The back of the fishery was wet with melting ice and slippery with scales and dribbles of offal. Bi-Han instinctively let a thin sliver of ice escape his hand to freeze the slick floor. Ice fractals bloomed into a white sheet so that he slid the corner easily. As he did, he caught the lintel of a side door and swung himself through and out onto the street. He glimpsed the fishmonger tear off his apron as he bulled through the back door of a hot wok stand. Bi-Han took off after him. He pushed into the kitchen of the street cafe. The air was thick with steam and hissing oil. The spite of onions hit his eyes and he blinked watering tears as he pushed passed cooks tossing vegetables and submerging steel grills in hot oil. His elbow knocked a the handle of a pan and its contents catapulted toward him. Bi-Han's arm was coated in ice before he could think, and boiling vegetables bounced harmlessly off him to roll on the floor. He caught sight of the ribbon in the fishmonger's hair fleeing through the far side door. Bi-Han barged through and got the door seconds later. The fishmonger was gone again. Bi-Han let his eyes scan quickly. There was another stall in front of him, the busy street to the right, and a small space to the left between the street wall and the stalls. His eyes snapped right. The ribbon twisted in amidst the street crowds. Bi-Han burst into the crowded street. The bulk of his shoulders carved up the crowd, cries of dismay littered left and right about him as people leapt from his path. The fishmonger was in view now. He turned and glimpsed Bi-Han coming for him. He gave a cry and dived into a thicker part of the crowd. Bi-Han's teeth clashed in anger. He drove apart the crowd with the sides of his fists. Someone hit the ground under the impact. Bi-Han leapt over them. An empty side street opened before him. A steel door banged back against the wall of a brick building then swung shut. Bi-Han ran to it and tore it open.
Inside was dark. Bi-Han's senses went up in a wall of caution. His eyes accustomed quickly and his head tilted, picking up strange sounds. There was tapping, like shuffling feet. Lots of feet. Like a crowd, save there were no voices, chatter or other sounds he expected. He frowned and reluctantly slowed his pace. He was in a darkened corridor with steps at one end. A faint purple light fell on the steps. The fishmonger was gone again. Bi-Han crept forward, he could not place the sounds he could hear. The hair on the back of his neck was standing up in confusion. The odd shuffling reminded him of the Temple: perfectly silent but for the step of feet and the snap of clothing as a class practised a martial arts form. This was different again though. All the sounds were off, there was no synchronicity or rhythm. He slipped up the steps and stopped. An immense hall was before him. Glittering silver mirror balls hung from the ceiling and threw an array of disorientating lights in all directions. Nearly a hundred people were in the room. There was perfect silence apart from the tap of their moving feet and the rustle of their clothes. They were dancing. In perfect silence. All at different times and in different ways. Some danced fast and light, some slow and swaying, some stomped heavily, heads nodding violently. Bi-Han shrunk from the sight, afraid and confused. He walked in the world of civilians easily because he understood their predictability and could manipulate it. This was like nothing the Temple had ever prepared him for. He looked about in distress. People everywhere danced out of time and in silence. There were heavy headphones over all their ears. Bi-Han took a step forward, then shied from the unnatural sight again. He glanced around, trying to understand the anomaly. There was a DJ at a sound station and a desk, like at many clubs Bi-Han had walked through. But no sound, he thought in dismay, upsetting himself the more he witnessed the spectacle. On the far side of the dance hall, he saw a square of light open and a figure fleet through. The square of light began to fold shut. Like a blood hound mad with a new scent of a trail, Bi-Han sprang into the silent crowd, shoving the unnatural dancers away from him.
"Hey man, come on!" Someone said as he thrust through the crowd.
"Urgh, metalheads. They ruin it for everyone."
"What channel is he on, I love that energy!"
"Is he even wearing headphones?"
