Edward Ormson walked along the street, too stunned to even hail a cab from the two or three that drove by. This was all very bewildering. Social workers down at the homeless center remembered him as one of their successes, the landlady liked him, the librarians at the public library down the street gushed over him.
Were they really talking about Tom?
And he still couldn't understand what had made the girl run. In fact, he had no idea at all.
He frowned. It didn't make any sense. What did she know? And who was she, really? She said she barely knew Tom. She said that they'd just worked side by side for about six months.
But there was something else, there. Something to the way she talked about him, to the silences, to what she didn't say.
Oh, Edward had always known that Tom could be very charming to women. In fact, it seemed to him that women tended to like rogues and fools and Tom had a strong component of both, so it shouldn't surprise Edward that women liked his errant son. Even when Tom was little, just toddling around the place, the cook, Mrs. Lopez had been quite smitten with him. It was all they could do to keep her from feeding him on cookies and cake constantly. And Tom took advantage of it, of course. He'd been all smiles to the woman, even when he threw tantrums at his parents.
And yet, Kyrie Smith didn't seem to Ormson as the sort of woman who would be attracted to men who were trouble. No. Despite her exotic features and odd hairdo, she'd come across as capable, self-contained, controlled.
So, why did she seem so protective of Tom? Was it possible that for once in his life, just once, Tom had managed to attract someone in more than a superficial way? Was it possible that for once in his life Tom had a real relationship going? Or did she know something about the Pearl of Heaven itself?
For Tom to steal from the triad seemed like the stupidest form of madness, the last loss of grip on reality that the boy could have come to. But what if this were a cunning plan, hatched by someone with better organizational skills than Tom's? What if Kyrie was behind it? What if she had something in mind for the Pearl?
Edward needed to know more. That's all there was to it. He needed to know more about this whole thing before they could expect him to find Tom and force the boy to give the Pearl back.
He hailed a cab. He'd go back to the restaurant in whose parking lot he'd been let out, and he'd go find out exactly what this was all about. He'd worked for triad members now and then. He was, after all, a criminal defense lawyer.
It had started with pro bono cases, when he'd been asked to represent indigent clients. One of them was associated with the triads somehow, and that had brought him the triad business.
He remembered how shocked he'd been when he'd first realized that some members of the triad of the dragon—the ones he dealt with—were shape-shifters, capable of shifting into dragons. But he had never expected that this would somehow make Tom into a dragon. And he was still not sure how that could have happened. Nor was he sure how Tom could have got involved with the group again after he left his father's house.
But he knew he had to stop it. Somehow. And soon. He had to get back home to New York.
Beetles. Definitely beetles. There was no other name for it. Shiny green carapaces and pincers. Advancing toward Kyrie, one from either end of the hallway. And they hissed. Or at least, it wasn't a proper hiss. Not like a cat's hiss, or anything. More like . . .
More like a kettle left too long on the fire. Or more like the release of hydraulic pressure from a train as it stops. That type of hiss.
One hissed, then the other hissed. They were communicating. They were communicating as they hunted her, as one approached from each side and they contrived to capture her in the middle, Kyrie thought.
This wouldn't do. This couldn't do. If she let them continue to advance, she'd find herself impaled by those two pincer-ended arms that kept advancing toward her, advancing inexorably in front of the shiny blue carapace, even while the creatures behind the pincers hissed at each other.
She imagined the hiss saying, "There she is, we've got her cornered."
Fear and an odd sort of anger mixed in her. This was her house. This was the only house that had ever been truly hers. All those years, growing up, she'd gone from house to house, from foster home to foster home, never having a place of her own, never having a say in even something as little as the color of her bedspread or the positioning of an armchair.
This house, tiny as it was, was the first place that had belonged to her alone. Well, that she'd been sole renter of, at any rate. Where, if she so wished, she could put the armchair on the roof, and it would stay there, because this was her space.
And these things, these . . . creatures . . . had violated it. Worse. They'd come into her house before, and they'd made Tom . . . high. They'd made Tom destroy part of her house. They'd given her an entirely wrong impression about Tom.
Not that they could be the ones who gave her the impression that Tom was an addict—or an ex drug addict. But they, as they were, had given her the impression that Tom didn't care about being a guest in her house, that he'd violated her hospitality. And because of them, she'd let Tom go—no—encouraged Tom to go, out there, somewhere, with no protection.
