THE TRUTH BENEATH
by Kerry Lindemann-Schaefer

"On the surface, all is illusion. Sometimes you must risk all to find the truth beneath."


"Jeremy? Yo, Jeremy, wake up. Our next patient's here."

Kevin's amused voice roused me from the stupor I had fallen into. I blinked my eyes open in the semi-darkness of the MRI control room, gazing blearily at the computer screen in front of me. It refused to come into focus, even when I tilted my head to the proper angle for my bifocals. I blinked a few more times. There. That was better. My eyes always go first when I'm tired.

It was late afternoon and I was almost at the end of my shift, thank goodness. I had worked all day with Kevin, the MRI supervisor, filling in for someone who had called in sick. As a newly-graduated tech, I was damn lucky (and damn grateful!) to have gotten this job at County General, but there are definite disadvantages to working both part-time and PRN, which, for those of you not in medicine, basically means "as needed" and can be anything from zero hours a week to double shifts. As it happened, there was a nasty virus going around and I had worked for ten days in a row. I was about worn out, and the fact that we'd just gotten a computer upgrade so I had to constantly revise the knowledge I had only recently managed to drive through my overloaded, middle-aged brain didn't help matters any.

Nevertheless, this was the last exam on our schedule, and starting tomorrow, I had three blessed days off. So I greeted our patient's arrival with an understandable amount of relief, getting up from my chair and going out into the foyer.

I picked up the chart from the stretcher, looking to see that the list of safety questions had been properly filled out by our nurse. As was the usual practice, I went over the most important questions, like whether he had a pacemaker, with the patient yet again. He was alert enough to respond, but seemed pretty groggy, probably due to pain meds.

"This is a right shoulder we're doing, Jeremy," Kevin said. "Right?"

"Right--uh--correct," I amended. Enough redundancy already.

Kevin looked at me sideways and grinned. "Anything more I need to know to set up the scan?"

I hastily looked over the history section of the chart. "He's a cop. Dislocated his shoulder yesterday. No other serious injuries and they've reduced the dislocation but there's a lot of swelling, so the docs are checking for additional soft tissue damage. He was shot in that same shoulder a couple of years ago, so it's possible the fall aggravated the old injury."

"Shot? The bullet's not still in there, is it? Could be a problem."

Some kinds of metal really mess up MRI images. "No. It was removed," I assured my boss.

"Okay. He's good to go. Push him into the scan room I'll come help you in a minute."

I did as requested, finally getting around to actually looking at the patient instead of the chart. My first impression was that he was an exceptionally good-looking boy. Nice body, handsome face, not too pretty, but just pretty enough for my taste.

Boy? Well, strictly speaking, he was a man. I took a quick glance at the plastic hospital wristband for his date of birth. Not too long now and he'd be on the far side of thirty. Pretty bad when you start thinking of folks this age as kids, Jeremy.

But I'm gay and he was certainly attractive.

I know what you're going to say. I'm a medical professional. I shouldn't be thinking such things about a patient, right? Sorry to disappoint you, but sometimes a person can't help thinking. It's what you do about those thoughts that determines whether or not you should be ashamed. Where a patient is concerned, you do nothing.

I sighed. Oh well, he was probably straight anyway. Very few cops are gay. (Or at least are willing to admit to it!)

Kevin and I got our young patient more or less comfortably situated inside the scanner.

In case you've never seen one, the average MRI scanner looks pretty much like a wall with a smallish tunnel in it. The patient slides into that tunnel on a movable table and is actually inside the bore of a very powerful magnet. (The magnetic part of Magnetic Resonance Imaging.) It's not really a problem, unless the patient happens to be claustrophobic or simply too large to fit in the tunnel. The gorgeous hunk we had on our table was neither. Since he was too drugged to do much more than lie there, I anticipated a quick and easy exam.

Good. The sooner we were done, the sooner I could go home and get some sleep.

Kevin set up the scan on his console. All my foggy brain had to deal with was doing the filming on the other console. Even so, with the recent changes in our software, it took every last neuron that was still capable of firing to guide the mouse through the correct command sequences.

I was totally focused on the screen in front of my stinging eyes when a soft voice out in the foyer inquired, "Excuse me, I am looking for--MRI?"

"You found it, mister," Kevin answered distractedly. "What could we do for you?"

"My son--has been brought down here. His name is Peter Caine."

Peter Caine?! The connection flashed through my brain like a stroke of lightning -- and I was almost as dumbfounded as if I'd been struck by that same bolt of lightning.

I turned away from the console and looked at the man standing in the doorway. Dear god, it was him! I was so surprised I couldn't move, much less speak.

I remembered back a few years ago, when I had offered him a lift in Massachusetts and we had ended up driving all the way across the country together. I'd left him at the ruins of his Temple, with no real expectation of ever seeing him again. And I remembered a lot of other things about that time, like the way I would have killed myself if I hadn't run into him when I did. But he'd told me back then that his son was dead.

Meanwhile, Kevin was busy answering the question. "Right in there." He pointed through the glass window separating our control room from the scan room, where all that could be seen of our patient was his feet sticking out of the tunnel. "We'll be done with him in about twenty minutes. Jeremy, would you show this gentleman to the waiting area?"

I got up and walked out of the dim control room into the lighted hallway.

"Kwai Chang Caine," I said. "Bet you don't remember me."

It took him a few seconds to study my face and sort through his own memories, but he proved me wrong.

"Jeremy--Langsten?"

I nodded.

He looked me over, taking in the white uniform and lab coat "You are a--doctor now?"

"Nah. Just an MRI tech." I leaned back through the doorway. "Kevin, this is an old friend of mine. Is it okay if I talk to him for a minute?"

"Sure. Go ahead. I can manage by myself."

Kevin's a good guy, as bosses go. He's one of the reasons I like my job. He's also kind of cute. If he weren't straight, and married--oh well, scratch that idea. I'd already started walking Caine around the corner before I noticed that there was someone else with him, a skinny little Chinese guy in a black outfit, wearing metal-frame glasses almost like mine.

As I showed them to the small alcove with a couple of chairs that we used for a waiting area, Caine indicated his quiet companion with a nod of the head. "Jeremy, this is--the Ancient."

"Uh--yeah, I can see he's pretty old, but doesn't he have a name?"

The little man gave me a slight bow and a not-so-slight smile. "I am called Lo Si," he said. His accent marked him as probably not brought up in this country. I'd once had a Chinese lover and some of his relatives talked like that, although Bobbie himself didn't.

"I'm honored to meet you." I don't know why I said that. There was something about the man that made me feel he was more than just your average senior citizen.

"How is my son?" Caine asked anxiously. "The doctor told me they are looking for damage to the -- rotator cuff?"

"Yeah. That's the muscles that make your arm turn, along with their tendons. Very easy for them to get torn."

"Ah! Those muscles. I understand now."

The one Caine had called the Ancient asked, "Your machine can show muscles?"

"Sure can," I said, beaming. I'm pretty proud of my scanner. "MRI's not like regular x-rays. We can see more than just bones."

Even as I was carrying on this conversation, I was actively checking out my long-lost friend. Although he still carried the same old brown pouch I remembered, his wardrobe had obviously improved since I'd known him. He wore a nice blue shirt with one of those Chinese collars, and his hair was much longer, actually down on his shoulders. He also looked happier, more "together", maybe even younger now, as compared to the last time I'd seen him. That last was a pretty good trick. I wondered how he managed it. While I myself had lost a few pounds in the years since our cross country trek, my hair was seriously getting gray now. I had celebrated (?) my fiftieth birthday several years ago. Younger I wasn't getting, but it didn't bother me so much anymore.

A man came around the corner of the hallway, stopping abruptly when he saw us.

"Is Peter Caine around here?" he asked brusquely. I figured he was a nurse or a doctor, since he was wearing hospital scrubs.

I jerked my thumb toward the MRI suite. "In there."

Luckily, I was standing where I could see both the control room and scan room doors, so I saw him head directly for the scan room. That's a big no-no while we've got something running.

"Hey, you can't go in there!" I said, catching up to him and grabbing his arm just as he reached the door.

He turned on me, holding a gun like the kind Clint Eastwood carries when he plays Dirty Harry.

"The hell I can't, Doc," he replied, making the same erroneous assumption about me that Caine had made.

He jerked me around in front of him, an elbow across my throat and the pistol aimed at my head. From my unenviable vantage point, the barrel of that gun bore a frightening resemblance to a cannon.

Shoving the door open, be dragged me into the room and over to the scanner. Caine and Lo Si followed us at a respectful distance.

