Jade Dragon (24 page)

Frankie’s heart shrank in his chest. “Speak of the devil…”

Ko spat. “You set me up.”

“No, no,” insisted Frankie, “I didn’t know he was going to come here!”

But the thief was already moving, snatching up his reward from the table
and sprinting for the spiral stairs to the lower level. When Frankie
looked back from the balcony, Tze was staring up at him. The older man
gave him a nod and knowing smile.

Ko had the case in his hand when the cloakroom floor rose up to meet
him. He rolled, the black attache skating away from his grip.

“Hello again.” The rasping voice came from behind Deer Child’s mask,
newly repaired after the melee in the car park. “Remember me? You have
unfinished business with Mr Tze—”

Ko did a scissor-kick that put a boot in Deer Child’s crotch, and spun,
coming to his feet in a rush. He ducked to dodge a salvo of fast blows
to the chest and head, marvelling at the speed of the bodyguard.

One punch shattered an oil lantern and in a whoosh of sound, a tapestry
flooded with hungry flames. Ko moved to avoid more attacks, on the
defensive as The Han’s clientele began to panic and flee.

He was a second too slow, and Deer Child snared his throat, one large
hand choking the life from him. “Teach you about pain,” said the
guardian.

In the confusion of the crowd bolting for the door, Ko saw motion,
predator-quick and deadly. The glitter of a nickel-plated handgun. The
muffled roar of a heavy gauge bullet.

Then the pressure was gone, the grey mist fogging his brain receding.
Fixx was carrying him out into the humid, screeching night.

Ko saw flickers of Deer Child’s face though shattered porcelain. Flayed
flesh, dataprobes pressed into optic jelly, lipless mouth over shark
teeth.

“Wait, the case…” he coughed. “The cash… ”

There was a moment when Tze made the briefest eye contact with the black
man who rescued the presumptuous little thief. His breath caught in his
throat; the dark face, the hooded eyes. This face was
known
to him. He
had plucked it from the songbird’s mind while little Juno slept. At the
time, Tze had dismissed the moment as a spasm of random memory, bereft
of any meaning—but his presence here, in the city, on the eve of the
ascendance? Tze knew there were no coincidences, only synchronicity. Did
the little doll sense something that I did not?

The palpable aura of threat the dark man radiated made his jaw clench,
but he had no time to dwell. The Masks would have to deal with this new
variable, and swiftly, before it could expand to alter the pattern. He
turned, sniffing archly at the commotion. “How disappointing. The
standards here fall lower and lower.” He studied Frankie’s flushed
countenance. “Francis, you look perturbed. Is something wrong?”

The anger and frustration overtook any good reason in Frankie’s mind.
“Alan’s death wasn’t a mistake,” he snapped, “he was murdered!”

The older man’s face became sad. “Yes, son. I know. I was hoping to keep
this awful truth from you, but you seemed so determined to find out for
yourself. ”

“You… you knew?”

“Francis, there’s more to this than you understand. What happened to
your brother, who was responsible… There’s a pattern to these things
that you are only now becoming aware of. ”

He rocked on his heels, giddy with emotion. “But Hi, what she did—”

“She’s at the tower, right now.” Tze leaned in closer. “Blue Snake will
take care of Juno. Perhaps you and I should have a word with Phoebe,
yes? I’d like you to get a better handle on things.”

Francis felt his hands coiling into fists, a sudden and potent fire
kindling inside him. “Yes,” he said. “I want that.”

“Come,” said the CEO, and pressed him toward the door.

The Statue Park at Victoria Peak is one of the city’s most popular
tourist attractions. The park is a fantastic fusion of the modem and the
ancient. Using design elements from Hong Kong’s stunning skyline
combined with actual stonework and statuary dating back more than two
thousand years, the Statue Park brings past and present together in one
place.

The layout of the park is based on astrological charts from the Qin
Dynasty; those of you walking the route follow runes drawn by Chinese
magicians, so breathe deep and you might take in a little “qi” of your
own! The exhibits at the Statue Park include stone temple guardians from
the northern provinces, a troupe of authentic terracotta warriors and
the preserved wood beams from a Ming warship. The park is free to all,
funded by generous donations from corporate sponsors such as Buell Tool
Inc, GenTech East, Yuk Lung Heavy Industry, and Lan Ri Foods.

