Zheng called out something in Cantonese, and Lily came in backwards pulling a rolling cart. She seemed to be in a better mood, and the cart’s contents put me in one. I didn’t know what time it was, jet lag having done a number on me, but every time is tea time in China.
Lily bustled in and served everyone their choice of tea and sandwiches and little cakes, which mostly meant serving me because the vamps only took tea. I ate anyway and something about watching me stuff my face seemed to calm Zheng down. “If you want something more substantial, we got a full kitchen,” he told me.
“This is substantial,” I said, around a cucumber and tuna paste sandwich. Lily had brought enough high tea for a family of twelve. “Thank you,” I told her.
“Your friends at night market,” she said. “They get fed, too.”
Well, I hoped they were discreet about it.
She bustled out and everybody sipped tea for a moment, before the conversation resumed.
“I have respect for you, as well,” Louis-Cesare said to Zheng. My hubby was quick tempered, but he wasn’t stupid, and he wasn’t belligerent. If he had time to think, he was a better diplomat than me. “If I indicated otherwise, my apologies. I am merely trying to protect the family interests.”
“Yeah, I get that,” Zheng said. “But you have to understand that I’ve spent months getting flak from a bunch of butt-hurt, would-be senators who didn’t have the guts to face me in the ring for the seat they wanted, but are happy enough to disrespect me at every turn. Half the time I don’t even know when senate meetings are being held, and when I do show up, nobody explains anything. I’m a damned gangster to them, a low life smuggler and an outsider who doesn’t deserve what he got. But I bled for my seat, risked my neck for it, like I’ll bleed for this alliance—”
“You think you’ll have to?” I asked.
He paused, but then he nodded. “Yeah, I think I’ll have to.” He glanced at Louis-Cesare. “I’m making this agreement for me. Cheung wants in, and he can deal with you separately. Which I’ll tell him to his face.”
Louis-Cesare looked at me. There wasn’t much to talk about, since we’d already agreed before we came back in. I nodded.
“We have a deal,” he told Zheng.
Zheng smiled and blew some smoke. And then decided that it deserved more than that, and laughed. “Well, all right, then! Let’s go.”
“Where?” I asked. I was still eating tuna.
“To meet your squad.”
* * *
In a few moments, we were back in the limo again, going where, I wasn’t sure. But I had a picnic basket and Zheng was finally talking, so I was happy. And he was talking a lot.
“Look, you have to understand a few things before we get started. Like the fact that there’s two different Hong Kongs right now, and I don’t mean human vs. supe. There are a few areas around the portals that are okay; there’s some stuff in the financial sector that wasn’t hit too hard, either. But then there’s the stuff you’ve been seeing since you got here—areas devastated by the battle that are probably going to take years to put back right, and that’s after we get all the pillars for the shield back up. And then there’s that.”
I hadn’t been paying much attention to what was happening outside the windows, since the back of the limo made for its own snug little world. But when he nodded to the left, I looked left, and then lowered the tinted glass to get a better view. It didn’t help much.
Instead of a neon lit cityscape, I found myself staring at what looked like a tide rolling in—one of thick, white fog. It was so dense that only a few, blackened and burnt tops of buildings broke the cloud cover. Or whatever it was, because I hadn’t noticed any fog tonight.
“What is that?” I asked.
“A problem,” Zheng said. “And why our consul has me stationed here for the time being.”
“Why does she care what happens in Hong Kong?” Louis-Cesare asked.
“I’m getting there.” Zheng settled back against the expansive seat. “After the battle, life was pretty disrupted for a while. We had the dark mages who’d attacked us, and the traitorous dogs from the East Asian Court who had helped them, to track down. Ming-de and her soldiers were all over the place, ordering people about and contradicting the commands of