Phoenix (24 page)

Hú Dié seemed to come to her senses, and she rolled out of bed. She was still wearing what she had on earlier. She pulled her pink mountain biking shoes out of a suitcase. “We’re going to ride out of here, right?”

“Yeah.”

She put her riding shoes on and stuffed her passport in her pocket. “Where is Dr. V?”

“Out cold on the dining room floor.”

“Ouch.”

We stopped before the locked lab door. I began to fumble with the keys. Hú Dié looked at me and said, “I am truly sorry about what happened earlier.”

“Whatever,” I replied without looking at her. I selected a key and inserted it into the lock. The door opened on the first try. We hurried inside and closed the door behind us. I flipped on the lights.

Hú Dié shrieked. “Ryan!”

Ryan was lying shirtless and still as a stone atop the stainless-steel table. Dozens of wires ran from machines to his forehead and chest.

Hú Dié raced to his side. “Ryan! Wake up!”

Ryan didn’t budge.

I hurried over to him and Hú Dié.

“He’s not dead, is he?” Hú Dié asked. “I can see his chest moving like he’s breathing.”

“I think he’s just asleep,” I replied. “He went riding with Dr. V this morning and must have come back here for tests or something. Dr. V lied and said he was still out on his bike.”

“Dr. V lying, imagine that.”

A muscle twitched in Ryan’s abdomen, just below his belly button.

“Hey!” Hú Dié said. “Did you see that? It was right over his
dan tien
—his chi center.”

I nodded. “That’s where a person’s life energy is supposedly stored. Maybe dragon bone somehow connects with a person’s chi.”

“I
know
what a
dan tien
is,” Hú Dié said. “It’s also your absolute center of gravity and the spot where you feel butterflies—
Hú Dié
—in your stomach. Should we try and wake him? Or maybe tie him up so he can’t get in our way?”

“We probably couldn’t wake him if we wanted to. We need to just go. We can call the police or something later.”

I spotted the dragon bone vessels and ran over to them. They were still sitting empty on the same counter. Hú Dié’s hydration pack was also on the counter, as was the silk drawstring bag. I opened the bag and found that it was filled with pure white powder. It had no grayish tint. I stared at it.

“Come on!” Hú Dié said. “Grab the dragon bone.”

I raised my nose to the bag and sniffed. There was no odor. I looked at Hú Dié. “This isn’t dragon bone.”

“Arrgh!” she said. “Of course it isn’t. Dr. V wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave it out in plain sight in those dragon-shaped containers. It was a trick.” She glanced at the wall of two-way mirrors and the door with the keypad. “I bet he keeps it in there.”

I ran to the door and tried the handle. “Locked,” I said.

Hú Dié howled and ran toward the mirrors. I jumped back as she threw both of her arms over her head, then slammed them into the section of mirrors closest to the door.

The entire section exploded. Pieces of thick, mirrored safety glass sailed in every direction. Hú Dié’s
momentum was so great that she tumbled headlong into the other room.

I rushed over and poked my head into the space beyond. Hú Dié was on the ground, covered in safety glass.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She stood and nodded, shaking the pieces from her clothes.

“That was awesome,” I said.

Hú Dié grinned weakly. “That kind of hurt. Grab the silk bag and backpack and get in here.”

I retrieved the bag and dumped the contents into a trash bin beside the counter. The powder looked like it might be baking soda. I turned the bag inside out so that whatever it was wouldn’t contaminate the dragon bone; then I grabbed the backpack. Hú Dié turned on the lights inside Dr. V’s office, and she tried to open the door to the lab from the inside. It worked.

I ran into the office, prepared to tear it apart, but that wasn’t necessary. There were several large glass vials containing grayish powder on a shelf above Dr. V’s cyclocross bike, which was leaning against the wall.

“There,” I said, pointing to the shelf. I pulled down one of the vials, popped the top, and took a whiff. “We did it,” I said. “Help me pour these into the bag.”

“Are you sure you trust me?” Hú Dié asked.

“No. But do it, anyway.”

