The Halloween Collection (4 page)

The buso rolled across paving stones,
scrambling up to face the trio of yakuza again. Yu Pao got to his
feet and dropped his club in preference of his uchi-ne, sliding the
blade into his right hand from the sleeve of his coat. Qiao dropped
the spent gun and drew another, but before he could throw or she
could shoot, Hao Gao stood up in front of both of them.

“Get down!” Yu Pao and Qiao shouted
together, but before either could have added “Jinx!” the buso
sprang on its sinewy legs and crashed into Hao Gao as he struggled
to shake his musket free from the shoulder sling. The big man
reeled back, jerking his head away as the toothy maw snapped in
front of his face and the red eye gleamed. Filthy nails tore bloody
gouges down his thighs through heavy trousers as Hao Gao screamed
and flailed, musket swinging loose from one arm. The stock of the
long gun whipped through the air, and hit Qiao in the ear.

Her eyes fluttered and she sat down hard in
the road, torch falling to the pavement. Yu Pao let the mass that
was the creature raking and snapping at Hao Gao stagger past him,
then stepped behind it and drove his uchi-ne hard into the buso’s
armpit.

The thing made its hissing roar and sprang
away, scampering across the road even as Hao Gao finally fell to
the ground. It took Yu Pao’s blade with it and the cord connecting
the hilt to a loop around his wrist played out, for an uchi-ne was
meant to be drawn back in, if a throw missed. Thinking the blade
would pull free Yu Pao dove for Hao Gao’s musket, but as the buso
reached the edge of the circle of torchlight, just at the edge of
the causeway itself, the creature grabbed the cord with its good
hand even as it dove off the side.

Yu Pao widened his eyes and was yanked
forward off his feet, knees and elbows bashing stone and his right
arm shooting forward as all the creature’s plummeting weight pulled
at the cord. He slid roughly after it, drawing his tantu dagger to
slash the cord, but did not have time before his chin banged the
curb. The world behind Yu Pao’s eyes went white and star-filled,
and he seemed to be falling through space. He heard but did not
really feel the splash.

The water of the swamp was awful,
slicked-over with algae and tasting of corruption. It was however
enough to shock Yu Pao back into the world and he jerked and spat
as he sat and then stood in it, the cord to his wrist now slack.
The water was only to his knees but the night was again wholly
black down below the causeway bridge. There was tall stone beside
him and Yu Pao put his back to it, though he did not know if it was
a stanchion or a grave.

“Yu Pao?” Qiao’s voice called above him, and
when he answered, “Alive,” the guttural hissing came from only a
few feet in front of him.

Clouds passed by the moon. The gray light
shown down on an alleyway of monuments, the names on the graves
long-since scoured away by the brackish water. Yu Pao had his back
to one as did the buso facing him, shattered arm hanging limp and
black blood staining its side. The red eye burned and row upon row
of teeth were revealed as the thing’s whole face seemed to split in
a leer.

Club up on the road, two blades lost in the
water somewhere. Yu Pao had nothing in his hands but his hands, and
the soulless thing leapt at him.

* * *

Baojia underwent no change that night, but
not surprisingly she could not sleep. She had been sealed inside
her home by her friends and neighbors, shutters and doors all
nailed shut, and the little house was hot and cloying. She sat in a
chair in the dark kitchen, for though she had scrubbed the sleeping
chamber all day after Jing-Sheng had been removed, with the windows
shut the lingering smell was trapped inside with her.

Long after midnight there was a knock on the
door that made Baojia jerk, then cringe away. The knocking was
repeated, and her name was softly called. Baojia crept to the door
and put a hand flat against the wood, answering in a whisper.

“Yu Pao?”

“Yes.”

There was the whine of iron and wood as Yu
Pao used a bar to pry the nails from the doorjamb. Baojia felt her
way familiarly around her own kitchen and had the lamp lit on the
table by the time the door opened, and Yu Pao limped in.

His face was scratched, clothes filthy, but
he seemed otherwise well. He bowed to Baojia formally.

“It is done. The buso is slain. My friends
have taken its remains to the wujen.”

“Da-An, he can…he can make a cure?”

“He claims so, yes.”

