“Tell me why I shouldn’t,” I said. “You have a reason.”
“I’m no longer certain it’s a sufficient one.” Jean shot me a piercing look. “I do good here, whether you believe that or not. I help people. I may have to leave after this, and I don’t…I don’t know where I’ll go. I don’t belong anywhere.”
I dared to graze her arm with the tips of my fingers. “If there’s another way to remove those children from her control—”
“Even this might not be enough. The fact that she knows our bloodline exists…” Jean stopped, and studied the gate again, thoughtfully. “Ernie, Winifried…all of them. It sounds as though they lived long, full lives, regardless of what happened to them in this time and place. They died old. You and I both know that’s a gift, even if it was cut short before their time.”
It was a gift, yes, but a bitter one. I said nothing, though. Simply waited for Jean to make up her mind. I was not going to push this final step down her throat. Even if I had almost everything else.
I did not wait long. She raised her gloved fist and knocked hard on the dull iron gate. It opened so quickly, hardly before her hand was away, that I wondered whether we had been watched from the other side.
I hoped not. It was Ernie who faced us. Even Jean seemed startled to see him. He was dressed in new clothes—a starched, white short-sleeve shirt and black slacks. A uniform, maybe. It looked too large on his frame, the tattoo on his skin oversized for such bony wrists. A little tin pin was attached to his shirt above his heart. His expression was grave, which made him look like the old man he would become, instead of a little kid.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, giving me a piercing look as though I was somehow to blame. Which I was.
“I seem to have developed a nagging concern for your well-being,” Jean replied. “You and the others. I’ve come to break your contracts.”
“You can’t. You’ll only make it worse.”
Jean laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Come on. Maybe you’ll thank me for this one day.”
Ernie backed away from the gate, one hand tapping spasmodically against his skinny thigh. Looking at us with desperate despair, as though his ragged heart was breaking in his eyes. He resembled a wild animal more than a child, or some kid raised by wolves and then tossed into human clothes—out of place, lost, and very alone.
But he was not alone. Behind him, standing in regular intervals throughout a carefully landscaped garden, were thick-necked white men—watching us, armed with rifles. All of them wore soldier uniforms, lightweight summer issue. They did not seem surprised to see us, or even alarmed, but their dead, flat gazes were profoundly cold. They reminded me of attack dogs—quiet, restrained, ready for that right, deadly moment. I wondered if they had tattoos on their wrists, as well.
I focused on Ernie. “Sometimes you have to believe in people, kid. Before you forget how.”
He began to shake his head, but froze when Jean brushed her knuckles against his cheek. “If I asked you to walk through this gate and go home, would you?”
“I can’t,” he whispered, rubbing his wrist.
“Okay.” Jean breathed. “Then listen. You and I never talked about the things you’ve had to do here. I’m sorry for that. I knew it was bad, and I never did a thing. But that’s going to change. So chin up, short stuff. Your job is to stay out of the way.”
Ernie looked so stricken. “She knows you’re coming. That’s why she had me come here to…welcome you.”
I pushed past the boy, watching the guards—smiling so coldly at them that several stirred, hands tightening on their guns. “I know I’m ready to say hello.”
Jean rolled her eyes. Ernie looked at me like I was crazy. But I winked at him, and his mouth twitched with a tentative, wary smile that warmed me to the bone.
He turned and led us down a gently curving path shadowed with palms and thick decorative grasses. The air smelled rich, with a mint undertone that clung to my nostrils. The guards watched us, but did not follow. No need. There were a lot of them, and they stood in regular intervals within the garden and against the walls. I heard several speaking softly in Russian.
“Pogroms drove the Russian Jews into Shanghai, but revolution forced the rest,” Jean told me under her breath, as though reading my mind. “Soldiers, mostly. The Japs recruited some for their police force, but the rest hired out as construction workers, or muscle.”
French doors stood open in front of us, tucked beneath a stone arch built below a series of balconies and large windows. Rose vines clung to immense trellises. I heard a woman’s throaty laughter. Ernie ducked his head, and led the way inside—but not before Zee twitched between my breasts. All the boys, stirring—and not just on me. Jean touched her stomach as though she was being kicked, and glanced at me warily.
It was crowded inside. Unexpectedly so. The chaos did not at first make sense. I saw old-fashioned movie cameras, and tall lights; men scribbling on notepads; a mix of Chinese and white women dressed in loose robes and heavy makeup, lounging in velvet armchairs while others dabbed sweat from their brow. I heard muffled shouts and gasps, and then brief silence; and I glimpsed beyond the milling crowd one long, naked tattooed leg.
Ernie pushed through. We followed. And it suddenly became quite clear to me what was going on.
Someone was making a porno.
A bed was the centerpiece, but all I could see were its round edges, draped in raw silk the color of butter. Again, a single tattooed leg stretched sinuously. I saw claws drawn into the flesh. Scales and veins of inked quicksilver. I glanced at Jean to see if she had noticed, and found her staring. All over my body, the boys twisted, roiling in their dreams. I knew I was looking at the Black Cat.
I saw the rest of the woman moments later, just beyond a break in the crowd. Most of her, anyway. A Chinese man knelt at the base of the bed; a giant, huge muscles straining in his back and arms as he drove himself forward into her writhing body with sharp, mechanical thrusts. He obscured her face, but I glimpsed tattooed arms, and the edge of a tattooed breast.
But not just tattoos. Flickering shadows surrounded every line and curve of her flesh. A dark, thunderous aura—one of the strongest I had ever seen.
The Black Cat was a zombie.
A photographer stood on top of the bed, taking pictures. Another crouched off to the side, doing similar work from a different, more intimate angle. Intense men, with jobs to do. Sweat rolled down their faces. Beyond them, leaning against the wall, I glimpsed three children.
I recognized Samuel and Lizbet immediately, but the other little girl with them did not immediately remind me of Winifred. The coloring was the same—dark hair, dark eyes—but there was a quality to her face that was distinctly different.
None of them was watching the sex. But not, I thought, because of embarrassment. Just boredom. As though they had seen the same scene played out so many times it meant nothing. Trays of empty glasses were at their feet, along with water pitchers and small bowls of diced watermelon. There to run errands, I guessed. Better than the alternative.
The crowd swallowed them. Ernie moved around several cameramen and disappeared. Less than a minute later a throaty, satin voice said, “I have business. Everyone, come back after lunch.”
Men and women exchanged startled looks, but no one argued, not even a grumble. Without a word, they put down whatever they were holding—cameras, makeup, iced tea—and streamed past us to the door, exiting into the garden. The children followed, joined by Ernie. All of them, except him, stumbled when they saw Jean—staring at her with horror. Not a peep left their mouths, though. Too well trained.