Hu Li stretched lazily. It was nearly lunchtime. She had written a letter to her father after breakfast, but it probably wouldn't reach him for another day. Then she had slaved over her homework for several hours – Hermione had sent it up by school owl with a note promising that she would come visit after lunch. Now – now it was time to go see Dumbledore.
Rising, Hu Li pulled on her shoes and her cloak – the castle was rather chilly – and slipped out the door. She was hoping that it wouldn't take that long and that she would be back before Madam Pomfrey noticed she was gone.
Hu Li made her way down the stone staircase and found the gargoyle statue. She gave the password and slid through the entrance when it lurched open.
She walked down the hallway carefully, glancing behind her every few steps. She disliked being trapped in the long corridor – it was a prime place for anyone to attack. When you were in this corridor, someone could come out of any of these hundreds of doors and creep up behind you and just --- She didn't like to think of it.
Finally she reached when she thought was Dumbledore's room. The door was shut tightly and she could hear a faint murmur coming from inside – so soft that even her sharp hearing could not discern any words.
Hu Li raised a hand to knock and then hesitated. What if she was disturbing something very important? Just then she heard a noise behind her and she whirled around, her hand on the dagger beneath her cloak.
It was Professor McGonagall. She said in surprise, "What's this? Zhang? What are you doing out of bed?"
"Er," Hu Li stuttered. "I – er, I wanted to see Professor Dumbledore."
McGonagall's eyes grew narrow. "The professor is very busy, Zhang. He cannot see you now. Why did you need to see him?"
She could never tell McGonagall, Hu Li realized. McGonagall was not the same as Dumbledore – in mentality or sympathy. "Well," said Hu Li nervously, "I just wanted to ask him something about – about the next step for me."
McGonagall said briskly, "Oh, if that's all you wanted, I can tell you that. The wizards and the vampires will be meeting sometime this month and you are to attend as a conciliator. Then each party, it was decided, will make their own final decision. The wizards requested that you will not be at their final decision – perhaps they are afraid you will turn traitor – but the vampires would like to have you with them. Is that agreeable to you?"
Hu Li swallowed, her mind off Dumbledore for the moment. The vampires wanted her with them – lovely. It was probably Luis Perone that requested her presence - with a little pre-conference snack in mind. She said vaguely, "Fine with me."
"And if that's all you wanted," said the professor sternly, "then it's back to bed for you."
"Yes," said Hu Li hopelessly. McGonagall opened the gargoyle for her and shooed her into the corridor.
Hu Li walked back to the hospital wing slowly, thinking. She could not see Dumbledore now. She would have to go sometime tonight, when McGonagall was not patrolling the corridor. She felt an ominous sensation of trepidation in the pit of her stomach – rather as if she had swallowed a large, cold stone.
Hu Li slid back in the door to the hospital wing. Madam Pomfrey had her back turned and probably did not even miss her.
Hu Li sat on her bed. Suddenly she felt lonely and very miserable – her friends were at classes, her father had not gotten her last letter yet, Dumbledore could not see her, Luis Perone was out for her blood, the Phoenix was coming for her very soon. Life was good, she thought dismally.
She sighed and stood up, thinking that at least she could fix her hair in the bathroom to look somewhat more presentable. A she stood, she felt Lamia's pendant clink on the chain around her neck. Yeah, she thought angrily, and what's that supposed to mean? We who are about to die salute you – how heartening. No wonder he never explained what it meant – but then it occurred to her that she had never asked. Had she known already but feared confirmation of her suspicion? She didn't know.
Hu Li picked up her comb off her bedside table and shuffled out the door to the bathroom next door. She pushed open the door to the bathroom and walked in drearily to the long row of sinks and the room-length mirror above them all.
She stared at herself in the mirror, displeased with the face that still resembled Sou Mei. At least the hair made things a little better, she thought. Now no one can mistake me for her. Madam Pomfrey's Good Health Head Cold potion had also worked wonders – the under-eye shadows had disappeared and her nose was no longer red. Although she had rather liked the signs of illness – they made her appear more human and less like Sou Mei.
