Strong Mystery: Murder, Mystery and Magic Books 1-3 (Steampunk Magica) (20 page)

Owen desperately clung on to a spar on the underside of the
wharf as the two talked above him. Though he had lost his cane and his
awareness swam in and out, he retained enough sense to follow what the
assassins had been saying. He silently cried for the death of James Finley as
he felt his hands slip away from the rough wet wood. The water was cold and
endless as it met his face.

~ ~ ~

Owen wasn’t sure where he was, or how much time had
gone by while he lingered in the dark
. He only knew that he
could breathe again and that he appeared to be on a hard, cold surface,
alternately chilled and then burning, for what seemed like an eternity. In his
hazy dream-like state his only clear thoughts where of an old man and a young
girl, both Hannish, both of them standing over him. When the old man was
present, he felt strange prickling at places on his body. Then he felt better,
stronger it seemed. When the girl was present, she brought him delightfully
cool water to drink and bathed his head when he was feeling way too warm. First
by candlelight and then by bright sunlight he saw their faces.

As he didn’t see either of the gateway gods that he had visited
at his Initiation into the Greater Mysteries, he assumed that he wasn’t in the
land of the dead just yet, and he understood he still needed to be fighting. He
began frantically feeling about for the focus of his sorcery, his electrum
cane. Without it, the elemental binding tattoos on his body could not be keyed,
leaving him, if not exactly powerless, than far less powerful. Hands gripped
his hands to stop them from reaching for his focus, and a foul tasting liquid
was forced down his throat. Dimly he heard a voice in Mandarin speaking,

“That should keep him,” the voice said. “Remember, I need him
alive. I will take that cane of his. He mustn’t touch it.”

The darkness swooped back over him in a wave and claimed him
once again.

Chapter 2

Jinhao frowned
.
It wasn’t like
Owen to just vanish like this
. It was true that she was not due
back yet for a few days, but Owen had not mentioned anything that would take
him away from the house. She turned back to Barton, Owen’s clockwork man, a
clankman,
as the Europeans would call him. The Han preferred live servants, but she
understood that automata such as Barton had been the fashion among the British
for some time now. Owen called him family. Skeptical, Jinhao had found a valued
friend in the mechanical butler, whose responses seemed to go far beyond the
slotted cards that Owen placed within his chest from time to time. Still, she
had a hard time viewing him as other than a wind-up toy.

“And you are sure he left no note, no hint of where he was
going, or if he was going out with anyone?” she asked him again.

“No Mistress Jinhao. He left no note.” The
clankman
visibly shook as his gears turned. “It is possible that he left with his friend
from Britain.” The butler’s frame shook again.

Jinhao’s head jerked up at this. “What ‘friend from Britain’?”

“Master James Findley to see Owen Strong,” the butler replied
in the sing song that he used when reciting a conversation. “I do not have an
appointment. Tell him it is Jimmy, an old friend from Britain.”

“And did you see him go off with this Jimmy?”

“No Mistress Jinhao. Master Owen had me clear away the dishes
after dinner and provide cigars from the humidor. I then retired for
recharging.”

“When was this, Barton?”

“The night before last night Mistress,” Barton answered.

“Why haven’t you mentioned this before?” Jinhao cried.

“You have not asked if he was going out with anyone before
Mistress.”

Jinhao wanted to scream. She had heard Owen tell her over and
over that Barton was inhumanly literal but she had not really faced it before
now.

“That means he’s been gone for the better part of three days,”
she said. She herself had returned late last night only to find the place
empty. Assuming that Owen was either carousing or on a case, Jinhao had gone to
bed. Now it was nearly midnight again, and no sign of the dark-haired sorcerer.

That might still be the case, but Owen himself had insisted
that they keep the other informed of their whereabouts. He pointed out that
they were both engaged in dangerous businesses, and it might aid the one to
know where to begin looking for the other. Except this time apparently, she
thought to herself ruefully, which meant that Owen had thought he would be back
that same night he had gone off with Jimmy, whoever he was. Jinhao nodded,
coming to a decision. She quickly went up the stairs. Retuning in a concealing
night cloak, she placed an envelope on the mantle. Turning to Barton she spoke.

“Command: this envelope is to be given into the hands of
Inspector Gregg of the police, should he come inquiring about my or Owen’s
whereabouts. Otherwise it is not to be moved.”

“Understood and logged, Mistress,” the butler clanked out.

