"The Evisceration Effect"
"The Evisceration Effect"
10/22/2011
I.
The man screamed a long, loud howl of fear and agony that echoed up and down the Financial District. His body contracted and seemed to collapse into itself. He dropped down to the wet ground with a soggy thump, and a sickening stench filled the air. Even Sheng Mo-Yuan gagged and clapped a hand over his mouth to keep from suddenly vomiting.
The corpse had flattened out where it lay, only its rib cage still protruding up. From every orifice, thin brown fluid oozed out onto the paving, fluid which reeked worse than anything Sheng had ever encountered before. It had all been so sudden. The informant, Lou Fielding, had stepped out from a shadowed doorway and barely had a chance to say, "Wait. I don't feel so good..." before his scream and gruesome death had happened.
At three-thirty AM, this side avenue of the Wall Street area was as nearly deserted as any location in Manhattan ever got. The boxlike skyscrapers all around them were so tall and flat that it gave the dizzying sensation of being in the bottom of a hole. As Sheng dug an oxygen membrane from the inner pocket of his suit jacket, he handed a second one to Uncle Pao right behind him. In another instant, they both had fastened the loops of the devices over their ears and they were now breathing through a clear film filtered out poisons or smoke. The membranes could even extract enough oxygen from sea water to allow a person to breathe normally below the surface.
With the Trom-designed membranes over their lower faces, they could only smell the putrid aroma vaguely. It was enough to allow them to avoid retching. Sheng Mo-Yuan had been fighting the Midnight War for over a decade and he had thought he was a hardened to grisly experiences as anyone could be.. but that bloodcurdling scream had taken him off-guard. He stepped closer toward the body, careful not to let any of the steaming hot fluids touch his polished dress shoes. To an observer, Sheng seemed to be a Northern Chinese, no more than five feet five inches tall and in good athetic shape. His tailored dark brown suit with its off-yellow shirt and brown tie fit well and gave a businesslike impresion. But he was more than he seemed. The beaked eagle-like nose and high cheekbones contradicted the tawny skin tones and eyelid fold and thick coarse black hair. Sheng was actually from the realm of Chujir, believed by them to be the ancestral home of the Han people.
Bending over the corpse, Sheng tried to observe coldly and unemotionally what had happened. Fielding was lying face up, arms and legs extended, his face turned to one side. The man had been wearing dark slacks and a light blue polo shirt. As far as Sheng could see, the rib cage still retained its shape but the abdomen below it had flattened out to show the spine clearly connecting to the pelvis. The upper chest had also collapsed. That stinking goo had erupted under pressure from the anus, the mouth and nose. In the chilly night air, vapor from the fluid rose as streamers.
It seemed impossible, but all the man's internal organs had left his torso in seconds. What could cause that? How? The Chujiran adventurer shakily straightened up and took a few steps back away from the horrible sight.
Behind him, Uncle Pao muttered, "Far be it from me to bother the Great Detective at his work! No no no. But a woman is watching us from across the street." The seventy-year-old Chinese man smacked Sheng hard on the back of the head. "Now she is running away. Are you going to wait until she is out of sight?"
In fact, as soon as Uncle Pao had spoken, Sheng had glared around and spotted the woman. Even as the old man spoke, the Chujiran had shifted the gralic force in his body into enhanced speed. He was hurtling across the deserted street and on top of the fleeing woman within a second, catching her before she had gone more than a few steps. Before she knew she was being apprehended, he had caught her by one wrist.
The woman gave an excellent imitation of an enraged wildcat. She vigorously kicked at Sheng's legs and punched at his face with her free hand, but couldn't do much damage. His Kumundu training made his responses automatic and he swayed back so her blows barely grazed him. Feeling she wasn't having any effect and aware from the strength of his grip that she couldn't hope to break free, the young woman settled down at once.
"Whatever you did to that poor man, don't you dare try it on me!" she hissed. "My father is Raul Colorado. His boys will find you no matter where you run and you'll be sorry..."
"Whoa, whoa, give me a second," Sheng interrupted. Still holding her wrist tightly, he dug in his jacket with his other hand and held up his leather billfold so she could see it in the light from a nearby lamppost. "Look. See that, that's my Private Investigator license, and that's my ID card as a consultant for Department 21 Black of the FBI. Take a good look."
"Oh come on," she snapped. "How can I tell if they're real? Let me go. I haven't even tried screaming yet."
Sheng took in his impressions. She was maybe twenty-four, tall as he was, slender in a plain dark print dress with a scoop neckline. A wave of jet black hair poured down her back past her shoulder blades. He saw a furious oval-shaped face with pale skin and light-colored eyes, either blue or green but he couldn't be sure in the uncertain light.
"Flora Colorado, right?" he said. "Raul Colorado's only child. He's deliberately kept you away from his rackets."
