The Mk 19 MGL on the bow of the RHIB started firing grenades toward his men. James and Wesson fell to the ground, the grenades fell amongst his men, exploding with devastating effect. In less than two seconds a dozen grenades destroyed his team.

  James lifted his head, looking out at the battle, his hand on his assault rifle. The RHIB stopped at the far end of the dock, five Order terrorists leaped from the boat and blurred along the dock firing MP7 submachine guns. One of the special forces soldiers fighting Li Wu froze. She blurred past him, her sword flashing through a high arc. The man’s head flew off his shoulders and rolled along the dock.

  Bizarrely, the man’s headless body remained stiffly upright. What the fuck? What the hell was going on?

  Stinger missiles fired from the quad mount in the middle of the RHIB, streaking up into the night sky toward the circling nightfalcons.

  Damn the orders. James got to one knee, swinging his rifle up to his shoulder. Sighting down the barrel along the dock, he looked for a clear target. This mission has gone to hell. I’ve got to do something to fix it.

  Chapter Seven

  “Flavor is a universal language understood by everyone.” - Chef Gang Wu, the first and last lines of the Noodle House Menu

  “If you love others, life will of necessity be tragic, beautiful, but tragic.” - Gang Wu, father, husband, and widower

  “Effective innovation is the child of mastery of both technique and self.” - Gang Wu, Ramp master, wielder of the White Dragon

  * * *

  Boston, June 11th, 20:29

  The grenades boomed, and cracked.

  The Shadowstone troops fell away in disarray, annihilated by the surprise attack from the RHIB. Defensive flares streamed through the night sky as the circling helicopters attempted to evade the missiles streaking toward them. First one, and then another helicopter exploded in balls of flame, falling from the sky in showers of burning debris. One helicopter survived as both missiles simply stopped working within a thirty-yard radius of the black nightfalcon, before tumbling harmlessly away.

  Anton scrambled to defend himself, parrying, blocking and backing slowly along the dock as he dodged the rain of blows from the praetorian facing him.

  The vampire reversed, moving backward, as two men in combat fatigues and carrying long katanas rushed past Anton to engage him. The vampire’s eyes flattened with grim determination, he picked up his pace as he furiously defended against the two Order warriors. In a moment, Anton found himself able to take a breath and assess the broader battle.

  In the brief respite; he took in the RHIB at the end of the dock, a single warrior moved from the bow where the grenade launcher was to the stern where a heavy machine gun stood ready for war. Near the RHIB, three Order members and a dripping blond praetorian with a battle axe in one hand and a sword in the other traded blows.

  I thought he was dead - he’s back.

  Above the crane gantries, the surviving Shadowstone helicopter hovered, its waist gun unmanned. Beneath it on the dock, Gang and Armitage were blurring around each other in a display of awesome mastery.

  Li walked away from the strangely upright, headless body of the Japanese samurai vampire. The Green Dragon was red with his blood. Flicking her sword, she cleaned it, while heading toward where her father fought Armitage.

  Before the gates of the warehouse lay the smashed remains of a score of Shadowstone operatives. However, one was upright on one knee at the edge of his fallen men. It was the suit who had led the Shadowstone team on the night his mother was murdered and vengeful rage flooded through Anton’s soul.

  The man pointed his assault rifle down the dock, his head tilted to sight his targets. The under-barrel grenade launcher fired and the assault rifle smoked as the operative followed the grenade with a withering burst of fire.

  Anton yelled, “Grenade!”

  The grenade exploded at the end of the dock, bullets streaming toward the RHIB, the Order warriors, and the blond vampire.

  I can take him out, then join Li and Gang against Armitage - we can kill them both tonight.

  * * *

  The General’s helicopter swooped down, looming above them, as Gang Wu and Chloe Armitage continued their one on one combat.

  Gang rested deeper into the silence as his sequence of attacks and defenses neared their ultimate expression. The world shrank, the smoke and the screams of the wounded and dying drifted away, and time slowed to a crawl. The White Dragon met the Red Dragon in another clash of blades and the White Dragon’s blade slid down to the Red Dragon’s Guard.

