Rain tapped a steady, relentless beat against the thick, reinforced glass windows of the armored convoy.
The heavy spirit-transport buses rolled smoothly across the wet asphalt of central London. Leaving Mayfair behind, the convoy passed beneath the towering shadows of stone monuments and shuttered Victorian banks. Below, the dark, murky waters of the River Thames churned against the ancient granite embankments in the biting midnight cold. Yellow streetlights cast long, shimmering streaks across the damp pavement, flickering as chilly gusts swept in from the North Sea.
Inside the lead bus, Master Wen sat with his back pressed firmly against the steel wall. The eighty-two-year-old carpenter held the heavy ironwood crate containing the Kunlun Star-Compass Fragment tightly against his chest. His hands were weathered and calloused from decades of manual labor, but his grip on the crate was unyielding. His breathing was slow, deliberate, and calm.
“Grandpa Wen,” Dr. Eleanor Vance whispered gently from the seat across from him. “The crate is bolted directly into the reinforced floor plates with heavy steel brackets. You do not need to clutch it like a newborn child in a storm.”
“No, Eleanor,” Master Wen replied softly, his voice trembling slightly with suppressed emotion. “For one hundred and twenty long years, this star sat in a cold foreign vault. It was treated as private property by blood-drinkers and thieves. As long as I have breath in my old lungs, no enemy hand will lay a finger on it again.”