Baojia stared at the man, at Jing-Sheng’s
good friend, and felt the deep grief she had walked with all day
erupt within her. She sobbed, hard, and threw her arms around the
yakuza.

“I am so sorry, I am, I wish…I wish I had
been killed by the monster, rather than this. It is not fair…”

“Very little ever is,” Yu Pao said, wincing
for his aching body. Baojia noticed and released him, drawing
back.

“I am sorry, you are injured…”

“Trifles,” he said. “I have had worse and
surely shall again.” He looked at her tear-tracked face in the
lamplight. “You need rest, Jia. Have you slept at all?”

Baojia shook her head. “I cannot. I do not
know where I go when I sleep.”

“That will be remedied soon,” Yu Pao
promised. “At least sit down, and let me open your windows. The air
in here is…unwell.”

Baojia nodded, and allowed Yu Pao to settle
her down on a chair. The man limped back to the open doorway, where
he had left the heavy iron pry bar leaning.

“You are far too kind to me, Yu Pao Long,”
she said. He took up the bar.

“Nothing that has happened here is your
fault, Baojia. You are a good woman and a good person. A good
sister to your brother, and a friend to my friend. The obligation
is on me.”

Baojia did not fully understand that, but
she nodded anyway as Yu Pao stepped behind her.

* * *

The tall yakuza with bloody bandages wrapped
around his legs deposited the basket on Da-An’s table, and lifted
the lid. The old man stared down at the terrible visage of the
buso: A nightmarish thing if ever he had seen one, no less fearsome
in death than it had been in the quasi-life of the dark spirit
world. A black bullet wound was blasted in its forehead, just above
the intact red eye.

“Good shot,” the wujen said.

“Yes it was,” the woman with the brace of
pistols strapped to her chest agreed. “You say your potion will
keep?”

Da-An nodded, though a trifle sadly. He
looked down at the eye and sighed. The woman spoke curtly.

“Then make it, and save it should something
so terrible ever happen here again.”

The yakuzas moved for the door, and Da-An
looked after them.

“It is not too late,” he said. “I can still
cure the woman. Her role in this was none of her doing. The cause
of your Clan brother’s death is dead in this basket.”

Hao Gao and Qiao Lan stopped, the tall
fellow looking at the woman almost hopefully. Her gaze was steely
in return. Hao Gao sighed, and spoke the mantra of the yakuza
before the two of them returned to the darkness of the night.

“All obligations will be paid. There are no
exceptions.”

* * *

Thanks for reading. The preceding story is set within
the world of the Norothian Cycle (by M. Edward McNally) a Musket
& Magic fantasy series in which Yu Pao Long is a player.

The Sable
City
(Book I)

Death of a
Kingdom
(Book II)

The Wind from Miilark (Book III), Coming Soon

Ed McNally is unable to produce a brief bio at this
time as he has been treed by a marauding pack of javelinas in the
Sonoran Desert.

http://sablecity.wordpress.com/

The hospital corridor buzzed with activity.
People wearing white lab coats dashed down the halls in both
directions. Some sported Halloween regalia—Obama, Spiderman, and
Wolfman zipped by. Above all the commotion, the intercom blared out
loudly.

“Dr. Wilkens. Extension 2-0-1-6 stat…2-0-1-6
stat.”

Sara McCaffe blinked her pale blue eyes
before looking briefly at the speaker overhead. Hmm…2016, she
thought to herself. Medicine intensive care. Not her idea of
fun.

While spending what seemed an eternity on
the medicine service, she had grown to hate those stat pages. All
of them emergencies. She was ready for a change. As a junior med
student at California Medical College, she was looking forward to
her next rotation—surgery. All her life she’d dreamed of being a
surgeon. Now she’d get her chance. She couldn’t blow it.

Ignoring the throbbing in her head, Sara
rushed down the crowded hallway, brushing by a fourth-year student
in a beat-up Tiger Woods’ mask. Like her, he was in a hurry. The
constant pressure was enough to drive a sane person mad. After what
happened last year around this time during the surgery rotation—a
student in the class ahead of her had cracked under the strain, and
rumors were he’d been institutionalized—she vowed no amount of
stress would ever cause her to buckle. No way.

