The Last Days of Hong Kong by G.D. Penman

Author:G.D. Penman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Meerkat Press
Published: 2021-07-30T18:30:41+00:00

August 5, 2019

Marie had not eaten before her shift started. Her pupils had dilated until they filled her eyes at the sight of so much blood, and she was clearly fighting the urge to drop down on all fours and start lapping up the good stuff. Sully found her glass among the wreckage, inexplicably still solid, and with a little application of pressure on a neck stump, she got it half full before anyone could register a comment. She slipped the warm glass into Marie’s grateful hand and plucked Eugene out of her arms.

He sprang to life the moment she laid hands on him, and despite all of the time they’d spent in each other’s company—despite knowing that the damned doll was alive—Sully still jumped. Eugene twisted in her grasp. “SOMETHING IS COMING.”

“Finally decided to join in the conversation, did you?”

Eugene was flinging himself around so much that Sully nearly dropped him. She’d never seen him that agitated when he wasn’t about to burst into flames. “SOMETHING IS COMING. SOMETHING POWERFUL. WE MUST MOVE. WE MUST FLEE.”

Sully plopped him onto the table. “Calm down, short-stuff, it’s dealt with. Manhattan are out of the fight.”

“THE OUTSIDERS.” The doll was shaking and swelling against his seams as he glutted himself on the saturation of magic filling the air. “THE OUTSIDERS ARE PRESSING IN. WE MUST ESCAPE.”

Songling raised a quizzical eyebrow, and Marie looked askance to Sully but all that she could respond with was a shrug. She’d heard plenty of people called outsiders through the years, but the way that Eugene said it—like it was a name—was new to her. “Who are the Out—?”

The deafening scream that cut her off did not come from anything living. It was the tortured sound of brick and mortar being dragged apart by forces too overwhelming for even stone to resist. The walls, the ceiling, and the floors above began to move up and away from them. From the perfectly straight seam where the building had once been connected to its foundations, plaster dust rained down, lit from behind by flares of dazzling light. Eugene bellowed as Sully snatched him from the table. “THEY COME.”

Songling was already in motion, the long blade secreted back about his person wherever such things were hidden and his cultured, composed expression replaced with an inhumanly blank mask. “Smugglers’ tunnels. Follow me.”

With Eugene under her arm and Marie’s hand grasped firmly in her own, Sully chased him through back rooms and corridors that were becoming more and more exposed with every passing moment. Their knees were probably visible from the street by now. They came to what was clearly a sewer grating by a glass-washing station. “What about your people?”

Songling lifted the grate with a strength that would have been astounding if he weren’t so obviously a vampire. “They will escape or they will not. My presence makes no difference. What matters is getting the demon clear.”

The two of them helped Marie down into the dank darkness. Songling stepped back and gestured for Sully to follow, bringing her to a dead stop.

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