The Scarlet Crane: Transition Magic Book One (The Transition Magic Series 1) Read online

  The Scarlet Crane

  Transition Magic Book One

  by J. E. Hopkins

  NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  This book is a work of fiction. All characters in this novel are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  The Scarlet Crane

  Copyright © 2015 by J.E. Hopkins

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Art by Kit Foster

  A RPG Book

  Published by Realmwalker Publishing Group, Inc.

  13290 W. Mill Road

  Malcolm, NE 68402

  www.realmwalkerpublishing.com

  ISBN 978-1-943670-44-4

  First Edition: 2012

  Second Edition: 2015

  Printed in the United States of America

  To Jamie, without whom this novel, like all the good things in my life, would have been impossible.

  Hanoi

  The Socialist Republic of Vietnam

  Eleven-year-old Thanna Nguyen herded the two kids—she called them her “little ones”—down the street toward Hoan Kiem Lake, where the three would climb like monkeys into the old trees surrounding the fetid water, find a wide bough, and sleep. It was one in the morning, and the three had spent hours begging from the tourists in Hanoi’s Old Quarter.

  She stopped to rest under a flickering light and pulled a creased picture postcard from her hip pocket. A street vendor had given it to her ages ago. Whenever the desire to be somewhere—anywhere—else was more than she could stand, she’d gaze at the image and dream. The picture was of a palm tree in a place called Moorea. It was an island, like Cat Ba in the Gulf of Tonkin, only surrounded by thousands of hectares of turquoise water, where the people were friendly, the weather always warm, and children were loved.

  “Let us see,” Duc begged.

  “You can look at it, but no touching,” she said. Duc and Kim, seven-year-old twins, jostled to see, then shrugged, not interested. They turned, shoved each other, skipped down the street, and tipped a trashcan, searching for food.

  “Quit messing around, or I’ll leave you behind!” Thanna said. The boys may have been tired, but any little thing in their path still distracted them. She put the picture away and resumed her trek.

  The boys used their diminutive size and large chocolate-brown eyes peering out from under shocks of coal-black hair to pry sympathy and money from their targets. Thanna had stumbled onto them a month ago, huddled together in a filthy alley. Both with purple-green bruises on their faces and backs. Thanna helped other little kids on the streets of the Old Quarter, but Duc and Kim had been wary and independent. Now they never let her out of their sight.

  She noticed the sidewalk and street in the block ahead were dark; the handful of lights that usually lit their path weren’t working.

  “Let’s go out here where we can see better,” she called, and moved into the middle of the road. She considered walking around the dimmed block, but decided against it, too weary for the extra steps.

  Both boys had stopped to pee against the wall of a shop. Giggling, they ran and caught up with her.

  Thanna was taller than other kids her age, with solid muscle on her wiry frame and a dimple in each cheek when she smiled, which was often. Her eyes were the shocking lavender of Transition, which she’d begun three days earlier. She’d quickly developed a patter for the tourists that promised to use Transition magic for their health and wealth. The offer brought smiles and, sometimes, cash. Usually. One lady had screamed about Transition not being funny, about how her son had died trying magic, how every kid who tried it died. She hadn’t given Thanna any money.

  Thanna sped up as she moved into the murkiness. She didn’t like the dark. Nothing good hid in darkness.

  “Keep up with me, or I’ll turn you into frogs,” she said. Both boys were fascinated by Transition and a little fearful that she’d use magic on them. Because she was old, they thought she knew the words required to bring magic to life. She didn’t, but that didn’t stop her from using magic-laced threats to get them to do what she wanted.

  Two men lurched out of the blackness. “Got you!”

  One swallowed Duc in a fierce hug; the other grabbed Kim’s neck and reached for Thanna. She dodged and clawed at his face. The guy jerked back, screaming. “You fucking little bitch!”

  “Run! Get away!” She screamed, turning and racing back toward the light.

  These men were Ông Ba Bị—boogiemen.

  That’s what the street kids called them. The monsters that would come get them in the night if they didn’t behave.

  About a year ago, a couple of gangs started stealing kids who were seven or eight years old. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, a half dozen kids disappeared at a time.

  I’m letting Ông Ba Bi take my two little ones.

  The thought stopped her.

  I said I’d take care of them. They trust me.

  She was rooted to the ground, listening to the sounds of the grunting men and the cries of the children behind her.

  I can’t help them. But I have to try. I promised.

  Almost without realizing it, she turned and stared into the gloom.

  “Take me too!” she yelled into the night.

  The sounds of struggle ceased. A moment passed, then two.

  “Beat it, before I fuck you and toss your body on a dung pile.” The man spoke Vietnamese like a foreigner and was hard to understand.

  She wet herself, soaking her feet in stinky warmth.

  “I can help you with these two and the others you’ve taken. They’ll listen to me and do what I say.”

