The Dragons of Heaven (8 page)

“Have a seat, dear, while I make the tea.” Mrs Hu's tone this time was a little less sweet.

I clutched the strap of my backpack and edged toward the door. “If you don't mind, I thought I'd take a look around outside before tea. Stretch my legs a bit.” As if I hadn't just spent the whole morning walking. The hag's beady eyes narrowed. “I thought I spied a garden around the side. I'd love to take a closer look at it.” That mollified her. Whatever illusion the old hag had created, it must have included a garden. Probably where the compost heap sat rotting. I slipped out before she could stop me.

I didn't go far. I trudged over to the trash heap and pretended to admire it while my mind raced.

“You'd be best served by leaving them to their fates.”

Jerking around, I scanned the brush to see who had interrupted my growing panic. I caught a flash of russet at the edge of my vision. I looked up

Perched on one of the mossy eaves, pink tongue lolling between sharp canines and black lips, sat an amber-eyed fox. She – at least, the voice had been female – had the same predator's grin as the old hag's in the hut.

“OK, this is going to sound crazy, but did you just speak to me?” I asked the fox.

She didn't respond for several moments, just panted at me and blinked like a dumb animal, then: “Oh, you don't know how tempting it was to keep quiet and let you think you'd gone mad.”

My knees nearly gave out when she spoke, canine jaw moving in ways no canine jaw was meant to move. Happily, my knees held, otherwise I would have been rolling in rancid compost. I gathered up the shreds of my composure and shut my mouth before a fly decided to go exploring.

“You're… a
kitsune
?”

She growled low in her throat. “
Huxian
, please.” A tail flicked with a flash of white, and my eyes were drawn to three other tails that lay dormant. Four tails. That didn't bode well. “Now, may we stop wasting time? I'd like to guide you away from this festering pit so I can go back to my much more interesting and important business.”

I took a step back. “Why would you help me?” Whatever she called herself, she wore the guise of a trickster. And she talked like a trickster. And only idiots trusted tricksters. Right?

“Why, indeed?” The
huxian
cocked her head, golden gaze unblinking. When I blinked, she turned her back on me, all four tails thumping impatiently. “You asked for help, and I was sent. I suppose you may ask for different help and see what comes next.”

“But… my friends.” That was my biggest concern. I could deal later with the weirdness of talking foxes and evil hags who wanted to eat me. After all, this was what I'd come to China to find.

The vixen nuzzled at some imaginary dirt on her paw, lapping it clean before she deigned to answer. “They're lost. There's no way to break the
yaoguai
's curse from the outside. Count yourself lucky that you were protected, and let's go.” She hopped to the ground and trotted across the clearing. She paused and glanced over her shoulder, one paw raised, when I didn't follow.

“What will she do to them?” I asked.

“What do you think?” It was impressive, how much derision could be put into a look, especially in a long-nosed canid face. But she was right to be disdainful. I'd seen those pointed teeth. I knew what they were for.

“I'm not leaving them.”

Her whiskers quivered as she frowned. “Take it from one who knows this world better than you: your friends are already lost.”

“But they're not dead yet.” I turned back to the door. As I reached for the cracked plank that hung askew on the frame, the fox behind me spoke.

“Wait.” She let out an exasperated huff. “If you're really set on trying to save them, you'll have to set aside Lung Huang's protection. The yaoguai's illusions have to be fought from within.”

I gave her a pathetic, hopeful look. Trickster or not, she clearly had a better idea of what was going on than I did. And she seemed more willing to help than she pretended. “How do I do that?”

“Fighting them from within? I doubt you're bright enough. But to cast aside the protection, just eat whatever she gives you. That should be strong enough to break the ward. Assuming you can choke it down.”

Having seen the inside of the hovel, I had to admit I shared the fox's doubts. “And then what?”

“And then you're on your own. I'll wait for you at the shrine. If you're able to make your way there, I'll guide you back to mortal realms.”

“I don't suppose you'd be willing to help me defeat her…” I asked, giving the fox my friendliest smile. Her return smile wasn't so friendly.

“Happily.” She darted forward and nipped me. Hard.

“Ow!” I jerked back, cradling my hand. Her sharp canines had grazed the skin, leaving two angry, red scrapes along the back. “What. The hell?” That's what I got for trusting foxes.

