"Well, that was intense," Peter said when his siblings left. "I feel sorry for Julian. You know she's going to be chewing his ear off."
"I think he can hold his own," Leanne said. "He strikes me as pretty resilient ."
"She embarrassed the crap out of him." Peter pointed out. "I think he's afraid she's going to alienate me. She's a scared kid whose world just got turned upside down. I'm not going to hold that against either of them." Their mother, on the other hand, yeah, he could lay it all squarely at her feet. Not that he was going to say or do anything about it, mind you. Sometimes natural consequences were the best consequences.
"I know." She said. "It's just one unfortunate revelation after another for everyone right now."
"I am about one unfortunate revelation from running away and joining the circus," Peter said.
"Well, then I hope that the electrical inspector only has good news for us on Monday." She said, "Although you would make an adorable clown." She teased.
"Oh, you're funny." He said and reached out to tickle her.
She squealed and swatted at his hands, before starting to run playfully away from him. "Then why am I the one laughing." She said once he caught her again.
"I couldn't tell ya." He said, laughing as well. "But I love it when you do." Things had been so tense lately, from the first encounter with the Sing Wah to the encounter with his mother that morning, that laughter felt hard to come by.
She put her arms around his neck, letting her fingers play in the hair at the back of his neck. "We should take a drive this weekend after your rounds. Nowhere in particular just up in the woods or something. Take a picnic lunch. It will do us both good to be away from things for a couple of hours."
"I like that idea." He said. "Even if you will spend half the time hunting down herbs and flowers you can't buy in town."
"I'm not that bad." She said laughing again.
"Uh-huh. Remind me what happened the last time we decided to go spend some time in the woods?"
"That wasn't flowers that was mushrooms. That ended up being part of dinner." She said.
"No… that wasn't ALL flowers. But there were those purple flowers. My father can't pass up a good patch of flowers either." He said laughing quietly.
"That's right… the verbena." She said, having forgotten about them. "It's an anti-inflammatory. It was right there in plain sight and I was out." She smiled as he leaned in close.
The chimes attached to the door tinkled and they both looked in that direction, expecting one of their young students. Instead, Hu-li was entering the kwoon.
"If you two are going to start kissing I'm going to hurl." She said rolling her eyes.
"Don't knock it," Peter said. "You need to leave. We have students coming and I won't have another fight while they're here."
"Aw, but just think of what they could learn watching me and Li Na over there go at it hammer and tongs."
"I'm not Shaolin." Leanne said, "Next time I'll draw blood."
Hu Li scoffed. "But you are Taoist, Princess. You know that whole living in harmony crap that you grew up with."
"You know nothing of how I grew up," Leanne said and started to walk toward Hu li but Peter pulled her back. Her upbringing wasn't exactly in keeping with Taoist principles even if she did learn them by heart the way most people learned their ABCs
"She's just trying to get under your skin, "He said.
"Trying? Looks to me like I'm succeeding." Hu Li laughed. It was an unnatural sound. More animal than human. "I know the man that raised you, that tells me everything I need to know."
"Why are you here? You know I'm not going to give you the book." Leanne said. "No one is getting that book. Period."
Hu Li shrugged. "I'm supposed to keep an eye on you. Follow you." She said as she took a seat on the table with the CD player and the electric water kettle. "I can just as easily do that from here."
Leanne eased out of Peter's grasp and strode over to the table and turned on the water kettle. "I suggest you move before that get's hot. I wouldn't want you to get burned."
"There it is." Hu Li said. "That look in the eyes right there. Now I can see your Grandfather in you."
"Yeah? And what does that suggest ?" Leanne said in a deceptively flat tone.
"Did anyone ever tell you you're a bitch?" She got down off the table.
Peter caught something in the woman's eyes. It was like looking at a tiger trapped in a cage. It was gone almost as quickly as it came. " If you need help come back after the Kwoon is closed and we'll all have a friendly little chat and do what we can to help. But if you're just trying to piss us off with your posturing, don't bother. We don't have time for playing games."
Leanne nodded her agreement with Peter. She didn't see a girl that needed help, she saw a threat, but Peter did and she had to trust that instinct, even when she didn't agree with it. Maybe especially then. Come to Chinatown, ask for Caine, I will help, wasn't a slogan. It was the Caine family motto, practically a mantra in Chinatown.
Hu Li looked at them both as if they had grown a second head and left the Kwoon just as the 10 to 13-year-olds began to arrive for class. She stared at the building as she backed off the curb and across the street.
"Little Sister" Wukong called to her from Caine's terrace and dropped to the ground beside her.
Sparrow smiled faintly "It is good to see you, Sun Tiao Hu." She said as she stepped from the shadows.
"What the hell happened to your hair?" Hu Li asked, remembering Sparrow having raven black hair, not billowing, silvery white.
This made Monkey giggle.
