The Corpse Ritual, page 21
She regretted her decision the minute her shoes squelched on the Mall’s rough lawn. The light was far poorer here and the wet grass even more slippery than the sidewalk. The grass also was unkempt due to irregular maintenance. The likelihood of tripping was high.
No sooner had she thought that when she caught her foot in a depression, probably made by some dog owner’s beloved pet. She went down heavily.
Wen Dou was closer than she had thought. Fortunately, the grass and the soft ground muffled the sound of her fall. The jiangshi shuffled a few feet from where she sprawled on the ground. It moved another 20 feet away before it stopped and raised its chin, trying to locate her scent. It whirled around clumsily and retraced its steps, passing just to her right.
She held her breath and kept as still as possible. The creature couldn’t see so it had to rely on its hearing and sense of smell. The movements and noises from the torrential rain and gusty winds must be confusing it.
The jiangshi wandered around her, a few times coming so close she thought she would have to jump to her feet and make a run for it. She wondered about the time. She couldn’t check her watch with the creature so near. She didn’t dare move a muscle.
The sky brightened as lightning zipped above the museum’s iconic structure. The bolt was so close she could feel the air crackle. It was followed almost immediately by a clap of thunder so loud she could feel the ground tremble beneath her. Wen Dou was about 10 feet away, barely visible in the dark. She was astounded when it raised its arms at 90-degree angles to its sides and tilted its head back.
What on earth was it doing? The corpse looked like some kind of bizarre sun worshipper enjoying the rays at the beach. Except … She was filled with both dismay and dread when she realized what was happening.
The jiangshi was enjoying the rays—except these were from the lightning strike. It was feeding off the energy left by the lightning, the same energy the luopan had detected. Holy crap. Was the lightning’s energy making it stronger? Was that how the creature repaired its damaged arm and leg?
The rain increased in intensity. The jiangshi dropped its arms and staggered so near to her that its mud-caked boots almost kicked her in the face. She froze and took shallow breaths. The wet conditions didn’t do much to improve the walking corpse’s stink.
Wen Dou moved away again, this time far enough that she risked a quick peek at her watch. It was 9:55. She had another five minutes before she could head back to the door.
Five minutes. It felt like a lifetime.
Chapter 34
Emma shut the door after Joe and Junie left. The thought that she might never see him again was a knife in her heart. It was something she had to put out of her mind.
Worrying about him was wasted energy. Her worry wouldn’t make the slightest bit of difference as to whether he and Junie succeeded in what they had to do. It was better that she focus on the things she could control, such as making sure she and her charges made it through another night.
Her charges. That was how she thought of Leonie Bowman and Sze Ho. She was responsible for their welfare.
Her outsized sense of responsibility was something that was instilled by her grandfather. As a child, she lived with her grandparents, who owned a subsistence farm in Vermont. Her grandfather had called her his little shadow. She followed him around every day as he tended to his livestock and crops with loving care.
She smiled to herself. She always found herself escaping into the past when her present circumstances grew unbearable. Those early years in Vermont with her grandparents were the happiest of her life. Her memories were all she had left of them. She had tried her whole life to honor her grandpa by treating anything left under her care with the same thoroughness and dedication that he had.
It was what caused her dishonorable discharge from the army. It also was why she was so loyal to Millie, her employer. She viewed her employment as looking after Millie, who had suffered devastating losses, and whose wealth, kindness and generosity made her a target for scammers.
Lately though, Joe had been intruding upon her thoughts. She was thinking less about her grandparents and more and more about him. And a possibility of a life with him. What she loved about Joe, among other things, was he didn’t need taking care of. He was strong notwithstanding his self-doubt and neurotic anxiety. Not only that—he had the heart of a superhero. He could always be counted upon to save the world.
Her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten anything since an early lunch. She went to the kitchen and took out a can of soup from the cupboard. There were only two cans left. She would have to replenish some of Bowman’s pantry items when all this was over. She was eating her way through the woman’s food supply.
The storm started while she was washing her bowl in the kitchen sink. She wiped her hands and went out to the living room, turning on lights as she went. That was another item she needed to take care of for Bowman. Her electricity bill. Emma had spent every night here with the lights blazing in all the rooms.
She went to the sliding door and pulled back one of the curtains. All she could see was her own reflection and water streaming down the glass. Lightning flickered across the sky and she caught a brief glimpse of rain battering the trees in the woods. Thunder roared so loudly the glass shook.
The storm was ferocious.
When the lightning’s brilliance faded, she was back to staring at her own reflection. And the reflection of Sze Ho’s gray face further in the room.
She leaned against the door. She pressed her forehead against the cold glass, blocking out the academic’s reflection. She found the storm oddly comforting. It was natural and wholesome compared to what she was dealing with.
The rain was so loud she didn’t immediately hear the sound. Her heart almost leaped out of her chest when it finally registered. Her name. Sze Ho was calling her name. She wheeled around.
His eyes were open and rimmed with red. He sagged with weariness. “Emma,” he croaked. “I need … I need to use the bathroom. Please untie me.”
