The Ministry of Thunder

By Davide Mana

Shanghai, 1936.
Felice Sabatini is just a mechanic, working on Italian aircraft in China. He isn’t looking for trouble, much less interested in getting caught up a in a conspiracy against China, Japan, and Germany.
Unfortunately for him, that’s exactly what happens.
Three different factions are after an ancient artifact and the mystical power it controls. Power that, if it falls into the wrong hands, could end up destroying the very world as we know it.
Felice knows nothing of immortals, fox women, ninjas or dragons, never mind the Ministry of Storms. He is a rational man, after all. But before this journey is over he will be called upon to face all of that, never mind the power of ancient Chinese magic and a menace from Beyond Time.
From the crowded streets of Shanghai to the empty stretches of the Desert of Inescapable Death, Ministry of Thunder is an explosive mix of Oriental Fantasy and New Pulp.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Acheron Books
• Release date: Dec 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9788899216139

Davide Mana

Davide Mana was born in Turin, Italy, 1967. He studied science in Turin, London, Bonn, Urbino. He served in the Air Force. He got a BSc in Geology, and a PhD in Earth Sciences. Davide has been a call center operator, language teacher, scarecrow, university researcher, freelance researcher, post-doc course teacher, translator, author, content crafter, art show coordinator, editor, lecturer, game designer, fantasy writer, teacher of Taoist Philosophy, book reviewer, web designer, bicycle repairman. He lives in Castelnuovo Belbo, a 900-souls community in the hills of the Monferrato area of Northern Italy. Davide has been writing – both for the fiction and gaming markets – since the mid ’90s, and his works have been featured in a number of fiction anthologies and gaming books. As of now, he is an author/publisher and has two distinct writing hats. In Italian, he writes non fiction, dealing mostly with history and/or science. In English, he writes imaginative fiction: science fiction, fantasy, supernatural horror, adventure. In his spare time he listens to music, plays at tabletop roleplaying games, cooks and watches old movies. He’s currently waiting for the dealer to deal him the next hand of cards.

Book preview

The Ministry of Thunder

Davide Mana

Acheron Books n.6

Editorial Director: Adriano Barone

Editing by Adriano Barone and Joseph Nassise

Cover by Antonio de Luca

Ebook Publishing by Matteo Poropat

ISBN epub: 9788899216139

ISBN mobi: 9788899216146

Copyright © 2014 Acheron Books

All rights reserved

Acheron Books – www.acheronbooks.com

Author's Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously.

Davide Mana

The Ministry of Thunder

This one is for

Lester Dent

Walter B. Gibson

Norvell Page

Kha sher lamkhyer

(Whatever happens, take it to the road)

Tibetan Saying

Prologue

The dome was crimson and dripping; the heavy, iron-sweet tang of blood hung in the air and made each breath a fight against queasiness. Lumpy, deformed creatures were dragging mangled bodies out, leaving behind long trails of crimson on the once-shiny floor.

And yet the signs and the symbols were there, still in place despite the desecration. Built in the shape of a great turtle shell, the dome was made of stone, representing Earth. Water, channeled from the river that ran through the valley, surrounded the building in a perfect mirror-like ring. Metal, in the form of molten gold, had been poured in thin grooves in the stone floor of the cupola in a large design of interwoven spirals and sweeps that mimicked the flow of Chi. More gold was heaped in the room; raw nuggets and finely worked jewels, a jumble of riches that had been used to bait the evil one. In four great lion-footed bowls of green jade placed in the four auspicious directions, Fire burned brightly, bathing the great hall in dancing orange light.

The old man contemplated the fifth element, Wood, in the shape of a low chopping block waiting for his neck, its surface well-worn and stained a deep dark brown from long usage.

The smell of blood was overpowering.

The giant in the red silk coat was petting a large dog at his feet. He straightened up and looked at the old man, the changing light casting gruesome shadows on his rough features. He was taller than any man, standing head and shoulders above his warriors. His hands were large, thick-fingered, the knuckles scarred. His hair was red, his eyes so pale they were white in the dim light of the dome.

The old man wondered if the rumors were true, if really the giant did not have a navel. That thought made him smile despite himself at its incongruity.

