‘I have taken away your supernatural power, Ling Hu,’ the creature informed her, and showed her the weapon he’d shot her with; the same weapon that had blasted her into consciousness. ‘You are nothing but a kitty now,’ he took pleasure in advising her, as he replaced the weapon in its holster on his weapons belt. ‘But that does not have to be a permanent arrangement. Once you see what little regard these creatures have for you, you will wish to kill them as much as I do … and I will give you the means, if …’ his ugly face twisted into a leering grin, ‘when your current master leaves you for dead, and he will …’
Ling Hu growled at the suggestion.
‘You will pleasure me like you have pleasured him. And you cannot do that without a true passion for the cause, can you, kitten?’ he vexed. ‘So you will have to learn to find me likeable pretty quick.’
The thought repulsed her, and if she could have assumed human form she would have told him she would rather rot in Diyu! As it was, all she could do was snarl in warning.
‘Come willingly, or your girly boy is my next kill today,’ the creature threatened.
Ling Hu looked at her lover, resting peacefully. She knew he would never leave her for dead; the creature had no concept of love, nor the ends to which lovers would go for one another. If Dragonface wanted to play power games with her, she would oblige. In order for her to assume human form, the creature would have to first restore her power, and she would bide her time until she was awarded the opportunity to rip out his throat. So long as Fen was alive, he would come for her, thus the proud tigress cowered and submitted to the will of her abductor.
‘That’s my clever kitten. You plot to rip out my throat.’ The creature pulled another device from its weapons belt. ‘But by the time you get that opportunity, it won’t be me that you want to kill.’ One powerful blast from the weapon sent her rocketing back into an unconscious state.
The wait for Rebecca to emerge from her regression seemed endless. Everyone had fallen silent to listen out for her reaction to the events she was reliving. Thus far there had been several growls and whimpers, but Rebecca had not uttered an audible word.
Hudan sat alongside her husband, their previous discussion regarding Dragonface’s murderous means, playing over in her mind. There was an uneasy feeling in her gut that something had been overlooked, yet she could not pinpoint what that elusive ‘something’ was. Her hope was that Rebecca would return from her regression with some information that might aid an epiphany.
She glanced around at her companions. Dan, Telmo and Noah were very patient souls, and seemed to be as deeply lost in their own thoughts as she had just been.
The fact of Huxin and Jahan manifesting in the room startled them from their trance as her twin was not in a very good mood.
‘Telmo! That was a dirty trick!’ She came straight toward the technologist.
‘It had to be done.’ He didn’t flinch, but stared her down, and Huxin stopped short of physical contact, but she was right up in his face.
‘Well, you can stop whatever you are doing, we’re going back to save Shi and Ling Hu!’ she insisted.
‘We are currently investigating what became of Ling Hu after she was taken,’ he advised.
‘Oh,’ Huxin backed down. ‘So we are going to rescue them?’
‘We are investigating,’ he replied diplomatically.
Telmo had Taliesin’s steel resolve and careful way with words, but Hudan knew they stood to lose the successful outcome they’d gained if they went back for Ling Hu. Chances were that the Lord of the Otherworld would not allow them to go back.
‘I really don’t mind that I died,’ Jahan appealed. ‘But had I known Ling Hu was going to be abducted by that creature, or if I even had time to think before he pulled out that weapon, I would have stayed and fought.’
‘And you would have lost your memory of our quest and be useless to us now,’ stated Telmo surely. ‘You made the right decision.’
‘I don’t —’ Jahan was distracted from his protest as Rhun manifested in their midst. ‘Governor,’ he acknowledged his presence.
‘Where is Fen?’ Hudan was immediately concerned by his absence. ‘Did you tell him?’
The man’s expression was grave as he answered. ‘I told him.’
Hudan waited expectantly for Rhun to say more, and finally he shrugged, having nothing more reassuring to say. ‘He took it as expected. Fen wants to go back for her.’
Hudan’s heart gave a jolt of empathy; she knew how it felt to have to sacrifice your love of another for the sake of the greater good. ‘Where is Fen now?’