  Gang stepped back and they broke away from each other. Armitage raised her sword up, revealing the intended gap, and Gang drove through it with the White Dragon.

  This is it.

  The White Dragon pierced Armitage’s black armor just below her left breast. The blade drove deep into her, its point erupting in half a dozen blood-soaked inches from her back.

  The first strike would not kill her, but with the edge of the White Dragon facing next to Armitage’s heart, the reversing cut as he pulled the blade free would fatally slice her heart in two.

  Gang began withdrawing his blade. Pulling back on the White Dragon, it began to bite further in toward Armitage’s heart.

  In a sudden movement that blurred before his eyes. Armitage’s left hand fell from her sword’s handle, grabbing his left wrist before he could continue to pull on his sword.

  The bones in his wrist instantly gave way before Armitage’s titanic strength. He ignored the agony of her crushing grip, focusing all of his power on completing a fatal cut.

  His movement halted, frozen in place.

  Swinging his free hand wide, he knew that his left hand was lost.

  The Red Dragon flashed before his eyes, instantly severing his hand.

  The sequence was over - it had failed.

  Ignoring the shock that raced up his arm, Gang crouched, sweeping with his foot. Armitage leaped over the attack, drawing the White Dragon from her chest as she flew over him.

  Lightning quick, Gang rose, turning and leaping backward a dozen feet.

  Armitage was faster; flying through the air, she landed in front of him, lunging forward with the White and Red Dragon swords.

  Gang grimaced as the blades sheared through his chest, pushing out through his back in a spray of blood. He tried to gasp but wheezed as blood rushed into his lungs.

  Armitage and Gang stared at each other in a moment of deadly intimacy and then she drew the blades out. He fell backward and lay still on the cold concrete of the dock, his blood rapidly pooling around him.

  Armitage staggered, a trickle of blood breaking past her lips. Dropping the White Dragon, she clutched at her chest. Above her the nightfalcon hovered lower, its rotors perilously close to the top of the gantry. With inhuman speed and power, she leaped upward into the open cabin of the helicopter. The nightfalcon’s engines roared, it veered up and away from the battle.

  * * *

  Li screamed with horror.

  Anton spun back around. His rage evaporating, he dashed forward toward her. In front of him, Gang slid off two sword blades as Armitage staggered back, dropped the White Dragon and then leaped upward into the cabin of her hovering nightfalcon. A hard knot engulfed his chest, choking his throat.

  He ran forward silently, bullets zipping past his head. The surviving Shadowstone operative was retreating back into the warehouse, firing short bursts of covering fire as he left the dock.

  Above the gantries, the black helicopter’s turbines roared under full power as it leaped upward, veering away over the Mystic River. He got a glimpse of Armitage standing alone within the cabin bay, blood covering the left side of her chest armor. She was staring at her gauntleted right hand which was pressed tightly under her left breast.

  Gang had got her?

  A line of tracers erupted from the .50 caliber machine gun on the RHIB. They sparked off the armor of the helicopter and with them appeared a row of holes, stitching along the hull of the nightfalcon from nose to tail. The armor piercing bullets struck Armitage just as she looked up and she vanished in a cloud of pink mist.

  The helicopter’s engines stuttered, black smoke pouring from their sides. It dropped like a stone into the Mystic River, landing with a huge splash, and sinking beneath the surface in seconds.

  Anton’s throat loosened, he exulted, “She’s dead! She’s dead!”

  He ran over to where Li cradled her father’s head, dropping to his knees opposite her.

  Gang’s chest was soaked in blood.

  Anton’s heart sank, his throat constricted again. The nightmare of losing his parents rolled back over the horizon and swallowed his world.

  Steepling his hands over his nose and mouth, he whispered, “Oh no.”

  * * *

  Li cradled her father’s head. She gently stroked his face with blood stained hands as tears streamed from her eyes.

