Sean Slater - The survivor

Laroche pointed a finger. ‘I’m writing you up, Striker. And I’ll be forwarding this to Internal. Today.’

The Deputy Chief turned away from Striker, towards Inspector Beasley, and began giving the man shit about something. Striker ignored them both. There were more important things to focus on right now. In order to learn Red Mask’s identity, they were going to have to learn more about the Shadow Dragons.

And that meant using every resource Striker had.

He got on his cell and called up Meathead, the man who had the most connections to experts on Asian gangs. Meathead answered on the second ring, and Striker filled him in on what kind of expert they needed.

‘So?’ Striker asked. ‘You know of any?’

Meathead’s reply was quick and definitive. ‘Yeah, just one. The Lamb. ’

Red Mask cut down the south lane of East Hastings Street. Pain and confusion ruled his mind. He had no idea why he was taking this route, only that it was away from St Paul’s Hospital, where he had completed the first step of his mission. Patricia Kwan had been fortunate to survive the first attack in her home; she would not survive this second one at the hospital.

The thought brought him no happiness. No contentment either. Just one step closer to mission completion.

To the Perfect Harmony.

Huddled in an alcove at the left side of the alley were three women. Crack whores. One of them — a blonde with pockmarked skin — gave him a wary look. He ignored her, and at the next alcove took shelter from the afternoon winds. They blustered through him with enough force to hamper his speed.

The smell of piss and shit hit him. The Downtown East Side. This festering place. The sickness of the city was bested only by the sickness of his body. With every step, the weight of his shoulder bones tore open his wound a little further.

Not that it mattered.

He reached inside his pocket and took out the vial of pills. White and yellow ones. He couldn’t remember what the old herbalist had said, how many to take, so he dumped a few of each in his mouth and chewed them into paste. He had just finished swallowing when he spotted the man. Around fifty, and six feet tall — large for an Asian — he wore a baggy coat that offered perfect cover for weapons holstered beneath. The man entered the lane, casually looked in Red Mask’s direction, then disappeared between the apartment complexes on the south side.

Red Mask felt his jaw clench. This was not the first time he had seen him. The man stuck out. His walk was distinctive, as if he had something wrong with his back. As if his spine was made not from bone and ligament, but wooden rods. When he walked, he took long stork-like strides.

Red Mask recognised this walk. He’d seen it back home in Cambodia. This was the result of disease. Some villagers called it ‘Tree Spine’ or ‘the sickness from the North’, but Red Mask knew the real reason for it. It was punishment.

Bad karma.

The first time he had seen this man was just after leaving Sheung Fa’s office. And that thought weighed heavy in his chest because it meant only one thing.

This man was an assassin.

Red Mask returned to the main drag of East Hastings. At the corner, he entered the Jin Ho Cafe. The waitress hurried over and offered him a seat, but he ignored her, going immediately to the narrow hallway that led down to the washrooms, and turning to spy out of the glass front window.

Within a minute, the strange man reappeared on the sidewalk out front, his stiff legs plodding him along with surprising speed and grace.

One look from this closer distance and Red Mask felt a coldness sweep through his belly. The man’s face was angular, like those from the north, with high, thick cheekbones and narrow hard eyes. Red Mask recognised him. It was the Man with the Bamboo Spine. A man he hadn’t seen in over twenty years.

He was here to kill him.

It was almost three in the afternoon by the time Striker and Felicia made it to Simon Fraser University. The campus was located high atop Burnaby Mountain, a good half-hour drive from the downtown core. Rush hour had been bad.

After they parked in the top lot, Striker walked with Felicia by his side through the outdoor breezeway of the convocation mall that was flanked by cafeterias, coffee shops and bookstores. It was cold and windy out. Even the rays of sun, breaking through the red and yellow foliage of the trees, seemed cold.

Winter was slowly edging out the fall.

As they passed a small sitting area where the crowd thickened, Striker studied the students around him. He was struck by how much older they seemed than the high-school kids. The majority were in their late teens and early twenties. Adults. Most noticeably, a lot of them were dressed in costumes. Today was Halloween after all, Friday, and the crowd was littered with everything from nurses to ninjas. The masquerade gave the campus a dark but exciting aura, and it made Striker feel like he was back at St Patrick’s High School.

The thought turned his palms sweaty.

He tried to lighten the mood, divert his worries. He looked at a young blonde woman, her big breasts barely contained by her sexy nurse costume, and he smiled at Felicia.

‘Don’t you have one of those outfits?’

‘Yeah, but it’s more the Kathy Bates type.’

‘You gonna hobble me?’

‘Believe me, some days I’d like to.’

He laughed, and the release felt good.

They walked to the end of the breezeway, where the mustering crowds thinned, and Striker was thankful for it. They paused at another square, and Striker milled about while Felicia searched for a directory. They needed to find the auditorium. That was where Grace Lam was speaking at the International Gang Conference.

Striker looked forward to seeing her. She was supposed to be a guru in the world of gang intelligence. From what Striker had learned from Meathead, Grace Lam had started her career in Los Angeles, studying the Grape Street Watts gang, then gotten herself an interview with the infamous Monster Cody Scott when no one else could. After that, she’d been mentored by some of the finest gangologists Los Angeles and New York had to offer. When she’d earned the distinction of being a certified gangologist, she’d started her own thesis, focusing on South Asian gangs. That work had landed her in Vancouver.

It was a telling statement of the underground activity that existed in Canada.

With this thought in mind, Striker approached a water fountain that sat nestled in between a concrete bench and a Japanese plum tree. Being the end of fall, the leaves were still red, but slowly turning purple and yellow and brown.

The area had a certain serenity. Striker wished he could enjoy it. He looked across the square. On the other side of the concrete expanse was a row of terminals at a coffee shop. Internet access. Thoughts of the nitric acid attack on Patricia Kwan returned. He crossed the breezeway and entered the shop. He sat down at one of the computers, then started up Google. He was into his sixth link, reading through the long article, when Felicia found him.

‘I located the auditorium,’ she said, then leaned down and stared at the screen. ‘Nitric acid — what did you find?’

He sat back in the chair, an uncomfortable plastic thing that groaned and stretched beneath his weight, and pointed at the photo of a disfigured woman on the screen. ‘This acid is the stuff of nightmares,’ he said. ‘It’s deadly. Turns flesh to jelly, mutates the hell out of it. If not treated immediately, the effect is permanent.’

‘Then you were lucky.’

He focused on a few jpegs on the screen — horrible images of mutilation — and continued explaining what he’d read: ‘Here in Canada, nitric acid is mainly used for industrial reasons — processing and manufacturing, stuff like that. But overseas, this shit has become the weapon of choice in some countries — for the humiliation that the disfigurement causes as well as the pain. And to inspire fear. It’s used quite commonly as a repayment for adultery… the list of victims just goes on and on and on.’