Death's Apprentice: A Grimm City Novel (11 page)

The bouncer lay on his back in the restaurant’s foyer, stunned beyond any further movement. Hank stepped over his body and looked around at the startled customers inside.

The place was done up in the usual over-the-top style, with enough polished lacquer and yellow gilt to ornament an emperor’s barge from the Han dynasty. One whole wall was taken up with an expensive saltwater aquarium tank, its wavering blue glow turning the closest tables spectral. Lionfish as big as terriers drifted back and forth, fanning out their lethal spines.

“Dinner’s over—” Dragging the rope stand along with him, Hank surveyed the restaurant’s guests. “I’d advise you to get the hell out of here, if you don’t wanna get hurt.”

The expense-account businessmen to whom the place catered hurriedly got to their feet, pulling their sleek companions with them. Within moments, there was a panicky stampede toward the door, the waiters and jabbering kitchen staff on the heels of the patrons.

“I’m here for the Mountain Master—” Hank stepped back to let the rush shove its way past him. “Where is he?”

The answer came soon enough.

A couple of tables had been overturned, spilling wineglasses and laden plates across the gold-tiled floor. In the emptied room’s silence, he could hear footsteps tromping down the steps at the back. Voices shouted in guttural Mandarin as triad fighters from the martial arts school spotted him. Spangles of light glistened from the blades of the
kwan do
upraised at the rear of the pack. In a wavelike surge, they rushed toward him.

Twenty of them. They might have stood a chance of at least surviving a few minutes if he hadn’t been warmed up from taking out the bouncers at the door. Looking across their heads, Hank could see another figure halfway down the stairs, watching the battle. That was the one he had come for—but that meeting would have to wait.

The rope stand came apart after he had flattened a couple of the men with it, the blood-spattered pole separating from the base. Hank tossed it aside and grabbed whatever came to hand; in a restaurant, there were plenty of things to be used as weapons. From the waiters’ station, he snatched a handful of ivory chopsticks. Clutched in one fist, they served to break open two more foreheads before being reduced to splinters. Grabbing a chair, he blocked a razor-sharp halberd swinging down toward his neck; with its legs, he pinned another triad member against the wall, then slammed its top edge into the man’s throat.

Hank tossed the broken chair aside, letting the corpse slide to the floor. The restaurant was silent again as he swung his gaze over to the stairs.

“You … fight well.” Each word tightened the livid scar running diagonally across the Mountain Master’s face, from one corner of his brow to the side of his chin. Coarse, dark hair, cut ragged by the blade of a fighting knife, dangled close to the jutting edges of his cheekbones. “Better … than men I trained.” His eyes, set deep in his broad, heavy face, darkened with anger. “But now … you are mine.”

Hank braced himself as the man’s embroidered robes spread like wings, the hulking but unnaturally lithe figure launching a flying kick toward him. The blow struck his chest hard enough to stagger him backward, but he managed to remain upright. He could feel the shock roll through his lungs and heart, then down his spine and legs, like lightning coursing through a grounded rod.

The Mountain Master leapt back. His eyes widened as he studied Hank. “Should be dead now…” He sounded puzzled. “Why … aren’t you?”

Hank spat out the wad of blood that had risen in his throat. “I guess … I’m just too dumb to die.” He reached out and grabbed the back of the man’s neck, his weight bearing him down to the floor.

The point of the Mountain Master’s knee slammed into Hank’s midsection, hard enough to send a shock wave up through his guts. His heart went silent for a beat, then started up again as he hammered his fist against the man’s densely scarred ear.

With blood leaking from his face, the Mountain Master rolled onto one side, bracing himself against the floor so he could launch a sweeping kick across Hank’s legs. His shins would have been crushed if he hadn’t leapt back onto his hip. That gave the Mountain Master a split-second opening, in which he launched himself horizontally toward his opponent, fingers hooked into claws—

That was the Mountain Master’s fatal error. His nails scraped across Hank’s face, but not before his arm shot out and caught the Mountain Master’s exposed throat. He clenched his fist, squeezing harder until he could hear the sound, like wet twigs trodden upon in a forest, of the other’s hyoid bones cracking and splitting. Hank let go, and the Mountain Master’s head lolled to one side.

