It felt like five hours before they were finally zooming along the road in their little green Renault 14. Realistically, it had only taken an hour and a half for them to deal with money conversions and arrange for the rental. And, luckily for Shan, both Ian and Buckley possessed international driver's licenses. She would have had to take a train or a bus if she'd come here alone.
As it was, Shan curled herself up in the claustrophobic backseat and tried to catch some more sleep. Ian, with his goofy hair and playful eyes, drove like a speed demon along the already darkening highways toward the tourist city of Chamonix in the French Alps. At first, Ian's roadway daring surprised her. In her mind, the mild-mannered professor stereotype drove a respectable Volvo at the speed limit or just above it. But here they were in France, less than a day after they'd met, following the trail of an ancient jade dragon.
It made an odd sort of sense, considering the dragon's powers. While all the other animals were normally associated with concrete aspects, such as the tiger's speed and tenacity, the dragon represented mutability. "Ride the wind," her mother always said. Chinese dragons, unlike their Western counterparts, were long, sinuous things twisting in the sky as they rode the invisible currents of wind. And, also unlike Western dragons, they were wise and often benevolent. Certainly not the types to eat virgins and hoard gold. They took opportunities where they found them, acted swiftly and with great confidence. What sort of man would Ian's friend be, after living with the statue for so long?
Shan dozed, calmed by the drone of the car's engine and the quiet rumble of conversation from the front seat. They stopped and stretched every few hours, giving Shan a chance to soak in the landscape. She'd never been to France. In fact, she'd never been anywhere except China and the United States, though she'd traveled extensively in the latter researching leads on the jade animals.
But France felt different from America, even though the geography was technically similar. The hills just seemed greener, the sky bluer. And their little car would be drowned in an ocean of SUVs like Buckley's Explorer back in the States. The architecture, too, felt different. Shan saw cottages, rustic vineyards, and Roman ruins scattered along their way. The whole place just felt
old
. It reminded her of her childhood, when she had routinely sipped tea from cups that had been hand made centuries earlier. China's great history breathed in every fiber of silk and every move of her mother's hand.
Shan's chest tightened. It did her no good to think of these things. Her mother was gone, along with the entire secret order of the Jade Circle. And if Shan didn't stay focused and recover all the animals, it would stay dead forever.
The air grew steadily colder as they ascended into the Alps. They had only a few hours of fading sun to admire the frosted peaks of the mountains, but Shan plastered her nose to the window in the backseat to reap every last minute of the view.
"Put the Rockies to shame, don't they?" said Buckley, grinning. His hair was too short to be mussed from the long day of travel, but the redness in his eyes betrayed his fatigue. Ian was driving again. Or was he still driving from his last shift? The day had collapsed into sleep-fogged memories of roads and gas stations and an endless display of scenery.
"Yes," Shan said. "They're not even in the same league."
"Maybe we'll have time for a little skiing while we're here," Ian said, far too cheerily for Shan's mood. "I used to ski quite a bit in my youth."
"I was always more for the lodges than the actual slopes," countered Buckley. The two seemed tireless in their ability and desire to banter. "You get to meet more snow bunnies that way."
The sun disappeared behind the mountaintops, but still lit up the countryside behind them, land that wasn't shrouded in the shadow of the great Alps.
"I've never been skiing," said Shan. "I'll put it on the list."
"Which list is that?" asked Ian.
Shan sighed and leaned back against her seat. She massaged the muscles in her shoulder. "The list of things I'm going to do when I get my life back. Wait, that implies I once had a life. I should've said when I get a life, period." But she'd had a life once. In China.
"You'll get that chance soon enough," said Ian. "With me and Bucks helping, of course." Ian kept his eyes on the road and his tone light, but Shan felt more conviction than levity in his statement.
"Right," said Buckley, grinning. "We're your passport to success."
"Right now, I'd just like you to be my passport to Chamonix. How close are we?" Shan asked.
"Almost there, despite Buckley's two wrong turns," said Ian. "But I'll have to stop and ask someone for directions to Charles's lodge. The street isn't listed on our map."