Hu Li sighed and began combing her shorter hair, still staring into the mirror as if she expected it to change like in her dream. But it didn't.
Then Hu Li dropped the comb onto the floor. She muttered, "Damn", and bent over to pick it up. As she straightened back up, she thought she heard a rustling noise from behind her.
She glanced into the wall mirror, which reflected the whole room. Nothing. No one. The place was empty except for her. Hu Li began combing again, and the comb made a whispering noise as it pulled through her hair.
Wait a minute, she thought suddenly. That sound wasn't her comb. It was a soft whispering echoing around the desolate bathroom. Hu Li swallowed and began to feel just a tiny bit frightened. She continued to comb faster, watching the mirror, and the noise turned into a very quiet, hissing laugh, but then died immediately.
Hu Li's hand shook. The comb skittered through her hair. Hu Li still stared into the mirror, her eyes scanning the bathroom behind her. She was at a middle sink. There was one door to her right, four sinks away. There were twelve toilet stalls behind her, all of their doors hanging loosely open. There was no one in the bathroom. And yet –
Hu Li slowly laid the comb on the edge of the sink. Slowly, still watching the mirror, she took a step back and slowly turned to look behind her.
In the split second that she was not looking in the mirror, something with the strength of fifty black belts grabbed her from behind and jerked her neck back so that she was looking in the mirror again. To her absolute horror, she saw staring back at her two identical Chinese girls – except one had black eyes and short hair and one had long hair and eyes like bitter sapphires, and one looked extremely frightened and the other wore a sneer. The blue-eyed girl had her ice-cold hands wrapped tightly around the black-eyed girl's throat.
Sou Mei laughed low, her mouth right next to Hu Li's ear, so that the laughter seemed to echo around Hu Li's brain. She had been taken by surprise. There was no way she could get her dagger. She could not move in the vise-like grip. Sou Mei had won, she thought numbly. But then, Sou Mei always won.
Sou Mei purred in Chinese, still watching the mirror like Hu Li, "We look so much alike, my daughter. We could be sisters, could we not?"
Hu Li could not take her eyes off the mirror – the perfect portrait of mother and daughter. She knew that the myth was untrue – vampires do cast a reflection. She could not speak a word. It was her worst nightmare, come true – the nightmare that she didn't even allow herself to dream about.
Sou Mei said, now in English, "Are you not going to say hello to your Niang? It has been so long since we have seen each other – twelve years, no?" She laughed. "Although twelve years is not long at all when you have lived for ten thousand."
Hu Li choked out, "Why have you come for me?"
Sou Mei said in mock-indignation, "You do not mean that Lo has told you nothing! I have come to see what sort of vampire you measure up to be – or do not measure up to be. You received my letters and my gift?"
Hu Li nodded, fearing that she would faint. Sou Mei's grip on her throat was becoming tighter.
Sou Mei smiled at her. "A nasty fall off a broomstick, or so my sources told me? You really should be more careful. You could have died," she added, and watched Hu Li turn white as porcelain in the mirror.
Hu Li sucked in a breath, still shaking in Sou Mei's steel grasp. Sou Mei whispered delightedly, "You are not very talkative, my daughter. What is wrong?"
Hu Li managed, "I am afraid." She knew it was useless to pretend she wasn't – Sou Mei could read every thought running through her head, she was sure.
"Afraid?" said Sou Mei softly. She stared deep into the mirror – at her swift white fingers wrapped around Hu Li's throat, at the horrified face that watched her sapphire eyes narrowed in thought.
Sou Mei's fingers tightened and she whispered, looking in the mirror, "Do you know what the scariest thing in the world is?"
Hu Li didn't answer. She only stared into the mirror at Sou Mei and the hands around her throat – hands that would any second now be murdering her.
