The Red Heart of Jade (22 page)

And suddenly he was awake again and the fire surrounding him did not burn, did not choke—like the nightmare that had started his ordeal, only this time, Dean was not afraid. He stared into the flames and thought they looked like threads, something to be followed and played with and examined, and beyond those threads, he saw a body, a body of light wrapped up in something wiggling and dark.

A worm. Dean reached out with his mind and touched it. Or at least, he tried. The moment he made that first effort, the fire boomed, puffed, went out. He felt a great lurching sensation in his body, and the sudden darkness against his eyes was as blinding as the light—another curtain, another weakness—and Dean hit the ground hard on his knees, biting his tongue so hard he tasted blood.

Hands touched him. Dean flinched, twisting sideways, hands scrabbling for a weapon he could not find. A familiar voice cut the air, and he stopped moving, panting weakly.

“Miri,” he gasped, and then she was beside him, rolling him into her lap. He felt grass beneath his back and looked up and up at the smooth white walls of the Memorial Hall towering above his head, framed by a dark cloudy sky. And next to that, Miri. Her hair hung loose past her face, shrouding her features in darkness. There was no sign of the dragon, which made Dean feel very uneasy.

“You all right?” he asked.

“Yes,” she breathed. “You?”

“I’m not hurting,” he said. “Do I still have hair?”

Miri made a choking sound. “Yeah, you have hair. You’re naked, though. What happened up there, Dean? I was too far down to see anything, but I thought there was a glow.”

“Fire,” he told her. “That asshole set me on fire.”

Her breath caught. “How did you survive?”

“Hell if I know. I’m bullet man, remember?”

She didn’t laugh. Instead, he heard that choking noise again, except deeper, throatier, and he realized it was a sob.

“Hey,” he whispered. “Hey, now. I’m fine. You’re fine. We’re all fine, okay? No crying,
bao bei. “

“Sorry,” she breathed. “Sorry. I thought you were gone. Dead. “

Dean reached up and touched her face, drawing her down for a long, slow kiss that loosened parts of his body he didn’t even know were uptight. Miri smiled against his mouth.

“We need to get you out of here,” she murmured. “It’s going to be light soon and you don’t have any clothes. I’m also afraid that someone might have called the police. I couldn’t see the fire, but I was too close. Anyone else in the park would have had a real light show, and I don’t think we want to answer any questions about that.”

Dean propped himself up on his elbows and gazed down at his body. He really was naked. The only thing he still wore was Miri’s locket, and thank God for that.

“How did I get down here?” he wondered out loud.

“Probably the same way you sent me down, or the way you appeared at the top of the hall. “ There was a note of wonder in her voice.

“I don’t know how I did that,” Dean protested. He shifted his sight, testing the waters. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary; all the power he had felt only minutes before was gone.

Miri staggered to her feet. “I want you to stay here. We’re fairly well hidden among these bushes and trees. At least until more people show up in the park. I’m going to find you some clothes.”

“You can’t go out there. It’s not safe. He might come back.”

“His name is Lysander, Dean. Lysander Drakul. Bai Shen brought me here to make a deal, but it backfired. Lysander... punished him, and he was about to kill me for being either too important, or too useless, to live.”

“Nice options. Did you learn anything else?”

Miri hesitated. “I think the real Lysander might be trying to fight back. I think he’s also the reason that
thing
is in there in the first place. Lysander let it in, and now he can’t get loose.”

“But you said he’s struggling.”

“Maybe. I don’t know. But he knows about Hong Kong. He picked it up from my mind. He said he would be waiting.”

“Good thing we don’t know where the second piece of the jade is, then. He’ll be in the same boat as us.”

“But just a lot more dangerous. I assume you have the other jade?”

“Bai Shen left it.”

Miri shook her head. “That young man is screwed up.”

“He’s more than screwed up. When I catch up with him again, he’s dead. Really, truly, dead.”

“He made a mistake.”

“Fuck that. He almost killed you. Hell, he was okay with you dying, or else he wouldn’t have handed you over like he did. That’s a lethal offense in my book.”

“We’ll talk about it later,” Miri said. “I still need to get you some clothes.”

“You don’t even have money.”

“I’ll figure something out.”

“Miri—”

“What? You think walking around naked isn’t going to draw some unwanted attention? It’s going to be light soon. Give me a break. I lived for twenty years without you looking over my shoulder, and I did just fine. In fact, I did great. So you just stay here and hang tight. I won’t be long.”

Dean grabbed her wrist as she turned away. He pulled her back, hard, wrapping his arms around her body like a vise.

“You don’t get it, do you?” he whispered. “You got no idea. Being able to take care of yourself is not the issue, Miri. You always could handle things. But not knowing? Not knowing where you are, not knowing if you’re in trouble and need help?
That’s what
bothers me.”

“We can’t stay glued together forever,” she protested. “We have lives, you know. And despite all this, I hope we both have something to go back to.”

“Sure,” Dean said. “But I’m not losing you again.”

“And if I say no?”

“Say no,” he said. “Say anything. I don’t care. I have to be with you. I have to live with you. I have to know you’re going to be there in the morning and night and whenever I need to see you. Jesus, Miri. If I can’t sleep in your bed, I’ll be sleeping under your window. “

“Which is covered in cacti.”

“Love hurts,” he said. “It’ll just hurt a little more, that’s all.”

She closed her eyes. “If you were any other man, I would be scared right now. You are such a stalker.”

“I don’t want you scared,” he said softly. “But I do want you safe.”

Miri placed her hands on his chest and pushed hard until he let her go. “You can’t keep me safe, Dean. You can’t control the world. One day, something is going to happen, and it won’t matter if you’re ready, if you’re standing in front of me to take the fall. When the time comes, the time comes. The obituary is already written.”

