mean
The
Professor. Did he do the thing?”

I grinned. “I’m guessing he did.”

The Hispanic assistant slapped his head. “Oh, God, we’re gonna get sued.
Again
—”

The older assistant stabbed at a phone. “
Professor!
” she barked, in a voice of authority that made all of us jump. She rose, finger still held on the intercom button, and snapped, “You, as you
well
know, have a visitor, and
shame
on you,
sir.
”