Chapter 7 Rui
Rui
Rui climbed eagerly into the passenger seat. Before she could shut the car door fully, Ash floored the accelerator.
“Where are we going?”
“The Barracks.”
“The Barracks?” she repeated, surprised. It was a military facility that also housed the Guild’s research labs. “Are you going
to tell me what’s going on?”
Silence.
Perplexed, she glared at Ash. Had tonight’s mission gone awry? The only injury she could see on him was an old one. The shaved
side of his head had grown out, and short ashy-gray hairs covered the nasty gash he’d gotten from the Outram incident. But
there were fresh tears in his combat uniform.
“Are my friends okay?” she said, pulling out her phone to call Ada.
“Put your phone down. They’re fine,” Ash said, brow twitching as though something else was bothering him. “We’re holding them
in the infirmary for the night, just in case. They’re a little unsettled, but nothing they won’t get over. I’ll fill you in
later. It’s easier to explain after you’ve seen it.”
It?
“Rui.” Ash’s sudden use of her nickname meant he was veering from Guild business. “My brother.” A topic she preferred to avoid.
“I’m worried about him.”
Why did everyone think she was the person to talk to about Song Yiran?
“I could never figure out what was going on between the two of you.”
“Platonic relationships exist.” Rui huffed, pretending to misunderstand.
But Ash wasn’t easily diverted. “I’m not saying you dated.
I’m saying I sensed a connection. I felt it that night at dinner with my grandfather and even from the time at Zizi’s shophouse when Yiran first showed me his magic.
” Ash leveled a pointed glance at her before turning back to the road.
“I thought he might have confided in you about what caused his magic to appear and disappear so suddenly. It can’t be a fluke. ”
“I don’t know anything,” Rui lied.
“Are you sure?”
She nodded, ignoring the twist in her stomach. She had a feeling Ash didn’t believe her.
“Why don’t the two of you hang out anymore?”
“I was recovering, and Yiran went back to normie school. We didn’t really know each other for that long.”
“I wish he would talk to me about what’s troubling him.”
“Maybe he will when he’s ready,” she said, trying to sound encouraging. Ash could be an obnoxious prick at times, and he’d
learned politicking and stagecraft at his grandfather’s knee, but one thing was certain: he cared deeply for his half brother.
“He’s been spending a lot of time out of the house,” Ash shared.
“How is being stuck in Song Mansion good for him? You should know how your grandfather makes him feel.” Rui wasn’t going to
mince her words when it came to Song Wei. The Head of the Exorcist Guild had lost her respect, both as a leader and as a grandparent.
Ash’s expression puckered. “In hindsight, maybe it’s better for us to stick to business, Cadet Lin.”
“Let’s talk business, then,” she retorted, crossing her arms. “When are you telling the rest of my cohort about the existence
of Hybrid Revenants? If they’re going on missions, they deserve to know.”
“We intend to. The briefings have already begun.”
That was news to Rui. “Are you telling the juniors and everyone else at the Academy too?”
“It’s a fluid situation that we’re constantly evaluating.”
“That’s just PR speak. How about the public?”
“You know that’s not going to happen.” Rui started to protest, but Ash shushed her. “We are not discussing that right now, Cadet Lin. There are more important things we must deal with first.”
Rui stared stonily out the window at the streetlights zooming by. She knew the argument. Hybrid Revenants didn’t look like
monsters; they looked human, just like Ash and her. They spoke and behaved like humans too—until their weapons emerged from
their spines and they attacked you.
Normies didn’t have high enough levels of spiritual energy to be trained to see Revenants, let alone Hybrids, so it meant
that the Hybrids would present only as fellow humans to them and nothing more. And if normies knew such creatures existed,
fear and suspicion would permeate society. Out of paranoia, people would be hypervigilant. Neighbor would turn on neighbor,
parent against child. There would be panic in the streets, a destabilization of society.
This was the Guild’s thinking, and as much as Rui hated to admit, there was merit in it. Still, was lying to the public the
best answer? Couldn’t the Guild handle the revelations in a systematic manner? Couldn’t they teach normies other ways of identifying
a Hybrid and how to safeguard themselves? And when things settled, wouldn’t the world be a wiser, safer place? That would
be the ideal situation. But ideals weren’t reality.
The rest of the car ride passed in silence. Ash seemed preoccupied with his own thoughts, and Rui made no effort to engage.
The lights on the Barracks’ perimeter were lit when they arrived, but the rest of the compound was dark. Rui had never been
here before. The cluster of beige and white buildings didn’t look particularly impressive, but she’d heard that this facility
contained a Simulator that was more sophisticated than the Academy’s.
