Ghosts of Shaolin excerpt
Ghosts of Shaolin is the fifth Galvanic Century book. In this excerpts, British detectives Alton Bartleby and James Wainwright are in Hong Kong, looking for the men who have kidnapped James’s adopted daughter. Guiding them is Triad turncoat Tam Lien.
The next day Lien led us towards the mountainous core of Hong Kong island, around which the city had been built. The top, Victoria Peak, was considered neutral ground to the Triads, a place where they could meet and talk business without fear of betrayal. It was in that respect similar to Kowloon, though perhaps without scientific overlords.
Bartleby craned his neck to look up at the mountain, rising over a thousand feet to tower above the rest of the island, dwarfing even . “I’d imagine that they’re too winded after the climb to start any fights.”
“There’s an aerial tramway up the mountain,” Lien said.
“I’ve seen it,” I said. “An older model telpherage system. Well maintained, but the designs are decades out of date.”
“It gets you up the mountain and back down again,” Lien said. “What’s the point of innovation for its own sake?”
“I understand the individual words coming out of your mouth,” I said, “but collectively they’re not making any sense.”
“Don’t be precious, James, it ill suits you.” Bartleby was grinning. “I’m sure the telophage is perfectly adequate.”
He was mispronouncing it intentionally. I would not let him bait me.
Bartleby purchased three first-class tickets for us. A bit of a waste, I suppose, as there was no one else waiting for the tram and we would have the cabin entirely to ourselves. The cars were on a slow but ceaseless loop, requiring us to step quickly at the terminus to board. Inside it was well appointed, with crushed velvet upholstery in the front of the car and a lace privacy curtain to shield august personages from the rabble who had only purchased second or, perish the thought, third class tickets. There were no controls in the cabin; its operation was at the mercy of the operators in the control towers at either end.
I cannot imagine that their options were more complicated than “make the cars go” or “don’t.”
As I said. Barely suitable.
I stood at the back of the tram, hands in my coat pockets, watching the Central District with its government buildings and wealthier homes disappear beneath us. The incline was rather steep, a much more severe grade than a train might take, but I would have vastly preferred travel by dirigible. There’s something about the freedom of flight, about being untethered, that speaks to a part of me, and a tracked tram simply did not suffice.
“It’s a pity Aldora did not see fit to accompany us.” Bartleby was standing by the side, watching the mountain as we passed. “The view is breathtaking.”
Lien spoke from the front of the car. “Perhaps she did not care for the company.”
“No, she tolerates James well enough.”
Our guide stared at him. “I was referring to myself.”
Bartleby chuckled.
I stood at the opposite end of the cabin, watching the station recede behind us. We passed a car heading back down, and I saw a figure standing at its rear. A wizened old native woman was staring back at me, and while I could not see her eyes, they unnerved me in the same way that Lóngtóu’s had. The image rose to my mind’s eye unbidden, a shrivelled old crone, the lines of her face endlessly deep, her eyes bottomless black pits that pulled at me, pulled at my Qi, my energy, trying to devour my life force.
“James?” Bartleby’s voice cut through my fugue, and I righted myself before I collapsed. He was staring at me.
I shook my head and looked back towards the old woman, but she’d moved from the window. I turned from the window, leaning back against it.
The motors, at least, were quiet, save for the hissing of gas that signified a pneumatic mechanism of some sort. By the sound it didn’t seem terribly efficient, as if the gaskets needed tightening to reduce the waste emissions. Schematics rose unbidden in my mind as if I were working at an illusionary drafting table. I’d have to take a close look at the top of the car to be sure, but I was passingly familiar with the standard pneumatic tramway motor designs.
“Something’s wrong.” I stepped towards the centre of the cabin.
“What is it?” Bartleby headed to meet me.
The entire car tilted slightly, and he stumbled, catching himself on one of the seats. “James?”
“The cables are coming undone.” I walked towards the ceiling hatch. “They’re high-tensile steel, they don’t just–”
The cabin shifted again, clearly listing.
Lien steadied herself against the wall. “Is it going to fall?”
“It shouldn’t.” I grabbed Bartleby’s walking stick and used its crook to pull down the ladder leading to the ceiling hatch. “There are multiple redundancies, and two cables aside. If one should break, the other compensates until we can–”
There was another shift, the car noticeably listing.
Lien started, staring up at the roof. “There’s someone up there. I can hear them.”
Bartleby drew a revolver from inside his waistcoat and, before I could stop him, fired three rounds through the cabin ceiling. Each report was like a physical blow against my ears.
“Stop that, you idiot!” I snatched the weapon out of his hand. “You’ll hit the motor.”
He flushed and said something, though I couldn’t hear him over the ringing.
Lien spun and kicked out the window nearest her, sending it falling, intact, away from the cabin. Without another word she grabbed the edge above, using it to swing herself onto the roof.
I stared at the spot where she’d been for only a moment before beginning my ascent up the ladder. There was a lock on the hatch to the roof. I freed my spanner from my tool-belt, gripped the lock in its tines, and dislodged it from its mounting with a sharp twist.
I emerged onto the smooth roof of the now-tilted tram cabin to see Lien struggling with four cleaver-wielding men in black. As I watched, one swung his weapon through the air and she ducked away from it effortlessly.
A second attacked and she smashed the back of her forearm against his wrist, knocking the chopping blade away to the side, then struck him in the throat with the tips of her fingers. He dropped to the tram’s top, clutching at his windpipe and gasping for air.
I came up behind the third and slid my arms under his, locking my fingers behind his neck in a nelson grip. He flailed at me in surprise, but was unable to reach me with his weapon. I cranked my hands forward, applying a hyperflexion to his cervical vertebrae. He screamed in Chinese and struggled to free himself.
Beyond us, Lien dropped to the tram’s rooftop and swept her leg under the fourth man’s feet in a singular motion, almost like a low pirouette. He fell to his backside, the cleaver skittering from his hand off the tilted roof.
He let it go, instead pulling his sleeve back to reveal a strange device mounted on a wrist bracelet. Lien kicked his arm below the elbow with enough force to shatter it, but not before the man managed to fire a jagged metal disk from it.
It discharged in my direction, missing me and the man I held, but stuck Bartleby in the chest as he emerged from the hatch behind me.
He tumbled from the ladder, disappearing from sight into the cabin.
“Alton?” Terror and grief overwhelmed me and I gave the man I held’s neck a savage twist, breaking his neck then letting him fall limp. I half-crawled back to the hatch, confirming my fears as I saw my partner lying limp at the base of the ladder, sprawled out in a spreading pool of blood. My thoughts were jumbled, fear making me a child, not thinking through the consequences of my actions.
I leaped down the hatch, landing beside him, heedless of the way my weight made the already precarious cabin sway, the idea that I might snap the remaining cables far from my mind.
Alton was hurt. Badly. That’s what occupied me, and I used my bare hands to try and staunch the blood welling up from his chest, the remaining opponents confronting Lien a distant concern.
“It’s not that bad,” I told him. “Tell me you’re not that hurt.”
He didn’t respond, probably a factor of the shock and blood-loss.
“Oh god, Alton, I… oh god.”
I did what I could, tearing out the lining of my waistcoat and using that to affix my handkerchief to the spot below his ribs where the blood kept welling from. The circular blade had spun as it flew, chewing up flesh and bone to bury itself in my partner’s innards.
Ghosts of Shaolin is available through Amazon, Kobo, iBooks, Barnes & Noble, and Google Play. It has been written to serve as an entry point for new readers, but if you would prefer to start the Galvanic Century series from the beginning the first book, Bartleby and James, is available free.
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