chapter four
Nguyen Du Street, Unit 54 ½, the Fragrant Peony District
August 27th, 3045
8:30 AM
Au Co awoke to the sound of something burning and aggressive swearing. So, a typical Monday morning.
Half-blinded by sleep, the navy-blue painted walls of her room came into view. The milieu of posters and surrealist art plastered across the walls haphazardly, the piles of unfolded (though clean) laundry with her signature leather jacket thrown over the back of her desk chair lit in the sunlight filtering through her flung-open window. The view below their third storied apartment showed a rather impressive view of the expanse of Lac Viet City, something that Au Co never failed to appreciate.
With a ferocious yawn, she rolled out of bed, shivering as her feet hit the cold wooden floor. Clad in her black sweatpants and random graphic t-shirt depicting some form of cartoonish graphic nonsense, she ruffled her still-wet hair from her shower the night before, snatched her jacket up, and padded out into the common area of the apartment she shared with her friends.
Sania was the cause of the swearing. She had been attempting to make some semblance of a breakfast in the frying pan, as Changxi filmed some kind of video for her social media next to the window in the joined living room, something about the anime she was obsessed with lately.
Au Co scooted over to Chanxi, wrapping her arms around her friend and burying her head into her shoulder. She inhaled her comforting, jasmine scent.
“Hey, are you okay?” Chanxi paused her filming on her holocast, the huli-jing’s eyes casted with worry. “You came home last night, covered in blood.”
Sania turned from her post at the stove and brandished a spatula indignantly. As per her mayura heritage, the orange tips of her brown hair shimmered with blue fire. “And all you did was say it wasn’t yours, strip your bloody-ass clothes in the middle of the living room which I have washed, thank you very much, stumbled into the bathroom, stumbled out of the bathroom and then passed out in your room without another word.” She waved her arms around for emphasis. “The hell is that all about?”
“Sorry guys,” she groaned into Changxi’s shoulder. She flopped backwards onto the plush leather couch lining the wall next to the window of their living room. “I really am. I didn’t mean to make you worry.”
Changxi brushed a lock of silver-and-black hair out of her face, one silvery fox ear twitching in consternation. “Well, as long as you’re okay right?”
“I might,” she admitted, “our laundry bill might not be.”
“Okay, but all quipping aside, what really happened?” Sania was then at that present moment attempting to scrape whatever charred remains of her breakfast into their trash bin, furiously scrubbing at the pan with a sponge.
“I was walking home from a late-night ochem study session with My Nuong, when I ran across this guy. He was-” she paused, and seemed to have thought better about whatever she was going to say -” just some rando that got stabbed. But, yknow, I did some first-aid and called the paramedics. Stayed at the ER till I knew he was okay.”
“That sounds like a night,” Changxi remarked.
“So did yours,” Au Co smirked.
Their text messages between each other said little else.
IM SO FUCKING HIGH BRO, from Changxi apparently at some club. Attached was a picture of the pretty huli-jing clad in a black outfit that accentuated her silver ears and tail excellently, makeup perfect as usual, standing next to some other random partygoer both holding a bong. The smoke half obscured the picture, with the club strobe lights peaking through in a sort of diaphanous array of color.
rip your lungs dude
NO RIP YOUR SOCIAL LIFE AND STOP STUDYING FOR A MINUTE AND HAVE FUN
girl my idea of a fun night is one that doesnt leave me debilitated at the end of it
SHUT UP, UWU
did you just fucking uwu me like you uwu your stream watchers
YES AND IM HAVING THE TIME OF MY LIFE
smh you business majors
And so it continued, with the text chain ending with a picture of Changxi belatedly vomiting the contents of her stomach into a toilet, and then in their roommate group chat a very drunken, mispelled: HeY guys im hesfsding home riisdfht now.
To which Sania replied with a facepalm emoji and a: stay safe dumbass.
So, all in all, the average college experience.
Changxi let out a rather large burp at that moment which she waved away from her face, still somehow looking pretty. “Well, that rather shocking turn of events aside, are you going to class?”
“Yep.” Au Co popped the ‘p,’ moseying over the kitchen and beginning to root through the fridge. “Can’t miss it. And I’m meeting My Nuong after class. Gotta tell her all that happened.”
