Nine Gates (4 page)

Yet there was something alike in their dark brown eyes, a clear alertness that spoke of military training and the attendant alertness.

Both young men accepted Pearl’s offer of tea and refreshments, and as soon as he’d swallowed a large rice ball in about two bites, Riprap said, “Pearl, I know we’re going to wait to discuss what happened today until everyone is here, but I wanted to ask about the bodies.”

“Yes?”

“Those people who attacked us, they were from the Lands, right? I don’t suppose the bodies will just sort of fade away, eventually, will they?”

Pearl laughed. “You mean deliquesce into some eldritch goo like in a horror film? I fear not. They came over a bridge, and so they were as much here as you would be if you traveled by a similar means to the Lands.”

“So we have twelve bodies on our hands,” Riprap said. “Any idea how we’ll deal with them? Can you magic them away?”

“I would prefer not,” Pearl said. “We have used enough magic today that I fear there will be consequences. I am open to suggestions.”

Riprap thought his way through another rice ball, then said, “Do you have anything against burying them here? I worked in construction after I got out of the army—the pay was good, but at the end of the day I was too tired to coach so I switched jobs. I can operate a backhoe. You can rent really cute little ones—footprint on them isn’t much bigger than a standard pickup truck.”

Pearl was interested. “There’s the spot near the barn where we have the manure pile. If you could move the manure to one side, dig there, and then pile the extra dirt and manure there, no one should notice.”

Unsaid was the fact that the manure would also excuse any especial greenness in that area as the bodies decayed.

“I can do that,” Riprap said. “The barn isn’t really visible from most of the surrounding houses.”

“On purpose,” Pearl said. “Barns and stables are not considered ornamental, even if horses are. In any case, a minor warding spell will turn attention away from your work and not raise any additional questions.”

She could see that both Riprap and Flying Claw wanted to ask about those “additional” questions, but knew she would insist on waiting until their group was reassembled.

“It would be best if the bodies were buried without their armor and weapons,” Pearl said. “Can you handle stripping them?”

Riprap paused almost inadvertently, but Flying Claw said without hesitation, “I can. What do you want to do with the clothing, armor, and weapons?”

“Using magic to clean those,” Pearl said, “won’t raise any flags. I’ll handle that later. Then we can store them in boxes in the attic neatly labeled Props for Chinese Historical Drama.”

“Very good,” Flying Claw said, inclining his head in acknowledgment that in no way indicated deference.

“I phoned Albert Yu,” Pearl said, “when I was making the doctor’s appointment for Brenda. Albert should be here quite soon, and even if the young ladies have not arrived by then, I believe we can start without them. They know the beginning of the tale, whereas Albert does not.”

Riprap surged to his feet. “And so do I. Since we’re going to be here for a while, I’ll go and see what I can scare up in the way of a more solid meal than pickles and rice. I just happened to buy some sandwich makings when I was out.”

Flying Claw said, “I will go out to the barn and start my own job. Please let me know when the discussion is to begin.”

Honey Dream descended the stair at that point, and Pearl saw her looking between the young men and her injured father.
Given Honey Dream’s feelings for—even obsession with—Flying Claw, Pearl gave her a point for filial piety when she chose to resume her seat on her father’s bedside rather than following him.

Of course, Honey Dream might not have liked the idea of courting among corpses.

Des had not yet rejoined the group downstairs when the doorbell pealed.

“That will be Albert,” Pearl said. “Time to lay plans for our counterattack.”

“Were you scared?” Nissa asked.

Nissa Nita and her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Lani, were the remaining residents of Pearl’s household. Shorter than Brenda, round-figured, with fluffy strawberry-blond hair worn slightly longer than shoulder-length, Nissa was a comfortable person despite—or perhaps because of—the immense strength of will that underlay her otherwise peaceful nature.

Unlike Riprap and Brenda, Nissa had not been interested in learning anything at all about swords or fighting. Pearl had not pressed Nissa to do so, saying that the amulets should suffice.

Pearl had added, “Nissa is the Rabbit, and since time immemorial Rabbits have been associated with healing. Let her be. I’ve seen she’s no coward.”

Brenda leaned back in her seat in the car and considered. “I’m not sure. It was too much, too fast. I think I felt scared when I realized it was real. After, I just felt sick.”

“When you saw the bodies, you mean?”

Brenda nodded. She glanced over at Nissa. Nissa was only a few years older than Brenda, but there were times she seemed infinitely older. Part of this was because Nissa was a mother.

“Have you ever seen someone dead?”

Brenda regretted the question immediately. She knew that Nissa’s mother had died in a car crash only a few years before, and that Nissa still missed her mom.

“Yeah,” Nissa said, “but never like that, never dead from violence. Dead in a funeral home. Dead in a hospital. Not like what I saw when I pulled the car up to get you. And that was after they’d cleaned up a bit.”

“I’d seen the same as you,” Brenda said. “Funerals. Not even much there. At first this didn’t seem any more real. I didn’t actually kill anyone, but later, when I went across the field… It was the smell that got me. That and the flies. They came from pretty much nowhere.”

Brenda raised her hand to her throat as if she could hold down the surge of revulsion.

“You know, you asked if I was scared. I don’t think I was then, during the fight. There was too much going on. But afterwards, I was scared, but not of what you might think.”

“What of?” Nissa asked softly, her Virginia accent coloring the simple phrase with a soft lilt.

“I was scared of the others, especially of Flying Claw and Honey Dream. They took it all as if it were so… normal. Des and Pearl and Riprap, they were wired, each in their own way, but those other two, especially Flying Claw, it was like ‘business as usual.’”