His hoarse voice sent chills through her. And he had never asked to use the bathroom before, not since Bowman scratched him. She circled his chair cautiously, racked with indecision. Joe had warned her not to release the man no matter what happened. Joe also was the first to admit he wasn’t exactly an expert on the subject of the Chinese undead. What did he call them? Jiangshi.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“I told you. I need the bathroom.”
“You’ve been sleeping for so long.”
“I need to use the bathroom,” he repeated. He shut his eyes and shivered. Her heart went out to him. He looked so desperate and unhappy.
“Please don’t make me soil myself,” he pleaded.
She definitely didn’t want that to happen. And the bathroom was secure. It had no windows through which Sze Ho could escape. The door was the only means of entry and exit.
She cast her eye over the living room, searching for something she could use as a weapon should he turn violent. She had talismans in the back pocket of her pants. There was more of Joe’s magic twine in her tote bag. She carried pepper spray in there as well.
However, she wanted a weapon with heft that could inflict actual, physical damage. With her military training, she was confident she could subdue the thin and lanky scholar with her bare hands, but she wasn’t sure she could do it if he transformed into one of the walking dead. Look how strong Bowman had been.
There were knives in the kitchen, but she preferred something that would keep him at arm’s length. She also didn’t want to cause too much permanent damage. This was Sze Ho, after all. She liked him. And he was in this state because of her. She owed him big time.
She remembered seeing something in the coat closet by the front door. She went to the closet and peered inside. A baseball bat leaned against the back wall. The woman must have bought it for personal protection. There was no other indication in the apartment that Bowman was a fan of the game.
Emma got her bag from the bedroom so she would have the twine within reach. She transferred the pepper spray to the front pocket of her pants. She picked up the bat on her way back to the living room and made sure Sze Ho saw it.
“I’m going to untie you,” she said as she dropped her bag on the sofa. “No funny business, understand? I mean it.”
He nodded. “Please be quick. I can’t hold it for much longer.”
She fetched a pair of scissors from the kitchen. She gripped the bat under her armpit while she snipped the cords that bound Sze Ho’s wrists and ankles to the armchair. Holding her breath—the academic was smelling kind of ripe—she pulled him to his feet and led him to the bathroom.
“Don’t lock the door,” she told him. “If you lock it, I won’t be able to help you if you need me.”
He nodded and she pulled the door shut. She stood guard outside, holding the bat with both hands, ready for action. She caught sight of a blinding flash in her peripheral vision. It was lightning coming through a gap in the sliding door curtains, the gap she herself had made when she looked out at the storm. A loud boom of thunder made her jump. The lights flickered.
Shit. She stared at the ceiling lamp above her, willing it to stay on. To her relief, it stayed on.
Another bright burst from the slit in the curtains. Another roar of thunder. The lights flickered again.This time, they went out.
Emma had drawn every curtain and lowered every blind to make sure no one could see into the apartment. Bowman’s curtains were of a thick material, probably because she sometimes worked shifts and wanted it dark when she slept in during the day.
Now, with the power out, it was so dark Emma couldn’t see her hand in front of her face. She might as well be at the bottom of the ocean. The gap she left in the sliding door curtains was the only spot in the entire apartment through which external light could enter.
She told herself not to panic. She had been in worse situations, although they admittedly didn’t involve supernatural energy-hungry ghouls.
Her phone was charging on the table beside Bowman’s bed. It should be fully charged by now. She could use the phone’s flashlight function. If she needed another flashlight, there was one in her bag, which was on the sofa.
“Sze Ho.” She raised her voice so that he could hear her through the door. “We’ve lost power. Just wait in the bathroom. I’m sure the lights will be back on soon.”
He didn’t answer. She pressed her ear against one of the door panels. It was deathly quiet inside. She rapped her knuckles on the door. Still nothing. This was not good. “Just sit tight, alright?” she said. “I’m going to get a flashlight.”
The bedroom was across from the bathroom. She took a moment to visualize the bedroom’s layout. There was a relatively clear path from the door to the bedside table. She reached out with the baseball bat and moved it around until she located the bedroom’s open doorway. She shifted the bat to her left hand and gripped the doorframe with her right. She pushed her right foot forward and stepped through the doorway. So far so good.
She was somewhere in the middle of the room when she heard a loud banging. She was confused at first, thinking it was someone knocking on the front door. She soon realized that the banging came from the bathroom. It sounded like Sze Ho was smacking the door with his palms.
Wait. Something wasn’t right about the banging. There was no variation in the loudness of the thumps or the speed at which they followed each other. They were monotonous in their regularity.
Her heart pounded in her chest. She inched forward into the inky blackness as fast as she could. Her knee bumped something hard. It was the edge of the bed. She groped her way to the bedside table and found her phone.
She was immensely thankful when the phone’s flashlight beat back the darkness. She strode back to the bathroom. The banging continued.
“Sze Ho?” she said. “Are you okay?”