‘Taking a quiet walk around the lake here,’ he said, and pre-empting her next resolve he added, ‘He asked to be left alone to digest his feelings … you know how dangerous Fen’s emotions can be when he is in the frame of mind he is at present.’
Fen’s focused hatred could overload a target with such emotional stress that their organs would implode, so Hudan thought it wise to heed her little brother’s request for some personal space.
‘Now, is someone going to tell me why we are all in Noah’s office?’ Rhun appealed to be filled in. Once he was, he took a seat, along with Huxin and Jahan, to wait for Rebecca’s word.
Near on an hour later, when it seemed their silent vigil was never going to end, the sound of panicked, heavy breathing was heard through the intercom speaker.
‘Rebecca?’ Noah spoke to her via the comm-link on the isolation chamber control panel on this desk. ‘You sound like you need to calm right down.’
‘Let me out!’ she demanded.
‘You cannot come out too quick—’
‘Just let me out!’ she repeated, more adamantly.
Noah immediately issued the unlock instruction to his system and the door to the isolation chamber vanished.
Rebecca exited with haste, shielding her eyes from the light to report: ‘She’s going to kill him!’
‘Ling Hu?’ Rhun queried the vague report, and Rebecca nodded to confirm. ‘Who is she going to kill?’
Although it wasn’t thermal, the lake outside Chailida city was as lovely as the one that once existed at the base of Li Shan, Fen mused, momentarily allowing his mind to escape its state of anguish and distress. To shift into observer mode and just be in the moment was the only method Fen had found that effectively brought his surging emotions back into check. The sun sparkled on the water’s emerald surface and reflected onto his face with a twofold warming intensity — the insects buzzed, the exotic birds were singing and flying from tree to tree overhead. In the distance, beneath all of nature’s din, Fen imagined he heard a tiger growling low, as Ling Hu might have when on the hunt. The thought of his tigress incited memories of their life together, over forty Earth years in all, and the idea that she died in the hands of the same monster who had taken He Nuan from him caused rage to course through Fen’s veins anew.
‘Hey! Girly boy.’
The gravelly voice made all of Fen’s hairs stand on end; Dragonface had found them after all. Yet Ling Hu’s abductor could not have picked a better time to pay his respects. Fen allowed his hatred to possess him, and with the intent to direct all his fury onto Dragonface, he spun around to project his adverse emotions onto his enemy.
A beautiful, naked female stood in front of the creature like a human shield.
Fen, recognising his lover in time, refrained from releasing the destructive force. Instead, he fell to the ground to disperse the charge into the earth before it killed him. Where the healer’s hands landed, all the vegetation began to wither and die. The destruction spread out rapidly from him in all directions, but stopped short of reaching his original target. The emotional sympathetic was left quivering and weak in the wake of his aborted attack, all his chi wasted.
‘See, kitten,’ said the creature to Ling Hu, who was glaring at Fen as if he was her enemy. ‘Perfectly well and able.’ Dragonface embraced her from behind, fondling her naked body without any protest from her. ‘It was a good
idea to take out the healer first.’
Fen could not believe his ears, or his eyes! How could Ling Hu assume a human body in the presence of another? The question gnawed at Fen’s heart, as he watched his lover revel in the touch of his enemy. ‘What have you done to her?’ Fen demanded, eyeing the deep scars that cut across her neck in several places.
‘What have I done?’ The creature emphasised its amusement.
In the enclosure that had housed the Dragon Pit at the fallen Shang capital at Yin, Dragonface had been very different to the way he looked this day. His body was more human-like, not scaled or thuggish, but more upright and regal due to the fine clothes that had replaced his body armour.
‘I am not the one who left Ling Hu to be tortured to death!’ he continued, to counter Fen’s accusation. ‘I was the enemy! You were supposed to be the hero! I showed mercy! You pissed off!’
In the wake of the accusation, Ling Hu glared at Fen with such hatred that it struck fear into his heart, and the debilitating shock spread rapidly through his entire being.