The gunman was apparently after our patient. He muttered a brief curse when he saw his victim inside the tunnel, rather than readily accessible.

The banging noise that always accompanies a scan stopped suddenly. Kevin had doubtless aborted the sequence. I knew full well he'd be on the phone to security already.

"You, in the control booth!" the gunman yelled. "Pull him out. Now!"

"He can't," I said. "The controls are in here, on that panel." I jerked my head slightly in the direction of the panel of lighted buttons to our right, about three feet away.

"Okay, then you do it."

I reached over, trying to pull my captor along with me. I saw no reason he couldn't shoot his victim while he was still inside the scanner, but that never seemed to occur to him. I don't think the guy was overly bright, to tell the truth.

Caine was inside the door now, but he dared not get much closer. I'd seen him in action before, so I was pretty sure he wasn't going to just stand there and let his son be shot. I caught his eye, willing him to know he shouldn't try anything yet.

The table began its mechanized glide out of the bore of the magnet. I had seconds at most before this guy would be able to get a clean shot at the boy.

"Please," I whined, making an ineffectual effort to pull away from the pressure of the arm across my throat, "you're choking me."

His attention more on the table than on me, the other man only growled, "Shut up." I shifted, my weight forcing him even closer to the scanner. I leaned harder, as if I were about to faint from fright. Absently, he allowed the pistol to follow my head.

As I believe I mentioned earlier, at the heart of every MRI scanner is a very large and very powerful magnet. A magnetic field increases in strength quite rapidly as you approach it. One minute it's not real strong, but go just a little further, and it is. Bring any large metallic object close enough and it will try to align itself with the field and fly into the bore of the magnet, where the patient is lying.

As the gun began to twist in his hand, my captor finally realized something was wrong. He pulled the trigger, but the barrel had already been deflected the necessary couple of inches away from my head. The bullet crashed through the meshed glass of the control booth window, even as I drove one elbow back into my captor's gut.

Caine was on top of us in an instant, jerking the pistol from the other man's grip. My opponent folded up, leaving Caine holding a gun that was doing its level best to wrench itself out of his hand.

Being considerably brighter than the gunman, Caine figured out what was going on before I had to tell him and stepped back a few feet, so that the magnetic field dropped down sufficiently for the pistol to act like an ordinary gun again.

Meanwhile, Lo Si grabbed the would-be killer by one arm, twisted a little, and neatly pinned the younger man against the wall, just as the hospital security guards came running into the room.

Our patient was entirely clear of the scanner now. He blinked and looked around, puzzled and still groggy. "Pop? Is that you? What happened?"

Caine laid a hand on his son's good shoulder. "Nothing, Peter," he said gently. "Rest now."

Peter's eyes fluttered closed.

As the security guards led their prisoner away, I grinned at Caine and the Ancient. "Sorry you guys had to come in here," I said inanely and probably far too loudly. My ears were still ringing from the sound of the gunshot so close to my head. "The magnetic field probably wiped all your credit cards."

They looked at each other, then at me.

"Credit--cards?" Caine asked.

I should have known better.

"Okay. Guess that's not a problem."

Then the city police arrived on the scene and we all spent most of the next hour answering questions about what had happened. Meanwhile, Kevin went ahead and finished the scan that had been so rudely interrupted, then had our patient sent back to his room. (I snuck a few peeks at the images on our computer. The doctors may or may not agree, but I didn't see any evidence of a rotator cuff tear. Guess the boy lucked out this time.)

When we were finally free, Lo Si suggested we all go somewhere for dinner. It took a little doing to convince Caine to leave his son alone long enough to eat, but we were successful. He did insist on going up to see that Peter was comfortably settled in his bed, while the Ancient and I waited at the front entrance to the hospital.

A few well-chosen questions from the old man and he had gotten a brief explanation as to where and how I knew Kwai Chang Caine out of me before I'd hardly realized it. But I've got a pretty big mouth anyway, so it's not hard to make me talk, if I trust you. (And somehow I found myself trusting him, don't ask me why.)

Being no verbal slouch myself, I also managed to find out about Peter and how he and his father had been reunited after thinking each other dead for so many years. It sounded like something out of a soap opera, but I was real glad it had worked out that way. I knew how torn up Caine had been over losing his son.

Before long, Caine appeared next to us in that silent way he has.

"Okay. Where shall we eat?" I asked. "My car's in the parking lot."

"That will not be necessary," Lo Si replied. "The hospital is not far from Chinatown. There is an excellent restaurant hardly more than a mile from here."

"Uh--a mile? You sure you don't want to ride?"

"It is a nice night--for a walk," Caine said.

"Okay, I know when I'm licked. Let's go."


So we walked. As Caine had said, it was a nice night, early fall and not too chilly as yet. I had exchanged my lab coat for a sweater, which kept me just comfortable. The sun was almost down and the shadows softened the usually harsh outlines of the city. Pretty quickly, the signs on the shops began appearing in Chinese characters. I hadn't realized County General was so close to Chinatown, but then I generally just drove from the hospital directly out to the highway and from there to my rented room on the outskirts of the city where I had lived for the last couple of years while going through the x-ray program at the local community college.

Now that I had a job, I'd be looking for a place closer to where I worked. But I hadn't gotten around to that yet. I was still surprised that I'd survived this long on so little money. If you don't want a lot, you don't need a lot to get by. Maybe that was the secret. At any rate, I had lived, breathed, and slept x-rays for the past two years. Then I spent my last summer in clinicals doing MRI and found I had a better than average talent for it. That had led to Kevin's offering me my present position upon graduation, and my chance at starting up my new life. (Better get started soon, Jeremy, old boy. You're on the downside of the hill now.)

Chinatown wasn't my usual stomping ground, so I probably looked rather like a tourist staring around at all the strange sights as I followed Caine and Lo Si through the still-crowded streets. There were a lot of street vendors and open-air markets, so it wasn't real easy to stick to my friends and still look at everything. Most of the talk going on around me was in Chinese. I got this strange feeling that I'd been dropped down in another country somewhere, instead of the good old U.S. of A. It was actually kind of neat. I would have liked to have stopped and looked over some of the merchandise being offered for sale, or go in some of the stores, if I'd been by myself.

After my ears had shifted gear, I even caught a couple of the very few Chinese words Bobbie had taught me, way back when we'd been together. I could think about Bobbie without bitterness now, even though it still hurt. After he'd left me, I had never found anyone else who truly filled the void. But it had been my fault as much as his that we'd broken up. (No, be honest, Jeremy. It was more your fault than his.)

But that was over long ago. This was now, and this was Chinatown, in a new state and a new city. If anything seemed even the least bit familiar, it was probably just the faint traces of long-buried memories. So I stared around me in a pleasant fog of exhaustion and fond reminiscences, at the same time trying not to lose sight of Caine's yellowish jacket a few paces ahead of me.

We turned down a less populated sidestreet. One of the lights was out and the shadows seemed particularly dense, but I had no warning of what was coming until Caine suddenly shoved me away from him and hard up against the brick wall of the building beside us. Then something knocked my left leg out from under me and I collapsed. Sparks flew from the wall where several metallic objects impacted in the approximate place where Caine had been.

Caine and the Ancient both stood in front of me, crouched into those "ready" stances you've all seen in martial arts movies. At least six people materialized out of the shadows, armed with various exotic and deadly-looking weapons.

A few minutes later, the only ones still on their feet were my two friends, with all the others scattered around the sidewalk in assorted uncomfortable positions. Astonishingly enough, none of them appeared to be seriously injured, just out of action.

As soon as our attackers had been dealt with, Caine knelt beside me, took one look at the blood soaking through the leg of my white uniform pants, then ripped the fabric clear up to my knee. Meanwhile, the old man remained on guard, watching for any further signs of danger.

I didn't feel the pain until I saw the jagged points of one of those throwing stars sticking out of my calf, with blood oozing around it.

Caine pulled something that looked suspiciously like gray-green moss out of his shoulder bag and told me matter-of-factly, "This--will hurt."

I hate it when he says that. It always turns out to be true. This time was no exception. With one smooth and entirely merciless motion, he pulled the shuriken out of my leg and pressed the handful of moss hard against the raw flesh. It was all I could do just to hold still and keep quiet.

I made the mistake of watching what he was doing. You'd think that sort of thing wouldn't bother me, since I work in the medical field, right? But I deal in nice clean images on a computer screen, which is far removed from the sort of messy trauma stuff you get in an emergency room. The worst thing I do to people is sometimes stick a tiny needle into their veins.

As I watched my blood continue to leak through the moss and around Caine's fingers, I saw the blackness gathering at the edges of my vision and heard the singing in my ears.

