Only one of the buildings seemed to be doubling as a nightclub. Music pounded, neon lights throbbing over the doorway. It looked like it was doing well, with foreigners and Chinese in nice suits going in and out. Money demanded some civility in places like that, even for one-armed women in bloodstained clothes. She was certain they would have a phone capable of making an international call. In a place like that, there would have to be.
She felt incredibly uncomfortable approaching the club. A very large Mongolian man stood beside the front door, watching her. His hair was slicked back, and he wore a white T-shirt and black slacks. A cigarette dangled from his mouth. He held out his hand when Soria drew near, his gaze flickering down to her empty sleeve and then over the rest of her.
Yes,
she told him silently.
I look like shit. Get over it.
“Not for you,” he said in badly accented English. “This naughty place.”
Soria raised her brow, not amused. Words and nuance floated from his mind into hers, faster now than this morning when she had encountered the village children for the first time. Her mind had already been broken in. In perfect Khalkha she replied, “I need to make an international call.”
The man blinked, startled. “You speak very well.”
She shoved a small wad of cash into his hand. “A phone, please.”
He tilted his head. “You a journalist?”
“I am a girl having a bad night,” Soria replied firmly. “I am not here to cause you trouble.”
A cold smile touched his mouth. “And all you want is a phone? Nothing else?”
Soria gave him her best
do-not-fuck-with-me
stare. “One call. Right now. I will pay the charges, and I want a private room.”
The man shrugged and tossed his cigarette to the ground. The cash disappeared into his pocket. He held open the door for Soria and ushered her inside.
The lobby was small but well lit, the walls and floors tiled in glossy black marble. Gilt-framed oil paintings of naked Mongolian horsewomen hung on the walls, and below, like the waiting room of a dentist’s office, deep leather chairs were lined in a row. A man was seated in each, a mix of white and Asian; most looked like business types, texting messages on their smartphones while girls in miniskirts served them bottles of beer. They were waiting in line, killing time before sex.
The men stared at Soria when she walked in, one after the other, glancing up and then doing a double take. Some of them smiled—smarmy, slick, but a smile nonetheless—until they saw her empty sleeve. Then the same look crossed their faces that she had seen a million times back home, at the grocery store or gas station, or in the airport: a flinch in their eyes, a faint twist of their mouths, and then nothing, a mask wiping their expressions clean away. As if she were no longer a woman. Just air. A thing taking up space.
The mass scrutiny only lasted seconds before the men ducked their heads and began busying themselves on their phones; but seconds was all it took to cut Soria. Sometimes a person didn’t want to be caught staring, so they went out of their way to do the opposite, while others were frightened, disgusted, unable to handle the reality of a missing limb and capable only of seeing its absence, not the person.
I’m still me,
Soria told herself, glancing down at the silver bracelet on her wrist, turquoise glinting. It was the wrong wrist but the same body. The same heart.
The front desk was staffed by a pretty young woman in a cheap gray suit, who wore a red ribbon at her throat. A faint bruise was healing around her eye. To the left a sheer curtain shimmered, hiding a room full of shadows. Music pulsed, mixed with rough laughter. Soria glimpsed a stage, and the dancing silhouettes of lithe bodies.
“She needs to make an overseas call,” her escort said to the receptionist, with a hint of amusement. “What rooms are free?”
“You sure a call is all she wants?” The woman gave Soria a once-over that ended at her empty sleeve, and a smile of both disdain and bitterness crossed her tired face. “Pay someone to poke her. No one else will.”
The man shook his head, still smiling. Soria leaned over the counter, staring into the woman’s bruised eyes. “Save the commentary. All I want is a phone.”
Her Mongolian was still flawless, the words settling comfortably on her tongue. Surprise flickered over the woman’s face. She looked from Soria to the man, and then back again. “Why do you need it?”
Soria set her jaw and pulled out a one-hundred-dollar Chinese bill. More than enough to pay for a prostitute’s services in this place. She slid the money across the counter toward the receptionist, but the man intercepted and smoothly folded the crisp bill into his pocket. He gave the girl a hard look. “She can use the phone. And a room.”