She extracted an apple triumphantly from a drawer, stowing it away in the backpack by the door she slung over her shoulder. She checked that her tablet was stowed away safely with the other bits of her study materials. “I’ll be back tonight late probably, don’t wait for me!”
Changxi waved a prettily manicured hand in her direction, her attention still on her holocom, and Sania huffed a goodbye before grabbing what might have been the last of their eggs from the fridge.
Au Co patted her jacket pocket. Good, her iPod was still there. She popped in her wireless earbuds and queued up Pearl Jam. Today was going to be a good day.
If only she knew.
xxx
Van Mieu University was a historical artifact in its own right. It was known as the First University of Vietnam, established way back in Confucian times, far before the Mystic War that let Mystics return from hiding to integrate into the larger society in the early 2500s.
It seemed strange, an era of just humans where Mystics like here were considered little more than a myth. Bedside tales, the oddball occurrence similar to UFO’s or divine appearances. If those humans had only known that those ‘mystical creatures’ had been living all along under their noses, though driven almost to extinction and forced to hide from human societies.
Those same human societies, so entrenched in their exploitative capitalism and crimes against humanity, that let themselves bomb themselves nearly out of existence with their nuclear weapons, leaving over half their populations decimated. Those same human societies that recoiled in fear and disgust when the Mystics emerged from the shadows, the same humans that bent the knee begrudgingly realizing their usual tactics of ethnic genocide and oppression would not work on the Mystics in this neo, post-war era.
Or so, the history books went.
It wasn’t like Au Co knew anything better about prejudice and social injustice, coming from a sequestered highland kingdom of tiens established and untouched since prehistoric human times. A relatively homogenous society, dominated by a variety of Amazonian women, what with their occasional male and female human lovers. A society shielded from most inequality.
Though, Au Co wouldn’t consider herself sheltered. In her own way she suffered through judgements that came with being outcast in a society of privileged bastards. Though she suspected much wasn’t different in Lac Viet City. The rich ate the poor, races clashed and perpetuated age-old misunderstandings and hate crimes, and life went on.
Ah, the glories of reality under our capitalistic classist overlords, she smirked scathingly to herself.
She shouldered her bag, and walked through the antique stone gateway to Van Mieu University.
The entryway stayed the same from the human era, pictures showed. Still rustic and preserved with the stone pavilions, the hundreds of stone lions keeping their stoic sentry over the university with the names of age old famous graduates and benefactors etched in chu nom, rubbed nearly illegible with age. The red-and-gold wooden pavilions next to the center pond filled with koi and lotus flowers, the scent of the magnolia trees littering the entry garden thick in the air. Students, mostly Vietnamese Mystics and Vietnamese humans with the odd foreigner, milled about scurrying to their classes and to their friends.
Behind the old quarter lay the sprawling expanse of the rest of the university. A sprawling expanse of modern glass, geometric buildings and ramps spanning lily-speckled lakes. Lounge areas with metal benches and chairs and tables laboriously held the weight of a milieu of students soaking in the early morning sun, verdant trees rustling overhead. An overall utopian, well-manicured presentation of Vietnam’s modern intellectual hub.
There was a figure in the distance, standing below a flowering poinciana tree. Slightly, petite and feminine in ways Au Co was decidedly not, with orange hair flowing like a river of lava over her shoulders. My Nuong, cheerful, as usual. She was waving, bouncing on the balls of her toes.
“Good morning, sunshine!” My Nuong dimpled her usual radiant smile, her doe-like eyes crinkling at the corner. She wore simple jeans and some cutesy pink shirt with a graphic bunny on it, sparkling rhinestones set in the shape of cherries at her ear lobes. She scuffed a blue sneaker on the ground. “So hey, what was that text about?”
Au Co paused to shift her backpack on her shoulder. “If I told you I had a sugar daddy, would you believe me?”
My Nuong smacked her shoulder, affronted. “Likely story.”
“What?” Au Co demanded with mock indignance, “Is it so hard for you to imagine me, a strapping young woman, at a bar clad in a skimpy dress flirting sensuously with an older man wielding my femine wiles in the name of monetary gain?”
“Yes,” My Nuong deadpanned.