The man was still breathing. Hank could tell from the bubbles of blood at one corner of the Mountain Master’s lips. He reached down and gathered the man’s weight up against his own chest, then carried him over to the fish tank against the wall. Salt water sloshed over the edge of the glass as he dropped the Mountain Master into the tank. The lionfish circled in agitation through the reddening water near the man’s face. After a few seconds, bubbles stopped rising from his mouth and nose, and his lifeless eyes stared past the ornamental coral.

Hank steadied himself against the wall, regaining his own breath. That had been a rough one; he knew he’d be pissing blood later. But still … no fear.

He searched the entire building, including the martial arts school upstairs and the scullery rooms behind the kitchen, to make sure there was no one left to jump him. He ended his search at a smaller, private meeting room, with a separate entrance onto the alley behind the restaurant. The dimly lit space was bisected by an elaborately carved rosewood screen reaching to the ceiling. Stepping cautiously around the side of the screen, Hank found a shrine dedicated to Guan Yu, the red-faced warrior god. Two statues of the furious deity stood on either side of a high-backed chair, its arms formed into arch-backed dragons. He knew this was where the late Mountain Master had sat when issuing orders to his followers on the other side of the grill, his guttural voice even sterner and more forbidding when his face was hidden.

Hank froze, hearing the door open. Quick footsteps entered from the alley beyond the meeting room. He stepped farther back, hiding himself behind the carved grillwork.

“Master! You’ve got to help me!”

The image of a young woman was just visible to him as she prostrated herself on the other side of the grill. By its tapered wooden handle, she picked up the brass ceremonial bell there and rang it.

He peered closer toward the openings carved in the wood. He could see the woman clearly now. A strange feeling moved inside his chest, one that he had never felt before.

“Master—please…”

He grunted in acknowledgment, knowing that if he spoke, his voice would give him away.

The deception worked; she did not know the Mountain Master had been killed only a few moments earlier.

“I don’t know if you remember me, master?” She raised her tear-wet face. Chinese and beautiful. “But I’m Ling—I studied here. At your school.”

He grunted once more.

The woman’s desperation overwhelmed her. Through the grill, Hank could see her trembling, as though her agonies of remorse and fear were like the storm lashing the roof of the building hard enough to batter the structure from its foundation.

“Please…” There were words inside her that she could no longer hold back. She reached out and touched the grill with her fingertips. “There’s no one I can turn to now but you and the triad.”

He made no sound at all. He didn’t need to.

In a hushed whisper, the woman began her story …

*   *   *

Her parents had other ambitions for her.

Yes, their child excelled at the deadly skills taught at the Mountain Master’s school. So much so, that the master’s intent was to someday make her an instructor, her authority second only to his. An honor, perhaps—but how did that put money in one’s pockets?

No, she would be a lawyer, just as her parents had decided years earlier. Better their child should apply her sharply honed killer’s instinct in a courtroom, rather than in some alley dueling with other schools’ star pupils.

Such was the plan she was bound by familial duty to accept.

“All our savings,” her father told her. He reached across the bare kitchen table and took her hands in his, squeezing them tightly. “All that your mother and I have scraped together. Penny by penny—for you, princess. And more besides.”

From a much worn and handled envelope, her father extracted a sheaf of moneylenders’ contracts. The numbers that Ling could see written on the small square notes appalled her.

“Yes—” He nodded when he saw his daughter’s widened eyes. “The interest alone is almost more than we can pay. But we aren’t worried.” Her father waved a contemptuous hand at the stack of paper. “When you are a successful lawyer, with rich clients—then it will all have been worth it.”

But there was one flaw in her parents’ scheme, and Ling was the first to know it. However incandescent her star had shown under the Mountain Master’s tutelage, in the fierce study of blows and counterblows, lightning evasions and whirling kicks to an opponent’s throat, at the university, in the private school of law that her parents enrolled her into, that light was rather dimmer.

Perhaps her heart was still at her previous master’s school. She had given it there, from the time she had been a little pigtailed girl, and it could not easily be returned to her.
Or else,
she dismally thought, gazing at the impenetrable language of torts and complaints in the foot-thick tomes before her,
or else I’m just no good at this stuff
. Whatever the reason, there was not enough money in the world, let alone her family’s purse, to buy her the grades she needed to pass her courses. She was, in fact, the thinnest hair away from flunking out. And no money-back guarantee had been granted with her tuition payment. All that her parents had spent, and all that they owed to the pitiless loan sharks, would be wasted when she crept back in shame to them …

“I can help you.”