For all she knew, he was already dead. His own father was looking for him for the dragon triad. And she had kicked him out. Because of these things.
Anger boiled through her, together with a not unreasonable fear that there was no way out of this predicament and that she was going to end up as dead as that corpse they had rolled about in the parking lot of the Athens a few hours ago.
She heard a scream tear through her throat, and it seemed to her that the more advanced beetle—the one coming from the kitchen—stopped.
It seemed to Kyrie too that—though there was nothing on the beetle, anywhere, that could properly be called an expression—the beetle looked like it had just realized it was in deep trouble. Perhaps it was the thing's vague, confused attempt at skittering backward.
And then Kyrie jumped forward. There was no use at all attacking the pincers, so she vaulted over them. She used to be quite good at gymnastics in middle school. In fact, for a brief period of time, she'd thought that she was going to be a gymnast. But the foster family she was with didn't have the time to drive her to the extra practices.
Yet, just enough skill remained to allow her to vault over the pincers, and toward the monstrous head.
Blindly, more by instinct than anything else, Kyrie stabbed at the thing where the head carapace met the body carapace. She stabbed the umbrella down hard and was rewarded with a satisfyingly squishy sound, a spray of liquid upward, and a shriek that was part steam release and part the sound of a car's valves going seriously wrong.
From the other beetle came a sound of high distress, and it advanced. But its companion's body—dead?—blocked its way, and Kyrie jumped down from the carapace, on the other side, ran through her kitchen and out through her ruined back porch.
In her tiny backyard garden, she realized in her human form, she could never get enough of a running standard to jump over the six-foot fence.
But, as a panther . . .
She had never cavalierly shifted. Certainly never during the day. And yet, she was so full of fear and anger, of adrenaline and the need to fight or fly, that it seemed the easiest thing in the world. She willed herself into cat form and, suddenly, a black panther was rearing and taking a jumping leap at the fence. She cleared it with some space, just before she heard a sound behind her. It was an odd hissing, and a sound like . . . wings?
She had an odd feeling that these beetles could fly.
"Will you talk?" Crest Dragon asked.
Tom shook his head. There had been more . . . beatings. At least he supposed they would call it beatings. More accurate would be brutalizing to within an inch of his life.
Tom knew he would heal. The problem was that he suspected so did his captors. And that they were being more unrestrained with him than they would be with practically anyone else.
His defense right now was to look more confused than he felt, to look more tired than he felt. He shook his head and mumbled something that he hoped passed for a creditable wish to speak.
Two Dragons said something in their language that, for all it was unintelligible, was still clearly scathing. Crest Dragon answered curtly and sharply. They both turned to glare at Other Dragon, who shook his head, said something, then shrugged. He disappeared into a corner, where they seemed to have piled up some bags and other effects.
He returned, moments later, with . . . Tom blinked, unable to believe his eyes. But Other Dragon was definitely holding a syringe. A huge syringe. Tom frowned at it. It looked just a little smaller than those sold as basters at stores. He'd once been tempted to buy one for about two minutes until he realized the amount of meat he could actually afford didn't ever require external basting, much less internal.
Now he blinked at the syringe, and looked up at Other Dragon in some puzzlement. What the hell was that? What did they think they were doing? What did they want to put into him? Truth serum? Or marinade? Did they think he would be all the better for a touch of garlic and a bit of vinegar?
Other Dragon seemed rather puzzled as to what he should be doing, too. Twice he turned around to ask something in Chinese. Twice he was told off sharply—or so it seemed—also in Chinese.
At last he sighed, and walked up to Tom, and held the hypodermic in front of Tom's face and shouted something that sounded like a samurai challenge. While Tom blinked, puzzled, Crest Dragon said something from the back. Other Dragon turned. Then looked again at Tom and smiled. A very odd smile, Tom thought. A smile of enticement, of offer that would have made much more sense—as starving as Tom felt—if he'd been holding a rare steak. He leaned in close to Tom and said, "You want this, right?"
