Read The Halloween Collection Online

Authors: Indie Eclective

Tags: #vampire, #halloween, #zombie, #werewolves, #demons, #witch, #ghost, #spell, #samhain, #lizzy ford, #pj jones, #keegans chronicles, #sunwalker saga, #gifted teens, #talia jager, #heather adkins, #julia crane, #shea macleod, #m edward mcnally, #alan nayes, #jack wallen

The Halloween Collection (3 page)

BOOK: The Halloween Collection
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* * *

 

The woman awaited them at a neighboring
house some distance from her own. The mistress of that place was in
her yard with a pack of small children running around her, one of
whom stopped playing and met Yu Pao’s eyes. He was a small boy
whose face was familiar enough that he must have been Baojia’s
young brother.

Baojia herself sat inside at a kitchen
table, though she stood as Yu Pao entered. Her eyes were red from
weeping and they widened as she saw him, for they had met several
times when she had visited Jing-Sheng in the city.

“Mr. Yu Pao Long.” she said formally and
began to bow, but Yu Pao stopped her with a gesture.

“Do not concern yourself with that, Jia,” he
said familiarly. “This is a time for condolence, not manners.”

The woman met his eyes. She was indeed very
pretty, for Jing-Sheng had loved pretty things. Peasant or not, the
young woman had the look of health and cleanliness, accentuated now
as she had plainly just bathed. Whatever had or had not happened in
her sleeping chamber over the night, it was likely she had awakened
soiled by her lover’s disembowelment.

“I am so sorry, Yu Pao,” she said. “I have
no idea, cannot imagine…this thing is unspeakable.”

“For us both, I am sure,” Yu Pao agreed.

Da-An had entered behind him and moved
quietly to one side, across the table from Baojia. The woman gave
the shriveled old man an uneasy look. He held a small, flat object
wrapped in cloth before him, little bigger than a deck of painted
cards.

“You understand what Da-An believes has
happened?” Yu Pao asked, and Baojia nodded, glancing from him to
whatever it was the wujen held, and back.

“Yes, but I do not believe I could…”

“Jia,” Yu Pao said, catching and holding her
dark eyes with his. “Two weeks ago, after we all attended the
spectacle at the Imperial Theatre, you chose to return here alone,
after dark.”

“My brother was sick,” Baojia said. “And you
and Jing-Sheng had to…work.”

Yu Pao nodded. “Da-An says you returned to
the village only at daylight, and in a disheveled condition. With
no memory of the journey home.”

“Were you marked?” Da-An asked, and Yu Pao
saw that Baojia would not be a good bluffer at a game of dice or
cards, for she was all tells. Her head snapped toward the old man
and she blinked rapidly, one hand rising toward her own breast
before she lowered it back to her side and gripped the material of
her coarse robe.

“I…I was…”

“Bitten,” Da-An said, and the woman gave a
nod that was almost a spasm.

Yu Pao met the wujen’s eyes and nodded. He
looked around, picked up a dry cloth from a counter, and swiftly
twirled it into a band. Baojia blinked at him with her slashing
eyebrows high.

“Da-An believes, if things are as he thinks,
that there will be a shadow upon you,” Yu Pao said gently.
“Something that can be seen, but only by others. It is necessary
that you are blindfolded, though only for a moment.”

Da-An set his object on the table and
carefully unwrapped the cloth. There was a woman’s hand mirror
within: An expensive thing of clear, unblemished glass, wrought
around in silver scrollwork. Baojia looked from it to the blindfold
in Yu Pao’s hands and seemed as alarmed by the one as the other. He
mouth moved without speaking, and Yu Pao said her name again.

“Baojia. I am the friend and Clan brother of
Jing-Sheng, who cared for you greatly. I vow that you need not fear
me. I am here to help, as my brother would want.”

Baojia stared at Yu Pao, blinking more and
more as it seemed her eyes might fill with tears. Da-An had begun
to mutter, moving one hand with crooked fingers above the mirror on
the table. Yu Pao held up the blindfold, and after a moment Baojia
took it in trembling hands. She tied it across her own eyes while
her hands continued to shake.

Da-An fell silent and held up the mirror
with only his fingertips on the silver edges, as far as possible
from the glass. Yu Pao took Baojia gently by the shoulders, and
turned her to face across the table. He looked at her reflection in
the mirror.

