Lin is alive. He feels alive; strength of lions in his blood running wild, adrenaline pumping with every racing beat of pulse that he feels in the sides of his head, in his throat, against his eyelids. He can hit something on the opposite roof of this building that he stands on, as though something magical has come over his aim, as though the Sig in his hands is a god-beast devouring the lives of men in the pull of a trigger.
"Down, down, down!"
Rope burns the glove on his left hand, ground pulls at him. Flying off the side of the building. He lets go when he is ten feet above the water. Down was the signal. Down is where you must go, taking a lungful of breath with you --
"Boom!"
Spike's face, grinning, Spike's hand grabbing hold of his collar and pulling both of them down below the surface of the water.
-- before the explosion sweeps across the bay, fire-white and smoke-black, the warehouses burning brilliant with red and orange, and the packs of drugs inside them turning the flames into rainbow shimmers within the main fire.
Lin holds his breath, letting it out slowly, watching the bubbles drift to the surface. It is so calm in this underwater world, Spike's hair taking on a fluffy and floaty quality, all colours changed to a muted shade, blue and green and white. He does not know when it will be safe to leave the water; for that there is Spike. There has always been Spike. Smiling still, a crooked smile under a crooked nose, giving him a thumbs-up and a wink, blowing bubbles ridiculous and happy. Lin is glad that there is Spike. And now Spike is looking up, kicking long, straw-thin legs, rising; Lin rises, too, and feels the air whip cold around his wet head as he shakes it free of sea-hold, breathing once again.
"Ahoy!"
Vicious and another man called Primrose sit at a tea-table in the prow of an old Chinese junk, sails the colour of ancient parchment flapping shuttered and frail in the cold wind, the smell of coffee strong in the air, a crackle of defensive shields dying away as the generator is turned off and the ship allowed to drift unprotected, now that the main danger is over. Vicious looks terribly small beside Primrose, who is English with a general air of hugeness about him. Lin has met Englishmen before, but he is both awed and slightly intimidated by Primrose, who holds tiny tea-cups and rocket launchers with equal and graceful ease in his huge hands.
Primrose throws a line to Spike, who holds on to it, flicks the loose end at Lin. Lin goes ahead of him, climbing onto the ship. On board, his body feels heavy, and he almost regrets leaving the water behind. Primrose puts a towel around his shoulders and moves aside to haul Spike on board; Lin is left standing awkward and uncertain, feeling horribly out of place in front of Vicious, who looks like a being from a higher plane, immaculate in blue suit and with his elegant legs crossed at the knee.
"Is that it?" Primrose asks.
"That's it," Spike says. "I figured the less people we used, the better. And Lin's pretty good, you know..."
"Spike always sees the best in everyone," Vicious says from the tea-table.
Spike glances over at Vicious. Lin knows that they are thinking about the same person. He feels a sneeze coming on and lets it go, happy to create a distraction. The tension between Spike and Vicious is a terrible thing now; they used to talk to each other so rudely and crudely, and you knew that it was because they knew each other so well. Now there is only this false politeness, an absence of familiarity. Perhaps Primrose realises this; the enormous Englishman coughs into his thick palm and takes the box of tissue paper off the table, holding it out to Lin.
"No, thank you," Lin says. He is rather afraid of touching anything that is apparently the immediate property of Vicious; it is a little too much like being a child and daring to touch the glass goblets on display in an expensive shop.
"Oh, nonsense," Primrose says.
"Tissue won't help," Spike says. His voice is casual, normal, the sparkle back in his grin. Lin is glad. "Wrap up well and sit out of the way of the wind. And have some tea."
"I'll get more from downstairs," Primrose says.
"No need." Spike reaches for the teapot, a comfortable thing, round and cosy and apparently made of china as thin as eggshell. "There's plenty in here. Vicious, you ungrateful baka, you haven't had any at all."
"I will if you put it down," Vicious says.
"It's gone cold," Primrose insists.
"No, it hasn't."
"Don't meddle with my tea-things," Primrose says. "I'll get the boy some hot chocolate from the galley. I'm sure he'd like that more."
"Please don't go to any trouble," Lin says.
But Spike, careless and easy as ever, lifts the teapot off the table, and as Primrose reaches for it with a frown creasing his wide and otherwise kind face, the boat rocks, Lin sneezes again, Spike turns, trips, lets go of the pot. Lin sees how Spike's head turns to shoot a look at Vicious; sees Vicious's face change, still cold, but now with a recognition in it. And Lin thinks: Spike is telling him something. It is almost like the way it was, when they were still friends and one watched the other's back. For that moment, there is no hatred, no yellow-haired woman between them, nothing but perfect understanding.
Steel sliding against wood and the katana's blade sharp in the summer sunlight. Lin blinks, rubs his eyes, looks again. In Primrose's hands there is now a gun, and Spike, fallen to the deck, stares at the Englishman for almost a second before one hand reaches instinctively for his own pistol, somewhere inside the damp blue suit he wears. But this is Primrose's boat. Spike finds his hands pinned to the deck by the rigging that lies strewn about untidily, the soft hemp of the ropes disguising metal wires flexible and cruelly sharp-edged within them.
