The Scarlet Crane: Transition Magic Book One (The Transition Magic Series 1) (18 page)

Belle’s face turned a blotchy crimson. “Nothing, I’m okay.”

“Nuh uh. I don’t believe you. Why were you crying?”

Belle snuffled, tears began to flow again. She shook her head, whispered, “I can’t talk about it.”

“Sure you can. My mom says talking about stuff always makes you feel better.”

“I wish my mom was like yours.”

“Don’t. She’s not always that smart. Spill it. Is it some boy?”

“I’ve never told anyone.” Sarah had to lean forward to hear her. “I’m so ashamed.”

“Why? What have you done?”

Belle held her breath, choked, let go. “It’s my dad. He called tonight and said he loved me and couldn’t wait for the term to be over so I’d be home.”

“I don’t get it. What’s wrong with that? It’s sweet!”

“He only wants me home to keep doing …” Another choking breath. “Stuff.”

“What stuff?” Sarah felt like she was at the edge of a cliff, slipping, sliding toward the edge.

“He’s been... He’s.” She took another breath, released it a rush. “He’s been coming into my bedroom, touching me.”

Sarah skidded over the edge, in free fall, stomach churning. “You mean, like, your boobs? Like that?”

“Yeah. Boobs and way worse.”

If my dad did that, I’d die.

They both sat unspeaking for a minute, the only sound Belle’s sniffling.

“Do you hate me?” Belle asked. “Do you want to room with someone else?”

“What? Why would I want to room with someone else? Your goddamn dad is a fucking pervert. This isn’t your fault.” She reached out and the two hugged, rested their heads on each other’s shoulders, both crying.

They talked for hours. Belle described the humiliating horrors her dad had been inflicting on her for the past year, what he’d done, what he’d said. Sarah learned Belle’s mom was a drunk and didn’t know what was going on—or didn’t want to know. Belle was too ashamed to ask anyone for help. She had no way out.

Early in the morning a week later, Sarah was rubbing the sleep from her eyes when Belle woke her, yelling, “It’s here! It’s here!” Her eyes glowed with the electric lavender of Transition.

“And Sarah,” Belle said, tears streaming down her cheeks, “I’m gonna use magic to stop my dad. Will you do it with me? Will you? If we do it together, we won’t be so afraid and maybe it would help make the magic unique and powerful. Will you? Please, Sarah.”

Sarah had wanted to refuse, but couldn’t, no matter how terrified she was of dying. Transition offered Belle hope where none existed. She’d promised to help her friend but kept trying to find alternatives to avoid the risk of Transition magic.

“I was thinking,” Sarah said.

“Yeah?”

“Maybe we should go together and tell my dad what’s happened to you and get him to help. He’ll know what to do.”

Belle shook her head back and forth. She started to quiver, tears leaking from her eyes. “I thought you understood. No one can help. What would I say to your dad? That my high and mighty minister father sneaks into my bedroom and feels my boobs and crotch while he rubs himself? That he can’t wait for me to come home?”

“My dad’s not like your mom. He’ll listen. You can trust him. And he’s smart. He’ll figure out how to get help.”

“It’ll be my word against my dad’s and who’ll believe a crazy eleven-year-old kid? If my dad didn’t kill me for talking, I’d die of shame.”

“Will you stop with the shame? You haven’t done anything.”

“You promised not to say anything to anyone, Sarah.” Belle squeezed her eyes shut.

“I haven’t told anyone. And I’ll keep my promise to use magic with you. But Belle, magic scares the shit out of me. I’d take ten Stevie Bronsons over Transition any day. We could die. I was just trying to think of another way.”

“I might as well be dead now, Sarah. I’m as scared as you—why do you think I asked you to do it with me?”

No one could be as scared as me. Dying’s not the worst thing. What if my nightmares about Transition are real? Fire licking my face, my skin and hair crackling. The horrible smell. Pain, like having my fingernails pulled out. Again and again, forever. What if that’s what happens when you try magic and fail?

“I won’t tell, Belle.”

Belle’s in a nightmare now. A real one, worse than my imaginary shit.

“We’ll use magic to stop your dad if that’s the only way. But we’re running out of time, Belle. I’ll be out of Transition in a week.”

Oh God, help us.

Near Beijing

The People’s Republic of China

Zhi woke to a featureless darkness, a coarse fabric pressing against his cheeks, the only sound the steady rhythm of tires on pavement. His fingers were sticky with blood from the cuffs that sliced his wrists. The muscles of his chest ached with each movement, as if battered with a sledge.

Taser. No need for that, except for Wu’s pleasure.

His stale breath bounced back into his face. He panted, sucking the soggy bag into this mouth, blowing it out, growing lightheaded. It took all his will to slow his breathing. The conviction he would suffocate with his next breath retreated, but only a bit. The demon lurked, temporarily caged.

He inhaled deeply. Held his breath. Released.

I can control this.

“Hey! Who’s in the car?”

He was being ignored.

“Is this bag necessary? I’m suffocating.”

Nothing.

How much time has passed?

“This is absurd. How would I escape?” He gulped for air and shoved panic back into its box.

A voice a meter or so in front of him growled, “Shut your mouth.”

