The Dragon Warrior Read online

  For immigrants, children of immigrants,

  and diaspora readers everywhere: never forget

  that you are the dragon warriors and heroes of your own stories

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Demons and Deities Through the Dynasties

  Acknowledgments

  CHAPTER

  1

  On the eve of the Lunar New Year, the demons invaded.

  I was pretty used to this happening. Demons swarmed the streets of San Francisco’s Chinatown every Lunar New Year. Of course, these demons were just humans dressed as fearsome beasts, like golden lions and red dragons, who danced down the streets to the beat of drummers and exploding firecrackers.

  Real demons would make the annual San Francisco Lunar New Year parade a whole lot more interesting. But nobody had seen one around here in decades.

  I couldn’t see much through the tiny window on the south side of our small one-room house. It was almost seven in the evening, and the sun had set over an hour ago. But I didn’t need to see clearly to visualize what was happening out there. When I closed my eyes, my nose filled with the scent of fried dumplings and dough twists, my favorite desserts of the holiday.

  A shiver of excitement ran through me as I held a glittery green-and-gold mask up to my face. Pretty soon—if I was successful—I’d be out there for real, at the parade.

  I was glad to wear this mask tonight. I’d been born and raised in the Jade Society, a group of warriors who had emigrated from China to San Francisco, California, decades ago, to protect the people of Earth by fighting demons.

  But I looked a little different from the other warriors. Dark-brown hair and eyes identified me as half-Chinese and half- … Other. A blend of Egyptian, Greek, and Turkish ancestry gave me brown eyes and tan skin that, for the most part, defied the black-eyed, pale-white-skinned standard of Chinese beauty.

  But once I put this mask on, nobody could tell.

  Footsteps creaked the floor behind me, and a familiar voice teased, “You’re still here? Slowpoke.”

  I turned toward my brother, Alex. With his arms folded across his chest and a serious expression, he appeared like a grumpy old man, much older than his eleven years. “I was about to leave.”

  Alex pressed a finger to his lips. “Shhh. We don’t want to wake Ye Ye from his nap. You know he’s sick.”

  Our grandfather lay on his bed, only a few feet away from us. Thankfully, he probably couldn’t hear us over the sound of his own chainsaw-like snores.

  “You’re sure you’ll be fine on your own out there, right?” Alex whispered.

  “Of course. It’s not like I haven’t been to Chinatown before.”

  “I know, but this time … it’s different.”

  My brother was right. I rarely ever snuck out, but tonight, a new kind of energy sparkled in the air like static—as though hinting that real demons were preparing to crawl out of their hiding places, just like the legends said.

  “You could sneak into Chinatown instead,” I offered. “Or come along.”

  My brother’s cheeks colored. “You know I can’t. Someone has to stay with Ye Ye, and … well, you’re … better at combat than I am.” He said the last part all in a rush, like ripping off a Band-Aid.

  Grinning, I cupped my ear in an exaggerated movement. “What was that?”

  “Nothing,” Alex mumbled. “Anyway, we’d better go over the plan.” He swept his curly black bangs aside to wipe sweat off his forehead and leaned against our small TV. “What’s step one?”

  “Sneak into town and buy medicine from Zhao’s Herbal Center,” I rattled off dutifully.

  “Good. Step two?”

  My stomach growled, and I thought of my favorite meat-filled dumplings. “Eat ròu bāo zi.”

  “Faryn!” Alex glanced nervously at Ye Ye, whose long, gray goatee fanned out with each gentle snore. He rolled over, his expression pinched.

  “Fine,” I huffed. “Run back home as quickly as possible, before Ye Ye notices I’m gone.”

  “Step three?”

  “There’s a step three?” I paused. “Eat ròu bāo zi?”

  Alex rolled his eyes. “Faryn, you’re always hungry. Step three is what happens in case you see a demon—you’re supposed to run. You aren’t going to try to be cool and play the hero, all right?” He gestured to the hand-me-down video games stacked by our secondhand gaming console. “This isn’t Warfate. You won’t be able to start over if you die.”

