Chapter Twenty-Two. the Name of the Father
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THE NAME OF THE FATHER
Chinatown wasn’t a place you were supposed to find beautiful; not compared to the dark glamor of New York or the sweeping palaces and mountains of motherland China, or even the black-and-white bungalows here in Singapore with their massive gardens.
Chinatown was overcrowded and worn out, exacerbated by the wave of new residents who had come during the war fleeing Malaya and Christmas Island—only, of course, to be taken over nonetheless shortly after.
It was half broken down and overrun with gangs and vices.
But the Butterflies had shown Adeline their favorite shops, their favorite places to eat, the walls where they’d scratched out their initials or written secret rude messages.
They would gossip liberally about people: this shopkeeper, that call girl, this hairdresser, that infamous john; what their reputations were, what their scandals were, what little quirks they had you could press on.
Nassim Hill couldn’t have been more different.
Adeline’s last home with her mother had been comfortable.
This was rich, and looming, sprawled behind gates and walls of foliage.
This was old money—and blood money, possibly, from when spice and land and rubber were at their most untapped.
Elaine had liked to bring people home to cow them.
Adeline remembered being driven down this road, seven years old, and seeing castles.
How could she have thought of the girl beside her as anything other than a princess?
Adeline was bigger now, but the Chews’ white bungalow was no less grand.
She rang the bell at the ornate black gate and was ushered up the driveway by a maid, past the marbled tigers and toward the patio colonnades, the scent of flowers in the air.
Where Chinatown churned, Adeline thought Elaine’s home would last forever.
If there were secrets here, they stayed behind the gates.
“You are not Madam Butterfly,” said the old man who was waiting beyond the door.
“She sent me instead,” Adeline lied. “I know the family.” She recognized the fixer’s curt voice from the phone, but was surprised by the tattoos, stark black lines down each of his wrinkled fingers.
He looked in good health for his age and was more sharply dressed than any other Needle she had met, though, in a pressed shirt and trousers.
His private clients paid well if the watch was anything to go by.
Rich man. Old master. Only works for the towkays. “You’re Master Gan.”
He paused. “Where did you hear that name?”
“Anggor Neo wrote to you.”
His thin lips pursed, not denying it. “Upstairs,” he said, not waiting for her to follow him. He headed up toward Elaine’s room. She remembered this path, too.
“You work for the Chews?” she continued as they walked through the vast hallways, still trying to figure out the Needle’s exact arrangement.
“I’m retained by select clients,” he corrected her, which Adeline understood to mean that he worked for families like the Chews and beyond—wealthy, with old roots and old ties, who still believed in old ways of healing.
Elaine’s bedroom had been redecorated since Adeline had last been in here.
Magazine posters of Beatles and movie stars had replaced the row of dolls; a new vanity held makeup and curlers, and the sheets were plain purple instead of pink rabbits.
It was on these sheets that Elaine lay, eyelids half-closed, hair wet with perspiration, all covers thrown off her.
She was wearing only a singlet and shorts, and even then, she had pushed the shirt up to cool her stomach, despite the fan churning air directly at her.
Adeline felt unexpectedly embarrassed seeing her so exposed.
“What happened to her?”
“Last week she attended a secret Christian event led by a man she knew as Elijah. He called himself an ex-con who had turned to Christ in prison and made it his mission to bring other young people to his God.” Master Gan remained cordially in the doorway, but otherwise continued on, businesslike.
“The man’s real name is Tee Heng Juan. He was a second-in-command in Three Steel, seven or eight years ago.
He was arrested and then told the police about Three Steel’s operations.
Back then I believe Fan Ge killed his girlfriend and harassed his family out of the country.
Last I heard he had been stabbed in prison, but it seems he survived, and Fan Ge held his grudge.
” He indicated Elaine with a tilt of his head.
“She says there were twenty of them at this gathering. She and the three friends who accompanied her have all come down with the same fever. Safe to presume the other sixteen did as well, and that some are probably dead by now.”
“And Tee?”