He burst through the nightmare and out into the afternoon sun. A steel fire-escape door swung shut behind him. He didn't stop or let himself think as he ran up a side street back onto the main road. His breathing was laboured, and his instincts all abuzz and in disarray, but he could feel the more primal part of him enjoying the chase. Wide broad grey steps marked the enormous entrance of a concrete building at the end of the main road he'd just joined. The fishmonger was gone again, with a lot more distance between them thanks to Bi-Han's freak out. The building or the street to the right. Which to take, which to take? The street to the right was sparse with people. In a split second, Bi-Han decided the building more closely met his target's pattern of escape. He sprinted up the broad steps into the concrete building. Cool air hit Bi-Han's skin. People were queuing at a counter over to his left. Bi-Han ignored that. He ran further into the building. It gave way to reveal an enormous room, dominated by a ring wall and a huge expanse of ice. Bi-Han paused for a second in confusion. People wearing strange boots with blades on the bottom were sliding around the ice anti-clockwise. There seemed to be a frozen lake indoors. What did Hong Kong people do in their spare time? Bi-Han determined not to let these oddities distract him again. At the very far side of the room, he saw the ribbon in the fishmonger's hair. Without a second of thought spared, he leapt onto the ice.
And like that he was home. His movements became liquid and his feet ghosted over the ice. He wove between the skaters like water down a hill, easy as silk. He spun out the way of an off balance child, and was aware of people around him stopping to watch. He never let his eyes move from his target. He slid with a dancer's grace across the rink. The fishmonger was reaching for a back door. Bi-Han's eyes saw a knife lying on the side of the rink, he cut an expert path between two skaters, picked up the boot the knife was attached to, somersaulted off the ice and hurled it. The ice skate sailed through the air and its blade went straight through the fishmongers open hand, pinning it to the wall. The fishmonger screamed. For a moment bystanders were stunned by the acrobatics before them, then there was confusion and commotion. Security wardens sprang out of the shadows and made to help the fishmonger.
"Fuck off!" Bi-Han shouted at them as he ran toward his target. The guards were so surprised that they stopped. Bi-Han was aware of the press of attention on him, he snatched a pair of sunglasses from a bench scattered with socks, shoes and a handbag. He pushed the sunglasses on and strode up to his whimpering pinned victim. "Triad business." He talked down to the security guards. They hesitated a moment, sizing him up, and glancing back at the ice rink. Bi-Han reached into the back pocket of his trousers. He pulled out a roll of cash and tugged out a few notes and offered them. The security guards' eyes wandered to the ice skate through the man's hand and the thick fast blood streaming down his arm and dripping off his elbow, then to the cash in Bi-Han's hand. They took the money hesitantly, then backed away. Bi-Han gave them his best pleasant smile.
Bi-Han dragged his victim all the way back to his fish stall. He saw Grace had seated herself in a reclining wicker chair next to an open tea stall opposite the fishery. She set down her cup with a clink as he approached.
"Good." She said, "And alive too, well done." Grace stood.
Bi-Han straightened the fishmonger with a prod to the small of his back.
"I suppose you were running because you knew there was nothing else useful you could tell me." She stepped back over to the fishery. She nudged the large headless fish lying unattended on the chopping board. She picked up a knife from the table. She tested its point by pricking her finger. A bead of blood swelled on her finger tip. She drew the knife along the dappled silver belly of the fish. Its insides bloomed out, bulging, wet and fleshy pink. The fishmonger watched the process he must have done a thousand times himself with a fearful, captivated stare. Bi-Han was reminded of the one occasion he had seen a Lin Kuei deserter. He had been recaptured and brought before the Grandmaster. Bi-Han had been young, but he still recalled that dread anticipation stalking the deserter's eyes.
"Ms Yeung," The fishmonger started,
Grace put the knife to her lips like she might a finger,
"Sh."
With one hand she prised the fish open, and with the other she reached inside. Her hand squelched as she rooted around. Bi-Han watched with fascination as she kept eye contact with the fishmonger, taking mental notes of the effect. The fishmonger's face was very pale, but Bi-Han supposed that might be because the amount of blood he'd lost from his hand. The man was clutching it tight to his white overall, which were slowly turning red.
Grace withdrew her hand slowly, pulling out a thick red cord. She unwound the guts from the carcass like some kind of macabre fishing line. The intestine spilled over the counter onto the floor, until it tore free leaving her holding the fresh wet line. She beckoned with one finger. The fishmonger didn't move, but Bi-Han forced him, with one hand on the back of his neck and a knuckle to the base of his spine. Grace leant forward from where she sat on the counter, and draped the fish guts around the man's neck.
