Table of Contents

Title Page

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Glossary

About the Author

Books the Kylie Chan

Copyright

About the Publisher

The Serpent lies on the carpet, alone.

The city lights shine through the windows.

It raises its head and tastes things gone;

it drops its head and returns to the sea.

The Turtle raises its head from the water;

the lake stretches around it.

People point and talk, excited.

It goes to the bottom and settles in the mud.

CHAPTER 1

Leo and I sat on the mats across from each other in the Fragrant Lotus training room. His dark face was rigid with concentration as he held the chi on his outstretched hands.

I held one hand on his forearm, watching as the energy flowed through him. ‘Float it to the other hand.’

He lost it and it snapped back, hitting him in the middle of the chest. He bounced backwards but didn’t fall; then sagged, leaning on the floor. ‘This is so damn hard.’

‘That was a pathetically small amount of chi for anybody to generate, especially an Immortal,’ I said. ‘You ate meat, didn’t you?’

He didn’t reply but his face said it all.

‘Alcohol too?’ I said.

‘Not alcohol.’

I felt the answer through his arm. ‘Well, I’m glad you’ve forgiven him.’

He pulled his arm away. ‘That is none of your business and you’re not supposed to be able to do that.’

I didn’t pursue it. ‘You have a choice here, Leo. Either give up trying to do energy work or give up meat, alcohol and sex. You can’t do both.’

‘But I’m a Shen,’ he said, softly protesting.

‘Shiny new and green as grass,’ I said.

He grimaced.

The door flew open and my secretary, Chang, charged in and planted himself in front of us. ‘They’re taking away my job!’

Leo waved one hand and his wheelchair rolled to him. He pulled himself into it. ‘You salute your Master when you enter. Where is your respect?’

Chang fell to one knee and saluted me and Leo. ‘Lord. Lady.’ He rose and gestured impatiently. ‘They say I am no longer to serve you, ma’am. Stop them!’

Yi Hao came in, her expression desperate. ‘I’m sorry, ma’am, I didn’t expect him to react like this. I thought he’d be happy not to have to do it any more.’

I pulled myself to my feet and Leo held one arm out to steady me. ‘Yi Hao was my secretary before you were, Chang. You had the job on a temporary basis; I explained it to you before.’

‘I thought she couldn’t be trusted.’

‘That’s why we’re going down to the Earthly this afternoon. I’ll find out one way or the other if she’s trustworthy, and if she is she can resume her post.’

‘Let him do it, ma’am,’ Yi Hao said. ‘I’ll do something else.’

That stopped Chang and he stared at her.

‘She’s a tame demon, she doesn’t have free will,’ I said. ‘If a human or Shen orders her, she must obey. She’s seen that you want the job, so she’s ceding to you, even though it’ll make her miserable.’

‘And the fact that you’re making such a fuss about it proves that you’re not worthy to do it,’ Leo said. ‘You need to release your attachments and accept circumstances with serenity and grace.’ His face went strange. ‘Where did that come from?’

‘You were just connected to the universe while we were doing chi gong,’ I said. ‘Well, that’s what it feels like anyway. Some of it rubbed off.’

‘I think I’ll spend more time connected to it then,’ Leo said, musing. He glared at Chang. ‘Cede the position. You deserve to be moved back in with Lok.’

‘I don’t want to serve the dog again!’ Chang said, desperate. ‘I’m better than that …’ He stared at us for a long moment, then fell to one knee and lowered his head. ‘I will report to Master Lok immediately.’ He rose, saluted us, and went out without looking back.

I exhaled a huge breath. ‘Finally!’

‘What if Lok doesn’t want him?’ Leo said.

‘Then I’ll put him to work in the gardens,’ I said.

‘Oh, good idea.’ Leo concentrated, attempted to lift himself out of the wheelchair, and failed. ‘Okay, I give up. Meet up with me again after I’ve been vegetarian for a few days.’ He spun his chair to leave.

‘Martin will understand,’ I said.

‘Martin’s been trying to make me abstain,’ he said without looking back. ‘He said the same thing you did.’

‘Don’t forget you’re driving me to Kwun Tong in an hour to meet with the Demon King,’ I called after him.

‘Don’t go, ma’am,’ Yi Hao said. ‘Don’t see the King. He’s …’ She searched for the words. ‘He will hurt you again.’

‘Don’t you want to be sure that I can trust you? That you won’t turn?’ I said.

‘Not if it puts you in danger.’

‘I won’t be in danger. Half a dozen Celestials are coming along. We’ll be fine.’

She shuddered and dropped her voice. ‘Protect me, ma’am.’

I pulled her into a quick hug. ‘Don’t worry, I will.’

Leo drove me through Hong Kong’s industrial area in Kwun Tong to the meeting place. We had to meet on the Earthly; I refused to invite the Demon King onto the Celestial Plane, and I wouldn’t travel to Hell if I could avoid it. The streets were two lanes either way, passing between multi-storey factory buildings with the floor numbers painted in large letters on the sides, for easy lifting of objects up to the correct floor by crane.

Leo checked the building numbers carefully, and pulled into the right one. The entrance was large enough to allow two trucks to pass side by side. Just inside the ground floor on the left were three enormous lifts, large enough to hold the ubiquitous Hong Kong blue lorries. The ground floor was deserted, and the small grimy windows let in rays of sunshine that lit up the floating dust. Leo drove to the edge of the vast space of the ground floor area and parked the car next to the wall. Bricks were heaped against the back wall, strewn haphazardly on the concrete. Paint marked the floor, taking the shapes of the objects that had been sprayed with it.

The Tiger and several of the Wudang Mountain staff came into the building through the truck entrance, knelt to salute me, and waited quietly behind us.

‘This is a bad place to meet,’ Leo said softly. He was in his wheelchair behind me to my right. ‘Difficult to defend.’

‘He’ll stick to the protocol,’ I said. ‘Not even the Tiger could teleport in. We’re safe.’

‘I wish I had your confidence.’

The noise of the traffic outside stopped and the only sound was the breeze whistling through the factory’s broken windows. All ten floors of the building were empty.

Someone shouted and a red and gold palanquin appeared in the entrance. About twenty young men surrounded it: demons in human form. All of them appeared to be in their early twenties, of all races, tall and muscular and wearing only skin-tight black bike shorts. They were all impossibly handsome. Some carried the sedan chair and others flanked it.

‘Is he insulting me?’ Leo said.

‘He’s probably insulting both of us,’ I said.

The Demon King stepped out of the sedan chair in Celestial Form. His perfectly white, strikingly beautiful face was surrounded by a huge mane of red hair that stood up on his head then fell down his back past his waist. His scaled armour and boots were red and gold.

The Tiger summoned an outdoor table and chairs, and I stepped forward to talk to the Demon King. He saluted me and I saluted back, then I gestured for him to sit. He bowed slightly and gestured for me to sit first.

I had an uncomfortable feeling of déjà vu and wished that John was doing this. Now that I was clear of the demon essence, I felt the King’s dark nature even more intensely. He was sinister and charismatic, and I just wanted this done and to get out of there.

I sat at the table, and my staff repositioned themselves to the optimal configuration. The King’s men moved to stand behind him, mirroring my own Retainers. The Demon King sat and smiled across the table at me, his face alight with warmth.

‘You failed,’ I said.

He raised one hand slightly. ‘I forgot for a moment it was you, and straight to the point as usual. You’re alive, Emma, and clear of the demon essence. I didn’t fail.’

‘If the Xuan Wu Serpent hadn’t intervened I would have died.’

He dropped his head slightly and an expression of remorse swept across his face. ‘I acknowledge that I caused you a great deal of suffering and that you nearly died.’ He raised his head and saluted me again. ‘I apologise most sincerely for my misjudgement, madam.’

‘You owe me one, George.’

He waved one hand to indicate the demons behind him. ‘These are a gift to make up for it. Enjoy them until they expire, then dispose of them.’

I glanced at the handsome young men. ‘I think you underestimate me, Wong Mo.’

He shrugged. ‘Okay. Worth a shot. Come and live with me and you can have as many of these as you like.’ He leaned over the table and grinned. ‘Three, four, at once, they’re remarkable. You should try. How about I send you one or two just for a sample?’

‘Give it up,’ I said.

He sighed theatrically, his shoulders moving with the sound. ‘Guess I’ll just have to give them to the Mothers then. That’s what they were originally bred for. I have to keep making them, they don’t last long.’

I inhaled sharply. ‘I’ll take them then.’

He waved me down. ‘No, no, if you’re not going to use them as sex toys then don’t bother. That’s all they’re good for, they can’t even speak.’

‘I’ll still take them.’

He shrugged. ‘Suit yourself.’ He waved the young men forward. ‘Serve the Dark Lady.’

The demons moved mechanically to stand behind my staff, seemingly unfazed by their fate.

‘Will you still bring me Kitty Kwok?’ he said. ‘She needs to be stopped, and she’s human. I can’t do it.’

I nodded once. ‘We made a deal. You cleared the essence from me; I agreed to bring her to you. You will have her.’

‘Is there anything else I can do to atone for the pain I caused you, Emma?’ he said, his face still warm and full of affection.

‘Yi Hao, Er Hao.’ I waved my two demon servants forward without looking behind me. ‘These are my demons from One Two Two’s nest. I want you to tell me if they are the original demons or copies; and if they are programmed to turn. I want your assurance that I am safe with them, because I love them dearly.’

He turned his attention to them and his face lit up. ‘If you can love these two demons then maybe there is room in your heart for one more.’

‘You said you’d love me as snake broth,’ I said.

He leaned back and his expression grew wry. ‘You’ll never let me forget that, will you? It was a spur of the moment thing, Emma, just competitive bullshit. You know I was talking out of my ass.’

‘Will you check my demons for me?’

‘I will.’ He waved them closer. ‘Come here, little ones, I will not harm you.’

‘Or hurt them,’ I said.

He nodded acquiescence. ‘Of course.’ He waved to them again and they sidled towards him. ‘I hear you were willing to sacrifice the Tiger’s wives — one of whom is your own best friend — for these two tiny demons.’

‘The wives had the Tiger’s whole army defending them. All these demons had was me,’ I said. ‘Any creature that chooses to seek humanity and attain the Tao is worthy of protection.’

‘You need to concentrate on the bigger picture, sweetie. Ah Wu would have protected the humans before any demon.’ He gestured towards the demons. ‘Kneel.’ They hesitated, and he spoke more brusquely. ‘Down!’

Yi Hao approached and knelt before him. He put one hand on the side of her head and concentrated; she remained rigid with fear as he studied her.

‘Demons are demons and they don’t have a real life at all,’ he said. ‘Even if they choose to turn and pursue the Way, they’re not worth anything.’

He snapped back, then waved Er Hao forward. She knelt and he touched her head as well, then released her. ‘They’re not copies. They’re nothing special. No programming.’ He glanced up at me. ‘How were you identifying the copies if these ones were suspect?’

‘Touch them loaded with shen energy …’ I hesitated. Had I told him too much?

‘Don’t worry, Emma, I don’t have access to shen energy. You can tell me.’

‘Touch them loaded with shen energy and you get a similar effect to a Shen touching them without protecting them. They go black.’

‘And these little ones go black in response to shen energy as well?’ the King said, turning his attention back to my demons.

‘They do.’

‘They shouldn’t do that. They are probably the result of some of Simon’s breeding experiments before his Mother was destroyed. Or …’ He leaned hungrily towards them. ‘Maybe they’re the spawn of that Mother he made himself.’ He grinned at me. ‘The one he made from your friend.’ He put his hands on his knees. ‘I would love to tear these two apart and see what’s inside. They’re fascinating.’

Yi Hao and Er Hao jumped to their feet and scurried to hide behind me.

‘Don’t worry,’ I said, putting my hands behind me to touch them without looking away from the King. ‘I won’t let him hurt you.’

‘We trust you, ma’am,’ Yi Hao said, but her voice quavered with fear.

‘Can I trust them?’ I said. ‘You said they were probably specially bred by One Two Two. Are they agents for Kitty or the Death Mother? Are they spies?’

‘They are tame demons, and they are yours. They have been tamed with the Fire Essence Pill and cannot turn on you. You can trust them.’

‘Go back to the others,’ I said, and they ran back to my group. ‘Tell the Tiger to summon tikuanyin tea for me.’

‘Allow me,’ the King said, and a pot and cups of priceless crackled green glaze appeared before us. He poured for both of us and raised his cup. ‘Warn the Celestial about the demons those two have created, the ones that are programmed to explode. I never thought I’d see the like again, and here they are. So wrong. Probably just a small part of their arsenal, Emma, be very careful. They may have copies that are undetectable even with shen.’

‘How badly do you want the Death Mother and Kitty taken down?’ I said.

He carefully replaced his cup on the table. ‘Badly enough to enlist your help. Particularly Kitty — she is an unknown quantity. I’ve never seen anyone do what she’s done; she’s well on the way to some sort of twisted Immortality. She can survive in Hell unassisted, but she’s still human enough that I can’t break my vow to Ah Wu and deal with her myself.’ He lifted his teacup again and studied it. ‘To be honest, she scares me. I think she has designs on my throne.’ He gazed at me over the rim of the cup. ‘She has links with the other Centres; being human, she has no limitations on her travel. She helped Six make those hybrid stone elementals using Western stones.’

