Year of the Rat, page 51
part #4 of Changeling Sisters Series
Gunfire peppered the road behind me as I barreled into the safety of the barricade. Sun Bin and Ankor were there to greet me, both dressed in heavy combat gear.
“You did good,” the air imugi told me as I shifted and dressed hastily. “Fastest wolf in the pack indeed.” At the helm, Namkyu and Yu Li yelled commands to our respective east and west squadrons closing in on the trapped zombie hoard.
I panted, thinking I caught a flash of black wings through a break in the smoke. “It will still be an uphill battle to Yong Mansion. Aleksandr’s troops won’t be as easily fooled.”
Ankor nodded as the last of the hoard crumpled in a din of gunfire. “We won’t have to wait long.” Beyond the rasps of broken zombies, we heard the steady beat of military boots.
Una leaped from the bus back to our ranks, sweat visible on her face. She seized her chest as she struggled to breathe. I hurried over to help.
“It is…their deaths. I feel them.” The Doorkeeper waved away my hand impatiently. “Do not worry for me. It will pass.”
The first gleam of rifles flashed between the littered zombie bodies. Aleksandr’s vampyre servicemen entered the fray. I saw bells of alarm flare in Una’s eyes.
“Una, no. Please rest!” I grabbed for her, but she had already shifted. A giant black turtle bowled into the square and then plopped down unceremoniously. She withdrew into her shell just in time. Bullets ricocheted off the obsidian armor and shattered neighboring windows.
Then a long, sinuous body made out of hot coals and magma burst from between the skyscrapers to come to Una’s defense. Black hematite claws scoured holes in the pavement, and the heat from the fire dragon’s white beard and mane was unbearable. Intoxicating.
Demon stretched in agonized pleasure as the rippling cinders of Mun Mu’s wake touched my lips. The fully shifted Dragon King looked up beneath hooded molten eyes as his rubicund scales writhed and danced like lava. The hail of gunfire ceased for a moment as the vampyres realized who they were aiming at. Panicked, they began shooting again, this time without rhythm or direction.
Mun Mu whistled up through the air like a fiery banner, rippling and weaving to duck the barrage of bullets. The ones that aimed true were swallowed whole by the cascade of lava scales. At last, Mun Mu had enough. Without warning, his head barreled through the loops of his serpentine body, and he unleashed an inferno on the undead.
The vampyres who were quick enough fled. The Guardian of the East Sea landed with a thump amidst the ashes of his foes’ bodies and waddled behind enemy lines.
“Are you taking notes, Alvarez?” Sun Bin yelled as the Weres spilled after the twins’ fire dragon father with whoops and cheers. Yu Li signaled for us to move out. Ankor and his sister clasped arms briefly before she followed her division, which included Alpha Ahn, Samson Carver, Lee Laon, Iseul, and the lumbering black turtle.
Ankor, Namkyu, and Taeyang trailed me as we guarded the Dragon King’s flank.
“Shouldn’t he be back with the rest of the medics?” Ankor whispered to me, looking pointedly at Khyber’s soul.
I turned to Taeyang and found him smiling back, unseeing of the endless destruction encircling us but hearing every scream, every shatter of glass. I didn’t tell Ankor how much comfort he brought me because of the shadow of the vampyre I saw in his wake. I didn’t tell him that it would crush the air from my lungs if something happened to him and I wasn’t there.
“Yah, why do you want to send away our best healer?” I clapped the moody ore imugi on the shoulder and grinned at Namkyu. “The Dragon King is counting on us to guard his back. This is it. Anyone who wanted to ‘hang back’ should have gone with the refugees.”
Namkyu inclined his head to me, speaking in Korean: “Yeh, Beta Alvarez. This attack is for Moon-a. This attack is for all of Seoul. If we take bullets and bites, then we must be able to get up and keep pushing forward.” His brown eyes sidled over to Taeyang. “I will keep an eye on him, if he is as good as you say.”
Taeyang chuckled, his midnight black hair falling in his face. “And I will risk my life to save you, if you are as good as you think.”
Namkyu raised his eyebrows at me. “Gwaenchanayo. Fair enough.”
