Arriving back in the living room, he found the rug in the living room rolled up to the side and Bran sitting toward the centre drawing on the floor with a brush and ink.
Misha quietly sat behind Bran's shoulder. "Will your aunt…?"
"The ink's water-based," Bran assured Misha. He shot a glance behind him and at the coats and boots Misha had rustled up. He gave them no comment - which Misha took as a positive sign - and turned back to the inscription he was working on.
He made a few marks, then picked up the missing person's notice and placed it into the centre of the circle, then he picked up his sword and rested it across his knees. "Can you guess what this spell is for?"
Misha looked at the inscription.
It comprised of two large circles, one inside the other, about a metre across, but at various points, marks branched outwards giving the whole thing a lopsided look. Like in the book Bran had showed him earlier that day, the markings, even in ink, still retained that almost computer circuit quality.
"It's… looking for… something? Looking for the girl?"
"Close, but no." Bran pointed at the inner circle. "This inner circle is an inscription that queries the source of what is inside it. For this notice, there will be multiple sources, like the manufacturer of the paper and ink, and the people who have touched it, as well as the grandfather who drew it out." Bran next pointed out one of the branches. "This bit helps narrow down the search to just the grandfather. Next," he now pointed at the larger circle, "this inscription looks for more of the essence whatever is in it, so in this case, it looks for the most 'grandfather' thing in range, which should be the man himself."
"I see." That wasn't 'close' at all, Misha thought to himself. "Bran… should we… be in a hurry?"
"A hurry?"
"To save the girl. I really appreciate you teaching me this, but I'm just worried…"
Bran turned to regard Misha. He looked to have some things to say but instead he asked a question: "How did the girl look in the dream?"
"Not good. I mean, physically, she looked okay, but the place she's in looks scary," said Misha.
"Describe it for me?"
"Uh, she's in a narrow alleyway, kind of like the ones in the Walled City, but instead of raining water, it's raining blood. Oh, and there are eyes in the sky."
Bran nodded slowly. "She's in a Coil then."
"A Coil?"
"That's what they're called officially internationally. Some places they're called 'liminal spaces' or, what was it…? 'Spiritual array' or something? I'll look it up for you later."
"Is it bad to be in a coil?" Misha asked.
Bran smiled at that, though Misha didn't get the joke. "You tell me," he said. "No, the girl isn't in immediate danger, just frightened, though we should wrap this all up soon. What I'm more concerned about is this weather…"
Before Misha could ask what about the weather was iffy, the inscription on the floor began to glow.
"Ah, here we go…"
Misha moved to Bran's side to get a better look as the ink on the floor began to bubble and rise up, glowing different, bright colours. The pamphlet also began to rise, and Bran picked up a small bottle, dropped something inside then held the jar out to Misha.
"Hold that with the mouth facing the spell," he ordered.
Misha did as he was told and was nearly flung back when the ink suddenly stopped swirling around the paper and went rocketing into the bottle.
Bran caught him before he hit the floor and quickly took the jar from him, covering the mouth with a hand.
"Alright?" he asked.
Misha nodded sheepishly. "Just took me by surprise."
"It's feeling skittish because of the weather, I think. It's a Compass Spell, simple to make but somewhat easy to disrupt," said Bran as he screwed on the lid. Inside the bottle, the ink seemed to have gained a life of its own and was swimming around like a fish. Bran handed it to Misha who noticed that the jar, far from being a special bottle custom made for the job, was in fact a used jar of chili sauce.
"Chili sauce?"
"My aunt's crazy about that stuff, don't know why," replied Bran. He rose and picked up one of the raincoats Misha had found. He put it on. "Once we go outside, that guy's going to want to go flying off to find that old grandpa, so you need to keep a tight grip on it. Understood?"
Misha nodded seriously.
"Alright. Let's go."
--
Despite the weather and the time of night there were still a surprising amount of people on the street. Most of them were off the wet streets and in lightly lit restaurants having a late-night meal, something I found myself sorely missing. I'd plead jetlag and skipped out on dinner that night to avoid the cooking of a certain someone.
