Thirteen Orphans (17 page)
“I can’t find my key card,” Pearl said aloud. “I prefer good, old-fashioned metal keys. These cards may be more secure, but I don’t trust them.”
“Give me your purse,” Nissa said. “You check your pockets.”
Pearl appreciated the young woman’s facility for deception. Because she would need her hands free, she gave over the tidy black leather bag she’d carried to dinner, then dropped one hand to cover the doorknob.
A long, long time ago she’d learned a charm for opening locks. Now she visualized the appropriate sequence in her mind, touching each shape with her paws. She felt the lock release and, without delay, pushed open the door.
Nissa came after, closer behind her than Pearl would have liked, but then the Hare had always followed close on the Tiger’s heels.
Standing across the hotel room, wrapped in wind, stood a young man dressed in full, long-sleeved robes after the Chinese fashion, the green fabric embroidered with stylized animal figures. Pearl registered two things about the intruder at once: he was very handsome, and he reminded her of someone, someone her mind told her she knew very well, and yet had never seen.
The young man moved with fluid grace as Pearl and Nissa crossed the threshold, two long strips of paper held between the fingers of his left hand. Both pieces of paper were green, the writing on them in a green ink so dark it was almost black. He grabbed the first strip of paper in his right hand, and threw it like a dagger, directly at Pearl.
She, however, was ready for him. Her wind was waiting, and she used it to divert the paper dagger from her. She snatched it from the air, noting that it was inscribed on one side with the character for “Tiger.”
The young man was already throwing the second piece of paper, but Nissa, quick as a Rabbit must be, had darted back into the hallway. The paper hit the doorframe, then clattered to the floor as if it was, at least at that moment, something far more solid than a sheet of paper.
The young man cursed, not at them, but at himself. He spoke a peculiar form of Chinese Pearl had never heard spoken by a stranger.
However, unlike when he had failed in the parking garage, the young man—for this must be the same as had attacked Brenda, Riprap, and Gaheris—did not flee. Instead, he drew a long slim sword, its blade inscribed with many characters, from a sheath worn close to his side. With the same motion, he released the winds that had hidden him, commanding them to seal this area so that no one would hear noise and be tempted to interfere.
Pearl felt a growl low in her throat. Perhaps this young sorcerer/warrior did not fear two women—one of them bearing quite a number of years on her slim shoulders—as he had two men. Perhaps he was unwilling to fail again. Whatever the reason, he was coming at them, his dark brown eyes narrowed, bright with intensity.
Hearing Nissa reenter the room, Pearl knew she must protect this untutored young woman. Pearl had been a young woman of attractive appearance, and long ago she had committed to memory those spells that would permit her to get the upper hand over impulsive young men, especially if they would be left in a position that would not lead them to talk about the situation later.
Many years had passed since she had needed such a spell, but Pearl remembered well the sequence that culminated in releasing the Winding Snake. Stepping back as if in retreat, she released the spell. The young man must have had very good training, for he saw the snake coming for him as none of her would-be swains had ever done.
He altered his sword stroke so that he might cut at the Winding Snake, but did not adapt quickly enough. Pearl’s snake knew what to do. It entwined the young man’s legs and ankles, making him unsteady. The tactic also had the advantage of rendering him quite reluctant to use his sword, for were he to do so, he would likely slice into his own body.
Nissa was standing in the doorway, her turquoise eyes wide. Pearl wondered just what she was seeing. Did she see a young man stumbling about, waving a sword ineffectually? Did she see the snake that was causing him to stumble, to drop his sword, to tear at his legs with both hands?
Looking on with satisfaction—and catching her breath, for casting a spell from memory with little time to store the ch’i in advance took energy from even the strongest sorcerer—Pearl had a flash of memory. She knew who the young man had reminded her of, and acted upon the impulse.
The green slip of paper with “Tiger” written upon it was still in her hand. She spoke the Dragonfly charm to stiffen it and make it fly straight and true; then she released it.
Seeing it coming, the young man gave a wordless cry of terror, raising his arms as if to defend himself, but Pearl’s dragonfly dodged and darted, driving the paper solidly against the young man’s forehead. The written charm sunk in, vanishing into his flesh, just as Brenda and Riprap had described the Rat charm vanishing into that of Gaheris Morris.
Then a curious thing happened, curious even in this moment when all things were strange. The young man reached into his sleeve and brought out a small crystal sphere, perhaps three inches in diameter. He cupped it in his palms and a leaf-green light shone forth from his hands, filling the sphere, then solidifying within into the shape of a great cat—of a frozen tiger.
Nissa reentered the room. Pearl noted with approval and amusement that the pharmacist’s assistant held a long-legged occasional table in her hands, clearly ready to use it as either weapon or shield.
The young man did not seem to notice either Nissa or Pearl, staring instead at the sphere he cupped in his hands.
“What’s wrong with him?” Nissa whispered.
“I threw his own spell back at him,” Pearl said. “Apparently, the stolen memories are sealed within one of those spheres. The sequence must have been set in advance, and once it began, he could not break it. That is one of the problems with stored spells. Now he is trapped. In a moment, he will probably stop staring at that sphere. I would guess that right now the spell is rewriting his memory to allow for the gaps. I think it best that our unwelcome guest sleep while we decide what to do with him.”
Nissa gestured as if to wallop the young man with the table she still grasped between her hands, but Pearl made a dismissive gesture.
“I think I have one more spell in me, although I will not be good for much thereafter.”
She did the spell called Moon, which among its abilities contains that of bringing sleep. The young man’s eyes closed and he slid to the floor, the sphere that held his memories clasped between his cupped hands.
