Dim Sum Asylum(86)
I did, and he stood, patient and silent, as I stepped into the teahouse’s outer yard.
He was still shorter than I was, having not grown since I’d last seen him, but rocks, unlike trees and people, didn’t grow once they left the soil. The tattered sweeps of his wingtips brushed the ground, their orange and black faded to russet and heather, but he’d stained them bloody with the marks of his kills, more red stars than I had years. His eyes were bright, frenetic, and mad, a swirl of purple and a hint of yellow beneath his wet, frowsy ginger hair. The rain on his bony face left a hint of blue around his lips, adding a bit of color to his pale gray skin. Twisting his mouth around, he slid his curled-up slimy pink tongue out, dabbing at a bit of water on his cheek.
Unlike the casual clothes I’d seen him in at the benevolent society’s hall, he wore a loose long-sleeved short blue kimono with mirroring crests on his chest and matching hakama. The pants were too long and loose for him, hems dragging in the mud, and he’d pulled the kimono’s tie tightly around his stomach, cinching it across his narrow chest. A hint of metal clung to him, but I couldn’t tell if it was from a weapon or a resonating echo left in my senses from the sculpture’s destruction.
The mon on his kimono was one I recognized. Not that I knew every one in the thousands of family sigils, but I was intimately familiar with the city’s dominant families’ crests, and the circled crane and ginger was an old form I’d not seen before.
“Hello, chóng.” His words slithered out of his parted moist lips, and his eyes narrowed when I said nothing in return. “Tell me you’re surprised to see me here. After all I’ve done to get you to this place, I’ve earned a little pleasure for my patience.”
“I should have known you’d be at the end of this idiot’s leash.” His nostrils flared, and I caught the twitch in his left eyelid. “Or… are you yanking your own chain here, old man?”
“You have no idea the years I have waited for this day.” He took a long, shuddering breath, his throat rattling when he exhaled. “There is no one gripping my leash or holding me back. Today is a day I’ve longed for—a day I deserve! When the Takahashi finally end up where they belong, beneath my feet and broken.”
“You deserve nothing but a pair of handcuffs, and since I promised not to monologue, I’ll tell you I don’t give a shit. I’ll give you credit for having the shrine god flee the building.” His sneer was ugly, revealing a row of shark-sharp teeth behind his thin lips. “It was coming back to you, wasn’t it? Tell me. Did it fail at the mission you sent it on? Is that why it went scurrying home?”
“It was a sacrifice.” He slid forward, gliding closer on the balls of his feet. “An experiment to see if I could gather energy remotely. So imagine my delight when it came dragging in the one person I thought I had no hopes of getting close to.”
”Don’t act like you weren’t surprised to find your pet knickknack brought the cops with it, and you don’t seem like the kind of guy who likes having his plans screwed up.” I smiled back in answer to his malevolent grin. Lifting the gun, I shrugged. “But that’s exactly what I’m here to do. Let me see your hands. Then get down on your knees. You’re under arrest.”
He stepped forward, and I aimed the gun at his forehead. His wings shivered, the death markers embedded in their membranes chiming discordantly. I cocked my head, wondering what he was about. He was an assassin, a life-taker, by the count of tokens he wore. There shouldn’t have been any noise. The fae should have been silent, stealthy, but the ripple of water around his left foot betrayed him.
One of his wings tilted, fluttering behind him in an erratic tremor, and he pulled himself up short, tilting his chin up in defiance. A red star dangled precariously from its hole near the tip of his right sweep, its point blackened from age or maybe rust. His fingers shook, even as he tried to hide their palsy by clenching the folds of his kimono.
“You’re sick, old man.” Keeping him firmly in my sight, I skirted around him, trying to get in front of the gardening shed tucked into the southern corner of the wall, but he was too quick, skipping over the slurry rising from the trimmed grass near an arched bridge leading to the teahouse proper. “If you think you’re going to go out in a hail of gunfire, you’re mistaken. Now, since you didn’t hear me the first time, get on your knees and put your hands above your head.”
“Or what? You’ll shoot me?” He turned, taking another careful step through the mud. His wings quivered, and he thrust them back up, but they drooped when he padded closer. “No glorious death, you just said so.”
“Popping your kneecaps is still an option.” I kept him at a distance, at least three wingspans. Any closer and, despite his advanced age, he could turn Trent’s gun on me. Fear left a coppery smear along my tongue, because as old and frail as he seemed, he didn’t earn those red stars by saving up the box tops from sugary cereals. “One last time, get down.”
“You’re not even the least bit curious?” He stopped, staring at me as if seeing me for the first time, cocking his head as he rolled his shoulders back. Another wave of chimes tinkled from his wings when he shook out their folds. “About why I’ve done all of this? Why you? Why her?”
“I’ve been a cop long enough to know evil doesn’t necessarily need a why,” I replied. The shed door rattled, and I heard a faint husky shout come from inside. I wasn’t going to succumb to the lures he’d set. I’d not risen to my grandfather’s bait over the years. I didn’t intend to pitch myself into the honey trap of a carnivorous butterfly. I craned my neck and shouted over the old man, “Jie?”