"Oh, shit," I said in disgust. "I think I'm going to--"

I passed out. Maybe that was just as well, under the circumstances.


The first thing I became aware of as consciousness trickled back into my brain was the throbbing pain in my leg, which seemed to be propped up on something soft. Okay, that was only to be expected. The next thing I noticed, even before I ventured to open my eyes, was that I was lying on a rather hard but padded surface. Good. That meant I wasn't on the sidewalk anymore. So where was I? A hospital would have been a nice comforting answer.

I slitted my eyes open cautiously, then closed them again. Nope, no hospital I've ever seen does business by candlelight. Too much of a fire hazard. Maybe I was still unconscious and dreaming.

When I opened my eyes again, it was all still there. Fortunately, no one had taken off my glasses, so at least I was able to see without first fumbling around and locating them. I was lying on a raised wooden platform at one end of a room that appeared rather like a cross between a Chinese thriftshop and something out of a museum. Most of the light came from candles stuck in various odd places, with the last dim remains of dusk filtering in through several large, multi-paned windows and a double glass door.

Overcrowded shelves and a couple of tables filled much of the open space. The Ancient stood at one of those tables, his back to me. There was no sign of Caine. Every so often, the old man made some kind of a clinking-crockery noise with whatever he was working on. Other than that, it was so quiet I fancied I could hear the candles burning.

I deliberately made more noise than necessary as I sat up. The Ancient turned around, smiling.

"Uh--pardon the cliche, but where am I?" I asked.

"This is where Kwai Chang Caine lives," Lo Si replied. "We were not far away when we were attacked." A graceful wave of one hand took in the exotic surroundings. "Do you like it?"

"It's--very nice," I said politely. "I guess." My eyes were still busy looking at all the odd stuff on the shelves and tables. Now, whatever did he do with those dried lizards over there? Then again, maybe it would be better not to ask.

The idea that Caine actually lived somewhere took a minute to sink in, since I had only known him as a drifter. Had he decided to settle down, now that he'd found his son? Given the multitude of jars, containers, and assorted bits of dried vegetation, I thought I could make a good guess at how he made his living these days. Traditional Chinese were pretty hot on all this herbal stuff, not to mention the so-called "New Age" folks. A man could do worse.

"How is your leg?" Lo Si inquired, folding his hands in front of his chest.

He had to mention that. I had almost forgotten the pain, so lost was I in my curiosity. I looked down at the leg. It appeared to be neatly bandaged, except for a few tufts of that moss poking out at the edges. I wiggled my toes and flexed my ankle cautiously. Everything seemed to work, so no major muscles or nerves had been severed. And it really didn't hurt all that much, now that I thought about it. Probably could use some stitches to keep the wound from opening up again, though.

"Pretty good," I replied at last.

"We will take you to the hospital, if you wish. But it is not necessary."

Somehow, I believed him.

"Nah. I'm okay. Wouldn't want to go out jogging just yet, though."

"No," he agreed solemnly. "It would be best to stay off your feet for a few days."

He turned back to the table and picked up one of those little Chinese teacups that don't have handles. Just as I feared, he brought it over to me, holding it delicately in both hands. "This will make you feel better and help prevent infection. But be careful. It is hot."

I regarded him warily, not taking the cup.

"Ah," the old man said softly. "You have had some of Kwai Chang Caine's potions before?"

"Yeah. The last cup of tea he gave me knocked me out."

"This will not produce that sort of effect," he promised. "Please."

As he extended his hands to once again give me the cup, the loose sleeves of his shirt pulled up a little and I could see he had the same dragon and tiger scars on his forearms that Caine did. I wasn't really surprised, somehow. After Caine had left me, I had looked up information on this Shaolin stuff, so at least I had some idea of what it meant.

Meanwhile, the old man was still trying to give me that cup of tea, even though he had doubtless noticed where my eyes were focused. Looking away, I took the damn cup.

He watched me in silence, an expectant smile on his lips.

This guy was even harder to resist than Caine himself. I gave in gracefully and sipped at the stuff, hoping for the best. It actually tasted halfway good. And, as promised, it didn't knock me out.

"So where's Caine?" I asked, scrunching up the pillows behind me so I could lean back without lying flat.

"He went to see if any of those unpleasant young men were still in the alley, in order to find out why they attacked us."

"I wish him luck," I answered sourly, then noticed Caine had appeared in the doorway. "Well, speak of the devil."

"Devil?" Lo Si asked, obviously confused.

"It is a--figure of speech," Caine replied as he came into the room.

"Ah! Did you find anything?"

"No. They were--" he shrugged unhappily-- "gone."

Then he walked over to me. "You are feeling better?"

It was really more of an observation than a question, but I answered anyway. "Yeah."

"Good." He took something out of his pouch, wiped it on a rag, and held it up. Light glinted off the sharp metal edges of the shuriken as he examined it from several angles. "This is the one that was in your leg." He handed it to Lo Si who also looked at it closely. "I see nothing unusual, Master. Do you?"

The old man shook his head, laying the star on the edge of the platform not far from me. The thing had six jagged points and a Chinese character engraved in the center. From my friends' reactions, I gathered it was a more or less generic throwing star.

"Whoever they were, Kwai Chang Caine," the Ancient said, "they meant to hit you."

"Yes," the intended target agreed.

I had already figured that out from the way the other stars had hit the wall where Caine had been. I had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"Does this kind of thing happen often?" I asked.

He shrugged again. "Sometimes."

"Yeah. But twice in one day? First Peter, then you? And what about the injury that put Peter in the hospital in the first place? How did that happen?"

"Someone tried to--run him down with their car. But there--may be no connection. Peter is a detective." Caine looked distinctly unhappy as he continued, "He has many enemies."

"As do you," Lo Si was quick to add.

Caine nodded ruefully. I wondered exactly what he'd been doing over the last few years here in Chinatown to have made so many enemies. Despite the time we'd spent together a few years ago, there was a whole hell of a lot I didn't know about this man. Well, I'd just have to make it my business to find out, wouldn't I?

Meanwhile, the object of my curiosity opened the double doors and walked outside, fussing with a good-sized potted plant that stood near the wall of the balcony. From my angle, I could see the skyline of the city beyond him, the buildings dotted with lights which created a hazy brightness on the low-lying layer of clouds above. I couldn't really tell if Caine's balcony extended any further than the small section within my line of sight, but we were obviously several stories up in the air. If we were on top of the building, the entire roof might well be out there also.

Lo Si went to the doorway. "Perhaps we should continue with our interrupted supper. There is food in the kitchen?"

"Yes," the other man replied, still involved with the vegetation. "One moment and I will come help--"

Several sharp cracks interrupted his words. One of the small windowpanes shattered and a ceramic jar on the other side of the room exploded into fragments. Caine twisted and fell sideways, while the Ancient dove forward to catch him.

Even before my brain had a chance to realize someone was shooting at us, I had rolled off the platform and crouched down on the floor.

It got quiet. Out on the balcony, Caine and the Ancient were both sheltered by the brick wall. There were no other nearby buildings significantly higher than this one, so at that angle they should be safe from any further bullets. Caine lay flat on his back while Lo Si bent over his legs. The old man's back was to me and I couldn't see what he was doing.

While courage definitely isn't one of my strong points, curiosity is. I measured the distance separating me from my friends, then ran for the meager protection of the wall to find out what was going on. Another square of glass blew out behind me and I thought I could feel the bullet pass by my head, but I may have imagined that.

I scrunched down next to Lo Si, who had one hand clamped hard on the outside of Caine's right thigh, while his other hand pressed against the pressure point for the femoral artery. I wasn't real happy to see blood steadily soaking through Caine's trousers anyway.

I pulled off my sweater and folded it into a pad. "Here. Use this."

From my recent classes in anatomy, I knew that the truly large arteries mostly run down the inside of the thigh. However, there are a few that circle around, so the bullet might have hit one of those, judging by the way blood spurted rhythmically from the wound during the brief time the old man lifted his hand to take my sweater.

"I'm going for help. Where's your phone?"

"Down the street and to the right," Lo Si replied calmly. "Around the corner, there is a booth"

Oh, great. They didn't have a phone here.

"Okay. I'm on my way."

I had barely started to move when Caine's hand closed around my upper arm, holding me down. "No. It is too dangerous."

I tried to pull loose, but knew I wouldn't be able to. "Damn it, man, you want to just lie here and bleed to death?!"

"I will go," the Ancient said.

"Sure. You can get to the phone booth faster than I can, and dodge bullets along the way?"