Nissa helped Pearl lay the young man on one of the beds in Pearl’s room. She returned the occasional table to the hallway, and brought back with her a can of soda.
“You looked exhausted.”
“I am, rather,” Pearl admitted. “It is many years since I cast so many spells in quick sequence.”
“But how did you know his spell would work against him?” Nissa said. “Wasn’t it the spell meant to trap you?”
“Meant to trap the Tiger,” Pearl corrected. She looked down at the crystal sphere and the green tiger within. “From the first moment I saw that young man, I was reminded of someone. Oddly, I did not recognize him in concentration, nor in impulsive anger, but when he was there, struggling to keep his balance and looking all the fool, I knew him.”
“Knew him?”
“Rather, I knew who he reminded me of,” Pearl amended. “Our young visitor looks very like my father did when my father was a young man.”
“Your father?”
“My father,” Pearl repeated, feeling an odd satisfaction. “My father, the warrior Tiger.”
Only Nissa’s faith in Pearl’s arcane abilities made the young woman agree to return to her home and daughter.
“We can’t have your sisters coming to find you,” Pearl said, “and you know they would wonder if you didn’t get home to Noelani.”
“Noreen certainly would,” Nissa said. “She’d be sure I have another boyfriend. She’d snoop and pry. Nadine wouldn’t, but … are you sure he’ll sleep all night?”
“I’m sure. That is no normal sleep. It is the Moon. Try pinching the back of his hand.”
Nissa did, and the young man didn’t even stir.
“They could use that trick at the day care,” Nissa said, trying to make a joke of her unease at the man’s lack of response. “Fine. I’ll be back to help you in the morning.”
“By then I will be rested,” Pearl said. “I plan to rebind him, then see what he can tell me.”
“I’ll be back,” Nissa repeated. “You’re going to need help, even if only with explaining to the hotel staff how he got here.”
“I don’t plan on explaining,” Pearl said loftily, but she knew the situation wasn’t going to be resolved that easily. This was a small town in Virginia, not Hollywood, or even San Francisco or San Jose.
The young man slept through the night, as Pearl had known he would. When dawn washed away the last of night, he stirred. Pearl had been awake long enough to shower, dress, and eat what had proved to be a very nice breakfast she had brought up from the hotel restaurant. Now she poured herself a second cup of coffee and watched her young would-be assassin become aware of his surroundings.
As a precaution, she had removed his sword, along with the dagger he had tucked in his sash. Up close, the stylized animals on his robes proved to be tigers. She was not surprised.
Other than disarming him, Pearl had left her guest much as he had been, curious to see what he would do when he awoke in an unfamiliar setting. She had seated herself on a window seat, where she could observe without being readily visible.
He moved, shifted, and then opened a pair of absolutely lovely dark brown eyes. His lashes were long and thick, without being in the least feminine. Her father had possessed lashes like that. Pearl, although hardly less gifted in that department, had always envied him.
The young man’s jet-black hair was worn long, bound up beneath a small cap with a single button. His skin was golden, showing the touch of the sun without the abuses of weathering. His cheekbones were perfect, and his build muscular and athletic while still possessing a certain feline litheness. Pearl guessed his age at between twenty and twenty-five. She was good at estimating ages, but without cultural clues and body language she would not bet any closer.
Those brown eyes were open now, studying their surroundings with increasing apprehension and rising panic. The young man forced himself upright, swinging his feet to the floor. The sound of the springs under the mattress startled him and he froze. His gaze drifted to the tasteful carpet, a dark red figured with curving lines in golden brown. That seemed to fascinate him as well.
Pearl could tell when the Moon’s hold lapsed, for the young man surged to his feet and began to look wildly about. Pearl had told the winds to keep sound from escaping when the young man began to stir. Now she was glad, for he let out a bellow that was part defiance, part fear, and completely without words: the panic of an animal, not of a man.
To this point, Pearl had held very still. Now she set her coffee cup into its saucer with an audible clatter. The young man started at the sound and again when he saw her. His eyes widened as he took in her neat Chanel suit, her tidy, low-heeled pumps, and all the other accessories and accouterments of a modern woman of some years who, while not feeling she necessarily need try to look young, had not decided that age meant she must look decrepit.
“What manner of creature are you?” he asked in his peculiar dialect of Chinese. “Where is this place? Into which of the hells have I stumbled?”
“My name is Pearl Bright,” she replied in the same language, “and this is no hell. As for how you came here, I should be asking you. I returned to my room and found you here. What do you have to say for yourself?”
The young man had seen the sword and now he leapt toward it. His lithe grace was admirable, but did him no good. Pearl had adapted a spell for Wriggling Snakes to hold the sword to the dresser. He might grasp it, but he could not lift it, and the dresser was very solid. Cherry, she thought, or walnut.
“Who are you?” Pearl persisted. “What kind of man are you who needs a sword to defend himself against an old woman?”
He stopped in midmotion, before, Pearl noted with interest, his hand touched either sword or matching dagger. His expression turned puzzled, his right hand raised to lightly touch his forehead. Then he raised both hands and stroked his face. He looked down at his robes, studying the elaborate patterns with fascination. At last he looked directly at her.
“I don’t know who I am,” he said. “I can’t remember my name, although I know I must have a name. I can’t remember my parents or where I live or where I got this clothing. I can’t even think why I would reach for a sword. Who am I?”
“A good question,” Pearl said. Her cell phone rang, interrupting the conversation. She held up her hand to the young man and answered it.
Nissa was on the other end. “Did everything go all right last night?”
“Fine. He slept like a baby until dawn. He has been awake just a short time now.”
Pearl had spoken in English and noted that the young man did not seem to be able to understand her.
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