I grinned. “Kaja. We’re losing him.”
The Dragon King needed little help as he bulldozed his way up the hill to Yong Mansion with the fire of his breath and the steel of his claw. He didn’t pause at the gate to his home, but his son did. I stood alongside Ankor as he gazed at the proud double doors ripped in two. Shards of glass and wood chips still drifted through the air on the breath of Yeouiju curses, forcing us to cover our faces until we were inside. Ornate cupboards banged open and shut in time to the winds, making the entire mansion shake. Nothing was left except for the house’s bones.
“Can we go in?” Taeyang asked rather breathlessly.
Ankor cast him a queer look. “Yes, we must. We don’t have a choice.”
This close to the rift site, the darkness was impenetrable. Our squadron entered the main hall and stood, listening to the twitching gasps of burned bodies Mun Mu left in his wake. I could still feel the heavy weight of hatred roaming these halls: Dark Spirits. As my sight adjusted, I picked out Ankor crouching next to a broken vase. His eyes traveled over to the marble staircase and then up to the hole in the ceiling where Heesu’s room had been.
Namkyu nudged me, nodding toward Ankor’s hunkered shape. “Yah, what is wrong with that one?”
“Ghosts,” I said.
Mun Mu reappeared so silently in human form that we jumped. He commanded Namkyu and Taeyang to stand watch and then gestured for Ankor and me to follow him up the staircase.
“I will summon the shards to her room. Do not let anyone else enter or all will be lost,” Mun Mu ordered, seemingly unperturbed by the lingering Dark Spirits watching us from nooks and crannies.
“Is it safe to leave them alone with all of these Dark Spirits?” I asked, casting a glance back toward Namkyu and Taeyang. They were already lost in the shadows.
Mun Mu was dismissive. “The Dark Spirits may watch us through little windows in Eve, but they are not here. No matter how much they want to get in.” He cast me a sideways look. “If you can see them, then you are growing, my child. Not in a good way.”
I swallowed, but no matter how I hid behind my curtain of hair, I could still hear their scratchy voices in my head like cracks on frosted glass as they echoed the monstrous voice of Xecotcovach:
Dare make a deal with us yet, girl?
“Can you see them?” Demon asked Mun Mu, unafraid.
The Dragon King frowned and didn’t answer.
“Abeoji,” Ankor said as we ascended the staircase, “do not take the agmong. I do not trust the cat.”
Mun Mu smiled briefly at his son. “Neither do I. But you know as well as I do, my boy, that my fate is spoken for. I am no longer the ignorant young man I was during the God Purge. If anyone can withstand the agmong’s effects, it is me.” His hand rested lightly on Ankor’s shoulder. “Not that I forgive Samson or anyone else who conspired to give it to you.”
“Please don’t,” Ankor persisted. “Can’t you summon the Yeouiju shards by using your own Dragon’s Pearl? I know the Celestial Dragon’s powers passed from you to Heesu, but surely your own Yeouiju could still serve as a beacon.”
Mun Mu paused outside of Heesu’s door. In his hands, he held a black jeweled scepter. It looked like Heesu’s Yeouiju, except no light escaped from its surface. A dead fallen star. “Yes, my son. That would be true…if a Dragon’s Pearl had chosen me.”
Ankor stopped so abruptly that I almost ran into him. For a moment, the world ceased to consist of anything other than the three of us. The Yeouiju curses pattering on the roof intensified.
“Abeoji, I don’t understand—”
The Dragon King took him by the shoulder. His other hand still wielded that strange otherworldly scepter. It gave me an ugly feeling just to look at it.
“My son, when my powers are extinguished, it will be just you and your sister to carry on our way.” Mun Mu glanced briefly at me and then continued without mentioning Raina: “You may feel that with Heesu’s death, our reign as the family of Celestial Dragons is over. That is false, my son. You can and will continue, for the sake of unity amongst the serpent peoples. It is important we stay strong for them, do you understand?”
Ankor’s eyes kept darting back to the black jewel as if he couldn’t reconcile what he was seeing with what he was hearing. “Appa—”
Mun Mu opened the vial of agmong. Before we had time to blink, he’d drained it clean.