It was still her. Though instead of the
blush of health and youth, her face was gray and waxy, cheeks
hollow and her fine nose now wide, with flaring nostrils. But the
main difference was her mouth. It stretched twice its real length
in the glass, almost reaching her jaw bone. It was a line of sharp,
snaggled shark teeth: So many that it seemed they must be locked
together to hold her mouth closed. But they moved, rasping together
like steel as she spoke.

“Can you see anything?” Baojia asked. Yu Pao
focused all his will to not dig his fingers into her narrow
shoulders.

“A shadow,” he said, and nodded for Da-An to
lower the mirror before he removed the blindfold.

 

* * *

 

The rest of the afternoon was busy. Yu Pao
spoke at length with Da-An, saw to it with the village elders that
Jing-Sheng’s remains would be handled, then returned on the
borrowed horse to Tsheh. He spoke to the chief councilor of the
Clan, a man he called “Uncle,” and obtained certain permissions.
Then he went to the Concordant Market by the south docks, and there
found Qiao Lan—working. She was tasked this day to oversee the
merchants, ensuring that those who were paying protection to the
Clan were not robbed, while others were. Yu Pao bought her dinner
from a cart with a great steaming vat of noodles on top, and they
ate from wooden bowls while standing in the busy market square,
adroitly handling chopsticks and slurping loudly as was the custom.
Both stopped eating for a time, Yu Pao explaining the plan while
Qiao Lan stared at him, aghast.

“With the eye of the
buso
that infected her,” Yu Pao
concluded, using the common name for a dark spirit, “the wizard
says he can fashion a cure for the disease. An untreated person
will become buso themselves in a matter of weeks.”

“So what?” Qiao asked. “That is beyond your
duty here, Yu Pao. Our Clan brother is dead, the debt we owe is
upon the one who killed him. All obligations will be paid. There
are no exceptions.”

“There are not,” Yu Pao agreed. “But the
woman was only a weapon cast by the buso. I have spoken to Uncle,
and it has been agreed. The thing we do will be to the honor of the
Clan.”

Qiao rolled her eyes. Her face was rather
plain apart from a full mouth that was distractingly
expressive.

“Why is it that ‘honor’ only gets involved
when I am to be used as bait?” she asked, frowning sharply. She
eyed Yu Pao and paused to inhale one more noodle. “And why come to
me? Surely any of our brothers and sisters would be willing to do
this thing, since it is so very honorable.”

“Because I am, as ever, confident in your
abilities, Skillful Orchid,” Yu Pao said, and she smirked at him.
“Also, you owe me.”

Qiao blinked and pursed her lips. “How do
you figure?”

Yu Pao looked to either side. Evening was
drawing near, but some mothers with children were still buying
dinner at the food carts on their way home. They gave Yu Pao and
Qiao Lan a wide berth, for the club across the man’s back and the
pistols at the woman’s hips left little doubt what the pair of them
were, and no one wanted to jostle a yakuza. Still, Yu Pao leaned in
closer to Qiao and spoke quietly.

“I ‘figure,’ because while I performed
certain services for you, of a sexual nature, they were not
reciprocated before you had moved on.”

Qiao blinked again, though her mouth
flickered in a smile.

“Oh. Right. I had plain forgotten that.”

“Thanks a lot.”

Qiao snorted and chuckled. She had a throaty
laugh that was not very ladylike, but could also be quite
distracting.

“Fine then, for honor and obligation. When
do you mean to do this?”

“Tonight.”

Qiao tilted her head. “What, like
now
?”

“I’m sure you had other plans when your
shift ends,” Yu Pao said, “but bring him along. We’ll need a third.
Who would it be these days, anyway?”

“Hao Gao.”

Yu Pao raised his own eyebrows. “The dumb
bumpkin from the north?”

Qiao pursed her lips again, apparently
considering the defense of her present beau, but finally gave a
shrug.

“That’s the one.”

 

* * *

 

Hao Gao’s name meant Good and Handsome, and
it was annoying to Yu Pao as it suited the young man. He was tall
and well-assembled in face and form; his silhouette in the
moonlight looming above Yu Pao’s as the two men walked slowly down
the causeway road. The northerner’s straight back was unbowed by
the heavy musket on a sling. Far ahead of them, a single spot of
light shone where Qiao Lan was walking alone.

Hao said nothing for a long time, until the
trio separated by distance had walked perhaps half the length of
the causeway connecting the city to the village. To either side,
the aspect of the swampy graveyard was entirely different under the
night sky. The clouds above were patchy, and as they moved across
the landscape of black trees and silvery stone, the shafts seemed
to flicker and beckon like signals. Or warnings.

