The Shadow Of Weng-Chiang Part 28

Suddenly, the TARDIS' trumpeting surged more loudly, the black and bronze image of the Time Cabinet growing more indistinct. There was a blinding flash, then the TARDIS materialized solidly in the temple.

A flash of white heat in his chest made Kwok think for a moment that he'd been shot, but then he felt the chain of his locket slide from around his neck. The locket itself had burst in a shower of molten sparks.

The geomantic compa.s.ses in the trucks down in the old Dai temple grounds exploded in firecracker blasts.

HsienKo screamed, a wordless aria of pain and anguish that burned through Kwok like a white-hot lance, as the bolts of electricity blasted their way free of the generators. Smoke and sparks filled the air, crackling fingers of raw power tearing at HsienKo.

Kwok tried to reach out to her, but he could feel the skin on his fingertips blister before he reached her. A void opened up under his breastbone as he drew back. HsienKo's screams faded into the ultrasonics as spitting actinic light poured from her mouth and eyes, the cells of her skin splitting asunder like rock from above magma.

In moments, she was little more than an anthropomorphic column of radiant energy, then a searing globe of blue fire that pained the eyes. The light winked out, like a popped bubble, and there was no sign that she had ever existed.

Kwok dropped to his knees, a wordless keening howl escaping his mouth. He couldn't imagine life without HsienKo, and now she was gone. The moment didn't seem real, as if her disappearance were a result of some trauma in his own eyes.

He felt as if his heart had vanished, leaving a vacuum in his chest where it used to be.

Woo skidded to a halt in the shade of the short archway through the gate. The police box was fading into thin air. He could hardly believe his eyes, Dragon Paths or no. He knew he should be wondering what to do next, but somehow it didn't matter yet. The shouts and shots from the open s.p.a.ces all around proved that there was still enough danger to worry about.

He turned to face the peak area to take a look at the situation, but was distracted by a blurry movement in his peripheral vision: a white-suited figure stepping out behind him. There was a slight click from no more than six or seven feet behind.

He turned with what he felt was agonizing slowness, to see Inspector Sung-Chi Li come to a halt at the other end of the archway only a few feet away. Li's right hand swept up, his thumb slipping off the Browning Hi-Power's safety catch.

Woo raised his Colts instinctively, but they were barely horizontal before a flash of icy power pounded his right shoulder backwards.

The wall behind him held him upright and his left hand was firing its Colt before he really recognized the pain for what it was.

Bullets tunnelled through Li's flesh like leaping salmon plunging back into the water. One pa.s.sed clear through a rib, shattering it into splinters like an oak struck by lightning. Li twisted, pus.h.i.+ng forward against the force of the impacts in an attempt to bring his Hi-Power to bear on Woo again, but the flexing of his muscles only succeeded in sc.r.a.ping the shattered rib against his lung. Li's chest filled with acrid fire, his shots blowing splinters from the wood above Woo's head.

Woo had been slammed back against one of the jade-painted pillars that flanked the gate, and this perversely supported his upper right arm, bent in a right angle at the elbow so that he could fire both Colts at Li.

Meteoric impacts drove Li backwards, blooms of pain pus.h.i.+ng the breath from him even as they forced his blood into the air. For every flash of flame that wreathed Woo's muzzles, a red flare of liquid fire spread out across Li's torso.

The dusty ground was already speckled with scarlet droplets when Li's footing finally slipped. Leaving the faintest miasma of cordite fumes and the scent of burnt flesh in the air, Li crumpled to the ground. A faint shroud of dust swirled around the fallen body as the last echoes of the gunshots dissipated like distant thunder.

Woo relaxed briefly, but instantly regretted this mistake as a wave of pain from his shoulder a.s.sailed him. He slid down the pillar onto his haunches with gritted teeth, his shoulder writing its own crimson graffiti on the pillar which supported him.

Taking a moment to balance his spirit and body to withstand the pain, he pushed himself to his feet. The gun in his left hand was clearly empty, as the slide was firmly jammed back. He slipped the slide and put the gun back in its holster, then took the other in his left hand, doubting that his wounded right shoulder could withstand the recoil if he had to shoot again without the pillar's support.

Li's fingers were flexing weakly a couple of feet from his fallen Browning Hi-Power as Woo stumbled over to him. He could feel nothing at all physically, but he could see that his torso was a ragged mess of torn clothing and torn flesh churned together in a thick gelid ooze. With every strained breath, he could taste hot and acrid copper.

He was glad of the numbness, since he doubted he could withstand the pain of so many wounds. He could feel only a strange fading sensation, like sinking into warm water.

Perhaps it was his life ebbing away.

He could hear his wife's voice calling to him. Strange, that.