  I scowled, even though he had a point. “Thanks, Alex. I’ll be careful—but I can handle myself. Ye Ye has been training us for years. You should know—I beat you in practice matches all the time!”

  Mao hadn’t invited Alex and me to train with the other kids, but our grandfather made sure we’d still learned martial arts and swordplay. Training with Ye Ye was better, anyway. Mao just wanted the warriors to look powerful, not to become good fighters. She’d taken a strong stance on not bothering the demons as long as they didn’t bother us.

  Ye Ye’s training would make me into a true warrior. He once even told me that my best friend was a plank of wood. Then he whacked me in the shoulder with it, yelling, “Too slow. If I were a real demon, you’d have died five times by now!” He repeated the process, and I got really good at ducking.

  But I was also learning how to fight back.

  “Fighting me is different from fighting a demon,” Alex pointed out, pulling me away from my thoughts and back to the present.

  “Yeah, the demons probably smell better,” I said.

  “I’m serious. Be careful out there in Chinatown, okay?”

  Alex’s gaze locked on the far back wall, which was decorated with huge maps of the entire world that tracked our father’s journeys through Chinatowns, mostly in the United States. Shoved against that same wall sat a small wooden kitchen table, every inch covered by colorful stacks of more maps, all belonging to Ba. The paper’s edges were yellowed with numerous tea stains from over the years. Its weathered state reminded me of how long it had been—four years—since our father’s disappearance.

  No wonder Alex was worried about me. After Ba had disappeared, we were all that we had left. And we needed each other. Ba’s relentless warnings about the demons’ growing strength had angered Mao and some of the other Jade Society adults. Now, without Ba around, they treated us as outcasts.

  “Don’t worry,” I told Alex. “I’m not going to run into any demons. It’s like what Mao loves to say, right? ‘We’ve been demon-free—’ ”

  “ ‘—since 1983,’ ” Alex finished. He scratched his chin. “I guess we should be safe. The eighties were pretty much, like, right around the time dinosaurs went extinct.”

  “Exactly.” But even as I flashed Alex a reassuring grin, my stomach clenched up. And I was pretty sure it wasn’t from the slightly moldy stinky tofu that Mao had given us to eat earlier for dinner.

  Ye Ye had warned Alex and me n
ot to go into town tonight. That he could feel the demons’ evil stirring, which made it harder for him to breathe. At the time, I’d scoffed. My grandfather said that every year, and yet they still hadn’t risen from Chinese hell, Diyu.

  Ye Ye let out a loud snore that shook the empty teacups stacked on the kitchen table. When he quieted, Alex shoved a wad of dollar bills into my hand and whispered, “Go. And seriously, be careful. We don’t know what’s out there.”

  I nodded. Moving as quietly as I could, I slid out the door and shut it behind me. In the sky far above my head, another shower of fireworks exploded.

  Beyond the walls and apartments of the quiet, tucked-away Jade Society lay the heart of San Francisco, and its famous Chinatown. Average residents knew better than to turn up uninvited at the doorstep of the wealthy, powerful families who ran the Society. If they tried, intimidating guards would stop them at the gates with their Ultra Doomsday Glares.

  I dashed across the grassy lawn and through the black gates. A tall oak tree stood just outside the Jade Society’s massive entryway, which was almost as tall as the trees themselves. I walked toward the oak tree, reached up, and spread some of the leaves apart until I spotted what I was looking for: a small black lever. The lever gave after I yanked it, and a gaping hole the size of a door appeared in the middle of the tree trunk.

  To keep ourselves as separate as possible from the outside world, the Jade Society warriors traveled to San Francisco’s Chinatown and other parts of the outside world using this underground tunnel. I was pretty sure that if I wanted to, I could take this route clear to China, or Narnia. I looked down at the smooth floor of the tunnel and found what I was searching for—one lone rusty black bicycle at the near-empty bike rack next to the entrance. The characters for “property of the Jade Society” were written on the bike’s surface in red. Normally the rack was full, but tonight the rest of the bikes were gone, since almost everyone had taken them to the Lunar New Year parade. Only the oldest, rustiest one—which Alex and I were forced to share—was left.

