...
The last sliver of the sun was disappearing into the city's smog bath around the horizon and Ayika was uneasy. The air seemed tight; anticipatory. That evening two fights had broken out between staff girls only to be stopped when a furious Mrs Jiangsu shoved them off to jobs on opposite sides of the school. The shafts of dying light tracing across the walls set them ablaze in orange as Ayika made her rounds securing the building's doors and windows for the night. Even the eternally pleasant Professor Lizhen was agitated, delivering orders with an uncharacteristic snap. As she dodged past a put-upon messenger boy rushing out of Lizhen's office Ayika peaked in to see the little professor pacing back and forth staring at his desk which was now piled high with newly purchased oddments. He had also rearranged some things of his office. The table was now directly in front of the western window and at least one of Lizhen's displayed artifacts was no longer in its place on the back-wall shelf. Ayika did not know what to make of this.
Outside the school's walls the angry crowd of protesters was being dispersed by city guards. Those supposed officers of the peace were not necessarily concerned about any potential victims' plight but they did not want to be called in again after dark as they would assuredly be if the throng remained. The menacing man Ayika and Xinfei had encountered in the alley had not appeared. His protesting comrades went on their way with only a minimum number of invectives hurled at the supposed traitorous collaborators hiding behind the school building's blank exterior. Down in the kitchen the remaining cooks were bustling with cleaning and preparing for the next day's meals. They only spared a few looks at the dark shadows of the room that looked oddly threatening in tonight's strange energy. Clouds were dimly gathering in the crimson sky; darkness was marshaling.
The cups on Ayika's serving tray clinked softly as she slowly finished opening the door to Lizhen's office. Every surface was covered with books and sheets of paper except for the table in the center of the room where a heavily wrapped package roughly the size of a cooking dish was ringed with candles. A small iron disk with engravings was next to it. At his desk, Lizhen muttered to himself as his brush danced across paper; deletions and corrections accompanied with quiet growls.
Ayika cleared her throat. "Um, I thought that you might want something..."
"Why are you interrupting me?!" Lizhen snapped with a surprising ferocity that made her jump. "If he has not yet arrived then just leave me to…!" He leaned back, wiping the sweat from his shiny face. "Ayika, I am sorry. Tension, coupled with the influence...Something to eat would probable be a good idea, yes. Thank you."
"Of course." Ayika replied evenly, her attention now focused on the problem of retrieving a cup that had hopped off her tray when she jerked in surprise. She had miraculously caught it balancing on her foot and now swayed slightly as she reached down. Carefully executing her improvised acrobatic maneuver she continued, "Jiangsu, er, I mean Mrs Jiangsu has got a dinner ready for you when you want it. I told her that you were working on something important up here and she got a tray ready." Cup retrieved, Ayika moved across the room and set her tray down on a little service table near the professor's desk where she began to pour the tea. "Who is supposed to arrive?"
Lizhen shook his head. "Do not worry about that. Just let me know of any visitors."
She could not ignore the poor man's plight. "Um, Professor Lizhen, if you don't mind, are you ok? If that man from before was threatening you or..." She trailed off before starting again. "I can go to the headmaster for you if it's an issue. Not even mention your name. Some story about him grabbing at students and he will never be let in here again. I can see to that. You are such an important man against the Ministers' men that, well, I thought I could help."
The Professor nodded courteously to her. "Thank you very much for the offer Ayika, but I will have to decline your offer of assistance." There was a smile on his lips. "After all I will have to learn to live without your support one day when you leave us for some greatness. I have had a...troubling day. And one that is not over yet." He turned to look out the window at the gathering dark. "Aza Naruhama was a good friend. After many long years his service is over and his legacy of power should be at peace. That they could even think to...Well, with good timing I may yet forestall what is to come."
Ayika recognized foreboding comments when she came across them and anxiously grabbed hold of the conversation. "No matter how dark it gets you should be well lit in here. You don't half have a bunch of candles about." They were in fact covering most of the surfaces in the room, though they were unlit but for the few by the desk and the curious ring around the table.
