The Misfortune Cookie

Max had arrived in 1853, early in the long and bloody Taiping Rebellion, in which millions perished. The Manchu dynasty, which had conquered China in 1644, had presided over centuries of violent internal unrest, and it had succumbed decades ago to domination and humiliation by foreign powers. Its severely weakened government was now divided into bickering factions. Some favored siding with the Boxers, while others favored relying on the foreign powers, whose destructive influence in China was chief among the Boxers’ grievances.

China really wasn’t the best place for a gwai lo to be in 1900, least of all one who specialized in mystical Evil rather than mundane warfare and civil unrest. Max regretted giving in to the Collegium’s exhortations to make one more effort to unlock the secret of his longevity. He vowed that this was the last time. He had been blessed (or cursed) with an unusually long life, and after this, he would not waste any more of it in trying to determine exactly what alchemical formula had made it so long.

The sorceress whom he had come all this way to consult was studying him curiously. “And when was your first visit to China?”

“Oh, a long time ago,” Max replied.

“I would say the Taiping Rebellion was a long time ago,” she pointed out.

“Ah. Yes.” The longer he lived, the less easily he recognized how different his own sense of time was from everyone else’s. “My first visit was more than a century ago.” After a moment, he added, “The roads have improved.”

“May I ask when you were born?”

“Of course.” He knew that most people who met him now assumed he was in his early fifties, but his true age was nearly two hundred years older than that. Upon noticing that his interpreter couldn’t convey the date he named, Max elaborated, “My birth was approximately twelve years after the Manchus came to power in China.” Seeing how startled Li Xiuying looked, he said, “I thought this information was shared with you by the Magnum Collegium.”

“Oh, I am not the sorceress you seek,” she said.

“No?” He was surprised. Although young by his own standards, she appeared to be a mature woman and in authority here, and she had an air of gravitas that suggested power. “I beg your pardon. Who am I seeking?”

“My grandmother,” said Li Xiuying. “But I regret to inform you that she died four months ago.”

“Four months?” he repeated in dismay. Before he had even set out for China.

There were numerous ways, Max reflected wearily, in which the twentieth century was proving to be much like its predecessors.

“Grandmother looked forward to your visit. But she was very old and could not linger any longer.”

“I am sorry to hear this sad news.” Out of habit, Max added in Latin, “May God have mercy on her soul.”

Li Xiuying and the guide exchanged a puzzled glance.

Then his hostess said decisively, “You have had a long journey, and you are my grandmother’s eagerly awaited guest. You are most welcome.”

“Thank you,” said Max. “With your permission, we shall pass the night here.”

“Of course.”

“And in the morning, we will begin our return journey,” he added to his guide, who reacted with undisguised horror.

It was fortunate that Max spoke adequate Mandarin, since his unenthusiastic guide and interpreter fled during the night. It was even more fortunate that the loss of his escort delayed Max’s departure; the following day, Li Xiuying received word that the Dowager Empress had declared war against all foreign powers in China, and the foreign quarter of Peking was under siege. Max agreed to stay here while they awaited further news, rather than travel across the countryside in these circumstances, conspicuously European as he was.

The next information they received was that the Boxers, as well as government troops and authorities, were murdering foreigners throughout the region, including women and children.

Realizing what this meant, Li Xiuying rode out with a small retinue of armed warriors to protect the local Christian mission. She didn’t approve of their converting Chinese to their foreign religion, but she approved even less of wanton murder. Max, who agreed with her, insisted on accompanying her.

They arrived too late to prevent the slaughter, so they took the survivors back to Li Xiuying’s compound. This courageous act of compassion became known, as was bound to happen, and it sealed her fate. When the crisis came, thirteen days after that defiant rescue, Max honored her wishes by protecting the innocents in her care, and he accepted her decision to fight rather than flee when her home was attacked. But he knew when he saw her lifeless body that her honor had come at much too high a price. Too high, at least, for him.

Yet even now, in his dreams, sometimes she lived anew, still brave, stubborn, skilled, and beautiful, still vibrant in the bloody twilight of a decrepit and doomed dynasty that had fallen more than a century ago. And the ghost of this last love shadowed his heart.

1 Misfortune, adversity

Detective Connor Lopez slept with me and then didn’t call.

What else is there to say about a man after you’ve said that? I mean, doesn’t that just say it all?

Except that I can add one more thing: After he did that, then he arrested me.

Yes, Lopez deserved to die for that. He really did.

But the heart is fickle, so when I realized someone was trying to kill him, I got upset and was determined to save his life. No, I have no rational explanation for this.

Well, okay, I suppose there was the usual “precious value of human life” and “in order for Evil to triumph, all that is necessary is for a struggling actress to do nothing” stuff. But any noble motives I may have had were pretty mixed up with the other kind—such as feeling that if anyone had a right to kill Lopez, that person was me. So when a murderer got in line ahead of me, I had to do something about it.

And, of course, the fact that the killer was targeting and taking out other people, too, was also a crucial factor. Sure, I try to mind my own business and abide by a live-and-let-live philosophy. You have to, if you want to stay sane and out of prison when living in the Big Apple, where people from every walk of life are all crammed together and living on top of each other in the city that never sleeps (or even takes a little nap).

But when someone starts, oh, killing my fellow New Yorkers—even the ones I don’t like and can’t honestly mourn—I take exception to that. Because sooner or later (usually sooner), a killer’s victims and targets include the innocent—in which group I number myself, my friends, my colleagues, and (as long as they pay me) my various employers. I used to include Lopez in that group, too, until he slept with me and then didn’t call—not even after I left him a message asking him to call.

God, how I regretted leaving that message. I regretted sleeping with him even more, obviously. But that message certainly ranked second on the list of things I fervently wished I had never done.

At the time, it seemed a perfectly normal thing to do. You sleep late after a long night of hot, passionate sex with a man whom you’ve fantasized about too many times—a man who, in the flesh, exceeded your steamiest imaginings. And when you wake up alone, because he had to leave for work at dawn, you feel sated, glowing, and giddy, and you can’t stop thinking about him. So you phone him, and when he doesn’t answer, you leave a slightly gushing message on his voicemail. Of course you do. It’s perfectly natural.

Or so it had seemed the morning after.

Now, a week later, I felt dizzy with humiliation every time I thought of Lopez listening to that message and deciding not to call me. Ever again, apparently . . .