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With that comment, Beckham flies off the handle, moving towards Damon in a blur, sending them both crashing into the wall. Lexi gives an exasperated sigh and continues walking out the door, but I can't do anything but watch my brothers knock the shit out of each other. I've had my share of disagreements with the two of them…especially Damon because he's an ass most of the time and I've known him longer than Beckham, but there's never been this level of malice between us. I march over to where Damon has Beckham in a chokehold and rip them away from each other.
"Get a grip," I roar, frustrated that this fight is distracting us from what's most important. "You're fighting over Eva like you have any say at all. Ultimately, she's the one who picks. We aren't going to have any chance of saving her from a supposedly "all-powerful" being if you two can't get your shit together. Obviously fated mate or not, she has more feelings for us than is normal for the situation. Nothing is going to be figured out until she's back."
The three of us stare angrily at each other for a moment before Damon gives a sharp nod, grabbing his bag and scattering more sheetrock everywhere. Looking around the room, the penthouse looks almost unrecognizable. I guess we will be redecorating when we get back, if we get back... I give an inquiring glance at Beckham and he lets out a breath of frustration, but also nods and follows Damon out the door. I take one last look at the room, hoping that I'll be bringing my girl…our girl, back here when we return, before leaving and closing the door firmly behind me.
Chapter 7
Damon
The flight from New York City to Beijing is twelve hours long and I'm more than ready to get off the plane when we land. The first couple of hours are spent in silence, each of us lost in our own thoughts with the exception of Lexi who's busy doing who knows what on the other side of the plane. She's been muttering to herself for hours and I've pretty much concluded that we've brought a madwoman with us.
We spend the next few hours filling Mason in. He has a million questions, as do I still, and is equally frustrated with Lexi's inability to give them to us. I'm surprised with Mason's ability to stay relatively calm through all of this. I've always been a hothead, but Mason's always been not far behind me with Beckham filling the role of peacemaker. Now that Beckham's abandoned his role, Mason has seemed to step in, keeping his head in the game while Beckham and I lose it. I know Mason's got to be famished. He's never gone more than a day or so without sex in his life and we're going on months now. Hopefully he will have enough energy to keep up when we have to start backpacking. I'm certainly not going to offer myself up as tribute for him to feed off me.
After Mason feels like he has gotten everything he can out of Lexi, we start to plan for what happens when we get to Zhangiajie. Lexi has apparently been doing research over the area and she says that there's a rumor in some of the supernatural backchannels she has been searching in of an ancient fortress that lies hidden somewhere in the miles of sandstone rock that make up much of Zhangiajie.
Basically, we are going to be doing a lot of hiking, or flying in my case, looking for this supposed fortress where Lexi thinks He is hiding Eva. I've called in for supplies to be waiting for us when we arrive, but I'm unfamiliar with the area and the tactician in me is frustrated with our lack of knowledge. For example, it sure would be nice to know who "He" actually is. Eva's powerful ex-husband doesn't give us much to go off of.
After we go over our initial plans…which basically are to hike around trying to use Lexi's tether spell until we find Eva and have to fight off whatever He has set up, we all grab one of the many couches on the plane and try to get some rest. As I try to get comfortable, I look over and see Beckham staring at the ceiling, looking so depressed that he looks almost like a caricature. The jealousy I've been feeling since I found out that he was her fated mate, or at least that Lexi and Beckham both claim he is, builds up inside of me again, threatening to burst out.
I wonder what he saw though that has put him into such a state. Beckham's never been one to be morose, if anything he's usually the clown of the group, never letting anything get him down for long. Something in his memory has to be pretty big to have gotten him like this. An evil part of me is happy for his pain, maybe it captures a little bit of what I will feel when Eva ultimately picks him, because how could she go against her fated mate? Another crack seems to form in my heart at the very real prospect. I put up a small wall around my heart, hoping that it will protect me from the agony of the near future.