The syringe was filled with a colorless liquid. It could be . . . anything. And Tom realized, suddenly, with something like a shock, that he very much did not want it, whatever it was. Perhaps it was the Pearl of Heaven that had eased his way up from the pit he'd dug himself into, but he could remember the days he was using. It had seemed so simple then. It had seemed to him that he was sparing himself pain and thought, both.
A life that was too bizarre, too complex—his feelings for the home he'd lost, his wandering existence, and the dragon he could become suddenly, unexpectedly—had been suddenly simplified. He'd sometimes, before the drugs, forgotten what he'd done as a dragon, but when he'd started using, it had made it that much easier. He could either forget or pretend it was all part of a bad trip.
He didn't have to believe—in the unblinking light of day, he didn't have to believe that he had no control over the beast. And he didn't have to see that the beast existed. He didn't even have to be believe himself alone—expelled from the only home he had ever known.
No—the drugs had blurred his mind just enough to make him be able to pretend it was all a dream—just a dream. That he was still sixteen and still at home. That he was not a shape-shifter, a dangerous, uncertain creature.
He'd thought he was fine. He'd . . . He frowned at the syringe, thinking. He'd thought he was doing great. He'd anaesthetized himself into being able to bear his life.
Until he'd woken up choking on his own vomit once too many times. Until he'd woken up, in the morning, naked, under some underpass or beside some shelter, wondering what the dragon had done in the night and why.
And then there were the dreams. Lying asleep in daytime and dreaming of . . . eating someone. Of chasing people down. Of . . . Oh, he was almost sure none of it had ever happened. There would have been talk. News reports. Someone would have noticed. But the dreams were there, and the dreams made him fear one day all control would slip from the dragon and the dreams would become true.
And then there had been the Pearl of Heaven. And the job. And . . . and Kyrie. Who was he to judge her if she too chose to anesthesize herself, sometimes? She had helped him when he needed it most. He wanted to remember that. And he wanted to control the dragon. He wanted to know what he did, to know it was true. He didn't want the slippery dream, again.
"I want to own my own mind," he said, his raspy, low voice startling him. It seemed to come from so far away. And the words were odd, too, formal, stilted, not like himself at all. "I don't want drugs," he said in a still lower voice.
Crest Dragon said something that had the sound of profanity to it. And Other Dragon looked back confused. It was left to Two Dragons, the brash, perhaps younger of them, to step forward and say, "Well, then, if you don't talk, we'll have to give you some."
Which, of course, made perfect sense. But Tom couldn't talk. Because if he talked they would kill him. But if he didn't talk, they would give him this stuff. Which, of course, would make him talk.
He—who just the night before had been looking desperately for a drug dealer—realized if he were going to die, he would rather die sober. He'd rather know whatever there was to know, experience what there was to experience, with a clean perception. But then . . .
But then, and there it was. If he told them they would kill him for sure. Possibly in a painful way. If they gave him the drug . . . perhaps they would leave him alone while they went to verify he'd told them the truth. Okay, it was unlikely they would leave him alone. But with these three geniuses it was possible. At any rate, it would take them longer . . . They would have to get the words from him—and Tom had no idea what this drug was, or if it would make him talk quickly. Or at all. And then they would have to verify.
That would take longer than if he told them the truth up front and they rushed off right away to verify it. Or called someone in Goldport. And that meant there would be more time for something to happen. Something . . .
Two Dragons was waiting. He had his hands on either side of his skinny waist—a dragon tattoo shone on the back of each hand. "Well," he said, with a kind of petulant sneer. "Are you going to tell us where the Pearl of Heaven is?"
Tom grinned. It made his lips hurt, as cracked as they were and with dried blood caked on them, but he grinned anyway. He wished he could gather enough saliva to spit at them, but of course, he couldn't. "Your grandfather's wonton," he said.
And, as they held him down; as the needle went into his arm, he relished the look of surprise—and confusion—on Two Dragon's face.
Paws on concrete. The sidewalk—an alien word from her human mind, forced, unwilling, on the panther, intruded. Sidewalk. People. People walking.
There were screams. Mothers and terrified babies, hurling to the side of the street. A man standing in front of her, gun cocked.
Kyrie's human mind pulled the panther sideways. The bullet whistled by. The panther crouched to leap. Kyrie tugged at the panther.