Hú Dié lowered her eyes and got to work. We finished transferring the dragon bone to the bag; then she walked out of the office to take one last look at Ryan while I put the bag into the backpack.

I slung the pack over my shoulders. “Are you ready?”

Hú Dié didn’t reply. I heard a door open.

I walked out of the office, expecting to see her heading out of the lab. Instead, I saw Murphy. The tall, wiry Texan raised his massive revolver and leveled it at my chest.

“Fixin’ to go somewhere?” he drawled.

I stared across Dr. V’s lab
at the gaping barrel of Murphy’s gun. He stepped into the lab with his revolver raised, and I caught a blur of movement out of the corner of my eye.

It was Hú Dié. She had been hiding, pressed up against the inner wall of the lab, near the door. She let loose one of her banshee wails, and her iron forearms slammed down onto Murphy’s gun arm. I heard bones crunch. The gun hit the floor with a clatter, and Murphy’s pain-filled grunt was cut short by a dull thud as Hú Dié cracked him on the temple with a hammer fist. Murphy crumpled to the ground, but his eyes remained half-open.

“Get something to tie him with!” Hú Dié said. “Quickly! He’s still semiconscious.”

The only thing I saw that might do the job was the wires connected to Ryan. I ran over to him and tore
every last one free from the adhesive pads attached to his chest and forehead.

Ryan stirred and opened his eyes for a moment, then closed them again. I held my breath, watching him closely. The muscles above his
dan tien
twitched a few times, but other than that, his breathing was regular.

“Phoenix, hurry!” Hú Dié said.

I yanked the long wires free from the machines in a flurry of sparks and took the wires to Hú Dié. Together we tied up Murphy. When we’d finished, we rushed into the dining area and saw that Dr. V was still unconscious.

“Should we tie him up, too?” Hú Dié asked.

“Might as well,” I said. “Better safe than sorry.”

Hú Dié yanked the power cord from the base of the blender and tied Dr. V’s hands behind his back while I went into the training area and disconnected my bike from the stationary trainer. We ran down the long corridor to the workshop and were greeted with a disturbing sight. Someone had moved Lin Tan and Bjorn’s pickup truck into the shop. There was a lumpy tarp draped over the pickup’s bed, and it took little imagination to guess what lay beneath it.

Neither Hú Dié nor I said a word. We just grabbed new helmets from the shelves and strapped the lids onto our heads. Hú Dié lowered the seat on Ryan’s bike and climbed on.

“Aren’t you going to adjust the handlebars, too?” I asked.

She leaned forward and checked the fit. “These are
close enough. I want to get out of here. I’m going to have nightmares for the rest of my life.”

“Will your shoe brackets connect with that type of pedal?”

“Yes. I’m good.”

I leaned my bike against the workbench and walked over to the roll-up bay door that led to the outside. I started flipping through keys, and Hú Dié said, “It’s a little gold one. I watched Murphy lock up before we went to Austin. There are actually two locks, one on each side of the door, but they use the same key.”

I found the key and opened the locks; then I pressed a garage door opener button mounted to the wall. A motor moaned and creaked to life overhead, and the door began to rise, letting in the morning sun. I was about to head for my bike when I heard a low growl outside.

I looked back to see Murphy’s dog, Bones.

“Oh, crap,” Hú Dié said.

“Nice doggy?” I said.

The big dog growled again, and I saw the hairs on the back of his neck rise.

I didn’t move a muscle.

“You didn’t happen to grab anything from Murphy, did you?” Hú Dié asked.

“No,” I replied, trying to keep my voice calm and even. “And it’s probably a good thing I didn’t. Remember how Murphy said his dog didn’t like people messing with his property? But I wouldn’t mind holding his gun right now.”

“I hid the gun up high in one of the wall cabinets
while you were getting the wires. He’ll never find it. We tied him up, though. Do you think the dog can smell his scent on us?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t plan on getting close enough to him to find out.”

The door stopped, fully open, and Bones took several steps toward me. The dog sniffed the air. His eyes narrowed.

I took a step backward, and the dog began to bark ferociously.

