...

The last sliver of the sun slowly dipped into the horizon's smog bath and Ayika was uneasy. The air around the school seemed tight; anticipatory. That evening two fights had broken out between staff girls to be stopped only when a furious Mrs Jiangsu shoved them off to jobs on opposite sides of the building. The shafts of dying light that traced across the interior walls set them ablaze in orange as Ayika made her rounds securing the doors and windows for the night.

Outside the school compound, the angry crowd of nationalist protesters was being dispersed by city guards. Those supposed officers of the peace were not necessarily concerned about any potential victims but they did not want to be called back again after dark as they would assuredly be if the throng was allowed to remain. The menacing man Ayika and Xinfei had encountered hadn't reappeared. Perhaps being set slightly on fire had dulled his spirit. His protesting comrades went on their way with only a minimum number of invectives hurled at traitorous collaborators hiding in the school.

Down in the kitchen, the remaining school cooks were bustling with cleaning and preparing for the next day's meals. As busy as they were, they could only spare a few nervous looks at the dark shadows of the room seasoned in tonight's strange energy. Clouds were gathering in the crimson sky, and darkness marshaled on a soft breeze.

The cups on Ayika's serving tray clinked softly as she slowly opened the door to Wen's office. In there, every surface was now covered with books and paper except for the table in the center of the room where a paper-wrapped package roughly the size of a cooking dish was ringed with candles. It was the same bundle Ma'er's assistant had been carrying. A small iron disk with engravings sat next to it, perhaps one of the many foreign artifacts from the professor's display shelves. At his desk, Lizhen muttered to himself as his brush danced across a sheet of paper; deletions and corrections accompanied with quiet mutters.

Ayika cleared her throat, trying to ignore the prickling on the back of her neck. "Um, I thought that you might want something-"

"Why are you interrupting me?!" Lizhen snapped with a surprising ferocity that made Ayika jump. "The sunset is almost over so if he hasn't 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 of the...Something to eat would probably 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 back in surprise. She'd miraculously caught it her foot and now swayed slightly as she reached down to retrieve it. 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 plate made up."

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's supposed to arrive?"

Lizhen shook his head distractedly. "Don't worry about that. Just let me know of any visitors."

She couldn't ignore the poor man's plight. "Um, Professor Wen, if you don't mind, are you ok? If that gardener 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'll never be let in here again. You're such an important man for the reformers and against the Ministers' men that, well, I thought I could help."

Lizhen 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.

Ayika recognized foreboding comments when she came across them and anxiously grabbed hold of the conversation. "Well, 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 except for the few by the desk and the curious ring around the table.

Lizhen gave a start, now looking at the room from an outsider's perspective. "Ha, I suppose I do," he laughed. "I must have sent the porters to clear out the storeroom!"

"And I see you've got the fireplace emptied too. Do you want me to light those candles for you now, sir? You'll 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. By myself, even though...But no, she wouldn't have come even if I 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 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 didn't say anything but she smiled and left the man staring at his writings in the fading light.

...

Night unfolded black wings over the city. It was a night that made every shadow on the street seem to rise up into the shape a watching figure. Pools of 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'd 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 listen to stories of the spirits. Grandma Aka had told the old country stories of the phantasmal Breath-Stealers in the tall forest and of the Long-Fingers who pretended to be ice floes drifting in the water so they could sneak close to the village during the night.

She even told new stories that she learned here in the city or, as she called it, gossiped about some neighbor spirits. 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. There were stories of Blind Dog Lord who held court over all the ghasts of street and stone, who could smell your thoughts and could suck up your ghost with one breath, and Gold Toad who loved the Moon.

She even heard of the Scissors-Man, a creation so terrifying that Grandma Aka had never even gotten the chance to even fully explain a single tale about him. Little Ayika had just screamed and retreated to her blankets in the corner. That spirit remained in Ayika's mind as a vague shadow; 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.

Grandma Aka had defended these sessions which left the little girl clutching her covers white-knuckled as a preventative process. She'd waved away Ayika's mother's concerns while she said, "Better sick with fright now than dead of it later."

With all that considered, when Ayika burst out of the dark hallway into the school's crowded kitchen at a near run, 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 in this well-lit room the cooks were still at work cleaning the large metal pots that fed the students. As Ayika entered there was a loud "Fwwsh!" 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've gone crazy!" she said pointing wildly around the room. "And the lamps are acting weird, and then there was that knocking outside just now! It's been going on all evening. One of those protesters must have cursed us! We need someone to bless the kitchen god before we all burn to death! If we don't, the spirits…"

Her yell trailed away as she stared in Ayika's direction with an unusual degree of respect and fear.