Trapped. The panther's brain rushed to every nook and cranny, to every possible hiding place, but she was trapped. There was nowhere she could go. No safety. No jungle.
Smell of trees, of green. Smell of moss and undergrowth.
Like a passenger in a lurching car, Kyrie blinked, becoming aware that she was veering off the street and toward the triangular block of land where the castle sat, with its own little forest around it, surrounded by high black metal fence, full of Victorian scrolls and rusting in spots.
Leaf mold on paws. Trees rustling overhead. The pleasing sound of things scurrying along the ground, in the soft vegetation. Screams behind her. People pointing through the fence, screaming, yelling.
The panther ran and Kyrie guided it as she could. Through the undergrowth, to the thick clumps of vegetation. She told the panther they were being hunted. That something bigger and meaner was after them. The panther crouched on its belly and crept, belly to the grass, close to the ground, forward, forward, forward, till it found itself all but hidden under the trees.
Kyrie had lost sense of time. She didn't know how long she had been in the panther's mind—a small foci of humanity, of sanity, within the beast. But she knew it had been long, because she could feel pain along the panther's muscles, from holding the position too long.
The panther wanted to climb a tree, to watch from above. It did not like this cowering, this submissive posture. And Kyrie couldn't hear any noise nearby. What remained rational and sane of herself within the panther thought that the people had stayed at the fence, talking, whispering.
They would call the police. Or the zoo. Or animal control. They wouldn't risk their lives on this. No. The panther wanted to climb the nearest tree and Kyrie let it, jumping so quickly up the trunk that Kyrie didn't detect any raised voices, any excitement at seeing her.
The tree was thick, and heavily covered in leaves. And it was around a corner from the front of the house. This way she would see the animal control officers approaching with their darts. Perhaps she could escape.
She wasn't so stupid that she couldn't see the possibility for discovery, for being caught. But she wouldn't think of it. She wouldn't think past trying to escape. She thought, as fast as she could, as hard as she could. And she saw no way out of this. Unless animal control officers missed her. She didn't imagine this happening. She could picture them beating the garden, tree by tree, bush by bush, looking for her.
The other option, of course, was for her to shift. She blinked. It hadn't occurred to her before. Of course, it would be humiliating. But being found naked in a public garden had to be better than to be tranquilized as a panther, and become a woman under sedation. She didn't know if that would happen—but it could.
But . . . But if she were found naked in a public garden, and if her house were examined, wouldn't she be committed? Or in some other way confined? Who would believe she was okay when she'd left her house torn to bits behind and was now here in this garden? At the very least they'd think she was on drugs. It wouldn't do at all.
Edward Ormson waited for only one moment, in the shabby entrance of the Chinese restaurant. He'd expected the oriental decor, and it was there, in a round, white paper lantern concealing the light fixture on the ceiling, on the huge fan pinned to the wall behind the cash register, in the dragon statue carved of some improbable green stone or molded from glow-in-the-dark plastic, that stood glowering on the counter by the register.
But the man behind the register, though unmistakably Chinese, wore a grubby flannel shirt and jeans and managed to look as much like the Western rednecks around him as he could. And the TV hanging from the wall was on and blaring, showing the scene of a tractor pull.
He was drinking a beer, straight from the can. To the other side of the elaborate oriental fan hung a calendar with a pinup standing in front of a huge truck. Something about this—the irreverence, the Western intrusions, stopped Edward from his course, which was to ask about the Great Sky Dragon.
Perhaps the creature had only left him in the parking lot because it was convenient. But the name . . . Three Luck Dragon, while not unusual, seemed to speak of dragons, and dragons . . .
He realized he'd been standing there for a while in silence, and probably looking very worried, as the man behind the counter swivelled around to look at him.
"How may I help you?" he asked.
Edward took a deep breath. Come on, if worse came to worst, what would happen? He could always tell the man that Great Sky Dragon was just the name of another restaurant, couldn't he? That he'd got confused?
And besides, if he didn't ask, what would happen? It wasn't as if Edward was going to figure out where Tom was, much less manage to convince Tom on his own. And he had a sneaky suspicion that if he tried to just forget the whole thing and go back to New York, the creature would just come and pluck him out of his office again. Or his house. There was only so much plate glass he was willing to replace.
