Lim’s scream was cut short as a lone scorpion clambered up his back, the pincers opening and closing in anticipation, until it reached the exposed part of Lim’s neck just above the collar.
“-then foaming at the mouth-”
Lim tried to stand but slipped, falling forward onto his hands and knees.
“-until, in the end, there is-”
The tail snapped forward, its stinger lodging in the thick flesh just below the skull.
“-total respiratory failure.”
Lim’s scream turned into a cough and he fell forward onto his chest, his arms waving spasmodically as the scorpions scuttled and jumped toward him. The Dragon Head watched dispassionately as the scorpions moved across Lim’s body like water until he disappeared altogether.
Shaking his head, the Dragon Head turned his back on the spectacle and sat down heavily on a couch. Switching to English, he said:
“I feel like the nefarious Doctor Fu Manchu.”
A voice across the room answered him.
“Traditions are important.”
Sitting on another couch, set back from the edge of the sunken room, the man with the jagged scar smiled. His right eye seemed to disappear and then flash back into existence as the raised flesh of his cheek rose and fell with his expression. “And besides, I think it was the fiendish Fu Manchu.”
“Whatever you say, Xan,” said the Dragon Head, now in Cantonese. “But where did you get the scorpions?”
“Central market,” replied Xan. “They have everything.”
“So many?”
“They’re prolific,” said Xan. “The female scorpion can give birth to more than thirty-five young at a time.”
“Really?” said the Dragon Head, raising his eyebrows. “I’ll have to build that into the narrative.”
Xan nodded. “Better than the snakes, I think.”
The Dragon Head shrugged, then changed his tone. “Lim said it was no longer in Hong Kong.”
“He said no one tried to sell it,” replied Xan in a guarded tone. “We can’t know for sure-”
“It’s not in Hong Kong,” said the Dragon Head definitively, their casual banter suddenly forgotten.
Xan nodded briefly, an understated bow. “Yes, shan chu. As you say.”
“Don’t patronize me.” His father had preferred the more formal title, shan chu. Man of the mountain. He preferred Dragon Head. The older name might suggest wisdom, but the latter clearly said power. The power over life and death. And in the end, that was all that mattered.
“I mean no disrespect,” said Xan evenly.
The Dragon Head said nothing, his black eyes staring at the pit. The scraping and clicking of thousands of feet and claws ricocheted off the walls as the scorpions finished their meal. Slowly he turned back toward Xan, his eyes blacker than the shadows behind him.
“Only those trained in the arts could have stolen from me,” he said deliberately.
Xan narrowed his eyes but remained silent.
“And they would not be foolish enough to stay in Hong Kong.”
Xan stood mute, his face expressionless.
“There is one who left,” said the Dragon Head. “A long time ago.”
“Yes, she did,” said Xan, shifting in his chair.
“Go ask her what she knows,” came the command. “The thief is someone who left the path.”
“She is in America,” Xan protested.
“Then bring a passport.”
Xan breathed deeply before responding. “But your father-”
“Don’t speak of my father,” came the curt reply. “I am not my father.”
And that is the problem, thought Xan, who merely said, “Yes, lung tao. I will leave tomorrow.”
Hong Kong, 18 years ago
Sally was drowning.
She had been underwater for well over a minute, kicking hard as she swam through the tunnel connecting the first two pools. The sky was overcast, which made the water murky, and Sally could not find the bend in the tunnel that led to the second pool. Koi fish swam past as she strained her eyes against the gloom, her small hands clawing the rough surface of the tunnel wall as she searched for the opening.
When she blinked, she saw spots and knew she was going to black out.
Instead of panic, the realization brought a sudden calm. Her mind drifted past the koi to thoughts of her parents, dead now three years. She opened her eyes wide and let the slight current take her, feeling utterly detached from her body, her mind lucid and clear despite the pounding in her ears and the burning in her lungs. She drifted silently, holding fast to the silent wish that she would see her parents again very soon.
The water pushed her backward toward the left side of the tunnel wall. The bend in the tunnel had always been on the right, but Sally was beyond caring. As she turned slowly in the current, she realized the koi were moving in the same direction, and as she watched, they disappeared one by one. A large gold and black fish with bulbous eyes darted past, its tail fins brushing her cheek before it swam toward a shadow on the wall and vanished.
Sally blinked as she drifted closer and realized the shadow might be an opening, a subtle curve in the tunnel wall. She was jolted out of her morbid reverie, her senses suddenly alive with blood rushing through her ears, the stale taste of water in her mouth, and adrenaline coursing through her arms and legs. She kicked frantically toward the spot where the koi had disappeared, half expecting to slam headfirst into the wall.
Light exploded through the water and Sally broke the surface with a loud cry. Sucking in air, she swallowed some water and started coughing violently, sinking back under the water as adrenaline fled her exhausted arms and legs.
An iron hand snatched her by the wrist and yanked her out of the water in one strong pull, dropping her unceremoniously onto the embankment. Coughing and spitting, Sally looked up to see Xan staring down at her, a grim smile on his ruined face.
“Well done, little dragon,” he said. “You learned to see without trusting your eyes.”
Sally could barely talk, her lungs wracked with pain. “The tunnel…?” she began, faltering. Turning her head, she saw a small group of girls standing some ways off, watching. Jun was with them, as was her sister Lin, anxious looks on their faces.
Xan bent closer to Sally and smiled, the electric scar jumping with delight. “The tunnel moved, eh?” he said. “You have been here almost three years-I thought it was time you learned some of our secrets, so I gave you a little test.”
Sally sat up with some difficulty, the color returning to her face. “But if I had failed?”
Xan’s smile broadened, his black eyes as hard and bright as obsidian.
“Then you would have died, little dragon,” he said matter-of-factly. “Now get dressed-it is time for your next lesson.”
