A man fired a crossbow at Jim. Jim swayed out of the way, leapt, clearing the tables, and struck. The crossbowman fell like a lifeless doll. More people streamed from the back doorway.
Jim looked at me and smiled.
Red Hat shrugged his jacket off. A dark pattern swirled along his skin, like the whorls of wood grain. He headed toward Jim. A table got in his way, and he knocked it out of the way. The table splintered. Oh shit.
In the corner the old man waved his arms. Angry magic streaked through the air.
Jim was cutting his way toward me, his knife sending arcs of blood left and right. People screamed, wood crashed, Jim snarled. The scent of blood made me dizzy.
The prisoner moaned at me. The empty cage blocked his door. I pushed it. It didn’t move. I wedged myself between the wall and the cage, planting my feet on its base, and pushed, pushed as hard as I could. Wood creaked, and the cage slid out of the way. I dropped to my knees. A long knotted cord bound the door, the knots holding coins. I grabbed it. Magic scorched my fingers and I jerked back, wincing.
The prisoner screamed, hitting the bars.
“It’s okay,” I told him. “It’s okay, it’s okay. I can do this. Just hold on one second.”
Red Hat smashed into Jim.
Everything slowed down as if we were all underwater.
Jim’s knife sliced, across, down, across the other way, still so fast, like lightning. The blade glanced off Red Hat’s new wooden skin. Red Hat bared his teeth and swung his giant fist. Jim leaned out of the way, lean and graceful, and thrust. The knife bit deep into Red Hat’s left eye. The big man bellowed like a bull.
Jim vaulted over him.
The caged man moaned. I’d need a week to figure how to break the seal without hurting myself. I didn’t have a week.
Outside the window people screamed. More poachers coming in.
I grabbed the magic cord and jerked. It broke, leaving dark stripes of burned flesh across my hands. Pain lashed me, but I was too busy. I jerked the door open, grabbed the man by his shoulders, and pulled him out of there. He crashed on his side.
A hand caught my shoulder and pulled me up. “Time to go,” Jim breathed.
“No!” I pointed to the prisoner. “I can’t leave him. Help me.”
Red Hat spun toward us, screaming, the knife still in the socket of his eye.
Jim cut, once, twice, and the prisoner’s hands came free. Another cut took the mask from his head, and I stared at the face of the most stunning Asian man I had ever seen. He was like a celestial being from a Chinese watercolor—absolutely flawless.
The eyes of purest turquoise stared at me and within their depth I saw a spiral of fire.
Oh no.
The prisoner surged to his feet. Magic unfurled from him like a mantle in splashes of red and gold, forming the translucent outline of a scaled beast on four sturdy muscled legs.
Jim pushed me behind him and raised his knife.
Transparent claws the size of my hands dug into the wood. The head of a dragon formed upon the massive shoulders. The prisoner stood within the beast, still clearly visible. His hair had broken free of the bandages and it streamed down his back in a long dark wave.
Red Hat froze in midstep.
The old man howled a curse and clawed the air. A serpent of bright crimson launched itself from his fingers and bit at the translucent beast. The prisoner waved his arm, and the serpent sparked and melted into ash.
A Suanmi.
People burst through the door.
The Suanmi looked at them. The magic beast’s maw gaped open.
Red Hat turned and started running.
Fire burst from the beast’s mouth, roaring like an enraged animal. It caught the old man first, jerked him upright, and swept by, leaving a charred ruin of a body. The smoking corpse took two steps toward us and fell.
Jim clamped me to him, trying to shield me.
The men at the door scrambled to get out, but the fire fanned hot, all-powerful. Screams filled my ears. I shut my eyes and stuck my face into Jim’s chest.
The screaming went on forever.
Finally the roar stopped. I pulled my head away from Jim.
The man within the dragon turned and looked at us. Jim growled, and his clothes exploded off his body. His skin ripped, releasing muscle underneath. Bones thrust, growing, muscle formed new powerful limbs, and a new skin sheathed it, showing the coils of black rosettes against a thin golden pelt. A new creature stood in Jim’s place: half man, half monster. A werejaguar in the warrior form.
Jim snarled, his black lips framing enormous fangs, and stepped between me and the prisoner.
The Suanmi opened his mouth. Words flowed in English. “There is no need to fear me.”
There was every need to fear him. He had dragon blood in his veins. I swallowed. “We mean no harm to you.”
“I know.” The Suanmi looked at the cage. “I’d come here, sick and helpless. My family had been slaughtered and I was hurt. I came looking for medicine, but I lost consciousness and I awoke here. Nine months. I spent my eighteenth birthday in this cage while they carved pieces of my body to make themselves stronger. Healing the damage and waiting to be cut again. Nine months. Felt like forever.”
“It was a bad dream,” I told him. “It’s over now.”
“For me, yes.” The man smiled. The transparent beast stretched his maw, mimicking the smile, baring enormous teeth. “For them, the nightmare is only beginning.”
I took a deep breath. “We don’t want to be a part of their nightmare. May we go?”
The Suanmi bowed his head, his turquoise eyes fixed on my face. “I owe you a debt, White Tiger.”
I bowed back. Just let me and Jim go and we’ll call it even.
“When you wish to collect it, come here,” the Suanmi said. “It is my place now. I will take it from them by midday and by evening they will be bringing gifts to their new emperor.”
He turned and walked away, deeper into the house.
Jim picked me up and took off running. I hugged his neck and then we were out in the courtyard. Around us people ran in panic. Smoke and fire billowed from the buildings.
“What the hell was that?” Jim growled, his words distorted by his huge mouth.
“A Suanmi. In Chinese legends the dragon had nine sons, each with their own powers. Turns out the nine sons gave rise to nine families. He is a descendant of the son who wields fire.”
“He’s part dragon?”
“Yes!”
“I don’t care if he’s part dragon. If he looks at you like that again, I’ll cut his face off.”
“How did he look at me?”
Jim leapt up the stairs and stopped almost in midstep.
“Why did you stop?”
He pointed at the vendor’s cart filled with reproductions of old Japanese pornography. “The scroll with the woman in red.”
On the fake scroll, the woman lay on the floor, her red kimono falling apart while a man with a huge mutant penis crouched over her. A string of
“The first two characters in the second column, that’s what I saw on the floor in the office.”
“Put me down.”
He lowered me to the ground. I leaned toward the scroll. The first character, second column: 女郎.
“I’m sure.”
“Jim, that’s a very old word for whore.
“That’s what I saw.”
I had no idea what that meant. How would August even know that
