Chapter 55 Ash
Ash
“Thanks, everyone,” Ash said. “We’ll regroup once the scouts call in. Remember, keep your eyes open and your mouths shut.”
The briefing session had gone better than expected, and there was silent determination in the eyes of the Captains and Lieutenants
leaving the room. A team had already traced evidence to a new hideout once used by the Hybrids. It’d been abandoned, but the
site was being processed for information in the hopes of finding more clues to their current whereabouts. There were still
no reports or sightings of Yiran, and Ash couldn’t help but feel relieved.
He lingered in the corridor, trying to decide between coffee and sleep.
Lieutenant Shuang dallied too, on the rather obvious pretext of untying and retying his shoulder-length hair into a ponytail.
They had been classmates in freshman year, and while Ash didn’t confide in Shuang the way he did with Surin, they were close
enough and he’d always viewed Shuang as a friend. A reliable one.
“You hanging in there?” Shuang asked.
It was the first time anyone had asked about Ash’s well-being since the morning’s events. After meeting with the Council,
he’d spent the rest of the day drowning himself in work. Now that work was over, he couldn’t run away from the personal. Funeral
preparations had to be taken care of. The eventual public display of mourning was a performance the Council would plan at
some point when they decided to release the news, but Ash could do things his way before that. Auntie Kimmie and his grandfather’s
loyal staff of many years were like family, and he intended to inform them when he got home. The wake would be a small private
affair, he decided. Just for family.
His stomach clenched. There was one immediate family member who wouldn’t be there.
“Not okay, huh?”
Ash jolted. “Sorry. What can I do for you?”
Shuang shook his head. “I should be the one asking that question. You know it’s almost midnight, right? Your eyes are bloodshot,
and you look like you’ve been run over by a truck. Come on, I’ll buy you supper.”
The hour was late, and the walk to the twenty-four-hour restaurant was chilly. Ash had a growing suspicion that Shuang was
up to something. For some reason, he wanted Ash outside the Guild building—and alone. The conversation over the meal was ordinary,
and they didn’t talk about Exorcist work. Ash felt his guard going down. Stress and the lack of sleep was making him paranoid;
his friend was probably just trying to cheer him up.
“You can have this. I’m way too full,” Shuang said when their taxis arrived. He dumped the plastic bag of leftovers into Ash’s
arms and pulled him into a half hug.
Something pricked Ash’s palm.
“I follow you, Captain, not anyone else,” Shuang said in his ear. He released Ash, clapping him on the back with a smile.
“Try to get some rest.” He got into his cab, leaving a flabbergasted Ash by the sidewalk.
Ash’s cab driver yelled, “Are you getting in or what?”
Once seated, Ash unfurled his fingers. There was a tiny piece of paper with a chicken-scratch code in his palm. A code that
he and Surin had come up with once as a gag between them. But she’d been kidnapped by the Hybrids. He looked again. It wasn’t her handwriting.
Quickly, he unscrambled the message in his head.
Others are searching for him too. Takeout box.
Him? Was the note referring to Yiran?
It made sense that the Council would task others to search for his brother as well.
Which meant they didn’t trust him. Ash crushed the note in his hand.
His brother was in deeper trouble than he’d thought.
The Songs had led the Exorcist Guild and Council for decades, and there’d been an assumption that Ash would take over at some point.
He had the lineage, and he was gaining the experience.
But he was still young; he didn’t know if he was ready yet.
Or if he even wanted the job. And now, with his grandfather gone, he—and Yiran—were no longer protected from the hyenas.
The Council and other higher-ups were likely making plans in secret.
Were they lying about Yiran and what happened at the teahouse?
He pulled out the takeout box. Instead of shrimp fried rice, there was a phone. Only one number was saved.
Ash acted normal, engaging in small talk with the cab driver until he reached Song Mansion. He dialed the number immediately.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” drawled a familiar voice when the call connected. “I’m sorry about your grandfather.”
“Kodie?” Ash said incredulously. Was she the one who wrote the message? Surin must have told her about the code. “Why didn’t
you call if you needed to talk? Or tell me to go to your lab?”
“I would under normal circumstances, but I think it’s safe to say this isn’t normal. I can’t leave my equipment, and Shuang
figured someone had to get you to eat anyway. You need to take care of yourself.”
“Is this some convoluted plan to nag at me? Because I’m not in the mood,” Ash said irritably, tossing his coat onto a chair
in the living room.
“Geez, I’ve better things to do. I heard a problematic rumor from a little birdie earlier and went down a few rabbit holes.
There’s a folder stored in the phone you’re holding with raw footage from the security cameras in and around the teahouse.”
“I can get that from our analysts.”
“You sure about that?”
“No,” Ash admitted. Despite his persistent requests, the security footage hadn’t been released to him yet.
“I’ve a hunch whatever footage they give you eventually will be scrubbed or manipulated,” Kodie said, “so I tapped into the city surveillance systems and the telcos, and I did some tinkering to get extra footage from a five-block radius—traffic cameras, building security, cell phones—I got everything for you so you can go through it yourself.”
“That’s illegal.”
“But impressive.”
“The Guild doesn’t have the authority. You can’t—”
“Did the Council tell you Yiran killed your grandfather?”
Ash’s mouth went dry. “Yes.”
“Here’s my theory,” Kodie said. “The Council wants to make your brother the fall guy to sully your reputation so you can’t
lead the Guild down the road.”