"Yes," he replied matter-of-factly. "Place your hand here and hold pressure on the wound until I return."

Still totally nonplused, I nevertheless moved to comply, but Caine still had hold of me. He said something to the old man in Chinese that sounded as if he were objecting to the situation. Lo Si replied shortly in a tone that really didn't invite dissent. The vise that was clamped around my arm let go and I put my hands where the Ancient instructed me to.

Then Lo Si was gone. He really could move faster than I could, especially considering my injured leg.

There was a moment there when I came awfully close to panic, pinned down by an assassin in the dubious shelter of a low wall, with my friend's blood oozing through my fingers. Caine looked awfully pale and his eyes were closed, but his face didn't have that slack look you usually see when someone's unconscious.

"Caine," I said inanely, "don't die."

"I--will not," he replied.

"Is that a promise?"

He slitted his eyes open and sort of smiled. Then he winced and closed his eyes again.

I wondered if maybe I should try to put a tourniquet around his leg, then discarded that idea. You only do that as a last resort, if someone is bleeding profusely and uncontrollably. That wasn't quite the case here. I might well do more harm than good.

As I knelt there waiting for help to arrive, I was distantly aware that blood was running down my own leg also. The cut must have opened up when I had moved. However, there wasn't enough pain to override the adrenaline in my veins, so I ignored it.

If I were the kind who believed in a personal god, I probably would have prayed, but I'm not, so I didn't. The best I could do was just crouch there hoping fervently that Caine would be able to keep his promise not to die. He meant enough to me that I would have given my own life to save him, but that's not a choice that was open just then.

I don't know how long it was before I heard the distant shriek of an ambulance siren, but it seemed like an eternity. Then we were surrounded by EMT's and police officers, who immediately took charge of the situation. I guess all that activity must have scared the sniper away, because no more shots were fired.

Lo Si drew me out of the way, taking me inside and sitting me down on the steps to the wooden platform. "He will be all right," he said gently. "Do not worry."

I nodded, but I worried anyway.

They loaded Caine onto a gurney. One of the medics was holding pressure on the bullet wound and there was already an IV running into his arm but he looked pretty awful when they wheeled him past me and out the door.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and glanced up to find one of the EMT's standing over me.

"You'd better come along with us, buddy. Your leg's bleeding, or hadn't you noticed?"

"Oh. Yeah. Sure," I said distractedly, my eyes following Caine. How were they going to get that gurney down all those stairs? Oh well, that wasn't my problem. I'm sure there was a way. Maybe there was an elevator or something.

The EMT hoisted me to my feet, but my leg buckled as soon as I put any weight on it. More to the point, how was I going to get myself down all those stairs, I wondered blearily.

The Ancient and the EMT each took an arm and they more or less carried me down to the ambulance, where I got wedged into a corner and hastily bandaged as we drove to the hospital. Most everyone's attention was on Caine, but that was as it should be, under the circumstances. My injury was relatively minor.

Caine kept his eyes closed and he didn't react to any of the jostling or poking and prodding that they did, but I still didn't think he was truly unconscious.

He opened his eyes for just a second as they unloaded the stretcher from the ambulance, but he didn't seem to be really focused on his surroundings. I didn't know if that was a good sign or not. I was pretty sure they'd take him directly to surgery, so I made no attempt to follow. Instead, I let the EMT's put me into a wheelchair and push me into Emergency, where I simultaneously answered as many questions as I could about Caine for the hospital admissions folks, told the police what had happened, and tried not to watch as a doctor stitched up my leg.

They gave me some antibiotics and painkillers and insisted I stay put for a while for observation. That was okay by me. I might as well lie here in a relatively comfortable bed while I waited to hear how Caine was doing as sit in a waiting room somewhere. They had put me in one of those little private rooms, so it was even relatively peaceful, for a hospital ER.

I guess I was pretty exhausted, because I had almost dozed off when Lo Si appeared. He had Caine's pouch slung over one shoulder and carried a shopping bag, which he set down on the chair.

I started to get up, but he pushed me gently back against the pillows.

"I have spoken to the doctors," he said, at the same time taking hold of my wrist the way you do when feeling for someone's pulse. "Kwai Chang Caine has just gone into surgery. It will be many hours before we will be able to see him, but they are confident that he will do well."

I breathed a sigh of relief.

Lo Si nodded and released my wrist, apparently satisfied with my pulse. He inspected my bandaged leg, touching it so gently that it didn't even hurt. Then he went over to the counter along one wall of the room, poured some water into a plastic cup, and began rummaging through Caine's shoulder bag.

"Uh, Lo Si there's something I've been wondering about," I said, hoping I might distract him from what he was doing before he could concoct something nasty for me to drink.

"Yes?" he said, without turning around.

"I know it sounds awful to think of such mundane considerations at a time like this, but how is Caine going to pay the hospital bills? I'll lay odds he doesn't have insurance."

Unfortunately, my question didn't deter the Ancient from his purpose. He handed me the cup, which was about half full of some greenish-brown gunk.

"Do not be concerned. Kwai Chang Caine has helped many people in the community. The bills will be paid."

Well, I suppose that's as good a form of medical insurance as any other. I drank the gunk without gagging.

"So what now?" I asked, tossing the empty cup at the waste basket. I missed. I never have been any good at that kind of thing.

"We must go and tell Peter what has happened to his father," Lo Si replied, picking up the cup and placing it where it should have gone. "But first--" he handed me the shopping bag-- "this is for you."

I opened the bag and found an outfit rather like what the old man himself was wearing, but this one was in gray instead of black.

"Where'd this come from?" I asked, fingering the soft material. It felt like silk.

"It is mine. I asked my niece to bring it. We are close to the same size, so it should fit you."

My own clothes were torn and splattered with blood, but I really hadn't thought about that until now.

"Hey, thanks. But you didn't have to do this. I could have borrowed some scrubs from the hospital"

"I did not have to, but I wished to," he answered with another one of his smiles.

I held up the shirt in front of me. Yeah, we were almost the same size. The pants would maybe be a little short, but not by much. Okay, I'm going to look a little conspicuous dressed in Chinese pajamas, but I guess I'll get over it. I've worn stranger things in my life.


The Ancient seemed to know his way around the corridors of County General, so I just followed him up to Peter's room. Now that I was on my feet, my leg had started to ache. Maybe I should have stayed in bed? Nah. That had been getting pretty boring.

Peter was sitting up in bed, his right arm in a sling. The TV set showed the 11 PM news, but the volume had been turned down almost to inaudibility. The curtains were drawn around the other bed in the room, whose occupant was presumably asleep, or trying to be. (Hospitals are terrible places for getting any rest. Too much noise and commotion. And they really do wake you up at god-awful hours to take your temperature or give you pills and stuff.)

"Hi, Lo Si," Peter said softly, putting a finger to his lips and jerking a thumb at the other bed. "What brings you here at this hour?" Then he caught sight of me, looking me over pretty carefully before asking, "Don't I know you?"

Pretty sharp kid, if he remembered me from earlier, considering how groggy he'd been. He certainly wasn't groggy now, although his face looked kind of pinched.

"Yeah," I answered affably. "I work down in MRI. My name's Jeremy."

"You're the one my father told me about then. That old friend of his. Guess I need to thank you for tricking that guy who tried to shoot me, huh?"

"Don't worry about it, kiddo," I replied. "Part of the job."

But he had sounded more uncomfortable than grateful, and his eyes continued to look me over. Now, I'm not exactly a flaming queen, but most people seem to be able to tell I'm gay. Yes, I wear an earring in my left ear, but so do lots of straight folks these days. And, this time at least, it couldn't be my choice of clothing, although he may well have thought it was pretty strange. I don't know how people can tell, but they usually can. On top of that, this boy was both a cop and Caine's son. He had to be pretty damn perceptive, and I could tell from the look on his face that he didn't especially like what he was perceiving.

He turned his attention to the Ancient. "What's going on? Where's Pop?"

"That is what I have come to talk to you about," Lo Si replied, launching into a description of the evening's events.

My leg was throbbing pretty badly by now, so I eased myself down into the only chair in the room. Propping my foot up on the siderail of the bed, I tried my best to fade into the woodwork as Lo Si filled Peter in on what had happened. I wasn't real pleased that Caine's son hadn't exactly taken to me, but perhaps he'd get over it.

Caine's son. I studied the boy through half-closed eyes, wondering what life had been like for him, as I listened to Lo Si talk.