“There,” she mumbled, staring toward the end
of the corridor. A faded sign read McDermitt Building. Sara paused
for a moment. It’d been two and a half years since she’d been in
McDermitt building. Seemed like ages ago. Recalling what her
instructor had told her, the surgery greens were kept in the
basement.

Pushing the blonde bangs from her oval face,
Sara walked to the entrance and shoved the dark gray door open. She
ducked past a fake spider web. What was it with these people?
Didn’t they realize Halloween was one big joke? Ghosts and goblins
and witches and hauntings—great for kids, but not for someone
serious about a career. Who really believed in that shit anyway?
Not her.

She looked to her right. A flight of stairs
led up to the second floor. From there it was a short walk to the
operating rooms. To her left, a short ramp led down to a second
door into the basement.

Descending toward her left, Sara could hear
her breathing echo lightly off the narrow enclosed corridor walls.
Shivering slightly, she didn’t remember it being so cold and damp
in McDermitt Building. Folding both hands up under her arms, Sara
neared the heavy metal door leading down below. Unexpectedly, it
swung open, barely giving her enough time to step aside.

“Oh, didn’t mean to startle you.” Two women
in green surgery scrubs stood in the doorway.

“No problem,” Sara lied, taking in a deep
breath. Leaning against the wall, she gave the two scrub nurses
some room to pass. “I’m a third-year med student. I was told to
pick up my surgical greens down here.”

“Happy Halloween,” the plumper one
wished.

“Halloween’s tomorrow,” Sarah corrected her.
She would never understand all the fanfare associated with the day
of werewolves and zombies.

“Okay,” the plump nurse replied, rolling her
eyes at her skinny companion. “Oh, the greens. Keep going ’til you
pass a large laundry chute. Across from the chute you’ll see a
rust-colored door with disposal written on it. Just around the
corner from that door they’ll be some shelves. Just pick out the
size that fits,” she finished, resting her hands on her broad
hips.

“Don’t I need to check them out or
something?” Sarah asked.

“Na, there’s no one down there.”

“And only take what you need,” the thin
nurse piped in. “If you students continue to walk off with the
surgery outfits, there won’t be enough for us nurses.”

“Right,” Sara nodded, feigning concern.

Before Sara could leave, though, the plump
nurse asked, “When’s your first surgery?”

“Early tomorrow morning. Supposed to be
scrubbed and ready by 6:30.” Sara took a step toward the basement
door.

“Where?”

“OR 13.”

“Operating Room 13?” The two nurses
exchanged quizzical glances.

“Na, can’t be right,” the heavier one said.
“Been no surgery in OR 13 for a long time now. How long you think,
Bess?”

“Not for well…fifteen years. Who told you OR
13 anyway?” The thin one peered at Sara.

“My clinical coordinator. She gave me the
schedule.”

The skinny nurse continued. “You relook your
schedule, hun. Must be a typo. There’s been no surgery in OR 13
since the accident.”

“What?” Sara’s eyes widened.

“Very unfortunate. All five of ’em—just
incinerated.”

“Come on, Bess,” the large nurse
interrupted. “Quit making such a big deal about it to the new
student. She’s gonna have enough on her mind with clamps and
sutures.” Then looking back to Sara, “Hun, pick up your scrubs and
don’t pay no attention to what ol’ Bess says.”

Sara watched as they began to leave.

Suddenly the plump one stopped. “Bess is
right about one thing, though. Check and make sure you got the
right operating room number.” Turning, the two nurses headed up the
ramp out of McDermitt Building.

“You bet,” Sara nodded after them, wondering
if they were just feeding her some hospital hearsay. Scrub nurses;
they were probably trying to get her riled before her first case
tomorrow. As if they were thinking it being Halloween wasn’t
enough. Well, it didn’t work. Frowning, Sara started into the
basement.

A stack of soiled surgical linen piled on
the concrete floor marked the laundry chute. Most of the clothes
were stained various shades of red.

Opposite the chute, she noted the door
marked disposal. Now just around the corner.

“Shit,” she mumbled, clutching her knapsack
tightly against one side, as a sudden metallic clang from the
disposal chute caught her off guard. With her heart racing, she
spun around and faced the origin of the absurd noise. A split
second later, she sighed in relief. A new batch of dirty scrubs lay
scattered below the chute opening.