The Dragons of Heaven (13 page)

Of course, the outcome isn't always pretty for the rebar, either. I snapped out a kick at one of the leaping attackers, catching him hard at the hip joint mid-spin. He lost the trajectory, came tumbling down wrong, and cracked his head on the pavement. I tried to pull back, but my leg got caught in his flight, twisting me off balance and bringing me down hard on one knee.

I collapsed to one side, which is the only thing that saved me from the kick aimed at my head. I rolled in the direction of my collapse, using the momentum to push myself up. Each time I went down, getting up became harder. How many left?

These two at least. The one who had missed kicking my head circled me, looking for an opening. The other didn't wait, launching into a flashy kick. Somebody had dabbled in Taekwondo and liked to show off.

I ducked underneath, leaping up after he sailed over me, and delivered my own kick into his back. The extra momentum was more than he knew what to do with. His form dropped and his arms and legs wheeled as he slammed face-first into Lao Chan's wall of light. It was somewhat edifying to hear him scream where I had not.

I turned to face my final opponent. He started in with a series of quick arm strikes, but they lacked strength. I blocked and redirected until he grew impatient and went for another kick. I shifted around it. Catching his leg, I locked it against my side and dropped to the ground. His only option was to follow me down or risk a dislocated knee. He chose poorly.

Leaving the last of my attackers moaning on the ground, clutching at his joint, I staggered up and faced Lao Chan. He smiled. Genial. Pleasant. Not what I expected from him when nine of his men had failed to kill me in less than a minute.

Wait. Nine. Hadn't I counted twelve at the beginning?

Something shuffled behind me. With a sigh, I turned to face the three I'd missed. They held their stances without eagerness or hesitation. In every line of their bodies was the control that came from years of training. These were the masters. I'd wager it was their students I'd just taken out. Lovely.

Fresh, I could perhaps hold my own against one of them. Now, I had not the slightest chance.

I took a breath, two, then shifted back into my stance. Better to go out fighting.

“Enough.”

The three masters flowed to attention. I hesitated. Perhaps the reprieve was another trap, but if so, what was the point? Straightening, I turned to face Lao Chan. He looked at David Tsung. I realized it was Tsung who'd spoken. Tsung who'd stopped the fight.

“Are you satisfied?” Tsung asked. “He's no imposter.”

The older man nodded. “So it would seem. I have never seen you fight, Mr Masters. You are very skilled.”

“Not skilled enough.”

Lao Chan frowned. “You took down nine of my best men.”

“But you brought twelve.”

“So I did. You would do well to remember this lesson when you go to see Mr Long: when it comes to anticipating a conflict, I am the student; he is the master.” A dark Lexus pulled up beside Lao Chan, followed by a black, windowless van. The light from the street lamp dimmed back to its normal amber glow. The pungent, earthy smell had dissipated. A driver got out of the Lexus and opened the door for his boss, while a crew of dark-clad figures loaded my downed assailants into the van.

“At first, I was put out by your interference in my business,” Lao Chan said to me over the roof of the car. “But then I realized that you deserved my pity, not my antagonism. Mr Long commands much…
respect
. I believe you will be rewarded amply for the trouble you have caused me over the past few years. I leave you in Mr Tsung's excellent care.”

I stood in the middle of the street, watching the tail-lights flash red before the car turned the corner. The van followed. Possibly, I was gaping. Johnny Cho was pinching the bridge of his nose. Again. He did that a lot with me.

“So. China.” David Tsung joined me in the street. He was neither gaping nor looking for a wall to bang his head against. If anything, he was smirking. “Any idea how we're supposed to get there?”

T
hen

I dreamed of snow, the kind you never see growing up in coastal California: blizzard thick, muffles sight and sound until it's just you in a cocoon of white. I struggled against it, but it wrapped itself around me until I couldn't breathe.

