Nine Gates (53 page)

She left that, because Riprap was coming over to them. He had a bandage wrapped around his right forearm, and another around one thigh. Apparently, Deborah had downplayed just a little the dangers involved in “hog-tying” the Nine-Headed Snake.

Looking around for the first time, Brenda realized that she and Deborah were in a hollow between two of the hills. The gigantic magnolia tree overhung them, accounting for the delicious perfume in the air.

“The springs told us Brenda was on her feet again,” Riprap said. “Congratulations, kid. You had us all worried.”

“Thanks,” Brenda said, fumbling to finish buttoning her shirt. “I’m doing a lot better, but I don’t think I’ll be singing anytime soon. My throat’s shot.”

“Righteous Drum says you towed him out of there,” Riprap said, “after nearly getting drowned putting those amulets in place. You’ve been a champ.”

“No more than anyone,” Brenda said.

Deborah nodded, and Brenda saw that she had a bandage wrapped around one ankle.

“Think if we lean on each other we can make it over there?” Deborah asked. “Righteous Drum is doing well for someone who should be dead, but actually, he isn’t very mobile.”

Brenda thought with no pleasure about the days of riding necessary to take them back to their gate.

But what choice do we have?
she asked herself.
Maybe we can rest here a few days. Maybe. But time’s running out, and every sunset we wait may be one too many.

“You lean on Riprap,” Brenda said, testing her own footing and finding it steady enough. “I’m certain I can walk.”

Pearl tucked
her phone away after finishing filling Albert in on the changed situation. She hadn’t been able to reach Gaheris, but that wasn’t surprising. She wasn’t certain he was even in state. He’d apologized before leaving her house that last time, asked them to make sure Brenda called when she “gets back from her adventure,” and had promised to make himself available the minute the Nine Gates were established.

“That’s why I’m working so hard, now,” he’d explained as he was heading down the steps. “So I can take a leave of indefinite duration—with no cell phone or computer contact to the office—at short notice.”

Pearl didn’t comment that Albert had already taken leave from his business—and Des, Riprap, and Nissa from their jobs. Gaheris was prickly enough as it was.

But Pearl didn’t want to think about Gaheris Morris, or even what might await them at the warehouse. Honey Dream’s comparison of her to Miao Shan had left her startled—and deeply flattered.

Every child raised within the Chinese culture knew the story of Miao Shan. The versions varied, but one thing remained constant. Despite the opposition of her father, Miao Shan had managed to follow her own desire to pursue
a religious life rather than marry, and yet had still been a loyal daughter. Miao Shan’s treatment by her father had made Thundering Heaven’s scornful rejection seem mild, but in the end Miao Shan’s piety and determination had won out. To this day she was held up both as a model of filial piety (by the Confucians) and divine compassion (by the Buddhists).

And Honey Dream sees me as an exemplar equal to Miao Shan?
Pearl thought.
If only she knew how black and hateful my thoughts have been—have always been. If only she knew how much I’d give for one word of approval from the old Tiger.

“Uh-oh,” Des said as they turned the corner onto the street that fronted Pearl’s warehouse. “We’ve got company—ahead of us, as well as behind.”

Pearl saw that a long, black limo had drawn up in front of the gate that protected the warehouse. She reached for her phone. Static.

“My phone’s jammed,” she said. Des reached with one hand and handed her his. “Yours too.”

“Do I park?”

“Why not?” she said, glancing to see if Waking Lizard or Honey Dream had anything to add.

Both looked quietly watchful, but offered no protest. Honey Dream in particular looked like she might go right through anyone who got in her way. She was fingering a handful of amulet bracelets, and Pearl saw they were already arrayed with a defensive spell first, followed by a variety of attacks.

“Let’s talk first, all right?”

Honey Dream nodded. Des pulled the car up alongside the limo, and turned off the engine. Pearl got out first.

“Why hello, Franklin,” she said, as brightly and lightly as if they were meeting at some charitable function. “Would you mind moving your car? I need to get into my warehouse.”