“Yeah,” Nissa said. “Well, we’ve heard that where they come from war is a lot more common—and a lot more personal. I guess we can’t blame them.”

“I don’t,” Brenda said. “But I think I’m scared of them now, scared in a way I never was before.”

As she drove, Nissa had been consulting directions she’d stuck on the dashboard with a bit of the same adhesive tape she’d used to freshly bandage Brenda’s wound. Now she turned in to a small shopping center anchored at one end by three short buildings bearing the sign
SAINT JOSEPH’S MEDICAL CENTER
.

“Here we are,” she said, parking the car. “Ready?”

Brenda undid her seat belt and felt at her middle. “Just
great. I think you did such a good job rewrapping the cut, I probably could have skipped coming here.”

“Sorry,” Nissa said with a grin. “No copping out. I think you’re going to need a few stitches, and I’m absolutely not doing those, not without a proper kit.”

Dr. Andersen, Pearl’s mysterious contact, had offices on the second floor. Brenda and Nissa were shown immediately into an examining room. A nurse came in, did preliminary checks of blood pressure, pulse, and temperature, asked a series of questions about medical history, but the doctor himself was a while coming.

In person, Dr. Andersen proved to be completely un-mysterious, and astonishingly devoid of questions about how Brenda had gotten such a remarkable injury well before ten in the morning. Tall, slightly paunchy, and somewhere in his sixties, he looked exactly like the second lead in a television drama about hospitals—the handsome lead’s best friend, mentor, and confidant.

He apologized for keeping them. Unwrapping Nissa’s bandaging, he began carefully inspecting the injury. He cleaned the wound again, complimenting Nissa on her first aid. With the aid of a mirror, he showed Brenda why one end of the slice needed stitches.

“It’s superficial enough, but without stitches you’re going to have a scar. With stitches there should be none. You’re too young to start accumulating interesting scars, so I’ll call my nurse and then we’ll get started.”

Thanks to an injection of some numbing drug, the stitching felt more interesting than anything else. Dr. Andersen told them to keep the stitches moist by applying a light coat of petroleum jelly twice a day, and then turned to Nissa.

“You seem to know a great deal about first aid. Have you ever removed stitches?”

Nissa grinned a bit sheepishly. “A few times. My sisters and I live out in the country, and sometimes it was easier than driving one of the kids into town.”

“And,” Dr. Andersen said with an answering grin, “it
spares you the co-pay, too. Good. In about three days, these should be ready to come out. Check by pulling softly on the edges of the wound. If they seem clean and tight, go ahead and take the stitches out.”

Nissa nodded, and Brenda thought her friend looked rather flattered.

Dr. Andersen supplied a room where Brenda could change into the fresh clothes Nissa had brought for her, and they were on their way within an hour.

By now Brenda was feeling tired and light-headed.

Shock
, she thought.
I’m in shock. Someone tried to cut me—to kill me.

Brenda felt herself starting to shiver, and reached for something—anything—to anchor her in the present, to escape from memories of that man coming at her with raised sword, his face concentrated, seeing her as just a thing, a target.

“Wow,” she said, looking at the dashboard clock. “Can you believe it’s only slightly before noon?”

“Hungry?” Nissa asked. “I told Lani if she would stay with Wong and help him in the garden I’d bring her something. I think a kid’s meal would about fit the ticket.”

“Cold?”

“Sure. I won’t get fries, and the rest will reheat. It’s the little toys and the bright box that matter.”

“I’d love a cheeseburger,” Brenda admitted. “Breakfast was light because we were going to work out, and I’ve only had a yogurt since.”

They stopped for fast food, and Nissa amused Brenda with tales of how her health-conscious sisters had reacted when they learned Nissa intended to let her daughter eat other than home cooking.

Brenda laughed, but there was no relief. She knew she and Nissa were both dragging their heels about returning to Colm Lodge because when they did, they would be facing something far more serious than whether trans fats contributed to a host of deadly ailments. They’d be facing a
war—a war they’d thought they had weeks to plan for, but that had come to their door.

Honey Dream watched as Albert Yu came through the front door, bent slightly to embrace Pearl Bright, and then turned toward the living room. Unlike most of the Thirteen Orphans Honey Dream had seen, Albert Yu looked like the sort of person Honey Dream had grown up thinking of as “real.”

As was also the case with Des Lee, Albert Yu’s ancestor from the Lands Born from Smoke and Sacrifice had married a Chinese. So had the only son of this union—Albert Yu’s father. Therefore, Albert Yu did not have any of the features Honey Dream had found so startling, such as Nissa’s bright blue eyes or Riprap’s rich brown skin. However, Albert did not look like a person from the Lands, either, and most definitively, he did not look like the great-grandson of one who had reigned as emperor from the Jade Petal Throne.

Honey Dream could not quite figure out why this should be so. Albert Yu’s grooming was impeccable, even if his hair—worn just to his collar—was too short, and his small, almost pointed beard was of no style she knew. Her father had cut his hair short, and wore no beard, but he still looked like a man from the Lands should.

She decided the difference had nothing to do with length of hair or stiff business suits rather than the flowing elegance of embroidered robes. It had to do with body language. Albert Yu carried himself with a certain dignity, but it was not the dignity of one who rules, who has studied the manners of court and temple. The ease in his shoulders as he took off his suit jacket—the fact that he moved to hang it up himself rather than handing it to someone else—were all wrong.