Chapter 36 The Price of Peace
THE PRICE OF PEACE
Up. Out. Through. Dragging the battered corpse with her.
Clawing forth onto solid concrete, and out of the pit at last. If she were still human, she’d have been gasping from relief. The best she could manage was a damp wheeze, soggy lungs compressing painfully.
Almost straightaway, she recognized her surroundings: she was in the basement underneath the main triad building.
Exposed electrical wires snaked across the low ceiling.
Boxes, crates, and other discarded junk cluttered the concrete floor, which was riddled with stagnant puddles.
Darkness sat like a heavy cloud, and what wasn’t damp was dusty.
Hardly anyone came down here, unless they had to.
But the important thing was that she could see exits. There was a door, albeit locked, and a basement window, the glass smashed in from where Bao entered. Outside, it was raining heavily, water already trickling into the basement window and staining down the walls.
Bao himself was drifting, light and ephemeral, above the filthy floor. He licked her forehead with a chilly tongue, and seemed pleased at having found and rescued her. Again.
Look at you. Mercy reached over and gave the spectral ears a gentle scratch. Following me through hell and back, from one life to the next, one mistake after another. Saving me after I called you a bastard. What did I do to deserve such a friend?
The ghost cat regarded her loftily, as if to suggest there was no answer he could give that she would ever understand. And he was probably right.
Muffled shouts filtered through the broken window, capturing Mercy’s attention. She eased over with the corpse still in her arms, acutely aware of her rapidly drying skin despite the cool dampness of the basement, and peered out.
The ground-level street outside was typical of Kowloon: dark, a little dank, strung with wires and strewn with rubbish. The handful of moldering decorations for the Hungry Ghost Festival did little to lighten the view.
There was more space than in most of the district, though, because this side of the triad building faced into Kowloon’s one courtyard area.
In decades past, it had been the center of the fort; these days, it was a narrow rectangle of concrete, open to the sky, with buildings clustering tight on all sides.
And in the center of that courtyard was none other than Erika, surrounded by a group of four triad men.
Her hands were held high, her face pale as she spoke rapidly.
They held choppers, circling her like sharks.
There were people peering out of windows, or looking through cracked doors, but no one came out or interfered.
Not for triad business, and not during such a spiritually dangerous evening.
She came with you, to find me, Mercy said to Bao, the realization unfolding. Despite the danger, and the risks.
Bao lashed his tail.
I won’t let them hurt a friend. Mercy launched herself up and out through the basement window with all the grace of a vengeful spirit. Her cat followed, growling low in his throat.
The nighttime air was sticky with humidity and the darkness was heavy with spiritual energy.
The full force of the Hungry Ghost Festival filled the space around her, writhing with yin energy that only spirits could sense.
Wards were hung above every window and doorframe, which normally would have been painful for spirits, yet she was barely aware of them at this distance.
The triad men turned abruptly as Mercy clambered unglamorously from the broken basement window. Their eyes widened and one of them said, hoarsely, “Is that Chan’s spirit? What the hell!”
Erika stiffened, eyes going wide behind her glasses.
Mercy threw her head back and shrieked. It was an intuitive cry, one embedded in her memory. The haunting, anguished wail of a child left to die before her time.
The typhoon answered, as she knew it would.
Heavy clouds stirred to a sudden boil. The wind accelerated, rattling shutters and signs and buildings alike.
Thunder rolled like a stampeding horde and the heavens opened abruptly, pouring forth torrential rain.
The deluge was a welcome relief to Mercy’s skin.
She’d been starting to blister, even under cover of night.
That’s better, she said, then set down her old shell of a body and walked toward Erika. Rain lashed in sideways, and it was almost like being in water again.
The triad enforcers shouted, brandishing weapons at her approach. Two of them Mercy recognized as her tormentors, from earlier in the day, and a wash of searing anger suffused her. She must punish them, catch them, drown them all—
No. Mercy couldn’t breathe deeply to calm herself, so she ground sharkish teeth and shook her head to disperse the surge of ghostly fury. Be calm, be rational. She needed only to help her friend; that didn’t have to mean killing these men. They could not harm her anyway, not anymore.
To their credit, they at least tried. The first one swung his watermelon chopper with full-body force.
