Lupi 06 - Blood Magic

it been one of the children who caught the nightmare and somehow infected the rest?
    She had heard various tales. She could not, of course, ask directly, but she'd managed to steer the talk in the marketplace now and then to the story of the deaths in Wu An's house. The gossips had only a mishmash of tales, unhelpful save for the way they kept the wound open. No one knew. No one save, perhaps, the Chimei, who had caused it all.
    The Chimei, who could not be killed.
    Li Lei watched the house where everyone who mattered had died. And waited.
    It was a finely crafted structure with beautiful carving on the lintels, built from the best materials, but it was not pretentious. The doors were red lacquer, centered amid the four columns upholding the roof, yet that roof possessed but a single tier. Li Lei's father had scoffed at merchants who aped the nobility. Wu An had been a commoner, only a few generations removed from pure peasant, and proud of it. How did you honor your ancestors, he said, by pretending to be other than they had been?
    Used to say, Li Lei corrected herself. He said nothing now. Nothing she could hear, at any rate.
    She did hear the giggles and stumbling feet approaching. Before their owners rounded the corner she reached for a small stick she'd selected earlier. She didn't look up. Her ears told her enough - a small group of young men, drunk enough to be foolish.
    Few other than the drunk, the mad, or the desperate were out at night in Luan these days. Li Lei began drawing in the dust that covered the cobbles with her stick, pausing to grunt like a satisfied sow and move a few pebbles around, then "writing" with the stick once more.
    One of the drunks called out, "Hey, you! What's your stinking carcass doing here, eh?"
    "Leave him," another voice muttered. "Leave him 'lone, Zhi."
    "Gonna get him outa here. Don't need stinking beggars hanging around - "
    "He's no beggar." This voice was hard, the words less slurred than the others' had been. "He's one of the eaten, you fool."
    "Still stinks." That young man was sullen now. He'd moved close enough that Li Lei saw his feet out of the corner of her eye. "Don't need this smell on my street."
    Li Lei continued her meaningless writing as if she had no idea the others were there, but she wanted to look up, to see who claimed this street. She didn't know the voice, but that meant little. For all her father's leniency when they were in the country, in the city he'd followed custom. She'd seen her male neighbors from time to time; she had never spoken with them.
    Her focus didn't let her avoid the kick he aimed at her side, but it allowed her to roll with it - roll like a log oddly determined to stand upright, for she ended up on her feet, staring blankly at the air directly in front of her. Not seeing the three young men so close.
    She began writing in the air with her stick.
    "Come on, Zhi," the tallest young man said to his friend, taking his arm. "Leave the poor bastard alone. You need more wine, eh?"
    "Not enough wine in the whole cursed city," said the third one - the one whose speech wasn't slurred. "Not enough." But he, too, allowed himself to be chivvied onward.
    Li Lei continued painting the air as they left, but her heart was pounding. She'd recognized Zhi. He was the youngest son of the merchant Jiao, who trafficked in salt and spices. Her father had invested with Jiao sometimes. She wondered if he was still alive. And his wife, the sharp-tongued Yi Me - had she survived?
    Most had, actually. Death and madness might stalk the city, but the sorcerer was canny enough to leave most of the population alive. He needed the people of Luan to continue in their usual paths, or what was his power for?
    His lover needed them for other reasons.
    Li Lei sank down onto the street once more, sitting cross-legged. Thank you, Li Lei told her father silently, wiggling her toes. Had it not been for his disdain for commoners who aped the nobility, she might be teetering around now on tiny lumps of flesh, their bones liquefied after years of binding. No one would mistake her for a youth then, no matter how clever her disguise.
    Or perhaps not. Her mother had not believed in foot binding, and her mother had been... fierce, she thought with a smile, for that loss had faded enough for smiles. Qian Ya Bai had been fierce indeed.
    Of course, she added with fair-minded practicality, had her feet been bound, she would not have been able to run off in the first place. Perhaps her