The Scarlet Empress (20 page)

Smiling at his attention, the woman arched her back, lazily lifting an arm and running long, delicate fingers over her abdomen to the gold rings she wore in her nipples. The jewelry made small, bell-like tinkles in the suddenly silent room.

How did she get in here?
was his first thought. Then he remembered that a woman was always brought to his room in the evenings unless he requested otherwise, as he had the past three nights since returning from the Rim. He didn’t always make love to the women before dismissing them; sometimes he merely kept them around for the
pleasure of their attentive company, which was slightly more interactive—and usually more entertaining—than that of the palace felines and ferrets.

He walked closer, close enough to discern the scent of her body from the light aroma of her perfume. “I know you,” he said. “You were the manicurist.” She was the lovely young woman who had tended to his feet and hands the day he and Nikolai left to find Cam.

Her fingers circled the nipple ring. “Yes. My name is Anjali. They said you were interested in seeing me, Your Highness.”

Yes, he thought. He had been.

Ten days ago.

She rolled onto her stomach, her elbows tucked, lifting her hips invitingly. Any other time, Kyber would have gone to her without another word and buried himself inside her body.

When he didn’t, she peeked over her shoulder. “Would you like to come to bed?” Her dark brown eyes had turned even darker with sexual arousal.

He took a robe from the back of a chaise and draped it over her. Her rear end dropped to the mattress. “Do you not want my company?” she asked, her mouth forming a perfect pout.

Kyber sat heavily on the edge of the bed. “It is not you, my sweet.” What was it then? “I shall pass this night alone.”
As you have all the nights since arriving home from the Rim?

Instead of kissing the woman good-bye, of all things, he reached out and ruffled her silken curls. “Go on. Get dressed.”

Then, with a sigh, he drew the towel around his hips
and walked to his balcony. The weather was cold, and so he left the French doors closed. Outside, street globes cast citizens running their errands in a soft white light.

He wanted to be out there, not here.

Normally he did not assume his alter ego, Kublai, so soon after a trip to the Rim. It was a risk anytime he left the palace without a retinue of bodyguards, even if the disguise he wore was convincing. Yet the draw was strong, tonight, to escape who he was. Who he was required to be.

He stood for a while, watching his citizens go about their mundane chores. One woman caught his eye. Graceful and standing a full head taller than most of the other women, she hurried across the central square. She didn’t wear a hat, as was fashionable, and it allowed the breeze to toss her shoulder-length blond hair.

Something inside him unknotted. She looked like Cam. . . .

She
was
Cam!

He opened up the doors. Cold air rushed over his damp body, and he welcomed it. He’d worked himself to exhaustion so he wouldn’t dwell overly much on her presence in the palace—or her repeated requests to see him. But, heaven above, he missed her. He dreamed of her. She’d made him laugh. She’d given him hell. He’d never in his life encountered a woman who could do both.
Go after her.

Kyber pressed his lips together. After the debacle with Banzai, was he so willing to be played the fool again?

Cam is not Banzai.

He gave his head a shake. No, he couldn’t see her. Not until he was sure his emotions were under control.

But Kublai could.

His hand tightened around the door handle. It was madness. It was ill-advised.

You don’t know where she is headed, or why.

Hmm. Excellent point.
The streets of Beijing were mostly safe, even at night, but a pretty woman out alone? There was always the risk of untoward behavior. He would not tolerate that, or even the risk of it.

Kyber took a breath and stood straighter. For the sake of national security, he would call on the services of his number one bounty hunter to act as bodyguard. No one took better care of Cam Tucker than Kublai.

Throwing his towel to the floor, he went in search of clothes appropriate to the mission.

It was full dark now. Though they contained technology beyond anything in the twenty-first century, the streetlights designed to resemble lanterns cast the Serpent Quarter in a charming glow—atmosphere it probably needed to lend an aura of intrigue. It was one of those areas that by day would appear seedy, but by night glamorous, in a 1940s
Casablanca
sort of way.

