Dark Time: Mortal Path (27 page)

“You have proven yourself worthy. Today you become a disciple of this school. My other disciples”—he indicated the line of people standing behind her with a nod in their direction—“have gathered from around the world to witness this ceremony. Let me hear your pledge.”

Pledge? I don’t know any…

Her mouth opened anyway and words tumbled out. “I swear to honor you as my grandfather, to do nothing to bring shame to you or the school, and to never stray from the teachings of this school.”

The senior disciple, standing next to Master Liu, approached her, and suddenly she saw that he had a glowing branding iron in his hand.

“This is the character
shou
, meaning ‘long life,’” the senior disciple said. “It is the symbol of this ancient and proud school.” He pulled up her left sleeve and pressed the iron high on the outside of her shoulder. Pain jolted her, but she didn’t cry out or move. Her Ageless skin didn’t heal the branding mark, nor was her pain diminished after the brand was removed. There was a price to becoming a disciple of Master Liu. She knelt, dry-eyed, as wisps of smoke rose from her flesh.

“I accept you as my daughter,” Grandfather said.

M
aliha arrived at Kelly’s Pub early the next day. She bought a large glass of orange juice and sat at their table.

Hound had requested a meeting, which he never did unless he had something to say concerning a case. She would have seen him other times than on a case, gone home with him, but these were the rules he set, and she abided by them.

It was raining outside, a persistent, cold rain that would turn into sleet with a little encouragement.

She spotted Hound as soon as he came in, a broad-shouldered man in a raincoat, with a wide-rimmed Indiana-Jones–style hat. He said it protected him from the rain, but he wore it sometimes when it wasn’t raining, too. She’d once seen him cavorting around in front of a mirror wearing only the hat and a hard-on.

She wondered if he thought of himself as a dashing adventurer. She knew so much about him, and so little.

He took the hat off, tipping the rainwater in its brim on the floor and stepping over the puddle.

Hound wasn’t the type to call for a wet cleanup in Aisle Four. His chin was tucked into the open collar of his shirt as usual, but then he raised his face to look for her. He spotted her, and she acknowledged him with a nod. There was a flash of something halfway between lust and love in his eyes. She didn’t want to view Hound’s aura to see how he felt about her. She was sure there were things there she didn’t want to see, and it was easier to get along with Hound without delving into how he felt about her, or what he did 90 z 138

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for his other clients.

He pushed students aside to get to the bar. Most of them had edged away from him anyway. He brought his bottle of beer to the table and sat down heavily. Hound was limping tonight, but she didn’t say anything about it. Even from her, he would have taken it as an expression of pity.

“The drug smuggling. I looked into it some more. I got the address of the warehouse in Illinois.”

Hound hadn’t taken off his raincoat. He unbuttoned it enough to pull out a large envelope from the area of his waist.

Does he stuff those in his pants, or what? Another thing I don’t want to know about Hound.

He put the envelope on the table and slid it toward her. “I also found out who put Nando’s drug-smuggling plan into action. Guy named Gregory Theodore Shale. Local entrepreneur, made it big with a tech company that has a lot of government contracts. There’s photos and a full report in there.”

“ShaleTech?”

“Yeah. You know the guy?”

“Local philanthropist, interested in the Vitality for Life Foundation. Nando and the other dead coder did some work for his company.”

“This whole herd of motherfuckers is starting to stink. Somebody’s been sniffing around about you, too. Some DEA prick.”

Maliha sighed. “Jake Stackman.”

“You know the guy?”

“Yes. I went out on a date with him and things got a little strange after that.”

“You fuck him?”

She blinked. It was a typical, straightforward Hound question. “No. We haven’t gotten that far.”

“You need somebody to run him off, I’d be happy to. No charge.”

“I’ll keep the offer in mind.”

“On the drug smuggling, the thing that bothers me is there’s no reason for this upstanding citizen Shale to get involved in moving smack. On paper, he looks like one wealthy guy.”