The blade cut through her atrophied flesh, but there was nothing to damage, no blood to flow.
Her arm healed almost immediately. The second pulled a peachwood dagger, while the third brandished a pair of fu talismans.
Mercy caught the chopper blade with one hand, the sharp edge pressed hard into her dead palm, and flung it away. The other two were slightly more dangerous, and could hurt her, in theory.
But she wouldn’t allow that. A stomp of her foot sent hurricane winds spiraling across the courtyard, knocking over the man with the peachwood dagger and the man brandishing fu talismans. They tumbled and rolled like leaves, losing their precious anti-ghost items in the process.
The fourth man stood frozen and alone, too cowed to move.
Go home, little boy, she said, and bared her teeth.
He turned and fled, yelling swear words.
Bao, who had not yet changed from his kitten form, watched with impassive curiosity. He seemed to recognize that Mercy did not need him, and so had not expended the energy. For once, she was strong enough to stand on her own.
In moments, all of them were gone.
Mercy allowed it. She did not pursue, or wreak death. The rage was still within and around her, but it was merely the storm for which she was the eye, and she could be calm at its center. She would be calm.
The sense of control was freeing.
Are you alright? Mercy walked over to Erika, quieting the storm around them into mere rain. For now. Did they hurt you?
“Holy shit!” Erika’s eyes were wide as saucers. She fell to her knees on the concrete, drenched and shivering. “Oh my gods. Are you—”
Your old friend Chan, Mercy answered, gently. This is my true form, as I really am. That body over there contained me for many years, but it is not me. Do you understand?
Erika stared at her, mouth working but no words coming out.
I’m so sorry … This is so complicated. There is a lot going on.
“But what the hell are you?” Erika sputtered, speaking at last. “A spirit? A goddess? Something worse? No, you can’t be evil, you’re … so lovely.” She blinked, as if shocked and embarrassed to have said that aloud.
Mercy understood. Her friend was not seeing a monster, starved and vicious and dangerous. In this driving rain, on the night of the Hungry Ghost Festival no less, the water ghost glamour was in full effect. To human eyes, she would be a vision of transcendent beauty.
The glamour wasn’t something she could turn off or on, like a switch. Still, it was useful. Erika might have been trying to kill her or running away, if not for that power. Mercy was oddly grateful that the curse had given her space to explain.
Let me show you, she said, kneeling down to Erika’s level, and pressed her forehead to Erika’s. As she had with Siu Yin, long ago, and as Siu Yin once had—partly—with Wing Yun.
A cascade of memories and emotions swamped the other woman.
Only a few moments passed, but Mercy knew it would feel like much longer to Erika.
She gave freely the story of all she had been and done as a child, and the betrayal committed against her niece.
When it was done, she stepped back, giving her old friend space.
Erika gave a gasp and a cry, patting her face and body as if to check it was all still there. “Let me get this right … You’ve been a ghost in a stolen body this whole time? Ever since I’ve known you?!”
I’m so sorry, Erika. I never meant to deceive you. I did not know myself, until Thousand-Faced Girl “killed” me. Only when I died for a second time did my memories return.
Mercy paused, trying to gather her thoughts. There were too many to gather, though. It was like chasing down a yard full of baby pigs.
“Don’t speak to me like you know me!” Erika leaned away, palms pressed to her eyes. “You’re just some dead woman. Not the person I thought I knew!”
For a moment, Mercy was once again Sea Sister, standing in a dark cavern and hearing Siu Yin shriek You are a ghost! The rage rose in her heart—
And she quashed it, hard. Patience. Peace. Self-assuredness. The things she had fought to cultivate in herself were the pillars she must lean on, and through sheer effort of will, her heart kept an even keel.
I am not just some dead woman, Mercy said quietly. I lived thirty-three years in that body. I had friends, have been a friend, survived war and death, saw poverty and brutality. I made a life, I made a difference. Haven’t you known me through all of that?
Even as she said it, the full weight of that truth settled on her like a blessing, a strength to draw upon. Her choices in the past had been monstrous, but she was capable of being human, and had been for years. Perhaps one day, she would be again.
The rage within calmed further. Even the ache in her lungs seemed to dull.