“Such little faith in me,” Au Co said rather sadly. “I thought I rather had a vexing charm about me.”
My Nuong rolled her dark brown eyes, her thick straight lashes fluttering heavenward. “Okay, but for real, what was that text about? You meet some cute girl or guy again? Did Changxi accidentally set the toaster oven on fire again? No, wait.” She scrunched her face in concentration. “You want to secretly profess your love for me and marry me for my family name and mooch off my dad’s credit card for the rest of your life.”
“As tempting as that sounds, unfortunately, no. I have a real adventure to tell you this time.” Au Co smiled crookedly. “Although,” she seemed to ponder, “your father does seem to like me. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind me for a daughter-in-law.”
“Even with all you’d spend on makeup and video games? You’d put my collection to shame.”
“In my defense,” Au Co replied indignantly, as she and her friend began to make their way up a series of concrete stairs, “I used the money I made myself. So I should be allowed to buy however many eyeshadow palettes I want.”
“C’mon, let’s get this class over with.” My Nuong nudged her much taller friend in the ribs, shouldering her small tropical print backpack where she meticulously stored her holopad and books, “I wanna hear your story.”
“Let’s see if there’s anything left of my brain after class,” Au Co grimaced, “If someone asks me to calculate the velocity of a train again I am going to scream and shit myself.”
“Well, I’m sure somebody has a scat fetish and you’ll achieve your dreams of marrying rich into Lac Viet high society.”
“Shut up.”
“Nope.”
And so continued the rest of the day.
xxx
Their classes ended without much fanfare. The day drew to a close, with the sun encroaching on the muggy horizon of the city. The waning sunlight cast burning reflection on the glass of the skyscrapers and buildings of the city. The evening chill began to set in, though not entirely unpleasant, with the tropical humidity clinging to their bodies like flies. They had moseyed to each lecture hall to study room back to lecture hall studiously, furiously consulting their notes between the seemingly scant hours between each class.
Au Co’s brain was positively stuffed. Full of physics, biochemistry, mapping phylogenetic trees and genetic drift. Glancing at My Nuong, she didn’t believe her friend was faring any better. There was a red mark imprinted on her friend’s forehead from napping on her books, something she seemed blissfully unaware about as she consulted her holocom for cafes open at that time.
“Hmm.” Her friend pursed her lips, a French manicured finger scrolling through venues open at this time of night. “The usual or do you want to try something new? I heard from Duy from biochem that this new boba place opened. They have a mean taro milk tea.”
Au Co peered over her friend’s shoulder, golden eyes flitting over the pale blue luminescent projected screen of the holocom. “Sure, why not. I can tell you my story on the way there.”
“Great!” My Nuong tapped the navigation icon and the holocom beeped, a feminine voice directing them to walk for about a block to the left. “So. The story?”
“So you know, after we left the library right?”
My Nuong nodded, tucking a piece of orange hair behind her ear. “Yeah, it was pretty late.”
“Yeah, you wouldn’t believe it. So I was walking home, admittedly doing a Bad Life Decision, uh, taking the route through the Crimson Lotus. I know! I know!” She held her hands up in surrender, surveying My Nuong’s nonplussed face. “Nothing happened. I didn’t do anything inadvisable. Trust me, I’m better now. And my meds help a bunch. Don’t worry,” she tacked on hastily.
“Anyway, so I was walking when I saw this dude just laying there in the street. And at first I was like, okay, sure, probably got drunk and passed out. Till I saw the blood. Bro, it was everywhere.”
My Nuong’s eyebrows shot up towards her hairline. “Okay, sure. City crime rates. I’m sure you’ve seen worse on call. What was the point?”
Au Co took a breath. Changxi and Sania wouldn’t understand. They didn’t need to know. But My Nuong did. After all, she was part of the Le family. She could trace her lineage back to the first emperors of Vietnam. Her father was on the council. She would understand. And if something happened to Au Co because of it, she might have been the only one who had enough power to help Au Co.
“It was that Dragon Prince. The last one. I- I recognized his face from the tabloids. I knew he was back in the city but… imagine my surprise when he was the guy bleeding out on the street.”
“Hung Sung Lam? You ran into him?” My Nuong’s tone was sharp.