It couldn't have been easy. There would simply be too much to live up to. Nevertheless, I'd have given a hell of a lot to have had a father like Kwai Chang Caine, even if I had thought I'd lost him at a fairly early age. I'm afraid my dear old dad was a major asshole. I try to be fair and ask myself how many average American men, much less a macho truck driver like my father, could have coped well with a sissy son in the 1950s, but it doesn't help. My dad blew it any way you looked at it. He went to his grave despising me for my sexual orientation.

Now that I thought about it, I wonder what would have happened if Peter had been gay? Caine had never had much of a problem with me, but what if it were his own son?

Then it occurred to me to wonder what Caine's father had been like. He'd once told me a little about the grandfather whose name he bore, but that was really all I knew of the family.

What was all this "father" stuff that was running through my head? Jeez, I hadn't even thought about my own dad in years. Enough already!

I turned my attention back to Lo Si and the boy, still watching them from under my eyelashes. Seeing them both together made them seem familiar somehow, but I knew I'd never run into either of them until today. I frowned, raking over my memories. A very old man, and a handsome young man. And I'd never met them before. Hmm.

Then I had it. I'd never met them, but I had seen them. Just once, in a strange flash of vision I'd had when I'd been about to part with Caine after our cross-country trek. I had seen some kind of elaborate ceremony, with a lot of fancy-dressed Chinese folks, plus Caine in an orange and black outfit. There had been faces--the old man, a young Chinese, and a young American. At the time, all I had told Caine was that I'd had a feeling he'd find what he was searching for. Looks as if he had, but I still wondered about the other young man, the Chinese one. I'd have to ask him about that someday.

By now, Lo Si had brought Peter up to date. When he said Caine was in surgery, I thought the boy was about to hop out of bed and demand to see his father right away, but he got his immediate impulse under control and settled for simply whacking his fist against the mattress.

"Oh jeez, that's just great! What do we do now?" he demanded.

"We wait," Lo Si replied. "And you--" he reached up and turned off the TV-- "sleep."

"I don't want to sleep. I'm not tired."

Lo Si flicked the light switch off also. "Then lie here in the darkness, young Caine, and meditate," he said with a smile.

I probably would have laughed, if my leg hadn't been hurting so much by now. As it was, I felt kind of woozy as I followed the old man out of the room and down the hall.

"Peter does not seem to like you," Lo Si remarked gently.

Pretty perceptive of him to notice. I wondered if he'd also figured out why. Oh well, might as well jump in with both feet as tiptoe around.

"I'm gay."

"Yes, I know." He flashed me another one of his smiles. "I am very, very old, but I am not yet blind."

I couldn't help but laugh then, which made me feel a hell of a lot better about Peter's reaction. At least the old man didn't mind.

I shouldn't have laughed. That only made the dizziness worse and prompted a wave of nausea. Maybe the pain pills they'd given me, or just being on my feet too much. I grabbed the handrail that ran the length of the corridor and leaned forward, willing the blood back into my brain.

The next thing I knew, Lo Si had appeared with a wheelchair.

"I don't need that," I protested weakly. "I can walk."

Sure, Jeremy. If you want to fall flat on your face. But straight men aren't the only folks who succumb to the foolish need to act strong all the time.

"Sit," the Ancient ordered concisely.

As the corridor spun around me, I reflected that this was someone even Kwai Chang Caine obeyed. Maybe I'd be well-advised to do as he said.

The old man pushed me down the hall, into an elevator, and then down another hall. Somewhere along the way, he'd picked up a pretty young nursing assistant as an escort.

"Where we going?" I finally got my mouth working well enough to ask.

"There are some rooms which may be used by people who are--" he hesitated over the unfamiliar expression-- "on call? The nurses say you may use one of them to lie down and sleep."

"I don't want to sleep."

"You are as bad as Peter," he concluded, as we reached a room at the very end of the corridor.

"I've got to wait and see how Caine's doing in the OR," I protested.

"You do not have to be awake in order to wait." He patted the bed with one hand and literally hoisted me out of the wheelchair with the other.

I gave in as gracefully as I could, under the circumstances. The young nursing assistant fussed over Lo Si as much as she did over me. He seems to have a way with women.

Lying down was a definite improvement. I fell asleep almost as soon as they left the room. (Well, after I had spent the obligatory stretch of time worrying about Caine, anyway.)


By the time I woke up, it was almost dawn. It didn't take long for me to make myself reasonably presentable and track down Caine's whereabouts. Much to my relief, he was on the general medical/surgical floor, rather than in Intensive Care. I headed for his room, navigating the trackless maze of hospital corridors with practiced ease. (In other words, I only made one wrong turn. This is a big hospital and I'm fairly new here.)

I was coming up on the room number I wanted when I heard voices from inside. Good. Caine had visitors. That was a hopeful sign also. Then I caught the sound of my name and froze just outside the door. I realized it was Peter's voice I had heard, and he didn't sound altogether pleased.

"Pop, that friend of yours--Jerry?"

"Jeremy," Caine corrected him. He had a tendency to pronounce my name rather slowly, so that each syllable was quite distinct.

"Yeah, him. How well do you know him anyway? Any chance he could be involved in all these attacks?"

Peter suspected me?! Good grief! But I guess that's what happens when you're a cop.

"I--trust Jeremy, my son. Besides, did he not help save your life the other day?"

Judging by his voice, Caine seemed pretty alert. He must have been out of surgery for quite some time. Either that, or he recovered real quickly.

"That's true," Peter allowed grudgingly. "But he's kind of strange. I think he's gay."

"Yes," was the quiet reply.

"That doesn't bother you?" Peter sounded rather incredulous at this revelation.

"Should it--bother me?"

"You said you trusted him. How long have you known him?" Peter asked.

"We traveled together in his car, shortly before I found you."

"Oh?"

"Peter, I know what you are thinking. Jeremy is a friend. I helped him see the value of his life, and he helped me to--go on."

"That's all?"

I thought I detected a certain amount of amusement in Caine's voice when he answered, "What more did you expect?"

"Pop, when he was in my room earlier, I saw the look on his face whenever your name was mentioned."

Oops! Was I really that transparent? Or was this young man just extremely observant? I'd clearly have to watch myself around him.

"In case you hadn't noticed," Peter continued, "I think he--"

"Enough," Caine said sternly. "In the time we spent together, Jeremy has never even made a--pass at me."

Peter laughed uneasily. "Okay, Pop. Just watch your ass when he's around, huh?"

"I do not think that will be necessary."

I figured this had gone on about long enough, so I rapped loudly on the door and called out, "Hey, anybody home?"

"Uh--yeah," Peter said, turning to face me as I walked in.

Caine was in the bed near the window, while Peter perched on the edge of the windowsill. The blinds behind him were down and closed. They rustled noisily as he shifted position.

I wasn't real sure what to say next. Caine looked pretty perky for someone who'd just had a bullet dug out of his leg, although he was attached to the obligatory IV. The electronic IVAC unit on the pole monitored the flow of various antibiotics in their little inverted plastic bags, but he wasn't on oxygen or attached to any monitors that might indicate he was having serious problems. That was yet another good sign.

There seemed to be no need for heavy-duty drama or emotional scenes, so I decided to go with a lighter touch, especially considering Peter's presence. I went over and stood next to the bed on the opposite side from the boy. Caine looked at me in the Ancient's clothes and sort of winced.

"Hey," I said in response to his less-than-appreciative reaction, "I thought they were pretty neat."

"The color--does not suit you."

Humph! A lot he knows. I've always thought I looked good in gray.

"Well, it suits me better than the pink flowers on that hospital gown suit you," I pointed out. "How do you like being a patient in our fine establishment?"

"I can think of--many--things I would rather do," Caine replied.

I asked the usual hospital question. "How's the food?"

He shrugged. (Jeez, he even does it lying down!)

"I do not know. I have not--had any of it yet."

Peter hadn't said anything so far. His arm was still in a sling, but there was no wheelchair, so he had apparently gotten to his father's room under his own power. He wore a sweatsuit, not a hospital gown. All this pointed to the likelihood that he'd be getting released pretty soon.

The silence was about to get uncomfortable when Lo Si came in the door, carrying a styrofoam coffee cup with a plastic cover.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, catching sight of me. "I was about to go and wake you. But you should not be on your feet." He waved at the empty bed. "Sit down and put your leg up."

I looked at Caine, rolled my eyes, and did as I was told. It did ease the growing ache in my leg. (Yeah, it's kind of nice to be fussed over, if you're not in too much pain. But I've been around hospitals enough to realize that you pretty quickly reach a point where all the comfort in the world isn't worth the hurt.)

Meanwhile, Lo Si handed the styrofoam cup to Caine, who took the lid off and dutifully sipped at whatever it was the old man had given him.

