Clayton's leads, which we both gave them at the prearranged meeting place - the Autumn Moon Tea House - were tenuous at best. We had little more than a page of his friend's notes, a matchbox from the Stumbling Tiger Bar, and a photo of a Chinese Junk with only the letters "DAR" visible on the hull to go by. Things didn't exactly look promising, that is until I thought to look into the weekly issue of the Shanghai Courier. After careful questioning of the staff in Chinese, I was able to procure a copy, and four articles immediately caught my attention:
- A Seaman's club near the banks of the Yangtze, over in the shipping district, had been collapsed by an unusual attack of some sort,
- There had been a terrible fire on Chin-Ling Road at a Buddhist monastery and meditation gardens that witnesses swore were caused by "flying clouds of fire",
- A terribly violent murder had occurred at a business off Lantern Street, and one of the witnesses was so distraught she described the attacker as a "giant bat",
- And, most curiously and pointed of all, an advertisement for a Chinese Astrologer named Mr. Lung, the headline of which blared in bold and slightly disconcerting letters, "The Stars Are Right!"
Unfortunately, the others did not share my enthusiasm, and Clayton wasn't having any of it either. He slunk back into the crowded streets of Shanghai, vanishing after a terse goodbye and a promise to keep an eye on Mah'muhd while I was gone. Then I happened to notice the reason he was so terse with us - there had been someone listening, and he turned away to follow Clayton as he split off and away from us. Perhaps his paranoia would serve us a bit of good this time... though I do fear for his sanity, and his safety, if things continue as they are...
Meanwhile, the others debated what to do and where to go, and it was soon decided to visit this establishment off Lantern Street, as the Stumbling Tiger was on the same road and we could eliminate two leads in one go that way. One rickshaw ride and a bit of wading through the crowds on the streets later, and we arrived at the afflicted building - the Pink Lotus, where multiple pretty young things were gathered and the scent of perfume was thick in the air like miasma. My heart sank as I realized what the place was, and then sank even lower as I translated the sign's Chinese characters. The Pink Lotus was nothing more than a whorehouse, and a particularly sleazy one at that. I tried my best to hide it with a lie to the fellas that only women could enter, but they were thinking with their other heads, so I wasn't fooling anyone. Inside we went, and I felt the last dregs of personal shame trickle from me like rain off a slick roofing tile.
Inside, the perfume miasma thickened into a perfume cloud, and shimmery silks draped from the corners over decor I'm sure was once rather plush. We tried at first to query the desk manager, but she was having nothing of it and told us to pay a ridiculous 40 Pounds for the info we sought on Brady. Not being made of money, we declined the offer and instead debated ideas... and then Ludwig got it into his head, the perverted old man, that we needed to hire one of the prostitutes to speak with us instead. Yeah, sure. "Speak" with us. Right. Truly in Shanghai, anything goes... The trickle of shame became rivulets as I buried my face in my hands and sat on a plush, low couch next to Mahmoud, who looked just as uncomfortable for a much different reason, if the position of the pillow over his lap was anything to go by.
But that still wasn't the only indignity I faced in there. Either Francis is an invert or a lunatic, because his first order of business once we walked into this den of iniquity was to rifle through other patrons' jackets. I was mortified of course, and so was another rather generously endowed lady of ill repute whom told him off. This working woman went by the name Laughing Jade, and she had fortuitously seen what had happened in the room where the murder occurred. She spoke, in very well-cultivated English despite her accent, I might add, that she would be able to speak to us, but not for free on her Madame's watch. I quickly got the hint, and we ended up pooling what little money we had on us that was accepted in Shanghai to obtain her assistance for much cheaper. Meanwhile, Ludwig's perverted old man nature got the better of him once more, and he himself purchased the time of yet another working woman going by Vibrant Orchid. Men, I swear...
I'm not sure what Ludwig was thinking, but at least Laughing Jade was able to explain what occurred and showed us the room where the attack happened. It was a mess - tables and beds smashed, paper screens torn, and everywhere claw marks. The place was a disaster zone. Laughing Jade explained to us that she had not personally seen the attack, but that a woman named Magenta Joy had, and that she had been found babbling about some sort of enormous bat that attacked her and her client. The client did not survive, but Magenta Joy was alive, and currently resided at a Chinese-only hospital a few blocks down. She said someone by the name of "Blade" had been to the Pink Lotus in the past, though only to ask about another man that was a friend. I quickly ascertained, through her accent, that she may very well have meant to say "Brady" rather than "Blade". As for the friend Brady was after, he was an author from America who apparently seemed paranoid, but Laughing Jade had no recollection of this man's name, only that he gave a month's down payment to stay here, but left after a few days.
