James Swallow - Jade Dragon

Ko stabbed an angry finger at him. “You give that shit to her and I swear I’ll break your fucking neck-”

Fixx shook his head. “Not for her.” He held it out to the younger man. “You an’ me.”

Colour drained from Ko’s face. “What?”

“That’s how this stuff works. Like a link-up for your mind, see. Just a quick little flick of it, little belt of the world beyond. Pop it and done.” He rolled the capsules on to his palm. “Few seconds of instant telepathy, in convenient tablet form.” Fixx traced a finger over Nikita’s forehead. “We drop these, we can go take a look-see in there. ”

“You’re outta your mind!”

“No,” said Fixx, “your sister is. ’Less you’re thinkin’ you got a better solution, ’less you wanna sit here and wait for the world to end, only way to help her is to do this.” He placed a caplet in Ko’s hand. “C’mon. Curtain’s up. Your cue.”

There on Ko’s palm, the indigo sphere shone like a glittering jewel.

Rope was waiting at the helipad, the blurring rotors of the spidercopter thrumming as Mr Tze strode from the castle interior. He had changed into the garb of an ancient warlord.

“Heywood,” he said pleasantly. “How is our darling diva? I understood there was an incident in the lab?”

Rope wore a contrite expression. “Sir, yes. I have expedited the problem.” He jerked a thumb at the rotorcraft. “I secured the talent in the cabin. She’s been pacified.”

Tze’s eyebrow arched. “Not too strongly, I hope? We are on the cusp, Heywood. We can’t afford any more mistakes.”

His face changed to a thin smile. “No sir, we cannot. I was forced to invoke a command imprint. I believe she was attempting to determine her own origins.”

“Ah. How interesting. Perhaps, if there were time, we could learn something from this for use in later models.” He glanced away. “But no. When the pattern is made whole tonight, Juno’s function will be at an end.”

Rope said nothing, watching the sparkle of joy in Tze’s eyes.

“Miss Hi has given of herself to whet the blade. The role of absolution now falls to you, Heywood. The young one, Lam, has been prepared.” Tze placed a hand on Rope’s shoulder. “I rely on you to commit the deed when the moment comes.”

“For the King,” Rope gave the rote reply.

Tze smiled again and boarded the flyer. Rope watched it vanish toward the high ridge of Victoria Peak, where spotlights danced on the low clouds. In the pocket of his coat, the metal cover of The Path of Joseph tore at his skin. “Such an arrogant man,” he said to the air. To think Tze imagined he might cage a Dark One and become the master of the Desire-God. In Joseph’s name, it would be Rope’s pleasure to show him the error he had made in trusting a secret agent of Elder Seth.

Ko sat on the chair, blinking. “I’m not feeling anything. This is looped.”

Fixx ignored him. “Give it time.”

The pill had disintegrated the moment he swallowed it, and now Ko was having second thoughts, his pulse racing and his hands getting sweaty. He sniffed the air and caught a whiff of something strong and redolent. “You smell that?”

“Like a steakhouse.” Fixx frowned.

Ko was on his feet, making for the door. “Where’s all the…? People are-” His bare feet (bare?) slapped on warm liquid and he glanced down. The grey tiled floor in the corridor shimmered, darkened. It became a purple-red pool, moving to fill the space before him. Tendrils of the blood-stuff inched up the walls.

“Oh. Shit. It’s happening.”

Fixx was following him. “Go with it. Don’t fight it.”

Ko panicked. “No. Damn it man, this was a jagged idea, I want out.”

“Weakling,” sneered another voice. Ko saw Feng, crouched at the pool’s edge, looking at his dark reflection. “Your first instinct is always to run.”

Fixx rubbed his chin. “Who’s your friend?” Ko swallowed. “It’s, uh, a long story. ”

They followed the meat smell out of the decaying hospital, past huge boles of greenish fungus that were consuming the crumbling concrete. Outside, Hong Kong had transformed into a fleshy, mutant parody of the city. Pieces of perception detached and reformed; they blindsided Fixx and hammered into his thoughts, alien invaders spitting memory-seed.

He saw landscapes of wet flesh, the stench of boiled skins and torched meat. And so many screams; they pushed and pulled, rising and falling from sexual cries of pleasure to noises that chilled the blood in his veins.

Fixx did not question the new arrival, this man the thief called Feng. The aura about the swordsman was strange and complex, the shades similar to Ko’s. Somewhere down the bloodline these two shared ancestry; the op wondered if either of them knew it. He toyed with the bones in his pocket. They felt spongy and indistinct.

“There she is,” said Feng, pointing with his sword. Along the leathery highway, Nikita was sitting on a couch made from dead dogs. Faint whisps of face and body sat about her, giggling and laughing. She was dressed in a tattered Dior delta, streaked with mud and fluids. Fixx heard Ko gasp when she turned her face to them. Half of her skull was bared, flesh seared away. Blood ran from the torn eye socket, dripping into the wineglass in Nikita’s hand. Now and then, she would laugh as if in response to some unheard joke and sip at the contents of the glass.

Feng angrily used the blade to dissipate the wraiths, and Ko stepped closer, taking the burnt twigs of bones that were Nikita’s ruined right hand. “Sis?” he asked. “It’s me.”

“Little brother.” She gave a languid nod. “You should run. He’s coming.”

“Who’s comin’?” asked Fixx.

The flesh-world around them began to tremble. “The King,” she said.

And more than anything, Ko wanted to look away, but inside his mind, there was no place to seek shelter. A frigid hurricane of blue ice ripped into them, and above Tze loomed, a towering god wreathed in noxious smoke and shimmering darts of painful colour…

Ko felt his ire surge at the sight of the man’s grinning face. For a moment, he felt the weight of a weapon in his hand, and saw Feng’s sword in his grip. But then Tendrils of liquid night emerged. They stabbed out and penetrated, rushing through flesh and savaging his mind…

Fixx held on to him, but it was no good. They slipped on a new surface of sheer ice and fell Into visions of…

Black skies filled with blinded stars.

Emerald serpent forms, congealing, forming a monstrous snake-god; a mouth of snaggle teeth, eyes blue pools of destructive sensual energy.

Jade Dragon…

Juno screaming, lit across a stage of razorblades and glass, a puppeteer’s strings tied to her limbs, ranging away over her head.

Tze above, hands on the strings, directing and laughing.

In the water…

Grinning mindless salarymen in bars choking on mouthfuls of blue capsules.

Masks floating, black-clad hands pouring thick drums of azure syrup into wheeling falls of clean water.

Children across the city sharing one nightmare.

I’m the quiet mind inside, pretty voice…

Through sheaves of flashing pixels, inside flexing waveforms.

Lies and compulsions sewn into every singing word, every rhythm and bright sparkling vision.

Legions sleeping awake at their d-screens, absorbing.

All thinking the same way…

The blue, in everything, in each breath of air, each bite and sip.

All eyes on Juno.

At the tower, Rope bearing the wageslave’s throat before a multi-bladed knife.

A rip in the sky…

Opening.

The Jade Dragon tearing through.

Slashing.

Ending the world…

Ripping.

And no one to stop it…