Sou Mei hissed, "Nothing."
Hu Li's eyes widened and she looked directly into the blue eyes in the mirror. She whispered, "What do you mean?"
Sou Mei said softly, "You heard me, Hu Li. Nothing. It is absolute void of everything, total emptiness, that you fear most. It is not the feeling of hate, or evil. It is the complete absence of feeling. That is what you are afraid to see in me, but most especially in yourself."
Hu Li's heart lurched into her throat and then down into her stomach. She swallowed, feeling as if she were choking on her heart.
Sou Mei said abruptly, "Enough with the small talk." She released Hu Li, who went staggering into the sinks, gasping. Hu Li tried to straighten up. Sou Mei was glaring at her. Her hair was twisted up into two glass chopsticks.
Sou Mei said, "I want to show you something." She turned her back to Hu Li but still watched her, using the mirror. She pulled up the black silk robe she was wearing to reveal an intricate tattoo on her lower back. It was a beautiful flaming phoenix with two Chinese characters on either side of it. One was destiny. The other was strength.
Sou Mei dropped her robe and turned back with a smile on her face. Hu Li stood, dumb with horror. Sou Mei said, "Beautiful, is it not? I wanted another one on my shoulder, but it was too late; the artist was already dead of an opium overdose. He was brilliant even in the depths of a drug-induced stupor. His blood was very sweet - from the opium in it."
"You killed him?" said Hu Li quietly.
Sou Mei shook her head in sorrow, and for a fleeting moment looked like a sad little girl – which, when one thought of the demon behind the mask, just made her all the more terrifying. "He had been dead not fifteen minutes when I reached his home. His blood was still warm. I thought it a shame to waste it."
Hu Li could not suppress a shudder. Sou Mei looked at her strangely. "What's wrong?" she hissed. "You think I am repulsive? No, darling, it you who disgusts me. You are not a true vampire. You are revoltingly human in your emotions, but sadly a vampire's senses have been wasted on you."
Hu Li lost it then. She screamed at her mother, "You think I enjoy being what I am? You think I would like to be a full-blood? I would give anything to be human! I hate what I am, and I hate you for making me this way!"
Sou Mei's glittering eyes grew very narrow. "You sicken me," she snarled. "No pride, no bloodlust, mortality, and having humans only for company – how can you stand it?"
The two stood facing each other in the cold stone bathroom. Hu Li was angry now. She snapped, "I like it – my only problem is that I was born to a demon."
Sou Mei snorted. "In that case, then, better a contented demon than a miserable angel."
"And that's where you're wrong," Hu Li spat. "I would rather be the miserable angel."
Sou Mei's azure eyes were aflame in the innocent face that could have belonged to a young girl. She said very slowly, her eyes on Hu Li, "I was almost afraid that I was going to regret my recent rendezvous to Hong Kong. But now I am glad."
Hu Li bit her tongue and tasted her own blood. It tasted like death. "What were you doing in Hong Kong?" she said in a whisper, hating her mother all the more for making her ask.
Sou Mei laughed – a horrible laugh. "I paid a little visit to an old friend – or should I say, an old husband."
It felt like Hu Li's heart stopped. She
said desperately, knowing full well the answer, "My father?"
"Yes, foolish girl," said her mother, sneering at Hu Li. "Did you not wonder why your last few letters were never answered? China is not that far away. Do not lie to yourself."
Hu Li stared at Sou Mei. She couldn't deal with it this, and Sou Mei knew it. Sou Mei knew what she was doing all along. The smile on her face grew wider as she watched Hu Li exhale a shaky breath. It seemed to Hu Li that it was her whole life draining out of her in that one breath. She turned from Sou Mei and bowed her head. She could not fight her. She would never win. She would lose – just as her father had lost.
Sou Mei chuckled. "Lost our resolve, did we? I thought I'd raised you better than that."