He would no longer be able to tend her grave, but at least they would be together in the Garden of Felicity. He had no need to worry about being sent to any of the eighteen h.e.l.ls; had he not been virtuous in his pursuit of order? There were other voices too, which screamed and called him traitor. He ignored them, fearing that they might drive him mad.

He almost blacked out, but remembered to draw breath.

That was odd; he had never before noticed any need for a conscious effort to do so.

No, he and his wife would cross the Bridge of Jade together. Something hot and acrid welled up in his mouth, and he spat it out.

It was a very dark shade of red.

A pair of legs came into his field of vision: it was Yan Cheh. Li felt a twisting in his stomach as he finally saw Yan Cheh's face. This had been the officer who interned him in 1932, before Matsu came to see him. The j.a.panese officer.

'I doubt the Jade Emperor will allow you on to the Wheel of Transmigration,' Yan Cheh told him quietly. 'So, when you reach yomi-tsu-kuni yomi-tsu-kuni instead, tell any member of the Sakura Kai you find there that Is.h.i.+guro Takas.h.i.+ sent you, and that you won't want for company.' instead, tell any member of the Sakura Kai you find there that Is.h.i.+guro Takas.h.i.+ sent you, and that you won't want for company.'

Li tried to respond, but couldn't. He wondered how long it had been since he last remembered to breathe. He could still hear the voices, though, but his wife's was not among them. Li felt a chill of fear. What had happened to her? All he could hear were the screaming voices: anguished and sorrowful, calling him traitor.

They didn't need to draw breath.

Woo straightened after speaking. It had been so long since he had used his real name that the syllables felt strange in his mouth.

Li's eyes visibly moistened, whether with pain or guilt Woo couldn't tell. His lips moved slightly, trying to form words, but only a faint rattling came, his eyes unfocused, filming over. Woo let his arm droop; he didn't even have the energy left to be as gloating as he'd like, and decided to settle for being relieved to have survived at all. And for what? So that he could say he defeated a rival traitor? The j.a.panese Army was large enough to not even miss him. At least in the club he could see what effect a little relaxation had on people.

In spite of himself, he wondered how Rondo was doing.

There was a fine irony, he thought. He'd used the club as a cover for so long that it had become more important than his original plan. He supposed he had changed in the years since he went rogue. Somehow, the death of one traitor didn't seem to mean as much as maintaining the good spirits of many.

Happy people would work or fight better the next day. It wasn't a question of changing his objectives, just the strategy.

He tossed his empty guns onto Li's body. 'You keep them.

Influence is more deadly.' And doesn't sting as much, he thought, fighting against a wave of nausea.

He saw that the doors of the Jade Emperor temple on the opposite peak were ajar and that the police box was somehow now inside. Someone must have carried it there, he thought, though he couldn't imagine why.

It didn't matter; he would just go there to look for the Doctor anyway. As he emerged from the gate, he saw Kwok kneeling foetally in the dust outside the temple, shaking slightly. Moving closer, he realized that the Black Scorpion enforcer was in fact racked with sobs, tears streaming down his face. He didn't show the slightest sign of noticing Woo's presence, which was equally strange.

The Doctor and Romana emerged from the police box just as Woo entered the temple. Woo had thought HsienKo would have been around here. This was where she had been heading, after all. 'Are you all right?' the Doctor asked.

'Not really. Isn't HsienKo around? I just saw Kwok ' Something fell into place in his mind. Kwok had been devoted to HsienKo so much he didn't care about anyone or anything else, and now he was reduced to a sobbing wreck.

'She's dead?'

The Doctor shook his head. 'Not exactly. You could almost say she never existed. Chronon feedback, you see: HsienKo's life-span has become a redundant timeline now that Magnus Greel's zygma beam was short-circuited here. In normal temporal mechanics that would mean everyone would forget about her, but since the zygma beam isn't a closed loop and only she was affected by the chronons...That's why you should really leave temporal mechanics to the professionals.'

'Like us,' Romana added. 'I thought she might have aged to her real age, but not this...'

'The expected rarely happens.' The Doctor shook his head.

'I should have expected something like this. If we'd brought her into the TARDIS first, she would have been protected until the chronon feedback had played itself out.'

'You can't think of everything,' Romana said quietly.

'No.' The Doctor kicked out at a piece of rubble. 'In this business, I should.' He looked up. 'What's happening outside?'

Woo shrugged, then staggered slightly as the movement painfully reminded him of his wound. 'The fighting seems to have stopped. Everyone is clearing away bodies and presumably trying to work out what to do next.'

The Doctor nodded and went outside where small fires were burning here and there. People were indeed moving bodies, though all were watching their neighbours with suspicion. 'Try the tracer now.'

Romana looked surprised as if she'd forgotten all about it, then pulled the delicate wand from its customary hiding-place in her sleeve. It remained completely silent. 'Nothing.'