‘They never woke me after the mission … I was brought straight here, to this very day.’ Fen was exposing their time-hopping capabilities to the enemy, but he didn’t care about the divine agenda any more. He had to make Ling Hu understand that he’d not abandoned her. ‘I have only just been informed that you were left behind —’ Fen choked on his explanation, sorrow spilling from his eyes in a flood of tears that he could not hold back. ‘The timekeepers betrayed us both, Ling Hu,’ he said, distressed, having never thought such a thing was possible. ‘I have had but a few hours to formulate a plan to come back for you.’
‘I waited for what seemed like an eternity,’ Ling Hu broke away from Dragonface and began pacing back and forth, her eyes shooting daggers into Fen’s soul. ‘You never came.’
‘How is that even possible? You are not immortal.’ Fen felt his heart being ripped from his chest. ‘You must know I would never abandon you willingly.’
‘Don’t let his dramatics fool you, kitten. Tell him nothing,’ Dragonface advised and Fen hated the creature’s demeaning name for her. ‘I have kept my promise. Here we are, both your lovers. Which of us shall live and which shall die, is entirely up to you.’
When Fen realised the score, his horror intensified. ‘Ling Hu, whatever this creature has told you, whatever it has done to brainwash you against us —’
‘Ha!’ the creature scoffed. ‘You freely admitted your own people betrayed her!’
Fen ignored the creature to stay focused on his love. ‘This creature killed your father and stole you from me; don’t be manipulated by its twisted truth. You have the power to end the terror and suffering, right here, right now.’
‘Yes, I do,’ she retorted, surely.
‘Time to choose, kitten.’ Dragonface stepped back and held his arms wide to welcome her decision.
‘You are my life, Ling Hu. It is yours to take, if you so wish it.’ Fen held open his arms, hands palm up in truce.
Surely Ling Hu could not truly prefer life with Dragonface? If she did, then death would be a quick release from the anguish of knowing that his blind trust in his team mates had driven his lover to such lengths to protect herself and survive. The torture of wondering how Dragonface had won her devotion would kill him anyway, only far more slowly.
‘The timekeepers plan to leave you behind in this universe, despite your choice in this instance,’ Dragonface informed Ling Hu. ‘So choose wisely.’
Where was Dragonface getting all his information, Fen wondered, as Ling Hu looked to Fen, waiting for him to deny the claim.
He could not. ‘You knew that I was bound to return to my universe of origin one day,’ Fen replied as honestly as he could.
Ling Hu’s eyes narrowed with purpose, as she shifted into tiger form. Once her transformation was complete she released a mighty roar, before her baleful gaze came to rest upon him.
Fen knew that look, that was her killing face, which had never been directed at him before this day. Don’t let the creature win. He prayed the tigress had not completely forsaken their love. His heart was beating so intensely that he felt it might punch a hole right through his chest; Ling Hu’s gaze held him spellbound in anticipation of her heart’s true resolve.
With the intention to join Fen, the timekeepers materialised further around the lake that was host to Noah’s retreat, and there they found a large circular area of dead earth, at the heart of which lay a bloodstained body.
The sight struck horror into Hudan’s heart, and as she ran along with her sister to investigate, Rebecca kept pace with them, morbidly compelled to know what her past-life incarnation’s final resolve had been. Hudan fell to the ground beside the trembling form, and rolled the body over to discover it was their little brother’s lifeblood staining the area all around them. There were wounds all over his body, but the primary bleed was from a huge gaping wound in his neck. Rebecca gulped back tears, devastated to realise that Ling Hu had been so brainwashed that she’d chosen the life of her tormentor over that of her lifelong companion.
‘Fen.’ Hudan placed a hand over the wound in a fruitless attempt to stop the bleeding. It was difficult to see anything through her tears. ‘What happened? Who did this?’
‘These are tiger wounds,’ Huxin observed and with a deep whiff, she nearly choked on her distress. ‘Ling Hu did this,’ she made the shock announcement.
‘No.’ Jahan shook his head, unable to believe it. ‘She adored Fen.’ His sights turned to Rebecca, who was clearly as shocked as they were.
‘I really didn’t think she would go through with it,’ Rebecca gave her honest human view of what she’d seen of Ling Hu’s torturous existence with Dragonface. ‘But it seems her animal instinct for survival won out in the end,’ she concluded sadly.
