By burning that house down they’d set a fire of a size unseen in Red Butterfly since Bukit Ho Swee. They had recrossed a line, invading and destroying a home. It had been exhilarating to realize there would not be any consequences. Overnight with Fan Ge’s phone call, the mood amongst the girls had shifted from on edge to positively jaunty. “The Peony owner owes us money,” Ji Yen had said to Tian that morning. “We’re going to go smash some things up.” They returned victorious with a bottle of wine and the debt, which they’dgone to spend on roast pork and ice creams. “We should offer the kid some,” Vera had said, and then was bullied for being a wuss.
Tian, Adeline, and Christina were the only ones in a celebratory mood. Tian because she’d been too close to the consequences to be arrogant. Christina because she was taking her cues from Tian. And Adeline because for her, it wasn’t done yet. The rest of the girls had gawked at her eyes, but they were used to Adeline being strange and hadn’t felt what it had taken to create them, so it was merely a novelty quickly replaced by other distractions. Meanwhile Adeline still felt like magic was at war inside her if she didn’t occasionally light a fire, remind herself who she was tethered to. It was why they were here on Pulau Saigon tonight, instead of drinking and playing games at home.
Mavis formed the sixth of the group that crossed the bridge warily. It was just wide enough for a vehicle, and presumably steady enough, but it seemed to creak anyway.
While Tian headed for the car, Adeline felt a swirl of energy from the boat and went farther along down to it. Cautiously, she lit a flame and brought her head low enough to look under the awning.
Three girls were huddled there. Despite their bedraggled clothes, they were all eerily beautiful in the same way: skin like polished mahogany, features delicate, hair like silk, big soft eyes. It was possible they’d been given something already. Or it was also possible that there were beautiful girls, everywhere, and there were men whose magic was seeking them all out to take.
“Madói,” one girl rasped. Vietnamese. Escaping the war, perhaps, from one Saigon to another, only to end up easy prey. She jabbed a shaking finger over Adeline’s shoulder. “Madói!”
Adeline had no idea what she was saying, but she could tell it wasn’t good. She thought about trying to mime something, but had no idea what to even ask. The girl who was talking, who was in the middle and seemed to have huddled the others around her, kicked the stray oar with her foot and pointed ahead. “Cô ?y gi?t anh ta!”
She looked furious at not being understood. Still, Adeline did understand pointing. She turned to the bow of the lighter.
There: dark pools of blood on darker boards. Adeline’s eyes followed their path over the side of the boat, which was when she saw the dead man knocking silently against the boat, one bent, torn arm sticking out of the water.
“Tian,” she called. Heart racing, she brought her fire closer.
It was the Green Eye who’d been rowing the boat. At least she guessed it was, from what was left of the emerald band inked around the forearm. The skin had been shredded to ribbons, like an animal had gotten to him already. Tian squatted and ran her fire close enough to see the jagged edges. “That can’t be Three Steel’s work.”
“Tian,” Jade said firmly, “Idon’tfuck with ghosts.”
“Bring them over the bridge and stay with them,” Tian told her and Mavis. “And see if you can get that car over, too.”
As they coaxed the girls out of the boat, Tian scanned the islet beyond. There should have been Steels, with the car. But they weren’t here and they weren’t dead, at least that could be seen. So they had run off somewhere. Why? “I don’t fuck with hantu, either,” Christina said. “Just by the way.”
“Well, you’re stuck with me.” Tian shut her eyes as Lan apparently managed to get the car going. Keys left behind. That was a bad sign. She waited until the car had been stopped on the other side before sweeping the dark again. Nothing moved, and yet something seemed to shiver. “I don’t think it’s a ghost, anyway. There’s someone on the island who’s very angry.” Tian tilted her head. “Something else, too. A place.”
Tian had sharpened since the Blackhill house. They both had. Adeline’s yellow eyes had not faded; it seemed like a permanent fixture, and with it came a new clarity to her senses like some outer shell of her skin had been removed. If she concentrated, the pulses of people around her would start becoming evident in their warmbeating circulations. Tian seemed to do it almost unconsciously. “You still want to do this?” she asked Adeline.
Now, more than ever. Whatever was wrong here, it felt familiar. The heart of the islet called to her, and she could not, despite any better judgment, turn from it.
“That way, then,” Tian decided, indicating a cluster of sheds.
They lit fires in their palms, keeping close. Adeline laced her other fingers into Tian’s, the heat beneath her palm addictive. “What are we looking for?”
“I don’t know yet,” Tian murmured. “There’s someone moving around, that other way. This way there’s… a center of something.”
“We’re not worried about the someone out there?” Christina hissed.Out therecould be anywhere, between overgrown sheds and trees like elongated creatures in themselves. The Butterflies were the brightest things walking.
“It’s looking for something that’s not us. It’s in a lot of pain.” Tian stopped at the sound of scuffling, lifted her palm. Her light expanded. Several meters ahead of them was a dog, licking blood off a fresh corpse.
Adeline sparked her fire brighter and shooed it away from the corpse. As they went closer, their lights caught the dull white twining the man’s limbs. “There’s one Steel.” The steel had, in fact, protected him. Where the tattoos were, he was barely injured. Apparently frustrated, the attacker had gone for his throat instead. It gaped, everything torn.
Lan retched. “The dog?”
“No. Look at his chest.”
On his shirt—bloody handprints. But some small like a child’s or young woman’s, others large and crooked. When they examined the ground, they found they had been walking over a trail. The man had run here the same way they came. “The boat girls must have seen the killer,” Adeline said. “How come they’re still alive?”
“It’s hunting something,” Tian repeated. She winced, a flare in her senses. “It might have found it. Let’s keep moving before it comes back this way.”
Up ahead, the path widened into a row of warehouses, one of which had lights on. The Butterflies stopped at the sound of men’s voices from inside, loud and close enough to the shut doors that they could make them out distinctly.
“We need to put her down. Did you see what she did to Hong?”
“You want to be the one who goes out there?”