So this is it, old man. Your masters have deserted you. I have crushed the men of Chang'an under my heel. Your companions have become food for me and mine, and now you are about to die.

The voice of the one they called Kesar thundered beneath the high domed ceiling, sounding like the beating of a large drum.

The old man sighed, lifting his shoulders.

Kesar laughed. What? No witty repartee? No famous last words? No nothing?

Squatting at his feet, the dog-that-was-not-a-dog leered at the old man. Fear has robbed the old owl of his voice, master, it said. The creature's human face contorted in an evil grin as it scratched itself behind an ear with its hind leg.

The giant rubbed his chin. You disappoint me, old man. To die under the ax, and leave just a shrug as your last statement.

Kesar pulled a sharp, three-bladed dagger from his belt. He regarded the pommel, decorated with three grinning demon faces. Then he dropped it in front of the old man. Here, this is yours.

The green dog growled and retreated, his tail trembling, his eyes fixed on the blade.

It found my heart but not my life, the giant said.

The old man straightened his back.

His black tunic was torn and dirty, his thin white hair disheveled. With a fragile-looking hand he smoothed a few strands back.

Then he turned to the monster standing by his side, tall, green haired, snakes twisting in his earlobes and around his wrists and ankles, like horrid living trinkets. The monster gave him a one-eyed stare, and readied his big shiny cleaver.

I thought you'd feed your inner furnace with my yang energy, the old man said matter-of-factly, granting Kesar a condescending look. I'd think the craving would be hard to control by now. How does it feel? Cold, I guess, and your limbs getting torpid. He slipped in his old physician's tones. You probably feel tired, and somewhat restless. And the need to counterbalance your excess yin with yang energy--it must hurt. A normal man might imbibe an infusion of ginseng, tea and willow bark, but such a concoction would probably cause you pains more terrible than those that you are experiencing right now.

I don't need a doctor!

Fair enough. What your need is to feed the furnace. This is distracting you, making you rash. I can't imagine an eternity of hunger like the one you have chosen for yourself. What a miserable condition for such an august personage.

The placid features of Kesar contorted in fury. How dare you mock me, old man?

Dare? The old man's laughter was crystal clear and strangely youthful. Should I fear you, Kesar? Why? What could you do to me that you are not already planning? You can't kill me twice, you know.

I could make your death slow and painful.

The green dog growled happily at the idea. The old man nodded. True enough. But even so, it would end.

Kesar laughed.

I'll feed your body to the dogs. The creature at his feet laughed in turn, a sound halfway between human mirth and a dog barking.

The old man smiled. Once I'm dead, you can feed my body to whatever you prefer. And yet, before the snakeman does his deed and my head falls, I plead for you to mark my words. There are no greater adversaries than yin and yang, because nothing in Heaven or on Earth escapes them. Yours is a false immortality, my lord Kesar. You are cheating the balance, and doing so you think you're cheating death. Not your worst mistake, but one that will put an end to your mockery of life. Your eternity is not, he hesitated, pulling his mustache, ah, eternal!

The old man joined his hands, palm against palm, in front of his narrow chest. You have become embroidered with the matters of this world, Kesar of Leng. That is never a good choice. You will be defeated.

The man has yet to be born that will defeat me, old man!

Don't say that to me, Master of Demons. I'm about to die, after all. The old man smiled. It's you, my master Immortal--you can wait for all eternity for him to be born.

I have all the time in the world, old man.

So you have, Kesar. That's your tragedy.

Shangai

No papa

No mama

No whiskey soda

No chow

(Ballad of the Little Orphan from Shanghai, circa 1920)

Shanghai is not China. It's everything else under the sun.

(All About Shanghai - the 1934-1935 Standard Guide Book)

1

The Cossack at the door of the Amber Room looked at me with contempt.

I returned the look to him..

He was hatchet-faced beneath his handlebar mustache and curly beard, a bad scar across his nose and right cheek. A saber cut in all likeliness. He wore a fur hat and a big coat with cartridge-holders on the breast, a big silver-handled dagger in his belt. The sort of guy certain propaganda depicted watering his horse in the main hall fountain in Majestic Hotel. But once a year, the White Russians of Shanghai rented a salon at the Majestic, and no one watered anything but, probably, the drinks. The Whites spent that night crying over the remains of their lost empire, cursing the Bolsheviks and getting drunk on vodka and champagne while listening to Rimski-Korsakov.

