The Empress's Tomb Read online

  “You think I’m rude?” Oona’s voice wasn’t angry. She sounded surprised, as if the thought had never occurred to her. “I thought I was just being honest.”

  “People don’t always need you to tell them the truth,” I told her, though I was already beginning to regret it. I’d wanted my words to feel like a slap, but instead I’d delivered a punch. “Be a little nicer, would you? We’re supposed to be your friends.” I turned my back to her and started for the next location. It wasn’t until I was almost out of sight that Oona began to follow me.

  An hour later we placed our last motion detector inside the tunnel that burrowed beneath the Lower East Side. As I zipped up my empty backpack, the beam of my flashlight passed across Oona’s face and I saw that her eyes were red and swollen.

  “The room where we found the little Chinese statue isn’t that far away.” I tried to sound friendly. “Want to take a look?”

  “Sure,” said Oona quietly.

  “I think this was a stop on the Underground Railroad,” I explained once we stood in the room with the ten little beds. “There’s an exit that leads to a synagogue on Bialystoker Place and a tunnel that stretches up to the riverbank. Someone was hiding slaves in the Shadow City and helping them escape to freedom.” I pointed to the rumpled bed. “We found the Chinese statue wrapped up in those sheets. Kiki sat on it.”

  Oona’s eyes skimmed across the bed, then came to rest on mine.

  “I’m sorry I’ve been acting so awful. I know it’s no excuse, but I’ve been under a lot of pressure.”

  “What’s bothering you?”

  “I need to tell you guys something,” she confided. “But I haven’t had a chance. First Kiki disappeared, then Luz got mugged, and then we found out someone’s been in the Shadow City. Nobody’s had time to listen to me. It’s driving me crazy”

  “I’m listening now,” I told her.

  “I think I need your help.” She stopped. It was as if she’d admitted something shameful and had to work up the courage to continue. I saw her mouth open once more, but her voice was drowned out by a loud, insistent beeping. A bright red dot flashed on our receivers.

  “Let’s not worry about it,” Oona pleaded once we’d switched off the alarms. “One of the other girls must have accidentally set off a sensor.”

  “I’m sorry, Oona. I know it’s really bad timing, but we’ve got to check it out.”

  I’d never seen Oona appear so utterly defeated. “See what I mean?” she asked.

  • • •

  As we raced through the tunnels, all thoughts of Oona’s confession were left far behind. According to our receivers, the tripped motion detector was under Chinatown, not far from a familiar storeroom. Once a passage had linked the chamber to an old opium den, but the Irregulars had destroyed the connection in June after the Fu-Tsang gang had used it to access the Shadow City. As we drew closer to the storeroom, Kiki and DeeDee joined us, and we sprinted together until we came to a sudden stop a few yards short of our destination. Luz and Betty were already waiting for us on the scene.

  “Holy moly,” whispered DeeDee. The storeroom was crammed with rats. Thousands of mangy creatures that hadn’t been able to force their way into the chamber were crowded outside the door, craning their necks for a peek at what lay inside.

  “I set off the alarm when we saw the rats,” Luz explained. “Something’s going on in there. I thought we should all check it out.”

  “Good call. Ladies, it’s time to freshen up.” Kiki passed around a bottle of Iris’s rat-repelling perfume, and the stench grew stronger than a freshly fertilized field on a hot summer day. “Okay, follow me.” Kiki waded through the rodents, which squealed and scattered at the smell of her perfume. But though they kept a safe distance, this time they refused to run away.

  Inside the storeroom, the biggest, most powerful beasts surrounded a cargo crate, gnawing at the wooden slats with superhuman concentration. A tiny hole had appeared in a corner of the crate, and one of the rats was on the verge of breaking through. He and his friends were not pleased to find six foul-smelling humans crashing their party. They backed away from the box and into the corners of the room, where they squealed loudly and gnashed their razor-sharp teeth.

  “Whatever’s in there must be pretty tasty,” said Luz. “They were ready to eat right through the box to get to it.”

  “Let’s see what we’ve got.” Kiki pulled off the lid of the crate.