  The man she’d scratched emerged into the dim light, the bloody scrapes black against his skin. He glared and called to the hidden man in Mandarin. “She’s too old; she’s in Transition already.”

  Is he Chinese?

  Thanna’s legs threatened to betray her. She wobbled, caught herself, and responded in Mandarin. “Please. You can tell me, and I can tell them. Whatever you want.” She’d learned the language from homeless kids with Chinese parents.

  Again silence, longer this time. The hidden man said, “Bring her. If they won’t pay, we’ll get rid of her.”

  Cincinnati, Ohio

  The United States

  Dr. John Benoit was about to walk onto the school stage when his secure phone rattled against his keys. He pulled the cell from his pocket. It was a coded call, demanding a response.

  He slipped back into the shadows. The district superintendent shot him a quick frown from center stage but smoothly segued into a longer introduction.

  John whispered into the phone, “What?”

  Marva Bentley, his boss and the DTS Director, was abrupt. “Dish, Quince Adam’s body has been found in Hanoi. He was tortured. Secure video call at ten Eastern to discuss. Akina’s booked your conference room and put you on a flight to Washington for two this afternoon.”

  Shock and a sharp sadness washed over John. He hadn’t heard from Quince in weeks and had no idea he was in Hanoi.

  He wouldn’t get any more information from Marva until the call. “Got it.” He
snapped the phone closed and checked his watch. Seven-thirty. Enough time, just.

  His pulse racing, he shoved Bentley’s call aside. This lecture had its own kind of priority. There were 250 kids in the auditorium who could go into Transition any day.

  Do this well, and you just might save a few lives.

  He signaled that he was ready.

  Introduction complete, he grabbed a microphone and stalked to the front of the stage, positioning himself close to his audience. He banged his cane, topped by a brass dragon head with ruby eyes, with each step. He had no real need for the cane but enjoyed the misdirection it provided.

  Always good to be underestimated.

  “Thank you for the gracious introduction, Dr. Debosse.”

  John turned to his audience with one more bang of the cane. “You’ve been doing everything you can to learn about Transition magic, right? The web, whispers and rumors, whatever.”

  He paused and watched a few heads nod. “Most of what you think you’ve learned is undiluted crap. So let’s start there. I want you to call out anything you’ve ever heard, read, thought, or believed about the use of magic during Transition. Got it?”

  A few more nods, but not much else.

  He growled, “Listen up. This is the only time I’ll repeat myself. Anything you’ve ever heard … read … thought … or believed. Don’t worry about whether it’s true. We’ll get to that.

  “Yell it out, and Dr. Debosse will capture it on the computer so we can all see it on the projection screen. And when I say ‘anything’ that’s what I mean. No one will get in trouble for language or anything they say. Right, Dr. Debosse?”

  The superintendent squirmed a bit, but nodded and said, “Agreed.”

  “So who’ll start?” Silence. He stared at the kids for a full minute.

  “Okay, I’ll start. But after that you’d better pitch in, or I’ll pack my stuff and you can use this time for your homework.” A few scattered groans in response.

  “First, I read on the Internet that as long as you’re sincere when you use magic you’ll be okay. The magic won’t work if it isn’t unique, but you won’t die. Show of hands, who’s heard that?” Most of them.

  “Bogus. If you try it, you’ll die. So forget that. It sucks, big time.” John’s bluntness intrigued his audience. This was way more interesting than the dull lectures they were accustomed to.

  “How about this? The magic will work, even if you die. So you can sacrifice yourself if you really, really have to. How many have heard that?”

  More than half the room extended their arms.

  “Total BS. If you don’t believe me, ask yourself why magic isn’t happening all around us, all the time, from kids who’ve tried it. I’ll tell you why. Because death is the end of their story. There are no noble sacrifices with magic.”

  The room had fallen silent.

  “Here’s one that’s not so grim. You’ll have lots of sex after Transition, even if you don’t try magic. How many picked this one up?” Nervous laughter skittered around the room. About a third raised their hands.

  “Again, crap. Don’t confuse Transition and puberty. Transition starts at the beginning of puberty, but the two aren’t connected otherwise. If you want to know more about sex, talk with Dr. Debosse. He’s an expert on the subject.” This produced the expected red face from the superintendent and hoots of disbelief from the kids.

  “Now it’s your turn. Shout ‘em out.”

  In a half hour they’d generated a list of 65 items. Only one was completely true—their eyes would change to lavender while they were in Transition.

  “Okay, great,” John said. “Let’s step through them one at a time.” He continued for an hour, answering their questions with his trademark gruffness until no new questions emerged.

  “This is really pretty simple. If you try magic, you’ll die. Remember that and ignore the rest of the bullshit that you hear, and you’ll be fine.

  “We’re handing out a fact sheet. It has the number for the DTS Transition Truth Line on top of the page. You can call any time, day or night, and get help.”

