And yet, looking at her, Adeline understood instantly that the gods were not bound to human natures, nor intents. To compact with one—to be transformed by their power—was to accept their terms. This goddess in particular was fire itself, seeking passion, seeking fuel, seeking air, seeking to be felt and seen. A human could not attempt to cage her.
Adeline’s mother… Adeline’s mother had made a mistake. Thought herself equal to the goddess just because she channeled her. Forgetting that she was only one in a line of conduits, that the very nature of the oath itself had always been temporary. Even now, with Tian’s anchoring tattoo staining red, there was the sense that Adeline’s mother was no longer relevant to the course of anything here. Who had ever spoken about the conduit before her?
All that is done now, the goddess seemed to impart, nestling like an ember into Tian. Both of them together were incandescent. The sense of the world made form.
Adeline chose to believe her.
Twenty girls were listening to whatever was on the radio—some Cantonese song,when, where, and how would it appear?—and dancing and drinking and eating in the small restaurant they’d managed to clear out, and Adeline had the bizarre realization that she was happy.
More than that, she felt safe. Clutching onto Rong and Vera’s shoulders and swaying around to the volume turned all the way up, she had the strange idea that she could rest in it. Occasionally she would catch Tian’s glance across the room and get the hint of a smile in return. At least once she got a wink before Tian returned to her huddle with Christina and some of the others, loudly trying to make Lesley take the last piece of siew mai.
There were dead girls out there, and ones at the threat of death, who refused to hear it even when Tian had tried to plead with them, only to be thrown out by Madam Aw. Girls were hurt every day, and had nowhere to go. But, Adeline thought, weeping-laughing into Rong’s neck at a joke that kept going, all the ones she cared about were here. They wanted her and she wanted them. She wanted them fiercely and it didn’t scare her.
“Let’s hit the town,” Rong was saying. “Go to every bar that owes us and get properly slammed.”
“Or find some assholes who want to fight,” someone else said. “I could fight someone right now. Let’s go beat some sailor up.”
“Or the stupid Boar boys at the park. They really are pigs. The other day one of them yelled about my tits.”
“They’re not allowed to say that. Only we’re allowed to yell about yourmassive tits.”
“Let’s go beat them up.”
“Let’sgo beat them up. Hey, Tian, we have an idea!”
“We’re not going to fight the Boars.” Tian had no memory of anything that had happened after the last candle went out, but she’d changed nonetheless. Her anchoring tattoo was now permanently red, like Adeline’s mother’s had been. Finally, the proper flow of the goddess had been restored.
“But we want to go scare someone! You can’t be mothering us now that you’re Madam. Where’s your fun?”
“Fight, fight, fight, fight.”
“Kao peh kao bu, drink your damn wine and come back to me in an hour.”
“Fight them in an hour!” They were saying anything now, hopped up on their own egging on. “Punch their teeth, burn off their hair, kick them in the balls—”
“The wine isn’t enough I need to fuck a man up—”
“You just want to fuck a man; we know how you are—”
“You can do both, you know—”
Tian’s chair screeched across the floor, cutting out all breath from humor. Mavis almost tripped over Rong. Silence swallowed the glee abruptly as Tian stood, eyes fixed on the door.
There was no more amusement on her face as she walked rapidly across the room, so abruptly she might have been possessed again. She’d been a little tipsy earlier, but that was gone, too, as she hesitated at the handle, then wrenched it open.
Adeline was the first to chase her out onto the street.
Outside, the headlights of a convoy filled the narrow road. Tian was stiff and predatory as the cars slowed. The tinted windows didn’t long hide who was in them. The first car stopped before them, and the White Man of Chinatown stepped out of it.
Fan Ge had been more covered up at the funeral. Now, in a short-sleeved shirt open to the chest, it became evident that every inch of his skin was covered in pale metallic ink. Steel dragons curled around his fingers, across his broad shoulders, rose up his throat, danced around his mouth, followed the curves of his eyes. The god of war was emblazoned beneath his left shoulder, and the goddess of mercy beneath his right, shrouded in steel clouds. His chest bore a white eagle. A strike would simply ricochet off him.
From the rest of the convoy emerged Steel after Steel, at least twenty of them, filling the road to box them in. Behind Fan Ge, in the seat, Adeline caught sight of a stunning woman—not Fan Tai Tai, too old to be a daughter, likely a mistress or escort—before he shifted and blocked her from view. “Ang Tian. I thought you might do it today. Auspicious, and all that.”
“How did you know where we were?” Tian said tersely.
“Ah, the barber over there owes me a lot of money.”
“He’ll regret that.”