Ash killed the engine. “What you’re about to see is highly classified. Only a handful of us are aware of it. The Guild Council
hasn’t been informed yet.”
“What makes me so special?”
“I want to have a clearer picture of things before I send in my report,” he said. “You were in the tunnels at Outram that
day, and you’ve encountered several Hybrids. Perhaps you’ll have some additional insight.”
“If you say so.”
“I see you’re intent on being difficult tonight, Cadet Lin.”
Rui shrugged. “Not any more than usual.”
“I need a coffee,” Ash groaned. He got out of the car, throwing a furtive glance around. “Leave your weapons. Come on—and
be quiet.”
Unsure what to expect, Rui followed him to the small nondescript building at the edge of the compound.
“Step ten paces to my left,” he instructed, tapping his access card on a panel by the doors. A red light flashed briefly over
his face and body. If Rui had been next to him, the light would’ve reached her too. Ash wanted to keep her presence at the
Barracks under wraps.
The panel beeped.
Captain Song Lan Xi. Welcome, said a disembodied robotic voice.
The doors slid open.
The empty lobby had a sterile look and smell that reminded Rui of a hospital, and the temperature seemed like it was being
kept deliberately low.
She rubbed her hands together for warmth. “Where are we?”
“Some of our research is conducted here.” It was such an Ash kind of answer. Not exactly secretive, but thin on helpful details.
They went past the elevators to the back where the cargo elevator was. Instead of taking it, Ash shouldered the stairwell
door and gestured with his hand: After you.
Rui descended until he indicated for her to stop at a landing. They were about three stories below ground level. Freezer-temperature
air buffeted her face when Ash opened the door, and there was a strong chemical odor.
“Is this a morgue? What kind of research are we talking about?” Rui asked as they went down the corridor.
“The supernatural kind mostly.” Ash stopped in front of a metal door, turning to face her.
“Revenants scatter into smoke when they’re vanquished, but Hybrids are different, since they’re created when the Blight infects a living human.
There’s a body that turns into an ash-like substance when they die, as you may have observed, and we’ve been studying
that substance. Tonight we found something else.”
He tapped his access card and opened the heavy door.
The room looked like an operating theater in a mundane hospital, but two things stood out: the array of medical instruments
and colored glass jars that gave off a magical aura, and the young woman smoking in the corner. She was wearing a white lab
coat over a black turtleneck sweaterdress and boots that went up to her knees. Her hair was in a long, thick braid tied high
on her head, and her lips were stained a dark plum. A pair of oversized round spectacles with blue-tinted lenses perched precariously
on her narrow nose.
“There you are,” she said, perking up. “I was wondering how much longer I had to wait.”
Ash gave her a teasing look. “Are you even allowed to smoke in here?”
“My lab, my rules. Besides, this is overtime.” She glanced at his empty hands and made a clucking sound with her tongue. “If
you were going to keep a girl waiting in the basement with this dreadful thing, you could’ve at least brought a drink.”
Ash waved vaguely in Rui’s direction. “I had to go get this one. Besides, the night’s still young.”
Rui scowled at them.
“Cadet Lin, meet Dr. Kodie Tsai,” Ash said, shutting the door firmly behind him.
The doctor stubbed her cigarette out on a metal dish and pushed herself off the wall. “Rui, right? You can call me Kodie.
I’d offer to shake your hand, but considering what I’ve been working on, that seems like a bad idea.”
Rui glanced at the operating table. A thin white sheet had been thrown over a large, lumpy object, and there was a putrid
stench coming from it.
“Couldn’t stand looking at it, so I covered it up,” Kodie explained, pushing her spectacles up on top of her head. There were faint shadows under her deep-set eyes. “And I’m pretty sure I have the strongest stomach in this room.”
Feeling preemptively sick, Rui said, “Thanks for the warning.”
Kodie put on a pair of disposable gloves and approached the operating table. “Brace yourself.”
With a swift move, she pulled off the sheet.
Rui’s brain had already been thinking up all sorts of gross stuff, but nothing could have prepared her for the mangled mess
of human on the table. She wasn’t sure where one limb ended and the next started, though she was certain that was a nose and those were fingers, even though neither really looked like it. Either way, she was glad to have missed dinner.
Her voice cracked when she tried to speak. “What happened?”
“We’re not exactly sure,” Ash said, looking a little ill himself. “One of the senior cadets discovered this corpse during
our mission tonight.”
