Vayl said, “I am on my way, but do not wait.”
“Cole?”
“I can see you.”
“Good. Keep me in sight. Be ready for anything.”
I zeroed in on the source of that sound. Within thirty seconds I found Lai, bawling so hard his chubby little cheeks were beet red and soaked with tears. Pushing his stroller was a person with Lung’s facial features. That was it. He had, indeed, shed his robes. His armor had crafted itself into a plain black suit, the long sleeves of which covered his hands. He even had matching shoes and a fedora.Bergman would be so proud, I thought bitterly.
Reminding myself to behave exactly as Pengfei would, I marched up to Lung and wrenched the stroller out of his hands. Maintaining translating distance was tough with people jostling us from every side, but I managed.
“Are you out of your mind?” I shrilled at him, remembering just in time to spread the fan in front of my mouth with my free hand.
Lung jerked the stroller back. “Samos betrayed us, as I warned you he would! You should never have trusted our grand plan to one who does not put China foremost! Now we are going to do this asI wished to! This child will be the start of an army trained from infancy to our way of thinking. With Chinese boys outnumbering girls five to one there is no limit to our supply. And now that we have the armor, we can ensure their invincibility on any field of battle on earth!”
Even in this horror-framed moment, when I understood if I so much as cocked my head in the wrong direction this lunatic would kill baby Lai, I couldn’t quite understand how Lung managed to contain all that insanity inside his spare frame. It seemed to me something monstrous should erupt from the top of his head, maybe a gigantic pus-covered fist holding a twenty-foot billboard flashing a warning to all comers not to be taken in by the fact that this guy could fake normality for long periods of time.
The words came out so fast I suspected I might be channeling Pengfei. A pleasant thought, as long as she loathed every second of it. “We’ll never get out of Texas with this baby, Chien-Lung. His parents have already sent the police after him. The FBI will join the search soon. Before we are out of American waters his face will be on millions of television sets. Additionally, think about this, we don’t have the resources to take care of one baby, much less the thousands we would need for an army.” I grabbed at the stroller. Lung yanked it to his right, out of my reach.
“Do not touch it!” he snarled.
I kept talking, which was stupid, I know. Lunatics don’t follow logic. But we were still surrounded by people. Vayl hadn’t arrived. There was Lai to consider. So . . . “Lung, please believe, the idea is strategic disaster. You must understand, Americans value children above all. They will be in no frame of mind to war with the Chinese when their hearts are breaking for Chinese parents who have lost their baby. At least let this one go. Wait until we get back home. Then you can take as many babies as you wish.”
The stroller inched toward me. My palms itched to seize it. Instead I smiled. “I have arranged for our speedboat to meet us in a private place, away from the crowds. If a reporter recognizes us we may never reach the yacht.”
What was that in his eyes? A moment of reluctant sanity? “All right.” The stroller came into my hands. As I pushed it into the crowd I felt, more than saw, Cole take command of it.
“Come.” I led him past the marina, across the auto-filled lot to Sanford Park. Why was it suddenly so dark? Oh yeah, the amulet squashing my enhanced vision again. Luckily I still had my night-vision contacts in, so I shut my eyes tight. When I opened them everything showed up much more plainly despite the fact that the whole area looked to have been pissed on by a drunken leprechaun.
I took Lung to the gazebo. The body lay where I’d found it. Lung crouched over it, wrinkling his nose at the smell. “I see you allowed Yale his share.” He stood. “Well, now that Samos is no longer our ally, at least we are rid of the reavers.”
“Yes. There is that.” I set the fan on the railing. Surely it was dark enough here he wouldn’t notice a lack of lip synching. Plus I needed both hands free now.
One cool thing about the dress I wore, the sleeves hid my wrist sheaths nicely. I’d loaded my syringe of holy water into the right one. The one on the left held my throwing knives. My bola had posed the biggest challenge. Cassandra had helped me solve it by braiding the wig hair around it and wrapping the bit of hilt that showed with red ribbon. It had never looked so pretty or given me such a headache.
“I don’t see any boats yet, do you?” I asked. I used my left hand to point back toward the marina. My right pulled back, activating the sheath’s automatic-feed system. Within a second I held the syringe.
As Lung turned to look, I lunged forward, jamming the syringe into his ear. But the armor saw me coming. It had moved at half-speed, as though confused by my disguise. But it had warded off my attack. By the time the needle hit, the scrape of metal on metal told me scales already covered the side of his head. However I knew better than to depend on a single attempt. I’d already begun reaching for my bola as I made my first move, and by the time I knew the syringe was useless the knife hilt filled my left hand.
Shocked that Pengfei would attempt to kill him, Lung’s first reaction was defensive. He crouched. After a brief delay, maybe only two or three heartbeats, the armor raced to cover his head. Already he had horns and fangs.
But that short pause had given me the opening I needed.
Using both hands to power the move, I jammed the bola through his cheek and into his nose. He screamed and jerked away, launching one of the spines off his back, more out of instinct, I think, than any real attempt to hurt me with it. It landed halfway up the hill and exploded, sending grass and dirt flying.
I yelled, “Vayl! Gazebo!Now !” Trying to avoid getting blown to bits or crispy-curled, I stayed in close, and I mean tight, like a tick on a German shepherd in the middle of July. Lung did his expanding act while I slammed kicks into his growing torso, trying to keep one eye on his tail and the other on his fire-breathing apparatus.
But it looked like the knife had done a number on the mechanism. In fact, a quarter of his face from cheek to forehead still remained scale-free. Blood splattered across his shoulders, me, and the grass as he shook his head, trying to dislodge the knife, but it wouldn’t budge.
When his claws ripped out of their wrappings I darted clear, remembering the damage they’d done his attackers on the yacht. But he seemed more intent on using them to knock the bola free. He roared as he somehow managed to wiggle it deeper, and a fresh gout of blood ran down his cheek and neck.
I popped the top button of Pengfei’s dress and drew Grief. It felt like taking aim at an F-18 with a spit wad. I was so not packing the necessary heat to smoke this monster. Hell, that kind of firepower might not even exist. But Vayl’s sudden presence along with his reassuring “I am here,” made me hope otherwise.
He ran past me so quickly I barely saw the blur as he leaped at Chien-Lung, making my heart stop for a terrifying two seconds as he went straight for the face and I thought, “Oh my God, what if the fire erupts now? What if he burns? He’ll never come back!” The possibility took the starch right out of my knees.
In movements so swift my eyes could barely follow, Vayl jerked Lung’s head around, using the hilt of the knife as a handle, and sank his fangs into the exposed skin of his face.
Lung went nuts. He screamed as if all the demons in hell were shredding his soul bit by tiny bit. He launched every single spike from his back, blowing so many pits in Sanford Park’s hillside it looked like the land had developed a skin-eating infection. His tail whipped wildly from side to side. He beat Vayl with his claws. He raked at his back, which should’ve left deep furrows that should have filled first with poison and then with blood. But they did neither.