Franklin Deng blinked. Obviously, he’d been prepared for a good number of reactions to his presence, but not this.

But then you were always a bit unimaginative
, Pearl thought,
at least regarding anything other than frozen food.

“I believe this is a public road,” he said, glancing over her.

Pearl heard another car pulling up, and knew the sedan had arrived. She didn’t react, even though now they were surely outnumbered by a minimum of two. She could see at least a driver and two others in the limo, and Des had noted there were at least two in the sedan.

“Actually,” she said, continuing conversational, “I believe this is all private property, owned and maintained by the business park.”

From behind her, Tracy Frye’s voice came mocking and brittle. “So why don’t you call the cops? Why don’t you call the police? Hoping Security will make a patrol by here soon? I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

“Tracy!” Franklin said, but his reprimand held a note of weariness. Pearl didn’t doubt that the urbane restaurateur was very tired of this abrasive woman. She also didn’t doubt that Franklin and his associates had worked something to keep Security away. There were spells of aversion and misdirection, as well as wards. There was also the simple incentive of a bribe.

Pearl glanced over and saw that Downhill Ski and Tracy Frye had gotten out of the sedan. Her own group were out of the town car. Waking Lizard was ambling loose-limbed over to Pearl’s side, while Honey Dream had moved to where she could see if the gate was completely blocked by the limo. Pearl didn’t doubt that it was.

Des was leaning against the driver’s side of a town car, but Pearl didn’t doubt that he was ready to act or react as needed.

“Kindly move your vehicle,” Pearl said, putting steel in the words this time. “My young friend,” she angled her head in Honey Dream’s direction, “feels a very strong need to get in there.”

“We will let her in most gladly,” Franklin replied, “but we would request an invitation to join you. We have been told
that you have installed a very interesting device there, and we wish to inspect it.”

“Yeah,” said Tracy Frye. “Look it over so we can tell all the other bird fanciers that whatever you are doing is being kept all safe and sound.”

Pearl knew Tracy was trying to annoy her, and knowing that didn’t mean the woman was any less annoying—just as a sword doesn’t become less sharp for having seen it in the process of being honed.

What did interest her was Franklin’s reaction. Clearly they were not playing a scripted game of “good cop/bad cop” or “reasonable versus unreasonable.”

“This is all private property,” Pearl repeated, “building and road both. Please give me access to them.”

“Or?”

The word hung in the air between them.

“Please, Franklin,” Pearl said. “Be reasonable. It is broad daylight. There are rules—rules set by your organization, but by which mine abides.”

“We are not violating them,” Franklin replied. “My car can be moved, but only when you agree to let us come with you—wherever you are going.”

“And if we do not?”

“The fence is high,” Franklin said, his pedantic tone that of someone reciting bad poetry, “and topped with barbed wire.”

“Snakes slither,” Pearl recited mockingly, “monkeys climb. Doors are needed only some of the time.”

She had been holding the keys to the gate in her hand. Now she palmed them to Waking Lizard. At the same moment, Honey Dream smashed down a Dragon’s Tail amulet. Even as the protection wreathed her, she ran forward, graceful as a gazelle, agile as the snake she was.

During their practice sessions, Pearl had pressed Honey Dream to become creative in her combat. The young woman was not the fencer or archer that Flying Claw was, but her training had not been exclusively scholarly. She showed that now as she gripped the wire fence, and scrambled up,
springing up and over the barbed wire, trusting the Dragon’s Tail to protect her from becoming snagged.

Her action temporarily distracted Franklin and his allies. In that moment, Waking Lizard showed that he might be an old man, but he was still a Monkey. Murmuring some few words in his own language, he released a small explosion of ch’i that carried him in a single bound from Pearl’s side to the roof of the limousine.

Waking Lizard laughed, long hair and beard flying in a perfect, even elegant halo of shining white about his head and shoulders as he bounced off the roof of the limo, into the air, turned a perfectly unnecessary flip, and landed lightly on the ground on the other side.

He flipped a finger at Franklin Deng and Tracy Frye, handed Honey Dream the keys with a courtly bow, and turned to Pearl.