‘Will you assist the forces of Heaven to find and stop them?’

His blood-coloured eyes were intense. ‘Are you speaking as a representative of the Celestial here? A simple ordinary human female, mortal, un-Raised, and only holding your title in a temporary capacity?’

I raised my teacup. ‘That I am, Wong Mo.’

He took a swig of his tea. ‘You’re doing it again.’

I sipped my own tea: perfectly normal tikuanyin. ‘Thank you.’

‘I will have to walk a very fine line, Dark Lady. Assist you too much and I will appear weak to my subjects; they will see me as a puppet of the Celestial and turn against me. If I do not assist you enough, these two bitches could threaten my throne.’ He placed the teacup on the table and turned it in his manicured fingers. ‘One of the most delicate dances I have ever performed.’

‘In this case we share a common goal,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to see either of them on your throne either.’

He put his hands on the table on either side of the cup and inhaled deeply, throwing his head back and closing his eyes. ‘Oh, but I would so like to see you on my side.’ He opened his eyes and they burned into me. ‘Even without the demon essence, you are so dark and powerful and destructive — so attractive and intriguing. No wonder Ah Wu found you irresistible; you appeal to both his demonic and Celestial sides.’

‘You could tell me what I am as a show of good faith,’ I said.

‘I could,’ he said. ‘But I’ve already cleared you of demon essence. I think that’s enough for now. I have your word.’ He picked up his teacup and drank again. ‘You have the phone. If I get any leads I’ll send you a text or something. Right now I think Kitty’s on the Earthly somewhere overseas, and the Death Mother is in Southeast Asia somewhere like Laos or Vietnam. You’re still weak anyway, Emma. Rest and send in agents, and we’ll both see what we can turn up on the intelligence side.’

He disappeared.

I rose and turned back to our group and the table also disappeared.

I sighed. ‘Now what do I do with these demons?’

‘Start a massage parlour for the Hong Kong ladies that pop across the border on the weekends to have their nails done. You’d make a fortune,’ Leo said.

‘Liu,’ I said loudly. ‘Find something for these demons to do, will you?’

‘Sure thing, Emma. We’ll use them for binding practice until they expire.’

I studied one of the young men carefully. Liu was right: the demon was so tiny, he would last a maximum of six weeks; and from the blank look in his eyes, he wasn’t even aware enough to care.

The next morning Leo, Simone and I went shopping together in Pacific Place. Some things just couldn’t be bought in Heaven, fashionable shoes among them. Simone told stories about school as we drove, seemingly uncaring as to whether anyone was listening.

‘And so I told her that there’s only one vampire left in the world, and he’s a Retainer of the House of the North and lives in a graveyard in London,’ she said. ‘You should use the disabled space, Leo, you have the right. Use the label.’

‘I’m not disabled,’ Leo said, turning the car into a vacant spot in the Pacific Place car park.

Simone continued talking as we got out of the car. ‘So she said, “Is he hot?” and I said, “If you like your guys short, skinny and old.”’

‘What did she say?’ I said.

‘She said, “But vampires are gorgeous!” I told her, “Never have been, and the last one left looks like a ferret.”’

‘He doesn’t look like a ferret!’ I said, then stopped. ‘Okay, maybe he does.’

‘You’re being rude to poor Franklin behind his back,’ Leo said as the wheelchair floated out of the boot of the car and unfolded itself.

‘She’s going over to London to take a look,’ Simone said.

‘Isn’t that too far from her Centre?’ Leo said as he levitated to sit in the chair, then wheeled it next to us.

‘Nah, she’s one of the Tiger’s kids, she’ll go with her dad on the next wife trip,’ Simone said. ‘So I have to warn Franklin: here comes another one, be ready with the girl repellent.’

‘It’d be better if you just didn’t tell people about him,’ I said as we walked out towards the shopping centre.

‘He asked me to,’ she said. ‘He loves blowing their romantic brainless little notions out of the water. He says it’s the most fun he’s had since he swore off, and that’s more than two hundred years.’

‘He’s a vegetarian vampire,’ I said with amusement.

‘And he’s not into girls,’ Simone said.

‘Well, not so much not into girls as not into anything,’ I said. ‘He’s just asexual, Simone, he isn’t interested at all. Most of them were like that. The sexy vampire thing is just the mythology that’s grown around them.’

‘That explains why he has no looks, charm or charisma,’ Simone said.

‘Not even any gay sparkle,’ Leo said.

‘Gay sparkle?’ I said with disbelief.

‘Gayer than me, and that’s saying a lot,’ Leo said.

‘We are evil,’ I said.

‘No,’ Simone said. Her face went slack and her eyes turned inwards, then she took Leo’s and my hands. ‘That’s evil.’

She shared what she was seeing with her touch. Somewhere up ahead and below us in a maintenance area of the shopping centre, there were two large forces facing off with a third entity standing panic-stricken nearby. One force was dark and cold; one was demonic; and the third seemed to be human and scared out of its wits. We dropped our hands and ran towards it. Whatever was happening, the human was in peril.

We entered the underground corridor between the car park and the shopping mall. A stairway on the left led up to ground level; the standoff was below us. We went down the stairs, Leo making his chair float above them. At the bottom there was a door, and a grimy mop and bucket leaning against the wall. The area smelled of stale cigarettes and urine.

Simone pulled at the door; it was locked. She raised both hands with palms towards the door.

I put one hand on her arm. ‘If you can unlock it without blowing it off its hinges, we’ll have the element of surprise.’

She put one hand over the lock and the door opened. ‘Blowing it off its hinges works both as a surprise and a warning.’

There was a corridor on the other side of the door, with plain concrete walls and floor and bare white-painted pipes through the ceiling. At the end of the corridor and facing towards us was a young European of about sixteen. He was the same height as Michael, with sandy brown hair, and didn’t appear anything special. An older European man stood behind him, taller and slimmer with the same colour hair — probably his father. The third person was a young Chinese man, the same height as the younger European and heavily-muscled; he stood with his back to us in a long defensive stance.

Older man is human. European kid is a demon type I’ve never seen before. The one facing away from us is a half-Shen, seems reptile, may be one of Daddy’s, Simone said.

‘Stay back,’ the Shen said to us without turning away from the young European. ‘Leave now. I will protect you.’

The older man put one hand out. ‘There’s nothing to protect anybody against. My son won’t hurt you. Please, whatever you are, just let us go.’

‘I don’t want any trouble,’ the younger man said. ‘I won’t hurt anyone, I promise.’

I stepped forward to stand next to the Shen. ‘Stand down,’ I said without looking at him. ‘I’m Emma Donahoe, Regent of the Northern Heavens, First Heavenly General. This is Princess Simone Chen and Lord Leo Alexander. We’ll handle this demon, you don’t need to destroy it.’

The Shen stared at me. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘I’m not a demon!’ the young man shouted, his face fierce with fury. ‘I’m not … I’m not …’

His father put his hand on the young man’s shoulder and spoke soothingly. ‘Don’t lose it, Tom, deep breaths, you can do it. Hold on, lad, you can’t change here. These people know what you are!’

The Shen and I both stepped back as the skin on the young man’s face disappeared.

‘Snake Mother,’ Leo whispered behind us.

‘Can’t be,’ Simone said. ‘The only male Mother-type is the King himself.’

‘What the hell are you people talking about?’ the Shen said, turning to glare at me again.

I raised both hands. ‘Okay. You.’ I pointed at the older man. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Ben O’Breen,’ he said. He pressed his hand harder into Tom’s shoulder and the young man’s face returned to normal. ‘I’m his father, and he won’t hurt anybody.’

I raised one hand towards the Shen. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Vincent Pang,’ the Shen said. ‘Your name is Emma? You know what I am?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then you probably know more about me than I do.’

I turned back to the Europeans. ‘Ben, do you know what your son is?’

‘I know that his mother was something vicious and powerful, and that we had to get away from her before our son turned into something similar,’ Ben said.

‘Was she Chinese or European?’ I said, noticing Tom’s slightly Eurasian features.

‘Chinese,’ Ben said. ‘Do you know what she was? What he is?’ His face filled with hope. ‘Can you help us?’

‘None of them has any idea what they are?’ Simone said, incredulous.

‘Strange as it sounds, I think that’s the case,’ I said. ‘Tom’s half demon. Vincent attacked him because that’s his nature, being what he is.’

‘What am I?’ Vincent said.

‘You’re half Shen, and probably my half-brother,’ Simone said.

He turned to stare at her. ‘You can see what I really am?’ He took a couple of steps back and appeared ready to run.

‘Don’t be ashamed,’ I said quickly. ‘Your father — if you share the same father with her — is the most powerful Shen in the Heavens, second only to the Jade Emperor himself.’

‘All that stuff is real?’ he said.

‘Have you changed to a turtle or snake?’ I said.

He hesitated. Admitting to changing to either was huge; it was understandable that he’d prefer not to share.

‘Do you change, Vincent?’

He nodded once sharply.

‘And you ask me if the Shen are real?’

He sagged against the wall and looked as if he was about to cry. ‘I thought I was an experiment or something. I change into this horrible thing, and I have this urge to kill people like him.’ He bent and put his head in his hands. ‘I’m not a monster at all!’

Simone went to him and pulled him into a fierce hug, and he let go into her shoulder.

I turned back to Ben and Tom. ‘Now, what to do with you two? Tom, when you change, what do you change into?’

‘Can we take this somewhere where we can sit, rather than standing around here talking about it?’ Simone said. She patted Vincent on the back. ‘He’s broken down and he’s heavy.’ She pulled back to look into Vincent’s face. ‘You have a family now, we can help you. Come with us.’

‘Anywhere but the Shang,’ I said.

Leo concentrated. ‘Coffee shop upstairs at the Conrad is empty.’

‘Ask LK Pak to join us, please,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’

CHAPTER 2

We took the glass lift up to the hotel and all entered the coffee shop. The staff were setting out the central display for the lunchtime buffet, moving quietly and with precision. A couple of foreign businessmen sat at a table next to the window, but apart from that the café was deserted.

After some searching through my bag I found a packet of tissues and handed them to Vincent. He took them with a nod and wiped his eyes, then blew his nose.

The waiter took our orders, and when he was gone I leaned on the table.

‘Vincent, your case is simple,’ I said. ‘You’re a lost reptile Shen and we’ll take you in and give you a home. You have a family now.’

‘I already have a family,’ Vincent said. ‘My parents brought me up in a housing estate in Lam Tin.’

‘Both parents?’ Simone said.

‘Of course. When I was about fifteen, I changed. They were … They threw me out, they said I was evil. My father tried to kill me.’

‘A Shen wouldn’t do that,’ Simone said. ‘They’d be proud, not scared. I wonder why your parents reacted like that? Maybe one of them isn’t your real parent?’

‘We’ll find out later. Whatever you are, you’re safe and you have a home now,’ I said. ‘We will look after you.’

He bobbed his head. ‘You’ve given me reason to live.’

‘I hope that’s not true,’ Simone said.

‘I had given up,’ he said. ‘I finally gave in to this horrible urge to hurt people and followed this poor boy and his father in the hope that the boy would end it for me.’

‘That’s our nature, to destroy demons,’ Simone said. ‘You were all lucky that we found you when we did.’

‘Is that what I am?’ Tom said. ‘A demon?’

‘You are something new and different and frankly more than a little scary,’ I said. ‘What do you change into, Tom?’

‘I’ve done a lot of research into it,’ he said. ‘The closest thing I’ve seen is a thing called a lamia: front end of a woman, back end of a snake. I’m something like that — but they’re always female, and I’m not.’

‘You have the top half of a man and the bottom half of a snake, and the human part has no skin?’ I said.

He nodded, his face full of misery.

‘Simone, have a look at Ben, just to be sure that he’s human,’ I said.

Simone touched Ben’s hand and focused on him. He didn’t appear to be concerned by it.

‘Not hurting him, and I’m touching him with shen energy,’ Simone said. ‘He’s completely human.’

She stood and reached for Tom and I raised my hand. ‘Wait until LK gets here. He’s the expert.’

She nodded and sat again.

‘You said your name’s O’Breen?’ I asked Ben. ‘That’s unusual, it sounds like O’Brien.’

‘It’s an ancient form of O’Brien,’ Ben said, obviously something he’d said many times before. ‘It’s spelt differently —’

‘Because it’s an older form and slightly different,’ I finished for him. ‘I have the same issue. My surname’s Donahoe, and I’m always telling people how to spell it because —’

This time it was Ben who finished for me. ‘Because there’s only one letter different.’

‘Freaky,’ Simone said.

‘My dad’s doing our family tree,’ I said. ‘He reckons our family originally came from Wales, though, not Ireland.’

‘Same here,’ Ben said. ‘I’m not Irish, I’m actually Welsh.’

‘Seriously freaky,’ Simone said.

‘Tell me about Tom’s mother,’ I said. ‘She was Chinese, and cruel? What was she like?’

