Elgin
*It’s mid morning Elgin, many are still asleep, the core staff, the administrators and enforcers are up but the girls, and the few boys are asleep. There are a couple of ‘clients’ being serviced, in the normal way. And someone special has arrived, an older and more senior member of the local arm of the Chinese mob, along with a woman who appears to be his arm candy but is not and five enforcers. Three outside with the car which is both heavily armored and armed.*
-o-
Tao looked at the totem with some frustration, the old keeper’s goddess seemed to look back at him from under jutting brows over a nose and a mouth that seemed almost chimp like. The sagging breasts and bulging belly were quite typical. Most of the features were impressions given by smooth curves, knobs and divots but he felt his soul being inspected and found wanting for the many thousandth time.
He bared his teeth at the hunk of jade, “you’re in there, and you do what I tell you, I’m out here and I’m in charge,” he whispered and turned his back on the stone. He felt his mind and body fill with power, he was in charge, whatever the doddering old fool Wo Ping thought, whatever the ‘House’ back in Hong Kong thought.
Guy had reported the arrival of new enforcers from over the Pacific a few days ago and it had only been a matter of time before Ping came to call Tao to heel. The monitor showed that the new enforcers looked tough and competent, moving with oiled smoothness, obviously armed, probably wearing light body armor and the car was probably next best thing to a tank.
The video also showed that Ping had gotten himself a new mistress. The last one had developed a conscience, which had earned her space in a tiny box in Tao’s storage room.
He hadn’t had time or warning to form the pack but that wasn’t an issue, the Palace was his home ground, his fortress. Guy had snipers in the buildings overlooking all four sides of the building. If Ping thought he could muscle Tao in the palace the old man was very much mistaken.
A knock and little Jaata bowed, “The honorable Wo Ping of the Mother House enters your presence my master.” The first enforcer was already through the door sniffing the room before she was halfway through the ritual speech, Wo Ping was through before she was done. And the little whore staggered back as one of the two bruisers cuffed her, lightly, back through the door which he closed and locked before turning to stand watching in front of it.
Fenton, the man, rather than Tao master and magician, scanned the old man’s new mistress up and down with a appreciation. She was slightly taller than Ping and exquisitely beautiful, porcelain smooth skin, eyebrows that arched perfectly over her wide but still oriental eyes. Her mouth a sweet bow painted a pink that was both becoming and unnatural. Her body was slim but curved and even generous in the right places, her throat tall and straight, her head held proud and her black hair disciplined and stretched to form what looked like a lacquered ebony helmet.
She stared back at him calmly then turned to look at Ping, her face calm and untroubled. Tao’s magicians senses told him that the woman was nervous, despite her poise, but she was also confident and ready, though ready for what was impossible to tell.
The two gunmen were just calm and hair trigger ready but not actively hostile, they were weapons, nothing more.
Tao stared at Ping, “Wo Ping, you honor me today,” He said it in English, a subtle insult. The old man looked poised but he was equal parts angry and afraid. Angry at his masters and at Tao, afraid of his masters and Tao, and the older man hated being either angry or afraid of anything.
“I’m here for what is owed the Mother House Fenton. And the Mother House wants to know what has happened to William Pi,” Ping made a small smile at his companion, “My beautiful Alicia’s cousin.”
That was going to be a bit complicated Tao decided, but he hid the little worry that triggered, “I have sent the Mother House innumerable gifts, why in the last few days I believe my accountant transferred something like a million Euros to the laundry line.”
“The price of the special goods you purchase, nothing more Fenton. Fenton you seem to forget that the Palace is the property of the Mother House, you are the Palace’s Master and Keeper only. You have tens of millions in cash and investments that are the Mother House’s not yours.”
Tao didn’t let his smile slip, he’d sensed that someone was probing the accounts a long time ago. He’d thought the breach had been sealed. “There are the house accounts of course but they are there to make sure I have all expenses covered with cash, that is standard practice. The amount of money flowing back to the Mother House has never been higher, I find it hard to believe that the cost of the goods have gone up that much, if so I should purchase more of them here, sometimes the sluts walk in the door and ask for the work.”
The girl’s beautiful brown eyes pinned him for a moment, there was no change in expression but inside she was angry. Then she looked away, looking around, then behind Tao, at the totem and her eyes widened slightly.
“You have managed your money well Fenton, it took some careful checking to find out that the Palace has been making a lot more money than you let on, for a long time.” Ping’s lips thinned, “William Pi was the investigator, he and some of the clerks and accountants he was using all vanished about the same time.”
There was a chirp from Tao’s earpiece, “Boss we have a problem, stations two and three aren’t reporting and there are delivery vans one street over on each side of us, with heavies. I think Ping’s suckered us.” Guy sounded near panic.
Tao, saw a glimmer of a smile on the girls lips as she looked at nothing in particular, and a flash of realization hit. He had her relationship with Ping reversed, the old man was her sock puppet. She was the one in control, he saw her fingers tap and felt a coolness, his hackles rose as he realized she was also a magic user and he’d let her into his inner sanctum.
Turning away, but opening his awareness, readying his defenses he decided to play for time. “I did notice some attempt at tapping the accounts some time ago. I suppose I should have investigated further. I know that the accounts have been growing very well, but I assumed that the Mother House would be happy with the rather princely, and steadily increasing sums I was sending home.”
“But the special product you make such liberal use of is very hard to acquire.” Ping said quietly.
Tao looked at the woman, “I have made the Palace more secure and more profitable every year, and I have sent more money back every year.”
She looked back at him, her lips curved in a smile, “You are not the obtuse shut in my cousin made out Keeper.”
He bowed slightly, ignoring the now stiffly immobile Ping, Tao had no idea what she had done to the old fool and that worried him. “I take it that the Mother House wants a bigger cut?”