Lizhen gave a start, looking at the room from an outsider's perspective. "Hah, I suppose I do," he laughed. "I must have sent the porters to clear out the storeroom!"
"And I see you cleared the fireplace. Do you want me to light those candles for you now, sir? The sun will be away in a moment and you will strain your eyes if you keep writing in the dim."
He shook his head and muttered, half to himself. "No, that will not be necessary. I will light them myself when the time is right. The timing is as important as the flame. So many secrets, and so few who would understand the truth. I do wish I could have help, and there is...But no, she would not have come even if I had asked." Sighing, he settled back in his chair. "Yes, now is a perfect time for a bit of repast. Give Mrs Jiangsu my consideration and bring up what you can get for me. I can tend to my own tea."
"Right away." Ayika bowed as she backed away and skirted around the center table with its large wrapped package and ring of candles. There was a draft from somewhere in the room that made the little flames waver and dance.
"Ayika?"
She was halfway out the doorway when she heard his voice.
"Yes?"
"Thank you."
She did not say anything but she smiled and left the man staring at his writings in the fading light.
...
Night unfolded black wings over the city with the silence of a midnight owl. Its inky feathers drifted across unending streets, alleys, and squares leaving candles and lamps burning like distant suns set in a ground-tethered sky. It was a night that made every shadow on the street rise up into the shape a watching figure. Lamplight merely concentrated the darkness into strange illusions and soft sounds echoed as cooling planks creaked in nocturnal communication.
When Ayika was a child, she had been afraid of the dark. When she grew restless and frightful her grandmother had sat her on the floor before Aka's old cushion-covered chair to tell her stories. Grandma Aka had told the old tribal stories of the phantasmal breath stealers and the Krupyids who pretended to be ice flows drifting in the water so they could sneak in close to the village and creep ashore during the night. She had even told new stories that she learned here in the city or, in the wording she chose to use, explained the lives of some new spirits she had met. That is how Ayika learned about the Nine-Step-Shadow who signaled impending death, each time you saw him one sliding one pace closer until the end. Of the Blind Dog Lord who held court over all the gasts of street and stone, who could smell your thoughts and could suck up your ghost with one breath. And the Scissors-Man, a creation so terrifying grandmother had never even gotten to even explain a single tale about him. Little Ayika had screamed and retreated to her futon. He remained in Ayika's mind a cloaked figure either wielding scissors or controlling scissors or even made of scissors himself, clicking away with each step down the brick paved streets of the endless city.
Grandmother had defended these sessions which left the little girl clutching her blankets white-knuckled and shivering as a preventative process. She had waved away Ayika's mother's concerns and glared at her married son while she said, "Better sick with fright now than dead of it later." With all that considered, when Ayika burst into the school's crowded kitchen at a near run on this unsettling evening, she allowed herself to bask in a bit of relief before feeling ridiculous. She could have ended up a lot worse than occasionally nervous around shadows. Here the cooks were still at work cleaning the large metal pots that fed the students. As Ayika entered there was a loud "Fwoosh!" from one of the ovens and an accompanying blast of heat.
"That is it!"
A young cook threw down her fire poker with an ear-rending clang. The girl's face was streaked with soot and one eyebrow appeared to be smoldering. "The fires have gone crazy!" she said pointing wildly around the room. "And the lamps acting weird, and then there was that knocking outside just now! It's been going on all evening. One of those protesters outside must have cursed us! We need someone to bless the kitchen god before we all burn to death! If we don't…" Her yelling trailed away as she stared in Ayika's direction with unusual respect and fear.
Ayika felt a mass looming behind her and spun herself to the side as quickly as possible, feeling the hand of Mrs. Jiangsu moving to land on the space her shoulder had just vacated. The massive matron of the female staff gave her a skeptical glare which Ayika parried with an all-purpose respectful bowing of the head. And so like a warship passing down the river the woman moved on to her intended target, the unfortunate kitchenmaid.