  * * *

  John said his good-byes, dashed through the rain that had started before daybreak, and climbed into his sky blue ‘58 Saab. He had enough time to get to Marva’s call if he treated speed limits as recommendations. He tore from the parking lot, tires slipping on the wet asphalt, and sped to his office in the Environmental Protection Agency building on Martin Luther King Drive.

  He’d spent three times the original cost of the fifty-five-year-old car keeping it on the road, but he loved the damn thing for its quirkiness. He pulled the small chain on the dash to raise a canvas curtain behind the front grill. The distributor sat in front of the engine and would short from the water, so the car’s engineers had thoughtfully provided the curtain rather than move the distributor.

  The two-cycle engine spewed a dense cloud of blue-white smoke as he climbed the hill to his office, swallowing cars unfortunate enough to be behind him. He smiled. Perfect for an aging secret agent.

  He pulled into the parking lot with seven minutes to spare. No one here knew what he did, other than he worked for the Department of Transition Security. The EPA was the only federal building in Cincinnati and housed people from other agencies who needed the cover, including two who were rumored to be CIA officers. Those characters were gossip lightning rods.

  He jogged across the parking lot, his clothes getting wet for the third time that morning. Even without the rain they would look like he’d slept in them. He’d been tagged Dish—for disheveled—during his first year with the DTS. He could make a two-thousand dollar suit look rumpled.

  The building was a fine representation of the “urban riot” architectural style common to the sixties. It was a large cube four stories tall with a seamless concrete facade, streaked with stains from roof to ground. Vertical slits passed for windows.

  He hustled inside, through the scanners, and directly to the secure conference room, where he punched up the main DTS briefing room. The huge high-def display snapped into focus on an unhappy Marva Bentley, alone at an immense conference table.

  * * *

  Marva’s military posture was more rigid than usual. Her burnished mahogany skin defied her fifty-five years, but her forehead was scarred with creases he hadn’t seen before.

  She was the only African-American head of a federal security agency. The only woman. Because she was responsible for both domestic and foreign Transition security, she was primus inter pares—first among equals—in the U.S. intelligence community. She worked for the cantankerous Director of National Intelligence, who in turn reported to the President, himself a hot-tempered and impatient man who frequently ignored the chain of command and contacted her directly.

  John respected Marva. She was a results-driven, type AAA personality whose life revolved around the DTS. She gave him plenty of room, but they clashed when his sense of justice threatened her career or the agency. Which were the same in her book.

  He jumped in before she could start. “Why was Quince in Hanoi?”

  Her frown deepened. “Four months ago we picked up rumblings of a clandestine Chinese program to kidnap street kids and force them to use Transition magic for the state. I’ll give you the file when you get to D.C., but I’ll tell you now there isn’t much in it. The whole thing is unlikely. But it would be a major threat if it were true. So I put Quince on special assignment, reporting to me. He came up dry for months. Then we got a tip through the Hanoi embassy. He was there to run it down.”

  She paused and drew a deep breath. “A maid found his body about 18 hours ago. He’d been tortured, and his room was tossed. The hotel called the local police, who contacted our embassy. Ambassador Hogan knew Quince was in-country and called me. It was a slow process.”

  Slow was not a good thing in Marva’s world. In this instance John had to agree.

  “The embassy had one of their undercover CIA agents photograph the room and interview
housekeeping. The hotel swears they left the room as they found it, but who knows. I’ve ordered everything—furniture, carpet, the whole works—put in a container and shipped here ASAP via military transport, along with Quince’s body.”

  “I’m surprised. That seems like an extreme response, even for the death of a DTS agent on foreign soil.”

  She grimaced. “I don’t like coincidences. I sent Quince to check out a bunch of gabble and he got killed. Makes me think the rumors are whispers of a genuine nightmare.”

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  She glanced at her watch. “You have a plane to catch. Come to my office as soon as you get in to D.C., and I’ll brief you in detail. I want you to pick up this investigation, so don’t plan on going home any time soon. I don’t know what’s going on or why Quince is dead. You’re going to find out for me.”

  Washington, D.C

  The United States

  John grabbed his go bag and hurried to the airport. The bag had everything he needed for a week, including a camera in case he got the opportunity to visit a few graveyards. Laundries and department stores would take care of anything else.

  The rain had finally stopped. Bright spears of sunlight sliced through the clouds scudding overhead. As he drove, his thoughts turned to Quince Adams. They’d worked together on a handful of cases and become trusted friends. He was a young guy, but at 70, John thought every DTS agent was young. Adams’ progress through the agency had been remarkable.

  Not an agent who made mistakes. What had gone wrong?

  He parked, strode into the airport, and scooted through the pre-cleared security lane. He got to share his middle seat with the guy in front of him, who pushed his seat back into John’s lap as soon as they were airborne. He sought escape through meditation, but his simmering anger about losing Adams subverted any chance for peace.

  He caught a cab at Reagan and headed for Georgetown.