Page 96 of The Girl with a Thousand Faces
“I can work with this,” he says, recovering his composure with admirable speed. “Are there any relatives you can think of who they might seek out in Hong Kong?”
You’re about to reply when the snapping of twigs catches your mutual attention.
“Friends of yours?” you ask, with sudden wariness.
“Shit. I think I’ve been followed here!” Wing Yun catches your arm, pulling you to standing. “Siu Yin, you need to run. Now!”
“What?” You let him pull you up; this body is very weak, after all. “Who is it?”
“Government exorcists. I thought I lost them in the woods, but clearly not.” He gives you a shove. “Go! If they catch you, I’ll do my best to free you.”
“Promise,” you say, struck by a sudden pang of fear. “Promise you won’t forget me.”
He looks at you, unblinking, and nods. “I promise. Now get out of here!”
With a hiss, you whirl away and begin to run through the woods.
Any other day, and you’d have destroyed them. Any other body, and you could have outrun them.
Just your bad luck—and bad planning, if you’re honest—that today this form is tired and weak, distracted from having worn this skin too long. Severe dehydration and lack of food means there is only so far you can push shaking legs.
The noise of footfalls is growing louder in the surrounding forest, and you can hear men calling to each other in a mix of English and Cantonese.
What will they even do to you, these exorcists? No, doesn’t matter. Don’t think of it. There will be time later to process their betrayal (again! More betrayal!) and your own need for revenge.
The body you’re in stumbles, knees briefly giving way. It won’t last in this chase much longer. Realistically, you need water to escape these men. If you can get to the nearby stream, they’ll not be able to catch you. Eject from this skin and slide off to freedom. Maybe kill a few as you go.
Looking back, it’s tragic how close you came to escape. A little more luck, and it would have all worked in your favor. But it is not, and has never been, your destiny to be lucky. The heavens were not so kind when plotting the course of your life.
In short, you reach the stream only to find that some of the exorcists have anticipated your thoughts. Two of them are already waiting.
Skid to a halt, bare feet dug into the damp forest earth. Breathing hard, parched and tired.
“Good afternoon, Thousand-Faced Girl,” says one of the men, in clipped English.
He is Western: fair-haired and too tall; pale-eyed, like a dead fish. His robes are long and black despite the heat, clothes designed for a chillier European clime. Delicate spectacles rest on a nose that could break rocks. In one hand he carries wooden rosaries; in the other, a fat old Bible.
The other man does not greet you, only stares coldly. He is dressed similarly but instead of rosaries, he carries old scrolls and what look like cannisters. Some of that famous holy water the Catholics are known for, and blessed salt. Youdon’t know how supernatural banishment works in other cultures, other than that Europeans are especially good at doing it.
“Get out of my way. I only want to exist, not cause harm,” you snap, pointedly answering in Cantonese. It’s been ages since your schoolgirl days, and your English is rusty. Besides, why accommodate a man who has come to hurt you? You don’t owe this gweilo any kind of courtesy. “Didn’t I fight well in the war? Don’t I deserve as much respect as someone living?”
“We mean no disrespect, Thousand-Faced Girl,” says the first Jesuit, even as he lifts his rosary beads high. His Cantonese is very good, which makes it even more annoying that he tried English first. “Your sacrifices and hard work will be engraved on a memorial—”
“A memorial! How wonderful and kind!”
“—but your time to rest is here,” he finishes, and then begins chanting in a language you’ve never heard before. Latin, Greek, Hebrew, something unknown to you. The other Jesuit joins him.
You try to dart around them, conscious of the other priests who are catching up. Needing desperately to reach the open stream not twenty yards behind him.
The second Jesuit opens a cannister and flings holy water in your face. It stings and hisses on your skin, as if he’s thrown boiling-hot acid. The pain is great enough that your spirit self is in agony, and your already weakened shell of a body staggers to one knee.
Immediately, both men begin throwing a ring of salt around you, still chanting in unison. You try to run over it and cannot, to your horrified shock. Strange, that; salt has never bothered you before. Whatever they’ve done to it, however they’re using it, is oddly powerful.
Things only get worse from there.
More priests arrive, some of them Taoist rather than Catholic. Between their disparate groups, they trap you in salt and keep you cringing with their holy water. Blessed smoke and fu talismans written in temple ink seal the ring into an impenetrable, painful prison. It is almost as bad as being back in the ocean, perpetually drowning.
For the first time in years, you are again a scared young woman, far out of her depth.