No reply. The banging was so regular it could have been a metronome to help a pianist keep time. Her breath hitched in her throat. Had the scholar transformed while he was in the bathroom? If so, she was lucky his jiangshi alter ego had no idea how to work a door handle. She had to get her act together before he figured it out.
She was trying to come up with a plan when she thought she heard something. She listened carefully. It was hard to be sure with the loud banging by her ear. There it was again. The sound came from the living room. Where Bowman was.
Emma tried to steady her breathing. She raised her phone and aimed its flashlight at the living room. A wall blocked most of the room from her sight. All she could see were Bowman’s feet and ankles.
A burst of light shone through the gap in the curtains. The lightning was so close and so bright that it lit up the living room for a split second. In that instant, she thought she saw one of Bowman’s feet move.
Emma gasped. She pushed her panic away. She walked a little closer to the living room, keeping her light trained on the woman’s feet. They now were motionless. She swung her phone back to the bathroom. The banging didn’t stop. She knew where Sze Ho was as long as he kept up the racket.
She hesitated at the threshold of the living room. She switched the bat to her right hand and the phone to her left. She steeled herself and marched in, the bat held high.
She stopped at the sofa and swept her light around the room. Everything looked the same as before. Bowman lay as still as a figure on a stone sarcophagus. Did she imagine the woman’s foot twitching? She must have. Perhaps it was an optical illusion caused by the lightning.
She took her eyes off Bowman for a moment to locate her bag. There it was, lying at the end of the sofa where she tossed it. She would need twine to tie Sze Ho up again. The question was how to get him out of the bathroom without endangering herself. Or should she find some way of trapping him in there until Joe and Junie could come to her aid?
Emma stepped sideways to move between the coffee table and the sofa. She looked down when she trod on something. It was a length of twine from Sze Ho’s bindings.
She leaned the bat against the sofa and bent down to gather the loose string. She was pushing it under the coffee table, where it would be out of the way, when something made her pause. From her stooped position, she aimed her light under the table, across to where Bowman was lying.
The woman was still there. But … her face was exposed, the talisman nowhere to be seen. She lay on her side, her eyes fixed on Emma.
Emma released a choked cry and leaped backwards. The coffee table caught the back of her knee and she tripped. As she fell, her head grazed the table’s edge. A darkness blacker than what was in the apartment dropped over her like a sheet.
When she opened her eyes again, one temple throbbed atrociously. It felt like a small engine was revving in her brain.
She tried to sit up but the dizziness was so bad she had to lie back down. The throbbing worsened—it now felt like someone was using a jackhammer on the side of her head.
Her left hand bumped into something. She touched it again. It was one of the coffee table’s legs. She was on the floor between the coffee table and the sofa.
The fog in her head cleared. She remembered what she had seen on the other side of the table. She must have knocked herself out. She couldn’t believe she had done something so stupid. How long had she been unconscious? Where was her phone?
Dammit, she couldn’t see a thing. She groped around her, trying to do it as quietly as possible. She couldn’t locate the device.
Light blazed through the chink in the curtains. She turned instinctively toward the glimmer. In the brief illumination that the lightning provided, she saw that Bowman was gone.
Chapter 35
Rivulets of water ran down Junie’s body. Her hair was plastered to her face. She was thoroughly soaked, cold, and miserable.
The jiangshi had wandered away again, giving her another chance to check the time. She shook the moisture off her glasses and peeped at her watch. She was relieved to find it was 10:01. Time to get moving.
The jiangshi was about 20 feet away, its back to her. Something must have alerted it because it pivoted around and lurched toward her. Despite its clumsiness, the creature moved with purpose. Even if she could get to the sword in time, she wasn’t ready to fight the monster. It might be even stronger now, and she had only one working arm. And she had to stick to the plan.
Her good hand scrabbled in the dirt for something she could use. It encountered mud and sand, then a rock about the size of a lemon. Her fingers curled around it. The creature was about 10 feet away when she pitched the rock as hard as she could.
She wasn’t aiming at anything in particular. By sheer luck, the rock hit a trashcan. The jiangshi abruptly changed course and lumbered toward the sound.
She tried to rise, hindered by the slimy mud and her drenched clothes. As she staggered to her feet, she could see in her peripheral vision that Wen Dou was making for her again. That was encouragement enough. She was running before she was fully upright, heading for the museum’s bright lights.
She didn’t dare to look over her shoulder in case she lost momentum. However, the prickling at the nape of her neck told her the creature was hot on her heels. She hurtled across Madison Drive and onto the museum grounds. She sprinted down the path that would take her to the door she needed.
The door was closed when she came to it. She had no choice but to trust that Xu had done his part. She gritted her teeth and reached for the handle. Trying not to lose speed, she grasped the handle and pushed with her shoulder at the same time. The door swung inward so easily she almost lost her footing.
She saw the jiangshi just outside the door when she slammed it shut. She whirled around and pumped her legs. Her wet sneakers had little grip on the granite floor and her legs shot out from under her. She managed to stay on her feet by placing her right hand on the wall to steady herself. That cost her valuable seconds. As she headed for the stairs, she could hear the jiangshi bursting in through the door.
