19. Zhang Junjie

Chapter 19

Zhang Junjie

J unjie paced his room, his arms wrapped around his middle as if that could suppress the rolling waves of nausea in his stomach. He paused at the closed door to stare over his shoulder at the top drawer of his bureau. After a second, he resumed pacing, his footsteps silent on the floor.

The timing couldn’t be more perfect. Ming Yu had taken Erik grocery shopping with her so the child wouldn’t feel so cooped up. Erik needed some exposure to the outside world. Xiao Dan and Leo had tagged along as protection for both of them.

The house was quiet, and he’d prepared everything. Almost. A low table sat in the center of his room and a couple of candles flickered in the dim lighting. Incense smoke curled up from the burner, creating a calming atmosphere.

Since the fight with Trin two nights ago, the fae had retreated and not stirred up any new trouble. They’d seen nothing of Jiang Chong.

He needed to do this now while there were no distractions.

Putting it off was harming his clan. They needed the information he might glimpse, thanks to his gift.

He could do this. He could be brave for his clan. For Erik. And for Leo.

Junjie sucked in a deep breath and crossed the room to his bureau. An icy chill bit into his fingers as they wrapped the slender handle and pulled the drawer out. The only thing resting inside was a long, slender, scarf-like cloth he’d folded several times.

Swallowing hard, Junjie reached in and pulled out the cloth. He closed the drawer with his hip and shifted the cloth to his right hand while he grabbed a small case of special threads and needles from another drawer.

It hadn’t taken too long to realize that his vampiric gift was the ability to see into the future. The problem was learning to focus and harness it into something he could understand. At first, he’d thought what he was seeing was nothing more vivid than nightmares.

Until those nightmares began coming true.

Afterward, Jiang Chong had forced every manner of device into his hands. From scrying using mirrors and pools of water to kau cim,? 1 yarrow sticks, tea leaves, and animal entrails. Nothing had worked, and Jiang Chong then became more violent in his demands.

It was as Junjie was mending the hem on one of his robes, his fingers moving along the detailed embroidery that a vision had come to him. This time, it was clear and ordered, giving him the chance to understand what he was seeing.

What was more, he could repeat the process when he closed his eyes and dragged his fingers over another bit of embroidered cloth. There was something about feeling the silken swirls and designs on the fabric that calmed his brain and organized the chaotic images lurking in the back of his mind. He’d never been able to explain it, but no one cared why his skill worked this way. The only thing that mattered was that it worked on command. Particularly Jiang Chong’s command.

The one problem was that he couldn’t focus his powers on a specific person or time period. His gift was more like looking out a window rather than flipping channels on a television. What was outside the window was what his power allowed him to see.

In every vision, the person he saw would be someone who was in his life. The few times he’d thought he’d seen complete strangers, he’d later discovered that they were people who were destined to enter his life within the next few weeks.

With the length of cloth and threads in his hands, he turned to the table and kneeled on the small round cushion he’d put in front of it. He set the threads aside and spread out the cloth. To the left, a variety of swirling, complicated stitches filled the fabric, but they didn’t create a coherent image or even a flowing design. It was pure chaos. But the point wasn’t to create what he was seeing. No, he just needed the bumps and swirls to trigger the images in his brain. Sometimes the colors he used ended up being linked to certain people, but that was about it.

For instance, a satiny gold thread he’d used repeatedly for a century was now forever linked to Yichen. But then, he’d been using his power constantly during the hundred years the fae had held Yichen, trying to get some glimpse of their missing brother.

Today, he opened the wooden case to reveal the rainbow of neatly organized threads on tiny spools. His left hand on the cloth, Junjie closed his eyes and placed his right hand on the box, the tips of his fingers lightly running over the spools. He was halfway through the box when a spark pricked his finger and traveled down his arm like an electric current. He picked up the spool and opened his eyes to see that the thread was orange.

That was…odd. He rarely ever used this color. Bright reds, shining golds, deep purples, and an ocean of blues covered the cloth already. But almost never orange.

Nimble fingers selected a long silver needle. He threaded the needle with practiced ease and stopped. A slight tremble entered his fingers, and his mouth went dry. Fear turned his entire body to ice. What was he going to see this time? Who was going to die? There was no one in his life he could survive parting with. They were all family. So precious to him.

“No,” Junjie said in a low, forceful voice. He squeezed his eyes shut and tightened his grip on the needle. “Death isn’t the only thing the future has to offer. There is more. Happy things. Hope. Love. Laughter. The future gave us Erik. The future gave me Leo’s smile.”

Without opening his eyes, Junjie picked up the cloth in his left hand and started creating stitches in the fabric at the empty end. In times of an emergency or if the need was dire, he could sometimes kick-start his power by running his fingers over stitches he’d made in the past.

But this was a new, fresh reading. He wanted to look further into the future by days, weeks, or even a few months. That required new stitches, new designs for his fingers to follow.