"I have something to confess," She said to fishmonger, "Although you are a double-crossing failure who has been playing my clan and leaching off them, I have a bigger concern than you. And that's that I need to send a message to the police loud and clear. I need to take out something close to them. Not an officer – that unites them and stokes up their fervour. But an asset? A civilian who snitches to them? The police get the message, and..." She glanced around them, they were being given wide berth by passers-by who were shuffling past quickly with heads down, "The general public start to understand what happens to the those who talk to the Police about the Triads." The fishmonger's eyes bulged, and Grace's hand's jerked suddenly. She flung the remaining guts up over the steel crossbar holding up the front of the stall, then wrapped them round a standing pole. Using this new leverage she hoisted the man up, revealing a fierce strength for one so small. She heaved the line tight, so that the man's feet dangled in the air. The line stretched taut and tight and quivered with shuddering strain like a plucked harp string. The fishmonger's toes immediately scrabbled for the table to prop himself up as the guts about his neck began to choke him. Grace finished tying them off around the pole and nodded at Bi-Han. Bi-Han front kicked the table over. Fish, chopping boards and knives flew back into the stall. The fishmonger was left dangling and choking as he hanged above his own workplace. Grace picked up a tea towel from a tray at the tea house opposite and cleaned her hands. Street folk turned around and quickly walked away from the scene. The hot wok stall pulled down its shutter so as not to attract attention. Everywhere eyes averted as the man twitched in his death throws.
Grace turned to Bi-Han,
"Stay and make sure he's dead. Then leave him there. Let this be a sign to others who wish to betray the Jade Fist Pact."
Bi-Han's breath caught in his throat at the insinuation. He was momentarily glad he was still wearing his stolen sunglasses.
"Tomorrow our war gains another front. Don't let your guard down around the Hong Kong Police. They no longer serve our purpose." She folded up the bloody tea towel and set it back on its tray. "Oh..." She said, mock casually, "Whilst I am aware that you set Syun up to expose her as police, that information hasn't filtered down the ranks too well. Some over enthusiastic street runners of mine got on tracing the emergency call that brought the police down on Syun. She was a well-loved lieutenant and not many know she was a police infiltrator. Hope you didn't place that call yourself, Zho, or you might find yourself the target of some unpleasant business."
Bi-Han felt his stomach turn. He kept his face even while his mind raced. He knew phonecalls could be traced. Which is why he hadn't placed the call himself. At the time it had been a worthwhile trade off, but now...
He waited until Grace had turned a corner in the street before gripping his head between his fingertips. He sent cold through his temple willing himself to think calmly. He paced back and forth. Grace's people would be going after Liwei. Liwei who had told him time and time again of how the darkness of Triad business could not be contained. Of how it spread everywhere like a thick noxious gas, seeping through the cracks once let in the front door. Liwei had picked him up from from home and driven him to work three times before deciding the detour was too much. On one of those occasions he'd had to stop off back at home to pick up his medication. The address was half lost in the depths of Bi-Han's brain, but it came tumbling to the fore now. He ran.
The city was a blur of meek sun on half shadowed streets and dull rush hour traffic waiting with pumping exhaust in long jams. Sweat was seeping down his spine when he stopped before the apartment block. He let a chill of ice flush over his skin, then ran for the door. He found Liwei's family name on the call buzzers at the door.
He buzzed.
No answer.
He buzzed again.
No answer. Fuck.
He tried the main door. Locked fast. It was heavy too, and strong. He ham-fisted all the buzzers, hoping someone would pick up.
"Let me in!" He snarled in Mandarin. Unsurprisingly, no one was forthcoming.
He checked Liwei's house number on the buzzer, only two floors up. He stood back, giving himself a run up. He ran, planted a foot on the wall and used it to boost a leap up to the concrete balcony floor of the level above. He pulled himself up, muscles straining as he lifted his own bodyweight. He crouched on the balcony wall, tilting his head as he checked the next jump. He crouched low, then jumped, catching the level with his fingers, and pulling himself up to the next floor. He straightened. Before him was flat 5. He needed 10. He ran along the balcony as the numbers increased. He could feel the hairs standing up on his arms, and cold sweat dripping down the back of his neck.