“Son,” he said, gripping Ankor’s hand with wizened fingers that looked like claws, “come what may, you must remember: I did it all for us. The Celestial Dragon would have been me or her: a wretched goddess attempting to rule our people when we wanted to remove the cruel yoke of slavery. And now—!” He waved a hand at the eerie emptiness surrounding us. “That despicable creature is the reason for your twin turning out the way she did. She killed your younger sister. She brought darkness to the world. All Eobshin has done is prove I was right.”
Ankor was so stunned that he couldn’t move when his father embraced him. Wolf’s growl was a constant rumble in the back of my mind, feeling the threat of danger seeping in from every direction. I tensed as Mun Mu pulled me aside.
“Alvarez. I assume I can count on your discretion.”
I bit my lip, looking toward where Ankor still stood shell-shocked. “I’m a soldier who follows orders. I’m not family that my opinion should matter.”
Mun Mu nodded satisfactorily and turned.
My golden eye rose behind my black curls and burned into his back. “Unless Raina is at risk.”
“I will always have the best interests of Ileana’s child at heart,” the Dragon King said. I felt his fingers dig into my bare skin and tensed, remembering another’s touch as cold as ice. But the Guardian of the East Sea offered fire.
The pain grew until smoke hissed from my skin, and then I couldn’t stop the growl of pain.
Mun Mu jerked me close, and I felt his breath sparking scarlet as the agmong took hold. “I see you still have your fire soul. Maya’s Russian son did not take it from you.”
I looked at him insolently, the sting of being handed over to Aleksandr’s forces without my consent rushing back. “Why, Dragon King? Does that make you nervous?”
Mun Mu stared me down, and Wolf whimpered under the flat indifference in his crimson gaze. “You were not born into fire, nor initiated properly into the Were way. You are a mess, Alvarez. A wayward Triad in danger of devolving further. Ileana is your mother, so I will spare you. All I ask is that you leave my son out of it.” He glanced down at my robotic arm. “He has suffered enough to see his mother this way.”
I broke away from him, startled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Mun Mu chuckled darkly. “Ah, my child. I’ve seen the way my son looks at you. I’ve also seen the way you look at another.”
Black feathers bruised my mind. I flushed, certain I hadn’t betrayed myself at our council meeting with Khyber. “Your son,” I repeated, “has no interest in me.”
“As long as the feeling is mutual.” The Dragon King fixated on Heesu’s door. “Do not be the seductress who ruins our family again.”
I bit back a snarl. Mun Mu entered his youngest daughter’s room without a backwards glance. He was a stranger. I had no idea what Mami had seen in him.
Power. Unlimited conviction in his ideals. If my mother were here now, whose side would she take, mine or his?
It wounded me that I didn’t know.
Heart pounding in my throat, I hurried over to Ankor. “Dude, what the hell just happened?”
Ankor breathed heavily, putting a hand on the bannister to steady himself. “Citlalli, my father doesn’t have a Yeouiju.”
Damn straight our draconic savior doesn’t. “Could you tell what weapon he has?”
“It’s a very rare substance. I only encountered it once, a long time ago.” Ankor closed his eyes briefly. “Serendibite.”
I nodded. “Right. Never heard of that. Does it have magical powers?”
“Clearly,” Ankor hissed through gritted teeth.
I prayed for patience. “You always thought he had a Dragon’s Pearl?”
Ankor glared ahead sullenly. “He told us only the enlightened would recognize the presence of a Yeouiju.”
“Your knowledge about the Celestial Dragons, your lineage…it all comes from your father?”
“My grandparents died during the Korean War,” Ankor snapped. “My mother was an orphan and suffered insanity due to being a Continuum. So yes, Citlalli, it all comes from him!”
I took a deep breath, resisting the urge to pin the uppity prince against the wall and shake some sense into his lizard brain. But I knew what it was like to find out that your parents weren’t who you’d fantasized they were.
“He had four claws, Citlalli.” This time when Ankor spoke, his voice was small. “I saw them.”
“Sight is an imperfect sense, blinded by love.” When Ankor looked at me in surprise, I shrugged. “No one is blaming you, Ankor-a. We see what we want to see, and we hear what we want to hear. It is hard to argue with a guy who can set you on fire.”
