Pearl Sky by Elizabeth Hunter

Author:Elizabeth Hunter [Hunter, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781941674994
Publisher: Elizabeth Hunter

Tenzin was halfway down the ventilation shaft when she realized she’d made a mistake.

“Shit.”

She smelled the dog before she could see it, but if there was a dog below her, that would mean there would be barking, which meant there would be noise, and the old woman who ran the Mongolian grocery in the Miyun District in North Beijing would wake from her small apartment above the store.

She should have remembered that Mongolians were far more likely to keep dogs than the average Chinese resident.

“What’s wrong?” Ben asked above her.

“There may be barking.”

“There’s a dog?”

“I smell one.”

“If it’s one of those massive bankhars, I may hurt you, Tenzin. One of those things almost bit off my foot when I came too close to a sheep one time. I didn’t even know dogs could move that fast.”

“It’s probably something small.” It smelled like a mastiff, but she wasn’t going to tell Ben that. “We’ll just keep to the top of the room.”

She floated down the shaft and could already hear a low growl coming from the throat of the dog she’d smelled.

Okay, it wasn’t a small dog. As she removed the air-intake cover, she saw the hulking beast sitting in a corner of the shop, staring at her as she set the metal cover gently on the top of a store shelf.

“It’s not a small dog,” Tenzin said. “But it’s not… huge.”

She’d seen Tibetan mastiffs that were bigger. Barely.

This dog was black with brown markings around the eyes and a curled tail that quivered as it watched her. She slid into the room, keeping her back to the ceiling and floating over colorful shelves of dried goods, canned meat, and liquor bottles.

“Holy shit, he’s looking right at us.” Ben finally made it into the shop. “How high do you think he can jump?”

“Not twelve feet,” Tenzin said. Probably. She’d seen a bankhar dog take down an eagle once. It was intimidating. “I see the aaruul.”

“If we end up losing any body parts to get Erdun sour-cheese candy, I’m going to be so pissed off,” Ben said. “Tenzin, grab the stuff and let’s go.”

“Distract him,” she said. “The aaruul is on the lowest shelf by the register.”

“Are you kidding me?” He did not sound pleased.

“Probably to tempt the kids when their mothers are checking out,” Tenzin said. “Who can resist aaruul?”

“I’m distracting him. Grab the stuff and go.”

She inched over to the counter, eyeing the bright red wrappers on the child-size packages. Just as she was sinking down to grab a box of the candies, she spotted a yellow-and-purple flower that appeared to be homemade aaruul behind a glass counter.

“Keep distracting him; I spotted the good stuff.”

“Can we maybe assume that Erdun’s not going to be super picky about this stuff and just grab what’s easy?” Ben hissed, “He’s moving. He’s coming toward me, Tenzin.”

The sound of growling got louder. Apparently the dog wasn’t happy that Ben hadn’t left yet even though he was just floating near the ceiling.

“Can you use amnis on dogs?” Ben asked.

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