By this time, Uncle Pao had limped up to join them. In his early seventies, gaunt and bony in his black pants and long-sleeved white dress shirt, Pao was not an imposing sight. Grey hair stood up stiffly in several directions from his head as if he had just gotten out of bed. His round-rimmed glasses had thick lenses which seemed nearly opaque. And when he spoke, his voice was shrill.
"Are you both fools?" he demanded. "The evil force which killed that man may strike again! It may give any one of us an unpleasant death. And you children waste time flirting."
"We are hardly flirting..." began Sheng before the words choked in his throat. A sudden intolerable burning pain had filled his chest.
II.
Steam poured of the Chujiran's body into the night air. Sheng fell heavily to his hands and knees, coughing and gasping. With surprising alacrity, Uncle Pao rushed to crouch next to his nephew and wrapped bony arms around the detective's shoulders. "My child!" cried the old man in anguish. "No! Not you!"
"Wait..." Sheng rasped, trembling visibly. The instant he had felt strange, he had instinctively channeled his ability into resilience. Gralic force flowed through him to reinforce every cell, every muscle and bone, until he was as close to being indestructible as a mortal being could be. While in this state, bullets ricocheted off him and knives bent. In another moment, the vapors rising from within him eased up. "Uncle, run to our car..." he managed to say. "Flora, go with him."
"What? Why should I trust you two?" she retorted sharply.
Sheng forced himself up to sway unsteadily but remained on his feet. "Please. You are in great danger." Even in the dim light, sweat could be seen dripping off his hair and his face glistened with it. The tone in his voice was compelling. Hurrying beside Uncle Pao, the young woman ran down Wall Street with her heels clicking loudly.
Left behind, even though he was still suffering greatly, Sheng no longer feared he was going to die in the next few seconds. His gift of focusing the transcendental gralic energy into himself gave him either increased strength, speed or durability and he had seldom been more grateful for it.
But it was a conscious effect. If he passed out, his body would revert to normal and he would be killed. Even now, he could smell burning fabric as his clothing began to smolder. The Chujiran looked wildly in all directions and saw only one thing out of the expected. Parking one block away, facing him, sat a white panel truck with its windows down. As Sheng drew his dart gun, that truck started up and peeled out around the corner and out of sight.
At once, the agony in his vitals eased up. He still felt sick and dizzy but it no longer felt as if he was being burned alive. Sheng exhaled and nearly fell, then wiped his wet face with the back of a hand. What had that attack been? If he had not possessed his special ability, he would be as dead as poor Lou Fielding was. The realization shook him more than he expected. He was used to feeling invincible.
With a squealing of brakes, his beloved silver-grey Ferrari 458 Italia swung up next to him. Sheng's heart sank even more to see Uncle Pao behind the wheel. But this was no time to try to take over control, since he felt barely able to walk, much less drive. Seeing Flora Colorado already in the front passenger seat, Sheng yanked open the rear door and tumbled rather than climbed into the back. Still shaking, the Chujiran detective popped open the top buttons of his shirt and undid the knot of his tie. His clothing felt hot to the touch and sodden with the sweat that had run from his body.
"I can't believe you're still alive," Flora blurted. "I mean, I'm glad but still... we should get you to a hospital right away. Metro General is only a little ways north of here."
"Hah!" snorted Uncle Pao, whipping past red lights and stop signs as if he had been told they had no significance. "That shows what you know. Western doctors will cut him up and charge him a million dollars. No. He needs healing tea, it has been in the family for generations. Cold ginseng tea and rest will restore his balance."
"Yes," Sheng said from the back. "I am feeling better. Go to our office, Uncle. But please, slow down to under the sound barrier. If we hit anything at this speed..."
"Feh. When I have ever had an accident? Don't answer that." Zipping past a startled taxi that swerved reflexively away from the speeding sport car, Pao jabbed a thin finger at the woman in the seat next to him. "And you, young lady, need to start spilling words without delay."
"What?" she replied. "Well, I... Yes, I'm Flora Colorado. My father is indeed well known in the city. He is a real estate developer. He finds properties for Middle East investors."
"He is a crook and a cheat and a mobster," Uncle Pao scoffed. "Your college education was paid for with laundered money."
"Well, I never...! I must say, you don't temper your words!"
"With age comes wisdom," Pao said. In Cantonese, he told Sheng not to trust this woman any further than he would trust a spitting cobra. Sheng replied in the same language that he agreed. Then the old man added, "Also, she is too skinny to bear you sons. Her waist seems like a strand of cartilage holding her torso together."
"And stick to English!" Flora yelled. "It's so rude to talk about me when I can't understand what you're saying."
"Let's establish some basic facts," said Sheng, beginning to feel like he was nearly normal again. "What were you doing standing on a Wall Street corner at three in the morning?"
"Oh, I was keeping an eye on Lou. Poor Lou. He confided in me that he was going to meet with you. He said he had learned about something too dangerous for me to learn. Lou said he had read about you in the papers, that you ran a detective agency called 'Fist For Hire.'" She gave a derisive chuckle. "Honestly. I was worried you would swindle him out of his cash and not protect him at all."
