The Dragons of Heaven (9 page)

“Continuity errors,” he repeated. His mantra.

“Jim, this isn't a movie. Life doesn't have continuity errors.”

“Exactly.”

“What do you think she was going to do with us?” Claire asked. She clung to Anita.

Gunther was shaken enough not to care. “Hansel und Gretel,” he said, his florid complexion gone pasty.

“Gunther?” Anita touched the back of his hand. He flinched.

“When I was a boy, I would always have the same nightmare since my nana read to me the story of Hansel und Gretel. I have not dreamed that dream in many years, but I dreamed it tonight.” He wiped a hand over the haunted look in his eyes, then nodded at Jim and me. “The witch is gone. I say we go now, before she returns and tosses us in her oven.”

Anita and Claire nodded; Jill reached for the rickety ladder.

“Wait,” I said as Jim steadied the ladder and Gunther helped Claire follow Jill down, then Anita. Nobody paid me any mind. “She could be anywhere.”

“Well, she's not here. Besides, she's just one old lady,” Jim said. “Jill could probably take her. Hell,
I
could probably take her.”

“Notice he rates my ability to kick ass above his own,” Jill called up.

“I call it like I see it.” Jim climbed down. “Why do you think I married you? I needed a stalwart protector.”

“This is a bad idea,” I muttered, following Jim.

Anita cracked the door and peeked out into the night. “I think it's clear,” she whispered over her shoulder.

“Allow me to go first,” Gunther offered, pulling her back. He opened the door and charged out before any of us could stop him.

“I guess we're going then. Ladies?” Jim linked arms with Anita and Claire as though they were going on a Sunday stroll and led them out after Gunther. I glanced over at Jill when she sighed. A sappy grin had replaced her anxious frown. Any woman seeing that look would feel a pang of envy, so I didn't feel too guilty about mine.

“He plays fantasy football with the guys at work. He thinks magic is just special effects or mass delusion, and that the things Argent Aces can do is just corporate hype. And the main reason my mother likes him is because he's the first guy I brought home who didn't reek of patchouli.”

I grinned. I knew what she meant. Scratch the surface, and Jim was a keeper. “You're a lucky, lucky girl.”

Her sappy grin faded. Her knuckles were white on the door frame. “Only if we survive.”

“Then let's move.”

Darkness shrouded the clearing. What little moonlight there might have been couldn't pierce the canopy. Ahead of us, Gunther stumbled and cursed.

“Which way?” he muttered, eyes wide and unblinking. His head swiveled as he searched for some path.

“Here, let me.” I could see in the dark almost as well as the day, one of the perks of my inherited powers. I moved past Gunther, taking his hand. “Link hands everyone.”

I struck out through the trees in the direction the
huxian
had taken. The train of people behind me shied and jumped at the darkness around us, but I could see the shadows for what they were: just shadows. Wherever our hostess had disappeared to, she wasn't here.

“Are you sure this is the way?” Gunther asked. His hand was clammy, his grip finger-crushing.

“As sure as I can be. We need to get back to the shrine. There's a… guide there who will take us back.”

“What?” “Back to the monastery?” “What guide?” “How do you know?”

I grimaced at the barrage of questions, in part because answering them would require too much exposition, and in part because the raised voices would give away our position. Not that the hag needed any help.

“Look, let's just get to the shrine. I'll explain once we're – oof!”

“Missy!”

My hand was torn from Gunther's as something the size and shape of a Pittsburgh linebacker charged into me, lifting me and slamming me into the trunk of a tree. Pain arced down my arm. I doubled over my attacker's shoulder, struggling for breath.

“Run,” I tried to gasp, but it was just a soundless movement of lips. The linebacker ground me into the tree, giving me a good idea of what a literal rock/hard place situation felt like. My friends huddled together in the middle of the path, trying to make out what had become of me. Beyond them, her toothy smile gleaming razor-sharp to my eyes, stood the
yaoguai
.

“Run!” I found enough air to croak the command. I set my dangling feet against the trunk, wormed my forearms against the shoulders of the meaty giant, and kicked back with all my strength. It wasn't clean or graceful, but the hag's ogre was top-heavy. He stumbled back far enough to release me from the pin. I fell hard on my hip and rolled to one side, rising to a crouch. I drew a breath to yell at my still-dithering friends when the ogre opened his mouth in a hideous bellow.