‘I met her when I was here in Hong Kong on business,’ Ben said. ‘About twenty years ago. She was small and sweet and smiled all the time, and I was completely smitten. We married and I took her back to Wales with me, and the minute Tom was born, she changed. She turned into the opposite of what she’d been here; she was manipulative, angry and — there’s no other word for it — she was straight-up evil. I left her after I came home one day to find that she’d stolen the next-door neighbour’s dog, butchered the poor beast on the dining table and was drinking its blood. Tom was with her, she was holding him, and their faces, their hands, were covered in blood…’ He leaned on the table and put his head in his hands. ‘Tom was only two years old. I grabbed him and ran. We went to London, but she found us and nearly stole him back. I ran further — I lived in Singapore for ten years until she found us again, then Kuala Lumpur, then Sydney, then back here. We’ve been on the run ever since. I just pray to God she never finds him because I know that if she does, she’ll change him into something like her.’

‘What was her name?’ I said.

‘Gloria Ho,’ Ben said, and I sighed with relief.

‘Could have been a name that Kitty used, though, Emma,’ Simone said.

‘I don’t think so. Kitty’s been here in Hong Kong the whole time; she hasn’t had a chance to have a family in the UK,’ I said. ‘Someone else, not Kitty.’

‘I’d be very surprised if she wasn’t in Kitty’s group, though,’ Simone said. ‘I wonder how many other overseas experiments they’ve been doing. And all without the Shen here in Asia lifting a finger to do anything about it. They’ll be sorry when an army of hybrids turns up at the Gates of Heaven with the power of East and West combined.’

‘Suddenly this sounds much bigger than just Tom and me,’ Ben said.

‘How much control does Tom have when he changes?’ I said.

‘I’ve never killed anyone,’ Tom said. ‘I have it under control.’

‘Have you wanted to kill?’ I said.

He looked away.

‘Tom, look at me,’ I said, and he turned back. ‘I used to be something very much like you. But I had control, and I never hurt anyone. If you’re the same, we have a place for you as well, where you’ll be safe from your mother and we can help you to control this nature.’

‘You used to be? You were cured?’ His face filled with hope. ‘I could be cured?’

I was silent at that.

‘Tell him,’ Simone said softly.

I shook my head.

Simone said it for me. ‘Removing the demon essence from Emma involved burning it out of her. The Demon King made us pay a terrible price, and then he engulfed her in flames and burned her alive. He took off the entire top layer of her body, and most of her insides as well. Not just the skin, everything. Burned her eyes and tongue out of her head, destroyed her lungs and throat — there wasn’t anything left. That’s why her skin’s so smooth and strange-looking. If one of Heaven’s greatest healers hadn’t intervened, she would have died.’

Tom’s face crumpled. ‘It would be worth it.’

LK Pak, the Wudang Demon Master, arrived and sat to join us. He nodded around the table, then focused on Tom. ‘I see what you mean.’

I raised one hand to stop LK before he spoke any further.

‘Master Pak is an expert on demons, and hopefully he can help you,’ I said. ‘Before we begin: understand that you have free will, Tom. You must never, under any circumstances, offer to give that up to anybody. If you ask for someone’s protection and offer yourself, you’ll lose your free will and become something much less. It’s like being an object, a possession, and it’s worse than death. Do you understand? Don’t ever ask anybody to protect you, or offer to serve them.’

Tom nodded, his eyes wide.

I turned to LK. ‘Take a look. From what he said, he’s a male Snake Mother, East-West hybrid.’

‘Not possible, no such thing,’ LK said, and took Tom’s hand. His eyes unfocused, then widened. ‘Well, shit. He’s right. Never seen anything like him. What the hell did his Mother look like?’

‘Last seen cutting up a dog and drinking its blood,’ I said. ‘Strong enough to spend a significant amount of time in the West.’

‘What colour dog?’ LK said quickly.

Ben thought about it for a moment, then said, ‘Black.’

‘Well, damn,’ LK said with concern. ‘She really drank the blood of a black dog? Damn.’

‘Is the colour significant?’ Ben said.

‘The blood of a black dog is a demon ward,’ I said. ‘She’s not supposed to be able to even touch it.’

‘I never wanted to get messed up in all of this,’ Ben said weakly. ‘I just want somewhere safe and normal to bring my boy up.’

‘Safe would be enough for me,’ Tom said. ‘I hate seeing Dad in danger. Especially when it’s from me.’

‘We will provide you with safety,’ LK said. ‘Just make sure never to submit to anyone’s will, like Lady Emma said, and you’ll both be safe.’

‘Can you help me too, sir?’ Vincent said.

LK rose, went around the table and held his hand out. Vincent took it; LK nodded and returned to his seat. ‘Third or fourth generation.’

‘But he changes!’ I said.

‘Can still happen, particularly if one of the biggest of us is involved.’

‘So he’s like … my great-great-nephew or something?’ Simone said.

‘Fourth or fifth cousin,’ LK said. He turned back to Vincent. ‘You are descended from a mighty heavenly Shen, and your powers have emerged after several generations, even though they were dormant in those before you.’

Vincent’s expression was a mix of delight and disbelief.

‘The English term for that is throwback,’ I said. ‘But three or four generations? Really? John’s his grandfather, or great-grandfather?’

‘Could be more than that; with the Xuan Wu the powers have laid dormant for up to six generations,’ LK said. ‘Look at Simone: the first-generation human cross and nearly as powerful as the Dark Lord himself.’

‘But he’d never had a human wife before Michelle,’ I said.

‘So it was either his son or daughter that was Vincent’s ancestor,’ LK said. ‘They’re probably still around as well; we should check Vincent’s ancestral tablets.’

Vincent winced. ‘My family won’t let me near them.’

‘Then accept what you are with grace. You have a Heavenly family, and Lady Emma will care for you as if you were her own.’

‘Lady Emma.’ Ben studied me. ‘When we were down in the basement, you said you were a General and a Regent. Forgive my bluntness, but you don’t look like anything much.’

Simone, LK and Leo all flinched.

‘Don’t do that!’ I said, sweeping my hand in front of me. ‘I’m not going to explode and bite people’s heads off just for stating the obvious! I’m middle-aged, short, plain and scruffy. He’s right: I don’t look like anything much.’

‘One of the first lessons you learn at Wudangshan is that nothing is as it appears,’ Simone said to Ben. ‘It’s the plainest, scruffiest and most ordinary-looking people who are the most powerful and deadly. The big, heroic, handsome types usually grow up selfish and conceited and generally never find the Way.’

‘I’m the heroic handsome type,’ Leo said.

Simone nodded to him, serious. ‘I concede your utter gorgeousness and total irresistibility, Lion. You are the most handsome inhabitant of Wudang.’

Leo saw our guests’ faces. ‘We’re just having fun, don’t worry.’

‘I’m not powerful and deadly,’ I said.

Leo blew his breath out loudly and turned away.

ignored him and continued. ‘I’m very small compared to many of the residents of Wudang. Due to a weird set of coincidences, and a god who makes really bad decisions, I’ve been put in charge of a lot of stuff. I can’t wait for him to come back so I can offload all of it back onto him.’

This time Simone made a disgusted noise. ‘Like he’ll let you.’

I ignored her as well. ‘But you’re right: I’m nothing terribly special. I’ve just been given a high-ranking job and I’m doing my best with it.’

‘What level demon can you take down, Lady Emma?’ LK said.

‘Weapon or energy?’ I said.

‘Thank you for making my point for me.’ LK nodded to Tom and Ben. ‘She’s Regent of the Northern Heavens and Acting First Heavenly General. She’s smart, fights like a demon when her family is threatened, and completely loyal to Wudang.’ He leaned back. ‘We are all proud to serve her.’

‘Oh, look, you made her blush,’ Simone said with delight. ‘That’s way more fun than anything I could have done.’ She grinned at LK. ‘Way to go. I won’t forget that. If you really want to freak her out, just compliment her.’

‘I think one of the most popular pastimes on the Mountain is Emma-baiting,’ I said. ‘LK, can Tom go to the Celestial Plane?’

LK nodded. ‘With an escort, he can.’

‘Well then, our morning tea’s here; let’s enjoy it, then head up.’

‘Where to?’ Vincent said.

‘Wudang Mountain in Heaven, home of all Martial Arts,’ Simone said, watching his reaction.

He didn’t disappoint. He grinned broadly and said, ‘I can’t wait.’

We landed on the main training square at the bottom of the stairs that led up to Yuzhengong — True Way — the largest building on the Mountain. It was a hundred metres long and fifty metres wide, a traditional bracket construction made completely without nails, with red pillars holding the gold-tiled, upturned roof five metres above the ground. The seven peaks of Wudangshan stood around us in a rough circle, joined by soaring bridges and walkways over the gorges between them. The three main halls — True Way, Purple Mist and Dragon Tiger — flanked the vast training forecourt of polished dark slate.

Ben, Tom and Vincent turned on the spot, admiring the view. True Way was one of the highest parts of Wudangshan, with only the Golden Temple higher on its own peak behind it. Some small meditation pagodas sat at the same level on other peaks, but they were impossible to reach without flight.

The mountains around us stretched forever, covered in pines. Clouds moved through the gorges below us, the sunlight from above making them shine. The sky was that impossible Celestial blue and the breeze was fresh with alpine scents from the gardens.

Ben took a deep breath and smiled. ‘I feel more at ease than I have ever felt anywhere.’

Vincent was smiling too, his face streaked with tears. ‘I feel like I’ve come home. I always felt there was a place for me somewhere that would be bright and wonderful and where I would be welcome.’ He fell to one knee and saluted me. ‘Thanks to you, I have found that place. If I were to die right now, I would die a happy man.’

I nodded to him as he rose, and wondered if the place that was my home would be possible to find, and if I would have to lose this place to gain it.

‘That’s astonishing. How do they do that?’ Tom said. He was watching the Disciples working on the forecourt.

They were performing a level five staff set, the most advanced staff kata on Wudang. They had placed their staves upright, climbed up them, and were standing on the tips of the vertical staves with one foot, their hands clasped in front of them. They swapped from foot to foot without the staff falling, then switched to one hand, doing a handstand on the end of the staff.

‘Are there holes in the stone for the staves to sit in?’ Ben said.

‘No,’ I said, ‘it’s a matter of balance and energy control.’

‘Could I learn that?’ Vincent said.

‘If we don’t have you doing that within a year I’ll hand in my gold sash,’ I said.

‘I heard that!’ Leo said. ‘It’s a bet!’

I strode to Leo, held my hand out and we slapped palms. I bent to whisper in his ear. ‘You’re supposed to be celibate at the moment, so no sexing him up to ruin his energy manipulation.’

‘I’m with Martin right now so I wouldn’t do it anyway,’ he whispered back.

I straightened and studied him. ‘It’s that serious?’

‘No,’ he said, meeting my gaze. ‘I am.’

My mobile rang in my bag and I pulled it out. It was Ronnie Wong.

‘I hear you just found something very interesting, ma’am. I was wondering if you’d let this worthless small demon examine it? Is it really a male Mother?’

‘East-West hybrid,’ I said. ‘Hold on a minute.’ I turned to Ben and Tom. ‘I have a gentleman who is an expert on demonkind who would like to have a look at you. Do you mind?’

Ben and Tom shared a look, and Tom nodded.

‘We trust you,’ Ben said. ‘Do what you have to.’

I returned to the phone. ‘Are you big enough to come up here unescorted?’

‘That I am, ma’am.’

‘Call me again when you reach the main gate.’

‘Ho ak.’

‘He’s been in Hong Kong too long,’ I said as I snapped the phone shut. ‘Ho ak indeed.’

‘Better than Hell,’ Simone said.

‘Vincent, do you know Ronnie Wong?’ I said.

‘No,’ Vincent said.

‘Ben? Tom? Do you know a gentleman by the name of Ronnie Wong? He runs a really small crappy fung shui shop full of paper effigies and Hell money out in Western District.’

Both of them shook their heads.

I looked down at the phone. ‘Then how the hell did he know that we just found you?’

‘Ask him when he gets here,’ Simone said. ‘Let’s go to the admin area and sort out what we’ll do with this lot.’

We walked along the path from the three main halls on the largest peak, heading east to the support areas. The buildings here were close together, mostly low, brick and single storey, except for the Imperial Residence — a two-storey courtyard house standing alone, flush against the stone side of the mountain — and the Armoury, which was one floor but had an exceptionally tall roof. We crossed a twenty-metre-long marble bridge, a perfect semicircle over the deep chasm between the peaks, to the administrative area: a cluster of small buildings housing offices and meeting rooms around a central larger hall — the War Room.

We went into my office and sat at the small conference table, and Yi Hao ran off to find the allocations for quarters in the residential area.

‘If this is Chinese Heaven, then what about Western Heaven?’ Ben said. ‘Have you been there?’

‘The Eastern Shen — the gods from here — have made intelligence-gathering trips to the West and encountered demons, but haven’t met any Western Shen,’ I said. ‘Xuan Wu — the most powerful guy, the boss of Wudang — actually has a house in Kensington and spent years in London, and never met a single Western Shen.’

‘It’s possible they may have been avoiding him because he has a very dark nature,’ Simone said. ‘Xuan means dark, and he sort of changed sides and joined the Celestial.’

‘But other Shen have been over there too, and tried to visit Western Heaven, and found nothing,’ I said. ‘It’s like it’s only demons over there, no Shen at all.’