"Yeah? And exactly what did you think you could do to stop me if that was my intent?" Sheng asked. He was wriggling out of his suit jacket, which was as wet as if it had been soaked in a bucket of water. His mouth felt sticky, so he knew he was dehydrated.
"Oh, I would have thought of something," the young woman replied rather breezily. "Listen, what do you think happened to Lou? What was happening to you, for that matter? You looked like a lobster being steamed."
"Ah, here is a spot," interrupted Uncle Pao. He swung the sports car in behind a parked Datsun, stopping less than an inch behind the other vehicle's rear bumper. "And our office is right on the next block. The corner of Canal Street. Your complaints about my driving are without foundation, nephew."
Sheng did not reply as he emerged from the back seat onto the sidewalk. In truth, there was no way that Pao could be his actual flesh-and-blood uncle. Sheng Mo-Yuan was from the adjacent realm of Chujir, with no relations in this world. But Pao was convinced they were related and nothing could shake that conviction. The coincidence that they shared the same last name clinched it for Sheng Pao-Wang. After a surprisingly short period of resistance, the Chujiran had decided to go along with the pretense and make the old man happy.
Maybe it only meant that Sheng missed having a family, his teammates at the KDF were so unlike him culturally. In many ways, Uncle Pao resembled Sheng's real clan back in Chujir, both in appearance and in mannerisms. And he had learned enough Cantonese over the years to be able to converse easily with Pao. Now, as the old man scrambled out from behind the steering wheel, Sheng silently held out his hand to demand the return of his keys.
"Let's head up to the office," Sheng said. "Flora, please come with us. Maybe it hasn't occured to you yet, but you may be in as much danger of having your insides boil out of you as I was."
III.
Sheng's office on the third floor of the ancient Hartwicke Building was one large high-ceilinged room with a wide window looking down at the street. A substantial oak desk sat near that window, with several straight-backed wooden chairs arranged in front of it. Along the left wall as one entered was a leather couch with a few blankets and pillows folded at one end, as well as a coffee table and two chairs more comfortable than the ones for clients. In one corner were two doors, concealing a closet and a tiny bathroom.
As soon as they had entered, Sheng directed Flora Colorado to take a seat on the couch. She had become visibly agitated on the way up the stairs from the lobby, and her dark blue eyes were bulging in an unattractive manner. When she sat, she crossed her arms tightly across her body and tucked her feet back under the couch. It seemed the gravity of the situation was sinking in.
"Uncle, would you please brew some proper tea for everyone?" Sheng asked. As the old man eagerly put a kettle on the hot plate in one corner, Sheng himself placed a ceramic mug of water in the microwave and, when it was hot, crumpled up a handful of dark purple leaves into it and sipped carefully.
A refreshing minty aroma filled the office. Flora perked up. "Oh, that smells wonderful. What is it?"
Finishing the mug with relief, Sheng sighed. "It's a healing herbal preparation. Not for everyone's body chemistry, I'm afraid." He could not tell her the truth. The secret of Tagra was that it was only available in limited quantities to knights of Tel Shai; the plant was only grown at that Order, and Tel Shai forbade sharing it with outsiders. It was Tagra that boosted the knights' healing abilities far beyond what medical science could explain. Tagra extended the active lifespan, protected against nearly all diseases and promoted clarity of thought. As soon as he drank that mug, Sheng felt the lingering damage from the weird attack fade from his body. He felt alert and energetic again.
"Never mind the boy," Uncle Pao grumbled as he brought over a lacquered tray holding cups, saucers and a sugar bowl. "He has the manners of a junkyard dog. This is the finest ginseng from the Snow Tiger Mountains. Here, sip it slowly."
Feeling back to normal, Sheng studied Flora Colorado thoughtfully. Her face was pale and her shoulders were raised defensively. "You witnessed something horrifying tonight, miss."
"Tell me about it," she replied. "Poor old Lou. What a way to go! And then whatever it was tried to kill you next. After that, it might have gone after me..."
"See if there are any of the scones left, Uncle." Sheng got a change of clothing from the closet and stepped into the bathroom. Cramped as it was, with a shower cabinet that would not accomodate anyone much bigger than himself, the Chujiran scrubbed himself thoroughly, dried with a rough towel and got the stale sweat off him. His skin was still raw and sensitive. He put on a Navy blue suit with a powder blue shirt and black knitted silk tie. All the contents of his pockets had been transferred and he looked as if he had just gotten ready to face the day, although it was past four in the morning.
Before leaving the bathroom, he unclipped his Link and got on the Internet for a few minutes, studying the information that ran across the screen. Sheng made a non-commital grunt at what he had learned, put the Trom communications devices back on his belt and emerged into his office with an expressionless face.
Uncle Pao and Flora were glumly nibbling on hot buttered scones, while the old man frightened the girl even more than she already was with tales about the creatures of the night he and Sheng had fought. "Then there are the Skinwalkers. Their favorite trick is to make a noise like a baby crying. When you naturally go to investigate, they yank your head back and rip your throat open with their teeth. Skinwalkers look like starving dogs standing on their hind legs..."
