“Jussa momen’,” Cynna mumbled and felt under the blanket. She pulled out Lily’s Glock and the two clips of ammo, stuck the clips in the sling that held her injured arm, and held up her free hand. “Okay. Upsy.”
Cynna was ten inches taller than the old woman and outweighed her by at least forty pounds. Li Lei pulled her to her feet easily. “Can you walk? I do not wish to carry you.”
Cynna blinked blearily. She didn’t seem to find the possibility of being carried by Li Lei absurd. But then, she was still half asleep. “Sure.” She took a wobbling step. She didn’t fall, but it was a near thing.
Li Lei slid an arm around Cynna’s waist and tugged her along toward the stairs. “The effect will be less on the first floor.”
“Right.” Cynna bobbed her head knowingly. “Th’ spell would dissipate outside a radius of . . . how strong is this spell anyway?”
“Strong.” Li Lei grunted as Cynna took the first step down the stairs—and nearly tumbled headfirst. “I did not wish to be bothered.”
“I wish I had a sleep spell. Can make a sleep charm. Not a spell.”
“It is a dragon trick. I do not think a human could use it.”
Cynna looked down at the older woman. “You don’t look like a dragon.”
Li Lei did not answer, concentrating on getting her sleep-drunk charge the rest of the way down the stairs. At their foot she said, “You should hide the weapon and start your own spell now.” And catching sight of a Fist who looked like he’d collapsed to the floor when the spell hit but was now trying to sit up: “Good. Stay here,” she told Cynna, and went to the man.
She slapped his face lightly, made him look in her eyes, and told him he would escort her and Cynna to the tower.
By the time the sleepy Fist struggled to his feet, Cynna had joined them. She no longer wobbled when she walked, but her eyes were still heavy and she still clutched the gun in one hand. Li Lei wondered if she had made the sleep sending too strong.
“You’d better take Lily’s Glock,” Cynna said. “I’m too fuzzy-headed to shoot straight.”
“I dislike guns. Do not shoot anyone until you are more awake. That will happen soon.” She turned to the guard, switched to Chinese, and used Lily’s least-favorite word: “Come.”
THIRTY
LILY had perp-walked bigger men than Li Po, but she’d had the use of both hands and a pair of cuffs. It helped that Li Po wasn’t much taller than her, but he was stronger. A lot stronger. If he started seriously struggling, she’d have to either drop the knife or use it. If she used it, she lost her hostage. If she dropped it, his men might rediscover initiative.
This was going to occur to him eventually. He wasn’t deeply stupid. She hoped it was later rather than sooner.
The four Fists stayed flat on the ground as ordered. The fifth was still trying to persuade the Kanas to disperse. He hadn’t yet noticed what had happened to his commander. Lily aimed Li Po at the tower and shoved him forward.
The tower at the center of Heart’s Home was, like most of the structures, made of stone. It was round, topped by the red Frisbee that acted as a dragon alarm, and about seven feet in diameter. A narrow wooden door was set in the stone. At least thirty people sat on the ground in a large circle around that tower. Their presence was not Lily’s idea. She’d told Ah Hai the Kanas were putting themselves in great danger. Ah Hai had nodded and agreed . . . and was now walking across the grass about ten feet behind Lily and her prisoner.
The Kanas had reinvented the sit-in.
They—at least most of them—didn’t know exactly what the spawn were planning. The guy in charge, the one Ah Hai had contacted, probably did. He might have told the other elders; Ah Hai didn’t know. But most of them knew only that their Zhuren planned some act that would cause great damage, much loss of life, and that it was part of a deal they’d made with the two powerful out-realm women who had visited the spawn.
Two? That had confused Lily, but after asking a few questions, she’d figured it out. The G.B. had been visiting Dragonhome off and on for decades, maybe as much as a century, setting this up. But she used to arrive in her other avatar, the one Xitil had eaten. Now she showed up in Ginger Harris’s body. It would have looked like two different women to the Kanas . . . who considered this the greatest threat they had ever faced.
Their charge, after all, wasn’t to keep the Zhuren from harm. All beings were harmed by life in some fashion. Nor was it to keep them alive. The Zhuren could handle that themselves just fine. Their charge was to teach the Zhuren to care. To connect.
These two women must have offered the Zhuren something they wanted very badly, Ah Hai had told Lily. They wanted it enough to bring great harm to the people who were in their charge. Doing such harm would damage the Zhuren, perhaps irretrievably. The Kanas assembled here because they were willing to place their bodies between the Zhuren and whatever goal they sought. They believed that those they’d served for generations would hesitate to harm them and might listen.
Hesitate. That was the word Ah Hai had used.
The Fist that Li Po had sent to disperse the Kanas finally realized something was wrong. Even at a distance Lily could see the shock travel through him as he stared at her and his commander. He exclaimed, drew his sword, and started to run.
And tripped and fell as he passed one of the seated figures, who’d stuck out a leg at exactly the right moment. The barefoot man rose, lifted the downed Fist slightly with one hand, and drove his other fist into the man’s face. He dropped his victim and started running—straight for Lily. The straw hat he’d been wearing flew off his head.
Lily’s heart pounded. It was all she could do to keep the hand holding the knife steady.
Li Po picked that moment to balk. He outweighed her by sixty or eighty pounds, so when he stopped moving, she did, too. “You are not going to kill me.”
“Shut up.”
The barefoot man ran fast. Much too fast for a human. He stopped as suddenly and gracefully as he’d launched his run, unwinded, his dark eyes shining and holding hers. Time seemed to stretch and slow, sweet as taffy, into a moment whole and perfect.
“May I?” Rule gestured at Li Po.
She nodded, then found her voice. “Please do. Otherwise he’s going to annoy me into killing him.”
A smile spread over his face and expanded into a grin. “That would be a shame when you’ve gone to such trouble to capture him.”
No doubt her answering grin was as silly as his, as silly as the nonsense they said out loud while their eyes said more important things. “It would.”
Rule walked up, gripped Li Po’s arm where Lily held it twisted behind his back, and lifted it higher. Li Po grunted with pain, bending double in the effort to keep his shoulder in joint. Lily started to hand Rule Gan’s knife, but Rule had retrieved a blade of his own from somewhere. It was about three times as large as hers. She couldn’t stop smiling. “He’s all yours.”
Their pause had allowed Ah Hai to draw close. Rule glanced at her. “Is that—”
“Ah Hai. Introductions later.”