“You're welcome,” she said with a sharp, yipping laugh. And with a flick of her tails, she disappeared into the trees.

I took several deep breaths, preparing myself for re-entry. Pasting a big smile on my face, I opened the door and entered.

“Missy! You're just in time. The tea's ready. Mrs Hu was just about to go get you.”

“Is everything all right?” Mrs Hu cut off Jill's enthusiastic greeting. Her lip curled, and the thing in the corner shifted its glare to me.

“Wonderful. You have a lovely garden. So peaceful.”

“You are ready for tea now?” she snapped. The suspicion hadn't budged. Well, I guess there was one way to gain her trust. I nodded and took my seat next to Jim, bracing myself for what would come next.

The cousins ooh-ed and ah-ed as Mrs Hu plunked the cups and pot on the bare table. Even Gunther looked impressed, and Jill was in awe. I tamped down on the irrational envy that my friends might be witnessing the illusion of a formal tea ceremony being performed by a master.

Swampy-looking water sloshed over the sides of our cups as Mrs Hu poured out. Yellow foam floated on the surface, and I thought I spied… yup. Those were larvae of some kind. Something I'd learned during my brief stint on the streets: if you were hungry enough, you could eat just about anything. Problem was, I wasn't hungry. Not this hungry. I swallowed down my bile as I stared into my cup.

While Mrs Hu poured, her man-thing plunked plates in front of us. Each one sported a fibrous leaf smeared with mud. The spread looked like the tea parties I used to throw for my grandfather in our garden: muddy water and leaf-surprise. Unlike my grandfather, I couldn't get away with pretend sipping.

“Well, eat,” Mrs Hu snapped. Knowing I'd lose my nerve if I had to watch the others chowing down, I snatched up one of the mud-leaves. Maybe the hag would mistake my haste for eagerness.

Before I could think too much about what I was doing, I bit down. I had a fleeting sense of tasting compost, things long dead and rotting, iron, grit, and the juicy pop of earthworms, and then it was gone. The earthiness turned sweet like yams, the pop became the crunch of dough fried to a light crisp. I pulled the treat away, looking at it in astonishment. I wasn't sure why I expected it to taste bad. Red bean paste pancakes were my favorite.

I put the pancake down and lifted my tea, taking a deep breath of the floral brew. Not jasmine, that would have been trite.

“What is this? Chrysanthemum?” I asked, sipping from the delicate cup.

“Lotus blossom, dear,” Mrs Hu responded, her eyes bright. She winked and bent over me, her whisper loud enough for all to hear, “but don't tell my secret, or all the other tea houses will run me out of business.”

“Not likely,” Claire said, leaning forward to talk past Gunther's bulk. “I don't think I've ever seen a nicer tea than this. Don't you agree, Anita?”

“Oh yes. I wish we could lure you to Suffolk, Mrs Hu. Lucy would turn green with envy.”

Lucille is the head of the Ladies' Auxiliary,” Claire said. “She's Anita's arch nemesis.”

I nodded along with the others as Mrs Hu bustled around us, refreshing the treats with cheerful industry.

Cradling my cup, I settled into the warmth of camaraderie, happy to let my attention drift between conversations. The cousins and Gunther debated the merits of obscure poets – or, at least, poets I'd never heard of, so maybe not that obscure. Mr Hu dozed in a chair in the corner, while Jill and Mrs Hu exchanged herbal tonic recipes. Like me, Jim seemed content to play observer to the conversations. Except his brow was furrowed.

“Jim? What's wrong?”

He smiled, but it faded again into a frown. His eyes darted about, like he was looking for something that he thought should be there, but wasn't. “I don't know. Nothing. Right?”

I didn't want Mrs Hu to see his distraction and take unintended insult, so I nudged him to face me, lowering my head so the others wouldn't catch my whisper. “Jim?”

“I just… there's something…” He paused, chewing on his lip. “About buses? I'm not sure.” He glanced down at my hand on his arm, and his vague distress sharpened. “Missy, what happened to your hand?”

“Huh?” I glanced down as well. Two long, red scrapes marred my skin. “Huh. I wonder when that happened. It must have been…” I tried to think, but it was fuzzy. I shrugged. It couldn't have been that important.