All this was thought quickly, while the man's dark eyes stared at him betraying just a slight edge of discomfort, as if he were waiting, madly, to go back to his tractor pull on TV.
"I was looking for the Great Sky Dragon," Edward said.
"What?" the man asked, eyes widening.
"I was looking . . . I wondered if you could tell me where to find the Great Sky Dragon," Edward said.
There was a silence, as the man looked at him from head to toe, as if something about Edward's appearance could have reassured him that this was something to do. Slowly, the cashier's hand reached for a remote near the cash register, turned the TV off.
Then he came out from behind the counter and said, "You come with me."
Edward took a deep breath. What had he got into? And what would it mean? Had he just managed to startle a member of the dragon triad who had no idea who he was or what he was doing? And if he had, would he presently be killed by people who didn't even ask him why he wanted the Great Sky Dragon, or what he wanted of him.
He was led all the way through, past a bustling kitchen and, past a set of swinging doors, into a grubby corridor stacked high with boxes.
At the very back of the corridor, a door opened, and the cashier reached in, turned on the light by tugging on a pull chain on the ceiling.
Light flooded a room scarcely larger than a cubicle. There was a folding table, open. An immaculate white cloth covered it. And on the cloth was a mound of peas—some shelled, some still in their pods. On the floor was a bucket, filled with empty pods. Behind the table was a plastic orange chair.
"Wait here," the cashier said. "Just wait."
Hesitantly, afraid of what this might mean, Edward went in. The cashier closed the door after him. Edward could hear the lock clicking home.
"I'll go in and look for it," a voice Kyrie knew said.
"But I wouldn't be too alarmed. It was probably just a large cat. I very much doubt it was a panther. I haven't heard of any panthers having been lost by the zoo. And panthers are not common here, you know," Rafiel Trall's voice went on, as usual radiating self-confidence.
A babble of voices answered him and, from the panther's perch atop the branch, Kyrie gathered that the crowd out there were insulted that Rafiel thought they could confuse a large house cat with a panther.
And yet, the way Rafiel talked, that certainty that exuded from his words, was so convincing that she could also hear the resistence running away. She could almost hear people starting to doubt themselves.
"I'll go in," Rafiel said. "With Officer Bob. Just to be on the safe side, please no one follow us. We'll do a thorough search. If we find it warranted, we will then call animal control. Right now all this commotion is premature."
The panther heard them come into the garden. Wondered how long it would take them to find it. Them. Officer Bob. Kyrie wondered what Officer Bob would think if he found her.
But Officer Bob was looking one way, and Rafiel was looking the other. She could hear them separate. She could hear officer Bob walking away. She could hear . . . She could hear Rafiel following her trail here.
He followed it so exactly that she started wondering if he was following the trail of broken branches and footprints she'd doubtless left, or following her scent. She remembered he seemed to be able to smell other shifters. To smell them out better than she did, at any rate.
He came all the way to the bottom of the tree, looked up at her, blinked, then smiled. "Kyrie," he said.
His voice was perfectly normal and human, and yet there seemed to be something to it, some kind of harmonics that made the hair stand up at the back of her neck. Not fright. She wasn't scared of him. It was something else.
For just a moment, there was the feeling that the panther might jump down from the tree and roll on him and . . . No.
Kyrie tried to control the panther and had a feeling that the world flickered. And realized she was a naked human, sitting on a branch of a tree in a most unusual position. A position that gave a very interesting view to the man below.
She scrambled to sit on the branch in the human way, and fought a desire to cover herself. She could either hold on to the branch or she could cover herself. Between modesty and a fall, modesty could not win.
"Yes," she said. Heat climbed up to her cheeks and she had a feeling she was blushing from her belly button to her hair roots.
Yes, she was sure she was blushing from the way Rafiel smiled—a broad smile that exuded confidence and amusement.
But when he spoke, it was still in a whisper. "I have this for you," he said, taking it from his pants pocket and handing it up. "I stopped for just a moment when I heard the report on the radio. I told Bob I needed to use the restroom and let him radio we were taking care of it, while I went to a shop and bought this. I'm sorry if it looks horrible, my concern was that it fit in my pocket."
He handed up what looked like a little wrinkled square of fabric. When Kyrie caught it, she realized it was very light silk, the type that is designed to look wrinkled, and that there was a lot more material than seemed to be.