‘Not many of the Asian Shen have shown much interest, though,’ Simone said with resignation. ‘There’s still the “Middle Kingdom” mentality. China is the central ninety per cent of the world and nothing else really matters.’

‘Middle Kingdom?’ Ben said.

‘The Chinese characters for China are “Middle Kingdom”, Dad,’ Tom said.

‘Oh.’

My phone rang and I answered it.

‘Emma, this is Gold. We need an advanced energy worker over at the infirmary — Amy’s in labour.’

‘Where’s Meredith?’

‘Here, but we need you too. We have to deliver by caesar; she can’t deliver normally and hold her shape. If she changes to dragon, she’ll kill them.’

I snapped the phone shut, rose and bowed slightly. ‘One of our dragons is about to give birth to human children and I’m needed to make sure that she stays in human form. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be back later.’

‘I’ll take care of this,’ Leo said.

‘Thanks,’ I said, and hurried out.

‘Did she just say what I think she said?’ I heard Ben say with disbelief behind me.

‘I’m going to be an auntie!’ Simone said.

CHAPTER 3

Gold held Amy’s hand and smiled down at her while the staff gave the newborns their first bath. Amy smiled back at him, then around at everybody else.

‘Do you have names for them?’ Meredith said.

‘Richard after Amy’s father, and Jade after mine,’ Gold said.

‘How’s the urge to change?’ Meredith said.

Amy didn’t reply, and Meredith nodded.

‘We’re nearly done here,’ Edwin, the Academy doctor, said. ‘You’ll be able to change to dragon very shortly.’

‘Will the wound still be there when I change back from dragon to human?’ Amy said.

Edwin nodded. ‘This much trauma and blood loss will lower your transformation ability.’

‘You could always stay dragon and bottle-feed them,’ Gold said.

Amy shook her head. ‘I want to give them as much of a boost as I can. My human milk is the best for them. And if I cuddle them as dragon I won’t be nearly as soft.’

‘Can you give me an estimate on when I can release the meridians?’ I said.

Edwin raised his hand and the forceps holding the suture appeared over the edge of the screen. ‘I’m on the final layer, ma’am, less than three minutes.’

‘You okay, Emma?’ Meredith said.

‘I can manage.’

‘Do you want me to administer an analgesic so you can release the meridians?’ Edwin said.

‘No,’ I said. ‘If I pin down these meridians before I withdraw, the pain relief will last a good six hours, and I can come back then and top it up.’

‘Don’t hurt yourself, ma’am,’ Amy said.

‘Don’t you “ma’am” me,’ I said. ‘Do you have any idea at all how good it feels to be able to contribute like this? With clean, pure, healing energy?’

‘I can only imagine,’ Amy said, then gasped and grimaced.

‘Sorry,’ I said, and returned my concentration to the meridians. I’d let one of them slip and she’d felt it.

‘It wasn’t anything, just a twinge,’ she said. She turned her head to see Gold again. ‘Did you manage to contact my father?’

‘I told both your parents, and your father is bringing your mother up here to see them,’ Gold said.

‘My father and mother together? That’s unbelievable,’ Amy said.

‘I think your mother’s making a special effort because she wants to see her grandchildren,’ Gold said. ‘I spoke to her before him … You should have warned me she was so … so …’

‘Did she go ballistic at you?’

‘I think she’ll rip my throat out if we don’t get married within the next two weeks,’ he said.

‘But she doesn’t know what we are, and that dragons and stones don’t do that sort of thing.’

‘Actually she does. She knew all along your father was a dragon. He told her I’m a stone, and that stones don’t marry, and apparently it’s made her even more determined to see it happen.’

‘I’m done,’ Edwin said.

Meredith took my hand and our consciousnesses touched; she still had Amy held down hard into human form. She studied the meridians alongside me and indicated the top point on the core meridian. ‘Start here.’

‘Don’t let her intimidate you. We don’t have to do it if it doesn’t feel right,’ Amy said.

I concentrated, and with Meredith’s assistance pinned the energy into the meridians so that they stayed lit. I released them one at a time, moving slowly down the core to the area where they’d opened Amy up. Her body was shrieking with distress at what had been done to it, and I spread the energy from the meridians to soothe its panic and ease the nervous reactions. The energy flowed through the area, giving it a healing boost, and I carefully withdrew completely.

‘It’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you for a while anyway,’ Gold said. ‘Will you marry me, Amy?’

Amy shivered and her teeth rattled; a normal feeling of extreme cold that came when an energy worker withdrew after a major energy healing.

‘Are you in any pain?’ Meredith said.

Amy shook her head, her teeth stopping her from speaking.

‘Is that a no?’ Gold said.

Amy shook her head again, still unable to talk.

‘I’m going to release you now, you can change back,’ Meredith said.

Amy transformed into dragon, raised her head, then dropped it again with a huge sigh and closed her eyes.

‘Natural sleep, no pain, leave her to recover,’ Meredith said. ‘In a couple of hours wake her up and see if she can change back to human.’ She turned to me. ‘Magnificent job, madam. You can take it easy now.’

I stood up and toppled sideways.

Meredith caught me. ‘Oh, and congratulations, Master Gold. I think you just got engaged.’

‘My father will kill me,’ Gold said, his hand on Amy’s back.

‘Who is scarier: your father or her mother?’ Meredith said.

‘Oh, definitely her mother.’

‘Then you made the right decision.’ She hefted me in her arms. ‘Come on, missy, you’ve been overdoing it lately and need some serious rest.’

I woke, and had a moment of confusion as I saw the ceiling above the bed. Where was I? I looked left and nearly panicked: I was on the Celestial Plane, in the Imperial Residence of Wudang Mountain. Then I remembered that I didn’t need to be a snake, and I settled further under the silk. I was here. I had made it. But something was wrong; something bad had happened. Something terrible had happened and I couldn’t remember what it was; only the dark feelings of misery and despair that it brought me.

I sighed deeply and remembered.

Nothing bad had happened. I was feeling the grief for something that was yet to come. I often woke like this, feeling the loss. Something awful was going to happen to us in the near future and I had no idea what it was, only that it hung over all of Wudang.

I centred my chi and put the feeling aside. I was living in the present, enjoying the peace of now, and ready for the future when it crashed over us.

The four-poster was made of ebony, black with the deep sheen of many years of care. The dark grey curtains were embroidered with silver depictions of turtles and bats — symbols of longevity and good luck. The bed was flush against the wall, with a raised twenty-centimetre barrier around three sides to hold the covers in place, the fourth side left open. The room around me was five metres to a side, the walls hung with elegant ink paintings of sea creatures. A black sofa and coffee table in front of the open fireplace gave it a warm, comfortable atmosphere. I slapped the mattress next to me. They’d put me in the Emperor’s suite again, against my express orders. I’d commandeered a room in the servants’ quarters attached to the Imperial Residence and they should have put me in there.

I rotated to put my feet on the silk rug, pushed them into the slippers sitting next to the bed, and wandered into the en suite bathroom. Fortunately Michelle had demanded modern Western fittings when John had built the bathroom for her, so there wasn’t a squat toilet. However, there’d been a compromise about the decor and the entire bathroom was tiled with black marble, giving it a dated eighties look. I didn’t care, I just used it and wandered back out again.

‘You awake?’ I said.

‘You’ve only been out an hour or so,’ the stone said. ‘Ronnie Wong is in the gatehouse waiting for you. They’ve served lunch there so you can talk to him while you eat.’

‘Any complaints about Tom being allowed in untamed?’

‘Actually, no. General consensus is that he’s so interesting they’re willing to risk it.’

‘If anybody puts me to sleep in this bed again before John returns, I will personally take their head myself,’ I said as I pulled my clothes back on.

‘Even if it’s Simone?’

‘Bah.’

The gatehouse sat on the hillside outside the wall that protected the Mountain, in a grove of small cypress trees and surrounded by a tumble of granite boulders as tall as a man. It was a basic village house: two-storey and rectangular with a tiled roof. A living room, kitchen and dining room were downstairs, with two bedrooms and a bathroom above, all sparsely furnished because the administration of Wudang hardly ever met with demons there. It was too far for any but the largest demons to travel from Hell, and just the proximity to the Mountain scared them to death.

I walked in the front door and went into the dining room, Ben and Tom trailing behind me. Ronnie Wong and LK Pak were already there sitting at the table.

As soon as I walked in the door, Ronnie shot to his feet, knocking his chair over, and leapt backwards so violently that he knocked his glasses off. He stood spreadeagled on the wall behind him and stared at me, wide-eyed and trembling.

I backed up as well, then took a deep breath and controlled it.

‘You okay, Emma?’ LK said. ‘You look like you saw a ghost.’

‘I’m fine. I just had enhanced vision for a moment,’ I said.

I moved away from Ben and Tom, but Ronnie didn’t stop staring at me. It was definitely me, not Tom, that had freaked him out.

‘It’s me, Ronnie,’ I said. ‘What do you see?’

Ronnie retrieved his glasses, put them back on and peered at me. ‘Emma?’

‘You don’t even need the glasses,’ I said. ‘What did you see?’

He picked his chair up and returned it to its place. ‘I can’t really describe it,’ he said without looking at me.

I strode to him and he shifted uncomfortably away from me. I held my hand out. ‘Show me then.’

‘I’m not sure I want to touch you right now,’ he said, looking at my hand as if it was something toxic.

‘You’ve seen her serpent form many times; this can’t be what’s causing this,’ LK said. ‘Tell us what you saw.’

‘Serpent form?’ Ben said.

‘It’s a long story,’ I said. I didn’t lower my hand. ‘Show me.’

‘He can’t show you, you’re only a human. You need to be more than human to touch minds with a demon,’ LK said. ‘Don’t risk the damage from trying.’

I reached out, grabbed Ronnie’s hand and made the link.

He let his breath out in a long gasp, like he’d had the wind knocked out of him. ‘Holy shit.’

‘Did you just link to him?’ LK said.

‘Let me see what you saw, then I’ll show you what I saw,’ I said.

‘What did you see?’ LK said.

‘I’ll show you after he’s shown me,’ I said. ‘Do it, Ronnie.’

‘Wait,’ LK said, and came to us. He put his hand on my shoulder. ‘Good God, Emma, you really did that.’

‘Take a seat, Ben, Tom, this won’t take a moment,’ I said. ‘Help yourselves to the food if you like. The demon will be coming in a moment to take drinks orders.’

‘This is it,’ Ronnie said. ‘Tell me if you need me to back off.’

He showed me, and LK hissed quietly behind me. I wasn’t just a serpent; I was huge and black, my head brushing the ceiling. My eyes were as black as my scales, and I was covered in intimidating spikes over my head and down my back, with a frill around the back of my head instead of a cobra hood.

‘Looks like a Serpent form of John’s Turtle …’ I said, and my voice trailed off. I released Ronnie and fell to sit at the table, my head in my hands. ‘Oh dear Lord, no.’

‘More demonic than the Dark Lord,’ Ronnie said. ‘That thing was scary. Immeasurably big; I think it could take down the King easily. Immense destructive power, and so damn dark the centre of it was like looking into the Abyss. Whatever you were, Lady Emma, it certainly scared the living shit out of me, and I’m big enough to sire spawn on a Mother.’

‘You saw something too?’ LK asked me.

I nodded into my hand.

‘Are you concerned you’re his Serpent?’ Ronnie said, sitting next to me. ‘Is that what this is about? I’ve heard stories.’

I wiped my eyes. ‘If I’m his Serpent, then when he rejoins — well, that’s it, isn’t it? I’d be gone.’

‘You’re afraid of losing your identity into his?’ Ronnie said.

‘No, I’d welcome it,’ I said. ‘But for Simone, it would be the same as if I died. She’d gain him and lose me, and I’m like a mother to her. She’s lost enough family members as it is. I really can’t do it to her.’

‘You may not have a choice,’ Ronnie said.

I nodded.

‘Show me what you saw,’ LK said to me.

I raised my hands and each of them took one. I re-established the link and our minds touched.

LK was a human Immortal, not a Bodhisattva, so his soul didn’t have the ringing purity of a Buddha, but he was connected to the Universe and one with Eternity. His soul smelled of mint-fresh shen energy, intertwined with constantly regenerating ching energy, tasting of firelight and summer heat. His chi enveloped both and moved with his breathing, full of the essence of sunshine and autumn leaves. His Immortal nature sang in tune with the Universe, and was at the same time as small as an atom and as vast as a galaxy.

‘That I could attain such heights,’ Ronnie said with awe.

‘You have made the first step onto the Way,’ LK said.

‘It would take so long for me to travel there,’ Ronnie said.

‘You cannot travel to a Path, you are already on it,’ LK said. ‘And as you travel, time has less and less meaning. Eventually you are pure thought and time does not exist at all.’

Ronnie’s essence was the dark roiling thickness of demon, but there existed strands within it of chi; he had cast off his nature and turned, and was attempting to attain humanity. He didn’t taste of the foulness of demon; he was more like dark chocolate, deep and bitter, with the chi making sweeter and lighter strands through it. My heart went out to him; he’d turned hundreds of years before and still had achieved so little.

‘Remember what I said. Time is an illusion,’ LK said.