I sloshed to a stop at a corner and held the vibrating glass jar up so that I could see which way its inky inhabitant was trying to escape to.
"Looks like we go down again," you said over my shoulder.
I looked around and pointed out a set of stairs. We headed to and down them.
"Hey, Bran?"
"Mm?"
"Do dragons often have prophetic dreams?" I asked.
"No idea. Why?"
"Oh just… why did you immediately believe me when I said I dreamed about the girl? No, I mean, why do you think my dream is relevant?"
You didn't speak for a moment. "Intuition," you finally said.
I couldn't decide if I thought you were being honest with me or not, but before I could make up my mind, a figure in the distance caught my attention.
At the end of the street, past the footstalls with their big umbrellas, and standing out of the way of the unfortunate delivery food workers, was a woman. The woman, the one from the rooftop. She was standing under the awning of one of the shops that had already closed up shop for the night and even from this distance I could feel her sadness as she looked out at the rain.
"What are you looking at?" you asked.
"Oh, no one."
You leaned in front of me and angled yourself so that you could see what I was seeing. "Ah, is that the woman you talked to this afternoon?"
"God…You-"
Your sudden hand on my arm made me stop. "Misha," you said, your voice flat. "When you said 'you talked to her', what exactly did you mean?"
I looked at you in confusion. "I mean… she talked to me, and I replied."
"When she first spoke to you, what language did she use?"
"English. Why?"
That cold glint appeared in your eyes as you dropped your instrument case from your back and unbuckled it.
"Wait, you're not going to-" I looked around quickly to see if there was anyone around who might be bothered by a guy suddenly waving a sword around.
Then, almost as if she felt your intent - perhaps she really had? - the woman suddenly looked our way.
I don't think I'll ever forget the look in her eyes. It was… hot, violent, animalistic, like nothing I'd ever seen on a human face before.
"Stay here," you growled, pulling your sword from the case and racing forward.
"Bran!"
But as luck - or fate - would have it, a taxi coming down another road suddenly took a swerve and turned onto that stretch of road right by the woman, passing her by.
And when the taxi had passed, the woman had disappeared.
You slowed and I caught up to you as you came to the place where the woman had been standing just a few moments earlier.
"Bran, what's wrong?" I asked.
I gave you your instrument case and you re-buckled it shut again but kept your sword in hand. I hesitated a moment, then untied the charm from my tail.
"No need," you said. "I already have a charm like that on my sword." Then you sighed. I take back what I said before. The little girl, we have to find her now."
"Why? What's wrong?" I asked, retying the charm to my tail.
You brushed the tip of your blade over the ground where the woman had stood. "The woman you met, isn't a woman, not a normal, human one anyway."
"What is she then?"
"Do you know what a gui is? Or gwai in Cantonese."[1]
I shook my head.
"Technically, it's translated as 'ghost' but 'ghost' in English tends to mean something incorporeal, the spirit of a dead person, usually haunting some place because of something that happened. A gui is something more like a physical monster that usually came into existence because of something bad happening."
You raised your sword then stabbed it into the ground. Then you closed your eyes and clasped your hands together, almost as if you were praying.
"The reason why I asked you what language she spoke to you when you first met," you said, your eyes still closed, "is because dragons, being a higher authority, can understand what gui or anything similar say, no matter what language they use. When she spoke to you, she didn't really speak English, but since that's the language you know, that's what you heard."
A soft glowing light emerged from the blade of your sword and waved in the air looking like a flag in the breeze. You opened your eyes and took your sword again in hand.
"So, she's a gui that wants to…?" I asked.
"She's a type of gui called a gu-huo-niao[2] in Mandarin or ubume[3] in Japanese. As the name suggests, she's bird-like and was a woman who died in childbirth, who now endlessly wanders the earth in search for her child… and likely would kidnap another's child to compensate."
[1] 鬼
[2] 姑获鸟
[3] うぶめ
If this interests you, there's a fun book called "Summer Of The Ubume"by Kyogokudo Natsuhiko, that has a good English translation. It's very spooky.