Startled, Ling looked up from the wooden rack of hymnals in front of her. She had escaped to the university’s empty chapel for a little while, to try and find an answer to her dilemma. She glanced beside her and saw a dwarfish figure standing in the chapel’s aisle.

“Who … who are you?”

“Name’s aren’t important,” answered the dwarf. “Let’s just say that I’m someone who can help you with your problem. For a price…”

“I … don’t know what you mean. What problem—”

“Oh, come on,” said the dwarf, dismissing her pretense. “I’ve been watching you for weeks. I know you’re having trouble with your classes. And I know your parents are in deep debt. But believe me, killing yourself is no answer for you. Even if it looks like that now.”

She glared at him. Barely taller than her waist, the figure was further deformed by the hump that bowed his back into a lopsided arc. Wiry brown hair covered his angled shoulders. The tailored three-piece suit appeared oddly elegant on one so misshapen, the skin of his hands and neck covered with septic boils and scarlet eczema.

“Do you really believe yourself to be the first young lady to find herself sinking beneath the weight of the law?” The dwarf rubbed his scabby chin with a spiderlike hand. “I’ve known hundreds of people like you in my time. And usually, I’m the only one who can ease their fear.” He displayed a yellow-toothed smile as he slipped into the pew beside her. “So long as they’re willing to give me what I require.”

She found herself repulsed by the hideous figure. But stayed there all the same. “What kind of help … are you talking about?”

“The kind that doesn’t unfairly prejudice people, simply because they have no brains or talent.” The dwarf tapped the edge of the pew with a yellow fingertip. “I can give you the answers to all your exam questions in advance. And believe me, with my help, you’ll pass your bar exam at the head of your class. Then you’ll be a fully fledged lawyer. Just like your parents dream of.”

“And … the price?” She turned her nose up involuntarily, fearing it would be something physical.

The dwarf saw the expression of disgust on her face, and almost hissed at it. “It’s not your body that I want, but something else,” he said in a sharp, insulted tone. “I look at you as an investment. I won’t ask anything of you straight away. But be aware, by shaking my hand, you agree to pay me whatever I ask for when the day arrives. Though rest assured … By that time you’ll be a big success, and you’ll be able to afford it easily.”

An apprehensive shiver ran through Ling’s body. The thought of doing any kind of deal with him made her uneasy. But faced with the prospect of shame or suicide, she knew she didn’t have an option.

Sensing her acceptance, the dwarf extended his scabby hand toward her. “You’re making the right decision,” he said drily. “After this, your success will be sealed.”

She took his disgusting hand and shook it. And just as he’d promised, there was no looking back.…

Thanks to the dwarf’s help, Ling passed her exams at the top of her class. Her mother wept, and Ling almost crushed her father with a hug when she laid the ribboned diploma on the kitchen table. A year later, as her career took off, her parents sent her postcards from the Bermuda cruise she’d sent them on. The year after that, she accepted a prestigious position in the city DA’s office.

Five years passed, five years of success and its concomitant rewards. And in that time, she didn’t hear a single word from the hideous dwarf. In the end, she even began to hope that he might have died or forgotten her. And that the debt she owed him would never have to be repaid.

It turned out to be a vain hope.

There had been time for a boyfriend by then—and a little more. Following a brief fling with one of her fellow lawyers, who soon took up a job oversees with a new wife, Ling found out that she was pregnant. She didn’t even bother to write and tell him what had happened—she was making enough money on her own to take care of everything.

Her aging parents were unhappy about the absence of a wedding ring on Ling’s hand—but overjoyed by the birth of their grandchild, a beautiful baby girl she named Ren-Lei. Before her maternity leave from the DA’s office ended, Ling engaged a nanny for her daughter, a skilled young woman named Anna, hired from the most highly recommended household personnel agency in the city. Anna’s salary was a major expense for Ling, but clearly worth it; the woman’s professionalism was obvious, and she seemed to adore the baby who had been placed in her charge. Ling wasn’t even sure why she took the precaution of installing a hidden video camera in Ren-Lei’s nursery, its tiny wide-angle lens hidden in the stuffed belly of a decorative teddy bear, up on the highest of the room’s toy shelves.