Ronnie nodded agreement inside my head.

I showed them what I’d seen when I walked in the door. I’d tasted LK’s pure Shen nature and Ronnie’s dark demon nature, made sour by his fear. I’d smelled Tom and Ben behind me; Tom’s demon nature was similar to Ronnie’s but in many ways different. Ronnie saw it as well and his mind glowed gold with the smell of spice and curiosity. Ben I saw as human; he was the only human there. Compared to LK his nature was earthy and rich, but he did have traces of something greater within him, like flashes of a deeper scent that came and went.

‘You aren’t supposed to be able to do that,’ LK said.

‘That’s something I haven’t heard anyone say in a very long time,’ I said.

‘No, Leo said it yesterday,’ the stone said. ‘And before you ask, I have no idea what you are.’

‘You don’t see people’s souls, you taste them,’ LK said. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. Usually we have a sight or sound analogue for the way we perceive the higher senses. Why are you experiencing them as smell and taste?’

‘Probably because I’m a snake,’ I said. ‘We work off taste and smell more than anything; that’s why we flick out our tongues all the time.’

‘Snake?’ Ben said weakly.

I released their hands and turned to speak to him. ‘Many spirits on the higher plane are the essence of nature, weather and animals,’ I said. ‘Dragons, tigers, wolves, foxes — many types of animals. Reptiles as well, including turtles, dragons, and snakes like me.’

‘Any cockroaches?’ Tom said, amused.

‘I’m glad we found you, Tom, you’re smart and brave and have transcended your nature,’ I said. ‘Only demons take the form of insects; they’re not intelligent enough to be Shen.’

‘I’m starting to feel less and less like a freak all the time,’ Tom said.

‘Oh, we’re all freaks, one way or another,’ I said.

‘Hear, hear,’ LK said. ‘Now that everybody’s established how scary we all are, let’s have a look at you, Tom.’

Tom’s eyes widened and he sat back in his chair.

‘Nobody’s going to hurt you; we’ll just look at you,’ I said. ‘No need to be concerned.’

I sat at the table and gestured around it. LK and Ronnie Wong could have been brothers: both appeared to be mid-thirties and were wearing plain white dress shirts and slacks and ugly plastic-rimmed glasses. ‘LK Pak is the Wudang Mountain Demon Master; he’s made an extensive study of the nature of demons. Ronnie Wong here is a Prince of Demonkind and exiled from Hell. He turned from the hosts of Hell and has aligned himself with the Celestial, but because of his nature and the strength of the seals he is still unable to enter Wudang uninvited.’

‘I wouldn’t go in anyway. One of your students might think I’m a threat,’ Ronnie said with good humour.

‘It is important at this point that you do not change to your demon form,’ LK said to Tom. ‘You would be destroyed.’

‘I won’t anyway,’ Tom said. ‘It tries to control me, and it thirsts for blood.’

I had a sudden horrible idea. ‘Do either of you know a woman called Kitty Kwok?’

They both started and shared a look.

‘I remember you mentioned a Kitty before, but it didn’t click until you said it again,’ Ben said. ‘Not Kitty Kwok; she said her name was Kitty Ho, same as my wife’s name. She came to visit us in Wales, said she was my wife’s sister, and my wife welcomed her.’ He grimaced. ‘But the way they behaved wasn’t like sisters at all. It was more like …’ He hesitated.

Tom said it for him. ‘Lovers.’

Ben nodded, his face full of misery.

‘Did she ever experiment on you, Tom?’ I said.

‘Not that I know of,’ Tom said.

‘Did you have needle tracks?’

They shared another look.

‘I accused him of taking drugs and he denied it,’ Ben said. ‘We had some huge arguments over it. He said he had no idea how the marks had got there.’

‘Emma,’ LK said, ‘I hate to suggest this, but —’

‘No,’ I said.

‘You wanted to find out what you are, ma’am,’ he said.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ I said. I rose and walked to the other side of the room. ‘We are not going there.’

‘What is it?’ Ben said.

‘Emma was filled with demon essence by Kitty Kwok and it turned her into a lamia, same as you, Tom. But she isn’t half-demon like you; she is supposed to be all human —’

I spun to shout at him. ‘I am all human! My mother has never cheated on my dad!’ I turned away again. ‘Don’t even think it.’

They were silent. I turned back and saw LK’s face.

‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ I said. ‘If you’re talking to the Tiger about my blood samples you can stop right now. I was born in Australia. I’m not half-Chinese so I can’t be half-demon. I resemble both my parents; it’s obvious.’

‘I wonder if they ever tried to hook you up with a demon?’ Ronnie said.

Suddenly April’s husband, Andy, was standing in front of me. I backed up until I was against the wall, breathing hard with loathing as he grinned at me, an expensive bunch of flowers in one hand and a set of car keys dangling from the other.

‘Emma, it’s okay, you’re on the Mountain,’ LK said.

I shook my head and snapped back. I was in the demon interview room on the periphery of the Mountain. I rubbed my hands over my face and returned to the table.

‘What happened?’ LK said.

‘I had a flashback,’ I said. ‘Most severe one I’ve ever had.’

‘PTSD?’ Ronnie said.

I nodded, miserable.

‘What’s PTSD?’ Vincent said.

‘Post-traumatic stress disorder,’ LK said. ‘Used to be called shell shock. You have enough extremely bad things happen to you and your mind never completely recovers. I didn’t know you suffered from this, Emma.’

‘That’s the first time it’s happened in front of anyone else,’ I said. ‘Don’t spread it around that I have this, please. I don’t want anyone else to know about it.’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ Ronnie said. ‘I have flashbacks myself. You go through enough, your brain keeps bringing it out and tormenting you with it because it can’t make it go away.’

‘You should both see someone,’ LK said.

‘I am,’ I said.

‘I’ve been studying human clinical psychology journals,’ Ronnie said. ‘I’ve even thought of studying psychiatry to add to my knowledge, but that would mean studying medicine and my physiology would come under scrutiny. Not a good idea.’

‘That was a pretty severe flashback,’ LK said.

‘I remembered,’ I said. ‘I just saw Andy Ho …’ I stopped. ‘I just saw Andy Ho, my friend April’s husband. It was before he married her — I was back at the kindergarten, still working for Kitty Kwok. He was trying to date me, promising me all sorts of stupid stuff, claiming he was so rich and could give me a life better than anything I’d ever experienced. He was trying to give me a car.’

‘But he was a demon,’ LK said.

‘He fathered a demon copy of Simone on April, and they generated a Mother copy of April as well,’ I said. ‘He was in league with Kitty.’

‘Same name as my wife’s family,’ Ben said. ‘Her name was Ho.’

‘But you never mentioned him trying to date you before, Emma,’ LK said.

‘I didn’t remember,’ I said. ‘I have no idea what the circumstances were around that flashback; I have no memory of him trying to date me. All I can remember is the terror and revulsion I felt towards him.’ I shivered and hugged myself. ‘Ugh, the idea of him even touching me freaks me out.’

‘Some of the damage Kitty did to you may be permanent,’ LK said. ‘It’s likely lost memories will continue to surface for the rest of your life.’ He pulled a notepad and a pen towards him and flipped the pad open.

‘They were filling me with demon essence in preparation for having a child with him,’ I said. ‘A child like Tom.’ I turned to Ben. ‘You and I have something in common; something that makes us different, and something these demons know about. I can’t wait to find Kitty Kwok Ho Man Yee and have a very serious talk with her.’

‘You need to track down whether you have any common ancestry or heritage and go find what it is,’ LK said, scribbling notes on the pad.

‘Where in Wales are you from?’ I asked Ben.

‘Cardiff, but my family originally came from the town of Holyhead. It’s spelt “Holy” but pronounced “Holly”. It’s on an island off the west coast of Wales called Holy Island.’

‘If that isn’t the perfect name for the home of Shen then I can’t think of one,’ Ronnie said.

‘I wonder where my ancestors came from,’ I said.

‘If they didn’t come from the same place I will be very surprised indeed,’ Ronnie said. ‘I’d love to come along if you go. I’ve never been that far from my Centre and I’d like to see how long I could handle it.’

‘Deal,’ I said.

‘Me too,’ LK said, underlining a couple of points on his notes, then peering at Tom. ‘If there’s any new demons there, I want to see.’

‘I’ll take you,’ Ben said. ‘There are so many strange things on that island — ancient ruins, mystical stones — I’d love to show them to you.’

‘Stone, find a week to clear in my diary,’ I said. ‘I have to go.’

‘Give me some time to rearrange your appointments,’ the stone said. ‘Might be best to do it during term break.’

‘Is there a village there? High up on a hill, with thatched cottages and lawns with low walls and flower gardens?’ I said.

‘No,’ Ben said. ‘There is a small group of houses high up on Holy Mountain, but no thatching any more, it’s too expensive to maintain.’

‘There really is a group of houses up on the mountain?’ I said, incredulous.

‘Yes. It’s called Mountain,’ Ben said.

‘The village is called Mountain?’

‘Welcome to Wudang Mountain,’ LK said with humour, still taking notes. ‘Which is also known as the Mountain.’

‘So many coincidences,’ Tom said.

‘No such thing,’ I said. ‘Are you done yet, LK?’

‘Nearly. This has been most interesting,’ LK said, scribbling a few final points on the notepad.

Tom stared at LK. ‘You’ve been examining me this whole time?’

‘That I have,’ LK said. He pushed the pad away and focused on Tom. ‘You are fascinating, sir. If you don’t mind, I’d like to have a brief look inside as well.’

‘Inside?’ Tom said.

‘Inside your head,’ I said. ‘He’ll flip through your thoughts and memories. It’s an excellent way to see exactly what makes someone tick, but an unfortunate side effect is that they see everything else as well. You can’t hide anything from them. You can trust LK to keep everything in confidence, but it’s still up to you.’

‘Dad?’ Tom said.

Ben nodded. ‘They might as well, son.’

‘They’ll see, Dad.’

Ben’s expression darkened. ‘And I don’t think they’ll be surprised. I’m not surprised myself any more. It’s worth it if they can help you.’

Tom turned to LK. ‘If you promise you won’t share anything you see in me, you can do it.’

‘I’ll only share things that are directly related to your demon nature,’ LK said. ‘Other than that, you can trust me.’

He rose and moved to stand behind Tom. Tom stood up, but LK stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. ‘Sit, relax. This won’t hurt a bit.’

Tom sat back down and LK put his hands on either side of Tom’s head, then raised his own face and closed his eyes, concentrating. Tom stiffened then relaxed. They remained silent for a while, then both grimaced at the same time.

‘Sorry,’ LK said. He released Tom’s head, sat back down and scribbled some more notes.

Ben and Tom shared a look, and Tom shrugged.

What do you think they’re hiding? the stone said. I asked LK and he wouldn’t tell me.

Of course he won’t, I said. He gave his word. My guess is that she abused them and Ben’s ashamed that he didn’t protect his child from her.

I see, the stone said. What a horrible situation.

LK pushed the notepad away. ‘Go back to the apartment you rented in Hong Kong,’ he said to Ben and Tom. He turned to me. ‘Ma’am, provide them with an escort. It’s quite likely that Kitty knows what’s happened and may have an ambush set up for them.’ He turned back to Ben and Tom. ‘Gather all your belongings; you won’t be going back there ever again. Then I suggest we find you a safe house somewhere on the Earthly, but well hidden. The Celestial is too dangerous for Tom. If he loses control over his demon nature he would be destroyed.’ He shrugged. ‘Perhaps one of the Follies?’

‘The Follies are deserted, and human residents are returning; it would be too risky,’ I said. ‘How about one of the Twelve Villages?’

‘Put them with the Rats,’ LK said. ‘They’d love to study Tom; it will open a whole new area of exploration for them.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘It might even inspire them to extend their intelligence beyond China’s borders.’

‘Rats?’ Ben said.

‘We have twelve villages in different parts of Asia, named for the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac,’ I said. ‘They aren’t real rats, they’re just people, and they specialise in intelligence gathering.’

‘They’re our spies,’ LK said. ‘They’re based in Macau, in an urban area even though we call it a village. You’ll be safe amongst the Rats; they have advanced security measures.’

Tell LK I’m hoping he’s absolutely sure this kid isn’t a plant, I said to the stone.

That’s why I’m putting him with the Rats, LK said. They’ll handle him if he is. They’ll be on their guard and actually hoping that he’s one of these advanced copies.

‘Very well,’ I said. ‘LK, arrange the escort for the trip to the apartment, and I’ll contact Rat Village and make the arrangements from this end.’ I gestured towards the plates of Chinese vegetarian food that the demons had made for us, which had gone cold while we’d been talking. ‘I’ll have someone warm this up for us.’

A demon entered, bowed to us, and took a few of the plates off the table. Another demon took the teapot to fill it with fresh hot water.

‘No chance of anything non-vegetarian, ma’am?’ Ronnie said wistfully.

‘Not on the Mountain, sorry,’ I said.

‘Do you mind sharing the info you just gathered?’ Ronnie asked LK.

‘Link up, I’ll tell you,’ LK said. They concentrated on each other and went quiet.

‘So, tell me what kind of work you were doing while you were living here in Asia,’ I said to Ben.