"I vote we stop somewhere with a bathroom," said Buckley. "I shouldn't have had that seventh cup of coffee."
The traffic picked up as they neared Chamonix. Most of the other cars had skis attached to their roofs or hanging out their rear windows. Snowboards were almost as plentiful. Occasionally, a snowmobile skated up beside them on the snow-packed roads, or raced over the embankments.
When Ian finally pulled the car into the lot of a small gas station and inn, Shan jumped out to pump the gas just as Buckley bolted for the bathrooms. Ian got out of the car more slowly, careful not to bump his badly-bruised head, and stretched near Shan.
"You've put up with Buckley longer than most women," Ian said. He reached back into the car and grabbed the maps.
"Probably because I'm not attracted to him," Shan said. "And his faults are easy to overlook in light of our current situation. Not everyone would be up for a late-night trip to another continent."
"So you're not attracted to him?" Ian said. Shan got the distinct feeling that he hadn't even heard the second part of her statement. She smiled.
"No, I'm not. Does that surprise you?"
Ian shrugged, obviously trying to recover some of his nonchalance. "A little bit, yes," he said. "I've often been told that women like assholes."
Shan laughed. "It probably looks like that since we date so many of them, but I assure you, it's not on purpose in my case. The macho thing never did much for me."
"What does? Do much for you, that is..." Ian looked down at his maps and folded one of them into a tight, thick square.
Shan's breath caught in her throat, making it almost impossible for her to speak. Skinny, awkward archaeologists with goofy hair, she wanted to say. Instead, something horribly noncommittal came out of her throat, along with a shrug.
Fortunately, Buckley returned with much fanfare from the bathroom, and Ian fled inside the building to ask for directions in that dark, silky accent of his. Somewhere in there, Shan remembered to start pumping the gas.
"You like him," Buckley said, grinning like a schoolboy. "You like Ian."
"What, are you going to spray paint it on the wall during recess? Of course I like him. He's a smart, funny guy who's agreed to help me in my life's quest. What kind of lunatic wouldn't like that?" It came out in one long blurt, and Shan desperately wished to take it back, refine it. Make it sound less defensive. But the damage was done.
"Ooh, Shan likes Ian!" said Buckley. And he did a little dance in the snow. At least that's what it almost looked like, with him hopping from one foot to the other like a marionette. Or, his feet were on fire. Or, being attacked by rabid wolverines. Whatever it was, it hurt just to watch.
Shan frowned and returned her eyes to the gas meter. She watched idly as the numbers advanced in metric. The valve shut itself off just as Ian rejoined them.
"We're all set, folks," Ian said. "It's about twenty minutes away."
"Does Dr. Fortier know we're coming?" Shan asked.
Ian shook his head. "Nope. No phones. But I sent him an email from the airport on the off chance he might check. But basically, we'll be barging in unannounced and asking for one of his priceless artifacts."
"Sounds like a plan," said Buckley.
"Sounds like
your
kind of plan," grumbled Shan. But she really couldn't complain...her visit to the university hadn't had much strategy behind it, either. The image of the crane from that magazine article had burned itself into her brain, and she had acted without thinking. Good thing for Ian, since she'd arrived just in time to save his life.
They crammed themselves back into the car. Buckley drove so that Ian could navigate. The town around them had come alive with tourists in small bars and restaurants, but they drove up, deeper into the mountains, farther away from the lights and bustle. A light snow started to drift down from the darkness. The little flakes glowed in the headlights like so many lightning bugs.
Shan was staring at the snow, amazed at the sheer amount of it, when a child jumped in front of their car, hands raised.
"Watch out!"
Buckley spun the wheel. The car skidded on the slick road, swerved away from the child and toward the embankment. Shan braced herself in the backseat and watched the collision in slow motion. Buckley turned the wheel hard right, but the car kept sliding in the same direction. Ian's hands went to the dashboard, his maps forgotten.
"Straighten her out," Ian said, far more calmly than Shan thought possible.