"Oh my God, Uncle, what are you trying to do to her?" asked Sheng. "Miss Colorado, we need to get moving. Whoever was behind those attacks, if they know who I am, then they know where this office is. And they may come to... well, eviscerate us."
"Eviscerate!" she said with a shudder. "What a word. Listen, Mr Sheng, perhaps you haven't thought of it, but what if this terror is a natural phenomenon? Like the spontaneous human combustion you sometimes read about? Or some awful flesh-melting virus that our government has developed and which has escaped?"
"That's possible," he admitted. "But my instincts lead me to think that this some sort of weapon. Darthan sorcery, perhaps. Voodoo or that sort of spell. In any case, we should not stay here." He turned out the reading lamp on his desk and motioned Uncle Pao and Flora toward the door to the hall.
The young woman resisted getting up. "You know what, let me stay here. Why should I be any safer out there next to you? I mean, you've already been attacked by this Evisceration virus or weapon or whatever it is? I'll call my dad to sent some bodyguards."
"You'll be safer at KDF headquarters," Sheng said firmly, holding the door open. "The building has strong defenses against any sort of attack. And if my teammates are there, you'll be as well protected there as anywhere on Earth."
As he shrugged on an open cloth vest over his shirt, Pao chortled. "For once, nephew thinks clearly. That place is a fortress and his friends are Tel Shai knights. You would be wise to cooperate."
Reluctantly, Flora Colorado gave in. She followed Sheng and Uncle Pao down to the street where traffic was getting sparse in the hour between the bars closing and people starting to go to work. Once they were on the sidewalk, though, she balked as Sheng started leading them away from where his car had been parked.
"You're going the wrong way..." she began but the Chujiran cut her off with an impatient gesture. He led everyone to a dead end alley further down the block, where the dumpster from an Italian restaurant and some ruptured black garbage bags made an uninviting arena.
"Uncle Pao, please step back by the sidewalk and keep watch. Miss Colorado, I want you to come a little further in, away from the street. Thank you. There are one or two things we need to clear up."
"I.. don't understand...?"
Turning to face her at arm's length, the Chujiran adventurer could not keep a tinge of sadness from his voice. "I know about Raul Colorado. He did not work for common mobsters who ran casinos or trafficked in heroin. No. He was an administrator for John Grim. Raul Colorado oversaw the sale of advanced weaponry and spyware to terrorist groups or foreign espionage organizations... anyone who could pay, to be frank. Grim had no sense of right or wrong, as long as he made a profit to keep his labs running, he didn't care where the money came from."
Flora took a step closer, both her hands in her jacket pockets and her collar turned up against the chill. "You must believe me, I knew nothing of that. I'm not even sure John Grim is."
"Oh, he's been dead for years now," Sheng went on. "Grim was a low-level telepath who stole ideas from real geniuses without being aware of it. He really thought his amazing inventions were his own. What made things worse was that several Trom were secretly working for him." Now, a sigh really escaped Sheng and he shook his head. "Technology that Humans should not know for decades, maybe centuries, ended up in the hands of John Grim and his staff."
"I'm getting out of here. You're crazy. You're not making any sense."
"You understand perfectly well what I'm talking about. You know all this, because you stole one of the forbidden devices planned by John Grim before his well-deserved death. I guess it was only constructed recently. That was what Lou Fielding wanted to warn me about. That was why you used the death ray on him tonight and then tried to kill me with...."
Sheng's words stopped there as he shifted his gralic charge into enhanced speed. Quicker than a rattlesnaker striking, he plunged forward and seized the woman's hand even as it darted up from her pocket. He twisted her hand so the flat metal gadget pulsed its lurid red light directly against her own torso. There was a beep that was lost in the echoes of Flora's agonized scream.
Stepped back, pocketing the weapon, Sheng Mo-Yuan gagged and almost threw up at the stench. Flora sagged limply to the alley floor, her torso flattening out as grisly brown fluid gushed from her body. It was all over in a heart-stopping moment, then Sheng ran to seized Pao by one bony arm.
"Hurry," he said. "Get in my car, we need to establish an alibi. I think we'll stay at KDF headquarters tonight and see what the police make of her strange remains. They'll connect this with Lou Fielding."
Shambling quickly behind him, Uncle Pao hastened to squeeze himself into the passenger seat of Sheng's Ferrari. "I knew she was lying of course. The truth does not belong in a woman's words. But you are usually so gullible, nephew. What made you more perceptive than your usual self tonight?"
Easing away from the curb, glad there were no other cars in sight at the moment, Sheng swung right at the next corner and headed uptown. In the back of his mind, he wondered if the KDF would be asked by the NYPD to investigate these bizarre deaths. "Oh, that. I took a minute for some research. Raul Colorado DOES have a daughter Flora. But she's nine years old."