“Bones!” a voice suddenly drawled from within the training facility. “Here, boy!”

Bones stopped barking and tilted his head as if listening.

“Bones!” Murphy hollered again from the lab. His voice was faint but clear. “Here, boy! Here, boy!”

Bones yowled and raced toward his master’s voice. The dog shot through the open door leading to the long corridor and was out of sight.

I grabbed my bike and adjusted the pack on my back; then I looked at Hú Dié. “We’d better jet.”

She nodded.

I jammed my feet into my pedal cages and heard Murphy holler, “Yee-haw! Chew me loose, boy! We’re goin’ huntin’!”

I blasted out of the workshop with Hú Dié riding close behind, and my fatigued legs immediately reminded me that I had just ridden hard for hours on the stationary trainer. My body wasn’t pleased.

“Which way?” Hú Dié asked.

“Cross-country,” I replied, heading for the cyclocross course. “If Bones can chew half as strong as Murphy claims, Murphy will be in his truck in minutes. He would catch us on the ranch road before we even reached the gate.”

“Can a hunting dog follow the scent of bike tires?”

“I don’t know, but I have a feeling we’re going to see soon enough. Stay close.”

I reached the cyclocross course and followed it for a few hundred yards; then I left the course and plowed straight into dry ankle-high grass, making a beeline for the hills. The uneven ground turned my fully rigid cyclocross bike into a bucking bronco, but I managed to stay in the saddle. I glanced back at Hú Dié and saw that she was keeping pace, which was good. I also saw a small cloud of dust rushing toward us from the training facility, which was bad.

It was Bones.

I feathered my brakes, slowing slightly. “Hú Dié,” I said, “Bones is coming. You go on ahead, into the hills. I’ll try to lose him.”

“Are you crazy?” she replied. “You can’t outrun that dog over this ground. You probably couldn’t even do it on smooth pavement. He’s huge.”

“I’ve got to do
something
. He’s going to run us down, anyway. Get out of here, now! He can only chase one of us, and I want it to be me. I’m the stronger sprinter and you know it.”

Hú Dié huffed her disapproval, but she picked up her pace. I slowed further.

I’d been chased by unleashed dogs more times than I could count while riding on mountain bike trails, and I knew that road bikers who favored back roads in rural areas had it even worse. Defensive strategies included everything from handlebar-mounted cans of pepper spray to squirting dogs in the eyes with your water bottle. I had neither, so I decided to try a trick that had saved my ankles on more than one occasion.

I shifted to an easy gear and kept my pace steady, allowing Bones to get an accurate sense of my speed as I pedaled ahead of him. When the dog neared, he began to bay as if he were hot on the trail of a rabid raccoon. I concentrated, mentally calling up what little energy reserves I had left.

Bones opened his jaws wide, and I fought the urge to kick him in the face. That would be like sticking my foot into the mouth of a hungry lion. Instead, the instant I sensed the dog was about to snap his jaws shut, I hammered with all my might.

I sprinted forward, my abrupt change in speed throwing off Bones’s attack. The dog’s jaws closed on thin air, and he stumbled. Unfortunately, he didn’t go down like most dogs do. The seasoned hunting dog regained his footing and began to pick up speed.

I realized I didn’t stand a chance. My exhausted legs were already beginning to give out. I looked ahead toward Hú Dié and saw that she was turning around.

“What are you doing?” I shouted.

She didn’t answer. She completed her turn and began to hammer in my direction. I glanced back and saw that
Bones was nearly upon me, even though I was still riding fairly fast.

“Cut hard to your right on three!” Hú Dié cried.

I looked up and saw that she, too, was coming straight at me. She reached down and grabbed the emergency tire pump that was attached to the down tube of Ryan’s bike. The pump was roughly the size and shape of a nightstick.

“One!” Hú Dié shouted. “Two!
Three!
”

I cut my wheel hard to the right, and Hú Dié barreled past me just inches away on my left. She swung the tire pump down with her left hand, whacking the dog hard across his hips before it could clamp down on me.