Was that really what the Council was doing? Part of him felt betrayed, but another part knew better—trusting the Council had
never been an option. He heard a long, shaky sigh from Kodie.
“Listen to me, Ash. Surin had a tracking device on her when she was taken. It’s something we decided to do when things went
wild a few months back. I would follow her movements when she was out on missions, so I’d know she was safe. We didn’t tell
anyone about it because the missions are top secret and we were breaking the rules by doing it, but I . . . I trust you.”
Ash had never heard her sound so vulnerable before. “You don’t have to explain.”
“Thanks. The tracker’s embedded in Surin’s forearm. It’s undetectable to the eye, so the Hybrids wouldn’t know about it. I
tried to connect to it once I knew she was kidnapped. I had a brief signal, but it stopped working. I’m not sure why. It would
still work even if she’s, if she . . .” Kodie couldn’t finish her sentence.
The thought that one of his best friends was dead had crossed Ash’s mind, but he hadn’t allowed himself to linger on it. “Surin’s
tough.”
“I know, but the Hybrids have that talisman Rui told us about. They’re going to test it on the Exorcists they kidnapped, aren’t
they? The way they used it on those poor innocent normies.”
Ash didn’t reply. He’d suspected the same thing, but it had been too frightening to say it out loud. What kind of sick individual would do such a thing? He couldn’t wait to finally confront the leader of the Hybrids and take them down.
Kodie said, “The tracker’s signal gave me just enough information to extrapolate possible routes they could have taken. All
signs indicate that they were bringing Surin and Jonathan back toward the city.”
Ash straightened in his seat. The ongoing theory of the Hybrids’ hideouts had shifted to places outside the city. But if what Kodie said was true, maybe the Exorcists hadn’t exhausted their search here yet. The Hybrids might be
holding their prisoners closer than they’d thought.
“I know that’s not the most helpful piece of information—”
“Don’t say that; every effort counts,” Ash said quickly.
“Just get the love of my life back to me, will you?”
“I’ll bring Surin back safe,” he promised. “And since when are you a genius hacker tech wiz, doctor?”
“A girl can have her hobbies,” Kodie said, sounding more like herself. “Speaking of Rui, I heard she’s back on campus.”
At least one thing was going according to plan. Any sliver of hope was better than nothing. “I’ll talk to her,” he said. “Maybe
she found a way to destroy the talisman. In the meantime, try to connect to Surin’s tracker again. If we have a location and
the means to destroy the spell, then we have a plan in the making.”
“Okay. Keep the phone with you. I’ll call when I have more.”
The line disconnected.
Slinging his coat over his shoulder, Ash made his way to the bedroom. The mansion felt eerily quiet, as if it, too, were mourning
the death of its master. His head ached, and he was bone-tired, but he wanted to look at the footage Kodie had gotten.
The first few clips didn’t hold any surprises.
They captured his grandfather’s arrival at the teahouse from various angles and also his entrance into his usual private room.
There was no camera inside the room, and neither of the two waiters who entered at various points seemed to be acting suspiciously.
Rubbing his eyes, Ash opened another batch of files. The clips showed Yiran exiting a cab a few blocks from The Green Needle
and sprinting down the sidewalk, obviously in a hurry. He had a brief conversation with the concierge, and then for some reason
he loitered outside the Waterlily room, looking as though he was summoning the courage to go in. Seconds later, something
seemed to catch Yiran’s attention, and he pulled the door open.
Focusing intently, Ash rewatched the silent footage of what happened after, slowing it down to catch every detail. Yiran dragging
a collapsed Song Wei out the door . . . Yiran flailing as if he was calling for help . . . their grandfather reaching to touch
his face, the gesture affectionate rather than accusing . . . the moment their grandfather’s hand fell as the life left his body . . . the anguish in Yiran’s
expression . . .
Ash had arrived in that moment. He’d only had a glimpse of Yiran before the enormous eruption of spiritual energy blew out
the doors to the private rooms and the surrounding pillars. But regardless of what had caused that explosion and what Yiran’s
reasons for being at the teahouse were, Ash’s conclusion was clear. There were no Hybrids around. Yiran was alone when he
entered the teahouse. He did not have a hand in Song Wei’s death.
His brother was innocent. The Guild Council had lied. But why? And who could’ve murdered his grandfather?
He went back to the earlier clips of the two waiters, cross referencing the time stamps, toggling between two specific clips:
Yiran arriving at the Waterlily room and the second waiter entering with a tray.
Ash stilled. If he was reading the time stamps correctly, there was no way the second waiter had left the room. Which meant
the man had been inside the room at the time of Song Wei’s murder.
He searched through all the clips Kodie had gathered until he found the one that showed the back alley.
Sure enough, a man had exited out the window of the Waterlily room, landing on the ground in the alley and then slipping into an unmarked car idling by the side.
Heart in throat, Ash rewatched it, slowly absorbing what he was seeing.
The street camera wasn’t positioned at the right angle, and he couldn’t see the man’s face.
But just before the man got into the getaway car, he made a peculiar gesture with his arm.
It was a gesture Ash had seen many times as a child, the result of an old injury sustained by a certain Exorcist during one
of his missions.
It felt as though the air had turned to glass, thin and impossible to breathe. Ash braced a hand against the armrest. He had
been wrong all this time. The mole wasn’t inside the Guild, and it wasn’t an Exorcist who’d retired either—in fact, there wasn’t a mole at all.
All this time, the true culprit had been a hero the world had already buried.