Sometimes Au Co forgot My Nuong’s bloodline and family history in Vietnam was as old as hers. It was easy to forget that the cheerful, easy going girl was one of the few princesses of Lac Viet City, with her father holding one of the coveted positions in the Senate. The Le family were one of the few Vietnamese noble families that retained power after the War, and could stand toe to toe with the reemergent Mystics.
For the first years of her life, she had been privately tutored by a herd of positively pretentious teachers. She had attended galas, smiled prettily in dresses worth probably more than Au Co’s left kidney and liver combined, had canted her head and demurred to politicians and played games of chess with her words.
“Damn,” My Nuong swore under her breath. “That is one hell of a story. I realized he was back in the city- my dad said so, they’re holding a gala soon in his honor. But…”
“I called the police.” Au Co grimaced, recalling the rather frantic ambulance ride. As soon as the paramedics realized she was not in fact joking and the life of Lac Viet City’s prince resided in their hands, they raced to the Hoa Dao General Hospital with a laser focus. “He’s fine now, but he doesn’t want anyone to know what happened. Which is why I’m telling you, so you can tell the police once they find my cold, dead body because that’s suspicious as fuck and now I’m probably on his hitlist or something.”
“Okay, but I have a really serious question.”
The two girls turned the corner of the block, My Nuong’s holocast blinking as it directed them to continue forth another block before making another right.
“Yeah, what?”
“Is he hot?”
“...what.”
“No, I’m dead serious!” My Nuong blinked up at her. “Is he hot?”
“What kind of fucking question is that? Are you high?” Au Co demanded.
“No, I am perfectly sober! I’m serious, was he hot?”
“Why do you need to know? I didn’t realize we were on a need-to-know basis of the hotness of my potential murderer,” Au Co huffed.
“First of all, I’m curious. The tabloids talk about him like he’s totally dreamy, some hunk of a Prince Charming. Second of all, my dad wants me to get married eventually and I hope if I end up in an arranged married he’s not ugly, which is shallow I know but damn cut me some slack, and third of all, the last time I saw him I was like, 7 or something, I wanna know how he turned out.”
“You really just had that entire monologue inside your brain, huh.”
“I’m not just all pretty looks and perfect hair,” My Nuong waggled her eyebrows, “I’ve got some schemes of my own too. Just you wait, Au Co, I’ll climb my way to the top of this nepotist corporate ladder and I’ll be the queen of Lac Viet City. You can be my court jester, or something.”
The pink-haired tien rolled her eyes, shoving her friend with her shoulder which nearly knocked her very human and not-superpowered friend over. “I mean, he wasn’t ugly. Which, by the way,” she added with great importance, “I think is stupid and subjective, but if you’re asking if he looks like those New Wave pop stars, yes, he’s pretty.”
My Nuong sighed dreamily, clasping her hands to her heart and twirling along the sidewalk of the mostly deserted street. “Ah, Minho-oppa, the love of my life,” she said with a woeful sigh. “Only the most beautiful man to grace this earth.”
Au Co could hardly forget the image of the pretty New Wave popstar My Nuong had set as her home screen. The image, along with a variety of fangirl remarks and kiss stains, was seared into her mind for all living memory. My Nuong had confessed she had kept a shrine to the popstar when she was in middle school in her closet, and that alone was enough for Au Co to question her friend’s sanity.
“Are you satisfied now?”
The two had paused under a streetlight, a lantern delicately swinging from it’s post. They had passed from the university section of the city to the junction between it and the eatery section, and the buildings were melting from corporate conglomerates to smaller, trendy cafes and restaurants. They would still have been in-between, however, and taking a quieter route. Moths buzzed around the lantern lights and there was only the faintest sound of traffic in the distance. It was rare for the city to be this quiet, if it all.
“Well, sure-” My Nuong paused, her gaze sharpening on something over Au Co’s shoulder. Something powerful coiled in her stance, something alert and vaguely predatory. She rested her arm casually on her friend’s, and leaned in seemingly to say some juicy bit of gossip. But what came out chilled Au Co.