I woke up fighting my blankets. It took me several moments of confusion to realize I was acting like an idiot, that the percale and eiderdown comforter
wasn't
attacking. A rich coverlet of red, green, and gold brocade spread in rumpled folds across my feet, and carved wooden panels on all sides latticed the sunlight streaming into the room. I stared up at the wooden canopy for a few moments and then wriggled my toes. I couldn't see them, but it felt like I still had all ten.

I was in a room. I had no idea how I'd gotten here.

I remembered leaving Jim and Jill and the others, but after the snow started falling around dusk, things got a little fuzzy. Had I been dreaming of snow, or was that part real? Did I find this bed on my own? Had I collapsed in the snow and been rescued? Was this just another illusion of the
yaoguai
?

I shoved aside the covers at that unsettling thought, peering through the latticework as though it offered any sort of protection.

The red, green, and gold of the bedclothes continued throughout the room, framed by dark, carved woods. The length of one wall had painted shutters thrown open to the outdoors. In the distance rose the snowy peaks of other mountains. Thick clouds obscured everything below; the blizzard I'd dreamed about was still going, or another like it. It didn't touch the tranquility up here above the clouds.

A mural ran the length of the opposite wall, depicting a series of stylized gardens cupped in the hollow core of a mountain peak: paradise on earth. Seven figures stood in the gardens, sad and somber, while one waited just outside, reaching toward the gates and his companions. Another figure, shrouded in darkness, glowered at them from far below.

I was alone, but there were signs that someone else had recently been in the room. A basin of water, fresh lotus petals floating on the surface, sat in a stand near the bed. The water was still warm enough to be steaming. The steam mixed with a ribbon of smoke rising from an incense burner on the stand. I took a cautious breath, then a deeper one. Sandalwood. The scent settled my initial panic. If Lung Huang was giving me warm water and incense, then she probably didn't have immediate plans to eat me.

Probably. My experience with the
yaoguai
was fresh enough to give me pause.

Not wanting to be caught lying down if the dragon
did
want to eat me, I slipped out of bed. My forearm, where the demon's acidic blood had burned me, was wrapped in gauze, and somebody had stripped me and put me in a light shift of undyed silk. Minimal embroidery decorated the neck and hem. I took a closer look. Or… not so minimal. A chain of red and gold carp leapt out of green waters, their tiny bodies and the spray of their antics picked out in minute detail.

Unlike the sandalwood, the intricacy unnerved me. Wandering girls who woke to fairy tale environments rarely fared well, and in Chinese folklore, mortals who dallied with spirits usually ended up worse off than they'd started.

Why had I come here, again?

My hand strayed to my throat. She'd left me my pearls. I didn't know what to make of the gesture. They felt tight around my neck. Strangling.

I bit down on a growl. Enough dithering. No point working myself into a tizzy until I ran into something worth tizzying over.

A large wardrobe with carved jade facing stood next to the washstand. I pulled the doors open and found a blinding array of brocade silk. It was too much. I pawed through the silks until I reached the back of the wardrobe. It was deep enough that I half expected to run across fir trees and a lamppost. Instead I found another layer of simpler robes hanging on hooks. Well, simpler by comparison. I pulled out a robe of pale green silk embroidered with pink blossoms. It only came to my knees, but there were dove-grey trousers to go underneath. I liked the color combination. It made me feel cool. Composed. Calm. The opposite of how I really felt.

I dug out a pair of white socks and black cloth shoes, then dressed and bound my hair back in a thick French braid. I'd impale myself if I tried to work with the array of hairsticks in the box on the washstand.

I stepped out of the room and onto a walkway, grabbing for the carved railing as vertigo threatened to send me stumbling. Lung Huang's home-in-exile sat atop the Minshan range. The buildings nestled at different levels climbing up to the peak, connected by wooden stairs and walkways. The roof points curved up toward heaven, painted in reds and greens and gilded along the edges. Crimson banners with tassels of green and gold fluttered in a light breeze. Lung Huang's home reminded me of a cheerful holly bush rooted deep in crags where less tenacious plants wouldn't grow.

