I have instructions from where the bus left me off on how to get to the inexpensive hotel that has been recommended to me. It is late, and the air is chill with the fog that is rolling into the city.

It is not how I pictured America, but I am free.

I hear steps behind me as I walk the dark streets. I am on guard, a thousand dangers haunting me, though I do not look back. I force calm upon myself, consider the three colors of the Autumn Gate, the five sounds of the Falls of Silver Joy, and the nine paths to obedient virtue.

Those last are always the hardest, which makes them the best calming discipline.

A hand grabs my upper right arm, a voice grunts out something unintelligile, vile in tone, unmistakable in threat.

I let the pull swing me around, add to the movement, bring the arm clenched to my left side explode forward, propelled by my left hip, driving the fingers straight and rigid into the throat of the man who grabbed me.

A crunch of cartilage, and the man is staggering back, clutching his neck, eyes bulging, trying to breath past the smashed windpipe, the welling of blood. He trips, goes down hard to the sidewalk, still noiseless, staring at me, staring at the sky, scrabbling on the ground beside him.

His eyes roll upward, his body spasms, still without breath.

He passes out. He will be dead in a minute or two.

I stare down at him. I have fought a thousand, ten thousand practice bouts in the Courts. I have been taught by great warriors, by subtle assassins, by creatures of beauty and creatures of horror. The dragons gave me strength and speed, and the training to kill with a touch.

I have never killed a human before.

I stare down at him a moment longer. Then, as silent as he, I turn and run for the hotel, as the demons of Diyu pursued me, though I am never able to escape that moment again.

Prompt

The flowers weren’t much, but they smelled nice. I wasn’t much either, but ditto. I took a deep breath, prayed to the ancient god of Guys Out on Dates, and knocked on the door.

After a few moments, it slowly opened. Chrys wasn’t standing there. Instead, it was a very tall, very severe Chinese woman, dressed in some sort of outlandish Oriental outfit. She looked down at me, in silence. Even through all that makeup pancaked on her face, her disdain for me was palpable.

My flowers might have wilted a little bit.

“I–” I stopped, cleared my through. “Mr. Roger Donne, calling on Miss Chrysanthemum Long.”

The figure continued to stare down at me. I might have been daunted, if I weren’t a doughty war vet. Okay, I was a vet, and I was still daunted.

“Um–we, I mean she, and I, we had dinner engagements. She was–” Is it hot in here, or just me? “She invited me to partake, that is, to dine. Here. With her. On–”

“Wednesday night,” Chrys chimed in, peering around the silent figure. She was in a simple smock and a worried expression. “It was for tomorrow night, Roger.”

“Tomorrow–” I counted on my fingers in my head. “This is, wait, this is Tuesday night?”

“Yes.”

Being a detective sometimes meant nights, and days, and dates all blurred. I realized she was correct. “Well, son–of a gun. I’m here on the wrong night.”

“Sorry,” Chrys said.

“Well, I apologize–” I bobbed a little bit at Chrys, a little bit at the silent, glowering woman. “Apologize, for–”

“SHE IS OTHERWISE ENGAGED.” The woman’s voice boomed at me, though with an odd lack of echo in the small apartment corridor.

“This is my Aunt–” Chrys began, then the door slammed. I’m not sure which of them did it.

I listed at the door for a moment, hearing nothing, then stepped, slowly, quietly, away.

I shivered for some reason, and looked down at the flowers. “I need a drink,” I told them. They agreed by not saying anything in disagreement, and I headed for Buttons. Maybe the waitress would like the flowers.

Prompt

I rounded into the hallways in time to see DeMarco closing the door behind him at its far end. I didn’t think there was a fire escape at the other end of the building, but I couldn’t take the chance of him getting away, not after what he’d done, not after he’d been so close.

I slipped up beside the door, out of line of easy fire through it. The .45 in my hand was heavy and cool. I carefully reached over with my left and slowly twisted the knob. Unlocked.

A few deep breaths. Breaking into a room where someone might be shooting back at you had never been one of my favorite pastimes during the war. Being armed with only a pistol, even this pistol, didn’t make it any more entertaining.

And exhale. And turn and push and roll to the far side of the doorway to avoid the first shots–

–which didn’t come, but–

Roaring of wind, and something else, the stink of sulfur, a cloud of ash blowing into the corridor — “Donne! Donne, help me! For the love of God!”

I only intended a quick peep around the door jamb, but what I saw caught me, and I stared, a big target to anyone who wanted to shoot, except that nobody there did.

I wasn’t looking at an apartment like I’d expected, sofas and chairs and end tables and all that jazz. Instead, I was looking onto a vast landscape, earth dark and ashen, pocked by pits from which flame and smoke arose, a horizon of flicking red on black, the sky overhead vast and dark and starless.

And there was DeMarco, being dragged off backwards by two hulking figures, easily ten feet tall, mottled gray and scaled and horned. They stopped, and one turned and looked at me, eye sockets and grinning mouth aflame.

“Donne! You gotta help me!” DeMarco was babbling, screaming, begging. “Those things, those murders, yeah, I did them. You gotta help me, save me out of here, turn me in, I’ll confess, I’ll do the time, just, for Christ’s sake, Donne, help me!”

The demon looking back at me cocked its head.

I thought about demons I’d wranged with during the war, and why. And I thought about Jimmy DeMarco, and what he’d done to those girls.

The air was choking and foul, and I had to cough for a moment, before I said, “He’s all yours, gentlemen.”

“Donne! No! In God’s name, Donne! No!” Tears were running down his widened eyes.

“Bye, Jimmy,” I said, and closed the door.

I stared at the dimly lit hallway a long time until the last flakes of ash settled to the ground.

When I opened the door again, it was an apartment.

Nobody ever found Jimmy DeMarco. I didn’t offer the police any suggestions as to where to find him.

Prompt