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“Animal sacrifices were made. All of the ancient sites tell us this.”
“Animal sacrifices, not human.”
“And who says those two are human? The contractor killed his own people. The captain looked the other way while the masses suffered. Punishments are a blessing for the wicked.”
The alcove where Quon sat was actually a large opening. She could hear chanting coming from behind and below him. She and David had been down there just two days ago, and now she was in the inner chamber high on the ledge above the practitioners. They could not see what was happening in here, nor could they hear Quon speaking in his normal voice.
r /> There was a movement behind Quon, and Officer Su entered. His eyes widened for just a fraction of a second upon seeing Hulan, then he covered his surprise with a smirk before addressing Quon. “Xiao Da, they wish to hear you speak.”
Without shifting his attention from Hulan, Quon raised his voice, and it corrupted into something beautiful, melodious, and otherworldly as it bounced off the walls. “The waters of inundation are destructive in their overflow. In their vastness they embrace hills and overtop great heights, threatening the heavens with their floods. The lower people groan and murmur.”
Listening, Hulan knew the words were not his own, but the people down below recognized the meaning to their lives and responded accordingly.
“Xiao Da, Xiao Da, Xiao Da….”
“We embrace Nine Virtues. Tonight you must discuss among yourselves the ninth and most important virtue—boldness with sincerity and valor with righteousness.”
A low rumble of conversation rose from the lower cavern. Quon smiled at the sound. Officer Su picked up something that looked like an ocean sponge and used it to smear Hom’s brother-in-law with his own blood.
Hulan edged toward the platform where Hom lay. The pulpy matter in his mouth prevented the people below from hearing his suffering. The only way he could breathe was through what was left of his nose. Air bubbled through the bloody muck in the middle of his face. The three wavy lines that composed the ancient character for river had already been burned into his forehead. Keeping the gun aimed at Quon, Hulan reached down and touched Hom’s shoulder. His eyes moved to her, and she saw something beyond physical pain pass over his face.
“You can’t do anything to help him,” Quon said. “He’s beyond redemption.”
To Hom’s right, Su kept at his grisly task.
“Michael….”
He held up his hands to silence her and said, “Please don’t say something like I won’t get away with it.”
“I—”
He shook his head to stop her from speaking. “And don’t say someone will come to rescue you. No one will rescue you. The police, as you see, are already here.”
“There are others,” she said.
“Who? Your husband? I think not. If anything, he hurts your chances.”
Strangely, Hulan felt no fear. She was the one with the gun, didn’t they see that?
At David’s insistence, the chopper pilot radioed a local airstrip, was patched through to the Panda Guesthouse, and was told that Inspector Liu had left on some sort of emergency. When they tried to get through to Bashan’s Public Security Bureau and no one answered, David knew with horrible certainty where Hulan had gone. He frantically ordered the pilot to alter his course. David knew where he wanted to land, but when the pilot saw it he told the American he was out of his mind.
“See that cliff?” the pilot yelled. “With the wind we’ll be blown right into it! The rotors—”
But even as tenacious gusts buffeted the craft while it tried to maintain its altitude just below Bashan Village, David could see during the flashes of lightning that he’d made the right deduction. There, towering above the hillsides up ahead, was the geographical character for door—the Kuimen Gate—that Brian had used to mark the entrance to the Qutang Gorge on the coded map from his journal. Directly below them was the river. Just parallel to the pilot’s window were two smaller peaks, each topped with rocks that David knew from Brian’s map marked the Beheading Dragon Platform and the Binding Dragon Pillar. From this vantage so high in the air, David could clearly see the curled ancient dragon after its death and the places that Brian had marked as fields, though there were no fields there now and probably hadn’t been for centuries. The geography itself created cliff, and the formations buttressing the entrance to the Wu house formed cave. And just above cave was an outcropping of stone with a single large rock protruding beneath it—the character for below.
Lightning streaked around them. The chopper shook violently.
“Bring it down!” David shouted. “Now!”
The pilot fought the weather for control of his machine. They were about ten feet from the ground when a surge of air hurled them back out over the river. The pilot screamed, “I can’t do it! If the wind goes the other way, we’re dead!”
The weather had the upper hand. The wind pushed the chopper toward the cliff. The limestone face rushed toward the windshield. Then, in one of those quirks of nature, the wind right against the cliff died just long enough for the pilot to land. With the ruyi in hand, David jumped out and ran through the mud and rain. He banged on the door of the Wu house. No one answered, but he knew that even with the riotous sounds of the storm the inhabitants had heard the helicopter. He hit the door again as hard as he could.
It opened, and David entered the one room that made up the Wus’ home. The old blind man sat on the edge of a kang next to a kerosene lamp. His daughter-in-law, who’d answered the door, backed away and stood against the stone wall, clutching her swaddled child protectively.
Now that David was here he wasn’t sure how to proceed. His impulse was to shake out of the woman what he needed to know, but her terrified countenance told him she was already in danger of shutting down completely. He took a breath, closed the door, and replaced the bar that protected the Wus from outsiders. As he turned, he heard a distant murmur slink through the room. “Xiao Da, Xiao Da, Xiao Da….”
The old man spoke in a quavering voice. “Who is it?”