7/27/2018
10/22/2011
I.
The man screamed a long, loud howl of fear and agony that echoed up and down the Financial District. His body contracted and seemed to collapse into itself. He dropped down to the wet ground with a soggy thump, and a sickening stench filled the air. Even Sheng Mo-Yuan gagged and clapped a hand over his mouth to keep from suddenly vomiting.
The corpse had flattened out where it lay, only its rib cage still protruding up. From every orifice, thin brown fluid oozed out onto the paving, fluid which reeked worse than anything Sheng had ever encountered before. It had all been so sudden. The informant, Lou Fielding, had stepped out from a shadowed doorway and barely had a chance to say, "Wait. I don't feel so good..." before his scream and gruesome death had happened.
At three-thirty AM, this side avenue of the Wall Street area was as nearly deserted as any location in Manhattan ever got. The boxlike skyscrapers all around them were so tall and flat that it gave the dizzying sensation of being in the bottom of a hole. As Sheng dug an oxygen membrane from the inner pocket of his suit jacket, he handed a second one to Uncle Pao right behind him. In another instant, they both had fastened the loops of the devices over their ears and they were now breathing through a clear film filtered out poisons or smoke. The membranes could even extract enough oxygen from sea water to allow a person to breathe normally below the surface.
With the Trom-designed membranes over their lower faces, they could only smell the putrid aroma vaguely. It was enough to allow them to avoid retching. Sheng Mo-Yuan had been fighting the Midnight War for over a decade and he had thought he was a hardened to grisly experiences as anyone could be.. but that bloodcurdling scream had taken him off-guard. He stepped closer toward the body, careful not to let any of the steaming hot fluids touch his polished dress shoes. To an observer, Sheng seemed to be a Northern Chinese, no more than five feet five inches tall and in good athetic shape. His tailored dark brown suit with its off-yellow shirt and brown tie fit well and gave a businesslike impresion. But he was more than he seemed. The beaked eagle-like nose and high cheekbones contradicted the tawny skin tones and eyelid fold and thick coarse black hair. Sheng was actually from the realm of Chujir, believed by them to be the ancestral home of the Han people.
Bending over the corpse, Sheng tried to observe coldly and unemotionally what had happened. Fielding was lying face up, arms and legs extended, his face turned to one side. The man had been wearing dark slacks and a light blue polo shirt. As far as Sheng could see, the rib cage still retained its shape but the abdomen below it had flattened out to show the spine clearly connecting to the pelvis. The upper chest had also collapsed. That stinking goo had erupted under pressure from the anus, the mouth and nose. In the chilly night air, vapor from the fluid rose as streamers.
It seemed impossible, but all the man's internal organs had left his torso in seconds. What could cause that? How? The Chujiran adventurer shakily straightened up and took a few steps back away from the horrible sight.
Behind him, Uncle Pao muttered, "Far be it from me to bother the Great Detective at his work! No no no. But a woman is watching us from across the street." The seventy-year-old Chinese man smacked Sheng hard on the back of the head. "Now she is running away. Are you going to wait until she is out of sight?"
In fact, as soon as Uncle Pao had spoken, Sheng had glared around and spotted the woman. Even as the old man spoke, the Chujiran had shifted the gralic force in his body into enhanced speed. He was hurtling across the deserted street and on top of the fleeing woman within a second, catching her before she had gone more than a few steps. Before she knew she was being apprehended, he had caught her by one wrist.
The woman gave an excellent imitation of an enraged wildcat. She vigorously kicked at Sheng's legs and punched at his face with her free hand, but couldn't do much damage. His Kumundu training made his responses automatic and he swayed back so her blows barely grazed him. Feeling she wasn't having any effect and aware from the strength of his grip that she couldn't hope to break free, the young woman settled down at once.
"Whatever you did to that poor man, don't you dare try it on me!" she hissed. "My father is Raul Colorado. His boys will find you no matter where you run and you'll be sorry..."
"Whoa, whoa, give me a second," Sheng interrupted. Still holding her wrist tightly, he dug in his jacket with his other hand and held up his leather billfold so she could see it in the light from a nearby lamppost. "Look. See that, that's my Private Investigator license, and that's my ID card as a consultant for Department 21 Black of the FBI. Take a good look."
"Oh come on," she snapped. "How can I tell if they're real? Let me go. I haven't even tried screaming yet."
Sheng took in his impressions. She was maybe twenty-four, tall as he was, slender in a plain dark print dress with a scoop neckline. A wave of jet black hair poured down her back past her shoulder blades. He saw a furious oval-shaped face with pale skin and light-colored eyes, either blue or green but he couldn't be sure in the uncertain light.
"Flora Colorado, right?" he said. "Raul Colorado's only child. He's deliberately kept you away from his rackets."
By this time, Uncle Pao had limped up to join them. In his early seventies, gaunt and bony in his black pants and long-sleeved white dress shirt, Pao was not an imposing sight. Grey hair stood up stiffly in several directions from his head as if he had just gotten out of bed. His round-rimmed glasses had thick lenses which seemed nearly opaque. And when he spoke, his voice was shrill.
