Kitty's Big Trouble

  “No. I think that was a Disney movie,” I said.

  “God, this is the worst night of my life,” she muttered.

  Oddly enough, this had not yet reached the level of being the worst night in my life. It might not even rate in the worst three. But we weren’t quite finished yet.

  “You have another candle?” Cormac said to Grace. “The light’s about out.” The quartz crystal was sputtering. Grace dug in her bag and found another stub of a candle, which Cormac lit with a lighter. I squinted and turned away from the sudden flare. Ben made an unhappy growl.

  Henry was definitely waking up, an arm shifting to rest on his chest, head tilting—asleep now, not dead.

  My sense of relief that he was moving—no longer unconscious or under Roman’s spell—was tempered. When he woke up, would he still be Henry? Would he recognize us, or would he be in some monstrous, blood-fueled frenzy?

  I crouched, balanced on one hand, waiting to see which way I’d have to jump.

  “Henry?” I prompted, cautious.

  The vampire moaned, an oddly Frankenstein’s monsterish sound. I could almost hear Cormac’s finger twitching on the trigger. No, just another second, just to see.

  “Henry?” I prompted again.

  “Yeah?” he said tiredly.

  I smiled. That single coherent word was hugely reassuring. “You need to sit up or say something intelligent before the vampire hunter gets even more twitchy.”

  He sat, propping himself against the wall and looking around. He blinked at the shadows, appearing confused.

  “What happened?” Henry said. “Where am I?”

  I glanced back to see if Cormac had lowered the crossbow; he hadn’t.

  “What do you remember?” I asked.

  His expression grew thoughtful. “That was Dux Bellorum, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah. He kind of took you over.”

  “I don’t remember. As soon as he looked at me—I don’t remember anything.” He rubbed both hands through his hair as if he could draw the memories forth, an oddly vulnerable, human gesture. “We’re not supposed to be able to influence each other like that. Only the one who made you should have that kind of power over you.”

  “Roman’s learned a lot of tricks.” Anastasia had woken and pushed herself up, sitting with her legs bent to the side, ladylike.

  Henry chuckled, but the sound was bitter. “Dux Bellorum’s a scary story Boss uses on young vampires. A ‘You think I’m bad’ kind of thing. I didn’t think I’d actually meet him. He’s not supposed to be real.” He was pale and seemed to be shivering. When he noticed his hands shaking, he balled them into fists and crossed his arms. If he’d been human, I’d have said he was about to faint.

  I started, “Henry—”

  “I’m fine. I’ll be fine. I just have to get back home.”

  Anastasia looked at me, her expression wondering. “You did it. You kept us alive. You got the pearl.”

  “You sound surprised,” I said.

  “No,” she said, smiling as she ducked her head. “I’m not. But only in hindsight. Grace, may I see it?” She held out her hand for the bag with the Dragon’s Pearl.

  “Kitty was messing with it,” Grace said, handing it over.

  The pile of Power Bars was still in the middle of the floor. “Yes, I see.”

  I blushed but resisted the urge to apologize.

  Anastasia took the bag and kneaded it in her hands, feeling the shape of the tablet inside. She closed her eyes, and all tension left her expression. She nearly glowed with relief.

  We were all awake. Exhausted, weak, cranky, but awake, sitting up, and glancing at that doorway. It might have been my imagination, but the chalk characters Grace had written seemed faded, as if they’d been partially rubbed out. As if their work was finished. A strange notion.

  “What do we do now?” Ben asked.

  I smiled a wolfish smile, showing teeth. “We get the hell out of Dodge.”

  Chapter 17

  CORMAC GESTURED TO Grace. “Open the door and stand back. Keep that light low.”

  She shaded the light from blinding us. Cormac stepped into the corridor first, leading with his crossbow, looking both ways, then moving out. We followed, steady and watchful. Guided by Grace, Cormac led. Ben and I stayed in back. While he kept watch on the corridor behind us, I surreptitiously kept an eye on Anastasia and Henry. They seemed all right. Then again, they were surrounded by four juicy, blood-filled bodies. Maybe they’d keep it together, maybe they wouldn’t.

  Anastasia, I noticed, rested her hand on Henry’s arm. Henry had stopped shivering.