Hu Li raised her head. Suddenly she was incredibly angry – afraid, but very angry as well. "You didn't raise me at all," she snapped. "My father did. That's why I turned out better than you did." She turned back to face Sou Mei, who looked only slightly nonplussed.
"That was the wrong thing to tell me," Hu Li said sharply. "Now I am ready to fight you." She wrenched her dagger out of its holder on her leg and held it in her left hand.
Sou Mei sneered at her. "Darling, you cannot win. Why bother?"
"Because you killed my father," spat Hu Li. "And because those who have nothing for which to die have nothing for which to live."
"Truly a noble sentiment," said Sou Mei, smiling at her. "Do you want to know how your father died?"
Hu Li threw herself blindly at her mother, slashing through the air with her dagger. Sou Mei let out an unearthly shriek and caught the dagger as it was coming down, and then shoved Hu Li with such force that she flew across the room and hit the mirror. Her vision went black when her head whacked the mirror – reminiscent of the Quidditch tryouts. Cracks splintered out around her, breaking up and distorting the two girls. For a moment Hu Li didn't know which was Sou Mei and which was her own reflection.
Hu Li leaned against the mirror where she had landed on the floor, watching Sou Mei's look of contempt grow. Her back was hurting like anything and she could feel the blood start to trickle down her spine from the glass cuts. "Stupid, stupid girl," Sou Mei said. "I will be nice and allow you to fight with the dagger – for now, anyway." She advanced on Hu Li. "Any last thoughts?"
Hu Li said bitterly, "I think 'Die, bitch, die, die' pretty much sums it up."
"You'll pay dearly for that, my beautiful girl," breathed Sou Mei. Hu Li attempted to stand but Sou Mei was too quick. She pulled Hu Li up by the front of her robes as if she were feather-light and hurled her against the adjacent wall.
Sou Mei held her there, locking eyes with Hu Li. The bathroom was silent for a moment in which Hu Li wondered frantically where Madam Pomfrey was that she couldn't hear the noise. Then Sou Mei chuckled. "You have your father's eyes, love. Strong, compassionate, brave, trusting. He died nobly, you know," she sneered. "He did not die begging for mercy. Indeed, he was bringing his machete down on me as the final blow when I broke both of his legs. He was immobilized after that. No, listen!" she hissed demonically as Hu Li struggled in agony. "He was losing a lot of blood very quickly from a machete wound in his side, as well. He could no longer move and was in excruciating pain." Hu Li shut her eyes and willed herself not to cry in front of her mother. "He would not beg me to kill him, as so many others have. He merely pleaded with me not to come after you – although that was absolutely useless. He told me that he knew things about you that would make me dread fighting you. He was lying. You are no stronger than he was and you will die just as he did." Sou Mei ripped the dagger out of Hu Li's tightly closed hand, slicing the palm wide open. Hu Li did not cry out.
Sou Mei yanked Hu Li to face the mirror and held her in one hand, the dagger at Hu Li's throat in the other. "Aren't you blessed," whispered Sou Mei in her ear as they both stared into the mirror, "to have such a delightful family. Father dead, mother a vampire, all other relations either demons of hell or angels in heaven."
Hu Li stared at Sou Mei in the mirror. "We cannot choose our family," she said in a low voice. "I am cursed with an unhappy family, but I am blessed with much knowledge and a great appreciation of life - and death."
Sou Mei looked slightly startled at this, and she turned her head to look away from the mirror and at Hu Li's face. Hu Li took advantage of this – Sou Mei could not see what her body was doing. With strength born of nerves and sorrow and anger, she slipped out of Sou Mei's grasp. She pivoted and, propelling herself into the air, executed a strong, swift kick into Sou Mei's ribcage.
Sou Mei had not completely been taken by surprise; she had backed up when she had seen Hu Li rise into the air and had saved Hu Li's foot from crushing her ribcage and her heart. But the kick had still caught her directly in the face. There was a sharp crack as Sou Mei's nose broke, and blood blossomed over her ivory face.