Buckley said nothing, but turned the wheel back to the left, in the same direction they were sliding. Just over the embankment's gentle slope, a crowd of trees waited silently. Their little car, jam packed with the three of them, drove straight toward the imposing trunks. Buckley turned right again, and this time the car obeyed. They skimmed across the embankment and back onto the road, leaving the trees to wait for other victims. The car slowed to a stop, and Buckley engaged the parking brake.
Shan heard her own heart pounding and the raspy dissonance of their breathing.
"Good job," Ian said quietly. "Excellent job."
Buckley simply nodded, then let his forehead rest on the steering wheel.
"The child," said Shan. She shook the slow motion from her head, popped off her seat belt, and got out of the car. The kid stood a few hundred feet back, staring at them. Shan walked toward him--a boy of maybe eight or ten--with her hands raised.
"I'm a friend," she said. "Are you hurt?"
The boy shook his head, but stayed where he was. She saw his shoulders start to shake before she was close enough to see the tears. He blurted out something in French, a long stream of words interrupted only by sobs. Shan looked back and found Ian just a few feet behind her, the messenger bag securely over one shoulder.
"He says they have guns," Ian translated. "They slapped his mother."
"Who are 'they'?"
Ian shook his head, listening to the next stream of words from the child. "They took his mother and his sister into a room on the second floor. The boy hid in the attic, then climbed out the window. They told his father--Charles Fortier, I'm assuming--that they'd kill his family if he didn't cooperate." Ian interrupted the boy with his own question in French. He frowned and looked back at Shan. "Four men and a woman. One of the men has a scarred eye."
"Damn," Shan said. She took off her puffy pink jacket and wrapped it around the boy's shoulders. "This is Fortier's son?"
Ian nodded. "Etienne." Ian introduced himself and Shan to the boy, and the three of them hurried back to the car. Buckley met them halfway, and Shan filled him in on the situation. The Fortier house was a half mile through the woods to the east.
"Why are they doing this?" Shan said. "If Fortier had the dragon, they should have taken it and headed back to the airport."
"Maybe Charles sold the dragon," said Ian. "I contacted him almost a decade ago, shortly after I got the crane. We corresponded for a few years, sharing information about the jade animals, but I haven't talked to him in ages."
Shan walked away from Buckley and the boy, who were standing near the car. Buckley was distracting the boy with his broken French. Ian followed her, and they lowered their voices.
"They must think Fortier knows something," Shan whispered. "There'd be no reason to take his family hostage otherwise."
"Or," Ian said, pacing in the small spot in front of her, "they think
I
know something. I mean, how did they find out about this place? I only told you about it last night."
"Could they have broken into your computer? Found the emails from Fortier?"
"Well, it's not like I labeled them 'Jade Dragon' or anything," grumbled Ian. "It would've taken them a long time to sort through years of email to find those old messages."
Shan stared up into the night. Snowflakes landed on her cheeks and nose. She shivered. Ian had offered her his coat, but she had refused. The cold helped keep her mind sharp. "Then we were followed," she said. "They hit the gas station after us and found out where we were going, then somehow managed to beat us to the house."
"Snowmobiles?"
Shan nodded. "Yes, maybe that's it."
Ian let out a long breath. "It really doesn't matter how they found out. We brought them here, and we've got to save Charles and his family before one of them gets hurt."
"Agreed," said Shan. "And I think the only way to do it is to split up."
"Are you crazy?" said Ian. "It never pays to split up in the movies. That's when the guy with the axe takes us out."
Shan dropped into a low stretch. She needed to get her muscles warmed up and loose in a hurry. "I'm not afraid of guys with axes," Shan said. "And I'll be doing the dangerous part here. I want you and Buckley to go to the house like everything is okay. Stall for as long as you can."
"What if Charles is already dead?" whispered Ian with a quick glance at the boy. "What if they pull out guns and just mow us down right away?"
"No chance," said Shan. "They need the crane--"
"Which they can take easily enough from my dead body," said Ian, hefting the messenger bag.