“Things might not be as rosy as they seem. I heard he’s keeping two sets of books for the company, deceiving his creditors and shareholders.”

“Damn, woman, what do you need me for? You’re putting all this shit together yourself. Guess I don’t get my bonus.”

She leaned forward and covered his large, misshapen hand with both of hers.

“Of course you’ll get your bonus. I don’t have it with me because I didn’t know you were going to drop this delicious piece of information in my lap. I thought maybe you just wanted to…talk.”

“Yeah, well, I want to do that, too.”

“Let’s do this. I’ll stop off at my place and then meet you at your apartment.”

“Sounds like a plan.” He stood up and left.

When Maliha left the bar, she caught a glimpse of someone a few doors down, sitting on the sidewalk, resting against a brick building. One glance summed him up: dressed in layers of ragtag clothing against the cold, he was homeless. She started to walk away, then turned back. She might be able to get him into a shelter. The temperature had dropped rapidly after dark, and in the Windy City, exposure was a major problem.

As she approached, the man levered himself to his feet. She could see now that he was older than she’d originally thought. Homelessness plus age equaled heightened vulnerability, from the elements and from sickos who thought beating up a helpless old man was fun.

“You need to be inside tonight,” she said.

At the sound of her voice, the man turned and walked away from her, first shuffling his feet, then speeding up when she continued to follow.

No sense scaring him off any further.
She stopped her pursuit. She couldn’t help thinking that something about him was familiar, though. A certain set of the shoulders, the way he’d risen almost effortlessly from the pavement for a man of his age. It was a puzzle, but she had to get moving. She’d promised Hound she’d need only a short time before meeting him.

She was already in the taxi when it struck her.

Grandfather. The homeless man could have been Grandfather. I think…I think he was. What’s he
doing here in Chicago? I thought he didn’t leave the mountain in China.

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Maliha retrieved twenty-five thousand in cash from her forty-eighth-floor condo, where she kept a large amount of cash, gold, and precious jewels—the Big Three. Hound opened his door before she had a chance to knock, and pulled her into his embrace.

Afterward, when he was asleep, she stayed next to him for a long time, resting her hand on his chest, enjoying his warmth and closeness while listening to the sleet pattering against the windows.

She slipped out of his bed, showered, dressed, and took a taxi home.

In the taxi, she checked her cell phone. It had been turned off while she was with Hound. No messages.

Jake hasn’t called.

As she walked over a particular part of the floor of her haven, she thought about what was beneath it. She’d installed a floor safe, doing all the work herself. Inside rested the Tablet of the Overlord and the first diamond shard. Just knowing they were here, that she could put her hands on them whenever she wanted, made her quest seem more attainable.

The apartment’s phone rang. Caller ID told her it was Yanmeng, and she picked up.

“Subedei. Amaro mentioned that you wanted to know about him. Do you still?”

“In a minute. I got some news that’s weighing on my mind.”

“You go first, then.”

“I found out that Greg Shale is the one behind the drug smuggling. That may have been the reason Nando and Hairy got killed, if Hairy was in on it, too. Poor coders got into something out of their league and lost their lives for it. Thought they had it all under control, no doubt. Greg’s company is in financial trouble. He’s using the drug money to keep things afloat, maybe to feed a special project he’s got going.”

She told him about hearing the name Project CESR—she spelled it for him, at his request—from the ShaleTech CFO Edward Rupert. “Does CESR mean anything to you?”

“You don’t suppose he’s smuggling salads into the country now, do you?”

She laughed. “I doubt it.”

“I’ll look into it and see if I can turn up anything. Amaro will, too. Back to Subedei. May I ask why you want to know?”

She hesitated, then told him about her observation. “He’s Ageless. I saw him heal right in front of me. I cut his hand off and he just stuck it back on. What have you got on him?”