Sou Mei swore in Chinese. She actually stumbled, holding her face and dropping the dagger. Hu Li was shocked, but immediately the blood stopped flowing and Sou Mei straightened up. She was furious, and with the blood all over her face, she looked like a vampire who was disturbed while taking her dinner.
Her nose had already repaired itself. Sou Mei cried, "I was going to kill you quickly, but for that you will die a slow death!" Quick as a cat, she whipped out a hand and reclaimed the knife, which had been lying on the floor.
Hu Li swallowed. Her back was aching, but the blood had dried and the wounds had healed themselves. She wondered what her father had been talking about – that he knew secrets about his daughter that would make Sou Mei dread killing her. Had he merely been bluffing? she wondered. Or did she indeed have something left that even she herself did not know?
Sou Mei bared her teeth, snarling, and began to circle Hu Li. Hu Li, shaking like the devil, followed suit to stall for time, still racking her brains for what her father had been referring to. What did she have that she didn't realize she had? she thought in confusion. She couldn't think of anything. Her ribs were aching too from being broken – but they had healed as well, leaving only the slight pain behind.
Healed … Suddenly it struck her – maybe
what her father had been talking about – what if it was something that Sou
Mei did not know, but Hu Li did?
What if Hu Li had one more wild card to play? What if it were merely her powers
of healing?
Hu Li dared hardly to think
it. How could it be that Sou Mei did not know she could heal of all her wounds?
But she reminded herself that Sou Mei had not been around after Hu Li was about
two – and even if she knew that Hu Li could heal of small cuts, she did not
know that Hu Li did not die. Sou Mei thought her accident had been just
a fall off a broomstick. She did
not know.
It was mere chance – mere
destiny – that Sou Mei did not know. Destiny - it was symmetrical. It fit.
Sou Mei hissed, a horrific
glint in her eyes, "I am going to show you no mercy. You have disappointed me.
You are not worthy of the vampire blood running through your veins. You father
has not trained you well and you will die miserably, alone and friendless, just
as he did."
Hu Li exhaled slowly, praying that this would work and hoping that
Draco would explain things to Ron and Hermione and Harry if it didn't. She
hoped they would forgive her for lying to them.
Hu Li launched herself into
the air and turned a full three hundred and sixty degrees in a roundhouse kick,
purposefully aimed so that Sou Mei could dodge. She aimed herself so that when
she landed, she would be in prime position for Sou Mei to stab her. She hoped
to God that was what Sou Mei was planning on doing.
It worked. As Hu Li's feet
hit the floor, she felt a nasty shove of something into her stomach. She sucked
in a breath and looked down. The jade handle of the dagger, depicting the
phoenix and the tiger fighting, was protruding from her.
Then the pain started. A
hot wave of fire seemed to wash over her, and another and another, and she
staggered and fell to her knees, gasping. She clutched the dagger, deep inside
her, but did not pull it out.
Sou Mei knelt down beside
her and stroked her hair. "Poor child," she said softly. "We could have been so
close. I could have taught you the ways of the hunt and the ecstasy of blood.
We could have spent eternity together in forever bliss. But you disappointed
me, my lovely. And now you will join your father among the ranks of the
wretched dead." She kissed Hu Li on the head and stood.
Hu Li knelt on the ground,
doubled in half so that her forehead touched the ground. She was in extreme
pain – nothing she had never felt before, thanks to Jun Tao, but experience did
not lessen the pain.
Her vision began to dim
around the edges and for a moment she feared she had been mistaken. Perhaps her
survival of the Marcus Flint incident had merely been a lucky break.
But then her vision came
back into focus – sharp and clear. Hu Li, aware that Sou Mei was still watching
her, gave a sudden choking gasp, and then let her body relax completely. She
was legitimately dead.