  Gang blinked, gurgling as blood trickled from the edge of his mouth. He whispered weakly, “Lift me up.”

  “Father, lie still, stay with us.”

  Gang snorted, coughing blood, and smiled wanly. “Always the disobedient one.”

  “Father! Don’t leave us,” Li cried, bending her head over her father and crying with terror.

  Gang began to push himself up, grimacing with pain. Li and Anton both reached beneath him, bringing his shoulders up so that he was almost sitting. Anton moved his knee behind him, supporting him with his thigh as Gang reclined back. His face was pale with blood loss. Dragging in a breath, he turned to face Li and smiled at her, his eyes glistening in the flood lights.

  The sounds of combat on the dock faded away as Li trembled with shock. Old memories flooded her mind. Of a thirteen-year-old girl holding her father’s hand with too tight a grip. Of the coffins of her mother and older brother standing on rails before her. Of attendants removing the supports and the coffins descending into graves cut from the snow-covered ground. She remembered tears freezing on her cheeks before they could fall. The cold of that day was a pale echo of the frigid depths of sorrow that now brushed her heart with icy fingers.

  Gang struggled to breathe. Each breath was harder than the one before, and each gap longer before he drew the next breath. He stared at his daughter’s face, never moving his gaze.

  He lifted his right hand, stroking her cheek, his eyes were moist as he whispered, “My beautiful daughter, you are everything I could wish for in a child. I’m so proud to be your father.”

  Li’s heart broke in two, tears rolling down her cheeks. Her father’s hand wrapped gently around hers and squeezed. “Don’t worry little one, Tatsu and Qiang are waiting for me.” His eyes blinked, focusing past her shoulder, he whispered, “I can see them now.”

  Gang shivered. With his right hand, he held her shoulder with a grip that was an echo of his former strength. He whispered, “I’m sorry Li, I wasn’t enough. Don’t face her alone … she’s fast … faster than anyone.”

  Li sobbed. “Father … Father … no!”

  Gang coughed again, fresh blood spilling past his lips. His eyes lost focus again, he whispered something that Li could not hear.

  She tilted her head, bending closer so that her ear was only an inch from his mouth. Gang whispered again, his voice faint, “There is … a letter.”

  He drew in another ragged breath. She could feel the agony radiating from him as he struggled to tell her something. Gang breathed out, saying at the last, “With a … friend.”

  His head lolled back, his hand falling limply away.

  Li howled with inconsolable grief, her arms wrapping around her father’s body.

  * * *

  Anton stroked Li’s back, kneeling tensely beside her. Black storm clouds thundering behind his eyes.

  The two remaining praetorians fell to the blades of the five Order warriors. Silence descended on the dock, only broken by Li’s quiet sobs. She cradled her father’s body, rocking back and forth as Anton rubbed her back. He looked across the river, there was no sign of the black helicopter. He looked up. A tall, lithe man with long dark wavy hair tied back in a wet ponytail, a short mustache and a close-cropped beard was striding toward him. He flicked blood off his sword, sheathed it, stood a yard from Gang’s feet and looked down.

  His lips pressed into a thin line and his brown eyes tightened with heart-felt loss. He offered softly, “Vale well my old friend.”

  He looked at Anton. “I am -”

  “Too late!” Anton snapped, putting Gang down and leaping to his feet. “If you had arrived five minutes earlier, Gang would still be alive.”

  The tall man declared calmly, “We arrived as fast as possible. There is no time for these … accusations - we must act quickly.” He put a gentle hand on Li’s shoulder. “Li, we must pick up your father and go.”

  Li looked up at him, her face wet with tears and whispered, “Francis …?”

  Is he serious? “Hang on a second,” Anton interjected. “There’s another Shadowstone operative back in the warehouse. I saw him run in there. This job is not finished.”

  “Yes, it is. We’re not here to hunt down random humans.”

  Li stood up. The men around her fell silent as the rest of the Order team approached. She declared decisively, “Francis, we will go with you.” Turning to Anton, she asked, “Could you please help me with my father’s body?”