“It was when you were in the garden.”

“Garden?” I echoed. “I don't remember any garden.”

“You don't…” Jim trailed off as Mrs Hu appeared between us to fill our cups. Jill plopped down on my other side to extol the virtues of some hot pebble wrap she'd just learned about from our hostess.

“Bad continuity,” Jim kept mumbling, his sharp eyes darting about the room. He took a sip of his tea, then grimaced as if he'd tasted something foul. I tested mine before turning to Jill with a half-shrug. Jim was weird. The tea tasted fine to me.

O
ur cozy party
gabbed well past dark, but Mrs Hu was kind enough to offer us lodging in the loft above. Nothing fancy, she warned, just some old hammocks strung between the beams. We happily accepted whatever she could offer. I had just managed to nod off in spite of the hammock's creaking and swaying when Jim's poke startled me awake. I jumped, and my stomach lurched as my swaying bed threatened to overturn me. I struggled onto my side.

“Shouldn't you be dangling next to your bride?”

“Continuity errors,” he whispered, as if this explained everything.

“Huh?” I said, because it didn't.

“Anita is allergic to nuts, but she ate the nutcake, and when I asked her about it, she said it wasn't nutcake at all, it was fudge.”

“Somebody's a nutcake,” I muttered, but he ignored me. He was on a roll.

“Jill's vegan, but she ate one of Gunther's sausages. You have scrapes on your hand, but you don't remember going out to the garden.”

Jim ran a hand through mussed hair. The look he gave me was almost mad. Pleading. “Something is wrong. We missed the bus.”

“Jim.” I struggled to sit up, then abandoned the effort in defeat as my aching shoulder protested. The hammock swayed, refusing to grant me purchase. “Go back to bed. We'll talk about this with the others in the morning.”

“No!” he hissed. “They want to believe everything is fine. You knew differently. You knew, and then you came back, and you didn't know anymore.” He grabbed my wrist, shaking it. “What bit you? What's happening? Why can't you remember? And why doesn't it bother you that you can't?”

“I…” He had a point. Every time I tried to think about the scrapes, or what had brought us here, or why I wasn't able to recall these things, my thoughts broke into a million fragments, all distractions. I remembered being shot, could still feel it like a sore muscle, but I couldn't recall how I'd gotten the fresh scrapes on my hand, or where I was, or how I'd gotten there.

“I can't think,” I whispered, the beginnings of panic crawling up my throat.

Jim nodded. I struggled to rise again, but the hammock held me fast. The more I struggled, the more the mesh tightened around me. “Help me!”

Jim tried to steady the hammock, but my struggles left me cocooned in the netting. With a curse, he pulled something out of his pocket. A tiny blade snicked open, and he began cutting through the individual strands. A hole widened at the bottom of the net, and I wormed my way out, falling onto my injured shoulder. My yelp pierced the cobweb-festooned rafters.

“You OK?” Jim hoisted me to my feet. I dusted myself off, shooting an irritated glance at the hammock. I froze at what I saw.

“Jim…” his name was more strangled whisper than anything.

“I see it. I don't believe it, but I see it.”

The hammock had morphed into a thick wrap of grey, sticky webbing, too much like something a spider would weave around its prey for my tastes. I shuddered and swiped my arms again to brush away phantom remnants of the webbing.

“We have to free the others.” Jim turned, and I realized mine wasn't the only cocoon. Dim light flashed off his pocketknife, and I caught sight of a familiar fleur-de-lis logo on the side.

“Always be prepared,” he said with a self-deprecating smile and a two fingered salute before he went to work on Jill's pod.

Waking up entrapped and having to struggle free did a lot to convince the others that something was wrong. Enough to start unraveling the hag's illusions. I'd spent a few moments puking in the corner of the loft after recalling what I must have eaten, but the others were spared that memory. They were seeing the truth for the first time, and they were cowed by it. Even Jill had set aside her bouncy optimism, shoulders sagging as she huddled against her husband's side.

“How did you know?” she whispered to him as we spied on the room below. It looked empty, but the hag and her man-servant had to be somewhere. I wanted to know where before I led us back to the shrine.