“Shot himself two days ago at his girlfriend’s grave. Which is how I came to the understanding that this was Three Steel’s retribution, not some irrational attack from you on some schoolchildren, and that Mr. Chew had made a mistake demanding Fan Ge for revenge.”
Adeline’s eyes snapped to him. “He told Fan Ge to come after us?”
Master Gan shrugged. “He would have eventually. But yes, he told Mr. Chew that you wouldn’t be a problem anymore. When Tee’s body turned up, I started thinking about some fevers I was written about, among Three Steel’s prostitutes.”
“Anggor Neo.”
“They broke neutrality when they killed him. But I think you should try to save Miss Chew first,” Master Gan said, “or all this will be for nothing.”
Adeline looked down at Elaine. “Leave us.”
The Needle obliged, surprisingly, perhaps familiar with the request for secrecy.
Adeline sat on the edge of the bed and touched Elaine’s forehead.
It was scalding. Elaine was sweating violently.
Next to her were an empty basin and washcloth; there were marks at key points on her limbs, presumably from the Needle’s attempts to heal her.
“You’re so fucking stupid,” Adeline said, only somewhat smugly.
Elaine’s eyes flickered open. “What?” she murmured. Even when she registered Adeline, she barely had the energy for shock. “What are you…?”
“Did you take anything at the revival? Pills?”
Delirious blinking. “We only drank wine. Communion. The sacrament.” Elaine reached for Adeline. Pushed aside the collar of her blouse with burning fingers, exposing the butterfly tattoo. “When I close my eyes … I see … wings.”
“You’ve been—infected somehow.” It wasn’t the right word to use, but it was the only one that came to mind. Lady Butterfly’s magic was somehow taking hold in hosts that had no ties to her. “You must have drunk it. Does the butterfly say anything? What do you feel when you see her?”
Elaine whined and curled up. Adeline gritted her teeth. The questions would have to wait. The Needle was right—she had to try to save her first. An idea was coming to her, but it was recklessly dangerous, and entirely untested. It was completely possible she might just kill Elaine.
Well, win-win.
She grabbed Elaine by the elbow. Elaine tried to squirm from her. “I’m trying to save your life,” Adeline snapped, unable to believe those words were coming out of her mouth, but tightening her grip anyway, and spreading her other hand over Elaine’s abdomen.
Heat bloomed in her senses like a bruise.
She had underestimated how much more a person was compared to a bird, how hot-blooded.
The sun that was Elaine didn’t want to be restrained.
The mortal body was not meant to hold so much fire, not without help.
This fever was foreign. Adeline recognized it like recognizing herself.
Some piece of Lady Butterfly had gotten into that wine, and without oaths and tattoos to anchor it, it was burning Elaine from the inside out.
It was already resisting Adeline’s attempts to corral it. She had hoped to bring it down slowly. Instead, it seemed she was going to have to bring it down the same way they’d brought the heat up in that chicken—suddenly, violently, and just hopefully not fatally.
“You’re stronger than a chicken,” Adeline muttered.
“… What?”
Adeline shoved at the fever. She sucked in a breath at the aftershock that spiked through her, blistering and bitter. It wasn’t happy, but it didn’t matter. It was hers, it was Lady Butterfly’s; like a relentless child, it would obey. She pushed again, harder this time, demanding its retreat.
For all her willpower, Adeline was burning as she wrestled the fever down.
It kept coming back in waves, spilling through any lapses in her guard.
Stars broke in the corner of her eyes. She had to force herself to focus.
Elaine was panting and whimpering from the fight raging within her, but Adeline was getting somewhere, even if she had to keep pushing harder to keep Elaine still.
Putting a fire out was easy, she told herself.
A snap of the fingers to summon it, and another flick to go away.
To everyone else it might be a monster. In her hands it was malleable. It was her monster.
Adeline gripped, and pain seared through her, and she ground the fever down.
Elaine’s eyes fluttered, and the tension dissolved from her face. Under Adeline’s palms, her body was cooling petulantly, to something near normal.
“Heavenly fire,” Elaine murmured. Adeline ignored her, still waiting for it to come undone. But she seemed to have quelled the fever permanently.