FIFTEEN

Lin Sun loved his job.

It was a simple job, one that didn’t require a great deal of effort, but which allowed him to talk to people. Lin had always been what Americans referred to as a “people person.”

As a boy he’d come to San Francisco with his family, and immediately started making friends. Unlike his older brother and younger sister—who were reserved at best, chronically shy at worst, just like Mother, Father, and Grandfather—Lin got along with everyone he met.

As he’d grown, he’d hoped for a career working with people. Perhaps as a librarian, or something else that involved serving the public.

But he quickly realized that what he hoped for made no difference, especially once he became old enough to learn the truth about why his parents had uprooted them from China.

The Triads had done Mother and Father a favor. To repay the favor, they had been forced to move to San Francisco and promise that all three of their children would serve under a boss known only as “the Old Man.”

For his sister, Lien, that meant serving as a hostess at one of the brothels. To Father’s relief, she was not asked to be a prostitute. All she had to do was bring drinks, and occasionally let a customer buy her a drink.

For his brother, it meant being a personal errand boy for the Old Man.

Lin was grateful that the Old Man had actually met the children before giving them their assignments within the gang, because as soon as he did so, he recognized that Lin had a gift for talking to people. Thus, by the time he was sixteen, he was a waiter in one of the Triads’ restaurants, eventually working his way up to maître d’.

That meant that he got to spend every day talking to people, greeting them, seating them, making sure they were enjoying their meals, and simply reveling in meeting other members of the human race.

Every day he recognized that his lot could have been much worse. His brother, Quan, had been killed in a drive-by shooting just last year. And while Lien wasn’t forced to sleep with her customers, her life was a grim one, and not likely to get any better.

Lin didn’t think very highly of Tommy Shin. The Old Man had kept things running smoothly, but Tommy kept trying to change things for their own sake, regardless of whether or not they worked. It was as if his only concern was not doing things the way the Old Man had done them, regardless of whether it was the right way or not.

Even worse, he let half-breeds like Albert Chao work for him, and move up in the ranks. That may have been acceptable to Americans, who had no proper sense of racial identity, but for true Chinese like Lin and his family such practices were not to be encouraged—certainly not by rewarding mongrels with positions of power.

As a result, Lin hadn’t bothered to “keep an eye” on the stubble-covered American who’d been dining with his headphones on. He’d assumed that the man was listening to what passed for American music—all of it too loud for Lin’s taste—and remained oblivious to all that was happening around him. Or maybe he was just impolite. Lin had come to expect that from Americans, though he hadn’t seen as much of it here.

Shin’s Delight wasn’t included in most of the guidebooks, catering as it did to locals rather than tourists, so rarely did any Americans wander in off the street. The ones who made the effort to find the place usually had better manners.

Regardless, if Chao wanted Lin to keep an eye on the man, then it was clearly a waste of time.

Besides, he had more important things on his mind. With the deaths of Tommy Shin’s lieutenants, Lin feared that Chao would rise to an even higher position in the Triads, and no good could come of that. There was nothing to be done about it, of course—Tommy wouldn’t listen to a lowly maître d’.

The most Lin could do was quietly fume about it, standing at the podium near the restaurant’s entrance.

Suddenly he realized he was sweating. Another thing that annoyed Lin about Tommy was his insistence on keeping the heat turned up whenever the temperature outside dipped in the slightest. That was why Lin liked his position at the podium, it allowed him to enjoy the occasional cool breeze when someone opened the outer door.

But this was hotter even than Tommy liked it. Wondering where the unusual waves of heat might be coming from, Lin turned around—

—and found himself facing the most horrific sight he’d ever experienced.

There was a man standing in a column of fire that climbed upward toward the ceiling. Already only a few feet away, the man moved toward him and raised a sword wreathed in flames.

Lin couldn’t scream.

Couldn’t breathe.

Couldn’t move.

He was transfixed by the fire that surrounded the man, and by his horrible eyes....

Hook sword held at the ready, John took the stairs two at a time and ran into the main part of the restaurant. He registered several things in a single glance.

First, the restaurant’s patrons were screaming, pointing, shouting, and tripping over tables and chairs trying to get away from something, even though the source of their terror was blocking the only exit.

Second was the maître d’, who was standing stunned while everyone around him was panicking.

And third was a samurai encircled by fire wielding a flaming katana.

That’s new, he mused.

The samurai—which John figured just had to be the Heart of the Dragon—was making a beeline for the maître d’, who remained rooted to the spot.

John found himself having to shove the panicking patrons out of his way in order to get to the front of the restaurant. The tables were crammed far too close together, and people were literally stepping on one another to get away. Shouts mixed with the piercing sound of shattering glass and porcelain as plates and glasses were knocked onto the floor.

By the time he reached the front, Doragon Kokoro was practically on top of the maître d’.

Standing behind the creature, John swung the sword so the hook caught the ronin as if it was a cane yanking a poor performer off a vaudeville stage. But he couldn’t manage to get a grip.

The spirit didn’t even notice.

Yanking the sword back, John took another swing, this time at the spirit’s neck.