  Curled up inside was a boy, his thin legs tucked up against his chest. His clothing was filthy and tattered, and when the beam of a flashlight passed across his face, he mumbled deliriously.

  “He’s not speaking English, is he?” asked Betty.

  “Sounds like Chinese.” Luz looked to Kiki and Oona. “What’s he saying?”

  “They speak more than one language in China,” said Kiki. “I understand only Cantonese and a little Mandarin. He wasn’t speaking either of them.”

  “He was speaking Hakka.” Oona’s face was as gray as cheap porcelain. “He said he wants to go home.”

  “I’m sure he does,” I said. “But how did he get down here in the first place?”

  “If we don’t get him out of here, we may never find out,” said Kiki. “See the foam around his mouth? He’s dehydrated. He may have been down here for days. We need to get him to a hospital.”

  “No!” Oona shrieked, startling the rest of us.

  “What do you mean, no?” Kiki snapped. “You want him to die?”

  “We can’t take him to the hospital,” Oona insisted. “He’s an illegal alien. I’m sure of it. If you take him to the hospital, they’ll send him back to China.”

  “Maybe that’s what he wants,” Betty suggested. “He did say he wants to go home.”

  “If we can’t go to a hospital, what are we supposed to do with him?” I asked Oona.

  “We’ll have to take him to my house.”

  “Your house?” DeeDee’s eyes were cartoon wide, but Kiki looked unfazed. She pulled Oona to the side.

  “Are you sure?” Kiki asked quietly.

  “Yes,” Oona insisted. “Mrs. Fei and the ladies will know what to do.”

  “What ladies?” I asked, but they both ignored me.

  “Everybody give your maps to Ananka and help me lift the boy out of the box,” Kiki ordered. “Ananka, find us an exit near Catherine Street.”

  While I studied the map my mind remained stuck on one shocking thought. Kiki knew where Oona lived.

  • • •

  We emerged from the Shadow City in one of the hot, hellish restaurant kitchens tucked beneath the sidewalks of New York. Pipes gurgling with sewage and steam hung so low from the ceiling that even Kiki was forced to stoop. In one corner, two freakishly fat cats shared a mouse entrée while cockroaches the size of parakeets danced on the countertops. We crammed all seven of our bodies onto a rusty metal platform, and DeeDee punched a red button on the wall. Slowly, the freight elevator rose out of the basement, through a metal grate, and delivered us onto the sidewalk above. The Irregulars’ logo glimmered beneath the streetlight. It was one o’clock in the morning, and Chinatown was sleeping. Yellow tape printed with the word caution flapped in the glassless windows of an abandoned building across the street. A demolition notice was posted on the door and a debris-filled Dumpster concealed all but the tip of a golden i. Sadly, I made a mental note to revise the map. Another entrance to the Shadow City would soon be gone for good.

  With Oona leading the way, we carried the boy to the stoop of a decrepit tenement building that was covered in artless graffiti. Oona rang one of the buzzers.

  “It’s awfully late,” I whispered. “Don’t you have your own key?”

  “I don’t need a key,” Oona said. “Someone’s always up.” A few seconds later, a stunning woman in a tailored red suit and scarlet lipstick opened the front door. I thought I detected the outline of a pistol under her suit jacket. She greeted Oona with a smile that shriveled when she saw the boy. She didn’t b
other asking for an explanation. Instead, she peered anxiously in both directions before ushering us into a barren hallway. There, she and Oona exchanged a few nervous words.

  “We need to take him upstairs,” Oona announced to the rest of us.

  “I thought Oona was an orphan,” Betty whispered as Kiki and Oona carried the boy to the second floor.

  “I’m not an orphan.” Somehow, Oona had overheard. “But that woman isn’t my mother. She’s a bodyguard.”

  “Bodyguard?” Betty mouthed silently.