It wasn't the sound that was awful. It was the yawning chasm of green, glowing nothingness. I shied away from the blast of heat and the stench of sulfur, shielding my eyes from the glaring light. It flooded the clearing, giving the others their first look at what had been threatening us.

If this was the thing the hag had kept hulking in the corner, it had
grown
since we went to bed. Its skin glistened in the green light, moist surface and shiny grey-brown underneath, like mud packed into entrails. Knobby protrusions – truncated horns of some sort – jutted out over beady, black eyes. The creature was all torso and muscled arms, cartoonishly so. If the cartoon in question was made by Rob Zombie.

One of the cousins squeaked in fear, and the demon-thing swiveled at the sound of easier prey. He took a step in their direction.

“I said run!” I snapped a kick at the back of the demon's knee. It stumbled hard to one side. Roaring again, it tore up two huge clods of dirt and hurled them at me. I skipped to the side of one and ducked under the other, spinning into a kick aimed at the monster's jaw.

I cried out at the impact. It was like kicking a slab of granite. Only my boots saved me from a broken foot. Thank Doc Martin for steel toes.

My cry spurred the others to action. Gunther wrapped an arm around each cousin and crashed ahead into the brush. “Go! We go!” Jim had his arms around Jill, restraining her from rushing to help me.

“Get her out of here!” I shouted. The demon rose, shaking his head and blinking. Well, at least my kick had hurt him too. He rubbed a meaty fist against his jaw, wiping away a dribble of glowing green ichor that I hoped was blood. The ichor hissed and smoked where it hit the ground.

“You should worry for yourself.” The demon's mouth moved, but it was the hag's voice that emerged. My gaze flicked back to her, still huddled in the shadows of the brush. Both of her hands were raised, fingers twisting in a familiar pattern. It took me a moment to place it. Puppetry. I'd seen marionetteers work the sticks just so.

Her left hand twitched and the demon responded with a devastating roundhouse. I tried to dance out of the way, but his fist clipped me on my good shoulder with the force of a truck, slamming me face-first into the dirt. I tried to roll up to my feet, but the world lurched, and I only managed to flop onto my back. I curled my knees to my chest and thrust up with both feet as the demon loomed into view, catching him under the chin with my heels. His head snapped up and he stumbled away, letting loose another roar. Acidic ichor flew in a spray, hissing with little tracers of smoke wherever it landed. I smelled burning rubber and leather. My Docs weren't going to survive this, even if I did.

“You, you're doing this!” Jill cried, worming free of Jim. Snatching up a deadfall branch, she flailed away at the hag. A good thing for me. The demon halted mid-lunge, jerking around in a macabre dance. More ichor flew. I considered kipping up to my feet, but I wasn't sure I had it in me. I rolled upright, doing my best to avoid the acidic blood.

“Go away, stupid girl!” Unlike her minion, the hag wasn't all that sturdy. Jill and her branch were routing the old witch. Unfortunately.

Snarling at Jill, the hag thrust out her hands. She spat something in a Chinese dialect I didn't recognize. The demon lurched away from me and stumbled toward his mistress and her attacker.

“Jill, look out!” I jumped on the demon's back. With my arm barred across his thick neck, I tried to steer him aside or knock him out. My shoulder ached as I called on muscles I'd left recuperating too long. Acid-blood burned through the sleeve of my coat, down to my arm underneath. I clenched my teeth against the fire and tugged harder, but my yanking did no good. The demon juggernauted at Jill.

Jim tried to pull his bride away, but Jill stood stiff with fear, branch held out in futile defense. The hag cackled and flicked her fingers. The demon threw me from its back. I slammed shoulder-first into the hard ground, and for the second time in as many minutes I was left struggling to breathe around pain blooming like a red lotus through my back and chest.

I closed my eyes. Get up, get up, get
up
. My body was having none of it. I was helpless to help Jill. Helpless to do anything except breathe in shallow whimpers.