A corner of the man's mouth twitched. I wondered what he could find wrong: my leather coat over the Chinese silk blouse, the faded trousers, the well-worn boots. Maybe he was just the sort that did not like Italians much.

Then he nodded me and he let me through.

I went down the short staircase, past the crimson silk screen. I sidestepped the leggy cigarette-girl and walked into the hall with the checkered floor. The light of the crystal chandeliers filtered through the smoke of ten thousand export cigarettes, and a handful of mismatched couples danced idly in front of a sombre crew with balalaikas.

This had been a classy dig fifty years ago, but now the place had slid on the wrong side of Avenue Joffre, and it showed: Chinese trying to look like Westerners, and Gwai-lo slowly going native sharing the tables equally. Most of the women were mercenaries, a few high-class Chinese girls and a larger troop of Western women past their prime, Russian mostly, orphans of the Tsarist high-times, a few French, a few Americans. Everybody trying their hardest to have fun.

It felt like I was in one of those weird German movies in which all the scenery was skewed and the actors moved like sleepwalkers, only here there was lots of fake laughter, too, and exposed flesh.

Like in a lot of places in this city, management and maintenance were handled by White Russians, the lowest in the Shanghai food-chain--lower than Anglo-Indian Chee-chee, lower than Italians. No special status for the Whites, no Consular Court, no safety net--they were at the mercy of the Chinese judges, just like the lowest coolie. Yet there were thousands of them in Shanghai, mostly in the International Settlement and in the French Concession. And a lot of the more sinister were apparently here tonight. And they were not alone.

At a table by the side, a pair of females with too-spirited eyes were laughing too loudly and hugging too tightly with their escorts. They were strangers to this place, eagerly milking all the excitement and the exoticism they could from this night in the tenderloin, before they went back to their respective hotel rooms, to the embassy compounds, to the trade concerns of their husbands or fathers.

I wondered how the dawn would find them. Not that it was any of my business, of course. And yet, one wonders.

A short roundish Russian dressed like a penguin came to me, and in perfect upper-class French asked me if I was alone, or if I was waiting for someone.

I handed him a light blue banknote and the scrap of paper the kid on a bicycle had delivered to the hangar that afternoon. That scrap of paper had cost me fifteen Mexican dollars. There was a scrawl on it; a name, a number, a time and a place.

So here I was, waiting for someone to point me in the right direction.

The maitre d' nodded sharply, gave back the scrap of paper but not the banknote, and with a swift gesture, the sort reserved to suppliers, he pointed to a door, a curtain really, at the back end of the hall, behind yet another silk screen, out of customers' sight.

#

On the upper floor the voices and the balalaikas were a distant distorted hum. Light was faint; a few smelly lamps from another century, and the trembling glow of the short candles hanging from the sign outside beyond the window at the end of a corridor, as black as the soul of a coal porter. The wooden floor creaked beneath musty carpeting.

A door opened suddenly, a mountain of a man rolled out howling, black silhouette against the yellow light of the room. A dozen female arms grabbed him and pulled him back. Laughter, more howling, creaking bed springs, more laughter. I let go of my Webley.

What was I doing in this place?

I was curious, I guess. And stupid. I'm good at stupid. Maybe too good sometimes.

Now the British say curiosity kills the cat, but not in this city. Here, after throwing the cat in the river, curiosity goes back to the cat's house, breaks the windows and drops a few gasoline-soaked rags inside.

And yet here I was--too late for questions.

I found the door marked 23. I knocked once, twice. From inside came a call, something I could not make out, and then the door opened, askew, hanging from busted hinges. A girl on the shady side of twenty, bottle-blonde and battle-worn, stood there in front of me in a cloud of tobacco and violets. She was holding a foul gasper in her thin lips and had pale eyes deader than an undertaker's heart.

This was the time, the place and the number.

I said the name. Ernesto Giriodi?