When I explained this to the others, Francis and Laurent got an idea. Could the American author have been Jackson Elias? He certainly had been to Shanghai. We had his notes, and Clayton's told me the man was a friend of his, which was where he found said notes. Elias had also had the matchbox from the Stumbling Tiger Bar in his belongings. Then Laurent spotted something in the spittoon, a soggy piece of paper stuck to the side of the metal basin, and he retrieved it to find what appeared to be more notes, written in Elias' handwriting we had seen so often now. We had leads, and more information, about this Order of the Bloated Woman now! Our first day in Shanghai, and we already had more than enough leads!
On a roll, we thanked Laughing Jade for her time, and met back up with Ludwig in the main room before heading out. I don't even like to think of what the Good Doctor chose to get up to with Vibrant Orchid... Of course, that was water under the bridge, and we had another lead to follow up on - Magenta Joy. Hiring a Rickshaw driver once more, we soon were on our way there, and arrived in record time. Awful fast, these Rickshaw drivers, quicker than a Double-Decker even, and on foot, too!
Entering the Autumn Fawn Hospital was, like everything else in Shanghai, honestly like stepping into the past, mixed with the modern. Doctors in sterile coats mingled with men who looked more at home in a Confucian text, working men and nurses spoke with a Buddhist Monk who had apparently broken an arm somehow. It was a very strange sight, even stranger than the looks the natives gave us as a group of white tourists walked into this very much ethnic place of healing. Of course, I had to play translator, and ended up asking the front desk to lead us to Magenta Joy. They were skeptical at first, but after a rather convincing lie that we were with a foreign news agency and wanted her testimony, the staff relented and a nurse proceeded to lead us back into what small psychiatric ward there was.
It was like stepping back in time to 1891. The conditions in the yellowed-tiled halls were horrid, and the shrieks and whimpers of insane souls echoed from the walls here. The rank odor of human waste was strong, and the cockroaches crawling about on the walls and ceiling certainly didn't help matters any. The doors were metal and barred, though the rooms inside seemed white and sterile... or at least, they once were. It seemed clear there were not enough staff or amenities for the patients at this end of the hospital, and I pitied the poor madmen trapped in such a squalid place as this. At the end of this eerie and horrifying trek, the nurse knocked on the door and murmured something in soft Chinese, then turned to us, nodded, and allowed us into the room. There, in a yellowish-white robe more befitting the dead than the living, was a frail-looking but beautiful young woman with hollow eyes and a frightened look, staring at the wall incessantly. She barely even turned to look as we entered, at least until I spoke to her in her native tongue.
"Magenta?" I asked, keeping my tone even, and she turned to me, giving a very soft hello. "I know you likely don't want to speak about this anymore... but if you could, please, tell us what happened at the Pink Lotus..."
Her dark eyes widened in dread, and her voice shook as she told me the story and I translated for the others. She had been with a client when the event occurred that night. All grew dark, and then something like a large horrid bat or draconian thing entered the room, from the shadows itself. Its voice was a hissing whisper, it warped and writhed as it moved. Its six eyes glowed a ruby red, and its words, its perfect words... It spoke of a terrible end, of a terrible being, of a great cataclysm... and then, it swooped upon her client, who shrieked and begged for mercy from the beast, tearing the man to shreds.
Magenta barely escaped with her life, and she didn't recall much from then on, only a vague whisper that something was following her and that those bat-demons whispered to her in her sleep. Couldn't we see the demons around her, she asked, begging us to believe with her eyes. They were all around her, she said. All of course, little more than the ramblings of a shattered mind... Then her eyes seemed to catch something, and she pointed to a corner in terror, shrieking.
"The man! The man is back again!" She cried, trembling. "His coal-blackened skin... his eyes like voids!"
Of course, there was no such man in the corner, but we recognized the description... or at the least, I did, shuddering terribly. For I too had seen such a figure, with such eyes, and I too was haunted by it. Perhaps... I am closer to that madwoman than I thought, though such a thought frightens me beyond measure to consider. Perhaps, I thought, we all were... trapped in a dangerous game, and toyed with by forces outside our control...
The doctors and orderlies came in, and restrained the poor woman, trying to calm her hallucinating mind down. We took that as a cue to leave, but not before another lunatic startled poor Mahmoud as he stood near a barred doorway.
"She sees! The Bloated Woman sees! Her rot-slicked, blackened fan..."
That was enough for us all, and we left - quickly. I shudder to think that such madness is what awaits us, in the end... if any of us survive this dark journey, that is.
-- Sarah McCain, Dreading the Worst (May 14, 1928)