  Anton blinked; his heart torn in two for Li’s loss. If Li needed him to crawl across broken glass right now, he’d do it. He nodded and conceded, “Of course.” He picked up Gang like he weighed nothing and cradled him in his arms.

  Li walked over to where the White Dragon rested on the ground, its blade covered in her father’s blood. She stared at the blade for a moment, suddenly turning back to Anton in horror. “Father!” she screamed. Rushing over to Anton, she felt for a pulse on her father’s throat.

  “What is it?” Anton asked.

  Francis frowned, placing his hand on the handle of his katana.

  “Her blood was on the blade before she stabbed him, he could be transforming now.”

  “Unless there is too much damage, in which case the vampire blood will not take,” Francis noted, but he also felt for a pulse on Gang’s throat. “No. … Thankfully he is truly gone.”

  “Better dead than a vampire, but better alive than dead,” Anton observed darkly, staring at Francis.

  “Look,” Francis stated, a spark of indignation flaring behind his eyes. “I put my whole team at risk to be here tonight, on a mission that looks a lot like a trap. Now I came here to extract Gang, Li and yourself - but if it means so much to you, go and find that fellow that ran off into the warehouse. I don’t need you to come with us.”

  Li turned to Anton and declared, “Leave it, Anton, come with us.”

  Sighing, Anton conceded, “Li, if you’re going, then so am I.”

  “Are we all sorted now?” Francis inquired, with a hint of annoyance in his voice. “It’s time to move before vampire reinforcements arrive.”

  “Reinforcements?” Anton queried.

  “They’re already on their way. Praetorians are monitored by the Panopticon, and it is standard procedure to intervene in force when they are killed. They will come out of New York. They will be here within an hour.”

  Francis turned, striding back down the dock toward the RHIB, the rest of his team following him.

  Li scooped up the White Dragon, ramped and flicked it so all the blood on it flew away. A moment later she was walking beside Anton, reaching out, she put her hand on her father’s head.

  Anton followed Francis as the team formed into a group around Li, and himself. The Order members held their MP7s ready, scanning the horizon for any activity.

  “How can you be sure more praetorians will come?”

  Francis glanced at Anton. “Brutal experience.” He suddenly stooped, picking up a smartphone off the dock, he frowned, fingering a slash across his left chest pocket.

  “That was close,” Francis observed.

  “Yeah, you nearly lost your phone,” cracked a burly, heavyset man with thick red hair, who looked like he would fit in perfectly as a linebacker in any leading NFL side.

  Francis raised a quizzical eyebrow, his lip curling wryly. He put the phone into a thigh pouch on his combat fatigues and continued forward.

  They reached the RHIB, and everyone climbed on board. Anton gently laid Gang down on the floor of the RHIB just in front of the operator console and sat next to Li.

  She picked up her father’s hand and cradled it with her own.

  Francis directed, “Peter, take us to the pickup point, it’s time to go home.”

  The burly man replied, “Sure, Boss.” Pushing the throttle forward, he steered the RHIB into the river.

  And where is home - really? Anton studied the team, while slowly rubbing Li’s back.

  I have no home.

  * * *

  James Haley emerged from the shadows of the warehouse.

  The RHIB had vanished along with the Order of Thoth. The wreckage of the two nightfalcons continued to burn where it lay in two piles on the edges of the site. Since there had been no order to lift the BPD cordon, the Boston Fire Department would not attend. The third nightfalcon had fallen into the Mystic River and presumably was on the bottom of the river.

  And General Armitage with it?

  James checked the bodies of his men first. They were all dead, killed by the grenades from the RHIB. He was thorough by nature, he double checked, finding one of his team still alive - Louise Wesson.

  She was still breathing, but with few visible marks on her body. He assumed that she’d been concussed by the explosions. He rolled her over, placing her into the recovery position. He picked up her smartphone, as his own had been smashed by a piece of shrapnel during the grenade attack. It accepted his thumbprint as all North American Shadowstone phones were programmed to do.

 

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