We all eventually are able to get some sleep for a few hours. Thanks to the ludicrous amount of money we all have, we are able to avoid the ridiculously busy Beijing airport and jump on a small prop plane that can get us to the outskirts of the Zhangjiajie National Park where we will start to hike in. There's a guide waiting for us with backpacks full of equipment. His name is Liu Wei and he came highly recommended from my contacts in Beijing.
He's a tiny, happy looking man who seems to never stop smiling. He's going to find us a tough crowd if he's looking for a fun trip. We make introductions and then set off, I'm sure surprising him with our quick pace considering he was told this was a leisure backpacking trip. Beckham's going to have to use his persuasion quite a bit on this trip to convince poor Liu that he hasn't actually seen a being sprout wings. Hopefully he can just get us semi close to the area where the rumors say the fortress is and then he can leave.
Haunting. That's the word that keeps on cycling through my mind as we walk through the sandstone formations. Although Mason is the one that can sense energy, I can still sense some types of magic. There's an ancient magic in this land, something that may exceed even my time on earth. It's a heavy magic that feels almost suffocating. My senses are on high alert, just waiting for something, or someone to pop out from behind one of the towering formations.
As we walk, Liu tells us about the land. The area we are in stretches over twenty-six thousandhaand holds over three thousand of the majestic sandstone pillars that we're walking through. There's also streams, pools, waterfalls, and over forty caves Liu explains. Basically, unless Lexi's witchy GPS starts working more precisely, searching for this fortress will be a little like looking for a needle in a haystack as the saying goes. To make matters more difficult, there's a heavy fog that has descended over the whole area since we started walking, shrouding us, and everything else in grey. I've tried to fly above the fog, but I haven't been able to see anything on the ground.
"Have you ever heard of the lost fortress of Zhangjiajie?" asks Lexi casually to Liu as we walk.
Lexi obviously wants to get to the point of the trip now that we are a few hours into the area.
He stops and looks back at her. "Why do you ask that?" There's a slight note of fear in his voice that has me immediately intrigued.
"We heard a rumor of a lost land and came to try and see if we could find it. Did they not tell you we're professors that study legends and myths?" Lexi asks, creating a new cover for us on the fly.
Liu looks baffled at the information Lexi has presented.
"No, I was told this was a backpacking trip for fun and that you were the friends of some rich Beijing investors. With all the myths and legends in China, why did you pick this one to start with?" he asks.
Lexi responds quickly. "Our specialty is lesser known legends. There's too much competition for the ones everyone knows about. It's much more interesting to investigate the legends that have truly never been investigated."
Liu seems satisfied with her explanation although his earlier grin has become more of an uncomfortable grimace.
"The lost fortress of Zhangjiajie is just that…lost. It was said to be a prison for the ancient emperors truly evil prisoners. The emperors were afraid that if they killed the prisoners they would become Di fu lintg, and haunt the emperors' forever. The evil prisoners were therefore taken to the prison where they would live out the rest of their lives far away from civilization."
"Why was it called a fortress then?" asks Mason, ever the pragmatist.
"The prison was said to be attacked by a pack ofJiangshi. The prisoners were so evil though that they were able to fend off theJiangshisomehow. TheJiangshigrew in numbers, eager to overcome the prison and get a taste of the prisoners since food was so scarce in the region. The prison began to be called a fortress, because the prisoners were so effective at keeping theJiangshiat bay. They fed the guards to theJiangshibut were still stuck in the prison because of them. No one knows what happened to the prison or the prisoners as everyone was too scared to find out. It eventually became a myth, something that parents told their children about to keep them from misbehaving by threatening to send them to the fortress."
"I'm not familiar with the termJiangshi, what is it?" asks Lexi.
"I believe that 'vampire' is the closest term used in your land," Liu responds in a hushed voice. "TheJiangshithough could also be described as a zombie. They are said to be reanimated corpses that kill living beings to absorb their energy."
Beckham gives a snort that probably sounds to Liu like he is making fun of him. What Beckham really means by his snort however is "shit, now we have vampires and zombies to deal with as well."
"Where do the rumors say the fortress was located?" I ask.