No. Not entirely helpless. Not sure what else to do, not sure it would work, I reached deep beyond the pain, beyond my fear, and ripped something out of the shadows. Not Templeton. Something I'd never encountered before. Something without form. Something… not nice.

I'd never allowed the shadows such a free rein. They poured into the forest, inky blackness rising on all sides of us. I heard several shouts and cries of terror. Not just Jim and Jill, but Gunther and the cousins as well. And the hag.

I concentrated on her voice, urging the tide of shadow to overwhelm her. Finish her. Destroy her. I could feel their claws tearing into her soft, wrinkled flesh, like they were my own hands. Shadow wrapped itself around her face in a smothering embrace, muffling her cries. Her screams grew frantic, then weak. Then, all was silence.

I lay there, waiting for the shadows to turn on me and devour me as well, but they fled out into the woods, dispersing until I could no longer sense them. My harsh breathing broke the silence left behind.

I heard a tread, the crunch of deadfall needles.

“Missy?” Jill's voice, trembling and unsure. I tried to sit up and found to my surprise that I could.

“What was that? What happened?” Jill clutched her branch to her chest, half weapon, half security blanket. Jim stood close behind her, holding the backpack I hadn't realized I'd dropped. He was pale; his tan floated on the surface of his skin like an oil slick.

“What happened to the demon?” I struggled gracelessly to my feet, waving away assistance because I didn't want anyone yanking on my arm.

“The demon… collapsed. Into a pile of leaves and mud.” Jim frowned, then muttered, “I can't believe I just said that. I can't believe any of this magic crap is real.”

Jill dropped her branch and turned into his arms. “I suppose now would be a bad time to tell you I told you so?” His shirt muffled her words.

“Grounds for divorce,” he replied, then belied his threat by hugging her and pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

“But,” Jill pulled away and twisted in his arms so she could look between us. “The other things. Those shadow monsters. Where did those come from?”

“I don't care,” Jim said. “I say we just get out of here before they come back.”

I nodded along with Jim, not ready to explain my own role in the night's terrors. “I think I heard the others that way. Hopefully, they made it to the shrine.”

In silent consensus, we plunged through the trees in the direction I'd pointed, bursting out onto the path only moments later. My nausea eased as I caught sight of Gunther, Anita, and Claire by the shrine. Beside them, a russet vixen thumped her tails in the dirt.

“Ah. Good. You made it. About time. These three refused to leave without you.”

“The fox talks,” Jim muttered. “Of course it does. Why am I even surprised?”

“She's the guide I mentioned. Without her, we never would have gotten out.”

Jim glanced at me, then down at my hand. “She's what bit you?”

I nodded.

“Can we please go back now?” Claire whispered. Anita soothed her with soft kisses along her brow. Gunther didn't so much as blink. Huh. Maybe he did know.

“I think that's a great idea,” Jill said. She glanced to either side of the shrine. Where there had been one path, two now branched out. Jill hesitated. “Uh… which way?”

The
huxian
rose to her feet. “That is the question, isn't it? One path leads back to the monastery and the mortal realms. The other leads deeper into the spirit world and ends at the top of the mountain.”

“Well, you're the guide,” Jim said. “Which one leads back to the monastery? I think I speak for everyone here when I say that none of us wants anything more to do with this place.”

The fox cocked her head at me, amber eyes boring into mine. She grinned at the conundrum she'd just served me. Damn trickster spirits.

“I do.”

Now the fox wasn't the only one staring at me, although the looks on my friends' faces ranged from surprised to “are you fucking mental?”

“Lung Huang?” I asked the
huxian
, just to make sure.

“Even so.”

“What's the catch?”

Her withers twitched in an animal shrug, “No catch, but I am only one creature. I cannot be a guide down both paths.”

Of course. My grandfather had told me enough stories about these kinds of dilemmas to know what my options were. “So I have to choose. Their safe return or my mission.”

She didn't respond, but Jim had recovered from his shock and was happy to fill the silence. “Missy, you can't seriously be considering staying in this place.”

“I have to.” I took my pack from him, let it drag at my side. Fuck if I was putting any weight on my shoulders. “It's why I came here.”