"Poison is expensive, you know," Primrose says. His voice is as gentle as ever; his face, as kind. The gun he points at Vicious. He is too far away for Vicious to charge, and too close for Vicious to dodge his bullets. Vicious has seen the Englishman shoot, and decides that it is wisest to stay still. The spilt tea pools on the wooden planks of the deck, the fine teapot shattered at Primrose's curiously small feet. "Look how you've wasted it. Now I'll have to make a mess..."
"Vicious-sama!"
Lin feels no danger for himself, not even when he stands shivering in front of Vicious with the gun's cold barrel pointing directly between his eyes. Primrose looks at him down the pistol's barrel.
"You are mightily fast," he says.
"Lin, get out of the way!"
Lin does not really hear Spike. He has his own gun pointing at Primrose, and he has only half a hope that it is still loaded; he lost track of how many clips he worked his way through, inside the warehouse.
"Lin!" Spike pulls against the rigging; the wires dig into his wrists and his voice hits higher notes, grates coarser where his throat gives out. "Get out of the way!"
But Primrose is not going to shoot. Primrose lowers his gun, looks at Lin. Behind the boy, Vicious has made no reaction. Lin stands between the Englishman and his target and keeps his gun trained on Primrose, trying to forget all the times that Primrose has made hot chocolate for him and let him steer the junk and taught him many funny Cockney phrases. Primrose sighs when, eventually, Lin also puts his gun down.
"You must learn," Primrose says, "when it is appropriate to shoot people."
And then he shoots Lin.
Vicious is waiting for this; waiting for the boy's body to jerk and fall. These movements - and the accompanying hoarse scream that comes from Spike - distract Primrose for a fraction of time, long enough for Vicious to leap sideways and forwards and slice off the muzzle of Primrose's pistol. The katana cuts steel-toothed through the gun with a whine and a faint suggestion of sparks; cuts again through the thin rope-wires, freeing Spike.
"Jump!" Vicious screams at Spike.
Spike stamps at the rigging, crushing new ropes as they rise to grab at his ankles; he jumps on top of the table, china and silverware scattering to make an expensive and heavy confetti. Primrose reels back with a bloody nose, red spotting his suit that is starched and neat and the colour of smoke and pearl. The katana sings again, steel and hemp flying.
"Spike!" Vicious is angry. "Jump, you fool! He controls the ship, we cannot stay here!"
But still Vicious stays, chopping the snakes of the rigging that rise to come after Spike and himself, and now Primrose is rising from where he has fallen back on the deck, looking for his gun, still steering his ship, still commanding every bit of it after the man he is tyring to kill. Spike pulls from his pocket a handful of lighters with plastic bodies, red and neon; light shines through them, liquid sloshes within. He flicks the lighters forward, packing them tight together, so that they do not fly too far away from each other. In almost the same movement, he draws his gun and shoots.
Primrose draws back as the lighter fluid falls, burning, sparking, a small rain of fire on his wooden deck. Vicious brings his katana in a great sweep, his anger flowing in that curve of arm-arc and sword-swing; as he turns around he sees Spike running towards him, Lin's body in his arms. Lin has felt nothing since the bullet-blast rang in his ears. Now he smells the fire and the burning and the salt of sea-air, the spice-like smell of Mars dust and the gun-cigarette-sweat of Spike, sees a blur of colour wonderful and intense and terrible moving past, the sky a super-saturated blue above. Lin wonders if he is dying, and if he is, then why is it that he feels so alive?
"Jump, you fool!" Spike sings. But it is a mocking way that he speaks, the way you speak only to your best friend - someone whom to mock is to love.
And Vicious jumps with him.
*****
Mao Yenrai strikes the Englishman Primrose from the Red Dragon's list of allies. Vicious lifts a long-stemmed wineglass to thank Spike for saving his life from the poison of Primrose's tea; Spike winks to acknowledge how well Vicious stood by him, giving him time to save Lin, but perhaps Spike's eye wanders away from his best friend for a second too long, lingering for that brief moment of time on Julia as she stands across the room from them. Julia does not see the joy on Spike's face, the fleeting discomfort in Vicious's eyes. Spike is not attending dinner tonight, so Vicious is also going to work late. But Spike plans to do something - Julia knows that Mao and Vicious do not approve of it, but they will not interfere with Spike's life - Spike is going to a church tonight. And from the way his hand tightened, fingers curling to cradle a gun's handle, the way his body tensed and his eyes hardened when he spoke of it - Julia does not think he is going there to pray.
Julia hopes that she will see him again after this night. He is a wonderful person, she thinks. He is Vicious's good friend. Vicious would be so sad if Spike did not come back.
And so would I...
Lin is alive. He was almost dead for a while, but medical science is a wonderful thing in these days. He plays chess with Shin in one of the conservatories, a garden green with rainforest plants; Chinese chess, strange and tactical, squirrels eating elephants, jumping across rivers. Tonight Spike is heading out - on personal business, he says - and he is going alone, since the doctors will not let Lin go with him. Lin raises his head as Spike says goodbye, watches the lanky man walk out of the door. Spike's silhouette, full of shadow, seems to be a terrible portent for the future, and Lin is filled with sorrow that he cannot explain.