  At the top of the stairs was a single door. Oona’s bodyguard unlocked it, and we stepped out of the dingy hallway and into a palace. Precious rugs covered the floors, and mahogany furniture upholstered in silk sat solidly against the walls, which were painted the color of the sky and decorated with images of delicate willow trees and preening peacocks. In the middle of the room stood four Chinese women. The oldest was dressed in simple black pajamas, while the rest wore long, brightly colored robes and embroidered slippers. The younger three flew into action the moment we appeared, like birds fluttering about a beautiful cage.

  “These are my grandmothers,” said Oona. “Don’t bother making small talk. They don’t speak English.”

  “She’s your grandmother?” I gestured to a woman who didn’t look more than thirty years old.

  “It’s just an expression.” Oona sighed. “It’s not like they’re related by blood.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw the oldest of Oona’s grandmothers take a sharp breath as if she had received an unexpected blow. Recovering instantly, she knelt down by the couch where we had laid the sick boy. She was at least eighty years old, with silver hair wrapped in a bun and skin covered with rivers of wrinkles. As she felt the boy’s pulse, I noticed her hands were unusually muscular and her fingertips rough and calloused. She pulled back the boy’s eyelids before opening his mouth and examining his tongue. Then she turned and issued orders to one of the younger women, who disappeared into the kitchen.

  “Mrs. Fei says his ji is too high,” Oona explained. “He needs cooling tonics.”

  DeeDee and I exchanged a puzzled look. A minute later, the younger woman rushed back into the room with a pot of water and a platter filled with herbs. Mrs. Fei asked to be left alone with her patient, and Oona guided the Irregulars to the nearby dining room.

  “Mrs. Fei seems to know what she’s doing,” said Kiki thoughtfully, taking a seat at the round wooden table.

  “If she didn’t, we’d all be dead by now,” said Oona. “I’ve never been to an American doctor.”

  “What do you think we should tell her?” Luz asked. “She’ll want to know where we found the boy.”

  “This isn’t your house, Lopez,” said Oona. “Mrs. Fei won’t ask any questions. None of my grandmothers will.”

  “Who are these ladies?” asked Betty. “Why do you live with them?”

  “They raised me,” said Oona. “Now it’s my turn to take care of them.”

  “But I thought you told us you aren’t an orphan,” said DeeDee. “Where are your parents?”

  “My father owns factories in Chinatown. He smuggled these women into the country to work in his sweatshops. They were his slaves. I used the money from the manicure shop to pay for their freedom,” said Oona. “I think the boy might belong to him, too.”

  “Your father sounds a lot like …,” I started to say.

  “That’s right,” said Oona. “My father is Lester Liu.”

  • • •

  Secrets are like cough syrup—they can grow more potent with time. Keep one stored long enough and what might once have been harmless can wind up deadly. Two years earlier, Oona’s secret would have inspired a few hours of gossip—but none of us would have held it against her. But the fact that she’d concealed the truth for so long made me suspect she had more to hide. And the one revelation she’d already made was shocking enough. Oona’s father was a dangerous man. As leader of the Fu-Tsang gang, Lester Liu had grown rich smuggling counterfeit designer shoes and handbags into Chinatown. The Irregulars had destroyed his operation in June and sent most of his gang to jail. But Lester Liu had never been charged with a crime. He was still free, and Kiki Strike was at the top of his hit list.

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” I demanded.

  Oona grimaced. “It’s not the sort of thing I’d brag about.”

  The other girls were struck dumb. Luz didn’t appear to be breathing. Betty was on the brink of biting off her lower lip. Only Kiki remained unshaken. I saw in an instant that she had known all along.

  “I’m not a traitor,” Oona muttered.

  “Of course you’re not,” Kiki assured her. “Nobody thinks you are.”

  DeeDee caught my eye before turning to Oona. “You should have told us earlier,” she said scientifically. “Is there anything else we should know?”

  “No,” said Oona.

  “I think it was very brave of you to come clean.” Betty put a hand on Oona’s arm.

  “It sure explains a lot,” Luz added with a weary sigh.

  “I need to think for a minute.” I rested my head on the dining room table. A million memories were reshaping themselves in my mind. The room stayed silent as one of Oona’s grandmothers set out a pot of tea and six little teacups. When the Irregulars were alone once more, Kiki took a sip and drew in a breath.