She saw an immediate flaw
in her plan. If Sou Mei stooped down to check if she was truly dead – and Sou
Mei had thousands of years experience of the difference between death and life
– then she was really dead.
But Sou Me sighed softly
and then turned away. Hu Li heard her cross the room to where Hu Li had dropped
her comb. Sou Mei picked it up and began combing her hair.
Exercising tremendous
caution, Hu Li grasped the dagger and pulled it out slowly. Her slowness made
it exceedingly more painful, but she had to be careful her mother didn't hear
her. Sou Mei's ears were sharper than the mother of all cats.
Finally the dagger
relinquished her flesh. Hu Li raised her head ever so slightly. Sou Mei was
about six feet in front of her. She was slowly combing her disheveled hair and
staring into the mirror as if she was scrying. She had the oddest look on her
face – part sadness, part anger, part hatred, part regret, part triumph.
Hu Li saw that she would
have to be extraordinarily quick. She closed her eyes and prayed to her father
for guidance. Then she slowly and silently pulled her foot up as if she were
going to race someone on foot. She crouched very low to the ground.
Sou Mei put the comb down
and stared down into the sink, her face strangely calm and reflective. For one
moment Hu Li hesitated. Then she threw herself up and forward with swiftness
she did not know she had.
Sou Mei looked up in
disbelief as Hu Li came up behind her, the wet crimson dagger pointed directly
at Sou Mei's jugular vein. The sapphire eyes widened and the small, sweet mouth
opened slightly. "My God," was all she said.
"Your god would never
listen to you, should you petition him even now in the hour of your death,"
said Hu Li, breathing hard. "You are the scourge of centuries, the Phoenix that
is associated not with life but with death, the Terror of China. You shed
enough blood to fill the seas of the world. You leave an unquenchable trail of
tears and death behind you in your wake, wherever you go. You are the thief of
life and love and dreams. You have separated innumerable families – including
our own. You have stolen away my destiny and my father and twelve years of my
life that were spent in utter fear. I am not the only one who has suffered your
evil. Just the same, I was wrong before – I cannot hate you. Whatever you are,
you are my mother as well. I despise your actions, but I pity the chances you
never got, the mortal life you never got to live, the emotions you never
allowed yourself to feel."
Sou Mei stared at her in
the mirror, her eyes very dark. There was a shadow of sudden and desperate
sorrow on her face. She did not turn around. "My daughter," she said quietly.
"Goodbye, my Niang,"
replied Hu Li. She swung back the dagger, both hands on it, and willed Lamia to
grant her strength. Then she sliced the dagger through the air. Down, down,
down it whistled – and severed Sou Mei's head off with a whisper.
The disembodied head
tumbled onto the floor. The body swayed for a moment and then fell over. Very
dark blood, a deep maroon in color, spilled out of the crevices and puddled on
the floor.
Hu Li stared at her mother
– she was truly dead. She would never wake again.
The dagger fell out of Hu
Li's limp hand and hit the floor with a clatter. She still stared at the body –
all that remained of ten thousand years of pain and fear and hatred and
bloodshed and death.
Hu Li's knees gave out and
she fell to the floor. She curled up in a ball and sobbed. She cried for the
normal life that she would never have, because she would always remain the
daughter of a vampire and a murderer. She cried for her honor that her mother
had stolen, forcing her to lie to her friends and to steal their trust and to
play their emotions. She cried for the twelve years that she had lived in fear,
waiting for Sou Mei to kill her as she had done so many others. She cried for
the countless people who had died at the hands of her mother. She cried for her
father, dead and lost to her forever. She cried also for her mother, the young
girl who had become a monster and did not know how to deal with it, and so
turned to reveling in murder and death and blood and the fear of others. No one
had ever taught Sou Mei honor. No one had ever taught Sou Mei love. No one had
ever taught Sou Mei pity.
Hu Li remained curled up in
a miserable ball of sorrow for a long time, weeping next to her mother's body.