"I am sorry about the cup," the Ancient apologized. "It was all they had at the nurse's station. But there is a microwave there," he concluded, beaming.

Peter waved at the IV pole with its cluster of bags and said teasingly, "He doesn't need that stuff, Lo Si. He's probably got enough antibiotics in his veins by now to kill any germ within a ten mile radius."

The Ancient looked at him with mild reproach. "This will not kill germs. It will strengthen his body to heal itself."

Peter looked dubiously at the cup in his father's hand, then remarked in Caine's direction, "Yeah, well, better you than me, Pop."

Maybe Peter and I did agree on some things, after all.

The nursing assistant picked that moment to arrive with a breakfast tray, bustling efficiently around the room until she had the tray situated on a bed table and Caine propped up into a reasonably comfortable position for eating. This NA was middle-aged and African-American, but she too seemed to know and like the Ancient, judging by the cheery greeting she gave him. (Damn! If I had half as much of a way with the men as that skinny old guy had with women, I'd be sitting pretty. How does he do it, anyhow?)

As the NA took the cover off the food tray with a flourish that would have done justice to a master chef, the shit hit the fan. The window shattered and collapsed in a rain of broken glass as a steady stream of bullets zigzagged across the far wall in an erratic pattern. Before I even realized what was going on, Peter had hit the floor by the window, pulling the woman down beneath him. I ended up between the two beds, in more or less of a tangle with Caine, Lo Si, the IV pole, and the food tray, as the last of the bullets tore through the mattress just above our heads. Then it got quiet, except for the urgent electronic beep of the IVAC monitor, which didn't take kindly to being in its present position.

"Stay down!" Peter ordered. "Is anybody hurt?"

"We are--undamaged," Caine replied calmly.

I was pretty much on the bottom and didn't recall making any decision to hit the floor, so Caine and/or Lo Si must have dragged me down as they took cover. We were still working on getting ourselves untangled when the NA, commendably concerned for her patient's safety, crawled around the wrecked bed to check on Caine.

Peter, meanwhile, peeked around the edge of the windowframe, where a few surviving slats from the blinds still swung back and forth with a half-hearted clatter.

No more artillery fire seemed to be incoming, at least for the time being. As the NA checked the bandages on Caine's leg, I wiped scrambled eggs and coffee off my eyeglasses. The IVAC continued to complain.


Later on, in a different room with police guards outside the door, we were still trying to sort out what was going on.

"This just doesn't make a whole lot of sense, Pop," Peter summarized. "First, someone tries to run me down, then someone else tries to shoot me. Next, you're attacked in an alley, then you get shot on your balcony. And now someone shoots up the hospital room. We've got the one who came after me in MRI in custody, but we've yet to nail any of the others. The ones in the alley weren't exactly great martial artists, according to your description, and the next person wasn't much of a marksman. I mean, not to brag or anything, but if I'd been doing the shooting, you'd have been dead. It wasn't that hard a shot. Besides, the bullets were 30 caliber, and the shell casings on the rooftop across the street were Army surplus ammo, which means the sniper probably used an old style military rifle. A real pro would have had a far more sophisticated weapon and would have been much more careful about the shell casings. And now this latest attempt, using an automatic weapon and firing into a room with the blinds drawn. A pro would never do that, either."

Caine shrugged. "You and I have both made--many enemies. Not all of them are professional killers."

"Yeah, but this is getting a little ridiculous! Lots of inept and apparently unconnected people are trying to kill one or both of us. Something must be behind all this."

"Did you get any information from the one in custody?" Lo Si inquired. He'd been taking stuff out of Caine's pouch and laying it on the bedside stand. Now he seemed to be pretty intent on sorting through what he had available to work with.

"Not much. The Chief tells me he's a small-time hood, but none of his prior arrests have involved serious crimes, much less attempted homicide. He said something about money before he decided to clam up and demand a lawyer. I hardly think anyone would hire someone like that to take me out. And the rest of it just seems so disconnected, not to mention downright inept."

"Maybe there's a price on your heads?" I interjected uncertainly. After all, what did I really know about this kind of thing?

Peter ignored what I said, but Caine turned to me with a strange expression on his face. "My--grandfather--had a price on his head. I do not."

"No, Pop. He doesn't mean the law. He means someone put out a contract on you. And me too."

"A--contract?" Lo Si asked.

Caine had gotten the idea by now. "Someone has offered money to anyone who kills us," he explained slowly. I could tell the idea disturbed him. I could even guess why, considering what I already knew about the grandfather he had just mentioned.

"That's possible," Peter conceded. "But who would do such a thing?"

"Someone with a lot of money, and a lot of reasons to dislike both of you," I suggested.

Peter gave me a quick glance, as if surprised that a reasonably possible suggestion had actually come from my direction, then he turned his attention to his father.

"Well, I'm not saying this is true, but if it is, it's going to get worse. The only thing that's come after us so far is the riff-raff. If there's enough money involved and word gets out to the real professionals, we could be in deep trouble."

"Yes," Caine agreed.

Peter made up his mind. "I'm going back to my room and make some phone calls. See what I can find out." He went over to Caine's bed. "Try to get some rest, Pop," he said gently. "I'll take care of this." Then he leaned over and kissed the other man's forehead.

I stared in shocked surprise as the boy left the room. Never could I have done that to my father. Never. He would have decked me.

Lo Si, meanwhile, was still sorting through his store of medicinal herbs, no doubt planning to make up more noxious potions for Caine to drink. Things had gotten somewhat damaged in the commotion we'd had earlier. Some of the little bags and vials were leaking or broken. He shook his head, clearly displeased.

"I will need to go and get more herbs," he said. "The dang gui has been totally--trashed?" He glanced at me, as if to ask whether he had used the expression appropriately. When I nodded, he went on to test a couple of other items that had apparently also bitten the dust.

I considered all the people who had been taking pot shots at Caine recently. If anything else happened, Lo Si would be a lot more useful to have close at hand than I would be. So I offered, "I can go pick them up."

"You would not know what to get," Lo Si pointed out.

Caine considered this for a moment. "I can tell you exactly where to look and what to bring. But is your leg well enough for you to drive?"

No, not really. It still hurt if I stood up for too long. But I wasn't going to tell him that. He had to hurt a lot worse than I did, especially after diving out of the way of that last round of bullets. And I'd seen him refuse the nurse's offer of more pain meds.

"No problem," I said easily. "Just give me the address and I can take a taxi.

"It--could be dangerous."

"Nah. No one's gunning for me." I smiled, trying for the same effect that Lo Si gets when he does it. "No one's going to pay to have me taken out. I haven't made that kind of enemy."

Caine nodded, but he didn't look altogether pleased. Nevertheless, he proceeded to give me the info I would need, while I scribbled everything down on a piece of paper.

When I was all set, I wondered briefly if I could get away with Peter's style of parting with his father.

Nah. Better not push my luck.

"If I'm not back in two hours," I quipped, "send out a search party. Okay?"


I reached Caine's apartment with no further problems. In fact, the cab driver seemed to know right where it was as soon as I mentioned the address. Some of that yellow tape the police use around crime scenes was still in place, but I ignored it. The doors were unlocked, as Caine had said they would be.

Being the incorrigibly curious person that I am, I decided to check out the place while I was there. (Well, the more or less public parts, anyway. I don't go poking around people's bedrooms or bathrooms uninvited.)

There was one room that was basically empty, except for an uneven circle of candles of various shapes and sizes on the floor, and a smallish altar against one wall. Picking my way between the candles, I went over to take a closer look at the altar.

As was only to be expected, a statue of the Buddha formed the main focus, with vases of flowers and yet more candles on either side. There were also a few plates of fruit and some odd containers, which could have been used to hold sticks of burning incense. All of this sat on a narrow dark-wood table, with a deep red cloth cover.

Nothing really unusual, as Chinese family altars go. I'd seen much the same sort of thing in the homes of some of Bobbie's relatives. I knew you could pretty much put anything you wanted in the way of gods in the place of honor. There were plenty of Chinese deities to choose from if you didn't particularly care for the Buddha. In fact, there were even several types of Buddhas, if you want to get real fussy about it. Sometimes I'd also seen photographs of deceased family members on the altars. There was no set formula as to what had to be included.

Always seemed rather a good idea to me: customize your gods, individual expression, and all that. Maybe I should do something like this myself.

From there, I located the room with the platform where I'd been the previous night, which seemed to be sort of a workroom. As I've already mentioned, there were shelves all around the walls full of bottles, tins, books, jars, boxes, spays of dried stuff, and other miscellaneous items. Most of the containers weren't labeled, and if they were, it was in Chinese.