"Miss Ming..." Jiangsu began. This growling utterance invoked another flurry of head bobbing from the staff. "If I hear you making excuses for your own clumsiness again I will have you scrub that fireplace yourself. And I am still deciding whether it will be lit or not when you do!" She moved over to the tiny shrine carved into the wall between the main fire and the preparation tables. Peering down theatrically she continued, "The god looks fine. He doesn't even look like he is telling me some idiot forgot to adjust the flue in the chimney when the wind picked up this evening. No, he certainly doesn't look like he's telling me someone better be doing that right now. Right. Now." She paused, waiting for comprehension. "Oh for...Get on it!"
As Ming scrambled, Jiangsu turned her steely gaze on Ayika. "And you. What are you doing standing around down here?"
"I've got...," Ayika said. "Professor Lizhen is asking for his supper."
The older woman's face softened, "That man never does know what time it is. He'll have been busy with those packages coming in all evening. Go ahead, I've got his stuff put aside over on the warming counter."
"Right." Ayika bobbed in acknowledgment and hurried over, gathering up the covered food tray. As soon as she returned into the empty halls of the school the hairs on the back of her neck rose again. The dark varnished wood gleamed dimply under the far-spaced oil lamps. Ayika chided herself for being ridiculous before she abruptly stopped. What had Ming said about knocking from outside? Those protesters had been lurking around the grounds until very recently. Were they trying to accomplish something more devious tonight? Glancing out a nearby window yielded nothing. The compound wall shielded light from the street so the school grounds were pitch black save for the patches of light that spilled out from inside. Ayika took a few more careful steps that revealed only creaking floorboards. In the quiet Ayika felt her ears ringing with the strain of listening for what was not there. Finally, she gave herself a mental slap and continued on down the hall at a normal pace.
Suddenly there was a faint rattling sound. Heart pounding, she turned towards the garden door. It was latched shut and nothing could be seen behind it. There was only silence. Ayika took a statue-slow step backwards, pressing her back against the window frame on the opposite side of the hall. She had suddenly regressed a decade into a child fearing the scissors-man.
There was loud rapping against the window behind her. It threw her heart into her mouth and the food tray jumping in her hand.
"Ayika, psst! It's Xinfei!"
Ayika thankfully managed to swallow her shriek and slid open the window with the fires of hells burning in her eyes. Xinfei Bao stood back in the shadows outside looking sheepish.
"What do you think you're doing!?" Ayika demanded in a vicious whisper.
The tall, skinny boy outside ran a hand through his spiky mess of hair as he shifted his light and bulky bundle of merchandise. "Hey, you told me to come by at sunset. You said you were going to get some extra stuff for me and Maolin." Ayika continued to glare so he added, "Well, you did."
"The sun set an hour ago! What are you doing creeping around in the dark scaring people...other people!"
He got a bit defensive, as he felt this interrogation was harsher then he deserved. "I was out selling as long as people were on the street and it took me a while to get back here since I got chased off this territory, remember? When I came up the street the school's side gate was open so I went to find you. Look, are you off yet or what? Are we heading back to the Bed now?"
"I…" She looked back in the direction of the kitchen. "Ok, I've got your food set aside back there. Since you're already in here I can unlatch that garden door back over there and you come around and wait for me here. I have to take this tray up to the Professor, but then I can change out of this uniform so we can head out."
Xinfei shifted his pack on his back in the pool of light. "That's fine. You do your thing. You sure have a lot of late workers here, I could see a couple of them moving around up there in the windows."
Ayika frowned, "The Professor is the only one upstairs. What are you talking about?"
Xinfei shrugged, "I don't know, I guess both those windows were to his office then. Hey, go take your tray and I'll come around."