'K9 can double-check, but that's an encouraging sign.'

Woo noticed movement out of the corner of his eye.

Kwok's head had come up at the sound of the Doctor's voice.

His face was completely bloodless, his eyes glittering as he pulled a gun. Woo was in no shape to react in time, but was halfway towards a quick draw anyway, when a red-tinted heat haze spread across Kwok. He toppled forward, though he was visibly still breathing.

Woo looked beyond Kwok and saw K9's head poking above the edge of the little plateau. He climbed fully onto the ground as they watched, his casing settling down over his traction system once he was on smooth ground. 'We should kill Kwok,' Woo pointed out, knowing that the Doctor would disagree. 'But I don't think I could do it. Not after today.'

'He's had a hard day. What kept you, K9?'

'I think he did quite well,' Romana protested. 'There were an awful lot of steps down there.'

'He's certainly no mountain goat. K9, can you detect any sign of chronon activity?'

'Negative, master.'

The Doctor grinned, turning to Woo. 'There you go; how does it feel to have saved civilization as you know it?'

'Painful.'

'Oh, yes. Let's get that shoulder seen to.'

'You know something?'

'Hmm?'

Woo could hardly find a way to phrase it, as it sounded so strange to him; he had been thinking this way since before the excuse he had given Romana for his nocturnal activities. 'I think I prefer the running-the-club part. It's not as sore.'

Shanghai would be too dangerous for him after the Imperial Army moved in anyway.

An aircraft roared overhead, banking for a slow pa.s.s. He had no difficulty making out the red discs on the wings. The Doctor frowned. 'I'd say the Black Scorpion aren't going to have the use of this place much longer. We'll have to do something about burying that reactor for good.'

Romana shrugged. 'We can transport in a few hundred tons of cement in the TARDIS.'

'Good idea.'

Woo looked around wistfully. 'Perhaps Los Angeles or San Francisco could use a new nightclub.'

The Doctor strolled into the TARDIS' console room, tossing his hat onto the top of the time rotor before closing the doors.

'Kwok's in hospital though I doubt the finest surgeons in the universe can cure a broken heart Woo's arranged transport back to Shanghai, and what's left of the Peking Homunculus has been cremated with absolutely no honours at all. All the tunnels to the reactor have been filled in, though I don't really think the TARDIS was designed for terraforming operations.'

Romana was examining the read-out that the tracer was giving now that it was back in its socket in the console. 'Well?'

Romana smiled in satisfaction. 'I've got a fix on the coordinates of the fourth segment now. It's not on this planet or century at all.'

The Doctor coughed discreetly. 'And you still trust that thing after all this?' He shook his head sorrowfully.

'Personally, I don't think it's the same without a vellum map full of dotted lines and a big X where you're supposed to go.

What do you think, K9?'

'Affirmative, master. Vellum map and locatormutor core are two distinctly separate cla.s.ses of object.'

'That wasn't quite what I meant.' The Doctor threw the dematerialization switch huffily, as Romana suppressed a smile of superiority.

One eye stared up, not seeing the grubby paintwork of the hospital ceiling. Instead it saw a green-eyed woman in flames and a blue box.

A voice called, 'Doctor,' and Kwok sat upright, fingers twitching. It was only a nurse calling one of the KMT surgeons, so he relaxed, floating away on a gentle raft of morphine.

And, like so many, dreamt of revenge.

Glossary Ah Familial prefix to the name of someone close. Familial prefix to the name of someone close.

Akatonbo Literally 'dragonflies', j.a.panese air force nickname for their training aircraft. Literally 'dragonflies', j.a.panese air force nickname for their training aircraft.

Boxers Rebellious martial artists who sought to overthrow western exploitation of China. They believed their spiritual strength would make them immune to guns. Rebellious martial artists who sought to overthrow western exploitation of China. They believed their spiritual strength would make them immune to guns.

They were wrong.

Ch'i Spiritual energy. Spiritual energy.

Dai lo t.i.tle for an immediate superior in a Tong or Triad, the translation approximating 'big brother'. t.i.tle for an immediate superior in a Tong or Triad, the translation approximating 'big brother'.

Feng shui Literally 'wind and water'. The Chinese art of geomancy, which uses a.n.a.lyses of geographical and spiritual factors to determine the fortune of a given location. Literally 'wind and water'. The Chinese art of geomancy, which uses a.n.a.lyses of geographical and spiritual factors to determine the fortune of a given location.

Gaijin Foreigner, usually meaning occidental. Foreigner, usually meaning occidental.

Geisha A j.a.panese girl trained in the arts of hosting and entertaining. Not as salacious as it sounds. A j.a.panese girl trained in the arts of hosting and entertaining. Not as salacious as it sounds.