Chapter 8 #3
This earned a snort. “Don’t worry. ‘Master Chaoxiang,’ as he now calls himself, has always been a creature of habit.
His efficiency and careful methodology are what earned him his present position.
He never dared to betray me in the years he worked under me, for he knows as well as anyone that those JiangHu chapters where advancement through the ranks occurs through bloodshed rather than merit are branches where life is both short and brutal.
All the more so as one goes up the ranks, and it’s only a matter of time before a given chapter head is replaced just as ruthlessly as his predecessor was.
Such chapters are also far less likely to have amicable ties with the government or the populace they are supposed to at least nominally protect.
They might even be hunted down, and for good reason.
” She flashed a saucy wink. “Mostly, though, he knew I’d shrike him if he even thought of betraying me. ”
Alex frowned thoughtfully. “So you’re saying that your protege’s a creature of enlightened self-interest. Someone who I’m guessing rewards profit and efficiency and discourages treacherous assholes because that works out best for the organization as a whole.
In other words, he’s someone who can listen to reason. Someone we can negotiate with.”
Nili nodded. “If nothing else, he’s someone we can trust to give us the lowdown on what’s really happening in Wanshi. Because a stable city without the populace or his own people at risk of dehydration, starvation, and slaughter truly is in all our best interests.”
“Even so, that being said…”
Nili’s eyes twinkled with mirth. “Don’t worry, little cub. I have absolutely no intention of revealing secrets that are ours alone. There’s enlightened self-interest, and then there’s tossing truffles to swine that would happily churn our city to a mud pit.”
Alex smirked. “Noted. But if all we have is the location of a desert cistern with access to an underground river—”
“That makes us intriguing, certainly. We might even get a discreet offer or two. But Chaoxiang will still know it’s in his best interest to inform us about where things truly stand in the city.
Because, if by some miracle, should things actually turn out for the best, he knows he will be rewarded in all sorts of ways that go beyond coin.
The acceptance, favor, and legitimacy that the council could grant him or anyone else for their diligence in the coming days will serve as a path to security and respectability he would have no other way to earn. ”
Alex nodded at this, finally having calmed his racing heart and his breathing.
When he next looked at the coolly smiling Nili, he saw a strikingly beautiful woman who didn’t look a day over twenty, thanks to his own ability to remove so much compressed Dark Qi plaque from her cells and meridians.
But certainly he wasn’t in danger of falling in love with her.
Not when she was happily married, had a houseful of kits and a very loving husband, and there were other fires in his heart.
Still, something in his expression brought a sympathetic smile from the kitsune.
“Don’t worry, puppy. Your acting skills are top notch.” She winked. “One day very soon, I think you’re going to make a certain special girl very happy.”
Alex felt his cheeks blaze as he turned to the door. “Come on,” he said, his voice not at all husky. “We got a city to save.”
“So dramatic.” She snorted, her fingers now brushing his cheeks, brow, and chest in ways that had nothing to do with romance and everything to do with Shadow Qi.
When he caught his reflection in the wall mirror, he found himself gazing upon the face of a young aristocratic looking true-blood who just might have a bit of Ruidian ancestry with the set of his eyes and jaw.
But he wore it well and looked good enough that even in Yidushi, he doubted he’d receive any disparaging comments at all.
Here in the desert cities, where a lot more intermingling had occurred than most people seemed to realize, no one would give him a second glance.
For he pretty much was the norm. And with Shadow Qi, it was best to stay true to the original as possible, as was the case with most illusions and disguises, or so Alex was given to understand.
Though Nili did squeeze his hand teasingly as they slipped out the door once more, quickly leading him down unnaturally shadowed corridors where the busy flow of people he knew were there seemed to always be a room or half a corridor away.
A bubble of coincidence, dim light, and distraction ensured that no one saw them at all as they slipped out the back door and into the night.
Nili took a deep breath of desert air smelling faintly of smoke, fried meats, and a caldera far dryer than it should be.