  We walked for a time, back the way we’d come, toward the room where we’d fought the eyeless creature. At least, I thought we were heading that direction. I also hoped Roman wasn’t waiting for us there. I could have wished for a faster way out of the maze. Some handy escape ladder leading back to the streets of San Francisco.

  Ahead, the air smelled of sulfur and burned powder. Sure enough, we emerged into a room with a doorway on each wall. The shredded paper of spent firecrackers littered the space, and black streaks of soot marred the floor. I breathed deep, but I could only smell burned gunpowder. I sneezed.

  “Look,” Cormac said, nodding at the floor. He kept the crossbow aimed at the other doorways.

  A large body lay before us—the monster with the stitched-up face. He was on his back, unmoving—apparently dead, though you never could tell with this crowd. The stitches had been cut, and jutted out like thorns from loose skin. Gashes crossed his eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouth. His jaw hung open, slack; he didn’t seem to have any teeth inside. Traces of frothy pink fluid leaked from the newly opened orifices.

  Next to the body knelt Sun Wukong, his head bowed, holding his staff upright.

  “Sun?” I prompted, relieved to see him, but hesitant to break the funereal silence.

  “I didn’t mean to kill him,” he said. No longer grinning, his expression was pinched, sad. “Just knock him around a little. But the stitches broke. He’s not meant to have eyes, you see. It’s what killed him the first time.”

  As if that explained everything.

  “Are you okay?” I said.

  “My old master would be very upset with me,” he said.

  “Because you killed him?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “But—”

  Anastasia put a hand on my arm, silencing me. “Sun Wukong is a good Buddhist. ‘Victorious Fighting Buddha,’ isn’t it?” she said.

  He chuckled, but the sound was sad. “I never could stay out of a fight.”

  The vampire knelt by the creature’s body. “Poor Hundun. Always being used, always at others’ mercy. No wonder he’s so angry.”

  I hunted around on the floor where Henry had lain, and by kicking through the ash and torn paper found what I was looking for—the coin I’d taken off Henry. I held it out to Sun and Anastasia. “We probably ought to do something about this.”

  Standing, Sun held out his hand for the coin, which he dropped on the floor, then pounded his staff end-first on top of it. It landed with a bone-rattling crack of thunder. The impact produced a puff of smoke and a scattering of dust, and the coin was gone.

  “Stay sharp, people,” Cormac said. He was looking through one of the doorways. The darkness there was solid.

  “Cormac?” I prompted.

  “Someone’s there,” he said.

  “Roman?” I said, tensing. We all backed into defensive stances.

  “Dux Bellorum no longer has a guide through the tunnels.” Xiwangmu spoke, emerging from the tunnel on the opposite side of the room. The nine-tailed fox stood at her side, flicking its tails and staring down its whiskered nose at us. The three-legged crow perched on her shoulder, beak slightly open as if about to speak.

  The sight of her made me lightheaded, then made me smile. Grace knelt as she had before. Sun also seemed happy to see her. The others—Ben, Cormac, and Henry—blinked, nonplussed.

  Anast
asa’s relief seemed even more heartfelt. Approaching the goddess, she bowed her head and got down on her knees. Drawing the bag with the Dragon’s Pearl over her shoulder, she offered it to the goddess and spoke in Chinese.

  Xiwangmu answered, and I thought I recognized Anastasia’s name—her real name, Li Hua. They conversed. Anastasia became agitated; Xiwangmu was never anything but kind.

  I approached Grace and whispered, “What are they saying?”

  “I don’t know. They’re speaking early Mandarin and I only know Cantonese.”

  “The Queen Mother is refusing to take back the Dragon’s Pearl from Li Hua,” Sun Wukong announced.

  Xiwangmu glared at him. “This wasn’t your conversation to pass along, Sun Wukong.” He just shrugged, and the goddess sighed, as if she expected nothing different from him. Turning back to Anastasia she said, so all of us could understand her this time, “I will protect the Dragon’s Pearl, Li Hua, but I want you to carry it for me, and come with me as one of my handmaidens.”

  The vampire stared, baffled. “But I have so much work to do here. Someone has to stand against Roman. No one else knows him like I do. I’m the only one who recognizes his tokens—” She gestured back to the coin that Sun had smashed.