And who the hell would you be? she croaked in ugly English. She wore too much makeup, maybe to cover the circles under her eyes. She was in a blue-green qipao, and her hair was kept together by a Bakelite comb in the shape of a dragon with a broken tail.

Giriodi? I asked again.

She made a face and let me in.

The room was crowded and suffocating. It had a bed and a sofa, both busted and overloaded with pillows, a dresser with dozens of bottles and vases, a small window behind yet another blasted silken screen, the screen carrying a dozen discarded cheap dresses. Outside noises were muffled, the silence hung on us like a dead body on a hook.

Classy dive you got yourself, princess, I said. She snorted, blew more smoke in the air. Not that she could make it any staler.

Count Ernesto Torquato Giriodi di Villafranca, last of the name, comatose and crumpled, was crashing on the sofa. He was pale, emaciated, so thin the skin on his face was plastered on his skull, like parchment, no flesh beneath it. The man I had met years before had gone down the drain, but a shadow of the original arrogance was still there in the insouciant curve of his lips, in his outstretched, badly shaven chin.

The count was down for the count. I slapped him, hard. No reaction. The girl killed her cigarette in a brimming glass ashtray standing on an ugly, crooked nightstand. She sat on the bed watching me. I grasped the man's wrist, and found a weak heartbeat.

What happened to him?

She shrugged, like it was too long a story. Maybe it was.

On the crooked nightstand by her side a syringe laid sinisterly on top of a laquered box. She caught me looking at it and she put it back in, and then slipped it in a drawer.

I turned to the helpless man on the sofa.

What's he on? I asked.

She shrugged again. Not very loquacious, for a sing-song girl.

Giriodi wore a rumpled white dress shirt over black crumpled trousers. I quickly pulled up his sleeve, and checked his arms. I did not count the horrid needle-marks and the purple-blue bruises. I cursed. The toast of Tientsin was toast for good, burned to a very thin crisp.

Now, I never liked the Count of Villafranca much. Bad officer, mediocre pilot, a disappointment as a human being, he had been a big hit with the bored ladies of the Italian legation, what with his greased-back hair and shiny boots and his gallant sky captain posturing. He strutted like an arrogant turkey at social occasions, boot-licking Ciano and the rest of the higher-ups. A dork, a poltroon and a Fascist. But no man deserves to end like this, slowly dying of a needle in a Chinese bordello. I slapped him again, hard, in the name of our long-standing mutual distaste.

My hits caused no reaction from him, but slapping him cheered me up somewhat. I picked him up. He was as light as a baby. The girl screamed, and tried to stand, but I stared her back on the overstuffed mattress.

We are leaving, now, I said.

She opened her mouth but did not speak. I handed her a tenner. Good dollars, not the Mexican stuff. She was quick to grab the money. Her eyes flicked to the dresser.

Face cream jars, perfume bottles, an alarm clock. Ticking.

Time.

Better hurry. I threw Giriodi over a shoulder, limp and light like a wet blanket, and exited that temple to squalor.

I was fast, but not enough: we made it to the top of the staircase.

There were three of them, black coat and Borsalinos. Asians, but not Chinese. Not with those boots. Nihonjin.

We stared at each other for less than a second in the uncertain light of the staircase. Then the one in front gave a short, sharp cry, and pulled some kind of big German automatic and slammed a bullet in the wall, about a span from my head.

If nothing else their intentions were clear. I turned on my left heel and I galumphed down the corridor, congratulating myself for the fact that a shot in my back would probably just kill that fool Giriodi.

As I passed in front of the room of the bear-man and his girls, I punched the door, shouted Police!

By the floor creaking behind me, my pursuers had reached the landing.

One shot.

Two.

I kept my head down and accelerated. A kerosene lamp exploded in a flood of fire that illuminated the corridor yellow and red, just as the colossus and his whores came out from their room, screaming and cursing. They were pulling some clothes on, and they swept over the third man in black and carried him back down the staircase with their momentum. He fell with a scream, and was trampled.

The door to room 23 opened and the bleach blonde croaked something in pidgin. I turned in time to see the leading man in black shoot her point blank, without pausing in his run.

