At The Point Of A Blade Part 3


    Liu Xi Xian came out of the bathroom of the hotel room dressed in dark blue sweat pants and a tee-shirt.  She glanced at Jay Boaz as she walked toward the bed she chose, closer to the sliding door leading to the balcony.  She twisted closed the vertical blinds before going to bed.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Is that how you always dress for sleeping?”  Jay asked curiously.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’ve seen me dressed like this before.”  She climbed under the bedsheets and turned off the reading light above her.  “Not always like this though, depends if I think I will be hot or cold.  It’s kind of cool in here.  Why do you ask?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Just curious about you.”  he said.  He was less worried about the chilly room, dressed in an old tee-shirt and shorts.  He was lying down, staring at the ceiling.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Why did you stop dating?  And sleeping with those dates?”  She turned on her side to watch his reaction to her question.

    At first, he looked like he didn’t want to answer, but then he saw her dark eyes watching him, and waiting.  After just asking her a question, he wouldn’t have an easy time avoiding responding.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“It wasn’t just finding a moral center, or some religious thing, or responding to bad luck, like you tell people, was it?”  she persisted.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“It was...something I didn’t know before.”  he replied slowly.  “I thought I was what I was supposed to do, what was expected from me.  I realized at some point I was doing things all wrong.  But by then...it’s like an addiction, it’s so difficult to get out of.  The best thing for it is to quit cold turkey.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You thought you were taking advantage of them?”  she asked, propping herself up on her elbow.  “Is that why you were so afraid you might take advantage of me?”

    He sat partway up and faced her.  “When I look at a beautiful girl, like you, Liu Xi, I still have thoughts about it.  I’m always afraid of taking advantage because...I still don’t know if I’m strong enough to resist.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh.”  Liu Xi whispered softly as she lay down again.  “I’m sorry I made it difficult for you at first, then.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s okay.”  he replied.  “If you didn’t, someone else probably would have, and she probably wouldn’t have cared so much.”

    She nodded.  “You are a good guy.  You shouldn’t accept a girl who doesn’t care.”

    He smiled as he lay down again.  He glanced at her again, but she was lying on her side facing the window.  He could see the subtle curves of her body in the dim light from outside, and he turned away again quickly.  “Thanks, Liu Xi,”  he said quietly.  “Good night.”


---


    Vincent De Soth woke up suddenly, and he coughed.  The cell he had been placed in had no furniture, so he slept on the dusty floor.  That, and a sliver of sunlight through the badly fitting steel door woke him up.

    He sat up, and leaned back against the stone wall, and felt depressed.  Every time he got into these kinds of situations, he remembered Liu Xi promising to protect him in his dangerous job of Sorcerer Supreme.

    It was that job which brought him to Tianjin.  He heard the rumor of The Warlord’s metallic fingernails, and his using a private army to take control of the city.  His instincts told him there was some sort of magic involved, and his new job demanded he do something about it.  

    But he sadly underestimated The Warlord’s foresight and power, and Vinnie overestimated his own power.  As independent as he tried to be, in a stone and steel dark cell, he had to admit that he was powerless and needed help.  Only nobody knew he was there.

    He perked up suddenly when he realized his own thoughts might be the answer to one of his problems, at least.  Stone and steel...earth and metal.  If only he could use them to alert his elementalist friend Liu Xi to his location somehow...

    Vinnie dug through his pockets, and then took off his shoes and searched those as well.  In one shoe, he found one tiny packet that the people who searched him seemed to have missed.  Or maybe they did see it, and didn’t think it was a threat.

    Of course it wasn’t.  It was completely useless for fighting back, or even escaping from captivity.  He tore it open, fed one of his shoelaces to it, and then spit into it.  Then he slapped it against the door.

    The sound of plastic clicked to the floor, and he hoped not too loudly.  This was a packet that Liu Xi helped him design, and it was the first time he’d ever seen it work.  Even he didn’t understand completely, but it had something to do with removing elements and placing a spell that could recombine them with a few simple ingredients.  He felt proud that she had such a complex yet practical mind...