The demon whirled around, swinging his flaming sword. John was barely able to duck as the flames singed his hair.

He only burns his intended target, John realized. He can fry me as easily as he fried his other victims.

But after that one brief attack, the ronin turned to focus again on his prey.

However, John’s distraction seemed to have shaken the maître d’ out of his reverie, and caused him to move his ass. With a sudden cry, he bolted through the front door as fast as his feet could carry him.

John moved swiftly to place himself between Doragon Kokoro and the exit.

“You ain’t gettin’ past me,” he said, holding the sword in a ready position.

Through the flickering flames, John could see the patrons continue to scream at one another in Chinese as they tried to escape via the kitchen or the rest rooms. Behind them, at the foot of the same staircase John had run down, he saw Albert Chao standing alongside a young man with spiked hair.

Chao looked pissed.

Raising his katana, the Heart of the Dragon swung downward.

John leaned back, avoiding the flaming blade by a hair’s breadth. The spirit came back with a side thrust. John parried with the hook sword, the clash of metal on metal shaking him so hard he almost lost his grip.

Tightening his hands around the hilt, John swung once again, this time aiming right for where the ronin’s heart had beaten when he was alive. Bobby had said that the inscription translated to, “Pierce the heart of the dragon,” and maybe it meant exactly that.

Unfortunately, it did no more good than the other two strikes. The hook sword went straight through, as though what he was fighting was nothing more than flames. Yet the strike of the katana on the hook sword had been quite substantial.

Again, Doragon Kokoro swung his weapon. Again John raised his own sword to parry.

He had wielded a sword in the past, during his training as a Marine, but that was primarily for ceremonial functions. Then Caleb had introduced him to a middle-aged woman named Lara, an expert swordswoman with amazingly fast hands. He never forgot the best piece of advice she’d given him.

“Go on instinct. Don’t think about what you’re doing, just do it!”

When the Heart of the Dragon attacked, John didn’t think.

He just acted.

Each sword strike got closer. Each parry from John came later.

The thrusts were impossibly strong and never varied. John, on the other hand, was only human, and would tire as the scrap wore on.

He needed a new plan, since the sword didn’t seem to be doing the trick.

Then the fires that surrounded the spirit started to dim. Glancing toward the stairs, John saw that Chao was muttering something.

In a moment, the spirit faded away. The floor beneath it remained untouched.

A few people were still milling about and John saw that both the spike-haired man and Chao were trying to plow through the chaotic restaurant toward him.

Not having any desire to answer their questions, John followed the path of the maître d’ out of the door. Luckily, Pacific Avenue was even more packed than the restaurant had been. Tourists of all shapes, sizes, and colors joined the locals to jam the sidewalk. He was able to lose himself in the crowd, doing his best to hide the hook sword beneath his bomber jacket.

He worked his way to a bus stop—walking gingerly to avoid stabbing himself—knowing that the first thing he needed to do when he got back to the hotel was call Bobby and tell him that his sword was a dud.

Albert couldn’t believe it. He just couldn’t.

Everything was going so well, and yet here was some gaijin messing things up—just like those people from twenty years ago. This one even had a sword of some kind.

Quickly, Albert banished the spirit. There were too many witnesses, and Lin had already run off.

Unfortunately, the damage had been done. Tommy had run out front, along with two of the waiters, to go after the gaijin.

Albert, however, stayed behind, so he was able to survey the damage that had been done. He cursed himself for a fool, letting his dislike of Lin overcome his good sense. The point was to wield the Heart of the Dragon with subtlety, to weed out those who stood in his way.

Lin wasn’t in Albert’s way, he was just an idiot.

Albert was never going to succeed if he kept making stupid mistakes like that.

With a sigh, he started walking back through the restaurant, glass and ceramic crunching under his feet. The patrons were starting to calm down, some checking themselves for injuries, all of them whispering breathlessly to one another.

After a few moments, Albert realized that they were all saying the same thing: that after twenty years, the Heart of the Dragon was back.

At first he was tempted to shout them all down, tell them they were giving in to superstition and foolishness, but he quickly realized that it would be a mistake. To begin with, they could hardly deny the evidence of their own eyes.

Besides, since he’d already opened Pandora’s Box, maybe he could use the situation to his benefit.

Tommy stomped back into the restaurant, bellowing furiously.

“What the hell was that?”

“From the looks of it,” Albert said, “that was the Heart of the Dragon. It was trying to kill Lin.”

“That’s not what I saw,” Tommy said. “It was trying to kill that tourist with the sword.” He smiled then. “For some reason, the Heart of the Dragon was trying to protect us.”

Then the smile fell.

“Al, I need you to find out everything you can about this thing—where it came from, what it wants, why it’s helping us. And who the hell it was trying to kill.”

One of the waiters—Albert couldn’t remember his name—spoke up.

“Boss, isn’t that the thing that killed Johnny and—”

“True.” Tommy rubbed his chin. “We need more information. C’mon, Al, you’ve always got ideas—so what is this thing, and what does it want with me? Can you get me some answers?”

Albert bowed respectfully.

“Absolutely, Tommy.”