“I have a historical reference. Subedei Bahadur was a Mongolian warrior of the Reindeer People clan, a brilliant general, and one of Genghis Khan’s infamous Dogs of War. He was a practitioner of Kung Fu and a master swords-man and archer. He died in 1248 at the age of seventy-two. Toward the end of his life, he could no longer ride a horse and had to be carried in a cart to direct a battle. This doesn’t sound like a fighter who could defeat you. Number one, he died over 750 years ago. Number two, he was old and unable to move around well on his own.”

“The man I fought was Mongolian. Assuming he’s Ageless, being 750 years old isn’t an obstacle. I’m almost halfway there myself. As far as being dead, who’s to say that a demon serving the Lord of the Underworld can’t pull a deceased man from his grave and return him to life with all his youthful vigor?”

She had a sudden insight.
Is that what happened to me, too? I must have died in those flames. When
Rabishu pulled me out of there, I was already dead. He gets his recruits from among those who have
died with bitterness in their hearts. I should have been in that graveyard with Constanta. No—as a witch,
anything that was left of my body would have been tossed into a river, not buried in the churchyard. No
peace with my baby, even in death.

“We don’t know the limits of Rabishu’s power,” she said. “Or it might be one of the other demons besides Rabishu.”

I was already dead.
She couldn’t let go of it.

“No wonder Anu worried about what the demons could do if they all stroked the oars in unison.

Why doesn’t he come back and put them in their place?”

“You’ll have to ask him that. I have to mention something else. I saw someone today who could have been Grandfather. A homeless man. I’m not positive, but I think it was him.”

“Something big’s brewing, it has to be, to draw him out. How are we going to fight this Subedei?”

She noticed he said “we.” She had a feeling that was something she’d have to do alone. She didn’t downplay the importance of the contributions of Yanmeng, Amaro, and Hound in her life. But none of them stood a chance against the being she’d fought in Greg’s dojo. She didn’t want her friends anywhere 92 z 138

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near Subedei, who’d already died and was far stronger for it.

Why does Subedei associate with Greg Shale? He’s either using him or guarding him. Or both.

“Very carefully. I fight Subedei very carefully.”

T
he McLaren ate up the road as Maliha drove to the ShaleTech compound. She reviewed her plan as the miles sped by, because she didn’t want this incursion to have an ending like the PharmBots break-in. If she had to fight her way out, that’s what she’d do, and leave a slew of bodies behind.

The wild card was Subedei. Would she encounter him?

A better question: Am I afraid of him, or just being cautious?

Maliha drove the McLaren down a gravel road to a barn that had shown up on an aerial view of the property. She pulled the car inside the barn and left with the covert entry kit she’d assembled. She took off cross-country, and when she got to ShaleTech at about midnight, she circled around to the back, away from the manned security gates. She climbed a tree and observed for two hours.

Her first obstacle was the pair of fences with guards and dogs patrolling between them. There were lights at intervals that never allowed the guards to be in total darkness, although there were areas that were dimmer than others.

A pair of guards proceeded clockwise around the fenced area and another pair went counterclockwise, so they were in sight of each other every few minutes for verification. In addition, they reported via radio to a central security area inside the building every hour. Walking at a good rate, the dogs keeping up easily, the pairs passed each other about every seven minutes. That was her time window, and it was a generous one for someone with Maliha’s speed.

Maliha picked a time when the pairs had just passed each other and reported on their radios. She dropped down from the tree and sprayed her feet with a bottle of rabbit urine sold as a hunting lure. At the fence, she disturbed the ground with a knife, making it look as though a rabbit could have squeezed through. She climbed the first fence like a lizard scurrying up a wall and dropped down from the top, landing with a small puff of dust. Pulling a tuft of rabbit fur from her pocket, she dropped it on the ground.

Dashing for the other fence, she was up and over, and then she crossed the distance to the building. The landscaping was illuminated with upward-pointing lights for a dramatic effect, but she found a place of darkness and pressed against the wall of the building.

When the dogs came around, they went crazy over the rabbit scent. One of the guards shined a flashlight at the fence and saw the small tunnel and scrap of fur.