‘I’m an engineer, aircraft systems,’ he said. ‘So I never had difficulty finding work anywhere we went —’

Simone appeared at the end of the room holding a large, black, flapping tortoise that sprayed muddy water in a wide arc with every movement.

‘Emma, come up to the compound,’ she said. ‘I’ve found Daddy!’

‘John?’ I asked the turtle.

Simone was having trouble holding the struggling creature. ‘It doesn’t have any intelligence, it’s just the animal.’

‘Are you sure —’

‘I know my own father!’ she said. ‘Now what do I do with him?’

‘Meet me at the entrance to the Grotto,’ I said.

‘Oh, good idea,’ she said, and disappeared.

‘That was her father?’ Ben said. ‘I thought my wife was strange.’

‘It gets better, I’m engaged to it.’ I rose. ‘I’d better head back up, she’ll be waiting for me. Wait here for your escort, and I’ll see you later when things have settled down.’

‘I’ll take it from here,’ LK said. He picked up his chopsticks. ‘Now, let’s eat!’

‘If you don’t mind, Emma,’ Ronnie said, ‘I’ll go find something a little more —’

‘Carnivorous,’ I said. ‘I’ll see you later.’

He saluted me and disappeared.

‘Later, guys,’ I said, and went out to jog up the winding trail that led back into the Mountain.

CHAPTER 4

Simone was standing outside the entrance to the Grotto, still holding the struggling turtle. ‘I forgot you can’t travel. His panic is easing but he’s still fighting me.’

The Grotto entrance was a rock face on the hillside behind the Armoury, a plain grey wall of stone.

‘Have you tried talking to him?’ I said, putting my hand on the latch to make the wall disappear. The stone stairs down into the Grotto became visible as the rock faded.

‘Yes, he’s not replying. All that stuff with you and the Demon King and the demon essence must have really taken it out of him,’ she said.

We started carefully down the steep stairs into the darkness.

‘Where was he?’ I said.

‘Hanoi. There were reports of a giant tortoise that used to live in a lake there centuries ago — that it had returned. I had a free period so I wandered down there. God, it stinks — it’s so polluted — but there he was, large as life. I couldn’t believe it.’

‘Can you do a light while you hold him?’ I said.

She struggled to hold the tortoise with one arm around its shell, then made a ball of chi energy that floated to light the tunnel around us. ‘Sorry, forgot you can’t see in the dark.’

She hefted the tortoise in both arms again and we continued down. As we headed deeper into the Grotto, the air became colder. Condensation ran down the walls, making the steps slippery.

After two hundred metres, our breath formed fog and the air was still and bitterly cold. I jumped down the steps, trying to move faster to warm myself up. The tunnel opened into the cavern of the Grotto, so huge its walls and ceiling were invisible in the distance. The water before us shimmered in Simone’s light. We stood on a ten-metre-wide ledge that jutted five metres into the underground lake. The lake itself was a kilometre long, two kilometres across and two kilometres deep, plunging into the core of the Mountain and making its centre water — fitting for the Xuan Wu.

The lake’s fish came to the ledge, curious. They were three metres long, with white bodies and pink, lilac and blue fins, glowing with bioluminescence. One of them stuck its head out of the water and made gasping movements with its mouth, then spoke telepathically to us.

It’s not feeding time, what’s going on?

‘This is Xuan Wu. I found him,’ Simone said.

More fish appeared around the ledge, sticking their eyes out of the water with curiosity.

Put him in here with us, we’ll look after him, the fish said. Do you think he’s hungry?

‘I’ll be right back with some cat food for him,’ Simone said. She lowered the tortoise carefully onto the wet black rock. ‘Don’t go anywhere, Daddy, this is your Mountain.’ She put her hand on the back of his shell. ‘Please stay here and come back to me.’

The tortoise walked clumsily to the edge of the water. He was sixty centimetres from nose to tail and, apart from his complete blackness and his feet instead of flippers, appeared to be an ordinary amphibious tortoise. He carefully slid into the water then poked his head out. The fish quickly moved back out of his reach. He ducked his head under the water and dived beneath the surface.

The fish that had spoken to us went under too, then came back up half a minute later. He appears to be heading right to the bottom. We can’t follow that deep.

Simone dived into the water. I’ll see what he does.

I sat cross-legged on the rock and waited.

Martin and Yue Gui, Simone’s older brother and sister, came down the stairs and I stood.

‘Yes, it’s him,’ Martin said. ‘Can we go down and see?’

‘Go right ahead,’ I said.

They changed to tortoises, walked to the edge and slid into the water.

‘Can you hear me?’ I asked the fish.

Yes, it replied. He’s sitting right on the bottom, and the Princess is sitting with him. The other two are heading down as well; goodness, but they move fast.

He’s just sitting here with his eyes closed, Simone said.

Nothing happened for a couple of minutes.

They’re coming back up, the fish said.

‘Thanks,’ I said.

No problem, ma’am.

‘Do I know you?’ I said. ‘You sound familiar.’

The fish’s voice sounded horrified. Can’t you tell who I am?

‘Sorry, no.’

I’ve been in your energy work classes since the school returned to the Mountain — that’s a good six months now. You should know my voice; I’ve even spoken telepathically to you before. Its voice filled with humour. I am mortally wounded.

‘If the wounds are mortal then please die quietly.’

The fish surged out of the water onto the rock and flopped around, splashing water everywhere. It opened and closed its mouth and its eyes rolled in agony.

‘I said quietly.’

The fish stopped flapping, lay still for a moment, then rolled back into the water. It resurfaced and floated belly up without moving.

Simone, Martin and Yue Gui rose out of the water so that their feet were clear of it. The water ran out of their clothes, and they floated towards me, drifting to lightly land on the stone.

Simone glanced back at the fish. ‘What happened? Is everything okay?’

The fish quickly flipped back upright and dived under the water.

‘Is John still down there?’ I said.

Simone nodded. ‘He seems to have gone to sleep.’

‘We can leave him there, bring him food; the fish will tell us if anything happens,’ Martin said.

‘Where did you find him?’ Yue Gui said.

‘There was this news report,’ Simone said, ‘about this lake in Hanoi that had a mystical giant tortoise living in it. The tortoise disappeared from the lake hundreds of years ago, but people claimed to have seen it in the last year — it seemed to have returned.’

‘Ooooh,’ Martin said, a drawn-out sound of understanding. ‘I remember! Father got in so much trouble with the Jade Emperor, he was nearly thrown from Heaven.’

‘What did he do?’ I said.

‘The Ming of China were planning to invade the Kingdom of the Viets — what is today Vietnam. Father didn’t agree with their plans, so he took the form of a giant tortoise, and when the King of Vietnam was rowing for pleasure on the lake, Father surfaced and gave the King an enchanted sword that helped him to defeat the invading force.’

‘Good Lord, he’s the Lady of the Lake,’ I said.

‘Straight up,’ Simone said.

‘Did the King throw the sword back into the lake when the battle was done?’ I said.

‘Yes,’ Martin said. ‘It was Dark Heavens — of course Father wanted it back.’

‘The parallels are crazy,’ Simone said.

‘No wonder he did his PhD thesis on Arthurian legends compared to his own,’ I said. I shivered; the damp was seeping through my clothes and the long period of inactivity wasn’t helping. ‘Can we go back up? Do any of you want to stay here with him?’

‘We can leave him; if he wakes the fish will tell us,’ Yue Gui said. She linked arms with me. ‘I hear you’ve had a busy day. Since we’re here, we will definitely take you up on your generous offer of a Wudang Mountain luncheon.’

‘How many times has Daddy nearly been thrown from Heaven anyway?’ Simone said as we made our way back up the stairs. ‘It seems to happen every ten years or so.’

‘Sounds about right,’ Martin said.

‘Come to the Northern Heavens later this evening,’ Yue Gui said over lunch in our private room attached to the officers’ mess. ‘Allow us to reciprocate by providing you with dinner, and you can inspect the rebuilding work on the Serpent Concubine Pavilion.’

‘I can’t tonight,’ I said. ‘Simone and I have a charity art auction on the Earthly. But I’ll come in the next few days to have a look at the work on the Pavilion.’

‘The Pavilion is gone and the gardeners have already moved in,’ Yue Gui said.

‘Do you have space for another gardener?’ I said.

Martin unfocused, talking to the staff of the Palace, then snapped back. ‘If he is strong and talented, then yes we do.’

‘I have a Buddhist monk, a full Shaolin master — he fell from grace and worked as an assassin for a demon for a while,’ I said. ‘He’s trying to return to the Path and needs employment.’

‘Then the garden in the Palace is perfect,’ Martin said.

‘An assassin?’ Yue Gui said with disdain. ‘He should be incarcerated.’

‘Kwan Yin has favoured him,’ I said.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Very well then.’

‘He is sincere about redeeming himself,’ I said. ‘I can just see him attaining Enlightenment and then doing what they all do — coming straight back down to help the sorry rest of us, raking the gravel in the garden and imparting really cryptic koans.’

‘How many Buddhas are there anyway?’ Simone said.

‘You have not studied the different Ages and their Buddhas?’ Yue Gui said with surprise. ‘Perhaps you should talk to Kwan Yin … No, perhaps not.’

‘Exactly. She says that numbers aren’t meaningful and that I should find the Universe within myself,’ Simone said. ‘And that once I have embraced Unity, I will achieve Oneness with all of them.’

‘They are pure thought when they are not assisting us,’ Martin said. ‘And thoughts cannot be numbered. They exist outside of this reality and are uncountable. So the answer to your question as to the number of Buddhas is: the answer is not meaningful.’

‘I became more interested in the whole thing when Emma came back and told us about the Second Platform,’ Simone said. ‘But right now, I think coming to terms with the Tao is more important anyway.’

‘You are lucky. You have Grand Masters on the Mountain who can teach you in the ways of alchemy, internal energy work and self-cultivation to achieve Immortality. All of the different paths are laid out before you.’

Simone looked down at her food. ‘The path I most want to travel is the one with my whole family waiting for me at the end of it.’

‘We’re nearly there,’ I said. ‘We’re all here on the Mountain. It won’t be long.’

‘Why are you returning to the Earthly tonight?’ Martin said. ‘You are established here now, Emma, you don’t need to sully yourself with Earthly activities.’

‘And we just talked about Buddhas from the higher plane coming down to help us,’ Simone said. ‘As long as there are children being abandoned in China because they’re either girls or disabled, I’ll be down there helping them.’

‘We both will,’ I said. ‘We have a long list of service organisations that we help out. Orphans, micro loans for small businesses, prisoners of conscience —’

‘Political prisoners? That’s perilously close to interfering in political matters,’ Yue Gui said, tapping the table with her fingertips. ‘You know we can’t have anything to do with the way that humans choose to run their governance.’

‘I haven’t been warned yet, and until I am I’m continuing,’ I said. ‘We still have the apartment on the Peak, and we use it as a base of operations.’

‘Sounds like you ladies are on a mission,’ Martin said with humour.

‘You could say that,’ Simone said.

‘Is John still there?’ I said.

Their eyes unfocused, and they all came back and nodded at the same time.

Simone checked her watch. ‘I have to go back to school.’ She rose and kissed Martin and Yue Gui on the cheek, then turned to me. ‘Are we free tomorrow night to have dinner at the Northern Heavens?’

‘Tomorrow’s Nanna and Pop,’ I said. ‘How about after Michael and Clarissa’s engagement party?’

‘It’s a date,’ Yue Gui said, pleased. ‘Make Leo come this time as well; he is family.’

Martin concentrated on Yue Gui and they shared a telepathic communication. Yue Gui bent over the table and spluttered with laughter. ‘Never mind. Di Di just told me why Leo’s staying away from the North right now, and it’s an excellent reason.’

‘Do I want to know?’ Simone said.

‘You are very perceptive,’ Martin said. ‘And the answer to your question is: no.’

‘See you later then,’ Simone said, and disappeared.

Martin leaned his elbows on the table and put his face in his hands. He looked up at me and his eyes were dark with emotion. ‘Hurry up and push him past the basics. I miss him horribly.’ He leaned back and rubbed his hands over his eyes. ‘Telling him to stay away was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.’

I felt a rush of sympathy for him. ‘Do you think he feels the same way?’

Martin leaned forward again and shook his head without looking up. ‘It is not me but the one I resemble that he wants. But I am happy to be a surrogate for as long as he will let me.’

Yue Gui put her hand on Martin’s. ‘Oh, Di Di, I did not know. You should withdraw from this, you will only suffer.’

‘This separation while he masters energy was a trial for me, to see if I was strong enough to end it,’ he said. ‘I failed. I don’t want to be apart from him.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s better to enjoy what I have than to deny myself altogether, isn’t it? He’s happy, I’m happier with him than when I’m not, so I will let the future take care of itself and enjoy the present.’

‘Does he know?’ I said.

‘Of course he does. He hopes that I will tell him not to come back because he knows exactly how I feel.’

‘I’m counting on you to bring him round so that when John returns with enough intelligence, Leo won’t want to be drained by him,’ I said.

‘It is a losing battle.’

Leo drove us to the Convention Centre that evening, with Michael in the front seat next to him. Simone and I sat in the back.