“Who was the cadet?”
“Teshin Mak.”
Rui nodded, slightly relieved. Teshin was unflappable; they would be fine. Almost unflappable, she amended, remembering how flustered they’d become when talking about Yiran.
“Cadet Lang caught a glimpse as well when she went to aid Cadet Mak,” Ash added.
“Mai doesn’t know Hybrids are real.”
“She does now. I’ve spoken to the two of them. They’re okay.”
Kodie peered closely at the body. She caught Rui scrunching up her nose. “You get used to bad smells in this job,” she said.
Rui gave her a weak smile.
“Other Exorcists would’ve assumed this was a cut-and-dried case. The Blight attacked an unsuspecting person at random, the
transformation went wrong, the person died, and so on. But Ash brought it to me. He has an instinct about such things.”
Ash grinned. “A compliment from you, Koko? That’s a rarity I shall cherish.”
“Are you flirting?” Rui frowned at him. “In a morgue?”
“Technically, this isn’t a morgue. It’s a research lab,” Kodie pointed out.
“There’s a dead person right in front of us!”
“Well, I’m spoken for.” Kodie glanced at Ash. “This one’s a good kid. Unfortunate.”
“What do you mean?” Rui said, glaring at the doctor. “And I’m not a child.”
“Doesn’t matter what she meant,” Ash said. “I brought you here because Kodie discovered something strange about this corpse.
It wasn’t transformed by the Blight.”
“What do you mean?” Rui repeated, shakier this time.
Kodie brought her glasses back down onto her nose. “An attempt was made to change this man into a Hybrid Revenant by messing
with his spiritual energy, but the pattern of qi deviation isn’t what you normally see in an infection from the Blight. This
attempt was carried out with magic.”
Rui gasped. “That’s impossible.”
“Is it?” Kodie threw the sheet back over the gruesome corpse. “I heard about an experimental separation spell that could carve out and transfer spiritual energy.”
Zizi’s spell. It was what had caused the transfer of magic between Rui and Yiran, but it no longer existed because Rui had used it. What was Kodie implying?
Kodie narrowed her eyes. “Wasn’t the Guild told by a certain someone that the spell couldn’t be replicated?”
“It seems that certain someone might have misled us,” Ash said, staring hard at Rui.
“Yes, it seems they have,” Kodie echoed.
“That spell has been refined—improved, you might say—to allow a Revenant’s yinqi to mix with the yangqi of humans, changing a human into a monster.
It was that mage you keep talking about who made the original talisman, wasn’t it?
The extraordinarily talented healer. Your little favorite.
” Kodie’s eyes flicked to Rui. “I heard you were the last person to see him.”
“Are you implying that Zizi’s a turncoat? That’s absurd,” Rui said, heated.
But Zizi did create a similar spell. He’d done it under duress to save her life when Ten was threatening everything. Rui had assumed the
spell was destroyed when the tunnel collapsed.
Unless . . .
Ash was still observing her keenly. “You do know something.”
She lobbed a questioning look at him.
“Whatever you tell me, Kodie will know too,” he said.
Ash trusted the doctor. And despite making it her side hustle to give him a hard time, Rui trusted him. “Did you find a completed
talisman that day in the tunnels?”
“We found talisman papers in the rubble, but they were blank pieces. There were no actual spells.”
Rui gripped the edge of the metal sink. “How many Hybrids did you find, and how many did you kill?”
“All five were all eliminated, like I told you.”
“Five including my mother’s murderer?” Rui said, her voice dropping to a whisper.
Ash frowned. “Yes.”
Shit.
One Hybrid had gotten away.
More precisely, one Hybrid had gotten away with the new talisman Zizi had created. That was what killed the person lying on the operating table. The Hybrids must’ve used the spell
on him, and something went wrong.
This time, make sure the spell can be cast an infinite number of times.
That was what Ten asked for, and the strange, magical dried-up willow branch he’d given Zizi for the spell had made its creation possible. Turning one human into a Revenant was an abominable act. Wanting to create a world full of monsters was beyond pure evil.
Rui’s secrets had met their expiration date. It was time to confess everything she knew.
“Shit,” she said out loud.
“I’m having a terrible night,” Ash said, “and my body is screaming for a bed. If you have something to say—”
“I’ll tell you everything from the start,” Rui interrupted, wincing as her eyes went to the corpse on the table. “But let’s
get out of here. I think I need a drink.”
Kodie raised her hands. “Finally. Someone with common sense. Come on, I’ll drive.”