  “And now others do, too.”

  She shook her head. “You’ve seen what he can do—”

  “You have allies now who can do the work for you.”

  The goddess looked at me. And then everyone was looking at me. The weight of the attention made my shoulders slouch.

  I shook my head. “No, I can’t do it, I don’t know enough, I’m not powerful enough—”

  “Kitty,” Xiwangmu said, and her eyes sparkled when she smiled. “You have been battling demons for a long time now, and holding your own among gods. You’re powerful enough.” Beside her, the fox barked, as if to say yes!

  Well. I didn’t know how to respond to that. I’d survived this long, hadn’t I? That had to count for something. I just had to keep on doing it, one way or another. I could only stare at her, blinking dumbly.

  Xiwangmu turned to Anastasia. “You, on the other hand, have been battling for a very long time. Come with me and rest for a little while.” She smoothed back Anastasia’s hair, brushing it behind her ear. Anastasia touched that hand, holding it, and for a moment she seemed like a little girl whose mother had just kissed away some hurt.

  For that moment, the scene was perfect—safe, gentle, and full of love. I wanted the credits to roll.

  Sun said, “Queen Mother, it’s time to go, I think.”

  “Yes. You can lead the others out of the tunnels?”

  “I can.”

  The goddess said, “Li Hua, are you ready?”

  The vampire stood and came to me. She even looked younger, as if eight hundred years of life and cynicism had fallen away.

  Earnest now, she said, “Stay vigilant, Kitty. Stay watchful. Roman isn’t finished.”

  “I don’t exactly need an archvillain in my life.”

  “It’s a little late for that.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know why you think I can do this. I don’t have your contacts, your experience.”

  “Just do what you’ve been doing. Find allies.”

  Build the army to stand against Roman’s army. I was going to need to get myself a new Rolodex.

  I reached out a hand, and she shook it. “Take care of yourself,” I said. “I don’t know what’s ahead for you, but, well, be careful.”

  “I don’t know what’s ahead, either. I think I like the feeling.” She actually smiled—a genuine, open smile, full of hope. Maybe her first in a very long time.

  She squeezed my hand, then turned her shining smile back to Xiwangmu. After giving each of us a look and a quick nod—a blessing, maybe—the goddess walked side by side with Anastasia back through the doorway and disappeared into the shadows of the tunnel.

  I had a feeling that if I ran after them, I would find the tunnel empty. I didn’t try, and so saved myself another round of bafflement.

  “Who was that?” Henry asked, a tad awestruck.

  He’d missed that little bit of the previous night’s adventure. “Queen Mother of the West,” I said, unable to explain beyond that.

  “Who?” he replied.

  “Where are they going?” I asked Sun.

  “Into the West,” he said. “The Queen Mother’s realm.”

  “But where is that?”

  He gave me a look, like I should know better than to ask such a question. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio …

  Heaven, earth, and how many places in between?

  “We should get this one home,” Sun said, nodding at Henry, who was hugging himself and looking longingly after Anastasia, who’d been his anchor.

  “Henry?”

  “I’m fine,” he murmured, not seeming altogether present.

  “Yeah,” I said to Sun. “Let’s go.”

  Grace was standing with her head bowed, eyes closed.

  “Grace?” I said, tentatively touching her shoulder. “We have to get going.”

  Sighing, she pulled herself from the wall and joined us.

  Now to find that escape ladder.

  Sun Wukong gave the monster’s body one last, sad look before leading us down a different hallway than the one we’d come from or the one the others had left through. We continued on in semidarkness. Our lantern seemed to grow dimmer, and the shadows more pervasive. I reached, and found Ben’s hand reaching for mine. We walked together, shoulder to shoulder, as wolves do. Cormac kept glancing behind us.

  Finally, Sun stopped and put his hand on the rusted rung of a ladder climbing up toward a grating. What do you know? An escape ladder.

  I regarded it wryly. “Can I have a pony, too?”

  “She doesn’t want a pony,” Ben said.

  I frowned. “Why can’t I have a pony?”

  “What are you going to do with a pony?”

  Eat it? Wolf helpfully contributed. Maybe Ben was right.

  “The grate should pop right out,” Sun said. “Here is where I leave you.”