He worked with his eyes closed, never seeing what he was creating as he placed one stitch after another, filling the cloth in what he hoped was a somewhat coherent design. But most of the time, they weren’t. He worked until the spark that had bitten at the tip of his finger earlier snapped and crackled again. This time, the feeling began in his brain like a tiny thunderstorm was brewing.

There was no telling how much time had passed. It didn’t feel as if it had taken long. But when it took hold, he pulled the needle free of the thread and set it aside. He’d learned from experience that if he didn’t remove the needle, he would end up stabbing himself with it.

He rested both hands on the cloth, his fingers moving along the various stitches like a blind man reading braille. Even though his eyes were closed, colors flashed through his brain as if telling him he moved from a blue thread to green, then yellow.

But his fingers stopped as the colors swirled together and formed shapes. Clear shapes.

He was standing in the driveway before the manor. The vehicles were there, and the sky was dark. A forceful wind swept through the area, making the trees sway and the limbs rattle together. He could almost feel the coldness riding the wind, carrying with it colored leaves ripped free from their branches.

The scene rippled as if his brain was attempting to bring it further into focus, and Jiang Chong appeared. His long black hair danced in the wind. A long sword slashed the air in front of him, reflecting the lights from the house.

With his teeth clenched, Junjie held the image still as he turned it in his mind to see more. Jiang Chong wasn’t alone. He was facing Jiang Chong, but he had no sword in his hand and he was completely alone. No. A step directly behind Junjie was Leo.

No! No! No!

Why was the cat shifter there? He had no business being anywhere near this fight. He should be inside as the last line of defense for Erik. Why wasn’t the dragon out there? Where was the rest of his clan?

Junjie’s heart raced and his throat felt like it was attempting to close completely, but he had to push on. There was no turning back now. He had to know what happened to himself and Leo. This had to be when they killed Jiang Chong. There was no allowing him to escape.

It was a struggle to get the scene from the future to roll forward as everything in Junjie’s heart was screaming to stop the vision right now.

The fight lurched forward, nearly a blur in its speed. Junjie fought Jiang Chong without a sword as best he could. Suddenly, an orange blur entered the fight, chasing his old creator around the property.

But all too quickly, Jiang Chong disappeared. Junjie felt like he blinked because Leo was suddenly there beside him. Leo’s lips parted, his face twisting as he tried to cry out. He pulled Junjie and the vampire stumbled forward.

As he caught his balance and looked up, it was to see Jiang Chong plunge his blade straight into Leo’s chest.

“No!” Junjie screamed. His eyes flashed open, but the image was already burned into his brain.

Jiang Chong killed Leo.

He screeched again as he clambered to his feet. He upended the table in front of him, sending the cloth, thread, and needles flying across the room. It wasn’t enough. He seized the table and threw it across the room. “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you, Jiang Chong!”

Still unsteady on his feet, he moved to the bureau and swept his arms along it, throwing everything on top to the floor with a loud crash. Glass and clay shattered, but it was nothing compared to the destruction of his heart.

He swayed, mindlessly searching for something else to destroy, but the only thing that would satisfy him would be Jiang Chong. If he could kill him now while Leo was away shopping with the others, the prophecy couldn’t come true.

But it never worked that way. He couldn’t force Jiang Chong to appear prior to the appointed time.

“I’ll kill you!” he shrieked.

A pair of strong arms wrapped around him from behind and Junjie fought them on instinct until Chen’s calming voice broke through his panic.

“What did you see? Tell me. What did you see?” Chen demanded in his ear.

“Jiang Chong…” Junjie panted. His lungs were squeezed so tight with pain, he couldn’t draw in a full breath. “Jiang Chong…”

“What did Jiang Chong do?”

“He…he killed Leo.” Those few words broke from Junjie in a sob and his legs gave out. Both he and Chen sank to the floor. The arms that restrained him now shifted into a bone-crushing hug as Junjie fell apart. He turned to Chen and pressed his face into his neck as a torrent of tears fell from his eyes. How could this happen? They’d just found each other. They were still falling in love, but Jiang Chong was going to steal that away like he’d stolen so many other lives away.

“We’ll stop him,” Chen stated in a low, rough voice. “We will stop him. Leo will be safe.”

But there was no comfort in Chen’s words. Jiang Chong had killed dozens of the Zhang clan and the Sword of the Heavenly Garden sect. Junjie had seen nearly half of them in his visions, and they’d been unable to stop a single one of those deaths. Over the years, he’d seen his brothers and sisters fall in battle and even from suicide. Not one of those deaths could have been stopped.

What made Leo different?

Nothing.

“I will kill Jiang Chong,” Junjie swore as his heart splintered in his chest.

1 ? Kau cim – a fortune-telling practice in which a question is asked and numbered bamboo sticks are shaken from a tube. The number on the stick that falls from the tube is matched to a written oracle that should interpret the answer to the person’s question.