Free Hunt Among the Killers of Men by Gabriel Hunt

it was all over.
    Gabriel gazed with breathless disbelief at one of the full-sized terra-cotta warriors inside the shrine room Qingzhao had led him to.
    There were four in all, half-buried in deep dirt trenches, broken and weathered like long-vandalized tombstones. Two vacant slots suggested two figures had already been removed.
    But that was not the most awe-inspiring thing in the shrine room.
    Suffocated by vines and tree roots at the far end of the chamber, clotted with decades of dried mud and impacted dust, was a large bronze statue of a Chinese grotesque, pointing one bony sculpted finger toward the center of the room. Underlit by torchlight it was positively ghoulish, a nightmare vision, an evil god. The scaling and tarnish on the bronze made the looming grotesque appear to be leprous.
    “Is this supposed to be Kangxi Shih-k’ai?” asked Gabriel. “The Favored Son of China? He looks like Nosferatu.”
    The reference was lost on Qingzhao. “I do not know. I only know of Kangxi Shih-k’ai’s history because of Cheung’s obsession with him. Whether this statue depicts him, I cannot say. But the phrase ‘Killers of Men’ struck me as appropriate for the others. My soldiers here help my cause.” She pointed out one of the terra-cotta figures, missing an arm. “He was a bowman.”
    “Now he doesn’t have a bow or an arm to draw it with,” said Gabriel, marveling at the possibilities. “His face is almost gone.”
    “They all had weapons of bronze, a long time ago. They did not need shields, nor helmets. Cunning and ferocity were their protection.”
    Was she referring to the men who’d been the models for these figures or the figures themselves? Gabriel wasn’t sure.
    “You found them here? Out in the open? Or did you excavate them yourself?”
    “They were buried,” she said. “I dug them out.”
    “How did you find them?” She didn’t answer. “How did you know they were here?”
    “I knew.” It was all she said.
    “Does Cheung know they’re here?”
    She shook her head. “I found them; he does not know.”
    “And were there more? More figures?” She shook her head. “Not necessarily in this room,” Gabriel said. “Maybe one of the other shrine rooms, or…is there a way into this mountain? A path to the inside?”
    “You mean like a secret chamber?” She seemed amused. “No. I have seen all the caves and passageways this mountain has to offer. I was hoping to find more of the Killers of Men myself; I would certainly have use for them. These are all that there are.”
    Gabriel began scraping debris off the base of the huge bronze statue against the far wall. Maybe she was right that she’d found everything there was to find. But maybe she wasn’t. A half-mad assassin using one of the leaning pagodas as a hideout would not search the way Gabriel Hunt could search.
    “How do you use the warriors?” he asked as hecontinued to work his way around the sculpture’s base.
    “Tonight I will take the bowman to a friend at the Night Market,” said Qingzhao. “Perhaps if you come you will find out what you wish to know. I would welcome your help.”
    She very pointedly did not remind him that he was in her debt.
    What the hell , thought Gabriel. He could give China one more day.

Chapter 7
    Trash fires choked the street with milky smoke. The pedicab in which Gabriel and Qingzhao rode, with their inanimate charge wedged between them, threaded its way through the riot of human shapes that constituted the nightlife beyond the favored, protected realm of the Bund. Here were thousands of vendors, prostitutes, thieves, huanquiande bartering for money, DVD hucksters, homeopathic herbal medicine men, pirate electronics dealers, clothiers, all blurring past. Open petrol and propane tanks warned in English NO NAKED LIGHT , meaning fire.
    They stopped at the Beggar’s Arch, which was a long stone tunnel like a Roman aqueduct, its shadows lined on both sides by castoffs and derelicts. According to