Barbara Hambly - Magistrates of Hell

‘In the Temple of Everlasting Harmony. You spoke to Mr Chiang in Chinese . . . I’ve never dreamed in Chinese! And then in Latin, of all things. And Chiang—’

‘Chiang is a vampire,’ said Asher quietly. ‘By the sound of it, I suspect he’s the Master of Peking.’

‘Well, he had no business getting sniffy about the dead meddling with the affairs of the living,’ said Lydia, ‘if he was getting the other priests in the Temple to work for him.’ She pushed her rimless glasses more firmly on to her nose. ‘I think his coffin must be one of those crates in the strongroom below the Temple . . . What did he mean, he summoned us here? We came here because—’

She broke off, calculating back in her mind how it was they’d happened to journey to China. ‘Chiang killed the thing whose body Dr Bauer found in Mingliang, didn’t he?’

‘I think he must have,’ said Asher. ‘With fewer than a dozen vampires in Peking – one of them missing for the past twenty years, and who knows how many of them insane, as Father Orsino is – the Master of Peking may have felt in need of Western help. The Prague vampire nest has never been able to make headway against the Others, and they’ve been there since the fourteenth century. I think Chiang Tzu-Wen must have lain in wait by the mines until he was able to kill one, which he left where a Western doctor would find it. He knew she’d write it up in a journal somewhere. He knew someone would come. I’m guessing he’s dealt with vampire hunters before.’

‘ The Van Helsings of the world ,’ quoted Lydia softly. ‘When Ysidro was trapped in the mine, he said he dreamed of him . . .’

‘I think it more likely that Chiang went to the mine himself. It was certainly Chiang who helped me escape from the yao-kuei – and the rats – when they cornered me on the lakeshore. Even at the time I thought my escape was . . . providential. The fact was that he still needed me.’

Lydia’s hand closed tight on his.

After a long time she asked, ‘Did Ysidro say in your dream – he didn’t in mine – where he’s going, when he leaves Peking?’

Asher shook his head. His eyes met those of his wife, troubled behind their thick glasses, afraid for that strange friend whom neither of them had any business speaking to, let alone serving now and again, no matter what the cause. In her dream, he wondered, had she thrown herself into Ysidro’s arms? In her dream, what had Ysidro said to her?

What kind of woman are you? Karlebach had asked, almost spitting the words.

And what kind of man am I?

She wrapped her arms – carefully – around his ribcage, rested her head on his shoulder.

There’s an answer to that question somewhere. But God only knows what it is .

Neither dreamed of Don Simon Ysidro again before they left China, nor for a long time thereafter.

But as he and Lydia walked up the gangplank of the Ravenna at Tientsin a week later in the freezing winter dusk, Asher did notice, among the trunks being loaded in the hold, a massive one of tan leather with brass corners.