Sparrow raised an eyebrow. "Well… yours looks like you attached your tail to the back of your head." She said defensively. "It changed because of a man."
Hu Li raised an eyebrow. "Did you kill him for doing this to you?"
"Our Big Brother did," Sparrow answered.
"I did not." Wukong countered. "The dragon did. It was hungry. I merely offered it a source of protein."
Hu Li laughed. "What are you two doing here anyway. Yeoh is here and if he catches you…"
Wukong's features hardened "Where is he?" He asked.
She shook her head. "No way. He has my family. I can't cross him."
"It is as we thought," Sparrow said.
"Where does he keep them?" Wukong asked. "There is a holy priest that has given his word to help find my brothers. We will find your kin too."
She pointed toward the kwoon. "That guy?" She asked. "He's a priest alright, but I don't think he's up to that challenge yet. Or all that Holy."
Sparrow shook her head "An immortal priest." She said.
"I think that one over there is called Peter." Wukong said, "According to the Holy Priest he is special. There are prophesies about him. He is to be protected."
"Yeah, well, he's hooked up with Yeoh's granddaughter, so I wouldn't trust him any further than you could throw that Dragon you've been feeding."
"The holy priests trust her. I trust them." Sparrow said.
"Just get back to Kunlun Shan as fast as you can. It's not safe for you here." Hu Li said. "Don't worry, I won't rat you out… you know… tell him you're here, but you gotta keep your heads down. And don't trust that guy over there. He's probably as good as he seems, I guess, but Master Yeoh has plans for him. That can't be safe for anyone around him."
"We will be careful," Sparrow said.
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Karen Simms leaned back in her chair and looked up at the two men in her office. "Have a seat, gentlemen." She said. "What can I do for the DST?" The DST was the French equivalent of the FBI. "I am willing to bet this has to do with the recently signed extradition treaty with France."
"It does." Marcel DuPont said in thickly accented English. "We have begun the judicial process, however, we request that Javier Navarro be detained during this process. We have an arrest warrant from our home country, but we have no authority here."
"That will need to be taken up with a judge. If they issue a warrant for his arrest I have detectives that will happily go with you to arrest him. If I may ask what is he accused of doing?"
"Extortion, racketeering, Money laundering, fraud. Those are just the things where we have solid evidence." DuPont said. "We have reason to believe that he covers up the crimes of influential individuals while they stay in his hotels. Interpol has been investigating him for quite some time and they recently turned those files over to us."
"Covering up how?" She asked.
"Providing alibis, sanitizing crime scenes should the private parties get out of hand."
"He sounds like a real piece of work. So if he's this white-collar mastermind, can you explain to me why he would break into people's homes and forget to wear gloves?"
"He wanted his target to know? Or he simply assumed that there would be no record of his fingerprints in this country, underestimating your resources perhaps?"
"He did seem very arrogant when he was interviewed by my people. He made the mistake of breaking into the home of a former detective of mine." She said. She didn't know these men from Adam. She wasn't about to tell them about Peter's connection to their suspect. The man had enough on his plate without drawing the attention of the DST.
"Former detective?"
"He retired to work with his father." She said. Karen didn't want to explain what a Shaolin priest was to them. It had nothing to do with anything.
"Tell your man to be careful. A man like Navarro is nothing to take lightly."
Careful was not a word that anyone who knew Peter Caine would use. Not when it was his safety anyway. "I'm sure he doesn't take him lightly. He was one of my best detectives. He knows how to take care of himself."
"We will be in touch when we have a local warrant for his arrest," Dupont said and rose from his chair. "In the meantime, we will be keeping him under surveillance in case he decides to leave the country."
Karen got to her feet and offered her hand. "Oh, he won't be going anywhere without his passport. We confiscated his and his wife's when we began to investigate him ourselves. But by all means, keep him under surveillance."
They shook hands and the Frenchmen left her office.
Kermit watched them leave the precinct and went to Karen's office. "So why have the French invaded?"
"It seems Javier Navarro isn't the squeaky clean hotelier that he would like us to believe." She said and explained what she had learned from the DST agents.
Kermit whistled lowly. "I doubt the judge will deny the warrant. Breaking and entering and vandalism are nothing compared to that laundry list."
"I know. Should we tell Peter and his father about this development?"
"I don't think so," Kermit said. "Caine will start feeling overprotective of his ex and that could tip Navarro's hand. Pretty sure he isn't the type to completely turn his back on anyone, much less someone he made a child with." He didn't like it, but sometimes it was necessary to keep secrets.
"If they don't get their warrant, then we tell them."
Kermit nodded. "You up for getting a pizza tonight."
"I'd like that. I can get out of here in about half an hour."
"I'll be here."
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"Your color is better," Caine said and checked the Ancient's pulse.
Lo Si sighed. "We are wasting time. You must continue my work."