Being in no particular hurry, I strolled around and examined everything, in great detail. (And there were plenty of details to examine, believe me!) I only thought that I liked to live in the midst of clutter and personal mementos. Caine had me beat a thousandfold. Still, this was obviously a work space, so at least he had an excuse.

Glass crunched under one foot as I skirted a table in the center of the room. Other than several panes of broken glass in the windows and the remains of a ceramic jar near the other wall, there hadn't been much damage done by all the shooting. I bent down and picked the largest chunks of glass up off the brick floor, then did the same for the shattered jar. There was no dustpan or brush in sight, but I cleaned up the mess as best I could with a couple of rags.

That done, I figured it was about time to get serious about my reason for coming here in the first place. I got out my scribbled instructions and began tracking down items for Lo Si.

Let's see. "Three small shelves on the wall to the right of the door. Second one on top. Dark glass bottle in middle." Okay. Got it. (Uck! There was one of those flayed lizards on the other shelf. I still wanted to know what he used them for.)

Next, I needed a few dried mushrooms from a certain dish on the table. That was easy enough. Then some kind of herb that was hanging up to dry at the top of the window above the platform. A little hard for me to reach, but I managed. (They'd even drawn a sketch of the leaves, so I'd be sure to get the right bunch, since there were several to choose from.)

Last, I had to locate a small ceramic container on the side table between the windows, exact pattern of stripes drawn in a neat little diagram on my list. (Jeez, Caine had to have this entire room memorized in great detail. No easy task, considering.)

Inside the container, there was a more or less modern-looking package of capsules. (Wow! Chinese medicine enters the Twentieth Century!) The packet was marked "Yunnan Pai Yao", whatever that was.

I scrounged around until I found a discarded plastic bag in which to carry this stuff back to the hospital. Recalling the Ancient's dislike for the styrofoam coffee cup, I added a teacup that looked as if it might be microwave-safe, then set my carefully-assembled hoard on the edge of the wooden platform, almost on top of the shuriken, which still lay where Caine had left it.

That reminded me of the pain in my leg, which I had been dutifully trying to ignore. Opening the double glass doors, I went out onto the balcony, sat on top of the wall, and propped my leg up on the concrete capping in order to relieve the pressure for a while. I did my best not to notice the bloodstain still left on the floor where Caine had fallen.

It was early afternoon, bright and sunny and still fairly warm for this time of year. I sat basking in the sunshine, squinting out at the surrounding buildings and the skyline of the rest of the city.

You're absolutely not going to believe this, but all of a sudden there was a tiger standing there on the balcony with me. I blinked in astonishment and it was gone.

But where the tiger had been, there now stood a man. He was about my height, but that's where any similarity ended. He was oriental, with a rather broad and flat face. Very snappy dresser: obviously wealthy.

Cold black eyes raked over me as he asked disdainfully, "Who are you?"

"Jeremy Langsten. And who might you be?" I asked in return, almost as rudely.

If it's possible to look down a flat Chinese nose at someone, he did it to me. "I am Bon Bon Hai," he announced, as if stating a fact of enormous importance.

I took an instant dislike to this guy, and my mouth took over from there. "Is that a name, or some kind of candy?"

He took a step toward me, eyes flaring fire. I almost thought he meant to attack me with his bare hands. Then he got his anger under control, merely stating coldly, "I am looking for Kwai Chang Caine."

"Well, you're looking in the wrong place. He's in the hospital."

Bon Bon Hai smiled. He strolled over to the low wall of the balcony and sniffed carefully at the delicate purple blossom of a potted plant, appearing mighty pleased with himself about something.

"The troublesome priest has met with an accident, then?" he suggested.

"Yeah, you might say that. Somebody shot him."

"How unfortunate." But he was smiling too happily for me to take his words at face value. Whatever this man was, he was no friend of Caine's, that was for sure. Hmm. Very rich and very powerful--and also not very nice.

"You know something about this, don't you, pal?" I asked.

The cold eyes focussed in on me again. I felt as if he saw more than I wished him to see. Not at all a comfortable feeling. I just might be skating on thin ice here. But since when has that ever stopped me from opening my big mouth?

"What business is it of yours?" he demanded.

"Caine's my friend."

His lip curled as he looked me up and down. "I did not think even Kwai Chang Caine would befriend filth such as you."

I didn't really have to ask him what he meant. Holding onto my temper with an effort, I made a giant assumption. "You're the one who put a price on their heads, aren't you? You want Caine and his son dead, but you won't dirty your own hands to do it."

"How did you know?"

I did a shrug that would have done credit to Caine himself. "I'm a good guesser?"

"Better for you if you do not guess about things that are not your concern."

"I told you, Caine's my friend. That makes it my concern."

"Then it would be better if you were to choose other fiends," he said smoothly, "for these will soon be dead."

"Why are you out to get them?" I asked. "What have they done to you?"

"They have interfered with my plans, torn down the empire I strove to build. They have gotten in my way too many times. And the priest--" he hesitated as if remembering something, then looked even more vicious than before-- "has destroyed something of great value to me, someone whose power I had hoped to wield."

"Too bad," I replied with intentional sarcasm. I still sat on the wall of the balcony.

Closing the distance between us, Bon Bon Hai grabbed a handful of my gray silk shirt and literally lifted me onto my feet.

"It will be too bad for you, if you get in my way also, ignorant fool," he hissed.

The unholy gleam in his eyes sent a shiver down my spine. I was suddenly very aware of just how much empty air was between Caine's balcony and the street below. I might have tried to fight him off, but he projected the kind of coiled power that reminded me all too much of Caine, except this was vicious and malevolent. I'd have bet this guy could take me apart with his bare hands, if he felt like it. Perhaps I'd managed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time again?

"What the hell are you, anyway?" I demanded with false bravado.

Bon Bon Hai smiled. "I am evil, and darkness," was the smug response.

"You wouldn't kid me, would you?" I said with as much sarcasm as I dared, under the circumstances. I just can't help taunting people that I don't like, a trait which has gotten me into deep shit every now and then.

"No, I would not," he replied, in perfect seriousness. He made some sort of weird gesture with his other hand and suddenly I was watching this thing in black armor that kind of reminded me of a Japanese version of Darth Vader, but it held an ordinary sword rather than a light saber.

Bon Bon Hai knelt before the creature as it touched each of his shoulders and then his head with its sword.

"May the dark powers course within your veins for all time," I heard it tell him. "Go forth into the world of man and prepare for my imminent arrival."

Bon Bon Hai smiled maniacally, as if his fondest wish had just been granted. Then the scene evaporated in mist and smoke.

This guy was an emissary of some kind of mystical dark power? Whew! That didn't bode well for my safety, much less that of my friends. I had no chance against him, certainly not on the physical level, and apparently not on the spiritual level either. What on earth could I hope to do against something like this? How could I keep him off Caine and Peter?

On the other hand, hadn't I talked a gun out of a man's hand once, in Wyoming? Maybe I could do it again with this dude, metaphorically speaking, of course.

"All right, you've made your point," I admitted shakily. "I believe you. You're evil and darkness. You want Caine and his son dead, and you've got enough money to pay some other poor suckers to do your dirty work. Can't say I approve of your methods, pal."

"I do not need your approval." So saying, he flung me the width of the balcony. I fetched up hard against the brick wall of the building, knocking over a couple of plants in the process. (Good start, Jeremy. Keep it up and you'll have him eating right out of your hand. Not.)

"Tell the priest his days are numbered," Bon Bon Hai said, turning away and taking a few steps towards the archway at the side of the balcony.

If he walked out of here, nothing would be settled and Caine and Peter would still be in danger. I pulled myself up to my feet and said to his back, "Tell him yourself. I'm not your fucking messenger boy, you arrogant son of a bitch."

As I've already admitted, I've got a smart mouth. I could probably make Mother Teresa lose her temper, if I wanted to. But this time I was doing it intentionally, hoping to keep my charming visitor from leaving.

It worked. Bon Bon Hai froze where he was.

I went on. "Tell me, do you always hire other people to fight your battles, or is it just Caine that you can't handle?"

When he spun around to face me, he held a knife in his right hand. It was long, narrow, and vicious-looking, with intricate figures inscribed along the blade.

Maybe it was time to ease off a little, before he skewered me? I backed away, through the double doors and into the room. Unfortunately, he followed me, with that mirthless and chilling smile still on his face.

"Uh--wait a minute now. Let's--uh--think this over," I stammered, continuing to back across the room until I hit one of the tables.