  After grabbing the bike, I steadied it and swung my leg over the seat. There wasn’t a moment to waste. I had to get Ye Ye’s medicine—and quickly. I pedaled so hard and fast down the dark tunnel, I could practically see the light. Then I really did see the light. The end of the tunnel drew into sight, which was good, since I was panting and wheezing like I’d just run a marathon while being chased by demons.

  I braked to a stop and left my ride near the tunnel exit, racking it haphazardly next to all the other bikes. I ran along the tunnel, which was dimly lit with torches, toward the growing light: San Francisco’s Chinatown.

  The tunnel exited into an abandoned alley on the outskirts. I emerged from it and breathed in the cool evening air, filled with too many yummy scents to identify. I’d seen the neighborhood at night many times by now, yet its beauty never failed to take my breath away.

  Red lanterns lit up every corner. The sidewalks teemed with people purchasing dumplings from shouting vendors and exchanging red packets of money, hóng bāo, to ring in the Year of the Horse. I strolled through the streets, taking as much time as I dared, before I was forced to stop where the crowd had reached a standstill.

  “Look, sūn zi,” said an old woman next to me. She nudged the college-aged guy beside her. Based on the Mandarin Chinese term she’d used, he was her grandson. “It’s time for the annual parade of the Jade Society warriors.”

  I couldn’t resist pausing to watch the show. The Lunar New Year only comes around once a year, after all. A procession of teenage boys and their fathers marched to the beat of fast-paced traditional songs toward the brightly colored costumed dragons. Clad in bronze armor from head to foot, the procession followed four men on horseback. The horses had been brought in specially for the occasion.

  Both lines stopped when they met under the towering green Dragon’s Gate at the intersection of Bush Street and Grant Avenue.

  The crowd quieted in the presence of the most powerful men and boys in Chinatown. I mean, these guys literally sat on their high horses.

  My fists clenched as I noticed Luhao, a lanky teenage boy with a long, narrow face that was permanently fixed in a sneer. The heir of the richest family in the Society, he’d taken to teasing both Alex and me over the years—but especially Alex, calling him names and stealing his books. To Luhao’s right waited a brown mare with an empty saddle, probably meant for his father, Mr. Yang, to ride. He must’ve been off as usual attending to the shady business dealings that made his family so wealthy.

  But everyone else’s eyes focused on the boy in the very front. His tall, sturdy build and coal-black eyes commanded attention. And it was hard to ignore the costumed figure behind him, too—humans hidden within an elaborate outfit designed to resemble the half-lion, half-dragon demon called the nián.

  “Every Lunar New Year, nián, you return to our village in the hopes of destroying the crops,” boomed the fourteen-year-old heir to the Jade Society. He thrust a weapon at the nián’s fabric mouth—the jagged blade of a custom-forged sword. “But this year, I, the great Wang, will banish you forever!”

  The people in the crowd whooped, and their cheers grew louder as Wang and the costumed demon pretended to fight each other. Firecrackers exploded near their dancing feet, sending blasts of light shooting out into the night.

  “I love you, Wang!” screamed a nearby girl. Probably Wang’s girlfriend, Wendi Tian.

  I rolled my eyes and muttered, “Crowd-pleasers.”

  “Our so-called protectors from evil,” scoffed the old woman, startling me. Had she read my mind? “How far they have fallen.”

  Her grandson snorted. “When were those boys anything but a bunch of show ponies, nai nai?”

  “Bèn sūn zi,” the woman scolded, “don’t speak about things you don’t understand. The Jade Society warriors used to do great things.”

  “Shhh. Nai nai, they’ll hear you.”

