The Bookman - Lavie Tidhar [128]
A slap shook him out of it. The jade statue was inside the shop and so was Kai's father, who grabbed him by his shirt and dragged him away from the doorway. He said, "I told you to stay inside."
Kai said, "I did." His father shook his head. He said, "You must leave. I didn't know–"
"What is it?" Kai said. His eyes were on the statue. The statue seemed to be regarding him, perhaps with amusement, perhaps in indifference.
"It's a –"
Another burst of fire from the outside, and it was followed by an explosion of thunder. Rain began to fall outside, great billowing sheets of it, and lightning flashed again and in the light all Kai could see, like a series of frozen tableaux, were the two groups of men fighting, hand to hand, in a street full of unmoving figures lying on the ground, the pavement slick and red with blood and rain. He felt sick, for just a moment. Then there was another sound, so soft he almost didn't hear it, a surprised sound, air escaping a throat, and his father went down on his knees before the jade figure. Kai screamed. His father looked up at him, blinked. A dark stain was spreading over his crisply-ironed shirt. Kai fell down beside him, holding him. His father's voice was soft, the hiss of escaping air. He said, "Kai..."
Kai said, "No." He may have said it several times. His father's lips moved, though no sound came. Then – "Go." There was nothing else. Kai shouted but his voice was swallowed by the storm. When he let go his father was lying on the floor. His hand was resting on Kai's wuxia novel, the cheap yellow pages growing dark with blood. Kai looked outside and the green-clad figures seemed to be winning, and they were coming closer and closer, and the few remaining monks were now standing before the entrance to the shop, holding them back – but for how long?
Go. The voice had been his father's. Now it echoed in his mind, and he looked up and for a moment it seemed to him the jade statue was staring at him, no longer amused or indifferent, speaking in his father's voice. Go. Kai looked down at his father and knew his father was dead. There were gunshots outside and another monk dropped down. Kai screamed again, defiant or afraid he didn't know, and stood up and with the same motion grabbed the jade statue. It was surprisingly light. He headed for the back of the shop. Through rustling clothes and the silence where steam had, until recently, been, through the silent presses toward the back door. They might be waiting there too but he didn't care, his mind was filled with rain and thunder and blood and he burst out of the back door onto the narrow alleyway beyond. Then he ran, the statue held in his arms, the rain dripping down his black hair, making his clothes heavy. There were more gunshots behind him but he never looked back. He ran out of the alleyway and down the road toward the trees. He knew the men would come after him. He ran until the forest was there and then he ran through the trees, no longer thinking, the thick canopy holding back the rain, his feet sinking into dead leaves and mud. Running, falling, rising, going deeper and deeper into the forest, until the sounds all died behind him.
ONE
THE WOMAN WITH A GUN
There was a crowd of people outside the house on the Rue Morgue, making the place easy enough to spot. Rue Morgue – the unfashionable side of Paris on display, like dirty laundry hanging on a clothesline. Soot-blackened bricks, the smell of rotting rubbish and fresh excrement in the street. Eyes staring out of windows. A neighbourhood where no one wanted to get involved with the law – and yet: a crowd of spectators, eager for a corpse and some entertainment.
The hansom cab had some difficulty navigating the narrow street. The woman inside the cab tapped her long, sharp nails on the windowsill. They were painted a deep shade of black.
There were gendarmes stationed outside the house, doing a bad job of keeping the spectators away. That was soon going to change.
The cab stopped. The horse on the left raised