“Chang, is that you? Is Eng here also?”

Wu’s using the two guards that brought me to Beijing. Keeping the circle of people who know where I am small.

“Come on, guys, I’ll do whatever you say.”

“You need to listen better,” Chang said.

Zhi heard the tell-tale click of the Taser and stiffened in fear. The voltage slammed into him, dropping him back into the abyss.

* * *

Zhi’s awareness bloomed—the tires, the hood, the doubled pain from his complaining muscles.

Can I pit these guys against each other?

“I have to take a leak.”

“Piss on yourself.”

He waited for another zap.

“Okay, but my piss is going to stink up this car.”

He tensed, wondering if he’d pushed too far. A deep sigh resonated from the left front seat. They slowed. Gravel crunched as they bumped to the right and stopped.

Divide and rule.

The front doors opened, followed a couple seconds later by the one next to him. Frigid air wrapped its arms around him. Hands like granite grabbed him by the armpits, hauled him upright, and released him. Zhi took a step, stumbled and fell to his knees. The stone hands jerked him back to his feet and held him as he steadied himself.

The steel of a handgun pressed into his temple. “I’ll take the cuffs off. Do anything but touch your dick and you’re dead.”

Bullshit. I’d be dead already if that’s what Wu wanted.

“Back off, Chang, it’s not like I’m going anywhere.” The barrel twisted against the cloth of the hood, scraping his skin. The gravel behind him crunched and he felt stinging pressure against his wrists, then freedom. He arched his back and rotated his shoulders, savoring the sharp, sweet pain of relief.

He hosed down the side of the road, creating a stinking fog in the cold night air. The press of the gun dropped away as he zipped up. His arms were jerked behind his back, his wrists pulled into a sharp metallic embrace.

Fuck me.

Different hands guided him into the back, pressing his head down to avoid the doorjamb as he sat.

“We’ll be there in an hour,” Eng said.

“Why the hell are you trying to make him feel better?” Chang asked. “It’s not like you should give a shit.”

“He hasn’t given us any trouble. No reason to make things worse.”

“You pussy. This guy’s nothing to us but a pain in the ass. Weren’t for him we’d be somewhere warm with a couple of whores.”

“Thank you, Eng. I won’t forget it.” Zhi said.

“Shut up,” Eng responded.

“See?” Chang asked.

Zhi managed a grim smile inside his cloth prison.

Chang hates me, but Eng is running the show.

* * *

The car slowed and turned to the right, dropping off the edge of the rough asphalt. They bounced and swayed, tracking first right, then left, then back again. Dirt and rocks scraped the bottom of the car.

The car dipped to a stop. The front passenger door opened and Zhi heard the piercing squeal of metal on metal.

A gate?

Chang returned to the front seat, and the car lurched forward for a few feet and stopped again. Eng got out of the car, leaving the engine running. The trunk thunked open. A couple of seconds later Eng helped Zhi from his seat, marched him a few paces, and removed the hood and cuffs.

He sucked air into his lungs and glanced around.

Eng stood next to him, holding Zhi’s wool coat and
ushanka
.

The headlights exposed a two-story house of crumbling gray bricks and a peaked tile roof. A chimney rose above the roof on the left side; a small porch sheltered an entrance on the right. There were two windows on the first floor, three on the second.

A ramshackle barn with a shiny white garage door spliced into one side loomed from the shadows twenty meters to the right of the house. The ground around him looked like a blast zone—no grass, no trees, shrubs, or weeds.

Zhi turned and checked behind him, wondering if Eng would object.

A four-meter chain link fence topped by razor wire spirals disappeared into the night on both sides, shimmering with a crimson glow from the car’s taillights. Chang shoved the gate closed against a metallic scream of protest, locked it with a fist-sized padlock, and rejoined them.

Eng led them toward the door of the house, using the car headlights to pick his way over the broken ground. Chang grabbed Zhi and pinched his elbow, driving a shard of pain up his arm. “You can see the sights tomorrow. Inside.”

Zhi stumbled across the rutted ground, up three rickety wooden steps, and onto the narrow porch. A biometric lock secured the steel front door. Eng pressed his thumb against a reader and entered a combination into a keypad. An LED flipped from red to green, and a deadbolt thunked back into the door. Eng shoved the door open, and gestured for Zhi to precede him.

Zhi was surprised by what he found inside. The room was warm and clean. A sofa and three chairs rested on a polished hardwood floor, arrayed around a white painted brick fireplace. A large flat panel TV hung above a rough beam mantle. Books jammed a bookcase on the right that reached to the three-meter ceiling. He walked over and examined the titles. Among the scattering of names, there were concentrations of John Connolly, Peter May, and a couple dozen by Zane Grey.

Someone is an Anglophile.

An arched opening led from the room toward the back of the house. Plank stairs opposite the front door rose to the upper floor. Eng took Zhi upstairs and locked him in a room secured by a steel door with a biometric lock like the one on the front door.

Zhi looked around and shivered. Glossy white tiles covered the walls, ceiling, and floor; the cloying smell of antiseptic hung in the air. No window. A shiny chrome drain cover glittered in the center of the floor. The only furniture was a bunk bed pushed to one side. A sheet and two blankets lay at the foot of the bed. Two cameras panned across the space in slow syncopation.

