Chapter 5: The Well

The well house stood at the back of the inn yard.

It was a stone hut with a tile roof and a mouth of black water in the floor.

Two Bureau priests in white and gold were already inside, with lanterns and drawn swords and very pale faces.

Between them lay the old man from next door, a skinny grandfather in a nightshirt, curled on his side.

His lips were blue.

His beard had frost in it.

Pingan dropped to his knees and put two yellow papers on his chest.

"He's breathing," he said. "Barely."

"We found him like that," said one of the Bureau priests. "Something is in the water."

Pingan looked at the well.

The water was perfectly still.

Then it began to rise.

It came up over the stone lip without a ripple, black and slow.

A pair of long grey hands came out of it and gripped the edge.

The thing that climbed out wore scorched black and crimson cloth.

It was dripping, and its face was twisted into a knot of hate so complete that Pingan flinched.

"They put us in the dark," it hissed. "They put us in the dark and left us."

"Pingan," said Zhuoran's voice, close behind him. "The brush."

Pingan had pulled the stopper on the run, without thinking, and now the ghost stood beside him as smoke.

He caught the ghost's wrist with one hand and drew the ink with the other, one fast red stroke.

Zhuoran filled out beside him, solid, with the Rain Needle in his fist.

The thing in the well saw him and screamed.

It was a long ragged scream, and the Bureau priests dropped their lanterns.

It threw itself across the room.

It did not go for Zhuoran.

It went for the nearest man in white and gold.

It caught his sword arm and bit down on his shoulder, and the priest began to freeze where he stood.

The second priest shouted and flung a talisman.

It missed the thing by a hand's width and struck Zhuoran square in the chest.

The paper flared and burned.

Zhuoran staggered and went down on one knee.

When he looked up, the red ring in his eyes was wide as a coin.

"Zhuoran," Pingan said.

Zhuoran rose.

The Rain Needle came up in a line.

He moved faster than Pingan could follow.

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