Century #4: Dragon of Seas (13 page)

“Looks like I’m pretty good at letting myself get kidnapped at airports,” Harvey continues, annoyed. “At least I don’t see any poisonous spiders this time.”

“Look carefully.” The woman laughs again. “Look carefully, Miller Junior.”

Harvey’s eyes dart around the room: a breathtaking view of the city. The river to the west. A large park to the south. Other skyscrapers. The Shanghai television tower. It takes him only a few seconds to figure out the building’s location on the map of Shanghai, which he learned by heart.

Heremit’s office is a spartan, sterile room. TV screens turned off. Shelves practically empty. Desk polished. Phone. And a series of objects, most of which are familiar to him, lined up on the desk. The Ring of Fire, the Star of Stone, the tops, a wooden ship …

Then the man, who’s had his back to Harvey the whole time as he contemplates the city lights, turns toward him very slowly.

The hermit devil.

He doesn’t speak. He just fixes his gaze on Harvey from behind his thick black Bakelite glasses. His silent stare teems with ice-cold insects that crawl up Harvey’s back and sting all his nerves.

“Nothing in particular, sir,” Nik Knife says, resting Harvey’s backpack on the floor. “Except the printout of a reservation at the Grand Hyatt tonight.”

Mademoiselle Cybel whistles. “Why, Miller Junior! Treating yourself well, hmm? Very well, I’d say!”

“And this,” the Chinese man concludes.

He’s holding the small paper and foil packet that contains the last two of the seeds Harvey found in New York.

Mademoiselle Cybel peeks at them through her gaudy glasses. “They look like little seeds for big weeds. Seeds, weeds,” she chirps, as if she’s just come up with history’s greatest rhyme. “You certainly are a strange boy, Miller Junior.”

Heremit Devil slowly steps toward the packet. He does so walking in a perfect circle, with Harvey as its center and the distance between them as the radius.

“What are they?” he asks.

Nik Knife puts the seeds on the desk.

“Seeds for weeds,” Harvey says, on the razor’s edge.

“Cheeky,” Mademoiselle Cybel remarks with a hint of admiration.

Harvey tries to hold Heremit Devil’s gaze, but he can’t. He’s forced to look down at his disinfected gym shoes.

“Destroy them,” Heremit Devil orders Nik Knife.

The Chinese man turns to carry out the order and Harvey caves in. “You shouldn’t do that,” he says.

Heremit Devil circles back to his favorite window, following
the same path in reverse. “What are they?” he asks for the second time.

“They’re tree seeds.”

“Why shouldn’t we destroy them?”

“Because they’re my good luck charm. I always plant trees when I travel.”

“Then you’d better find a new good luck charm, my boy,” Mademoiselle Cybel interjects, laughing. “Find a new good luck charm … and fast!”

Heremit Devil whips his head around, instantly making her fall silent.

“Tell me about this tree.”

“My father says it’s a really ancient species. The ginkgo biloba.”

“Your father is an esteemed professor,” Heremit Devil observes. “And he’s very concerned, I imagine. On that ship.”

He juts his chin toward the window, at the river below. It looks perfectly still.

“We weren’t talking about my father.”

“And he’s right,” Heremit continues, his voice flat and monotone. “We’re all very concerned. Strange natural phenomena. Violent tornadoes, the climate inexplicably changing, ice caps melting, sea levels rising, rivers drying up. We have good reason to be concerned.”

No one in the office says a single word. Heremit continues his slow monologue. “The air in this city has become unfit to breathe. Seventy-five percent of the inhabitants of Shanghai suffer from chronic insomnia because of the lights from the bars and restaurants. We’re all worried. Worried enough not to sleep at night.”

Heremit Devil clasps his hands behind his back and cracks his
knuckles. “All we need … are answers. Simple answers to simple questions: Who are you? Where are you? Where did you come from? Where are you going? Why? That’s the fundamental reason we’re here: to answer these questions.”

As he listens, Harvey lets out a nervous laugh.
This guy’s insane
, he thinks.