"Are you both fools?" he demanded. "The evil force which killed that man may strike again! It may give any one of us an unpleasant death. And you children waste time flirting."
"We are hardly flirting..." began Sheng before the words choked in his throat. A sudden intolerable burning pain had filled his chest.
II.
Steam poured of the Chujiran's body into the night air. Sheng fell heavily to his hands and knees, coughing and gasping. With surprising alacrity, Uncle Pao rushed to crouch next to his nephew and wrapped bony arms around the detective's shoulders. "My child!" cried the old man in anguish. "No! Not you!"
"Wait..." Sheng rasped, trembling visibly. The instant he had felt strange, he had instinctively channeled his ability into resilience. Gralic force flowed through him to reinforce every cell, every muscle and bone, until he was as close to being indestructible as a mortal being could be. While in this state, bullets ricocheted off him and knives bent. In another moment, the vapors rising from within him eased up. "Uncle, run to our car..." he managed to say. "Flora, go with him."
"What? Why should I trust you two?" she retorted sharply.
Sheng forced himself up to sway unsteadily but remained on his feet. "Please. You are in great danger." Even in the dim light, sweat could be seen dripping off his hair and his face glistened with it. The tone in his voice was compelling. Hurrying beside Uncle Pao, the young woman ran down Wall Street with her heels clicking loudly.
Left behind, even though he was still suffering greatly, Sheng no longer feared he was going to die in the next few seconds. His gift of focusing the transcendental gralic energy into himself gave him either increased strength, speed or durability and he had seldom been more grateful for it.
But it was a conscious effect. If he passed out, his body would revert to normal and he would be killed. Even now, he could smell burning fabric as his clothing began to smolder. The Chujiran looked wildly in all directions and saw only one thing out of the expected. Parking one block away, facing him, sat a white panel truck with its windows down. As Sheng drew his dart gun, that truck started up and peeled out around the corner and out of sight.
At once, the agony in his vitals eased up. He still felt sick and dizzy but it no longer felt as if he was being burned alive. Sheng exhaled and nearly fell, then wiped his wet face with the back of a hand. What had that attack been? If he had not possessed his special ability, he would be as dead as poor Lou Fielding was. The realization shook him more than he expected. He was used to feeling invincible.
With a squealing of brakes, his beloved silver-grey Ferrari 458 Italia swung up next to him. Sheng's heart sank even more to see Uncle Pao behind the wheel. But this was no time to try to take over control, since he felt barely able to walk, much less drive. Seeing Flora Colorado already in the front passenger seat, Sheng yanked open the rear door and tumbled rather than climbed into the back. Still shaking, the Chujiran detective popped open the top buttons of his shirt and undid the knot of his tie. His clothing felt hot to the touch and sodden with the sweat that had run from his body.
"I can't believe you're still alive," Flora blurted. "I mean, I'm glad but still... we should get you to a hospital right away. Metro General is only a little ways north of here."
"Hah!" snorted Uncle Pao, whipping past red lights and stop signs as if he had been told they had no significance. "That shows what you know. Western doctors will cut him up and charge him a million dollars. No. He needs healing tea, it has been in the family for generations. Cold ginseng tea and rest will restore his balance."
"Yes," Sheng said from the back. "I am feeling better. Go to our office, Uncle. But please, slow down to under the sound barrier. If we hit anything at this speed..."
"Feh. When I have ever had an accident? Don't answer that." Zipping past a startled taxi that swerved reflexively away from the speeding sport car, Pao jabbed a thin finger at the woman in the seat next to him. "And you, young lady, need to start spilling words without delay."
"What?" she replied. "Well, I... Yes, I'm Flora Colorado. My father is indeed well known in the city. He is a real estate developer. He finds properties for Middle East investors."
"He is a crook and a cheat and a mobster," Uncle Pao scoffed. "Your college education was paid for with laundered money."
"Well, I never...! I must say, you don't temper your words!"
"With age comes wisdom," Pao said. In Cantonese, he told Sheng not to trust this woman any further than he would trust a spitting cobra. Sheng replied in the same language that he agreed. Then the old man added, "Also, she is too skinny to bear you sons. Her waist seems like a strand of cartilage holding her torso together."
"And stick to English!" Flora yelled. "It's so rude to talk about me when I can't understand what you're saying."
"Let's establish some basic facts," said Sheng, beginning to feel like he was nearly normal again. "What were you doing standing on a Wall Street corner at three in the morning?"
"Oh, I was keeping an eye on Lou. Poor Lou. He confided in me that he was going to meet with you. He said he had learned about something too dangerous for me to learn. Lou said he had read about you in the papers, that you ran a detective agency called 'Fist For Hire.'" She gave a derisive chuckle. "Honestly. I was worried you would swindle him out of his cash and not protect him at all."
