Nadina held tightly to the tiny fingers that wriggled around in her hand. She rarely liked to venture into downtown Macau, preferring to keep to the somewhat safer suburb where she and M’boku were living. But today she’d had some business to take care of, and she’d promised M’boku that once they were done, if he was good, they would go to a show. Macau was a big casino town– the gambling capital of the world– and while that did attract some of the most unsavory people, it also meant that there was always a lot of great entertainment available. M’boku had been asking to see a troupe of acrobats that had been advertised a lot lately.
Recently, she’d started calling him by his real name. She wasn’t sure if that was a risk or not, but calling him John just felt wrong to her somehow. And the first time she’d accidentally addressed him as M’boku, he’d answered to it as easily as if he’d never had any other name. She wasn’t certain whether or not that was a bad sign, either. But she didn’t sense any indication that he might be awakening early, and he hadn’t been showing any of the usual symptoms, either. So she tried not to think too much about it, and kept reassuring herself that soon enough he would be safely off to boarding school, and she wouldn’t have to worry anymore about causing him any permanent damage.
They had to walk through the main level of the casino to get to the theater entrance. The crowd inside was uncomfortably thick, so Nadina lifted M’boku up and carried him, smiling at the feeling of his little arms squeezing around her neck and shoulders as he excitedly watched the twinkling lights and bright colors that surrounded them.
For a moment, she thought she saw a familiar face on the other side of the room. Nadina peered through the throng and caught a glimpse of a young man with platinum-blonde hair being led into one of the private rooms in the back, but she couldn’t see his face. She shook her head. Even if she hadn’t just imagined the patch, it really could have been anyone. Was she becoming paranoid now?
There was a long line at the entrance to the show, and everyone was crowded so closely together that Nadina considered going home. But she had promised M’boku that they would see this show today, so she braved the heat and the stench of all those people and packed herself in with everyone else, clinging tightly to the precious child in her arms.
Almost immediately she felt a large, rough hand slide up the back of her skirt. Yet another reason why she hated crowds. “Remove your hand from my body,” she enunciated in her most polite Cantonese, “or I will remove it from your arm.” The man behind her laughed, the stink of alcohol on his breath nearly gagging her as the hand slipped even higher under her skirt. Shifting M’boku to one side, she reached back with her free hand and grabbed the man’s wrist. Squeezing it hard, she wrenched it to one side until she felt it snap. The man whimpered and collapsed onto the floor, cradling his broken wrist against his chest. The rest of the crowd stepped around him as the line moved forward, ignoring his pathetic crying just as they had ignored his perverted groping.
Nadina squeezed M’boku with both arms and planted a quick kiss on his soft cheek. He would never have tried something like that. No matter what others may think of him– no matter how far he may sometimes take his little games– no one could ever accuse him of being less than a gentleman to any woman.
After waiting in line for about an hour, they were finally able to find their seats before the show began. M’boku had no problem with the long wait. He was fascinated by all of the lights and the people everywhere, the music and noise of the casino, and the posters of acrobats in colorful costumes hanging on the wall near the entrance to the theater. By the time they were seated, he was so excited that he could hardly keep himself still, and was squirming and bouncing in his chair.
Nadina smiled. At times like this, she was glad to be able to spend time with him as a child. Usually she didn’t get to be with him until he awakened, which usually happened when he was a teenager. Last time he’d been about seventeen years old. Being together like this, when he was dormant and so small and sweet . . . She hadn’t thought it could be possible for the bond between them to grow stronger than it already was, but caring for him as an innocent, helpless child had somehow made her feel even closer to him than before. If she didn’t know that it was dangerous for him, she would want to keep him with her like this every time.
Nadina was not very impressed with the acrobats, but what they lacked in physical skill, they more than made up for with dramatic lighting and music, and with elaborate, glittering costumes. M’boku thought it was the most amazing thing he’d ever witnessed. He couldn’t stop talking about it as they left the theater, and as she carried him through the main floor of the casino, and as they walked outside.
He skipped along beside her, clinging to her fingers as she led him back toward the station. “. . . and that man jumped on top of that other man, and then that girl climbed up to the top of all the men, and she stood on her hands and made her body go all twisty and curly! And then that red princess lady did a jump and a flip and she landed on that twisty girl’s belly! And then– those guys are fighting. Are they bad guys?”
Nadina turned to look. There was a brawl going on in an alleyway behind the casino they had just left. She was about to turn away and move on when something made her stop and take another look.
One man was huddled against a wall, holding his face as if he had a broken nose. Two other men were still fighting their assailant, a slender teenager with pale blonde hair who had his back to her. It was this person that had made her give a double-take.
The two men still fighting the young man were both very large and capable-looking. The taller of the two appeared to be of northern-Chinese descent, with short-cropped black hair and a wide jaw. The other was a bit leaner, with more of a Korean look to his features, and had shaggy red-brown hair that stuck out fashionably in all directions. As Nadina watched, the red-haired man bent low, thrust his arms out in front of him, and rushed forward to tackle the blonde boy’s middle. But the boy shifted to one side at the last second and lifted one knee hard, right into the red-haired man’s diaphragm, knocking the breath out of him. Then the larger man ran at him, shouting wildly as he raised his fists high in the air and jumped to throw his whole weight into the massive blow he was aiming at the top of the boy’s head. But the slight young man dodged this attack as well, turning smoothly out of the way and tripping up the man’s landing so that he fell head-first onto the concrete.
Nadina watched him slam his small, pale fists into the bodies and faces of his attackers over and over, until she felt a small tug at her hand and looked down.
M’boku was staring up at her. “Is he the bad guy?” he asked.
Nadina squeezed his hand and smiled at him. “Not usually,” she replied. She took a few steps toward the alleyway.
The young man stopped for a moment and turned to look at her. He raised one bloody hand to brush his thick blonde hair out of his face. He had a smooth, round face and a small, pouty mouth. A pretty little nose. His right eye was very beautiful– large and round, the color of milk chocolate, with a thick fringe of dark brown lashes. The patch across his left eye had been shoved up onto his forehead, revealing the gruesome, knotted scar that disfigured his eyelid and spilled out over his eyebrow and the top of his cheek. He had no lashes on that eye, and he couldn’t open it as widely as he could open the other, but he could still see through it, and he peered at Nadina with both eyes.
“Nadina?”
Nadina lifted M’boku and rested him on one hip. “Alexei. What are you doing here?”
No comments:
Post a Comment