The Peak Rail Tram operates a half-hourly service. Tickets are
available at the terminus in Garden Road. Gangcult activity, while at a
minimum across the city, is distinctly possible late at night or during
periods of activity such as concerts, festivals or eclipses. Passengers
travelling at these times are advised to consider a personal defence
device for peace of mind. The terminus gift shop sells a range of
semi-lethal deterrents, including tanglers, taser-touch gloves and
Nauseator™ gas dispensers.

Excerpt from
The Hong Kong Highlight Guide
[2026 edition].

“Miss, wait a moment—” Juno ignored the voice and kept walking, her feet
clacking across the polished granite of the Yuk Lung tower’s atrium. She
was aware of the guardian at her side, the woman Tze called Blue Snake.
“Perhaps we should return to your hotel.”

Juno stopped suddenly and stamped her foot. “No. I want Frankie. Where
is he? Mr Tze brought him here, I know it.” She rocked as she shouted at
the bodyguard, feeling flushed and faint. In one hand she was still
clasping the tarot card the dark-skinned man had given her. It was hot
against her fingers.

Blue Snake hesitated. Juno knew the woman was trapped by her orders from
her master, and like a robot with conflicting commands, the guardian
stood watching her rather than initiate a choice that could be the
incorrect one. Juno looked at the blank eyes inside the azure and gold
mask and thought of the other one, the big man with the green faceplate.
She had heard the gunshot, saw him falling with a trail of ruddy matter
streaming from the back of his head. Then the fire, the screaming.
Calling out for Frankie…

“I want Francis Lam!” she snapped, her voice pitching up. “Now.” Her
throat felt dry. “I’m giving you an order.”

“Perhaps I can locate him and bring him to you at the hotel,” Blue Snake
tried again, cocking her head like a dog.

“No!” Juno shouted like a petulant child and slapped the guardian, the
unexpected impulse of anger shocking her. Her hand connected with the
mask and she staggered back a step, her palm stinging. Blue Snake
flinched, unsure of how to proceed.

Bile bubbled in Juno’s throat and she swallowed metallic spittle. “I…
I have to…” She ran for the washroom concealed behind the banks of
elevators and crashed into a stall. Juno was barely over the steel bowl
before she vomited, a thin purple fluid of spent cocktails and
half-digested food streaming out of her.

The girl slipped to the cool white tile floor and shivered. Her clasp
bag was somewhere out in the limousine, but in her hand, there was the
card. Burning her, even though she couldn’t dare to let go of it.

Juno looked at the careworn image, the priestess in her courtly robes,
hands open and cupping arcane energies. The card shimmered, as if she
saw it through tears.

“What did you do to me?” she piped, licking tainted lips.

I’m gonna give the past back to you.

Fixx’s words rumbled in her bones, as loud as if he were there inside
her skull. She was afraid, trembling on the toilet floor. She wanted
Frankie to be with her, to hold her, to tell her it was all fine.

Instead, there was a rising tide of terror. It welled up from a secret
place in her heart, and there came an awful moment when Juno realised
that it had always been there, always waiting. The man with ebony skin
and dark, deep eyes, he had known that. He unlocked something in Juno,
just with a touch and a word. With a picture and a card.

High Priestess. High.
Higher…

The ink from the card was staining her fingers, stinging them, passing
through her skin. Memory came upon Juno in a tidal wave and she choked.

Sunglasses smashed. Ropé’s hands around her throat. Slow, slow cracking
pops. Vertebrae snaps. Body falls dead. Beckons her from the door.
Gently undresses the dead. Taking her clothes. Becoming her. Becoming
the dead. Reborn. Renewed.

I am you now.

“Fuck!” The word came out in a tight animal screech. Juno scrambled from
the toilet stall and slammed into the rack of glass sinks, the room
swaying around her, her balance hazy and faltering. She could
not
release the card. He had done something to her, like the street
magicians who made people sleep with a snap of their fingers. The dark
man had reached into her thoughts and pulled out the stops.

Juno hung on to the sink, the room spinning about her so fast she was
afraid that gravity would throw her off if she let go. She raised her
head and saw mirrors.