"Yeah? And exactly what did you think you could do to stop me if that was my intent?" Sheng asked. He was wriggling out of his suit jacket, which was as wet as if it had been soaked in a bucket of water. His mouth felt sticky, so he knew he was dehydrated.
"Oh, I would have thought of something," the young woman replied rather breezily. "Listen, what do you think happened to Lou? What was happening to you, for that matter? You looked like a lobster being steamed."
"Ah, here is a spot," interrupted Uncle Pao. He swung the sports car in behind a parked Datsun, stopping less than an inch behind the other vehicle's rear bumper. "And our office is right on the next block. The corner of Canal Street. Your complaints about my driving are without foundation, nephew."
Sheng did not reply as he emerged from the back seat onto the sidewalk. In truth, there was no way that Pao could be his actual flesh-and-blood uncle. Sheng Mo-Yuan was from the adjacent realm of Chujir, with no relations in this world. But Pao was convinced they were related and nothing could shake that conviction. The coincidence that they shared the same last name clinched it for Sheng Pao-Wang. After a surprisingly short period of resistance, the Chujiran had decided to go along with the pretense and make the old man happy.
Maybe it only meant that Sheng missed having a family, his teammates at the KDF were so unlike him culturally. In many ways, Uncle Pao resembled Sheng's real clan back in Chujir, both in appearance and in mannerisms. And he had learned enough Cantonese over the years to be able to converse easily with Pao. Now, as the old man scrambled out from behind the steering wheel, Sheng silently held out his hand to demand the return of his keys.
"Let's head up to the office," Sheng said. "Flora, please come with us. Maybe it hasn't occured to you yet, but you may be in as much danger of having your insides boil out of you as I was."
III.
Sheng's office on the third floor of the ancient Hartwicke Building was one large high-ceilinged room with a wide window looking down at the street. A substantial oak desk sat near that window, with several straight-backed wooden chairs arranged in front of it. Along the left wall as one entered was a leather couch with a few blankets and pillows folded at one end, as well as a coffee table and two chairs more comfortable than the ones for clients. In one corner were two doors, concealing a closet and a tiny bathroom.
As soon as they had entered, Sheng directed Flora Colorado to take a seat on the couch. She had become visibly agitated on the way up the stairs from the lobby, and her dark blue eyes were bulging in an unattractive manner. When she sat, she crossed her arms tightly across her body and tucked her feet back under the couch. It seemed the gravity of the situation was sinking in.
"Uncle, would you please brew some proper tea for everyone?" Sheng asked. As the old man eagerly put a kettle on the hot plate in one corner, Sheng himself placed a ceramic mug of water in the microwave and, when it was hot, crumpled up a handful of dark purple leaves into it and sipped carefully.
A refreshing minty aroma filled the office. Flora perked up. "Oh, that smells wonderful. What is it?"
Finishing the mug with relief, Sheng sighed. "It's a healing herbal preparation. Not for everyone's body chemistry, I'm afraid." He could not tell her the truth. The secret of Tagra was that it was only available in limited quantities to knights of Tel Shai; the plant was only grown at that Order, and Tel Shai forbade sharing it with outsiders. It was Tagra that boosted the knights' healing abilities far beyond what medical science could explain. Tagra extended the active lifespan, protected against nearly all diseases and promoted clarity of thought. As soon as he drank that mug, Sheng felt the lingering damage from the weird attack fade from his body. He felt alert and energetic again.
"Never mind the boy," Uncle Pao grumbled as he brought over a lacquered tray holding cups, saucers and a sugar bowl. "He has the manners of a junkyard dog. This is the finest ginseng from the Snow Tiger Mountains. Here, sip it slowly."
Feeling back to normal, Sheng studied Flora Colorado thoughtfully. Her face was pale and her shoulders were raised defensively. "You witnessed something horrifying tonight, miss."
"Tell me about it," she replied. "Poor old Lou. What a way to go! And then whatever it was tried to kill you next. After that, it might have gone after me..."
"See if there are any of the scones left, Uncle." Sheng got a change of clothing from the closet and stepped into the bathroom. Cramped as it was, with a shower cabinet that would not accomodate anyone much bigger than himself, the Chujiran scrubbed himself thoroughly, dried with a rough towel and got the stale sweat off him. His skin was still raw and sensitive. He put on a Navy blue suit with a powder blue shirt and black knitted silk tie. All the contents of his pockets had been transferred and he looked as if he had just gotten ready to face the day, although it was past four in the morning.
Before leaving the bathroom, he unclipped his Link and got on the Internet for a few minutes, studying the information that ran across the screen. Sheng made a non-commital grunt at what he had learned, put the Trom communications devices back on his belt and emerged into his office with an expressionless face.
Uncle Pao and Flora were glumly nibbling on hot buttered scones, while the old man frightened the girl even more than she already was with tales about the creatures of the night he and Sheng had fought. "Then there are the Skinwalkers. Their favorite trick is to make a noise like a baby crying. When you naturally go to investigate, they yank your head back and rip your throat open with their teeth. Skinwalkers look like starving dogs standing on their hind legs..."