We all headed up to the main area together, to be greeted by David Hawkes, the taipan of one of the biggest multinationals in Hong Kong, and his wife, Bridget. David was one of the younger taipans, being only in his early forties, and one of the most talented members of the company family to come up through the ranks in a while. He was very tall due to his Scottish heritage, but his grandmother had been Chinese, giving him dark hair and eyes. Like most long-term Hong Kong residents he spoke with an accent that was a mix of English and American. Bridget Hawkes was small and slender with bright red hair. She appeared elegant and relaxed in her made-to-measure tailored suit, but I’d competed against her in dressage up at the Jockey Club and she was a fiendishly good rider on her massive warm-blood mare.

‘Good to see you, ladies and gentlemen,’ David said. He moved closer to speak softly to me. ‘There’s something strange going on here. Can you check it out?’

‘What sort of strange?’

‘There’s this woman … she wanders through the place with these men following her, and wherever she goes, everybody falls in love with her. Do you think she might be,’ his voice dropped even further, ‘a demon?’

‘You see demons around every corner, David,’ I said with amusement.

He smiled down at me. ‘Wishful thinking, I know.’ He glanced behind me and his smile widened. ‘You didn’t tell me you were bringing John!’

He strode past me and I turned to see. It was John, in his Mountain uniform, his expression puzzled.

I quickly moved to stop David. ‘He may have amnesia. Let me talk to him first.’

I went to John and gazed into his eyes, putting one hand on his arm. He looked down at me without recognition. ‘John, it’s me, Emma. Do you know who I am?’

‘What am I doing here?’ he said.

I turned and called quietly to Simone. She was talking to Bridget about the function, oblivious that her father had entered. When she saw him, she rushed over to us. ‘Daddy!’

John still appeared confused. ‘Simone?’

‘Let’s take him over to the side and sort this out,’ Leo said, looking around to ensure we hadn’t attracted too much attention. A couple of people were watching with curiosity but hadn’t approached.

David put his hand on my shoulder and spoke in my ear. ‘Take him downstairs to the lobby level next to the harbour. All the shops there are closed and it’ll be deserted. I’ll cover for you.’

‘Thanks, David.’ I took John’s arm. ‘John, you need to come with us.’

John looked from me, to Simone, to Leo, then Michael, obviously made the decision and nodded.

We took him in the lift down to the small shopping mall under the Convention Centre. Floor-to-ceiling windows on one side looked onto an open area containing a large gilt statue of a bauhinia flower. A row of convenience stores, all closed for the evening, stood across from the glass. We found a bench and I sat next to John, with Simone on his other side. I took his hand. I wanted to give him a huge hug but was wary of scaring him away. Michael and Leo took up positions on either side of us, guarding.

Simone leaned on his shoulder. ‘It’s good to have you back, Daddy.’

‘Simone. Your name is Simone,’ he said. He looked at me, still confused. ‘Michelle?’

‘Oh, God,’ Simone said quietly.

‘No, it’s fine,’ I said. ‘I’m Emma, John.’

‘Emma?’ He looked up at Michael and Leo. ‘Lion? Tiger?’ He looked at me again. ‘Snake?’

‘Welcome to your family,’ I said with amusement. ‘The Turtles are still in the Northern Heavens.’

‘I don’t remember anything,’ he said, running his hand over his forehead. ‘My name is John?’

‘Your name is Xuan Wu,’ Simone said. ‘Emma calls you John.’

‘That’s not a very auspicious name — dark and war together,’ he said.

‘That’s your nature: dark and war.’ She threw her arms over his shoulders. ‘And you’re my father.’

He put his arms around her. ‘That I know. That’s something that will never change.’ He took a deep breath into her shoulder. ‘You’re my little girl.’

‘Daddy,’ she said, muffled by his jacket.

He pulled back. ‘I don’t remember anything! Why do I see them as big cats, and her as a snake? Why do you glow with stars and darkness and blue and gold? How come I can see the past and the future and the world around me clearer than just vision? Why do I want to drown everything in ice-cold water and bring death to all?’ His voice gained a frantic edge. ‘What am I?’

‘You’re a god,’ I said. ‘You’re the God of the North, and dark, and cold, and winter, and martial arts.’

‘If I’m a god then how come I don’t remember?’ he said, challenging me, his hands still protectively on Simone.

‘Do you trust me?’ I said.

‘You can trust her,’ Simone said.

He studied me for a long time, his arms still around Simone. His eyes roamed my face. Then he nodded once, sharply. ‘I can trust you.’

Simone exhaled with relief.

‘Then trust me that you don’t need the details right now of why you can’t remember. It’s a very long story. Just come home with us and we’ll fill you in.’

His eyes unfocused. ‘Something unbalanced is coming.’

‘He’s right, Emma,’ Simone said urgently. ‘Something very nasty is heading our way …’

Kitty Kwok, flanked by two big Chinese bodyguards, came around the corner and stopped in front of us. I rose to face her, standing protectively in front of John and Simone. Leo and Michael moved behind me, mirroring Kitty’s bodyguards behind her.

This is a good time to grab her and give her to the King, Leo said. Get this done and finished.

I nodded slightly. He was right. I summoned the Murasame but nothing happened; the sword didn’t come.

‘What have you done?’ I said.

‘Nothing. I just want to negotiate.’ She raised her hands. ‘I know what the King said. I want to offer you a deal.’

‘Nice to be taken seriously for a change,’ I said.

I didn’t look away from Kitty and heard rather than saw John move to stand behind me on the left. He touched me on the shoulder and said, I’m right behind you, but I don’t know enough. Speak for me.

I nodded.

‘I offer parley under terms of truce,’ Kitty said.

Well, that was the grabbing option blown out of the water. It would be dishonourable to attack her when she’d offered parley and waved a theoretical white flag.

‘Speak your mind,’ I said, using the formal words to close the deal.

She relaxed slightly and turned to pace in front of us. ‘You’ve vowed never to hurt a human, Emma. But you’ve agreed to give me to them. Would you betray your own kind and give a human to the demons?’

‘You forfeited all claim to humanity when you harmed innocent children to prolong your own life,’ I said.

‘I think that makes me particularly human,’ she said with humour. ‘Ask your Mr Chen here, he’ll tell you.’

‘Demons are often stunned by the depths of atrocity that humans are capable of,’ John said without emotion. ‘In the ways of cruelty, they often seek to learn from you.’

‘I’m one hundred per cent human,’ Kitty said. ‘Ask him, he’ll tell you. You can’t do anything to me, Emma. You can’t give me to them — that goes against everything both of you stand for. You keep humans safe from demons; you don’t hand them over for the demons to play with.’

I was silent at that. She was right. I pulled myself together. ‘Name your terms.’

‘You’ve agreed to give me to the King. He’s already paid for me. But if he’s destroyed, you don’t need to pay the price.’

‘The last thing we need right now is a civil war in Hell,’ I said. ‘He may be a two-faced bastard, but at least he doesn’t create demons that are self-aware, think they’re human and are programmed to turn — like the ones your friend the Death Mother is making. Such things are cruel beyond belief.’

‘Not my doing,’ Kitty said. ‘I’m only after Immortality; I don’t want to destroy anybody. I’ve never hurt your students. I’ve stayed quietly in my corner doing my stuff. It’s not my fault that I scare the living shit out of the King.’

‘You’re nice and humble now your little posse’s gone,’ I said.

‘Destroy the King and I’ll set up a replacement. I have one ready to go; he’s intelligent, powerful and does what I tell him. Do this for me and I’ll put a King on the throne who will never bother you again. You’ll no longer have the forces of Hell breathing down your neck, killing your Celestials and harming your little human students.’

‘You want to set a puppet on the throne of Hell?’ I said.

She gestured with impatience. ‘I don’t want to rule Hell. I just want to be left alone to succeed with my Immortality and then live my life in peace! I’ve never wanted any of you dead; I just want to be left alone.’

‘Gloria Ho,’ I said. ‘Andy Ho. The Death Mother. Before that, Six, and the Geek, and Simon Wong. Don’t tell me you won’t try to kill us, Kitty; you and your friends haven’t stopped trying. You’ve been the leader of this all along, so don’t play the innocent. You want to put a puppet on the throne of Hell and then try to take over the Earthly Plane as well.’

She raised her arms to the side. ‘This is a waste of time. Get me out.’

The two bodyguards transformed into humanoid demons with black scales and tusks. All three of them disappeared.

‘Whoa!’ Simone said. ‘They were demons? I saw them as human.’

‘Me too,’ Leo said, and Michael nodded agreement.

‘Did you see them as demons or human, John?’ I said, turning to see him, but he’d disappeared. ‘Is he all right, Simone?’

‘Daddy went back to the Grotto,’ Simone said. ‘He seemed totally confused by the whole thing.’

‘It was strange my sword didn’t come to me,’ I said. ‘Kitty must have been blocking it somehow, which is very disturbing.’ I raised my hand and summoned the sword and it still didn’t come. ‘Are you having the same problem?’

Simone raised her hand and Dark Heavens appeared in it. She dismissed it. ‘I have no trouble calling my sword.’

‘You haven’t called the Murasame since you lost your demon essence,’ Leo said.

‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘Maybe it doesn’t serve me any more. Maybe it went back to the King?’

‘After this, we’ll head back to the Mountain and ask Miss Chen,’ Simone said. She ran her hands through her hair and fluffed it out over her shoulders. ‘Let’s go upstairs and raise some money for these poor kids.’

CHAPTER 5

We made our way back up in the lift to the floor above. The speeches had started, and we slipped in at the back to watch. Michael nodded to Leo, then went to the side table and grabbed a tray of drinks for us.

About halfway through David’s welcoming speech, a deep vibration thrummed through the floor beneath us. Water hissed for a couple of seconds, then stopped. There was silence from the crowd, then a few giggles and confused conversation. Nothing else happened so David continued his speech.

Oh my God, Emma, look out the window, Simone said.

I glanced left and stared. The sky and the other side of the harbour had gone. There was just a wall of blackness next to us, as high as the fifteen-metre windows. Its slightly curved vertical surface shifted like liquid in the reflected light of the Convention Centre.

David continued his speech, but people next to the window began moving away. More people noticed, and the chatter became louder and gained a frightened edge.

‘Don’t worry, it’s just an optical illusion,’ David said, frantically waving me towards the podium. ‘It happens sometimes when there’s an inversion layer over the water, because of the change in seasons. It’s an atmospheric anomaly, that’s all. Don’t bother taking photos; you won’t capture anything because it’s not really there — it’s something like a mirage.’

‘What is it?’ I asked Simone, waving back to David to indicate that I’d be there in a minute.

‘It’s just water,’ Simone said. ‘A wall of water. Not an optical illusion.’

‘Your dad?’

‘No. Only water. It might be elementals playing around, but I can’t sense any.’ She moved closer to the glass and concentrated. ‘No intelligence behind it.’ She cocked her head. ‘Why is it doing that?’

I walked towards the podium to reassure David, and some of the people nearby reacted loudly. A lump two metres across had emerged from the wall and was following me. I took a couple more steps towards David and the ball paced me. I continued and a snake’s head, at least a metre across, shot out of the water and slammed its snout into the window glass with a wet crack. People screamed and scurried away from the glass.

I stopped and turned to face the snake. Something in its eyes called to me and I raised one hand, desperately wishing I could touch it. It pushed its head more slowly towards me and came through the glass as if it wasn’t there. It touched its snout to my hand and time stopped. We hung suspended in the moment, touching snake to snake. The world spiralled away from me and the water rose up to meet me, its darkness filled with the immeasurable cold intelligence of the Serpent. It pulled its head back, nodded to me, and spun to disappear back into the wall of water.

The water collapsed, sending a black surge against the glass and then subsiding.

I jogged up to the podium to speak in David’s ear. ‘Pretend that was part of the show, courtesy of Chencorp, please. Nobody’s in danger.’

David raised his hands and spoke loudly over the PA system. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, a round of applause for the special three-dimensional installation courtesy of Chencorp, one of the patrons for this evening. That was a one-off display of the installation before it is dismantled for a world tour, a demonstration of some of today’s most advanced holographic technology.’ He dropped his voice. ‘How’s that?’

‘Absolutely perfect. I owe you.’

There was scattered applause through the room, then people surged forward and applauded me loudly, discussing the snake and water. I patted David on the shoulder and turned to go back down.

‘Wait,’ he said. ‘What if something like that happens again?’

‘Just say it’s an encore,’ I said.

He shrugged. ‘Turnout will be double next time we have a charity opening.’

‘All good for the kids,’ I said, and went back down to Simone and the men.

Before the auction we wandered around the paintings. Simone showed me a Western-style oil painting of a group of running horses, one of them palomino.

‘I like this one. Do you think it would look good in my room?’

‘Which room — on the Peak or at home?’ I said.

‘At home. It’s too big for the Peak, it’s a metre across. It would look good in the living room in my apartment on the Mountain.’

Leo studied the painting. ‘This isn’t terribly well done, you know. You only want to buy it because it looks like Freddo.’

She nodded a reply.

‘He should pay for it to compensate you for destroying the carpet and making you move out while it was replaced,’ Michael said.

‘Pay with what?’ Simone said.

‘A promise not to pee on the carpet in future would be a good start,’ Leo said.

