Year of the Golden Dragon (8 page)

“Peter!” Aunt Grace exclaimed, “Have you heard the words coming out of your nephew’s mouth?” She started laughing and tugged Ryan’s hand still resting on her shoulder. “You are terrible.”

“Okay, everybody,” Uncle Peter said. “Now’s not the time to debate the difference between East and West. Stay together and nobody will get lost. Let’s go and get our luggage. Hong Kong awaits us!”

•~•

Ryan walked out of the washroom near baggage carousel number twenty-seven. A sign was posted above the rotating luggage with “Flight CX183-Vancouver” printed in lighted letters. He wore a clean shirt, his hair was combed and his face washed. He ran his tongue over his freshly brushed teeth. He felt good. Well, maybe not good, but better.

Where was Alex? He was supposed to be watching for their suitcases.

There he was – standing in front of a screen showing flight arrivals. Ryan walked over. As he neared his brother, Ryan heard him reading out loud, “British Airways, China Airlines, Lufthansa, Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific. That’s five Cathay, three China Airlines, and two Singapore. Or is that three from Singapore?”

“What are you doing?” Ryan asked.

Alex didn’t bother answering. Instead, he reached up, took his cap off, scratched his head and pushed his thick, black bangs back.

“I thought you were supposed to be watching for our luggage,” Ryan said. “I also thought you were supposed to get your hair cut before we left Vancouver.”

“One: I didn’t see any barbers. Two: I ran out of time.”

“Too busy playing with your pony friends?” Ryan asked.

“At least I
have
friends,” Alex said.

“One day you’ll find out there’s more to life than horses.”

Alex rolled his eyes and looked back at the screen. “Yeah, whatever,” he said. “Anyway, I thought I’d just get my hair cut while we’re here.”

“What? You can’t get your hair cut during Chinese New Year,” Ryan said. “You’ll have bad luck for the entire year!”

Alex snorted, “Yeah, right!”

“Nobody’s going to cut it, you know,” Ryan said, trying to hide some of the annoyance in his voice. He hated when Alex got under his skin.

“Aunt Grace’ll find someone to do it for me,” Alex said.

“Aunt Grace will find someone to what?”

Ryan turned to see his aunt had joined them. She had pulled her hair back into a ponytail and put lipstick on.

“Get my hair chopped,” Alex smirked.

“Of course, darling,” Aunt Grace said. “We don’t believe any of those old wives’ tales, do we? I’ll find a place we can both go to – a haircut for you and a manicure for me. Now, Ryan, where is our luggage?”

“It was Alex who was supposed to be getting it.”

But Aunt Grace wasn’t listening to him. She was already focused on Alex’s recital of which aircraft were landing and how many there were from each airline company.

Ryan shook his head and walked back to the carousel. Sometimes he just could not believe how stupid his brother was. Ryan could see how Aunt Grace wouldn’t understand.
She
wasn’t Chinese. But Alex should know better. Some of these rules had been around for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years. Just wait until he told Uncle Peter about Alex wanting to get his hair cut. There’s no way he’d let him. Where had Uncle Peter gone anyway?

Ryan looked around to see if he could catch sight of his uncle. He didn’t see him, but he noticed a lion dancer, different from the other one. This lion had only one person inside the costume, and he seemed to be struggling to remove the heavy mask.

When the performer finally pulled free, Ryan saw that he was quite a big man. Big for a Chinese person. And he was dressed in odd clothes. Instead of a regular shirt and pants, he wore a long, shiny black tunic. His sleeves were so long, they hid his hands. The high collar was fastened tightly around his large neck.

Ryan saw Alex and Aunt Grace smiling and laughing under the arrival screen. They were probably laughing at him. He turned his back on them and watched the dragon dancer reach back and pull out a long, single black braid from inside his collar. The braid fell straight down the man’s back, nearly reaching his waist. A queue? In this day and age?

The man stopped moving as if he sensed he was being watched. Ever so slowly, he turned just his head to face Ryan. A strange smile crept over his dark face.

The hair on the back of Ryan’s neck stood up. He wanted to look away from the man’s round, doll-like eyes, but he couldn’t do it. When Ryan tried to blink, his eyelids stayed frozen wide.

From very far off, he heard, “Ryan, honey. Are you all right?”

He felt his aunt’s hand on his arm and tried to turn toward her but felt frozen.

“Ryan!” his uncle said. “Chop, chop. I’ve got the trolley – and here comes your suitcase. Grab it before it goes around again.”

Ryan couldn’t move.

“Hey!” Ryan heard and saw Alex directly in front of him. Alex’s face momentarily blocked out the man’s hypnotic gaze. He waved his hands in front of Ryan. “What’s with you?”

Ryan shut his burning eyes and pulled off his glasses. He felt like he did after running a long-distance race that he hadn’t properly trained for. All of his energy was gone, siphoned out of him. As he rubbed his eyes, Ryan felt the gentle touch of Aunt Grace’s hand on his head.

She said, “Are you okay, sweetheart?”

His face felt scorched, but he nodded. “Yeah. I don’t know what happened. I was looking at a man over there,” he said, pointing away from them. “He was one of the lion dancers.”

“What man?” Alex asked.

“The one with the weird eyes,” Ryan said as he put his glasses back on. He raised a hand over his forehead like a shield and looked to where the man had stood. There was no sign of him – or the costume.

He’d disappeared.