Not even Soria wanted to tangle with that glint in his eye. The receptionist fumbled inside a drawer. She pulled out a battered cell phone, and then stood.
“Follow me,” she said.
The building was larger on the inside than it had first appeared. Soria followed the girl up three flights of stairs, and on each floor she heard echoes of tears and laughter, smacking sounds and rough grunts. Her skin crawled, and she found herself twisting her empty sleeve into knots. She hated it here—but she’d been in worse places, other brothels, acting as translator for the various trafficking cases in which Dirk & Steele involved themselves. It never felt as though they made a dent. The wheel kept spinning, and girls and boys were always getting hurt.
The receptionist led Soria to a room near the top of the stairs. It was plain inside, with a neatly made bed, a window, and a small bathroom that smelled like a mix of perfume and old urine. Soria dragged money from her pocket, and pushed it into the other woman’s hand.
“For you,” she said, and then gave her another, smaller, bill. “And for him, when he asks.”
The woman narrowed her eyes but said nothing. She merely hitched up her skirt, revealing pale skin and bruises. She stuffed most of the cash into her underwear. The rest, she placed inside her bra. Soria watched in silence, and then held out her hand for the cell phone.
The receptionist hesitated. “Businessmen sometimes lose their money here, or passports. He gives them this phone when they are desperate to make a call home to families. But it does not work. Just makes them owe more money.”
“Ah,” Soria said, not entirely surprised. “My options?”
The woman reached inside her suit for a small pink phone covered in glittering trinkets. “This works.”
“He will know.”
She shrugged. “Give me a little more money.”
Soria smiled. Maybe this was part of the scam, too. But she would rather be scammed like this than by the greased-up man downstairs. “I want to test the phone and see if the call goes through.”
The woman gave the cell to her, and Soria—awkwardly, one-handed—began to dial home and then stopped, realizing that it might not be safe. Someone could be tracing calls to her home. She cleared the screen, and then punched in the number of a local pizza delivery place in Stillwater that she knew by heart. She had been living off ham-and-pineapple specials for a year now. Easier than leaving the house.
Soria started breathing again only when their voice mail came on. It sounded remarkably mundane. Homesickness razored through her heart.
“Do not take long,” said the receptionist, pocketing more cash. Her gaze drifted over Soria’s empty sleeve. “This is not a good place.”
She left. Clutching the cell phone in her sweaty palm, Soria closed the door with her shoulder. No locks. She leaned against the battered wood and slid to the floor. Took a deep breath, finally allowing her tight control to slip. Shudders wracked her. She had spent the past year as a recluse. Being thrown so hard back into the game, without support, was not how she had imagined returning to Dirk & Steele.
Scratch that. She had not intended on returning at all.
Her hand trembled so badly she almost dropped the phone. Ghost fingers wanted to reach up and dial. She could feel them, straining at the end of an arm that had been cremated, and shut her eyes, banging her head gently against the door.
It will pass, in time,
she heard Karr rumble. Other people had said the same thing to her, but none with that same sincerity and calm, as though they truly believed it.
Soria gritted her teeth, and used her thumb to carefully, awkwardly, dial the number to Roland’s private line. He would have to change it after this was all finished—not soon, but eventually. No way he would want a place like this having his digits. His fault, though, for not providing a three-band phone before she left San Francisco. He had promised that one would be waiting for her in Beijing, but that hadn’t happened, and Soria had never gotten around to asking Serena.
The phone rang twice before it was answered, but the breathless, slightly frantic voice on the other end did not belong to Roland.
“Eddie,” Soria said. “It’s me.”
He exhaled, sharply. “Are you all right?”
“No. Is Roland there?”
“Hold on.” Eddie began shouting, his voice and footsteps fading. Moments later, she heard another click.
“I’m here,” Roland growled. “What the fuck happened?”
“You tell me,” she snapped, wishing she still had her other hand so that she could give him the finger. “There was an attack on the facility. I had to free the shape-shifter they’d locked up, and run.”
“You
freed
him?” Roland dragged in his breath. “Goddamn it, Soria. Where are you now? All I can see is the ass end of some hotel room.”
Mind reader, remote viewer. Roland was capable of seeing the surroundings of anyone he had a connection with—and a telephone conversation was good enough for a complex viewing. All he needed was something to focus on.