"That's why you need to give the bag to me for now," she said. She continued with her stretches, alternating sides. "And you led them to the dragon. They'll want to find out if you have any leads on the other pieces."
"But I don't."
"They don't need to know that," Shan said, trying to sound calm. She needed Ian focused for this, unafraid. Of course, he had every right to be terrified. This whole thing wasn't even his fight. "In fact, feel free to hint about the tiger piece."
Ian pulled the messenger bag's strap over his head and handed it to Shan. "Why the tiger specifically? Why not the leopard or the snake?"
Shan winced. She hadn't meant to be that obvious. "Because...they may already have the leopard or the snake, or both."
"But not the tiger?"
"No," she said simply. "Not the tiger."
She stopped stretching and looked into his eyes. He looked back into hers, obviously searching for something. Finally, he nodded.
"Please, don't tell--"
"Not even Buckley," he said.
Shan let out the breath trapped in her chest and closed her eyes. No one knew about that tiger except for her father and her friend–student–business partner, Lydia. And it was in Lydia's best interest to keep that knowledge to herself. In fact, Shan needed to check in with her the next time she found herself some privacy near a phone. The woman had probably called all the hospitals and morgues in New York by now. Shan put the thought aside. In the now, only the Fortier family and the dragon mattered.
"I'll take the boy with me," Shan said. "Give us a thirty-minute head start to walk back to the house and try to free the family. When One-eye sees that I'm not with you, he'll be a lot more dangerous."
"I understand," said Ian. "I'll explain this to Etienne and tell him what he needs to do."
"Thank you," Shan said.
She wanted to kiss him just then. To take him in her arms and show him how much she appreciated his help, his bravery. The thought surprised her, even scared her, and she suppressed the urge. Those were the wrong reasons to kiss someone. Instead, Shan returned to her warm-ups, throwing punches and kicks in the air to get her blood flowing. As Ian talked to Buckley and the boy, she performed a set of standing meditation. Energy coursed through her body. Chi, the Chinese called it. Over the years, Shan had learned to harness its power and even to control its flow. Now, she directed it to her toes and her fingertips, warming them even as the snow continued to fall. Her fingers curled into claws as she tightened the muscles in each digit. Power. Speed. Tenacity. She had studied all the animals growing up, but it was with the tiger that she felt the most affinity. A mighty hunter, swift and deadly.
Shan was ready to find her prey.
The boy Etienne moved quickly through the dark woods, despite the thick layer of snow covering everything in their path. There was a quiet intensity to the boy that reminded Shan of herself at that age. And resourcefulness. The boy had escaped from five armed grown-ups and successfully found help. His parents, if they were still alive, should be very proud.
Shan focused on the flow of chi through her body. The boy still wore her coat. Her pant legs were soaked and starting to freeze, and every time the wind blew, it felt as if icy ghosts were flying right through her flesh. Snow. Winter. She'd given up these luxuries when she'd moved to Los Angeles with her father. Just now, the idea of living in a desert didn't sound so bad.
They headed toward a soft glow in the forest. The Fortier lodge sat on a gentle slope, securely nestled between trees and sweeping snow drifts. Lights flickered along a shoveled driveway and path toward the front door. In only a few minutes, Ian and Buckley would be bringing the little green rental this way. Etienne caught her eye and said something in French. Shan read his body movements as "Follow me," and so she did.
Shan spotted the first guard, one of the men, lounging against the side of the house near a snowmobile. The man pulled a lighter out of his pocket and lit a cigarette with shaking hands. Good. Apparently One-eye hadn't stopped for warmer clothes. Shan pulled Etienne back by his shoulder and motioned that they should take a wider path around. She had no doubt that another guard patrolled the other side of the house, with possibly a third in back.
They circled wide, winding their way between trees and bushes. Shan heard the soft sound of running water...no, of water falling from a height. She crouched low and pulled Etienne with her. He obeyed without question and sat still as a statue in the snow by her side, his breathing but a faint whisper in the night air. Shan held out her palm in front of Etienne, telling him to stay. The boy nodded and sank lower into his crouch.