“There’s a group of men behind us. I think they’ve been following us since we left the university. I thought they were also just students, but look…”
Au Co casually stretched her long figure against the lantern, seemingly resting. She flicked her gaze in that direction, and sure enough there was a group about 10 yards away. As soon as Au Co levied her steady gaze upon them, they seemed to shuffle their feet and murmur amongst themselves. They were all wearing hoodies and clad in nondescript gray and black clothing.
“Come on,” she said under her breath, taking her friend by the hand, “let’s see if we can lose them.”
As soon as the two girls began making their way down the deserted street the group began to follow, rather conspicuously, though keeping their distance. When the girls stopped, they stopped. When they rounded the corner, the group did too.
Au Co grit her teeth. She glanced at My Nuong, her friend’s sweet countenance set in determination.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Always.”
Au Co threw her friend a crooked, all knowing grin. “Alright, let’s get this bread.”
And with that, the two girls took off into the night. And without much surprise, someone from the group swore rather loudly, and they followed, close on the girls’ heels.
My Nuong had the advantage of knowing the city’s streets by heart, and Au Co had the advantage of being superhuman, strong, and fast. She scooped her friend up bridal-style and let her long legs carry her careening through the empty streets.
It exhilarated her, the chase. It woke some primal instinct deep within her chest, something inhuman and divine. With every breath she drank in the heady, humid night air greedily and with every step she flew over the asphalt and concrete in a sort of giddy flight.
“There!” My Nuong’s eyes were glued to her holocom, her lips pursed in concentration. “That’ll take us to the market district. It’ll be crowded, we can lose them there.”
Au Co nodded, barely registering her friend’s words as they skidded around the corner, and nearly crashed into a young family.
The market district, despite it being a weekday night, was crowded. Vendors under the seedy lantern-light hawked their wares, hosts hollering for business out the windows of their artisanal shops that stretched into the sky. The scent of incense and sweat perfused the whole area, golden light casting the whole district in a faintly warm glow. The buildings were old, pre-war architecture, from days ancient even to the humans, with tiled and tiered roofing and red doors and wooden frames. Families of all ages and couples meandered about, taking their pick from the fresh produce and strange trinkets alike, perusing through the city’s wares with dedicated interest.
Au Co let her friend clamber down, and threw a glance over her shoulder. The group was gone, but only for a minute.
“Come on, we got to go.” Once again, the two girls clasped hands and with Au Co at the forefront, like a pioneer on some uncharted land, pushed through the crowd.
“Sorry, my bad, make way please,” she murmured as she towered over the denizens of the city, trying to shoulder her way through as gently as possible. The two girls slowly made their way through the eddies of people, not unlike winding through errant river currents, but they didn’t make it very far before My Nuong let out a curse.
“Shit, look, they’re behind us.”
Above the heads of the crowd, the hooded figures of the men shoved their way through the throng of people, beelining for the two girls. Outraged cries of families being brusquely pushed aside rang out over the din, mothers and fathers alike yelling their indignance.
My Nuong set her jaw. “Let’s see if we can make it to my place.”
Not a bad idea. My Nuong’s father constantly had guards stationed around the Le compound. They’d be protected, at the very least, and hopefully the guards could give chase to their assailants and apprehend them.
Au Co nodded. “Lead the way, princess.”
My Nuong took her friend’s hand, and darted sharply to the left, careening past two vendors hawking large melons and other fruits, much to the vendors’ alarm. While they ran down the alleyway the busy market street sounds faded behind them, their only companion their harsh breathing and their footsteps thudding on the wet, uneven ground.
They were in some kind of liminal state, Au Co noted, almost between worlds. Sandwiched between two apartment buildings, clothes drifted lazily in the summer night above with only a glimpse of the muggy moonlit night, a sliver of silver, above their heads. Windows lay dark and silent, foreboding and eerie with the moonlight casting its silent reflection upon their glass panes.
“Here,” My Nuong panted, “make a left and we’ll be in Peach Concubine- oh, fuck.”
Rounding the corner, three men stalked out from the shadows, nearly indistinguishable from the inky darkness in their gray and black apparel. Their faces were nondescript, their eyes empty, glazed over, but their gaze sharpened as they landed on their quarry.
My Nuong whirled around, ready to take off at a sprint in the other direction. But, almost as if out of a movie scene, two other men strode out of the night into their view, thoroughly sandwiching the girls between trouble and certainly more trouble.
