The place I called home was a tiny, rundown shack that looked like the earth had chewed it up and spewed it back out. And the shed was smaller on the inside than it looked from the outside, thanks to the colorful maps that crammed the walls.

Detailed, crinkled outlines of China, the United States, and the whole world spilled over onto the small wooden kitchen table, the edges of the maps yellowed with age and covered in tea stains. Three cots, one for Alex, Ye Ye, and me, lay directly in front of the world map. Shoved against the left wall was a small TV hooked up to a game console, surrounded by the hand-me-down video games Alex and I had scrounged from other warriors. A small kitchen area squeezed against the opposite wall, with a tiny stove and a few cabinets for dishes and rags.

Ye Ye boiled tea while Alex fiddled around with a small gadget in his hand I turned on the TV and let it play in the background. A blonde newscaster wearing the contents of a makeup store on her face was speaking.

"It isn't just the cold weather that's blowing our way tonight, folks. Police are warning citizens of San Francisco to keep their doors locked and belongings secured. A wave of theft and violence is sweeping through the west coast, possibly the work of a new crime lord. Nobody knows which city trouble will hit next..."

A flurry of rapidly turning pages drowned out the local reporter's voice. Hopping over our cots, Alex eagerly spread his hands across the huge map of the world that hung on the wall opposite the front door. He raised Ba's black, leather-bound notebook in one hand, and ran his finger along the bottom coastline of the North American continent. Muttering to himself, he pulled a thumb tack out of Australia and stuck it off the coast of Massachusetts.

Trailing from the West Coast to the East, colorful thumb tacks marked Ba's travels on his search for the Peng Lai island, the mythical realm of the eight immortals. According to Alex, each tack represented somewhere significant to our father's research—anything from sacred temples to hotels to the best restaurants in Chinatown. The trail led to cluster of at least ten multi-colored tacks that surrounded the Atlantic Ocean.

"Still obsessed with finding the Peng Lai island?" I asked as my brother stepped back to admire his handiwork.

"Ba started his search when he was our age, and I've got a good feeling I can finish it for him," Alex said. "Even though his writing makes chicken scratch look like Times New Roman, I think I'm getting close." My brother flipped through the book feverishly, the breeze from the pages billowing his long, curly brown hair away from his face.

I stepped up behind my brother, staring at the faded, barely legible characters my father had scrawled over ten years ago. "How the hell do you know what any of this says?"

"It's called reading comprehension, idiot. Something you'd learn if you bothered ever picking up a book."

I stuck my tongue out at my brother, who rolled his eyes. "Why would I bother reading books when you can just tell me what they say?"

"Because, as hard as it is to believe, I don't know everything. There's this chapter about horses that I can't figure out," Alex explained, tilting our father's book toward me. "I mean, I know ba loved horses, but I wish he could've told us something a little more useful other than 'a pack of sugar cubes can go a long way'—"

"Give it up," I sighed. The crossed-out and hastily written Chinese characters were giving me a throbbing headache. "The Peng Lai island isn't meant for mortal travels. If our father—the Liu Bo—couldn't find it, what makes you think we can?"

Alex shot me a withering look. He plopped down on the nearest seat in front of the table and buried his head in our father's notebook. "When I'm as old as you are, I hope I don't turn into a total grouch," he muttered.

"I'm sixteen. I'm one year older than you!"

Ye Ye, who'd stood up and wandered over to us with two cups of tea in his hand, cleared his throat and shot us both a pointed look. I thought our grandfather was telling us to cool it, but then he leaned his ear toward the map-covered wall, as though listening for something. And then I heard it: the shuffling of rapid footsteps outside our shed.

"Blood traitors, are you up?" Mao. She banged on the wall, causing dust from the ceiling to trickle over the maps and onto the ground. "You'd better be. I want the three of you to meet me in front of the main house at eight, sharp. Don't keep me waiting." With a final, unnecessary bang, she left.

"Miserable old hag," Alex muttered. Then he nearly topped out of his seat when a large pair of scruffy black boots dropped in front of him on the table. Ye Ye was moving onto the next task of the morning: shining an old pair of shoes. Shoes that had belonged to my father when he'd been alive.

"Shining Ba's shoes won't make him come back," Alex told our grandfather in a small voice as Ye Ye sprayed a cleaning rag with water out of a seltzer bottle and dutifully scrubbed away at the boots.

"Of course it won't. It will ensure that he's comfortable when he does come back, though."

Nobody could shake Ye Ye's belief that his son wasn't dead, as we'd been told. He believed Ba would return to us. His conviction made me glad. If my grandfather could hope so fiercely, it meant that I could hope for my father's safe return, too.

I pulled a spare rag from a kitchen cabinet and grabbed the other boot, shining the black surface until I could practically see my face reflected in Ba's boots.