The sound faded just as Shan found its source. One of the guards had been relieving himself against a tree. As he zipped his fly, Shan pounced. The man went down face-first in a puff of snow when she swept his legs. Shan kept an iron grip on the man's left hand, twisting his wrist in one of the most powerful and painful holds she knew. He groaned and tried to yell. Shan tightened her grip and drove his face deeper into the snow. Fortunately, the man wasn't wearing a bulky coat. Shan found the necessary pressure points on the back of his skull and sent him into unconsciousness.
"Etienne," she whispered toward the boy's shadowy form. He rose immediately and jogged silently to her side.
"Rope?" She pantomimed tying up their captive. Etienne nodded. A small shed rested against the side of the house, not too far from their position. With the guard gone, Shan and the boy snuck over to it. The door was old and warped open. Etienne slid inside without a sound. A second later, he slipped back out holding several feet of chain.
Shan took the chain, motioned for him to stay, and ran back to the guard. They had maybe five minutes left--maybe a little more--before Ian and Buckley pulled into the driveway. Five minutes to get inside and rescue the Fortier family.
The chain was a bit bulky, but it did the job. Shan secured the man, sitting up, to the tree trunk he'd peed on earlier. Poetic justice, in her opinion. More importantly, though, it was the closest trunk to where that lumbering hulk had landed.
Shan rejoined Etienne, and the boy pointed up to an attic window three stories above them. Shan jumped and pulled herself onto the roof of the tool shed. The other handholds were just as easy to find: an awning, a ledge, a drainpipe, a roof. Finally, she wrapped her fingers around the pane of the attic window and pulled herself up.
The room's only light came through the window she had just entered. Boxes filled the space, stacked high along most of three walls. Dust filled her nose. Shan snorted slightly to expel it. Sneezing later could prove fatal. The section of the room where she had entered appeared to be the boy's sleeping area. A small bed crowded against the sloping wall to her left, with a clear view of the sky through the window. Books and clothes littered the floor, the small bedside table, and the low, fat dresser to her right. It was a younger, slightly neater version of Ian's bedroom. Shan pulled the messenger bag over her head and placed it on the floor by a pile of comics. It would be safe enough here until this was over.
Shan looked out the window. Etienne was following her path up the side of the house, although at a much slower pace. It was clear from his calm demeanor that the boy had performed this routine on a number of occasions. In fact, he probably had a fort and a little stash of blankets and candles somewhere out in the woods. She smiled. Was that what Ian had been like as a child? Adventurous and brave, with books scattered everywhere? Shan felt a slight pang in her chest, the sadness of knowing that she'd never get to see Ian that young.
Shan flipped the latch on the trap door and lowered it carefully. Its little stairs unfolded into a bright, light-filled hallway on the second floor of the lodge. Shan closed her eyes, listening.
Outside, she heard the gentle scrapes of Etienne scaling the side of the house. Up the hallway, she felt a slight rhythmic vibration--someone pacing in heavy shoes. Probably the guard holding the family. Charles Fortier and whoever was watching him would be downstairs waiting to greet their guests. Three guards outside meant that there were still three enemies inside the house--One-eye, Ponytail, and another man. But two of the men from outside would be able to run inside if the warning was given. Shan opened her eyes. She could take out these bastards if she needed to, but with so many defenseless people to protect, the odds dropped significantly.
And she still needed to find the dragon.
Shan lowered herself to the floor and closed the trap door behind her. She didn't want Etienne seeing it as an invitation to follow her. If he was smart, he'd stay quietly in the attic until this was all over. Shan gritted her teeth. But is that what she would have done if her father hadn't taken her away from the Jade Circle that deadly night when she was twelve? Not a chance. She had wanted to fight with the Circle against the intruders. To fight and die with them, if necessary. To be by her mother's side until the end, and then to join her in the afterlife. Shan had belonged with the Jade Circle, in life and in death. Why had her mother and father forced her to leave, robbed her of her right to die for a cause she loved?