Ayika threw open the latch on the door and headed towards the main stairs but she could not shake a pervasive anxiety. Something was suspicious. She had been feeling it all evening; a tension. She kept getting the feeling on the back of her neck like a great many people were crowding around outside, despite it only being Xinfei. Still, she would have to do a full check upstairs and down to make sure that none of the protesters had somehow gotten inside the school grounds. It was terrible to think what they would do if they got into the Professor's private papers during the night.
The sense of anxiety was building, so to quiet her paranoia As Ayika summited the stairs turned down the first side corridor and opened the door. She breathed deeply to calm her foolish fear as she stepped into a bare classroom in the flickering lamplight. Flickering? She turned to look at the oil lamp hanging in its corner. The normally steady flame was surging and sputtering. Ayika lifted her hand up near the intake. There was no breath of motion in the air here and yet the little fire was twisting and growing as if trying to leap off the wick. There was a brief sound of flowing air in the hall behind her and she stuck her head back out to see if any of the other lamps were acting oddly. They all were. Down the length of the second floor hallway the shadows danced as the light rebelled. Around the distant corner at the other end of the corridor Ayika could hear sounds from the Professor's office, like the man was reading aloud to himself in a droning monotone. Then he fell silent. Unnamed senses tensed as Ayika began to rush forward, gripping the covered tray with both hands. A gleam of steady light spilled out of the Professor's unlatched door into the abrupt quiet and Ayika slowed her silent dash just outside, already mentally preparing for the embarrassment of appearing here out of breath for no reason. She opened the door at the moment all the lamp-flames winked out and the whole building fell into inky blackness.
Spots of color flashed in her eyes at the sudden dark. Ayika began to speak, to call out a question but something invisible in the shadow slammed into her chest with enough force to knock her back. The tray crashed to the floor as she was thrown against the wall by the impact. Pain and shock replaced breathing for this second. From somewhere in the office there was a sound of smashing glass and the inky blindness suddenly coalesced into visible forms. A black shadow with a white grinning face and jutting fangs stood before her.
The man-shaped shadow's one free arm rose up, fist clenched to send another blow of inhuman force down upon her this time aimed at her head. Ayika tried to twist away from the attack even as she tried and failed to scream but nothing made sense. The air was thick and a thousand colors swirled at the edge of her vision. She could hear something like a slowly rising crescendo beyond the realm of sound which was now joined by a new sound, soft and mournful in the night. The first note was still there; it had been there long before she could hear it and it was building to something terrible and great. However, she would not be there to see that finale and she looked up into that rigid white face with snarling tusks knowing she was helpless before its wrath. Then the white face suddenly jerked back. It turned towards its fist as if it saw something invisible there in that gloved hand. The figure's dim outline she could barely perceive seemed to blur and double like two arms disguised as one. Then her assailant focused at something else in the corner of the room and in an unnatural rush of speed it turned to burst forward at a sprint. It disappeared out the office door leaving the room as empty as if the intruder had never been. Ayika panted for breath through her aching chest.
Light leapt back into Ayika's swimming vision as flames licked across the spreading pool of oil from the smashed lamp. That had been the sound of shattering glass. Whatever had happened to extinguish all the light in the building had ended. Now the problem was instead a rapidly increasing supply of fire. All this she processed slowly. Ayika clutched at her chest, baring her teeth against the pain of that hammer-like blow. It was a second that felt like an hour before her thoughts began again.
"Hhea!" She yelled indistinctly, every response crashing together in her mouth. The room seemed wavering, unreal, as if the canvas of reality had been ripped away and all the paints were mixing together. There had been a figure. A man in black with a white face? Had he held something in his other hand, clutched close to his side? A knife, or a weapon, or what? Something larger? Was it even a man, or even human? She could not tell. And something had happened. It was then that her jumbled brain noticed the unnatural silence in the room and the very still shape lying upon the floor, carelessly tossed in the way of discarded things. A single limp hand protruded from the sleeve of a robe spotted with mostly removed blots of ink. Ayika screamed.
"Professor!"
...