"Oh my God, Uncle, what are you trying to do to her?" asked Sheng. "Miss Colorado, we need to get moving. Whoever was behind those attacks, if they know who I am, then they know where this office is. And they may come to... well, eviscerate us."
"Eviscerate!" she said with a shudder. "What a word. Listen, Mr Sheng, perhaps you haven't thought of it, but what if this terror is a natural phenomenon? Like the spontaneous human combustion you sometimes read about? Or some awful flesh-melting virus that our government has developed and which has escaped?"
"That's possible," he admitted. "But my instincts lead me to think that this some sort of weapon. Darthan sorcery, perhaps. Voodoo or that sort of spell. In any case, we should not stay here." He turned out the reading lamp on his desk and motioned Uncle Pao and Flora toward the door to the hall.
The young woman resisted getting up. "You know what, let me stay here. Why should I be any safer out there next to you? I mean, you've already been attacked by this Evisceration virus or weapon or whatever it is? I'll call my dad to sent some bodyguards."
"You'll be safer at KDF headquarters," Sheng said firmly, holding the door open. "The building has strong defenses against any sort of attack. And if my teammates are there, you'll be as well protected there as anywhere on Earth."
As he shrugged on an open cloth vest over his shirt, Pao chortled. "For once, nephew thinks clearly. That place is a fortress and his friends are Tel Shai knights. You would be wise to cooperate."
Reluctantly, Flora Colorado gave in. She followed Sheng and Uncle Pao down to the street where traffic was getting sparse in the hour between the bars closing and people starting to go to work. Once they were on the sidewalk, though, she balked as Sheng started leading them away from where his car had been parked.
"You're going the wrong way..." she began but the Chujiran cut her off with an impatient gesture. He led everyone to a dead end alley further down the block, where the dumpster from an Italian restaurant and some ruptured black garbage bags made an uninviting arena.
"Uncle Pao, please step back by the sidewalk and keep watch. Miss Colorado, I want you to come a little further in, away from the street. Thank you. There are one or two things we need to clear up."
"I.. don't understand...?"
Turning to face her at arm's length, the Chujiran adventurer could not keep a tinge of sadness from his voice. "I know about Raul Colorado. He did not work for common mobsters who ran casinos or trafficked in heroin. No. He was an administrator for John Grim. Raul Colorado oversaw the sale of advanced weaponry and spyware to terrorist groups or foreign espionage organizations... anyone who could pay, to be frank. Grim had no sense of right or wrong, as long as he made a profit to keep his labs running, he didn't care where the money came from."
Flora took a step closer, both her hands in her jacket pockets and her collar turned up against the chill. "You must believe me, I knew nothing of that. I'm not even sure John Grim is."
"Oh, he's been dead for years now," Sheng went on. "Grim was a low-level telepath who stole ideas from real geniuses without being aware of it. He really thought his amazing inventions were his own. What made things worse was that several Trom were secretly working for him." Now, a sigh really escaped Sheng and he shook his head. "Technology that Humans should not know for decades, maybe centuries, ended up in the hands of John Grim and his staff."
"I'm getting out of here. You're crazy. You're not making any sense."
"You understand perfectly well what I'm talking about. You know all this, because you stole one of the forbidden devices planned by John Grim before his well-deserved death. I guess it was only constructed recently. That was what Lou Fielding wanted to warn me about. That was why you used the death ray on him tonight and then tried to kill me with...."
Sheng's words stopped there as he shifted his gralic charge into enhanced speed. Quicker than a rattlesnaker striking, he plunged forward and seized the woman's hand even as it darted up from her pocket. He twisted her hand so the flat metal gadget pulsed its lurid red light directly against her own torso. There was a beep that was lost in the echoes of Flora's agonized scream.
Stepped back, pocketing the weapon, Sheng Mo-Yuan gagged and almost threw up at the stench. Flora sagged limply to the alley floor, her torso flattening out as grisly brown fluid gushed from her body. It was all over in a heart-stopping moment, then Sheng ran to seized Pao by one bony arm.
"Hurry," he said. "Get in my car, we need to establish an alibi. I think we'll stay at KDF headquarters tonight and see what the police make of her strange remains. They'll connect this with Lou Fielding."
Shambling quickly behind him, Uncle Pao hastened to squeeze himself into the passenger seat of Sheng's Ferrari. "I knew she was lying of course. The truth does not belong in a woman's words. But you are usually so gullible, nephew. What made you more perceptive than your usual self tonight?"
Easing away from the curb, glad there were no other cars in sight at the moment, Sheng swung right at the next corner and headed uptown. In the back of his mind, he wondered if the KDF would be asked by the NYPD to investigate these bizarre deaths. "Oh, that. I took a minute for some research. Raul Colorado DOES have a daughter Flora. But she's nine years old."
7/27/2018