“Let’s not waste any more time, Miller. I know all about the Pact, about the four of you, about the four masters. I know what they did, where they are now, how they chose the four of you. I know practically everything, except the reason why they chose you and the meaning behind this collection of … things.” He points at the objects lined up on his desk and continues. “I understand the mirror: look at yourself, realize who you are. Discover your true nature. And the stone that fell from the sky: know where you came from, from comets that journey through space, like the scattered seeds of a tree that seek the earth. But then we come to this ship. Knowing where you’re going? Across the waves? Down some unknown river shrouded in fog?”

Harvey’s never seen the ship before. He imagines it’s the fourth object, the one for Water that was hidden in Shanghai. But given how nervous Mademoiselle Cybel is, he senses that something doesn’t add up.

“I should have everything,” Heremit Devil continues, “but everything is slipping through my fingers. Including time. I’ve spent five long years making assumptions. And frankly, I’ve grown tired of it.”

Heremit’s gaze locks onto Harvey’s. It’s a long, questioning gaze. A hard, heartless gaze but also—surprisingly—a pained one.

“You’re telling me, Heremit my dear, you’re telling me!” Mademoiselle
Cybel exclaims. It’s like crystal shattering. Ice breaking at the wrong moment. “We’re all tired. Just think, five years! Five years!”

The woman bolts up from her chair, her giant silk dress rustling. “I’ll leave you alone now! I think I’ll go try out a new relaxing massage.”

To Harvey, Mademoiselle Cybel’s agitation is even further proof of his suspicions. “Is that the Ship of Shanghai?” he asks, deciding to go for broke.

“What’s that, Miller?”

Heremit Devil’s question sounds rhetorical, as if the man already knows everything. In fact, he turns to his Parisian collaborator and orders, “Cybel, wait.”

The woman is just a few steps away from the gold elevator. Her face is covered with a layer of uncontrollable perspiration. Nevertheless, she manages to pretend she doesn’t understand. “Why would that be the Ship of Shanghai?”

“Because Shanghai is the city of water,” Harvey says, “while Paris is the city of wind and—”

“Heremit, dear!” Mademoiselle Cybel says. “Certainly you can’t believe the boy! Zoe found this ship right where it was hidden. Right where it was hidden.”

“Which would be …?”

“On Île de la Cité!”

Harvey snickers. The only thing on Île de la Cité was the pointy spires of Notre Dame. He can tell that Heremit doesn’t believe the woman’s story but is letting her leave anyway. “Of course. You may go, Cybel.”

“Heremit—”

“You may go.”

The woman snaps at Harvey. “Are you calling me a liar, boy? Mademoiselle Cybel, a liar?”

When the silk elephant disappears into the elevator, Heremit asks, “What was in Paris?”

“I can’t tell you,” Harvey answers.

“Fair enough,” he says. “We’re enemies. And one should never help one’s enemy.”

Heremit Devil steps over to his desk. He picks up the wooden ship and hurls it with incredible force against the picture window, shattering it in a thousand pieces.

“Junk!” he screams. “Useless junk! What was she trying to do, trick me?”

No one answers. Pieces of the ship tumble across the floor, some even reaching its farthest corners.

In under ten seconds, Heremit Devil has already calmed down. “Take care of it,” he orders Nik Knife, pointing toward the trail of perfume that Mademoiselle Cybel left behind. “And when you’re done, go to the Grand Hyatt. Mr. Miller’s companions might have arrived already.”

Nik Knife slips out of the office as swiftly as a sense of foreboding.

“Leave my friends alone,” Harvey growls, trying to sound threatening.

“Friends, Mr. Miller? Are you really convinced there’s any such thing as friends? Of course, you’re young … you have yet to learn what friendship is. It’s just a mask concealing envy. It’s the glove of the thief who robs you of your life and leaves no trace behind.”

“S
O WHAT
’
S IN THIS THING, ANYWAY
?” E
RMETE ASKS, PICKING UP
the cookie tin and shaking it. The old Chinese coins inside of it clatter.

“We’d better leave it alone until the girls get back,” Sheng suggests.

“Would you at least smile?”

Sheng smiles.
“Hao!”

“So tell me, is that a Chinese word?”