Bon Bon Hai swung at me with the knife. I think he was only toying with me at this point, because he would've missed by a mile. Nevertheless, my hand came up instinctively to try to block.

He grabbed my wrist with his free hand, dug his thumb into the back of my hand, and twisted around and down.

In case you've never been grabbed like that, it hurts. You automatically turn and drop down, trying to take the pressure off your wrist. By the time I was crouched on the floor and had no further to go, it really hurt. I knew if he pressed just a little harder, something was going to give.

Bon Bon Hai leaned over me and held his knife to my throat. I could feel the pulse in my left carotid artery just beneath the sharp point.

Okay, this is it. I'm history. There's no way I'm getting out of this. I closed my eyes and hoped it would at least be over quickly.

But instead of the pain and darkness I was expecting, a strange scene flashed through my mind.

The Japanese Darth Vader was back, but he was fighting with Caine this time. And Caine wasn't doing so good.

The whole scene took place against a stark white background, with Caine dressed in white. I saw him get knocked down.

As the creature in black armor raised its sword to strike a killing blow, Caine managed to get to his knees and catch the sword, one hand on either side of the blade, as it came down at him. The damn thing was practically touching his forehead and his eyes were focussed on the sharp edge that was about to destroy him. All his magnificent fighting prowess had already proven useless and it seemed pretty clear to me that he was dead meat.

Faced with this impossibly hopeless situation, Caine said the last thing in the world that I expected to hear.

"Goodness shall triumph. Light banishes darkness. Truth can be the only victor."

He was claiming victory, even in defeat. The scene stopped there. Everything blurred out of focus, so I couldn't tell what happened next. Whatever it was, Caine had to have won out. After all, he's alive, isn't he?

But what did all that have to do with me, and where in the hell had it come from?

I slitted my eyes open. I guess Bon Bon Hai was enjoying the terror on my face, because he hadn't killed me yet. On the other hand, he was still smiling. That wasn't good.

Something about the strange scene I had just watched scratched at the edge of my incipient panic. What was it Caine had said? Something about truth being the only victor? What was Bon Bon Hai's truth? What lay beneath his hatred of Caine?

I looked up into those cold black eyes and suddenly I thought I knew what drove him.

"You're afraid," I said, as calmly as I could considering the knife at my throat. "You're afraid of Kwai Chang Caine and his son."

"I fear nothing," he replied harshly. "It is you who should be afraid."

Despite his denial, I was sure I'd hit a nerve. I may not know a lot about courage, but I'm an expert on fear. And I know when I see it in a man's eyes.

"I am afraid," I admitted. "But that doesn't help you any, does it now?"

He looked away. "I fear nothing," he repeated, perhaps hoping to convince himself. "I am evil, and darkness."

I decided to try a line on him that Caine had once used on me. "Fear is the only darkness," I said firmly. "The truth is that you're terrified of Caine and Peter. If you weren't, you'd have the guts to face them yourself."

The black eyes blazed fire and the point of the knife cut into my throat.

"You can kill me, if that's what you want," I persisted. "But you can't kill your own fear. The only way you can even begin to do that is by facing what you fear. And if one of your bounty hunters gets lucky enough to take down Caine, or Peter, you'll never have the opportunity to do that, now will you?"

He didn't like that, but it wasn't going to be enough to save me. I could tell from his face, and the way he twisted my trapped wrist just a little further. His next words only confirmed my suspicion.

"You are right," he admitted slowly. "But that will do you little good now. I will deal with the priest and his son myself--after I have dealt with you."

Then I heard Caine's voice in my mind, barely more than a strained whisper. "Permission, Jeremy?"

I didn't have any idea of what he was asking, but where Caine is concerned, it's pretty much like that country and western song I've been hearing lately: "Anything you want, you got it."

Besides, things could hardly get any worse, could they?

"Hell, yes!" I thought back.

My left hand came down, around, and up to strike the inside of the wrist that held the knife to my throat. Simultaneously, I twisted to the left and down, rolling sideways, the momentum of my body enough to wrench my other wrist out of Bon Bon Hai's grasp. As I turned, I swept his feet out from under him with my left foot. He fell backwards, the knife flying from his hand and skittering across the brick floor.

I came to my feet next to the platform, still totally astonished at what I was doing, as Bon Bon Hai scrambled after his knife.

He said something nasty in Chinese as he picked it up by the blade, then he drew back his arm to throw.

I felt the polished metal of the shuriken under the fingers of my hand. Then I picked it up and tossed it, smoothly and effortlessly. It struck the knife in mid-air. Both implements fell with a sharp clatter.

No way in hell could I have done that. I can't even toss a plastic cup into a wastebasket, remember?

Bon Bon Hai stared at me. Then he retrieved his knife and looked at it unbelievingly.

"How--? Ah! The priest. This is his doing."

He had to be right. There was no other reasonable explanation for my sudden ability to do this stuff. But whatever force had been directing my body, it was draining away now. My knees were shaking. I sincerely hoped Bon Bon Hai wouldn't notice that just yet.

Apparently, he hadn't. He sidled toward the glass doors, keeping a wary distance between us.

"Tell the priest and his son that I will be coming for them myself, sometime when they least expect it."

He gave me a look of pure hatred. Then the tiger was there again. And then it wasn't, and the room was empty except for me.

Only at that point did it occur to me that I may have done Caine and Peter no favor by convincing Bon Bon Hai to take them on himself. He might well be more dangerous than any paid assassin.

I walked over to where the shuriken lay on the floor. For a long moment, I stood staring at it. So beautiful. And so deadly. Then I picked it up and placed it in the plastic bag with the stuff I had collected to bring to the Ancient, planning to keep it. A sharp twinge of pain ran up my leg as I started for the door. I figured I had earned this little memento, even if it hadn't been meant for me in the first place.


"I thought you didn't read minds," I said to Caine later on, back at the hospital. For some reason, he looked rather worse than he had before. He was almost as pale as the pillows that seemed to be the only thing keeping him propped in an upright position.

"I do not. I get--images--" He waved one hand weakly in frustration, as if he couldn't find the right word for what he wanted-- "pictures--of things happening. I can sometimes--send images of my own, if there is need."

"Yeah, fine. But you did more than just show me pictures." I picked up the shuriken. "I'm no good at tossing these things around. How'd you do that?"

Caine looked at Lo Si. "I had--help. But even so--such a thing is not done easily--or without cost."

Like I said, he did look kind of ragged.

"And it cannot be done," he went on, "without the other person's full cooperation."

"Hey, no problem," I replied. "But there's one thing I'm kind of worried about. What happens when Bon Bon Hai decides to carry out his threat? He'll be after you and Peter himself, one of these days."

Lo Si looked up from the concoction he was making. "When he comes, we shall be ready," he said calmly. "Do not be concerned."

That was the moment the nursing assistant chose to appear at the door with a supper tray for Caine, cutting off any further discussion. Since Caine hadn't been in any shape last night to check off his choices on the following day's menu, the dietitian had made her own choices. The result was a tray overloaded with food, much of which Caine probably wouldn't want to eat.

However, it smelled pretty good to me, especially the hamburger steak with gravy.

Caine inspected the unpromising meal with a jaundiced eye. The vegetables were thoroughly overcooked, there was coffee instead of tea, and there were certainly no chopsticks. He sighed, then waved one hand at the plate.

"Jeremy--would you care to join me?" he asked.

"Well, considering what's happened at our last two meals, I'm not sure that would be a good idea," I replied, only half in jest. So far, I'd gotten a shuriken in my leg on the way to dinner, plus most of Caine's breakfast in my hair as we dodged bullets in his hospital room.

"I am sure this will be all right," Lo Si said, picking up a roll and taking a bite. "See?"

When nothing untoward happened, I wasted no time polishing off the hamburger, while Caine and Lo Si picked at the other stuff. (I also got the slice of chocolate cake. It wasn't bad, for hospital food.)

"Well," I quipped, when we had totally emptied the tray, "looks as if we got to have dinner together at last."

"If you can call this--dinner," Caine remarked wryly.

We all laughed. But even while I was doing it, I remembered the absolute terror I had felt, down on the floor with Bon Bon Hai about to kill me. Fortunately, that memory was countered by the equally vivid image of the shuriken arcing across the room from my outflung hand, and the look of shock on Bon Bon Hai's face when he realized what was happening. Not exactly the kinds of things that I usually have to deal with.

I looked at my two companions and realized I was smiling almost as brightly as the Ancient.

Kwai Chang Caine was back in my life. This could get interesting.

BACK TO STORY INDEX