It took a while to get used to the billboard buildings. That was the only term Cam could think of to explain it. Entire sides of buildings could, in the blink of an eye, explode in a rainbow of colors, or melt into threedimensional scenes, or, as was most common, burst into news and advertisements. They were like old Internet pop-up ads you couldn’t run away from. But as she walked deeper into the Serpent Quarter, the buildings became older, and the perfectly paved streets more rutted. Atmosphere, she reminded herself.

She ignored the constant barrage of media lighting up almost all available flat, vertical surfaces. Hunching her shoulders against the chill, she drew her leather coat around herself and turned the collar up. She probably should have worn one of the hats she had seen in her closet. All the women had them—ranging from jaunty little caps to enormous flying-saucer affairs. And they weren’t plain old hats, either. They glowed, and played music, or the news, or looked like mini versions of the mediaplaying buildings. Capitalism was alive and well in this kingdom; she wouldn’t doubt some of these women were being paid to carry advertisements as fashion statements.

Cam stopped on a street corner to consult her map. There were streets, but no traffic on them other than pedestrian. Cars were restricted to the magroads and electric freeways. Above her head, a virtual air force of sleek jets crisscrossed the sky, taking off and landing vertically from the tops of nearby buildings.

“Headed out for the evening?” asked a pleasant male voice.

Cam spun around. The man looked familiar. She squinted at him in the glow of the streetlight. “Minister Hong?”

“Horace.” He smiled and placed his hands behind his back. He wasn’t in his official government outfit but an elegant suit. And it was not the kind of clothing one would wear to the Serpent Quarter, if she actually knew what kind of clothing one wore to an area that looked like . . . this.

“Horace, yes. What a surprise to see you here.”

“And you. Do you have plans to stay out for the evening?”

“It was getting a little boring in the palace.” As an afterthought, she added, “Waiting for Prince Kyber to decide he wants to see me. Are you sure you can’t get me in to talk to him?”

Hong flashed white teeth. “Why don’t we discuss it over a drink?”

Why don’t we
not, she thought. Hong was a handsome, elegant man of Chinese ancestry; he’d been nothing but polite to her, but there was something about him tonight that made her want to walk in the opposite direction. Very fast.

She fought the urge to check her watch. If the Rim Rider was in the bar, she didn’t want to miss him. And now it looked like the kindly minister wanted to tag along. “I can’t. Another time?”

“I know of a place you’ll enjoy.”

She really wanted to escape. Mama’s manners lessons were becoming a more distant memory by the minute. “Another night, Horace. I had my heart set on something.”

A rock bounced off Hong’s shoulder. He glanced at Cam in surprise, flicking at his suit as if chasing away a fly. “Did you just get hit with a—,” she began. Another small rock sailed over the street and plunked off the side of his head. “Are you okay?”

“I am. I—” This time he ducked in time: a rock bounced off the side of the building.

She took him by the arm. “You’d better get out of the street before—”

Another rock bounced off his chest. People were staring at them. Cam pulled the minister down behind a closed produce stand. He was dabbing at his head. “Has
this ever happened before?” she asked under her breath.

“Never.”

“Someone’s definitely aiming for you. Is there a group that might have a problem with a government decision you may have made?”

“The prince makes the decisions. We only act on them.”

Why didn’t that surprise her? A rock tore through the canopy of the produce stand. “That was close, Horace. Stay here.” She peered out from behind the stand, waiting for the next rock. When it came, she was going to see who was throwing it.

She waited, intent and alert, her fighter-pilot instincts turning on. Almost on schedule, another rock zinged past. Judging by the sound of a muffled “oomph,” it found its target.

And she had found hers.

Someone—it looked like a child, a boy—ducked around the street corner. Cam took off after him.

The rock thrower popped into view for another launch. Cam jumped him, grabbing him around the waist and pinning his skinny arms. “You ought to be playing baseball.” The rock in his hand dropped onto her toe. “Ow. What are you doing? Do you know that’s Minister Hong? He’s very important. He could arrest you.”

The boy couldn’t be more than seven or eight. His eyes grew huge at the mention of arrest.

“Tell me why you were throwing rocks, or I’m going to call the police.” She wasn’t sure how that was done around here, but she’d figure it out.

The boy struggled. “I didn’t do it. I didn’t.”

“I saw you with my own eyes.”