“Shall I let you in?”

“We’re fine here,” she said, swallowing laughter at the expressions of astonishment and anger on their opponents’ faces. “Let us know what Pai Hu says.”

“I can do that, too,” Tracy Frye growled. She ran at the fence, murmuring a string of words that sounded like Russian and fingering one of the many small bundles that hung suspended from the belt at her waist.

She came ready for action
, Pearl thought.
Not like our meeting at the museum.

Des, silent to this point, called, “Please, Ms. Frye. I really wouldn’t if I were you.”

“You’re not me,” she snarled, and ripped the bundle from her waist. She threw it at the fence and launched herself forward all in one motion.

Pearl stood perfectly still, not certain if this was a test of her forbearance, if Franklin had watchers stationed elsewhere—perhaps that still unseen pair in the limousine—who were present to witness her breaking the regulations by which the Orphans had been suffered to live with their own magic in this world.

Franklin’s face gave nothing away. Tracy’s bundle hit the ground a few feet in front of the fence. She leaped, much as Waking Lizard had leaped. The bundle emitted a force of ch’i—mana, psychic energy, ki—one energy, as many names as there were traditions, that lofted her upward like a supercharged springboard. Lofted her up, but when she moved to go over, she hit solidly against the wards Pearl and Shen had installed the night before the gate into the West was installed.

They were very good wards, barriers, not merely alarms, and meant to keep both intruders out and anything that might find passage through the Men Shen in. They were elegantly designed, able to sense intent and to react with appropriate force. Tracy hit them like she was hitting a brick wall, and fell back, unconscious.

Franklin did not move, but Downhill trotted over and knelt to check.

“She’s breathing.” Long pause as he manipulated limbs with a care that said his battles had not only been fought in boardrooms, and he knew more than a little field medicine. “No sign of a broken back or neck, but I won’t vouch for her right arm. She came down on that hard.”

“We have been very careful,” Pearl said, “to assure that no harm will come to anyone. Now, will you leave or must we do so? Albert Yu has been told that if he does not hear from me within the hour, he is to bring representatives of the Finch Society here to investigate.”

Franklin looked at her. His gaze was flat and expressionless, but anger bubbled through. He turned to his chauffeur, who had been sitting with feigned unconcern in the front seat of the limo through all of this.

“Zhang, help Mr. Ski move Ms. Frye onto the backseat of the sedan.” Then he turned and looked at Pearl. “This is not over.”

Des laughed. “Actually, Frankie, I think it is.”

He held up the compact video recorder he had kept shielded from direct notice by the bulk of the town car.

“We anticipated you might try something, and we’re getting
really tired of being threatened. Some friends of Pearl and mine in Hollywood turned us on to these a while back. We’ve got a record. Maybe we’ll show it around, and maybe we won’t, but you can bet if you get in our way anymore, we’re going to make sure everyone who needs to sees what happened here today.”

Franklin Deng’s lips ripped back from his teeth in a snarl of purest rage. It took every ounce of Pearl’s composure not to step away, but she held her ground, refusing to say a word that might dilute the moment.

Franklin turned stiffly. He stalked around to the passenger side of the limo and got in the front seat. A few minutes later, the driver returned and got in.

The limo, followed by the tan sedan, pulled away. Only when they were completely out of sight, and a few checks told Pearl that they were indeed gone and had left no snoopers behind, did she permit herself to sag back against the side of the car.

Des was chuckling, punching buttons on the camera.

“There. I’ve connected to the Internet and sent back copies, both to your computer at home, and to Albert’s account. We’re covered.”

Pearl smiled and patted his hand. “You did well. Now, with that little interruption out of the way, shall we go handle the business we came for?”

Des nodded, his face suddenly somber. He went to the trunk of the town car, put in the video camera, and extracted a small pack that held his Rooster’s Talon and other gear.

Pearl drew Treaty out of the backseat, and checked to make sure nothing had been forgotten.

“Ready,” she said.

“Just as soon as I’ve locked the car,” Des replied.