Chapter 7

Enter the Dragon

Hong Mei slipped into the employee washroom
at the Hong Kong airport and ducked into a stall. She removed the phony glasses from her face and pulled off the long wig. Holding it up before her, she thought it looked only a little shorter than her own hair used to be.

As she unbuttoned the passport clerk disguise, Hong Mei noticed again how perfectly it fit. She removed her own trousers and red turtleneck from the backpack Madam Ching had given her and pulled the clothes on. Then she reached back in and removed a black nylon jacket. She put it on and zipped it up. This, too, was the correct size.

She picked up the uniform, hairpiece and glasses and stuffed them into a plastic bag before unlocking the door and walking out of the stall. She moved quickly toward the garbage can and pushed the plastic bag into it. Then she unzipped the left pocket of her jacket and took out her new watch. The design on its round, white face was of a dragon and phoenix facing each other. Black Chinese characters representing the hours formed a circle running around the border. In the centre, between the two creatures’ bodies, was a small rectangle. Inside this were red flashing numbers. The display beat like a pulse: 51:27:17

Fifty-one hours, twenty-seven minutes, and seventeen seconds. When Madam Ching had given Hong Mei the timepiece, the woman had said it acted like a timer, counting down the hours, minutes and seconds left until the Year of the Golden Dragon began.

There was just a little over two days before New Year’s Eve.

For what seemed the umpteenth time, Hong Mei began to run through a mental checklist:

•
Get a close look at the boys. (Done. They looked just like they did in the photographs given to her by Madam Ching.)

•
Follow the Wongs and wait for Ryan and Alex to be alone.

•
Convince them that their jade pendants really belong to Black Dragon and that because of what it says in an ancient scroll, they have to return to Beijing with me to give all of our jade to Madam Ching. Black Dragon will know his jade is being returned and will come to receive it. We will be able to capture him so that the world sees that Chinese dragons actually exist.

Right. How ridiculous. Those two boys were never going to believe her. They would probably think she was crazy, or worse, part of a kidnapping ring or something. They were probably much smarter than she was.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

The alarm sounded on her watch – a signal that the Wongs’ luggage was being sent out. It was time to go to where the family would be waiting.

A woman was standing just outside the staff toilet. “Follow me,” she said to Hong Mei. She unlocked a door upon which was marked
No Entry
and held it open for her, pointing toward one of the dozens of baggage carousels. “They are over there,” she said.

Hong Mei spotted the Wong family, but she did not move. Her heart sped up when the woman nudged her forward and the door closed behind her.

She slipped her hand into her pocket. Gripping her jade, she walked slowly toward the luggage area.

Hong Mei saw Ryan, Alex and the foreign woman, their aunt. The younger boy and his aunt were talking while the older boy stared away from them at something. He stood motionless and unblinking, as if he had been turned to stone. Hong Mei followed Ryan’s gaze and gasped. A man was staring at him with such intensity that the air between them appeared to vibrate. Hong Mei could feel the stranger’s power from where she stood.

She watched as Alex approached his brother. Alex said something to the older boy, but Ryan didn’t respond. Hong Mei saw Alex step directly in front of his sibling, waving his hands in the air. The energy between the man and older boy immediately disappeared. Ryan removed his glasses and rubbed his face.

The din and commotion in the giant hall suddenly subsided. The sounds of hundreds of people became muffled as if a blanket had been dropped over them. Everyone still moved around her, but their actions were delayed and exaggerated.

What’s happening?

Hong Mei glanced toward the man. Her instincts told her not to look directly at him, but her eyes were drawn to his. She tried to cast a charm of protection over herself, but for some reason Hong Mei couldn’t remember it.

The man stared directly into her pupils. A second later, her eyes felt like they were being torn from their sockets. Hong Mei’s mind fought the man. Her father had trained her well, and she knew her
gong fu
used to be excellent, but she was out of practice. She tried to imagine her own energy pushing the man’s back at him, but all her strength and discipline had vanished. What kind of power was this?

Deep inside her head she heard, “It is old power – as ancient as the universe itself. Do not fight it, for it is part of you.”

Snap!

Hong Mei was released with such force that her head flipped back, as if her neck was an elastic band. Her head rebounded and her chin smashed against her chest, snapping her teeth into her tongue. She tasted blood.

She looked down and cupped her shaking hands around her eyes like blinders. Once again, she could hear and see everyone in a normal way. People were laughing and talking, jostling to retrieve their suitcases and other luggage. Nobody seemed to have noticed what had just happened to her.

Hong Mei squinted towards where the Wong family was. They were gone.

Good!

She wanted to go, too. She didn’t need this.

“Young Chen, I presume?” she heard someone hiss from behind, spitting something hot and wet onto the back of her neck. Her sense of the surroundings dulled once more.

“Yeow!” she screeched, turning around and striking a warrior’s defence pose. Her body and brain were beginning to remember.

The strange man now stood grinning at her, inches away from her face. His eyes were hidden behind large, heavy sunglasses. Hong Mei felt her insides turn to water, but she held her stance.

“Ahhh, Chen,” the man said. He breathed into her face and began to giggle. The sound was like a high-pitched squeal, twisting her eardrums and burning into her head. “This modern
gong fu
cannot protect Young Chen from Black Dragon.”

Hong Mei recoiled from the stench of his breath. She tried to back up, but felt frozen in position.
Black Dragon?