    ...as he picked up a small cell phone from the floor, and then paused for a moment as he remembered that he didn’t know how to call Liu Xi using international dialing prefixes.  Instead, he called the Lair Mansion.


---


    Jay was half asleep, holding his Lair Legion comm-card in his right hand, and he looked confused.  Hallie never used it before to forward a telephone call.

    He slid out of bed, squinting at the early morning light, and then tapped Liu Xi’s shoulder as she slept quietly on her side.  She turned over and looked at him with tired eyes.

    The Legionnaire held out the comm-card.  “It’s for you.”  he said.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hello?”  Liu Xi asked into the card, sounding tired.  Then she sat up suddenly.  “You’re where?  Hello?”

    She looked at Jay, and said, “It was Vinnie.  He’s in Tianjin, and he has been captured.  He said he couldn’t talk long or they would catch him and torture him.”

    Jay took the comm-card from her and asked, “Hallie?  Can we track where that last call came from?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“No problem, Hatty.”  she said.  “It’ll take a half hour or so, though.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Half an hour?”  he asked.  He wasn’t used to Hallie taking so long.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s in China.”  Hallie pointed out.  “GPS doesn’t work so well there, and the cell towers are far apart.  I have to triangulate, take a few guesses, and even then I can’t exactly look up addresses on Google Maps.”

    He sighed.  “I see.  Do your best, Hallie.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“So we have some time to get ready.”  Liu Xi noted.  “You can shower first...unless you want to share.”

    Jay knew that she was kidding, so he didn’t really react.  He just grabbed some clothing and headed to the bathroom.


---


    Liu Xi hailed a cab outside the hotel, and then waited for Jay to get in before she did.  While not much speaking was required, she did the cab hailing simply because she felt a cab would be much more likely to stop for a female Chinese native.  Especially considering their destination.

    Hallie’s assessment took lots of deduction, and very little footwork.  Upon beginning a check of prominent locations in the area of the cellular towers, the Warlord’s compound was high on the list.  Especially considering that it was a large portion of the reason for the cell towers being so far apart, being that it was private property.

    And then Hallie found online rants from his followers about capturing and removing foreigners from Tinajin.  That put his compound right at the top of the list.

    The cab stopped about two blocks away, and then ordered the two of them out of the cab.  He mumbled something about losing his family if he was seen dropping off passengers in front of the palace.  Liu Xi thanked him anyway and paid him with a decent tip.

    The front gate was two twenty foot high pieces of forged steel, painted with dangerous looking red and yellow dragon designs.  It didn’t need guards, a tank couldn’t crash through those.  Next to the doors was a single closed circuit video link to talk to someone inside.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“We could go over the wall.”  Jay suggested, patting the backpack he brought with him.

    She seemed to ignore him.  Instead, she said, “I want you to see something I haven’t shown anyone.  Do you wonder how I know where to go using void?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’ve...been a little curious.”  he admitted.

    She pointed to the solid wall around the compound, and the stones seemed to collapse and fall into a vertical hole.  Liu Xi’s hand was directly in front of the collapse - and he could see what could only be described as a flying view of the inside of the compound, through rooms and walls, and then turning sharply and back again to catch more of it.

    The wall reappeared right after Jay saw the inside of a steel and stone jail cell with Vinnie De Soth lying on the floor.  He had a couple day’s growth of beard, and his clothes were torn.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I know where he is.”  Liu Xi stated the obvious.  “We can go get him.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Wait.”  he stopped her.  “Why was he imprisoned like that?  All the other foreigners were either killed or expelled.  And they obviously know we’re here, since our first room was trashed.”

    Liu Xi nodded.  “We need a plan.”


TO BE CONTINUED?
    

-- Story written and copyrighted (C) 2009 by Jason Froikin, and may not be 
--    reprinted without permission.  
-- Yuki Shiro designed by Jason Froikin, based on designs by Masamune Shirow
--  Liu Xi Xian and the Psychic Samurai are original design by Jason Froikin
--  Lara Night is an original creation by Jason Froikin