“Or one you think is your hero. My father spearheads projects to improve the life of Werekind, Citlalli,” Ankor said, his voice strangled. “His investment in futuristic technologies ensures a healthy and prosperous place for us all. He wants to cure Triadism.”
I felt Wolf and Demon bunch up around me protectively. “What if we can’t be cured?” I choked out.
What if we don’t want to be? Demon reported just as aggressively. Pain flared as I remembered watching helplessly the last time She’d taken over to indulge every whim, every wanton desire. I pushed Her away. Demon hissed, receding into the dark.
A low din started up, and both Ankor and I instinctively ducked behind the balcony. A slow rumbling started beneath our feet, and strange lights flashed from Heesu’s room.
“He is the only hope we have to see the day,” I whispered, squeezing Ankor’s hand with my robotic one without a second thought. He looked down at our entwined fingers of metal and flesh and didn’t flinch.
“Komaweo,” he told me in simple thanks. But the warmth sparking between our hands didn’t feel simple.
Voices shouted down below on the landing, and we went to investigate. Namkyu was in the living room. The sleek barrel of his sniper rifle poked between the curtains. He motioned for me to look.
The Death Lord Patan was here. I caught a glimpse of a black-haired bandaged ghost before he vanished. And on his heels came a freshly-made horde. They twisted and bent the metal gate in their eagerness to get in.
“Hold,” I cautioned Namkyu. Taeyang watched from the corner, his expression inscrutable. The wraiths charged for the doors of Yong Mansion, and I had to repel every neuron in my body urging me to open fire.
Then Yu Li’s unit poured into the courtyard from the east. Wolves ran alongside lizards. Una blocked the entrance in turtle form, and Sun Bin transformed into a silvery-scaled blizzard of fury. I dropped my fist, and Namkyu began picking off the wraiths that got too close.
Yu Li called me on the walkie-talkie. “More curses—storm growing,” I made out through the static.
“Dragon King in position,” I responded, hoping she could hear me. “Brace yourselves. Death Lord seen on your six. Over.”
“Second Death Lord—” A barrage of static overtook the channel. I hit the device against the wall a couple of times, and Ankor gave me a look.
“—over.”
“Alpha, didn’t catch that. Please repeat.” The roar of interference was my only answer. “Alpha, please repeat!”
Yu Li! I called via our pack connection. She didn’t answer.
A clatter echoed somewhere in the house that didn’t sound like wind. We tensed.
“Beta, what is your command?” Namkyu asked. When I didn’t answer, he yanked his rifle back from between the curtains. “Beta, your command.”
“She’s here.” I looked around the darkness, straining with all of Wolf’s senses. She was inside as a spider. Or a wasp. Xic. That damned insect demon could be anywhere. Dark Spirits skittered here and there, but I reminded myself that they weren’t really there.
“Pull back to the balcony,” I ordered. “No one gets into Heesu’s room as long as we’re standing.”
Two werelizards, Ko Eun Ae and Yi Jung Wook, stood in the landing, gazing up at the shrouded balcony with their backs to us. I glanced toward the dark throat of the kitchen where the doors flapped back and forth, surprised we hadn’t heard them enter. “Soldiers, you are under Lee Laon’s squadron—”
Taeyang grabbed our shoulders, pulling us back. “Careful,” he whispered. “They are sick.”
Namkyu and I threw ourselves to either side of the wall, averting our eyes just as the pair turned. Taeyang alone remained to face them. Namkyu’s breathing was uneven in the darkness, and I knew we were both remembering the last time we had come against these spirits of unrest and death.
Fearlings.
Chapter 65: Lord of Walking Death
~Sun Bin~
When we broke off from the others to circle around from the east, Yu Li pulled me aside.
“Keep an eye on him,” she said. There was no need to say who. I stalked the Golden Mane from behind, keeping him within easy distance. The only time I faltered was when we took up our positions around Yong Mansion. The sloped roof meant to keep out bad spirits was a sliding mess of wood chips and clay. The windows that changed color with the time of day were broken, and the pool was frozen sludge the color of algae bloom.