Shaken out, the fabric revealed a sheath dress. Kyrie decided it was safer to climb down from the tree, first, and then put it on. With the dress draped over her shoulders, she climbed down carefully, until, on the ground, she slipped the dress on. Of course, she was still barefoot, but on a warm day, in Colorado, in one of the old residential neighborhoods of Goldport, that was not exactly unheard of.
"Go out at the back," Rafiel said. "From what I could see when we approached, the part where the garden borders on the alley doesn't have any bystanders. If anyone sees you, tell them some thing about having come in to look for the panther, but the police ordering you out. And now, go." As she started for the path, he pushed her toward another path, the other way. "No, no," he said. "That way. If you go this way you will run into Bob and Bob is likely to have his gun out and be on edge. I don't want you shot. Go. I'll meet you at your house as soon as I can."
Her house. With the bugs. Kyrie shivered. But there was nothing for it. She had to go somewhere. At the very least, she had to go somewhere to get shoes.
Edward didn't wait long. He didn't sit down. He didn't dare sit down. There was only one chair, and it seemed to be in front of the table, with the peas on it.
Instead, he stood, uncertainly, till the door opened, and a man came in. He looked . . . Well, he looked like an average middle-aged man, of Asian origin, in Colorado. He wore T-shirt and jeans, had a sprinkling of silver in his black hair, and, in fact, looked so mundane, that Edward was sure there must be a mistake.
He opened his mouth to say so. And stopped. There was something in the man's eyes—the man's serious, dark eyes. They looked like he was doing something very difficult. Something that might be life or death.
"Mr. Ormson?" he said.
Edward Ormson nodded, and his eyes widened. Was this the human form of the dragon he had seen yesterday? He seemed so small, so . . . normal.
But in Edward's mind was the image of that last night before he'd . . . asked Tom to leave. He remembered looking out of the window of his bedroom, next to Tom's room and seeing a green and gold dragon against the sky—majestic against the sky. He remembered seeing the dragon go into Tom's bedroom. And he remembered . . . He remembered running to see it, and finding only Tom, putting on his bathrobe. He remembered the shock.
These creatures could look like normal people. Perhaps . . .
"My name is Lung," the man said, and then, as though catching something in Edward's expression, he smiled. "And no, I am not him. But you could say I . . . ah . . . know him." Lung stepped fully in the room, and seemed to about to sit down in the plastic chair, when he realized that Edward didn't have anywhere to sit.
"They left you standing?" he asked. "I'm so sorry." He opened the door and spoke sharply to someone back there, then stepped fully in. Moments later, a young man, with long lanky hair almost covering his eyes, came in and set down a chair. Another one, swiftly, ducked in the wake of the first, to remove the cloth and all the peas in it. As soon as he'd withdrawn the first one showed up again, to spread another, clean tablecloth on the table. And after that, yet another one set a tray with a teapot and two tea cups on the table.
Lung gestured toward the—blue, plastic—chair they'd brought in. "Please sit," he said. "Might as well be comfortable, as we speak."
Edward sat on the chair, and faced Lung across the table. "Tea?" Lung said, and without waiting for an answer, filled Edward's cup, then his own. "Now . . . may I ask why you were looking for . . . him? His name is not normally spoken so . . . casually."
Edward took a deep breath. "How do you know my name?" he asked.
Lung smiled, again. He picked up his cup, holding it with two hands, as if his palms were cold and had to be warmed on the hot porcelain. "He told us. He told us he brought you to town. That you were to . . . convince your son to speak."
"Ah," Edward said. "I don't know where to find my son," he said, picking up his cup and taking a hurried sip that scalded his tongue. "I haven't seen Tom in . . ."
Lung shook his head. "I don't question his judgments. It wouldn't do to do such," he said. He looked at Edward and raised his eyebrows just a little. "He says you have been . . . useful to us in the past, so you know a little of . . . his ways. And of us. Do you not?"
Edward inclined his head. More than simple acknowledgment, but less than a nod. "I have defended . . . people connected to him, before. I know about . . ." He thought about a way to put it that wouldn't seem too open or too odd. ". . . about the shape-shifting," he said at last.