I took several breaths and released my white-knuckled grip on the railing.

The stairway nearest me led down to a series of terraced gardens. Small wooden benches, stone carvings, and reflecting pools were interspersed among the cultivated topiary. I spied a flash of steam and viridian at one edge where the gardens dropped off into clouds, one of the travertine pools that the Huanglong valley was so well-known for. The steps leading down to the gardens were wide and shallow, built of the same dark wood as the building frames and walkways. Off to one side, a tiny pagoda had been erected on a flat spar of karst. The frame was open to the light breezes. I couldn't tell from where I stood, but I bet that on clear days you might actually be able to see forever.

And that's when I spied my host.

She sat on a bench at the base of the stairs, her back to me, so still that she had become one with the landscape.
She
had no qualms about the clothes being too flashy. She wore an embroidered robe of red, green, and gold brocade. It should have looked opulent and overdone. It didn't.

Her black hair flowed free down her back. And kept flowing. And then flowed some more. It coiled in a serpentine tail on the ground behind her. In the light breeze, there should have been wispies. Lord knew I was already sporting some of my own. But Lung Huang's hair wouldn't dare be so unruly.

I took a breath. She had to know I was here, but she didn't turn, didn't tense, didn't shift one finger out of that perfect, meditative posture.

Right, then. With another breath, I headed down the steps, pausing when I reached the bottom. I stood directly behind the bench, and still she didn't move.

Uh…

“Miss Lung Huang? Thank you for welcoming me into your home.” My Cantonese wasn't great; my fingers tended to twitch and swoop like a pop diva's, tracing out the tonal shifts that my voice only sometimes followed, but it had to be better than English, right?

She stirred. She turned.

Oh. Crap.

“I mean… Mister?”

For whoever he was, he was definitely a
him
. There was no way he was human, either. His eyes swirled a depthless black, flecks of red, green, and gold flashing. His face was smooth, unwrinkled. Ageless. And expressionless as he watched me struggle to not look like a carp gasping for air.

I snapped my mouth shut until I could think of something to say. It wasn't even that my Cantonese was failing me. I couldn't come up with anything in English, either. The coil of hair flicked and settled around his feet once more. If it were a tail, I would have said it was a gesture of mild impatience.

If it were a tail.

“You're Lung Huang?”

“I am.” His voice was as impressive as the rest of him, a deep, rich baritone that many an actor would kill for.

And once again… male.

“You're a man.”

One brow arched. It was just a twitch of movement, but it made me feel as stupid as my blurted statement had been. “Am I?”

Thank god I'd grown up in San Francisco, where fluid genders weren't uncommon. I winced and smiled an apology. Way to start off on the wrong foot, dumbass.

“You're a Dragon.”

He nodded. The brow settled. “Better.”

We both fell silent until I realized it was my turn again. It was conversation by rote, call-and-response. If this kept up, my chances were shot. He'd be tossing me down the mountainside before I could ask him anything important.

I reached behind my neck and unfastened my pearls, letting them pool in my hand. I caressed a thumb over them, their nacre rich and warm, reminding me of love lost but never forgotten. My grandfather's love.

But of course, that's not what they represented. I held them out. “I came to return these to you.”

“Why?” He folded his hands in his sleeves, looking down at the pearls, but he made no move to take them.

“They don't belong to me. My grandfather told me about you. About your… relationship.” The ramifications were only starting to sink in. The queer community would explode if this ever were confirmed. “He's gone now. I don't know where. Maybe dead. Probably dead.”

And Lung Huang didn't need my life story. Chances were he knew better than I what had become of Mitchell Masters. I forged ahead before I could get bogged down. “He gave these to me before he left. When I realized everything he told me was true, I figured that you should have them back.”

Lung Huang frowned, the slightest twitch of lips. Like the eyebrow, it was enough to crush me with censure. What had I said to upset him?

“That is not why you came here.”