He stopped.
The door to number 10 was hanging off it's hinges. Transphobic graffiti stretched stark and crass across the whole front of the apartment. Bi-Han felt fear curl in his chest. He had never felt that for any one but himself and Kuai before, and possibly Tomas Vrbada. He stepped gingerly into the apartment, knocking as he did on the crooked door.
"Hello? Liwei?"
There was smashed crockery and strewn linen on the floor. Bi-Han been on missions where he had walked barefoot before through the cut glass of massacres orchestrated by his own hand as the sirens of police cars zoned in on his location. His heart beat louder now than it ever had on any mission. The sound of crockery cracking under foot was loud in the silence.
"Liwei?"
He heard a croak. He started in its direction. Behind an upturned chair in a ruined living room lay a body. It was curled in on itself.
"Liwei!" Bi-Han dropped next to him and brushed the hair from his face. There was blood, lots of blood. Shallow head wounds bleed disproportionately. An unhealthily optimistic part of him crawled out from wherever it usually hid. He checked Liwei's pulse. It was faint, but steady. "It's alright," He said gently, not knowing if the man could hear him. He pulled out his phone. Who would he ring? The police? The Jade Fist Pact? The Lin Kuei? Bi-Han had made Liwei and enemy of them all when he asked him to place that call. Idiot. He cursed himself. Selfish.
He picked Liwei up carefully in his arms. The man groaned slightly. Bi-Han spoke in a soft voice. It was a voice he's only ever used to comfort Kuai Liang when he was very young and afraid. It was a voice for dark thunderstorms and harsh Lin Kuei punishments, the kind meant to soothe animal fear more than anything else.
It took Bi-Han forty minutes to walk to the hospital. As soon as Liwei was on a gurney, Bi-Han was anxious to leave. He could see armed security officers at the main entryways and exits of the hospital, and Liwei's beating was attracting attention from the doctors as possible gang-related violence. Bi-Han passed what relevant information he could onto the nurse, then ducked out of commotion just when security were becoming too interested. A hole welling with guilt opened within him as he left Liwei on his own. He remember how Royce had insisted he stay with Ray when he was shot. Some friend Bi-Han was.
Bi-Han stopped by a hardware store, then returned to Liwei's apartment. He first took the hinges off the front door silently. He was good at taking doors off silently. He'd never put a door back on before, but by reversing the process and hounding himself with a forceful mixture of self-loathing and perfectionism, he got the front door back on straight. He swept up the broken crockery with a broom he found in a cupboard. He set the furniture upright and put the cushions back on the chairs. He stood up fallen picture frames and tried to put objects he could see no point or use in in suitably aesthetic places. He cleaned the blood stains from the floor by easily mixing up the required chemicals from household items. All Lin Kuei were taught to cover their tracks. Bi-Han had never imagined using these skills in this way though. After this, he took a hot water and sponge and scrubbed the graffiti from the front of the house. When he finished, he stood back and look at what he had done. What he had done. He closed his eyes.
He walked back inside the house and into the kitchen. Everything was clean and still. Like nothing had ever happened. A low breeze was fluttering through the curtain at the kitchen window. Pans were still drying on the rack. He pulled the roll of cash out of his pocket again. He snapped the elastic band off it, remembering how Liwei had instantly known that rolled cash had been Triad when he saw it in their restaurant. Bi-Han tried to flatten out the notes, but they kept curling up, as if he could not rid them of their criminal stink. He stuffed the notes under an upturned opaque cup drying on the rack. Then he left.
Author note: I saw a silent disco from the outside and thought it would be a cool setting for a horror scene. But I don't write horror so I shoved it into the middle of a crime drama chase in a mortal kombat fanfic. I learned a lot more than any vegetarian could ever wish to about fish guts for this chapter.
In Crime and Punishment there's a vivid moment where the murderous protagonist wants to help a family. He knows they will never take his money so he leaves it in a jar on the windowsill. Idk Bi-Han strikes me as a bit of a Raskolnikov. If he'd stop being so destructive to himself and everyone around him for a second he might find some redemption.