There were silver ovals on every wall, perfect and flawless reflections
of her pathetic scarlet face and eyes of smeared kohl. In each her
irises glowed amber, staring back at her. The mirrors ranged away into a
curved tunnel of infinity. She was here and she was there; she was dead
and she was living. Image and real. Reflection and reflected.

She was one and she was many. The girl tasted alien fluids in her gut,
for one phantom moment feeling the distant sensation of tubes in her
mouth, probes in her nostrils, thick oils dragging on her naked skin.

Her equilibrium returning in slow, painful ticks, Juno discarded the
coat about her shoulders and pushed out through the doors. There were
jade pillars dotted about in this part of the atrium, and with slow,
careful progress, the girl kept herself from the line of Blue Snake’s
sight, finding an elevator to the tower’s upper levels. She seemed to be
escaping, but to where she had no idea.

Phoebe Hi looked up and started as the doors to Tze’s library opened.
She was cleaning the ornate bowl in the centre of the room with a
sanctified cloth and a vial of tainted blood plasma supplied by an
operative in a Kowloon children’s hospital. “Mr Tze! I, ah—” Her words
faded as Frankie crossed the room toward her, his face murky with anger.
The vial slipped from her fingers and rolled across the oaken table.
“Francis?”

He loomed over her, his fists balling and uncurling, his lips moving but
no coherent words emerging. He was so utterly furious that his capacity
to speak rationally had vanished. Hi shot a worried look at Tze. Frankie
released a powerful backhand blow that knocked the woman off her feet
and to the floor. “You fucking bitch, you killed my brother!” he
screamed.

Hi’s hand came to her lip and traced blood. She looked at Tze again,
confused.

“Francis deduced the train of events himself,” Tze said sadly.

“Doesn’t he understand?” wailed the woman. She glared at Frankie. “It
was necessary. He was going to destroy the great work. He was
defecting.”

“You didn’t have to kill him!” roared Frankie. “You didn’t have to do
that.”

“Yes, I did.” Tze’s words cut through the air.

Frankie turned. “But the 14K said she—”

“Phoebe brokered the hit, yes, but on my authority.” He let out a small
smile. “Did you not think that I would have some say in the disposal of
so valuable an asset, Francis?” Tze shook his head. “I regret what
happened, I really do. Alan was like a son to me. We are so close to the
ascendance. Perhaps I could have overlooked things if only he’d kept
faith with us.”

“What?” Frankie rocked on his heels, a sick churn in his gut. “Why… ?”

Tze frowned. “Your brother was flawed, Francis. A bright man and very
good at his job. Ruthless in the right places, careful in others. But
there was a certain inner strength he lacked. The capacity to subsume
himself to a greater cause. Alan did not have the courage to embrace
self-sacrifice.”

Hi was picking herself up, attempting to gather her dignity. “He
couldn’t see the reach of the pattern.”

The CEO of Yuk Lung Heavy Industries took off his jacket and began to
unbutton his shirt. “The time is not right. We are early. But I see that
rigid adherence to the letter of the pattern has only brought us grief.
We must be flexible and adaptable, like our King.”

And very suddenly, Frankie felt the world shifting around him. The
nagging doubts, the faint fears, the splinter in his mind that screamed
something is not right. All of it crystallised in this moment. He knew
that these people were going to kill him, just as they had his sibling.
His eyes flicked to the doors; Judge Bao stood there, the mask glaring
back at him.

“Few men have a sense of their own worth, Francis,” Tze said. He had his
spidersilk shirt off now and the suntanned skin beneath seemed murky
with lines of writing and whorls of colour. “Fewer still of their own
destiny. I am blessed because I have both, and by that token, it is my
gift to know your worth as well.”

“Wh-what the hell are you talking about?” Frankie stuttered.

“Hell.” Tze smirked. “Yes, indeed. My meaning, lad? It is no less than
this. I know the colour of your blood, Francis Lam Cheung Yee. By the
grace of the Dark Ones, I’ve tracked the threads of your bloodline
across the weave of history.” He made a sweeping gesture. “Your family,
your brother too. In both of you it runs thick.” The man came into the
light and there on his chest one brand burned brighter than the others,
a connection of circles, lines, arcs.