“Who knows? But you know what? I’ve been thinking of what our names mean.
Mistral
is the name of a wind.
Elettra
, as in electricity …”

“Uh-uh, wrong,” Ermete corrects him. “It comes from the Greek word for ‘yellow amber.’ It means ‘radiant.’ When amber is rubbed, it has the property of electricity, of attracting light objects.”

“You’re a walking science book.”

“Do you know what my name means? Hermes, messenger of the gods, the god of eloquence. Does
Sheng
mean anything?”

“It’s a sort of wooden flute with lots of vertical shafts. Or”—Sheng flashes an all-gums smile—“it can mean victory.”

“So you’re called Victoria, like a girl?”

“Very funny!” Sheng says, laughing. “More like Victor, as in … the winner!”

His cell phone rings.

“Harvey?” Ermete asks.

Sheng shakes his head. It’s an unknown number. “Hello?”

It’s Jacob Mahler. “There should be a man in the lobby who’s dressed in black. Shaved head. See him?”

Sheng mouths the name “Mahler” to Ermete and repeats in a whisper, “Man in black … shaved head … in the lobby …”

They steal a glance around.

“There are lots of people in the lobby.”

Not a sound comes from the other end of the cell phone.

“There,” Ermete says a moment later, pointing at a massive but not-too-tall Chinese man standing by the elevators.

“I see him. He’s here,” Sheng says into the phone. “What’s going on?”

“They found us,” Mahler says. “It’s Four Fingers. Is he looking your way?”

“No.”

“Then he doesn’t know what you look like.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Don’t look at him. Grab all your things and get out of the hotel.”

“What about the others?”

“I’ll take care of that. Be at Rushan Lu, at the corner of Meiyuan Park, in a couple hours.”

“Elettra and Mistral—”

“They’re here with me,” the killer concludes before hanging up.

Many floors above, in the spectacular hallway that leads to their rooms, Mistral feels like she’s about to faint.

Jacob Mahler. The man who kidnapped her in Rome. Who threatened to kill her, locked her up in a room in the Coppedè district. The man who was supposed to be dead.

He’s there now, just a few steps away from them, standing beside her mother.

“Hello, Mistral.” He even has the nerve to speak to her.

Mistral looks the other way. She feels Elettra take her hand.

“Everything’s okay,” the Italian girl tells her. “He—”

Mistral doesn’t want to hear it. She whirls around. She refuses to speak to that man.

She doesn’t trust him.

She’ll never trust him.

“Get him out of here,” she says, standing by their door.

Mahler looks down at the lobby. “In the room, quick,” he orders.

They do as he says, but once they’re inside, Mistral locks herself in the bathroom. She stares into the mirror over the clear glass sink and turns on the water. Under any other circumstances, she would think the bathroom was stunning. But all she can think of right now is Jacob Mahler, who’s right outside the door, talking to Elettra and her mother.

“The second you try to leave, he’ll be on your tail,” the man is saying.

“How do you know that? We used fake names and passports.”

“Harvey, too?”

“What does Harvey have to do with it?”

“Was he supposed to stay at this hotel, too?”

“Yes, why?”

“It’s obvious. He isn’t positive you’re here, but he’s assuming you’ll come. And he’s willing to wait. In fact, he sent in the best man he’s got left to look for you.”

Mistral’s heart races faster and faster. She clearly remembers the moment she woke up in that bedroom in Rome, when Mahler came in to interrogate her.

“Don’t trust him, guys …,” she murmurs from behind the bathroom door. “You shouldn’t trust him.”

The noise of the hot water running in the sink drowns out the rest of the conversation. Steam fogs up the mirror and everything else.

“Mistral?” Elettra asks a moment later, knocking on the door. “Everything okay?” Then, when there’s no reply, she adds, “He’s gone.”

Mistral opens the door a crack. “We shouldn’t trust him.”

“He’s our only hope.”

“That’s not true; he’s not our only hope. Your aunt gave you the clues from 1907. We have those. And we still have one of the tops.”

“Yes, but Jacob … he knows the city. And Heremit Devil’s men.”