Lung inclined his head in turn. "But do you know about the other . . . about his other powers?"
Edward raised his eyebrows, said nothing.
Lung smiled. "Ah, I won't bore you with ancient oriental legends."
"Given what I've seen, what I've felt; given that I was brought here by . . . the—"
"Him."
"Him, I don't think I would dismiss it all as just a legend."
"Perhaps not," Lung said. "And yet the legend is just a legend, and, I suspect, as filled with imagination and wild embellishments. What we know is somewhat different. But . . . he is not like us. That we know. Or rather, he is like us, but old, impossibly old."
"How old?"
Lung shrugged. "Thousands of years. Before . . . civilization. From the time of legends. Who knows?" He drank his tea and poured a new cup. "What we do know is this—he has powers. Perhaps because he is old, or perhaps, simply, because he was born with more powers than us. I couldn't tell you which. But whatever powers he has, it is said that he can feel things—sense them. Perhaps it's less premonition than simply having been around a lot and seeing how things tend to work out." He inclined his head and looked into his tea cup as though reading the future in its surface. "If he thought you should be here, then he has his reasons."
"But I can't find my son. I haven't seen my son in years. I didn't even know if he was alive. The— he said that I was responsible for my son, but surely you must see . . . I haven't seen him in years."
Lung looked up, gave Edward an analyzing glance, then nodded. "As is, I think we have it all in hand. We know where your son is. We have . . . Some of our employees have got him. In a nearby city. And they're confident he will eventually tell them what he did with the object he stole. We don't know why he thought it necessary to get you, nor why he thought you should be here. But he is not someone whose judgments I'd dream of disputing."
A silence, long and fraught, descended, while Edward tried to figure out what he had just been told, in that convoluted way. "Are you telling me I have to stay here, but you're not sure why?" he asked.
The back alley wasn't empty, but it was nearly empty. At least compared to the crowd that surrounded the castle garden in the front. Here at the back, there were only half a dozen people looking in, staring at the lush, green garden, spying, presumably, for movement and fur.
There were two boys and a young girl of maybe fifteen, wearing jeans, a T-shirt and a ponytail and holding a skateboard under her arm. The other three people looked like transients. Street people. Men, and probably past fifty, though there was no way to tell for sure.
Kyrie, still under cover of thick greenery, wondered at the strange minds of these people who would come and surround a place where they'd seen what they thought was a jungle animal disappear. What kind of idiots, she asked herself, wanted to face a panther, while unarmed and empty-handed? She might be a shape-shifter but at least she wasn't so strange as this.
They were all roughly disposed on either side of a broad gate that seemed to have rusted partly open.
Kyrie could, of course, just walk out and tell them what Rafiel had suggested—that she had felt a sudden and overwhelming desire to look for the panther herself. But she would prefer to find some way past them without having to speak. Remembering a scene from a Western, long ago, she looked at the ground and found a large rock. Picking it up, she weighed it carefully in her hand. Then she pulled back, and flung the rock across greenery, till it fell with a thud at the corner of the property.
Noise like that was bound to make them look. They wouldn't be human if they didn't. In fact, they all turned and stared, and Kyrie took the opportunity to rush forward and out of the enclosure.
They turned back to look at her, when she was in the alley, but she thought none of them would be sure he had seen her in the garden, and started walking away toward the main road and home.
"Hey, miss," a voice said behind her.
Kyrie turned around.
"Are you the one who owns the castle?" one of the homeless men asked.
She shook her head and his friend who stood by him elbowed him on the side. "The woman who owns the castle is much older, Mike."
She didn't stay to hear their argument and instead hurried home as fast as she could. Once out of the immediate vicinity of the castle, everything was normal and no one seemed unduly alarmed by the idea of a panther on the loose. So Kyrie assumed that Rafiel wouldn't have too much of a problem convincing them that it had been a collective hallucination.
Her house looked . . . well, wrecked, the front door open, crooked on its hinges, the door handle and lock missing. Inside, the green powder was everywhere underfoot and, in the hallway, where she had confronted the creature, there was something that looked like sparkling greenish nut shells. Looking closer, she realized they were probably fragments of the beetle—struck off when she'd stabbed it with the umbrella?
The umbrella was still there, leaning against the wall. But the beetles had vanished.