Shan's throat felt suddenly thick. No, Etienne would definitely follow her, trying to save his family. And she'd have to protect him when he did.
The door at the end of the hallway was closed. Someone was pacing just beyond it, causing the light emanating through the crack at the bottom to dim in regular intervals. Halfway up the corridor on the left, a wide set of stairs led down to the first level.
Shan focused her chi in the center of her body, feeling the heat pool just below her bellybutton.
Light, weightless, a feather
. The energy pulsed through her limbs as she pictured herself quiet and floating. Shan crept along the old, hardwood floor, her feet barely contacting the surface. When she reached the staircase, she crouched low and flattened her body against the wall, listening.
"Come on, Ian," she mouthed silently. Her heartbeat started to quicken as she waited. Shan focused her energy and stilled it to a normal speed. Even the deadly tiger can stay low in the grass until the time is right.
There. She heard it. The distant growl of a car on the driveway.
"Stay quiet now," said a woman's muffled voice from behind the door at the end of the hallway. Ponytail, Shan figured. The woman with the lightning foot. And she was talking to the hostages.
Movement below. Shan stilled her breathing even further and craned her neck slowly around the corner of the stairwell. Through the smooth slats of the banister, she saw One-eye and one of his goons.
"There's only two of them in the car," said the goon--a great slab of a man with dark olive skin and a shiny bald head.
"Which two?" said One-eye, his Mandarin accent covering his English like a blanket. "The men?"
"Yeah," said Baldy. "The bitch is missing."
One-eye gave a low growl that may have been a chuckle.
"Missing? I don't think so," he said. "Go upstairs and tell Dart to expect company."
"Yes, sir," said Baldy. "You want the guys to take care of the teacher?"
Shan clenched her fist.
"No, of course not, you idiot," said One-eye. "We need the information first." Shan closed her eyes and let out a slow breath. They wanted Ian alive.
"Afterward," continued One-eye, "I will kill the man myself." Shan gritted her teeth. So much for
that
safety net. She saw One-eye run a hand over his chest...over the wound that Ian had given him. It must have been a deeper cut than she had suspected. Shan smiled, pleased.
"Enough. They are almost here. Go tell Dart and help her with the bitch. After you've killed her, join me in the side chamber for other instructions." One-eye grabbed Baldy just as the huge goon was about to head for the stairs. "Quietly! Don't make a noise," he said. "The teacher suspects something, or they wouldn't have split up. But he'll do something stupid if he thinks the woman is dead. Do not let that happen."
Oh, don't worry, Shan thought. It's not going to.
One-eye disappeared through a door she could hear, but not see, and Baldy headed up the stairs, taking them two at a time by the sound of it.
He popped into view the next second and turned down the corridor, heading for the door at the end of the hallway concealing Dart and her prisoners. Shan leaped up behind him and struck the sides of his neck with her thumb, forefinger, and middle fingers bunched into a point. The snakebite strike. Baldy stopped immediately and tried to turn around. Shan had already stepped backward, ready to catch him. Baldy gurgled, his eyes confused, and lurched forward into her waiting arms.
Her knees almost buckled under his immense bulk. She wished she had the strength to stow him in the attic, but there was simply no way she could lift him. As it was, she barely managed to drag him backward, past the trap door in the ceiling, and into a bathroom just beyond it. The man smelled strongly of wine, and Shan wondered if One-eye knew his men were helping themselves to the Fortier's collection. Shan looked around the bathroom for something to tie Baldy's hands together, but found nothing. More people needed to keep rope handy, she decided.
In the end, she propped up Baldy's torso against the toilet. The snakebites to his neck had sent a quick blast of blood to his brain. In order to compensate, his brain had told his body to lessen the flow. So, when the quick surge ended, there was less than the necessary amount of blood in the man's brain, causing him to pass out. Keeping his head elevated would prolong the effects for as long as possible. Long enough, Shan hoped.