With that Jinhao ghosted through the front door. She awaited in
the nearby bushes, to see if anyone was watching the house. Yes, she thought,
there he is. She watched the same mustached man that she had seen earlier in
the day. His cane marked him as a probable sorcerer, and his presence marked
him as a probable enemy spy. There was no reason for a well-to-do man such as he
appeared to be to be wondering the street for hours.

Very well, Jinhao decided, let him watch the house. She knew
where he was, and could pick him off at any time. That is, if he was involved
with Owen’s disappearance. She had other ways to ascertain that. She snaked
away, using the shadows to hide her until she came to the cross-street at the
end of the road. Here all the rides for hire in the area would sit and rest. Here
was also a small-time criminal called Jimmy the Nose. Though he was clearly of
Hannish descent, he wore a threadbare European suit of dark burgundy to go with
his European street name. The lower classes aped the Western ways slavishly,
Jinhao thought to herself contemptuously.

Jimmy picked which cab was allowed to rest there as well who
was given which fare. It made him a profitable income and kept order in the
street. Thus were the customs in Hong Kong.

“Evening, Mistress Jinhao,” Jimmy greeted her warmly enough. It
was easy to see why he was called ‘the nose’, His nose jutted quite prominently
from the center of his face. “Fare for one? I have just the right ride for
you!”

“Perhaps in a moment, Jimmy.” Jinhao discreetly held out a gold
coin that Jimmy snatched from her deftly, before anyone could notice. “I want
to ask a couple of questions first,” Jinhao said. Jimmy gave her a slight bow.

“Of course Mistress, how can I help?” The little man asked with
a slight whine.

“Did Master Owen Strong hire a ride about three nights ago?”
Jinhao demanded.

“Ah well, I couldn’t rightly say,” Jimmy replied. “That would
be meddling in a sorcerer’s affairs. Nothing but trouble comes from that, even
if you are his woman and all.”

“I am not ‘his woman’ nor anything else,” Jinhao allowed
herself to loom over the street grafter. “And please tell your street bullies
in the shadows over there to stop or I will tear their arms off, after I remove
your head from your neck.” Jimmy waved his men back and gulped.

“What do you want to know? Yeah, Lord Strong and some English
Toff hired a ride about this time of night. I don’t know where to. I sent them
to old Hiram over there.” Jimmy pointed to a man in a blue robe sitting in the
driver’s seat of a long hansom. The beast of burden appeared to be a giant man.
Jinhao knew that the driver was a member of a strange Mid-east sect and the
beast was really a magical construct called a ‘golem’. Jinhao tossed Jimmy
another coin. This one copper.

“Next time I ask, be more polite,” she said. “That would have
been a gold piece if you had.”

Jinhao drifted across to look up at
Hiram
. She held up another large Imperial gold
piece. He glanced down at her, his face twisted up into a grimace.

“Keep your money,” the driver said to her shortly. “I will not
take a female Sorcerer abroad alone.”

“I do not wish a ride, only information,” Jinhao said levelly.
Owen had always stressed how important it was to be polite to these strange
people, that their pride was nearly as great as their power and their customs
strange.

“Many people seek knowledge,” the driver acknowledged. “What do
you seek?”

“Three nights ago, do you remember a late fare, two men, one of
whom carried an electrum cane?” The driver nodded quickly, up and down.

“Yes,” his voice crackled like old paper. “Two British
gentlemen if I am a judge. They wished to be taken to the old warehouse
district down by the water.” The driver shook his head. “I do not know of any
businesses that still work out of there, let alone at that time of night. I
fear they were up to no good.”

“Exactly where did you let them out,” Jinhao asked. The driver
told her. She turned to go.

“There is no call to be chasing down the likes of them!” The
driver called after her. “Card sharps and foreign dandies will only break your
heart!”

Jinhao ignored him and went briskly down the street until she
came to an alleyway that was not bathed in the brilliant light of one of the
Mage globes hanging from the lamp posts that lined the street. She ducked down
the alley and then stopped, awaiting pursuit.

It was a pity they did not live in one of the poorer sections
in the city. The streets there were lit by gas or oil lamps and she could
already have been scaling the building without being seen. When no pursuit was
forthcoming, she hitched back her cloak and began scaling the wall beside her.

Chapter 3

The
moon was only two days from full
. Shining down from a clear
sky, its misty light transformed the rooftops into a fey world of bright silver
areas and sharp-edged darkness. Chimney stacks stood like silent sentinels,
their shadows offering protection from the revealing dazzle overhead. Jinhao
flitted lightly from the dark shelter of one such sanctuary to another, her
whole being alive in a way that it hadn’t been since she had returned to Hong
Kong.

