CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER SEVEN

We need to talk,” Evangelical had said, sudden, premature crow’s feet creasing the smooth corners as she narrowed her eyes.

On Eidolon below, the crowd had grown. They stood, finding their forms. Heads tilted skyward. Arms hung, the fingers flexing into angry claws. Blood inched from between snarling teeth to spill over lips and drip onto chins.

Inside where it was dry and warm, Lucky stared at Father. “You will call me ‘Lucky.’” He sat opposite her, dressed in a suit that shone silver in the grey light of this rainy day, dark glasses resting on the bridge of his sharp nose. He ignored her, pursing his lips as he thought, his cheekbones sharpening as he briefly sucked his cheeks in.

Far from the past in which he’d lived and ruled, the watch on his wrist was still worth the salaries of ten families in Hong Kong. And the sheen of his still black hair, the oil making it look like a helmet squatting on top of his head, spoke of an American influence as did the American cigarette between his fingers.

“Do you remember?” she said to his ghost.

You believed it was ancient

“I said ‘You will call me Lucky.’”

and all-powerful.

“I ordered you, of all people, to call me Lucky.”

You could walk through life

“And what did you do?”

and destroy

A cool hand pressed to her forehead.

without doubt

“What did I do when?” Evangelical said, her fingers now pressed to Lucky’s wrist as she quietly counted her pulse.

or pain.

“And you, Father,” Lucky said, ignoring Evangelical. “You sat there and sneered. Looked at me like, what, like some kind of girl. A woman who couldn’t kill you with a thought, a look, a simple command. A weak nothing because that’s what we were to you, weren’t we? Weak, useless girls.”

Father sat still. Not speaking, not moving. Not responding.

“But you were wrong,” she said as she sat back. “You were wrong and you died because you underestimated me, you stupid old man.”

“Are you talking to me?” Evangelical said.

Lucky turned and caught her eye before looking back at the empty chair.

“No,” she said, the word slipping out before she could catch it. “To Father.”

“Your father.”

“Oh no, never,” she said, unable to stop herself. “The Father of Mong Kok. In Hong Kong. The Father of everything. He ran everything. In Mong Kok. But I left. Went to Canada, like everyone else. And then Paris, East Berlin, Rome. Never went back to Hong Kong. Couldn’t go back to Hong Kong. They couldn’t make me go back. I wouldn’t do it. It wasn’t allowed. And I’d never set foot in Mong Kok again, that’s for damn sure.”

“Mong Kok? China?”

“Yes.”

“So, home.”

She shook her head, suddenly aware she might have been speaking and then realized, no, she wasn’t that stupid. She’d never do that.

Evangelical waited for an answer.

“No, not home,” she said.

“Then what is Mong Kok?”

Mong Kok was a land of firsts, Lucky thought. Thought, not spoke, her lips firmly closed. My first serious kill. My first brush with respect. My first taste of the power of terror. The first time someone bowed low to press their face against the concrete in apology rather than feel my wrath. My first realization that I could step from the shadow and be seen and feared and celebrated and applauded. My first fortune. My first . . . well, my first everything.

“Your first everything,” Evangelical said. And then she smiled, slow and careful.

“I’m sorry?” Lucky said.

“Your first respect, and power, and realization. Your first fortune. Your first everything, right?”

Lucky stopped. Those had been thoughts. She was sure of it. Private thoughts. And she knew she hadn’t spoken them aloud. Had made sure to keep her lips pressed tightly together. Had kept her tongue silent.

But did I? she thought. Had I slipped? Was I sharing secrets best left unsaid? And if I’d done this now, without knowing it, had it happened earlier? And often? And to whom?

They grew restless on the avenue below.

“Tell me—” She turned to Evangelical.

A line of people faced her, tickets in hand. No longer on Eidolon, she stood in a large room. A cavernous space with a high, ornate ceiling. One of rounded stone, a colorful mural catching the eye. A room with ticket gates and people sitting patiently in rows of chairs and the clip-clop of shoes on polished stone and announcements ringing out over a PA system. The 922 to Dallas at Gate 5. The 482 to Orlando at Gate 3. People rising in response, suitcases in one hand, tickets in the other, ready to navigate their way to a new adventure.

Outside the rain pounded the parking lot with a sudden ferocity.

These were ghosts, Lucky thought. Ghosts I don’t know. But ghosts, yes.

Across the room, the glass doors slid open with a whoosh, the stranger coming in seconds later. Blond haired with a round face, his eyes nervous, his knuckles white as he clutched his small suitcase, he stopped, his eyes scanning the gates.

He didn’t see her.

Yes, she remembered now. The slip of paper. The picture. The wordless promise that the job would be done soon and done well.

She clutched the blade in her fist, the world falling into a quiet, familiar dark as she called her shadow and her shadow fell. This would be quick. The neck. A long cut. Two inches deep. And then no more. She’d be done.

“Lucky.”

The voice came from behind. And he still stood, her job, waiting. Near, so near. The end of it all so, so near.

“Lucky.”

She couldn’t escape that voice. That familiar voice that didn’t belong in this bus depot at this time when she was getting ready to do this last final thing.

“Lucky,” came the voice again, this time a whisper.

She turned.

Evangelical stood shaking the rain from her red raincoat, suitcase in hand, the sliding door closing behind her with another whoosh. She did not look at Lucky. She did not call her name. She didn’t even see her as she strolled past to wrap her arms around the blond man, cupping his round face with her palms as she looked into his terrified eyes, her lips saying something Lucky couldn’t catch.

“Lucky,” came the voice again, the Evangelical from the past hugging the Nameless Job while her present fought to regain control.

She closed her eyes. Squeezed them shut. Took a breath, then another, and a third as she steadied the shaking in her hands. Opened her eyes to find herself home on Eidolon.

Evangelical sat near. So near. Her blue eyes watched her from beneath the blonde bangs. “Thought I was losing you, there,” she said.

“Did I speak?” Lucky said. “Out loud? About Father and Mong Kok and Hong Kong? Were those words I said? To you?”

“Shush. You’re getting worked up over nothing. Now, sit back and close your eyes.”

Lucky did just that, her salvation’s hand resting on hers. Breathed in and out. Steadied her heart, quieted her hands and, feeling safe, relaxed.

Soon, the quickest of sleeps came.

Moments later, perhaps many moments later, her eyes opened.

Father sat opposite her, glowing silver in the grey light, his cigarette burning. Madame stood near the window, painted white with thin strokes of black above her eyes, her gaze on the souls crowding Eidolon below. Yin Ying, lopsided and stupid and breathing wet, leaned against the wall.

The whisper in the corner rested, the familiar eyes narrow as it watched.

And Evangelical stood at the front door in the kitchen, suitcase in hand, shaking the blood from her red raincoat.