  “Now that you’ve all had time for the news to sink in, let’s talk business.”

  “Why do you think the boy we found belongs to your father?” DeeDee asked.

  I saw Kiki give Oona a nod of encouragement.

  “My father isn’t just a smuggler. He’s also a snakehead.”

  “What’s a snakehead?” asked Luz.

  “They smuggle people into the United States,” Oona explained. “Poor people who need work. They promise a snakehead thousands of dollars to get them here, and when they arrive they have to pay off the debt. Until they do, they’re practically slaves. My father makes them work all day and all night in his sweatshops.”

  “What if they refuse?” asked DeeDee.

  “Sometimes they’re beaten,” said Oona. “Sometimes they’re killed.”

  “Is your mother involved, too?” I asked.

  “I don’t know much about my mother, except that she was one of Lester Liu’s clients. She died the day I was born. When my father found out that I was a girl, he didn’t want anything to do with me. He gave me to Mrs. Fei. She and her friends at the sweatshop took care of me.”

  Luz was outraged. “What’s his problem with girls?”

  “In China, boys carry on the family name. It’s their duty to take care of their parents when they get older. When girls grow up, they join their husbands’ families, so many people consider them worthless. My father is very old-fashioned. To him, I was just a waste of money.”

  “You’re joking!” cried Betty. “Has he ever met you?”

  “A professional criminal couldn’t hope for a better child,” DeeDee added.

  “I did meet him once,” said Oona. “When I was ten, Mrs. Fei told me about my father. She said he was very rich, and I knew my grandmothers could barely afford to feed me. So every day, I’d put on the only dress I had and go out to look for him. I thought if he saw me, he might want me back. Then one day I found him standing outside one of his sweatshops. He was talking with two men about a secret shipment they were expecting that night. They knew I was listening, but they didn’t care. They thought I was too stupid to understand. After they were done, I went up to Lester and introduced myself as his daughter. At first he laughed. Then he told me I was nothing until he said otherwise.”

  “That’s terrible!” A tear dangled from Betty’s false eyelashes.

  “What a jerk,” Luz agreed, though she didn’t use the word jerk.

  Oona continued. “It’s okay. I got even. I went straight to the police and told them about the shipment. They raided the boat as soon as it entered the harbor. It was filled with statues that had been st
olen from a temple in Cambodia. His men were arrested, but Lester Liu got away. He was on a flight to Shanghai before the police could question him. The day he left, he sent me a note. All it said was: When I return, I will find you.”

  “I don’t mean to rub it in, but you should have told us,” said DeeDee.

  “I was hoping I wouldn’t need to,” Oona admitted. “I thought he might have forgotten about me. It’s not like I managed to hurt his business. He’s done even better since he left for Shanghai. Half of Chinatown is here because of him.”

  “Maybe he has forgotten about you,” Luz offered optimistically.

  Oona frowned. “Wait here. There’s something you should see.” When she returned, she set a rectangular cardboard box in front of Luz. “Lester Liu sent me this. Go ahead, take a look.” Luz peeked inside the box as if she were expecting to find a scorpion or a severed ear. Instead, she pulled out a dragon. It was a bronze statue of Fu-Tsang, the Chinese dragon that guards hidden places and the symbol of the fierce gang that bore its name. Someone gasped. It may well have been me. “Recognize it?” asked Oona.

  We had all seen the dragon before. Several months earlier, I’d found it in a handbag that belonged to a kidnapping victim named Mitzi Mulligan. The ancient statue had provided the crucial clue that led us to the Fu-Tsang’s lair where Sidonia Galatzina had been hiding the girls she’d kidnapped, hoping to lure Kiki to her death. The same night that police raided the hideout, the dragon mysteriously disappeared.

  “You know what that means?” Oona was trembling.

  “It means he knows you’re a part of the group who busted his smuggling operation,” I said. “You’re in big trouble, Oona.”

  “Yeah,” she agreed. “Which kind of makes me wonder why he invited me to dinner.”

  “What!” Luz exclaimed.