“Mr. Long,” Hao Gao said, formally as Yu Pao
ranked him within the Clan. The boy would have only a single band
of tattoos on his wrist at this point. Yu Pao made no answer as he
watched the bobbing lantern light out ahead of them intently. It
was swaying quite a bit, which would mean Qiao was walking with a
pronounced and fetching roll to her hips. Probably not necessary in
these circumstances, but surely habit whenever she operated as
bait.

“I feel as though I should say something,”
Hao Gao said. “I am not ignorant of your previous relationship with
Qiao Lan, and feel it should be…in some way acknowledged.”

“Nothing to acknowledge,” Yu Pao said. “The
Orchid found my love-making too…piercing and world-shaking. It is a
burden I bear.”

Hao Gao stopped walking for a stride; Yu Pao
knew because they were carrying a limp fishing net between them and
he felt the tug. He sighed and looked back at the tall fellow’s
shape in the dark.

“You have the woman, Hao Gao. Why not leave
me with that?”

Hao paused another moment before saying,
“Fair enough.” He resumed walking, and Yu Pao thought the young man
from the north country was perhaps not as dense as he often
seemed.

They were well beyond the halfway point when
the light ahead stopped, as did the men. Yu Pao gave Hao a push on
the shoulder and the two moved apart, raising and stretching the
net between them. Yu Pao narrowed his eyes though he could see
nothing but the unmoving light in the distance, for a larger mass
of drifting clouds had blotted out the moon and stars. Hao started
to speak but Yu Pao hissed for silence.

The light ahead dropped to the ground, the
wick within the lantern sputtering, and Hao gave a cry.

“It is fine,” Yu Pao whispered. “She dropped
it to run. Lower the net.”

Hao did so along with Yu Pao, lowering the
weighted casting lines to the stone surface of the road so that
Qiao could run across it as she fled toward the men, and they could
stand to snare what chased her. It was a simple plan, which Hao
threatened to unravel immediately.

“She’ll never make it back this far.”

“Shut up. Yes she will.”

“You…you can’t know that for sure…”

“Trust her. She’s not shy, she would be
screaming by now were there trouble.”

The net was pulling in Yu Pao’s hands as Hao
inched forward. Yu Pao hissed and gave it a sharp tug, then fell
over on his back as Hao released his end. The young man shouted
Qiao’s name, and raced toward her in the dark.

“Terrible taste in men,” Yu Pao muttered,
scrambling to his own feet and leaving the now useless net lying in
the road as he ran after the tall dullard, whipping his tetsubo
from his back.

What happened in the dark was totally
predictable. Qiao and Hao Gao collided at a sprint with a grunt and
an irate profanity. Yu Pao could only dimly make out the thrashing
tangle of them as he stepped around it, holding his club out in
front and snarling “Light something!” The blackness ahead of him
was profound, though he thought he could hear nails rasping across
stone.

“Give me a flint!” Qiao’s voice
demanded.

“I, I don’t have one…” Hao Gao mumbled
thickly, sounding half-stunned. Qiao swore again.

“It is a good thing you are pretty,” she
snarled, then rose behind Yu Pao and fired a pistol in the air.

She was holding the oil-soaked head of a
torch to the breech of the wheel-lock. In the flash of the spark,
Yu Pao saw something gray and humanoid scrambling toward him on all
fours, and he lunged to meet it, swinging his club. The torch
bloomed into life and he saw more detail. The buso was a naked
thing of gray flesh pulled tight around sharp bones, with a
now-familiar gaping mouth of shark teeth in rows, set beneath a
single, red eye in the center of its horned skull. Yu Pao swung low
for its knee, thinking to cripple it, but as the creature was
loping on all fours the iron-shod tetsubo crashed into its left
elbow.

Bone snapped and the buso emitted a hissing
roar but it pressed on, shoulder driving into Yu Pao’s side and
spinning him to the ground as though he had been clipped by a
passing wagon. The thing sprang at Qiao Lan, holding her torch
aloft, and she whipped the creature across the face with her spent
pistol even as it plowed into her. It tried to seize her but the
arm Yu Pao had hit flopped useless and only one clawed hand of
filth-encrusted nails snagged her tunic. Qiao shook loose of the
garment and it tore the rest of the way off of her, revealing a
thick vest of heavy leather from which three charged pistols still
hung. Her arms were bare and the left was tattooed from wrist to
shoulder, and as Yu Pao knew from fond experience, more than
halfway across her back.

BOOK: The Halloween Collection
11.77Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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