“Erenhot.” She heard sharp laughter in the hall, and her heart lurched. “Border city between Mongolia and China. I’m borrowing a phone to call you.”
“Serena’s not there?”
Soria wanted to strangle him. “Do you have any idea what you sent me into?”
“A controlled situation,” he replied tightly. “That’s what I was promised.”
“Bullshit.” She dug her heels into the floor, pushing back harder against the door, suddenly afraid someone would try and open it. “If you had thought it was so controlled, you wouldn’t have
paid someone outside the agency
to watch my back. Why did you do that, Roland? What were you so afraid of the others finding out, that you couldn’t send them with me?”
Silence fell, and very softly, Eddie said, “Roland.”
Soria had not known he was still on the line. Roland whispered, “Eddie. Hang up. Now.”
“No,” replied the young man. “First Long Nu, then this—”
Soria heard a loud click. Moments later, more shouting. Eddie was still holding his receiver because his voice was loud and clear when he suddenly said, “How could you expect me not to notice? You should have seen the look on your face after she—”
His voice broke off, followed by a faint grunt and a scuffling sound. The next time Eddie spoke he sounded very far away and muffled. Angry, too, which took Soria by surprise. Eddie rarely lost his temper.
Roland breathed like he had been running a marathon. “You still there?”
“I’m sitting in a Mongolian whorehouse because I have nowhere else to go,” Soria snapped. “And what does Long Nu have to do with anything?”
Long Nu.
An enigmatic old woman, a shape-shifter, described by the others of her kind in terms usually reserved for royalty, sex addicts, and the villain of every bad Hong Kong movie ever made. Soria had never met her, but she’d heard plenty. The old shape-shifter had made it her mission to preserve her kind from extinction, and had allied herself with Dirk & Steele’s elderly founders in order to do just that. It was hardly coincidence that she was sniffing around Roland, especially now.
A bad feeling trickled into Soria’s gut. Shape-shifter reaction to Karr, if Serena was any kind of example, was radically unpleasant. And vice versa. Whatever the history, it went deep—but the hate seemed irrational, based more on a network of stereotypes that any attempt for real truth.
You know they’re all like this
was not a good foundation.
Roland sighed. “She’s a troublemaker, that’s all. Worry more about that man you freed. You called him a shape-shifter?”
Again, anger stirred. “You should know.”
“No,” he said coldly. “I do not.”
Soria was not entirely certain she believed him. “His name is Karr, and he can definitely change his shape. He doesn’t consider himself to be a shape-shifter, though—not like Serena. Who, by the way, wants him dead.”
“That, I
did
know,” he muttered. “Is he a threat?”
“Why don’t you come here and find out?” Soria replied harshly. “Oh, but no. I forgot. You’re too scared to leave the house.”
Roland made a hissing sound. “You know if I could change things—”
“You wouldn’t,” she interrupted coldly. “If there was ever a chance and opportunity to actually … be there when I needed you, when it wasn’t on your terms, you had it. You had it for a month while I was in that hospital. And you never—”
She stopped, swallowing hard. “We need help, Roland. Now. I don’t know who broke into the facility, but they meant business. They wanted him—and me—alive.”
He was silent a moment. “Robert?”
“Gone now. Certainly not here.”
Soria heard more drunken laughter in the hall. Roland muttered, “Can you get to Beijing?”
“That’s the best you’re offering?”
“Can you do it?”
“By train, maybe.” She hesitated. “You’re hiding things from me.”
Roland made a small, frustrated sound. “Where’s the shifter now?”
Soria closed her eyes, utterly weary and just a little heartbroken. “Go to hell, Roland. And thanks for nothing. I’ll contact you when I reach Beijing.”
She ended the call, and clutched the cell phone to her chest.
Son of a bitch.
Roland Dirk had thrown her to the wolves.
Karr did not move for a long time after the woman left him. He tried, but the vastness of the sky suddenly seemed less like freedom and closer to a cage, and the lights of the city, as if they were the stars themselves, acted as an anchor, a chain. He stared at the spot where the woman had finally, distantly disappeared, and could not shake himself loose, no matter how much he wished.