  “I hope they do. Maybe then these warriors will remember they were once the heroes of Chinatown. When I was a young girl, they worked tirelessly to capture rogue demons and protect the Earth. These boys don’t look like they could capture anything. Zhēn méi yòng.”

  Useless, she called them. She wasn’t wrong. Once the warriors had chased most of the demons out of San Francisco, the Society’s goals had shifted from honoring the gods’ wishes and going on hunts to making money and turning our headquarters into an impenetrable fortress.

  I had pictures and memories of my own father to remind me what a true warrior looked like. With short black-and-gray streaked hair, a bulbous nose, and a stern poker face, my father looked—and had been—fearless. Even his name, Liu Bo, felt powerful. Though Alex and I went by our Americanized names, first name before last name, Ba, like Ye Ye, followed Chinese tradition, with our family name appearing first.

  And he was the hero of countless stories. Even though San Francisco remained demon-free, Ba sought danger out across the world. On his travels, Ba had bested hundreds of demons and stopped floods. He’d even gone head-to-head with trickster gods who’d rebelled against the Jade Emperor, the ruler of the heavens and the most powerful deity we worshipped in the Jade Society. Ba could’ve become a general in service to the Jade Emperor—but he had me, and then Alex—before vanishing.

  “Demons? Never even seen one,” the boy said. “They’ve gotta be too scared to show their faces now since the warriors are protecting us.”

  The old woman’s frown deepened. “Demons can disguise themselves as humans—they could be anywhere, even now! You should be careful what you say, silly boy. The demons are at their strongest during the fifteen days of the New Year celebrations, before the moon is full.”

  The old woman’s words reminded me of the history behind the festival. Thousands of years ago, the Lunar New Year celebrations had been designed to ward off evil spirits. But the world had a way of balancing everything out. As the demons grew more powerful, so did the gods—and warriors. Or so Ye Ye had t
old me.

  Ye Ye. Oh no. I’d come here to get his medicine, not watch the warriors’ show. I pushed past laughing elders and squealing children, plodding down the brightly lit Jackson Street until I reached a large herbal store with a sign hanging over it that read: ZHAO’S HERBAL CENTER.

  I entered the store and walked past rows of jars, big and small, filled with unidentifiable substances, selecting a container of pí pá gāo, a nasty-smelling black liquid for curing coughs.

  I took a deep breath, slowly moving toward the counter. Please, don’t let it be Moli, don’t let it—

  But there stood Zhao Moli, the pale, willowy daughter of the local medicinal guru, Mr. Zhao. Moli fit the Jade Society’s idea of beauty so perfectly, it was as though the gods had designed her themselves; every girl wanted to be like her. She donned her riding clothes constantly—brown riding boots pulled over white pants, paired with a fitted black, long-sleeved jacket and a black riding helmet—to remind everyone she was a two-time state junior equestrian champion.

  Moli’s black eyes met mine as I made my way to the counter. I resisted the urge to flinch. She couldn’t recognize me under this mask.

  Or maybe she could. After all, we’d once been best friends, until Ba disappeared. I fixed my gaze on my feet as I placed my grandfather’s medicine on the counter.

  “We closed two minutes ago,” Moli said sourly. “We won’t open until two weeks from today, when the Lunar New Year is over.”

  My heart sank. Two weeks from now, who knew how much my grandfather’s sickness would progress?

  “Now, turning customers away isn’t in the spirit of the New Year.” Mr. Zhao, a short, round man with almost no hair, came up behind Moli. He put his arm around his considerably taller daughter. She frowned and wriggled out of his grasp. Mr. Zhao smiled at me. “I’ll ring you up. No one should start off the Lunar New Year sick.”

  “Thank you, shū shu,” I said, keeping my voice low and distorted. Unlike some of the Jade Society adults, Mr. Zhao treated me with as much warmth as he did all the other kids. Still, if I’d greeted him the usual way, Moli would know who I was.

  “How many times have I told you that you can’t let the customers take advantage of you?” said Moli. “You’re too kind, bà ba. But you can’t save the whole world.”