This other world of the rooftops was called by some
the thieves’ highway
and she
could understand why. During the day, the city was thronged with loud clumsy
people, including a surprisingly large number of Peelers. The night time roof-tops,
by contrast, were a quiet dark land where one’s business was one’s own,
especially if one was determined and sure-footed. She had encountered only a
few other travelers during her explorations, easily hiding in concealment
before they were aware of her. Jinhao had to admit some of them were almost as competent
at stealth and concealment as she was. Almost. She doubted that there were any
in the city who could match her in either skill.

She paused, crouching, before the gap that marked some alley or
side street below. Someone had conveniently placed a board across the gap to
ease passage, indicating that others passed this way frequently as well. She
cast her spirit senses in a wide circle, searching for the betraying aura of
another life nearby. Finding nothing, she pulled energy from her center,
feeling it flow through her. Still crouching, she tensed her legs and then
leaped across the gap, landing silently on the other side. She swiftly moved to
the shadow of another pair of chimneys and paused again, senses awake and
searching. Nothing.

She continued moving, spirit and body luxuriating in the effort
and the quiet. She smiled as she recalled her training games as a child at the
Imperial Academy for Adepts; during trips to Bombay, they played seek and stalk
through the alleys. A ‘
kill’
was managing to touch a teacher without being caught first, the reward for each
‘
kill’
a coconut ice,
a candy treat that she was still extremely fond of. She soon had many kills,
surpassing her teachers in skill even before her bleeding began. Jinhao
shivered from the cold of the deep night, pulling her gloves tighter. In truth,
she missed those sultry nights and the innocence of those days.

Jinhao had grown up in Hong Kong. She found it cold at night
now, even in what was called summer. One of Owens visitors, some professor from
the University, had asserted that something was making the weather change, but what
that something was, no one knew.

She had been told that now nearly two million souls called Hong
Kong home; dirty, smelly, noisy people. The Europeans stank from eating too
much meat and touching too little water. Jinhao found the atmosphere they
created oppressive on her soul, which led her to seek the roofs at night. It
was not that she was unfamiliar with large cities, far from it. She’d been to
several in her travels.

She was most familiar with Shanghai and Beijing, the Imperial
city, each of which claimed many more residents and were just as modern with
Mage lights and clanking steam cars. But this place was as unlike the other
cities of the East as an erotic dream was from a nightmare. She still wasn’t
sure rather to bless or curse the vision that had led her back to the mixed
free port, where Grandfather’s rule was absolute.

Jinhao had fled the bloody plans Grandfather had made for her
soon after attaining her initiation as a young woman. While the parting was not
what one could call amicable, Grandfather had let her go without placing the
death mark upon her, in a rare show of mercy. Perhaps Grandfather thought that
she would come home of her own accord if he waited. If so, Jinhao had vowed, he
would have a very long wait indeed. For a time she had worked on her father’s
brother’s merchant airship, learning the ways of being human, then learning
their ways.

When the Old Emperor died, the Dowager Empress had seized all
power. For a time Jinhao did not remark on it. After all, the Imperial
bureaucracy still ran, and if the Empress and her friends got rich for a few
years, well, that was how it was. There was a new Emperor growing up in the
Forbidden City, and things would change again. That too, was the way of things.
Being raised by a Dragon gave one a certain perspective.

But the Empress did not relinquish power. Instead her grip
became even more ruthless. Injustices sprang from the Throne like weeds,
choking the life from the Kingdom. Even Jinhao was forced to realize that
something needed to be done.

Grandfather had contacted her with the offer of a true alliance
if she would consider becoming a concubine of the Boy Emperor. This she agreed
to do, only to find that the Emperor was both powerless and innocent. He was
kept in splendid isolation, and when Jinhao attempted to remove him from it,
she ran into a trap set by the Dowager’s lapdog of a court sorcerer, Fan Zhou.
Only the powers of her heritage had enabled her to escape his wrath. The
Emperor would not come with her, to her regret.

While fleeing the Imperial Court, her Powers gave to her a
vision that allying with a white-skinned Sorcerer would save not only Hong Kong
but the world. Her glimpses of the future came rarely, but she had learned to
not ignore them.

To her surprise, she met the Sorcerer from her dreams at a rest
house near the Hong Kong border. By sheer fortune, he defeated a greater demon
that the court Sorcerer had sent after her. The British sorcerer’s name was
Owen Strong. Even though he smelled of the Lotus drug that destroyed the mind
and powers of sorcerers over time, he still had more than enough power and wit
to defeat the sending. That it was impressive to her, she was reluctant to
admit.