Read Scale-Bright for Free Online Page A

transport. One step and she is across the harbor; another, and she is in the hotel from which Julienne was taken. Her shoes crunch on broken glass and sink into patches of carpet sodden with spilled drinks. Upturned chairs lolling on their sides. A laptop tossed into the fountain, where it lies parted and silver, an oyster of silicon and circuitry. From an upset doorman she gets a disjointed account of how the fire alarms went off by themselves.
    Hotel guests—in states of undress, some dripping wet—hover by the fire truck and ambulance, clutching luggage, shouting at uniformed men and women. All human, Houyi judges, nothing out of the ordinary beyond the volume of their voices and their inarticulate foreignness.
    "You chase, I think, after much the same monster as I."
    Houyi glances at the large, suited man. There is no disarray on him; he hasn't rushed out of a bath, a restaurant, or the lobby. "And you are?"
    "A monk."
    "Monks don't accouter themselves as you do, nor bear precious things."
    He bows his head, then his body, his hands flat together. "They are a container, as what you wear is, goddess. I was here when the young woman was snatched. The viper which took her is my prey and I mean to give pursuit. I beg of you a blessing, sacred lady, so I may breach passage to the demon's world."
    She considers him. Etchings and concavities of age worn into his face as water into stone. The substance and angle of his bearing are more martial than pious. A heaviness to all his movements tells her that, if he fights, it is like an avalanche: fists and feet. "How old are you?"
    "The disciples of my master's school are trained to live in purity, goddess, and hone ourselves from sunup to sundown."
    "That does not answer my question. You are no sage."
    "It's been some time since I counted the years. But it is true, I am merely in search of enlightenment and hope to find it by piety."
    Her phone rings. A new number. "Yes," she says, putting distance between her and the monk. Either in respect for etiquette or her station, he does not follow.
    "Archer Houyi?"
    "If we are to have dialogue, you'd best let me speak to my niece."
    "She's in banbuduo. Cell reception there isn't exactly fantastic. Julienne is fine."
    Houyi catches background chatter, an MTR announcement. Next station, Central. It cuts off; the snake must have cupped her hand over the phone. "Am I to take you at your word?"
    "Do you believe that because I'm a demon all that exits my lips must be false?"
    The monk is watching her, head bent forward, intent. Houyi moves sideways and she is underground, under a low ceiling, between red columns and ticket dispensers—the appearance, she thinks, of antechambers in hell. Four platforms in Central station. Three too many. "As a matter of fact, yes."
    "I took her into banbuduo to keep her safe. Not a hair on her has been hurt."
    "Then you will, of course, return her well and whole. I have given my word to Daji that I won't offer you any threat, so long as you do nothing to earn it."
    "I can't. It'll be a day or two before she can make the crossing again. If she does now it's going to rip her to pieces."
    She picks a train. Should worse come to worst she can try all of them, but the moment she's inside—her feet on the same shuddering surface as the serpent's—she knows she has found the correct one. Wending forward she makes gaps between passengers, moving under the swaying handholds and past the susurrus of newspapers, the muted noises from headsets and telephone conversations. At the bend that joins one carriage to the next she finds the demon.
    Who, at the first murmur of her approach, flees for the opposite end of the train.
    Houyi follows, struck that the snake doesn't simply slip into banbuduo. Perhaps entry and exit are possible only at certain points.
    Olivia goes still. Past her the monk blocks the way. Her eyes dart back and forth between god and mortal man.
    His mouth moves, rapid-fire sutras. The snake lets out a