Ayika felt a mass looming behind her in the doorway and so spun to the side as quickly as possible, feeling Mrs Jiangsu's hand land on the space Ayika's shoulder had just vacated. The matron of the female staff gave Ayika a skeptical glare which she parried with an all-purpose respectful bowing of the head. And so like a warship passing down the river, Jiangsu moved on to her intended target, the unfortunate cook.

"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's telling me some one-eyebrowed idiot forgot to adjust the flue in the chimney when the wind picked up. 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. "Er, 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 the hairs on the back of her neck rose again. The dark varnished wood gleamed dimly under the far-spaced oil lamps like the eyes of spirits. Ayika chided herself for being ridiculous before she abruptly stopped. What had Ming said about hearing knocking from outside? Those protesters had been lurking around the school compound until very recently. Were they trying to accomplish something more devious tonight?

A glance out a nearby window yielded nothing but darker shadows. The school's outer wall shielded light from the street so the grounds were pitch black. In the hallway, Ayika took a few more careful steps on 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.

Then there was a faint rattling sound. She turned towards the garden door. It was latched shut and nothing could be seen outside it. There was only silence. Ayika took a statue-slow step backwards, pressing her back against the window shutter on the opposite side. In an instant, she'd regressed a decade into a child fearing the coming of the Scissors-Man.

There was loud rapping against the shutter right 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 fling open the window with the fires of hell burning in her eyes. Xinfei Bao stood outside looking sheepish.

"What do you think you're doing?!" Ayika demanded in a furious whisper.

The tall, skinny boy outside ran a hand through his spiky mess of hair as he shifted the bundle of merchandise on his back. "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!"

Xinfei got a bit defensive. "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 out, remember? When I came up the street the side gate was open so I went to find you. Look, are you off yet or what?"

"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, I can unlatch that courtyard door on the other side and you come around and wait for me. I have to take this tray up to Professor Wen, but then I'll change out of this uniform so we can head out."

Xinfei shrugged. "That's fine. You do your thing. You guys 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's 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 the building."

Ayika threw open the latch on the courtyard door and headed towards the main stairs. The sense of anxiety was building so as Ayika summited, to quiet her paranoia, she turned down the first side corridor and opened the door. She breathed deeply to calm her foolish fear as she stepped into a classroom totally unoccupied in the flickering lamplight.

Flickering? She turned to look at the oil lamp hanging in the 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 and yet the little fire was twisting and growing as if trying to leap off the wick. Had Ming actually been right about the kitchen oven?

There was a brief sound of flowing air in the hall behind her and Ayika stuck her head back out to see if any of the other lamps were acting oddly. They all were. Down the length of the hallway the shadows danced as the light rebelled. 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 suddenly fell silent. Unnamed senses tensed as Ayika began to hurry forward, gripping the tray with both hands. A gleam of steady light spilled out of Wen's unlatched door into the abrupt quiet and Ayika slowed her silent dash just outside, already preparing for the embarrassment of appearing all out of breath for no reason. She pushed the door open.

Every lamp-flame winked out and the entire building plummeted into black.

Blurry spots of color flashed in her eyes at the sudden dark. Ayika began to call out a question, but something shot out of the shadow to slam into her chest with enough force to knock her back into the wall. The tray crashed to the floor as she was thrown clear. Pain and shock replaced breathing for a 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 black man-shape's arm rose up, fist clenched to send another blow of impossible force down upon her, this time aimed at Ayika's head. She struggled to twist away from the attack even as she tried to scream for help. Nothing made sense and she could barely breath. Her chest and back seared with pain.

She was about to die. That rigid mask-like face with snarling tusks looked down and she was helpless before its wrath. Then the white face suddenly jerked back. It looked at its fist as if in some internal struggle. For a second the figure's dim outline seemed to blur and double like each limb was two arms disguised as one.

Then her assailant glanced back at the far corner of the office before rushing past her out the door in an unnatural burst of speed, carrying an object under its arm. The room was abruptly empty save for a gust left by its lightning departure. Ayika lay crumpled against the wall as she panted for breath in the light of the spreading fire.

Fire.

Ayika's blurry vision turned as flames licked across the spreading pool of oil from a smashed lamp. The sound of shattering glass. Whatever had to extinguished all light in the building had ended and now the problem was instead a rapidly increasing supply of fire. Ayika clutched at her chest, baring her teeth against the throbbing pain of the blow. She didn't know when she had last breathed.

"Hhea!" She yelled indistinctly, a thousand words 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. The fire was growing. Then her jumbled brain noticed the unnatural silence in the room and the still shape lying on the floor, carelessly tossed in the way of discarded things. A single limp hand protruded from the sleeve of a robe spotted with blots of ink. Ayika screamed.

"Professor!"

...