"I must finish my work first. For now, that is making sure you are healed." He said, "But if you are feeling well enough to talk, I will listen."
"Yulong Yeoh…"
"Yes. I know. He has been stealing lives to create his Elixir of Immortality." Caine said gently as he shared his qi with the Ancient. "I went to Shamballa to look for you and spoke with Master Yuan."
Lo Si scoffed. "He is corrupted somehow. However, I cannot prove it."
Caine nodded gravely. "I have sensed this in him. He takes too much pleasure in the thought of ending a life."
"Leanne…" He said, "He wants to kill the girl as well as her grandfather."
Again Caine nodded. "But I do not know why." He said. "I have looked at her qi and her aura. She has not been corrupted by her grandfather's elixir. Neither did I see another entity within her. Either his potion is made of the life force and not the soul or the soul fades over time."
"I believe I have the cure for his tainted immortality." Lo Si said. "But I do not know what effect it will have on the immortal other than that."
"Have you been experimenting with it on yourself?"
Lo Si shook his head. "I was made immortal before Yulong Yeoh was born."
"The flowers you were experimenting with may be the cause of your sudden decline. It is hoped that keeping them away from you will reverse the effects."
"And if not, then I die of old age as I should have long ago." Lo Si shrugged.
"She is willing to give up her immortality because of what we discovered about her grandfather. I worry that her years will catch up with her as well."
"Leanne was young when she was given the elixir. There should be no catching up." Lo Si said. "There were many dead monkeys in his lab. Each one could mean another immortal created."
"To what end? Wealth, an invincible army?"
"I do not know. That is what frightens me." He said and slowly drifted off to sleep once again.
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Peter watched out the glass front of the kwoon. "She's still out there." He said. "Just leaning against the brownstone."
"Do you think there is any point in waiting?" Leanne asked.
"I don't know. Guess I should go find out." Peter said and opened the door. He casually walked across the street. He kept his hands in his pockets, to appear less threatening.
He knew all about throwing attitude. It was the first survival technique he learned. He had learned many things as a boy in the temple, but he had been sheltered by his father and by the other priests. He wasn't taught Kung Fu in order to survive. He was taught it as a discipline. A way to become more mindful of his body. He'd learned how to survive in Pine Ridge. If you were afraid and wanted to make sure people to left you alone you learned to throw attitude. The human equivalent of making yourself look bigger than you are.
"What do you want?" Hu Li asked.
"Is Hu Li really your name?" Peter asked, leaning against the wall as well.
"You came over here to ask me my name?" She asked incredulously.
"Sure, why not?" Peter asked.
"It's not the name I was born with but it's the name I have now." She said, clearly wondering what his angle was. She glanced back toward the kwoon and nearly laughed seeing Leanne watching from the window. "Does she really think I'm going to hurt you?"
"She thinks it's possible you'll try." He said. "We watch out for each other. There have been more than a few people trying to tear us both to pieces over that damned book."
"So are you crazy or just a glutton for punishment? "
Peter laughed. "Probably both." He shrugged. "People need help so I help. You could say it's the family business."
"I didn't ask for your help." She pointed out.
"Doesn't mean you don't need it. You're trapped and it shows."
She glared at him. "I am not trapped."
There it was again. That brief look of fear. "I think you are. I think her grandfather is holding something over your head. He's good at that. He tore my family apart, tricked his granddaughter into taking that damned potion… I'm pretty sure he's manipulating other people in my life and I don't know what it is he wants. What does he want from you?"
"For me to keep my mouth shut, and do as I'm told. And before you ask, you already know what I'm told to do. I'm supposed to follow the two of you."
"In the hopes of getting the book from Leanne."
"I'll go away if she gives it to me. I promise."
"Nah…" Peter said "You can keep hanging around. I don't mind." He stood up straight and started to walk back to the Kwoon.
"I don't want to keep hanging around. I want to go home and I can't do that until I get that book."
He turned around to face her. "I can't help you with that. I'm sorry. There is too much evil that can be done with that book. "
"And here I thought you wanted to help me." She said sarcastically.
"That wouldn't be helping and we both know it," Peter said. He turned around again and walked into the Kwoon.
"Find out anything interesting?" Leanne asked.
Peter shook his head. "She's too scared to talk." He said.
"My grandfather?"
"Yeah, I think so. I don't know what to do about that."
"You can't save everyone, Peter." She said. "Especially people that don't want to be saved. Unless she tells you what she needs you can't help her find it."
"We're going to have to face your grandfather." He said. "For your sake, I wish we didn't."
"He's done terrible things. He's continuing to do terrible things. There is no other choice." It broke her heart. She wanted to insist that there was no way she was going to be a part of that. She could say it. She could mean it and Peter would understand. But she wouldn't. Peter was right. It had to be done.
The students for their final class of the day began to arrive. They turned their attention from their vulpine watchdog, leaving her to her own devices.
