Blood Noir - Laurell K. Hamilton [126]
“The emperor who unified China and burned all books that he didn’t agree with,” Shang-Da said.
“Yeah, that one,” Alex said.
“That’s more than two thousand years ago.”
“Clan tigers talk about going home the way that Jews talk about the Holy Land. We are in exile, and as long as the communists rule we always will be. A few of us went back when the emperors were overthrown, but the communists saw us as western spies. They killed us along with their rebels.”
“My family has never spoken of this,” Shang-Da said.
“The emperor destroyed any writings about us.”
“The fox people still live in the homeland. Hidden, but they are there.”
“Are the dragons still there?”
“No,” Shang-Da said, “the last of them fled when the communists took over. Communists may not believe in God or magic, but they hired wizards to clear the land of rebels. Rebels were anything non-human.”
I knew that dragons in China weren’t just animals like they were in most of the rest of the world. In China they’d been shapeshifters; people. I didn’t say it out loud, though. If I kept my mouth shut they might just keep talking. Sometimes if people forget you’re there, you learn more. Silence can be a greater asset than any question.
“So we are all in exile.”
“As you say, there are still fox people there, but they hide in plain sight.”
“They can look like everyone else,” Alex said.
“Yes,” Shang-Da said.
Crispin was looking from one to the other of us. He almost looked like the history lesson was as new to him as it was to me. Interesting.
“Las Vegas is our home. We don’t talk about going anywhere else,” Crispin said.
Alex looked at me, then back to Crispin. “We need to go and clean up. Let’s try to avoid any of my fellow reporters. I really don’t want to have to explain why I’m coming out of this room in a robe, with another man in a robe.”
“Homophobic?” I said.
He shook his head. “Being considered bisexual would be fine, but Crispin is a known weretiger. Your boyfriend in the shower is a known werewolf. It’s not my sexual preference I’m trying to hide.”
“I’ve got another friend who’s a reporter who basically said the same thing.”
He leaned in toward the door and drew in a long breath of air. “I smell the guards, but no one else. We’ll go and take the stairs.”
Alex opened the door. Crispin moved as if to come farther into the room again. Alex took hold of his arm and pulled him toward the partially open door.
Crispin pulled against the other man’s arm. He looked at me. His face was raw with need, and something else. Was it fear that I saw in those blue eyes?
“Come on, Crispin, we need to clean up. I think I may even have some clothes that will fit you.”
Crispin stayed at the door, staring at me. I knew what the look was now. Pain, fear, and longing, all on his face, so raw that it hurt to see it.
“You’ve rolled him,” Richard said.
“Not on purpose.”
“No, but unlike some of the others you’ve accidentally rolled, this one is…” He shook his head. “Young.”
I knew what he meant. It wasn’t the actual age. Twenty-one was plenty grown-up. Requiem had been several hundred years old when I accidentally bespelled him. That gives a man a lot of character to draw on, to help him break free. As Alex Pinn had said, it hits you harder when you’ve never been called before.
I sighed and went to him. He smiled at me in a way that you never want a stranger to smile. Too warm, too damn happy. It frightened me. I’d made Requiem break free of my powers, but he was a master vampire. He had his own power. Crispin was a weretiger, but there was no feel of power to him. I wasn’t certain he had enough of him inside yet to break free of me, and without his willing help, I didn’t know how to free him of what I and Marmee Noir had done. Shit.
Crispin touched my arm when I was close enough. I didn’t try to stop him. But the moment he touched me, I thought, why did I want him to leave? It was silly.