Page 119 of The Girl with a Thousand Faces
“The island of where?!”
Shek Ham Chau. It’s off the Sai Kung coast.Mercy added,Good luck, big sister. Stay safe.
“You too, Chan.” Erika gave a slight bow, then turned and began hobbling away through the rattling winds and driving rain. Bao padded along at her side, casting uncertain glances over one ghostly shoulder.
Mercy did not watch them walk away, because it would only have distracted her. Instead, she looked toward the main gates, which were just visible at the far end of the courtyard. Beyond their perimeter lay the rest of the city. Hong Kong was a big place, but I had already told her where to go.
She murmured,I’m coming, Siu Yin, and did not know if it was a promise or a threat.
The water ghost of Shek Ham Chau ran toward the barricaded gates of Kowloon Walled city, Siu Yin’s body in her arms.
37THIS WILL HURT
August 22, 1975 (Today)
Several miles from Kowloon Walled City, you are walking through the empty Murray Building, alone and unseen. And unaware of what is transpiring in Kowloon, which you’ve left behind.
It is nighttime, and a public holiday, so none of the staff are here. You have Kit Ling’s keys, and her security passes, but not her face, since you left it to be “discovered” by the police in Kowloon. That means you can get through doors, but guards need bribing or killing. You have Cobra Lily’s sword, though, and are not afraid to use it. The consequences don’t matter anymore.
It takes a little time, but you finally arrive in the depths of the Murray Building’s secure supernatural lockup. Where you were once held, for nearly three decades. Fingers trembling, you input the last of the codes into the electronic systems and step inside.
Lights come on automatically. In front, shelf after shelf of bottle gourds await you. To the left is a small room, the very same one where Kit Ling brought you out the first time. It exists to interrogate ghosts safely, though that is almost never done. You won’t be doing it, either.
Instead, you pull out a luopan, of the kind used by fengshui masters, among others, and begin scanning the gourds in each aisle. Ghost-finding is not what the luopan is meant for, but it can work that way in a pinch. The needle spins frantically in the presence of spirit energy.
A crushing number of bottle gourds turn up empty. Those you smash, feeling a twinge of pity for the spirits who withered away in agony within. At least this way there’s a chance their spiritual energy will recycle in some fashion, eventually, though you wouldn’t put money on it happening.
The “filled” bottle gourds go into a large sack. There are too many for a single trip, so you take several dozen at a time and lug them to the roof. Annoying, but you don’t mind the exercise.
“Your time has come,” you tell the bottle gourds, even though they can’t yet hear you. “I’ll set us all free. This city will be sorry!”
On the final trip, you also pick up a jar of temple ink from the nearby storage.You will be writing lots fu talismans tonight, but not of binding or banishing or warding, or even preserving. It is time for a fu talisman of breaking.
Encumbered by the burden, slowed by the limits of human flesh, you leave the basement and begin the long, tedious climb to the roof. The elevators are switched off, and you aren’t quite sure how to turn them on again, nor do you want to risk creating light and noise. Best if there’s no risk of anyone disturbing these proceedings.
Besides, what’s the rush? You have all night.
Outside, rain begins to beat against the window. A storm is coming, you think, but only fleetingly. You’re too busy planning what to say to your soon-to-be-freed horde to pay the weather much mind.
When you reach the roof again, the storm is in full tilt. Rain sheets down hard, soaking every surface. The rooftop is flooded with water, and excess flow tips over the edge in a miniature waterfall.
If you were less focused on the task, that might have alarmed you, or prompted you to wonder why it feels like a typhoon is drawing ever closer to you specifically. But it has been a long time since you worried about the kind of supernatural beings who could summon storms.
Instead, you focus on the ritual. Set about carving a wide circle of symbols around the gourds, using Cobra Lily’s sword to score the concrete.
When that circle is in place, it’s time to fill it with monk-blessed ink. It flows gradually into the grooves, the process hampered severely by the wind and rain. But it’s far faster and easier than doing each of them individually, and worth the cost in time. Despite the weather, the monk-blessed ink takes hold as you apply it, in defiance of the elements.
When it is complete, all of these gourds will shatter at once. That’s the moment you’ve been working toward. Three hundred–odd ghosts of exceptional strength and anger will pour out across Hong Kong, killing and wreaking hell as they go. As well they should.
The end of your fu talisman is in sight when the unexpected happens.
Mercy Chan vaults over the railing, feet landing with a sharp splash on the overrun balcony, deliberate in making noise. The noise is a disturbance, and you twist round with alarm in one smooth, continuous motion.
The sight of her takes your breath away.
Skin the color of palest jade, delicate like a paper lantern. Eyes that glow white and pearlescent. A wealth of black hair streams over her shoulders. In her mouth is the hardness of teeth, too many for a human woman, and jagged as a shark’s.
Your enemy should be locked in a barrel beneath a triad building, safely out of the way. The sight of her should send chills of anxiety through every nerve ending.