Au Co cracked her neck. “This will be unfortunate for you if you don’t step away.”
My Nuong backed up against her friend, and slowly took out the switchblade she always had stashed at her hip. It was steel edged in silver, in the event their attacker were a Mystic. Specially designed, of course, for the protection of a very important person.
“They don’t seem too keen on conversation, you know.” My Nuong’s brown eyes swept over the two men in front of her sharp with intent.
“So sad,” Au Co sniffed, baring her teeth and raising her fits, feeling her body shift by instinct into a low boxing stance. “I’m a wonderful conversation partner.”
“I’m sure,” My Nuong replied steadily as the five men closed in, “but I think they won’t be in any state to manage a word after this.”
Au Co leapt at the men in front her, gleefully cackling. She threw a left cross at the face of the man in front of her directly, satisfaction brimming in her chest as he flew straight into the brick wall of the alleyway and leaving a rather sizable indent. Much to her chagrin, he stumbled to his feet nearly immediately and began stumbling his way back to her.
The second man made a grab for her and she ducked and bobbed beneath his outstretched hands, driving her shoulder into his stomach. There was a gurgled cry as she barreled into the man, feeling his ribs give way beneath her strength. For good measure, as he staggered back, she kicked him squarely in the chest and sent him flying and skidding back into the darkness of the alley, to where he careened into the fumbling figure of the first man and the two went tumbling down.
The third man charged toward her with surprising agility, his eyes still empty. In the flashing moonlight his empty eyes were illuminated silver, the whites of his eyes clearly an uncanny gunmetal gray.
Fuck, Ghost users. Au Co swore to herself. That’s why they didn’t seem to respond to pain. They were probably high off their balls to the point where they didn’t even register pain. They seemed human, but certainly not weak. Any human on Ghost could conceivably stand toe-to-toe with a Mystic given the circumstances.
At the last moment, the man slid a switchblade out of his sleeve and with an downwards arc tried to slice his way into Au Co, but at the last minute her supernatural reflexes kicked in and she managed to angle her arms to catch his forearm on her forearm and catch him in a grab, kneeing him in the chest. She felt his ribs cave in, and blood spurted from his mouth, wetting her shoulder. She wrinkled her nose in a sort of distracted form of distaste.
The man went relatively limp, trying to stagger his way out of her grasp, but she paid him no mind as she threw his body against the wall like a ragdoll. His ribs had probably punctured his lungs and heart. He’d die of blood loss and heart failure soon, and if not that, tension hemopneumothorax. Exciting stuff.
Au Co smirked, cracking her fists against one another. “I can keep this up all night, boys.”
The two remaining men had staggered to their feet and were rushing toward her, but leisurely, she threw a snappish roundhouse at both of them which sent them both careening back into the wall, leaving a rather satisfying sized dent in the brick. The smell of blood and dust rose into the air, mixing with the scents of the sweet night air.
Au Co spun on her heel, only to see My Nuong execute a well-timed palm strike into a guy’s chest and a quick flick of her knife across his throat, watching in awe as the man’s body fell limp and crumpled to the floor. The body of the other man lay prone at My Nuong’s feet, and with an imperious sniff, the princess flicked the blood off her knife and carefully stowed it back away. She turned to look at Au Co, nose wrinkling seeing the blood splattered over her friend.
“I’m not paying for your laundry bill.”
“I think that’s the least of our worries right now, My Nuong,” Au Co snapped, “What the fuck was that all about?”
“I don’t know,” My Nuong said grimly. Clouds passed over the moon, and the shadows flitted over My Nuong’s face, illuminating her countenance set in apprehension. Her friend knew no more than Au Co did. “But it can’t be good. To openly risk an attack on a family member of a Senator… It’s been years since there was a direct assasination, since-”
My Nuong didn’t have to finish her sentence. Au Co, despite her relatively cloistered upbringing, could finish the thought without the need to think. The Great Ending, many people called it. Legally an accident, rumored to be an assasination of one of the greatest families to ever grace the Vietnamese throne.
Au Co wiped some sweat off her forehead, leaving a trail of sanguine blood glistening on her forehead. “What do we do now?”
“We go to my father… and pray there won’t be war.”