The sorceress tapped a finger on the wide gold buckle of the belt that wrapped her slender waist. “The old ones think that you should bow to their bidding and turn over all the accounts to the Mother House. But the new blood see things differently, and yes a bigger cut, either a straight yearly amount, or if you are willing to open your books, a percentage that might be less onerous overall?”
“Not going down the usual laundry line of course?”
She bent her head, “Of course, we have a new one setup.”
“And you will provide cover with the ‘old ones’ in the Mother House.”
“Of course, as long as that is needed,” her tone indicated that the period would not be long.
Tao bowed, “Then we have the bones of an agreement my lady.”
“I thought we would.” She opened the little clasp bag she had been carrying and pulled out an envelope, “Here are the terms of the agreement. We can have House lawyers argue our sides over the next few days.”
The faint smile left her face as he took the envelope, “I know enough of you to know that my cousin did not survive your discovery of his meddling, regrettable but unavoidable. However his ghost should be carried back to its home. You will return
what little remained after the Green Fang had its way with him.”
Tao bowed slightly, he found it interesting that he’d never put the memento box in the storage room with the others. He walked to the table with the goddess’ glass case, the figure he saw out of the corner of his eyes was a hooded woman, with her folded hands over a gently curving belly. He picked up the small carved box and returned to the woman, noticing that Ping was still stiff, his face disapproving, with a trickle of drool coming from the corner of his mouth.
Extending the box he bowed, “My regrets for the misunderstanding. Of course I will pay the normal blood price.”
She took the box, opened the lid to look at the colored contact lenses, pearly white caps and the pin from a repaired leg. Her lips twitched as she snapped the lid closed. “His mistress was paid off and his parents were presented with the normal stipend, your new contributions will be enough.”
All he could do in the face of that suspicious magnanimity was bow again.
The Sorceress was staring at his goddess again, and now Tao sensed a faint hunger in her gaze. She shook her head sharply, turned to look at him, “My lawyers will be contacting your lawyers after I leave and the negotiations shall begin.”
Tao bowed and smiled.
Twenty minutes later Guy and Barb were sitting with him drinking a couple of stiff morning pick me ups.
“My men never knew the bastards were there till they were down. Descriptions the same, commando ninja gear, knives, pistols, ammo, comm stuff, all in flex webbing over light combat armor, complete professionals. My rat pack tells me that there had to be at least twenty of the fuckers, five per van. Their own little army! What the hell are they planning on doing? That sort of talent and gear ain’t cheap.” Guy swilled his scotch with a grimace.
“Ping’s not going to be satisfied with a cut, he’ll let this settle in then he’ll squeeze us some more.” Barb spat, then took a slug of her gin and tonic.
“It’s not Ping, it’s the woman, she’s in charge, Ping’s just a puppet now.” Tao let his mouth curl up, Barb tried not to believe in magic and telling her that Ping was little more than a mindless puppet now would just overset her, she’d spend the rest of the day trying to drown all her uncomfortable memories of this place in gin.
“They’ll still wring us dry now they have the muscle to make it stick.” Barb took another stiff sip of the concoction, her hand was shaking, she loved dealing out pain but she was a coward at heart.
“I doubt Miss Pi really wants to bother with us, she has other fish to cook. As Guy says, that kind of mini army isn’t cheap. If she was going to do that she’d have sent it in without warning and the cleaners would be cleaning up our bloodstains. I don’t know what she’s after but I think I want to be part of it.”
Guy grunted, “Times getting away from us, Boss, we have that cowboy in cold storage, you wanted to talk to him?”
-o-
As the limo pulled away from the dingy bordello Alicia Pi leaned over to check that Wo Ping was sleeping comfortably. She patted his shoulder gently as she leaned back, the old man would wake up with a mix of his own and her memories of the meeting, but he’d ‘remember’ being awake and facing down the half mad sorcerer in his man made cave. The human mind was wonderfully adaptable, Ping’s would accept her memories as being his own, anything else would be unsane.
The man sitting across from her looked away from the window, “Why did you call off the attack?” Jason Ho wasn’t the bodyguard he looked like, he was more her equal and partner, though he wasn’t a sorcerer, except with modern technology.
She hadn’t lied to the mad one, she did represent a new circle of power but her purpose here wasn’t to redirect money from the old circle. The inner circle, the old circle, had ordered the new circle, the newly powerful sorcerers and sorceresses owing allegiance to the house, to clean up ‘That Mess in New York.’ They had let her bring a significant part of its paramilitary wing to help.
She looked down at the tiny wooden box in her lap, she hadn’t known her cousin well, but he’d seemed nice and he’d had a wife and a young son. She looked up at the patiently waiting Jason, “The Goddess told me that we were too late and that we should leave, I should leave the mad one to the justice of the Oldest.”
“You sure it wasn’t a spoof of some kind, he’s wily and he was half expecting us. The Black only surprised a few of his watchers. We’re not likely to get back inside his sanctuary again, that was the whole purpose of the bit with Wu Ping and you as arm candy.”
She shivered, feeling something terrible rushing towards them. Twisting in her seat she saw the sky behind them was full of rapidly approaching dark gray clouds and her sorcerer’s sight pierced that veil and the veil of near future time to see a raging fire where they had been a few minute’s before.
“What’s the matter,” Jason asked, his eyes fixed on her, then flicking to look out the back window, which was filled with the bustle of a New York city street.
Alicia swallowed, “Get on the phone, tell your cyber team to get those transfers going, Fenton Wu is not going to have any use for them soon.” She lifted her hand, saw it shaking like leaf. She wanted to scream at the driver to put his foot down and just keep going as fast and as far from that hell hole as it was possible to get.