"Your father dreamed of being the first warrior to be named an immortal Heavenly General since the great Guan Yu was two thousand years ago," Ye Ye said, repeating a story we'd been told many times. "Guarding the Jade Emperor in Heaven is—"

"The highest honor possible for a mortal warrior," Alex and I finished together.

Ye Ye smiled, the wrinkles on his face turning upward with his mouth. "Good that you remember. A man with your father's ambition, strength, and sense of filial piety would never abandon his family. He will return to us." My grandfather took Alex's and my hands into his and smiled at us, believing every word.

Alex looked away. If I didn't know better, I'd say he was forcing back tears. My own throat suddenly felt a lot tighter.

After my grandfather placed Liu Bo's shoes carefully beside the statue of Buddha, the three of us left the shed. We crossed the courtyard to reach the main house, where Mao lived. Ye Ye seemed exhausted even after a full night of sleep. He kept coughing, which slowed his pace more than usual.

"Ye Ye, are you okay?" I asked. "Are you cold?" I took his old, weathered hands into mine, and had to resist the urge to jerk my fingers back immediately. His hands were icy cold to the touch.

"Don't worry about me. It's nothing, sun nu er." My grandfather coughed again and trekked onward.

Dusty white steps led up to a huge brass door with a knocker shaped like a dragon. To our left and right stood two jade-colored stone lions with snarls sealed onto their expression. There were four Chinese characters written above the door that outlined the mission of the demon-slaying Jade Society. The words read: "Give life and destroy evil."

More like give life to evil.

Evil took the form of a small, rail-thin woman with an obnoxiously large nose that even Rudolph would've envied. She had the longest black hair on this side of the state, hair so long that it graced the ground with its soft black tips. Mao greeted us by thrusting someone at me: a skinny girl around my age with waist-length black hair pulled back into a braid.

"This is Han," Mao said.

"Hun," the girl corrected.

"Whatever. She's my niece, come to stay for Chinese New Year." The mistress gave Hun a simpering smile. "Tell her why your mother sent you here, Hun."

"I'm going to be visiting some medical schools," Hun said with a dutiful smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "I'm going to make my parents proud by becoming the first doctor in the family."

"Another doctor. Wonderful," Mao said.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. The girls of the Jade Society had their life paths cut out for them: get the perfect grades and test scores, graduate from Harvard medical school, and make their parents proud by becoming doctors. One of the older girls, Qi Qi, had shamed the Huang family by daring to become an architect. She moved away, and now everybody acted like she never existed, including her own family.

Warrior, doctor, or bust—that was the hidden Jade Society motto.

"As you all know, my annual Chinese New Year banquet is tonight, and it's sure to be a smashing hit, as always," Mao said.

Mao liked to hold lavish outdoor banquets several times a year to remind everyone how rich she was. The Chinese New Year feast was always the biggest. It was the only one she allowed my family to attend. Even evil has to rest at least one night of the year, I guess.

"That's why I need you four to set up the decorations," she continued.

Or maybe not.

The mistress reached behind her and picked up a large black garbage back, which she shoved into my arms. "Blood traitor, you and Hen will put up the paper lanterns and streamers."

"Hun," the girl sighed.

The mistress turned her cold gaze onto Alex and Ye Ye. "And you two. The courtyard needs cleaning, and the tables need to be set up. And do it well. I'm sure your poor eye for decoration is the reason the gods haven't joined our banquet in years."

Why don't you just decorate the courtyard yourself, then? I wanted to scream.

Alex groaned. Ye Ye closed his eyes and nodded, resigned.

"But that's impossible," I protested. "The courtyard is huge. They'll never finish in time. Besides, Ye Ye is ill."

"Falun," my grandfather said sharply, "hold your tongue."

Mao turned her merciless eyes, so like her son Wang's, onto me. "Did I ask for your opinion, blood traitor? Don't forget it's thanks to my family's forgiveness for your father's crimes that you three even have a place to stay. The other blood traitors had the sense to pack up their bags and join the lesser mortals long ago."

Didn't Mao realize that if it weren't for my sick Ye Ye, Alex and I would've bailed on her Shade Society at the first chance? I balled my hands up into fists. I'd fought off a demon the other day. I could take a nasty little lady.

But Ye Ye placed his hand on my shoulder, shaking his head.

Hun looked so nervous by this exchange that she'd started gnawing on the end of her braid.

"Come with me," I told Hun, grabbing the bag and storming down the steps. I reached into the bag, pulled out a handful of red and gold streamers, and handed them to Mao's niece. "Hang these up on the trees, as high up as you can reach."

Hun turned and obeyed, stringing the streamers over the lowest branches of the four oak trees in the yard.

After hanging one paper lantern from a branch, I could already feel my joints aching. This was going to be a long afternoon.

*****

A/N - So many secrets already hehehe....If you can't wait to see Faryn kick lotsa butt, please comment/vote. Thanks for reading!! <3