Oh. Right. I licked my lips. “Not the only reason. I came hoping you would train me as you trained him.”

“Mitchell Masters was
Lung Bao Hu Zhe
. My Champion. I had no choice but to train him. Honor demanded. What are you to me?”

I felt stupid, standing there with the pearls held out between us. He still hadn't taken them, but he had given me an opening. The pearls clicked between my fingers. “I'm his granddaughter, and I mean to take up his legacy. But I'm as clueless about how to do it as he was when he came to you. So doesn't honor demand that you train me like you trained him?”

“You are not
Lung Bao Hu Zhe
. You have little
guanxi
with me.” He took the pearls, turning them over to inspect them. “Why do you wish to become what your grandfather was?”

Months of asking myself that same question gave me a ready answer. “Because I want to make a difference in the world.”

“So that the world will celebrate you as a hero?” He didn't look up. The pearls clicked against each other as he twined them through his fingers.

I dodged pitfall number one easily. This wasn't about pride. I didn't
want
people to know who had helped them. I just wanted to help. “I don't want fame. I just want to make the world a better place.”

“You wish to shape the world into what you think it should be?”

Yes. Wait. “No…” I dragged the denial out to give myself a moment to think. “I can't control what other people do, but I can protect people who can't protect themselves.”

“The sage practices not-doing.”

“Like you not-did when you sent the
huxian
to save me from the
yaoguai
?”

His eyes flicked up from their contemplation of the pearls, deep as starlit void. I looked down. Me and my smart mouth.

“Why do you wish to follow your grandfather's path?” he asked again.

“Why did you help me against the
yaoguai
?”

“You presume the two motivations are related?”

“I don't think you like standing aside and watching when you know you can help. That's why you're here and not in Shambhala.”

He stilled and I took a step back, wondering if I'd just gone too far.

“Perhaps you are right. But in the doing of a thing, the how and the why matters. If you do not understand this in yourself, compromise will weaken you, and you will cause more harm than you fix.” With a nod, he handed the pearls back to me. “These were a gift, and the love they represent has not died; it lives on in you. They are yours to keep.”

I grinned at the victory, my stomach doing flips. He'd agreed!

“However,” he said, folding his hands back in his sleeves. “You have made quite a mess, and I am disinclined to take a student who is so inconsiderate, especially after I have helped them.”

“A mess?” I echoed. What, had I left too many snow angels during my climb through the blizzard?

“Your demons, the ones you unleashed on the
yaoguai
. They have spread throughout my valley, and they are wreaking more havoc than she ever did.”

Oh. Crap. I fidgeted, tugging at my own sleeves in a parody of his calm posture. Good going, Masters. “I'll clean them up,” I offered, even as I realized that I had no idea how to do that, or how long it would take. What else could I say?

Lung Huang took a step toward me, too close. He searched my face for I don't know what. I fought the urge to step back. Americans: we like our space.

“You will. If I agree to train you during your stay, then you must agree to remain until every shadow has been laid to rest.”

In other words, no pulling a Luke Skywalker and rushing off to save Han and Leia. “Agreed,” I said.

“Very well, Melissa Masters.” He reached out and took my hands, the pearls pressing into my fingers, warmer than they had any right to be. It was an oddly formal, almost ritual gesture. “I will undertake your training.”

Another wave of vertigo washed over me. I swayed, and his hands dropped to catch me at the elbows, the first real expression crossing his features: concern. I smiled to show I was all right. The world had already righted itself.

“Call me Missy.”

He nodded. “And you may call me Jian Huo.”

L
ung Huang – Jian Huo
, I guess he was now – led me to the pagoda, where a table had been laid out. He remained silent as servants brought us tea and bowls of rice and steaming vegetables. The servants were human-shaped, but they moved like something else in a human costume. The composition of their faces was off, the proportions of their bodies, the fluidity of their movements. It was easier to look at the dragon across from me than it was to watch them go about their business.