When Rhun, Telmo and Dan glimpsed the carnage, Rhun did an about-face to deter Noah from viewing the demise of one of his own incarnations. ‘You should return to the lake house.’
‘I am not a child, Governor.’ Noah guessed what the concern was, and looking past Rhun, he spied Fen’s shredded body and was nearly sick. ‘His tigress did this?’ Noah was horrified that his soul mate could be turned against him thus, and his sights automatically turned to his wife.
‘Dragonface left her in a cell for years and years!’ Rebecca justified in Ling Hu’s defence. ‘Long enough for her to realise that Fen Gong and the timekeepers were not coming to her rescue as she had come to theirs, so many times.’ Rebecca shook her head slowly in mournful distress. ‘When her tormentor had the mercy to offer her a means of revenge, as opposed to living out her days in a cell, what would you have done?’
‘No!’ Fen gargled, attempting to shake his head in protest. ‘Dragon—’
‘Dragonface,’ Hudan finished for him.
‘I can’t smell the creature on him at all.’ Huxin frowned at the claim, as it didn’t make sense.
‘Lives flashing,’ Fen mumbled. ‘I remember another …’
‘Don’t keep him talking,’ Dan intervened, kneeling beside Hudan to address Fen directly. ‘Will yourself home to Ringbalin, do you understand?’
‘No chi,’ he spat blood to say. ‘There … is … another …’ Fen’s eyes froze open wide, as he strained to complete the sentence, but the effort finished him.
‘Another what? Fen!’ Hudan implored before grief choked her to silence.
‘Shh,’ Dan urged them all. ‘I need to speak with his spirit.’
Hudan gasped on her pain, as Dan stood. ‘You see him?’
Dan nodded.
‘Ringbalin or Fen?’ Hudan was curious.
‘Both, they are merging and fading fast.’ He raised a finger to his lips, to urge total quiet as he listened. ‘Yes, I understand,’ Dan concurred. ‘Just tell me what you remember, another what?’
Hudan and her company all watched Dan intently as his face reflected an epiphany he was having that near bowled him over.
‘Of course!’ He cover
ed his face to absorb the shock quickly then looked back to the spirit that only he could see. ‘But where …’ He began scanning the area with his eyes, ahead of announcing. ‘He’s gone.’
‘What did he say?’ The question Hudan had been dying to ask burst out of her mouth, in concert with Rhun, Huxin, Jahan, Telmo and Noah.
But Dan’s sights came to rest upon the governor. ‘Where is the second chariot?’
‘There is a second chariot?’ Telmo was immediately concerned.
‘The one that Inanna gifted to your father?’ Dan clarified, as Rhun was looking a little hazy.
‘We lost that one,’ the governor confessed awkwardly.
‘You lost it?’ Dan hoped he was hearing wrong.
‘Why did no one tell me that there was a second chariot?’ Telmo confronted Rhun.
‘I’d forgotten it ever existed!’ the ruler defended.
Dan pulled Telmo back so that he could do the questioning, as he was in a calmer frame of mind. ‘When you say “we lost it”, who is “we”?’
‘Avery and I,’ Rhun replied, ‘back before he was appointed Lord of the Otherworld.’
‘Where did you lose it?’ Telmo came roaring back into the interrogation.
Rhun frowned, knowing they were not going to like the answer. ‘We lost it the day Chailidocean was destroyed.’
‘The fall of Atlantis,’ Telmo summed up. ‘Only one of the most overworked moments in time, in the whole of Earth’s history! You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!’
‘We assumed the chariot was destroyed in the catastrophe, or that the previous Lord of the Otherworld hid it somewhere,’ Rhun explained. ‘You think Dragonface has got his hands on that chariot?’
Dan shrugged and gave a nod. ‘It is certainly a possibility worth investigating, and it would explain a great deal.’ Dan turned his attention to Rebecca, who was standing quietly aside, listening to everything being said. ‘Dragonface must have shifted Ling Hu through time as she was not immortal.’
‘Ling Hu was always transported blindfolded or unconscious,’ Rebecca advised. ‘So I can neither confirm nor deny how he managed to teleport her so far into the future.’