She gazed up at the stars. “Beautiful, aren’t they?”
Alex smiled and nodded. “They are.”
She squeezed his hand once more, still not letting go as she turned around to meet his gaze with a twinkle in her eyes. “Come, hero. Let’s see if racing through shadow gets your heart racing as fast as my kiss did.”
With those teasing words, they were off before he could utter a single syllable of protest, and within moments he had no desire to protest at all, eyes alight with wonder as they raced across the shadowy streets with the same perfect flow as a dream of flying.
They darted from pools of shadow to rooftops to puddles of darkness as they slipped by dozens of disinterested eyes and scores of conversations before flowing into the darker areas of the city where there was no true need for Shadow magics at all.
Yet it was magic Alex happily embraced, once daring to laugh aloud as he picked up a happily squealing Nili and took to the air.
“Alex!” she said with a breathless gasp, yet a smiling Alex knew they were safe. He could still feel her magic wrapped comfortably about them both as he kept his flight just feet above the ground, well within the domain of building and Shadow that he knew her city-bred gifts worked best with.
As they had for at least one woman who had touched his heart, countless lifetimes ago.
He blinked back an unexpected tear, feeling a tightness in his chest as her slightest shift in focus had him instinctively slowing his pace and lowering them to a convenient patch of liquid shadow.
As if his body knew the movements to an ancient dance between partners that his conscious mind had forgotten years ago.
Nili chuckled breathlessly in the darkness. “You were made for this, Alex.” She squeezed his hand, eyes twinkling with warmth and excitement. “A kitsune girl is in your future, hero. I see it as clearly as if it were already written in the stars.”
Alex flashed a sad smile. “Wouldn’t that be something? I’ll bet it would be a sweet life, at that.”
Nili froze, cheeks flushing as the excitement faded and she realized what she had said. Who she had said it to.
“The desert air makes this fox foolish. Forgive me.”
Alex snorted. “For what, enjoying our gifts for a few minutes? Come on, Nili. The sooner we get the lowdown on what’s really happening here, the sooner we can head back and plan for tomorrow.
” He teased her with his smile. “And the sooner you’ll have an outlet for hungers that go far beyond savoring your gifts.
If the look Quing Da was giving us was anything to go by, your children will have another sibling to cherish in very short order. ”
Nili chuckled throatily before favoring Alex with a look of such gratitude that he had to glance away.
“Only thanks to you, Alex. Using gifts I can’t even fathom to lift age’s gentle mantle and leave me feeling as passionate and hungry as a twenty-year-old girl, with all the wisdom of a woman many times that age… and don’t ask how many.”
Alex grinned. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
She snorted. “And the way my husband’s been going at it, a new addition to the family will probably be happening soon.
Oh, the looks on my daughters’ faces when they see the trouble their dear mother gets up to,” she said with a sultry chuckle, before her warm smile faded and the cool-eyed focus of a true professional came to the fore.
“All right, Alex. It’s time. Are you ready?”
Alex nodded, feeling that same rush that he always did when Fate’s dice began rattling inside his head.
No matter how often he embraced conflict, no matter how horrific the price he had paid for daring his perilous path, he still couldn’t help but feel a frisson of excitement, as if he was at the beginning of an exciting new twist in the story of his life as they approached what he just knew was another pivotal moment in Wanshi’s own tale.
Yet he didn’t let his excitement show, keeping a perfectly calm demeanor as they approached the nondescript doorway of a perfectly ordinary if somewhat neglected stretch of town that was still lively enough.
A handful of men were casually drinking and enjoying the night air from the cantina across the street.
Nili gave him a pointed look, fingers flashing in the darkness. “All right. You understand where we are and what the plan is, yes?”
Alex gave a curt nod. The fumes wafting through the door giving him a hint as to the nature of this place, and he supposed Nili’s kiss had been a test as much as plausible cover for those who didn’t already know Nili personally.
“I do.”