“I am just one of the crew,” he said, clasping his hands behind his back as he went to stand at the corner of the bed nearest the door.
“But, I mean, do you help cook, or clean, or—”
“Oh, I understand,” he said, smiling. “I serve the guests. We have several onboard, though most are sleeping, since they try to keep the same hours as Pengfei Yan and Chien-Lung.”
I watched him carefully as he spoke. Inside, with the curtains drawn and the door shut, I could see his shield now, follow its outline as it moved with his body. As with the first reaver I’d met, it opened mainly when he moved his head.
I could shoot him, but if I managed to squeeze a bullet behind that shield it would splatter blood and brains all over the room, not to mention make a loud boom that the rest of the crew would find curiously out of place in the peace of the late afternoon. Not too thrilled with the whole stabbing scenario either, considering the amount of blood it would produce, and the fact that I’d be charading as Pengfei and might need these digs later on. Well, those were plans B and C anyway. Given the fact that his shield seemed to weaken at the head as I’d hoped it would, Plan A might actually work.
“So, about my assignment—” I began.
“I am afraid my government could not possibly cooperate with anything you have planned, despite the fact that Lung is our mutual enemy.” Huh. Wu had completely lost the broken accent he’d used over the phone. Was he done pretending then?
I let my arm sag and winced, as if the robes were getting too heavy for me. I moved toward the bed, where I obviously intended to lay them down. “What?” I asked. “You think helping us out would make you look bad? Afraid maybe North Korea will call you a big weenie and go play with its nukes all on its own?”
Wu smiled, showing far too many teeth. I imagined if he unrolled his tongue the tip would hit his belly button. “I believe it has more to do with the fact that we think you Americans are assholes.”
I had reached the bed by now. Laying the robes down just right became a big production. One that allowed me to get much closer to Wu. As I worked myself within range I clicked my tongue at him and gave him my you’ve-been-a-bad-little-boy look. “Only narrow-minded pricks cling to stereo-types like that, Wu. For instance,I might have thought that as a member of the People’s Liberation Army you were a dyed-in-the-wool card-carrying Chinese Communist.” I continued to lean over the dry-cleaning, making sure he thought I was off balance, and that he could see both of my hands touched the plastic covering the robes. I went on. “But because I’m willing to consider many different perspectives, I’ve come to realize you’re actually just a soul-snatching reaver.”
He lunged, just as I’d hoped he would. To have allowed myself a single thought in such a vulnerable position would have been the death of me. So instead I acted. I tore the clear film off of the plastic.
I spun sideways as Wu hit the bed and rammed the film, which I called my portable pillow, through the break in his shield.
It wiggled down his face like a living mask, covering his mouth, nose, and eyes so tightly I could see their outlines beneath the material.
He clawed at the material, falling off the bed in the process. I rolled him to his stomach, stuck a knee in his back, and held him there, grabbing his hand from his face and twisting it so hard he was forced to let me pull it behind him. I yanked the other back the same way, pushing them both high up his back and securing them with a plastic strap.
When his struggles finally ceased, I rolled him over and retrieved the portable pillow, folding it into eighths and stuffing it into my pocket. I jumped backward as the third eye opened on his forehead. Unlike Wu’s regular eyes, it was colored light green. I waited, but nothing wafted out of it. It stared at the ceiling, empty and sightless as the originals.
“Where are you, Wu?” I whispered. Then I realized I’d never seen the soul of the first reaver I’d killed either. Which meant . . . “Reaver’s can’t kill anybody who’s not marked. But when they enter a body, the soul leaves. So these people, these reaver-hosts, must agree to the whole idea up-front.” Cole was right. Wu wanted to be a reaver. Samos must have made the life seem awful damn appealing. Godlike, even. With power over life and death. No pesky morals to hold you back. And the benefits package! “But at what cost? Where’s his soul now?” I had a pretty good idea, actually, but I decided right then and there never to breathe a word of it to Shao.
I hid the body behind the screen. Surveying the room again, I thought how handy it would be to pull up a floorboard under some random closet and find Pengfei and/or Lung ripe for the staking. But I didn’t sense a single vampire aboard.
I yanked open the closet doors and stifled a yelp. A row of white Styrofoam heads covered with wigs stared at me from the shelf. Just for a second I’d thought they were real.
I grabbed a medium-sized carpet bag with a gold clasp from the closet and filled it with the long-braid wig, which had been shoved behind the others and probably wouldn’t be missed, along with a few of Pengfei’s vanity supplies and a fan. With Lung’s clothes and the bag in hand I left the room. Though I badly wanted to take the shortest route back to the speedboat, when I passed the stairs that led up to the pilothouse I stopped, considered the huge gaps in my knowledge, and decided to take a detour.
As I’d expected, an actual captain inhabited the pilothouse during this, my second visit.Amazing how effective that hat can be when worn the right way around.
“Excuse me, sir. I thought I saw Xia Wu come this way.” I held up the dry-cleaning. “He told me to bring this to Chien-Lung’s quarters, but I got lost. Your ship is so massive!” Ladies, for future reference, when speaking with nautical men, ship equals private parts. The captain melted like chocolate in my hands. “Anyway, I wanted to tell him I realized we didn’t get the stain completely out of this robe, so I’d like to take it back and reclean it for free. I can have it done first thing in the morning.”
“I am afraid that will not be possible,” the captain said in British-accented English as he gave me a come-sit-on-my-lap smile. “We are leaving port this evening.”
“Oh, no! Are you going right away? Because I can take it straight to the store to clean and have it back here in a couple of hours.”
He rose from his chair and sauntered over to me, which was when I realized he resembled Sulu from the old Star Trek series. I’d always thought Sulu was kind of hot, so it was easier to make the flirty face when he said, “Actually, we’re not scheduled to weigh anchor until midnight. In fact, my employers said not to expect them aboard until after ten. So why don’t you bring the dry-cleaning back around seven, and you and I can have a late supper?”
Well, it looked like I could cross the yacht off my list of potential Pengfei hideouts. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about her returning and missing the goodies I’d stolen. If I’d given it a second’s thought, I’d have realized she and Chien-Lung, having already cleaned up after the tent fire, would feel no need to return to the yacht when they rose to repeat the process. Wherever they were, their evening’s adventures would begin as soon as their eyes opened. Which meant I needed to get the hell back to shore.
I looked around the pilothouse, not having to act impressed at the blue-lit instrument panel. “Wow, supper on a real yacht? That would be amazing!”
He leaned in. “And bring your bikini. Maybe we’ll just have dessert in the hot tub.”
Which was when he went too far. I wouldn’t even take a dip with Sulu, and he was genuinely cute. “Thanks, that would be great!” I looked out the window. “Oh, there’s my ride!” I pointed to Cole and waved, as if he could see me. Then I waved at Captain Sulu and ran down the steps that would lead me to the lower deck and the speedboat home.