I was six paces away from the window. Everything became crisp and clear: beyond the dirty glass I could see the candles, short wicks floating in liquid wax, each one in a small vessel with a paper cover. Lights reflected from the road below. I could hear the noise of traffic, visualize the anarchy of cars and trucks. The night was young, Foochow Road was crowded.

One step, two, three.

I breathed deeply as I placed my foot on the sill, I lifted my right arm to protect my face and I went through the window, and beyond. I crashed in a cloud of glass shards through the wicker frame of the glowing sign, and flew in the Shanghai night.

Yes, I'm pretty good at stupid.

2

For an eternity I was suspended in the fine drizzle of the Shanghai night, a flying man surrounded by a corona of broken glass and fiery candles. Then gravity exerted its authority and I fell.

I landed with a groan on the seat of a rickshaw. Hot flaming wax and blades of glass rained all around me as I stood astride a Gwai-lo that took up most of the seat with his big fat ass. He exclaimed in surprise but hastily got scarce when a bullet splintered the armrest at his right.

Lined with garish signs, red swinging lanterns and bedsheet-like banners advertising trades and leisure places, Foochow Road was known as the Piccadilly of the East. The noise was deafening, the smell of gasoline, waste and closely-packed humanity a physical hit at the stomach. People screamed, pointed, looked at me and at the sky from which I had fallen like some unholy Shanghai version of Saint Michael wreathed in fire.

With a frustrated rattle I dropped the unconscious Giriodi on the seat, pulled my gun and fired two random shots in the general direction of the window.

The coolie stared at me.

Guhn kwai! I shouted, pointing the gun at him. He got the message and with a Cantonese curse started pulling the rickshaw, straw sandals pushed on the wet pavement and we started picking up speed.

With a crash, one of our pursuers landed on the roof of a black Duesenberg. His weight warped the roof, exploded the windows. He did not pause. He pointed his gun and fired, twice. A bullet passed by in my ear, screaming. I fired back, my shot lost in the darkness. The man in black stood and with a single gesture discarded his coat. Underneath he wore a black pajama.

The driver of the Duesenberg climbed on the running board and grabbed him by an ankle. The man shot him in the face. Then he jumped. He flew through the air like a shadow, arms outstretched and legs bent. He landed on another car, no more than ten feet behind us, softly this time, as light as a ballet dancer. He jumped again, and he would have been on us had my coolie not decided to take a sharp turn left to avoid a cart, pulled by an old man and loaded with bales of cotton.

One knee on the seat, one hand on the unconscious Count's shoulder, I looked around to get my bearings. Carts, lorries, people on foot and on bicycles. A man led a dozen yaks along. Whores on the sidewalks peddled their wares, chattering, waving fans and assuming obscene poses under the wary eyes of their madams. My coolie kept going, and I lost our pursuer in the distance as he jumped again.

Good riddance.

We ran along a tram, the passengers looking with curiosity at me, as I stood tall on the rickshaw. Two young girls in silk cheongsam laughed and waved at me. I straightened and gave them a salute. Felice Sabatini, another strange Western guy playing the fool on Foochow Road.

I was keeping an eye out for our pursuer when the second Japanese slammed into me from the side. He swung in from the roof of a side building, like a black-clad Tarzan holding onto a silk banner. He hit me and grabbed me, his momentum carried us both off my perch. We flew and crashed in the tram window, smashed the glass and tumbled on the floor inside. The two girls screamed, people were knocked down, the conductor shouted. We were in a tangle of arms and legs. My gun was lost somewhere, running feet kicked it farther from me as I tried to reach it. A short knife hit the floor close to my neck. I rolled and planted my heel on the inside of the killer's knee. As he staggered back, I tried to stand and fell in the lap of a middle-aged Chinese man. The man started shouting abuse. I was pushed back, and crashed over two large cardboard crates he was nursing. Ducks escaped from the crushed boxes, screaming their fear, batting their wings but unable to take off. The tram turned into a chicken-shack filled with scared people and a madman in a black pajama with a knife.

Complaint letters would shower the newspapers by tomorrow morning.

The madman shouldered a woman out of his way and came at me again. I tried to stand. His blade ripped open the side of my coat. I punched him in the face. He parried and pushed me back. I saw my