  “Just like that?” Grace said.

  “I’d have thought you’d have had enough of the tunnels,” he said.

  “Yeah, and my whole life I’m going to wonder when someone else is going to come along needing a guide. Don’t send them to me, okay?”

  “I can’t make that promise,” Sun said, grinning.

  “That’s it, I’m out of here,” Grace said, and started climbing.

  We waited until she got to the top, and as Sun had said, the grate swung up on well-oiled hinges, and Grace pulled herself to the sidewalk, where she was lit by the orange-ish glow of a streetlight.

  “Henry?” I said.

  He still looked far too pale, even for a vampire, but he set his jaw, nodded, and started the climb. I turned to Cormac next, but he shook his head.

  “I’ll cover the back.”

  That was his role—watching our backs. I would never be able to argue him out of it.

  I looked at Sun. “If you give me a phone number I can get you your shirt back.”

  “Keep it. Consider it a souvenir,” he said. So much for my underhanded attempt to find a way to track him.

  Next he held his hand out to Cormac and said, “But I will be taking back that crossbow.” Cormac just stared. “It’s a priceless antique,” Sun said. “I can’t let you keep it. Sorry.”

  “Priceless?” he said.

  Sun chuckled. “You’re a funny guy, you know that?”

  Cormac handed it over.

  After that, all I could do was hold my hand out. “Sir, it’s been an honor.”

  I wasn’t sure he’d shake my hand. But he did, flashing me his grin. “Good-bye, Kitty Norville.”

  I climbed the ladder, about twenty feet to street level. It seemed like we should have been much farther underground, for all the darkness and weirdness we’d encountered. We should have been in another world entirel
y. Yet here we were. Ben came up right behind me—I could feel him, sense movement close to my feet. Finally, up came Cormac. When he was off the ladder, he swung the grate closed, then stomped on it a couple of times for good measure. He might as well have muttered “Good riddance.”

  We were in an alley. The night was still early, and the street a few yards away was busy—cars passing, pedestrians walking in clusters heading for dinner or an evening out. Restaurants were still open, though other stores had closed the grilles over their fronts. Traffic flowed, and a car radio playing very loudly passed by. The noise, the sights—the astonishing normality of the scene—was jarring. Part of me was still in the tunnels, waiting for mythological creatures to appear.

  The five of us looked at each other, bemused. Had it really happened? Or had we been standing here all night?

  Grace walked to the end of the alley and looked out, tentative, as if she wasn’t sure that the world we’d emerged into was the same as the one we left. But she turned back to us, smiling. “We’re right at the store. And Chuck didn’t come in to open. Of course.” She sighed. “I gotta get going.”

  “Just like that?” I said. “After all … that? You just go to work?”

  “What else am I going to do? Somebody’s got to open the store.”

  “Kitty likes to debrief over coffee,” Ben explained.

  “What’s there to say?” she said.

  I sputtered, because I couldn’t get all the words out at once. “I need to know what happened down there. I need to know what all that magic was, and who those people were, and where they come from, and what’s it all mean, and what’s going to happen to Anastasia, and what’s going to happen next—”

  “You think I know all that? I got roped into this, just the same as you. I can’t explain it.”

  “You have a better chance than any of us.”

  She stepped close to me, her jaw set, and her words were fierce. “You expect me to be able to explain all of Chinese culture and mythology and folklore to you in a couple of hours? China isn’t a culture—it’s hundreds of cultures. I don’t speak the same version of Chinese as half the people in Chinatown right now. Every religion that came into China got incorporated. What’s the point in talking about God? We have hundreds of them, and they all have their own temples, their own stories. Sun Wukong is a Buddhist hero. Xiwangmu is a Taoist goddess, but they both end up in the same story about the Monkey King stealing the Elixir of Immortality from her. And there are stories about her way older than that, so I don’t know where she comes from. Now that I’ve met her, I see she’s got a little bit of all those stories in her. Hundun is part of an old story that got wrapped up in a Confucian parable. I’m not the person who can explain all this. I inherited some tricks and spells and a set of keys and a bunch of promises my ancestors made. I didn’t think I was ever going to have to use any of that, then it all shows up to bite me in the ass. What else you want me to say?”