“It wasn’t my idea. It was hers! She paid me to do it.”

Cam followed the boy’s frightened gaze—and couldn’t believe what she saw: a teenage girl with two long braids darting away at the other end of the alley.

“Zhurihe!” Cam released the boy and took off after her.

The girl jumped a low fence. Cam leaped after her. She turned down another alley. Cam stayed on her tail. “Zhurihe! Wait!”

The alleyway narrowed. A pile of ceramic pots blocked the other end. Zhurihe jumped over the pots, toppling them. She scrambled to her feet seconds before Cam reached her.

Cam stumbled over the fallen pots. Liquid splashed onto her clothes. It smelled sour, almost rotten, and now it was all over her.
Well, this night was a total waste of makeup.
After more than an hour spent getting all prettied up in hopes of seeing Kublai, she’d ended up taking a bath in kimchi!

“Zhurihe! Stop, please.” The girl sprinted once more onto the main sidewalk. “I know it’s you. I won’t hurt you.”

They darted in and out of crowds of pedestrians, some who watched with curiosity, others with amusement. Zhurihe threw a wild glance over her shoulder—and collided with a large man. Down she went.

Cam was on her in a second. “Gotcha!” She locked her arms around the squirming girl, squeezing her tighter when she struggled. “My sister—she always runs away,” she gasped out to the shocked man. He seemed more concerned about getting away than worried that Zhurihe and Cam looked nothing alike.

Cam wrestled Zhurihe into an alley between two old buildings. They spun, fighting and breathless, bouncing off the brick walls. The efforts Cam had spent sweeping up her hair were for nothing, too. It spun tangled and wild, whipping around her shoulders. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice you in the palace? Did you think I wouldn’t recognize you?”

Zhurihe’s struggles had lessened some, but Cam suspected she had a lot of fight left in her. “And what’s with the clone army,
Joo-Eun?
Dr. Park told me you were simple, and getting simpler by the day. You’d better be careful who you fool. Not everyone will take the lies as well as I do. I think Dr. Park might want to weed you out of the gene pool, like she did with the others.”

Zhurihe made a sound of such raw pain that Cam loosened her grip. Zhurihe spun away from her, cheeks red from tears and exertion. Cam knew she should be furious with the girl for all the lies, but the expression on Zhurihe’s face broke her heart.

“I’m sorry,” Cam said. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

Zhurihe bit her lip, appearing to fight to compose herself. “But you are right. They could make the decision to kill me with no more authority needed than that required to put down a pet. That’s all we clones are to them—disposable workers and pets. Experiments, all. Prince Kyber, the entire cabinet—they have the power to change it but they don’t. I have the power to make them notice us, and I will.”

“Cloning is still new then.”

“Yes, but there are thousands of us, and more every day. We are feared and valued. We are freaks and wonders of scientific accomplishment.” Zhurihe turned her head.
Her breathing ragged, she ran her hands up and down her arms. “With the human race now the creator of life, who needs God?”

“We need God to make sure we don’t kill people like you,” Cam said quietly.

Zhurihe’s chin came up. “You called me a person.”

“Isn’t that what you are?”

The girl’s distraught expression changed to the smile Cam had once counted on to lift her flagging spirits in the bleak days after waking from stasis. “You’re also a liar, Zhurihe, and a cheat. A controlling, mean little wench. Maybe you clones are more human than anyone thinks.”

Zhurihe’s lower lip trembled.

“You hurt me, Zhurihe. You told me everything was gone when you knew this was here.”

“I knew if you thought this existed, you’d want to come here.”

“And there’s something wrong with that?”

“You would have wanted to find Banzai Maguire.”

Cam’s heart stumbled at the mention of the name. “What do you know about her that I don’t?” Her temper flared. She snatched the girl by the collar and half dragged her close. “You know how much she means to me. If you lie this time, Zhurihe, I’ll . . . I’ll—”

“I know nothing more than you do—I swear it, Cam. This time you have to believe me. She disappeared after leaving the kingdom. Before that, I helped her free Tyler Armstrong from the dungeons. They escaped, and almost died trying.”

“Almost died how?”

“Assassins. UCE. It happened in New Seoul.”