You have to kill her. When the time comes, you have to kill Mirabelle.

Dean closed his eyes. He heard Miri say his name, but he waved her off, and the next time he looked, she was gone.

It did not take Miri long at all to acquire what she needed. No money and no cell phone meant either stealing, or the kindness of strangers, and because there were no open shops within the general vicinity, her options became quite limited, indeed.

But she lucked out; a group of elderly men and women had just gathered on the lawn several hundred yards away, ready for their morning exercises of dance and swordplay—and Miri, blouse torn, hair disheveled, made the perfect victim of a violent crime, which not only she, but her American friend, had fallen prey to, in a most embarrassing fashion.

Five minutes later, Dean had pants, a shirt, and about as many dinner invitations as he could handle. He borrowed a cell phone, too, and called the safe house. Koni picked up on the first ring.

He brought clothes. A cab. And then they left for the airport.

No one gave chase. Or if they did, they were impossible to see. Dean made the cabdriver go down odd streets, take bad turns, while Koni watched traffic through the rear window. Miri sat between them and tried not to feel useless. Tried not to have a nervous breakdown as she thought of Bai Shen and Lysander, or his talk about the jade. She thought of Owen, too, but after a moment’s thought, realized that his little Glen Campbell statue had been in Dean’s jeans when he was set on fire. It might still be on the rooftop of the Memorial Hall—or melted down into nothing—but either way, it was irretrievable. She had no other connection to the old man.

And you forgot him. Granted, you’ve had a good excuse, but you’re free and he’s not, and he’s almost seventy years old. He can’t handle stress the way he used to. If you don’t find him
—

She stopped herself from finishing that thought. No, no, no. She
would
find him again. Owen was not lost forever. She just hoped he would forgive her for taking so long to catch up with him.

It took more than forty minutes to drive to the Chiang Kai-shek International Airport, but only because of Dean’s shenanigans with the cabdriver. Once they hit the freeway, the cruise was smooth. Miri looked out the window only once and saw that the sky had lightened.

Dean held her close. She could feel the tension in his body, a hard stress. He let go only once to use the cell phone Koni had brought with him from the safe house. He left a message for an “Artur,” and explained they were leaving town, but that—and here, he glanced at Miri—there was someone else who needed help: an old man named Owen Wills.

“No offense,” Koni said, after Dean placed the call, “but do you really want to use Artur like that? He could read that jade without a problem—probably find out everything you need to know about it.”

“Just not where it is,” Dean said. “Although you’re right. He’s better at the infodump than I am.”

“Excuse me?” Miri interrupted. “What are you guys talking about?”

“A colleague and friend,” Dean said. “He’s a psychometrist. He learns things by touching objects.”

“And you think he can find Owen?”

“I know it. Artur reads energy, too, but in a different way. I don’t think he’ll be blocked like I’ve been.”

Miri nodded. “I care more about finding Owen than the jade.”

“I figured,” he said, and kissed her cheek.

At the airport, Koni gave special instructions to the driver, speaking in a fluent Mandarin that had both Dean and Miri turning their heads.

“What?” Koni said, when they kept staring. “I’m good with languages. Is that a problem?”

“No,” Dean said. “But it’s a surprise. How many do you speak?”

“I don’t know. A lot. Enough. Maybe twenty.”

“Holy shit.”

Koni shifted uncomfortably. “It’s not a big deal. Even you speak some Chinese.”

“My grandmother taught the both of us,” Miri said.

“I’ve forgotten a lot,” Dean added. “But
twenty
?”

“You are such a jealous man,” Koni said.

The driver followed a curving path that led them to a chain-link fence and a guard station where two young soldiers in full uniform with machine guns looped over their chests stopped the cab and, in polite terms, asked what the hell they were doing there. Koni rolled down the window, and in a Very Important Voice explained that a private airliner expected them. And that they had better be let through. Right fucking now.

The men made a call. Nodded their heads. Within seconds the cab was shown on its way. The driver smiled.

The next half hour was equally easy. A customs official met them at the stairs to a small Lear jet. He asked no questions; simply looked at their passports, scanned them with a handheld device, and then
stamp! stamp! stamp
! Good-bye, Taiwan. Miri managed to keep her mouth shut until they were on the plane, belted down in luxurious leather seats, assisted by a tiny Thai woman who made apologies for the awful state of the interior while handing them sparkling champagne in tall flutes that tinkled merrily when Miri’s nails hit the glass.

“Not just a detective agency,” she said to Dean. “Do you guys own a small country? No one gets this kind of treatment.”

“You do if you know who to talk to and you have a load of money,” Dean said. “Which Dirk & Steele does. It’s not a perk the agency uses all that often, though. We don’t want to draw too much attention.”

“Right,” Miri said. “Because this has all been a study in subtlety.”

Their captain was young and cheerful, with a ruddy face and a good look in his eye, and they were off the ground in no time at all. Up until the moment the wheels left the ground, Dean and Koni and Miri glanced frequently out the windows for any signs of approaching trouble. Miri, in particular, looked for a silver head, a tall man with a gun and a smile.

But nothing happened, and Miri watched the sun rise from twenty-five thousand feet. And then she laid back her head and fell asleep.

She awakened less than half an hour before they were scheduled to land. Koni was asleep. Dean was not. He looked at her when she moved, and she wiped her eyes, her mouth. Drool. Lovely.

“Did you dream?” Dean asked.

Miri thought it was an interesting question, especially coming from him. His eyes were tired, the skin around them dark.

“I had a dream,” she said. “But it was strange. I was in a dark place. It was cold. I felt like I was waiting for something, and you were there, too. We were both waiting.”