A doorway—with no door—led to a windowless bathroom. He walked over and peered inside. Same layout: all tile with a floor drain. A prison-style stainless sink and toilet were tucked to one side and a shower nozzle sprouted from one wall.

Zhi shivered again, this time not from the temperature.

A wet-work bed and breakfast.

* * *

It took him a couple of minutes to remember where he was when he woke. He rose and felt his way to the wall switch, flipped on the lights.

Five, maybe five-thirty.

He washed and sat on the bed, waiting to see what the day would bring. His mental clock told him it was about six when Eng entered the room, carrying a short leather strap with a small box fastened to the side. “Put this around an ankle. Don’t remove it for any reason.”

“Razor wire, cameras everywhere, and now electronic monitoring? You think I’m James Bond?” Zhi asked.

“You’re permitted access to the house and grounds during the day. Two areas are off limits: the basement, and anywhere within a meter of the fence or the barn. Breach any of these areas and you will be beaten and restricted to the bedroom.”

“What’s the plan? Keep me here until I grow old?”

“I’m to inform you only that Comrade Wu decides each day when he wakes if we are to kill you.” Eng turned and left the room with the door standing open.

Fear tiptoed down Zhi’s back.

Don’t let it show.

Zhi strutted into the hallway and down the stairs, his mouth watering from the aroma that greeted him. He found Eng and Chang in the kitchen eating large bowls of wheat noodles covered with hot pig fat. A third bowl sat waiting for him. A plate piled high with Zongzi wrapped in bamboo and various deep fried dim sum sat in the middle of the table.

Three plastic cups of steaming tea were grouped next to the platter.

He sat, pulled the bowl toward him, and began eating, pausing only to grab a dim sum or one of the pyramidal sticky rice Zongzi.

Ironic. I have never tasted anything this good.

The room was bare except for the table and a yellowed enamel cabinet with a sink tucked under a spotlessly clean window. He could see a modern stove and cabinets past an open door at the end of the room.

“We eat twice a day,” Eng said. “Be here or go hungry.”

“Who cleans up?” Zhi asked.

“Shut up,” Chang demanded.

“You need to seek help with your anger issues, Chang.”

“Fuck you.”

Zhi finished in silence, returned to his room, put on his greatcoat and hat, and returned to the kitchen. Eng was alone, collecting plates.

“I’m going outside.”

Eng shrugged. “We know where you are.”

You here, Chang in the basement, monitoring.

He left the house and strolled along the fenced perimeter, staying well away from the one-meter dead zone. Dark clouds collided overhead, spitting snow onto a thin frosting that coated the ground. The house sat near the front edge of a compound covering about two hectares. All vegetation had been removed inside the fence and in a ten-meter swath outside.

More cameras and sensors out here than in a bank.

A dense forest crowded the cleared boundary. Gray branches stretched into the bleak sky, as if seeking escape. Shrubs among the trees formed an undergrowth so thick Zhi wondered if it were even possible to push through them.

I wouldn’t get a hundred meters.

He picked his way around the fence twice and returned to the house to find Eng watching the American TV show
Judge Judy
. He dropped his hat and coat on a chair. “So Wu Jintao has decided to torture me after all.”

* * *

The days crawled by, laced with unfulfilled threat.

Each morning Zhi woke, washed, made his rack, and sat for an hour, waiting to be released.

Each day, Comrade Wu determined he would live for another day, unharmed.

Each day he spent more time outside, pacing the fence, avoiding the vapid American TV programs, obsessed by questions he couldn’t answer.

Why does he let me live? What has become of Crane?

Each evening he played a game of speed chess with Eng, who always won.

Each evening he returned to his tiled cell. He decided he liked Zane Grey.

* * *

Three days later, Zhi was crossing in front of the gate, about to begin his tenth circuit, when Eng came out of the house and down the porch steps. He was wearing his heavy coat, hat, and gloves.

“Coming to join me?” Zhi asked.

“Comrade Wu has ordered me to bring you to the Capital Airport.” He turned and strode toward the nearby barn where the car had been stored.

“I need to get my stuff,” Zhi said.

Eng called back over his shoulder, “And what stuff would that be? Your soap? No need to go back inside. Just wait here for me.”

Fear chased relief into hiding.

Are Wu’s orders just a ruse to make me go along for a final ride?

Eng pulled the car next to Zhi and stopped, engine running. He got out, walked over and opened the gate, and returned. “Ride up front if you want.”

Once they’d bounced down the rutted dirt path and were on the narrow asphalt road, Zhi asked, “I’ve enjoyed my visit to Miaofeng.”

“Take care, Senior Colonel. Your fondness for showing off your knowledge could be dangerous. How did you know where we are?”

“It wasn’t too tough to figure out. Miaofeng is the only place near Beijing with so many pines. Wake me when we’re close.”

Two hours later Eng’s voice woke him providing airport security with their identities. “Businessmen Dong Chang and Hao Eng. We have a private charter.”

The guard checked a list on his clipboard and waved them through.