‘Oh geez,’ Simone said softly, looking behind me, then quickly went to another painting, Michael and Leo trailing her.

I turned to see what had spooked them and nearly sighed with dismay. It was George Wilson, taipan of one of the big shipping companies. He was a good head taller than me and nearly the same around, carrying a large glass of scotch leaning against his stomach and a predatory grin above his double chins.

‘Here’s the girl in charge,’ he said too loudly, surrounding me in a cloud of alcohol. ‘Running the business by yourself, real executive woman. You can be in charge of me any day, honey.’ He moved closer and I backed away. He leaned into me and his breath made my eyes water. ‘I bet you just love showing your good-looking bodyguards how you’re in charge.’

Simone stormed to us and glared at him. ‘You’re drunk, George, and you’re making inappropriate comments to my stepmother.’

He grinned at her. ‘Look at Missy being the boss. I bet your Michael-boy likes you being the boss.’ His grin grew into a leer. ‘You’re growing up fast, honey.’

‘This is sexual harassment!’ Simone said.

‘Oh, Simone, really,’ he said, spreading his arms and spilling his drink on the carpet. ‘I’m just having a bit of fun — don’t go all feminazi on me. Don’t take offence when I’m just joking around. I haven’t even touched you.’

‘Touch me and I’ll break your arm,’ she said, and walked stiffly back to Michael and Leo.

‘You need to teach her, Emma, or she’ll end up one of these radical feminists who think they know better than men; ugly and bossy and no man’ll be interested in her,’ George said. He sidled closer to me. ‘So do you have a new man in your life yet? Peter Tong keeps boasting he’s dating you, but I don’t believe it.’

‘I’m not looking, thanks, George,’ I said.

‘No such thing as a woman who isn’t looking. Tell you what.’ He moved so we were side by side facing the art. ‘My wife’s gone to South Africa for a couple of weeks. Why don’t you come over? I have some fantastic art at my place.’ He turned to me and grinned broadly. ‘Why don’t you pop over, have a drink, maybe lunch … or dinner … take a look?’

I shook my head. ‘I’m not really that interested in art. I think I’ll go catch up with Simone. Later, George.’

He waved his drink at me. ‘Don’t be a stranger, darling. Has to be hard running that big company without any help.’

I rejoined Simone, Leo and Michael, who were forcedly discussing a garish abstract canvas.

‘Why are you so polite to him?’ Simone said. ‘Why don’t you just tell him where to go?’

Leo bent to speak softly to me. ‘You should, Emma. He’ll only respect you if you tell him to his face. Being polite is only giving him ammunition.’

‘Being rude would give him even more ammunition,’ I said. ‘There’s really no way of dealing with a man like that. I didn’t agree to go to his house to see his “art” while his wife’s away, so he’s probably labelled me already.’

‘He invited you to his house?’ Michael said, aghast.

‘You should tell his wife!’ Simone said.

‘She knows all about it,’ I said. ‘She just puts up with it because that’s the way he is. She went to South Africa to get away from him for a while.’

We watched as George joined another group, one that held his personal assistant. He placed his hand around her waist then casually drifted it lower. She stiffened, obviously uncomfortable, but didn’t move away.

Simone shivered. ‘She should sue him for sexual harassment.’

‘This is the Earthly Plane, Simone. If she did that, he’d make sure she never worked anywhere again. She’d get a bad reputation and be unemployable. These women stay in the job for a year, he gives them a glowing reference, and they go on to something well-paid and worthwhile.’

‘That is so wrong,’ Simone said. ‘All those other people are standing around talking as if it isn’t happening.’

‘Go to the lectures at CH about power and dominance,’ Michael said. ‘They’re fascinating.’

‘I stayed away because I’m not interested in either,’ Simone said. ‘But I think I will now.’

David Hawkes approached us again and towered over me. ‘Emma, do you mind if I have a quiet word?’

I nodded and we went to the side together. He gestured towards a seat placed facing the windows and we sat.

‘George Wilson is telling everybody that you’re a lesbian,’ David said with humour. ‘Just thought you’d like to know.’

I shrugged. ‘I’m not surprised. I turned him down.’

‘I wanted to ask you about Taoist philosophy. If all that stuff is real, then it’s worth pursuing.’ He gestured with his chin towards Leo. ‘Taoist Immortal. Who would have believed it? Everybody’s asking who his plastic surgeon is.’

‘Leo didn’t attain the Tao, though, he was Raised by the Jade Emperor.’

David let his breath out in a long gasp. ‘Damn. The Jade Emperor. And I thought meeting the President of the United States was cool. So tell me about pine nuts and spring water.’

‘You’ve been doing some research?’

‘There isn’t much in English. You have the word straight from the source — so, how do you do it?’

I shrugged. ‘I haven’t done it so I don’t know.’

‘Is there anyone I can ask?’

‘Do what?’ Bridget said from where she’d approached behind us.

David turned and smiled at her. ‘Emma’s an expert on Taoist philosophy. I was asking her about it.’

She studied him carefully, her expression severe, then relaxed, and I did too.

‘I noticed you’ve been reading up on Taoism — you bought a lot of books,’ she said. ‘Are you thinking of converting?’

‘You don’t convert to Taoism, it’s not really a religion …’ I began, then changed tack. ‘It’s not an exclusive religion, anyway. Many Taoists are also Buddhists; it’s more like a spiritual philosophy than a religion. Taoists want to achieve Immortality, but once they’ve done that, they’ll go on to try to attain Enlightenment and become a Buddha. They don’t have a god as such …’ I changed direction again. ‘Or a single, all-powerful jealous god that doesn’t like you worshipping anyone else. It’s more about finding yourself and where you fit in the universe. Because when you know who you are, and where you are, and what you are, the rest of Reality just slots into place and you find yourself attuned to it — able to see it and affect it as much as it affects you.’

‘I have good reason to believe that what Taoists teach — about achieving Immortality — is true,’ David said to Bridget.

She studied him for a long moment. ‘As long as it doesn’t interfere with anything else, I suppose.’

‘I take it that means I’m not allowed to go to the top of a mountain and exist on pine nuts and spring water any time soon,’ he said with a grin.

She tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Don’t you dare. I need help taking the boys to soccer on the weekend.’

David rose. ‘I’ll ask you more about it later, Emma.’

‘It’s traditional for a Taoist to fulfil his or her duty, then pursue the Tao,’ I said. ‘Raise a family, see to their wellbeing, then take themselves off, as you said, to the top of a mountain.’

‘I was thinking Spain for our retirement, actually,’ Bridget said. ‘I don’t think there are any mountains there.’

‘Pyrenees darling, best skiing on the Continent,’ he said. ‘You can retire to caring for our visiting grandchildren, and I’ll study Taoist philosophy.’

She grimaced theatrically. ‘Grandchildren? Don’t wish that on me yet, Phillip’s only fourteen.’ She gestured towards the podium. ‘The bidding starts soon, honey, better get up there and do your stuff.’

David nodded to me and straightened his suit. ‘Duty calls, Emma, let’s see some money raised for these kids.’ He held his hand out and I shook it.

Bridget smiled. ‘Go do your thing, Mr Hawkes, and Ms Donahoe and I will discuss the best places to retire.’

He bent and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Don’t bother asking her, I don’t think she’ll share hers.’ He winked at me and strode away.

‘Please don’t set him on a path that will ruin his family,’ Bridget said mildly without looking away from David, who was loping up onto the dais. ‘I need him.’

‘Don’t worry, Bridget, I have too much respect for you to do anything like that,’ I said, also watching David as he introduced the auctioneer. ‘I’ll give him the information he asks for, but I know that his family needs him.’

She turned, quickly hugged me and kissed my cheek. ‘Thanks, Emma.’

The auctioneer moved up to the lectern and David returned to the floor to sit in front of the bidders.

‘We’re up,’ I said to Bridget. ‘Time to spend some money.’

When the auction was over, most of the guests hung around chatting, but Simone had spent a long day in school and we decided to head home to the Peak. We’d return to the Mountain in the morning after she’d rested. We paid for the parking at the shroff office under the Convention Centre and made our way to the car. Our footsteps echoed eerily in the car park; there weren’t many other people around.

A loud bang reverberated around the concrete walls. There was a horrible wet splat sound and Michael staggered. Someone was shooting at us.

I quickly raised my arms and summoned chi armour, which snapped into existence around me. Then I grabbed Michael and headed for the car. Leo threw himself out of the wheelchair, wrapped himself around Simone and pushed her towards the car as well.

‘Get low and run alongside the wall!’ Leo shouted.

A bullet hit my chi armour in the middle of my back and I staggered at the impact. There was a metallic ping as the bullet hit the concrete, its energy spent. Another bullet hit the floor behind us and shards of concrete sprayed across the back of my legs.

I half-pushed, half-dragged Michael towards the car, squeezing between the backs of parked cars and the wall. When we got there, I dragged him to the side and propped him against the concrete. My chi armour disintegrated; it would only hold for a minute at most and I’d done well to keep it around me that long.

‘Come on, Simone!’ Leo said, his voice full of urgency. ‘Disable that thing.’

‘What?’ Simone said.

‘Someone’s shooting at us,’ Michael said through his teeth. ‘I’m hit, I can’t … I’m sorry.’

He slid down the wall of the car park to sit, pulling me down with him. I pulled his jacket away and wrenched open his dress shirt; he’d been hit in the abdomen just below his ribs. Leo took off his tuxedo jacket and held it out to me. I wadded it into a rough pad and shoved it into Michael’s shirt.

‘Oh, shit, I didn’t realise,’ Simone said. ‘Give me a second …’ She hissed a long breath. ‘There are four enormous Snake Mothers out there, and they’re headed straight for us.’

‘Stop talking and disable that gun!’ Leo said.

‘I can’t see it,’ Simone said. ‘Michael …’ She knelt next to us and peered into his face. ‘How bad is it?’

‘I can’t heal it,’ Michael said, gasping. ‘There’s a lot of damage.’

One of the Mothers called from the centre of the car park lane: ‘Come out and play, little humans. We want to see what you can do.’

‘You take Emma, I’ll take Michael,’ Leo told Simone. ‘Let’s get them out of here.’

Simone put her hand on my arm and concentrated again. ‘Blocked,’ she said. She moved her head from side to side. ‘I think one of Six’s stones is in here somewhere.’

David Hawkes’s voice called out from the edge of the car park. ‘Emma, are you here? Emma, they say there’s a gas leak —’

The gun went off again and Bridget shrieked. I crawled towards the end of the car to see: David was lying on the ground, and he looked dead. Bridget stood over him, mouth open, frozen and screaming. Then they shot her too and she fell next to him, whimpering with pain.

‘They killed humans,’ Leo said.

‘What do you want?’ I called. ‘Don’t kill anybody. Let’s do a deal.’

‘They’re fine, they’re alive,’ one of the Mothers said, her voice hissing. ‘We’re not One Two Two, we’re honourable demons. We just want you, Emma. Come on out and we’ll let the others go.’

Simone’s head shot up and her eyes unfocused. She shook her head violently, grimacing with distaste, then appeared to give in.

‘What?’ I said. ‘Who’s talking to you?’

‘Your stone,’ she said. ‘Through your touch. Michael, Emma, hold still, this is worth a try.’

She reached towards Michael, slipped her hand inside his shirt, then pulled it out covered in blood. She quickly turned to me and swiped her hand across my face. I put my hand up to stop her, but too late.

‘What the hell, Simone?’ I started, then I tasted it. Michael’s blood tasted of Shen: warmth, sunshine and fresh air full of an icy fizz and mown grass. It poured into me and something dark and strong grew. I rose to stand and the power sang inside me with a deep bass rolling surge.

I pulled Leo up with one hand so he was standing next to me. ‘You and me, Lion, let’s go get them. When you have a good view of them, try your new shen energy.’ I glanced at him. ‘You’ve been abstaining, right?’

‘What happened to you, Emma?’ Simone said.

‘I have no idea,’ I said, the power growing and roaring, making me bigger, wider, darker and much, much meaner. ‘But it worked.’

Leo stared at me. ‘Yeah, I’ve been abstaining. What have you been doing?’

‘Tasting the blood of a child of Shen,’ I said, my voice deeper than it normally was. ‘Call your sword, it’s time for some reckoning. David and Bridget didn’t deserve that.’

I put my hand out and demanded that the Murasame obey me. It appeared in my hand, then grew slightly to fit me.

‘Am I in some sort of Celestial Form?’ I said.

‘No, you’re just … taller,’ Simone said.

‘Stay here. Stay back.’

Leo called his sword, the Black Lion, and flanked me on my left shoulder. I walked around the front of the car into the centre of the lane. I smelled the demons before I saw them. The earthy rich scent of human blood from David and Bridget was a nagging distraction on the edge of my senses, but these demons needed to die.

They shot at me, but I saw the bullet slide slowly towards me and easily evaded it. The four Mothers stood in front of a van in human form: tall, sleek, beautiful women. One of them had a modern assault rifle, but I didn’t recognise the type; time to ask the Mountain staff about firearms training so I knew what I was up against. She shot at me again, and again I easily evaded it; obviously not an automatic weapon.

The range of effects I could accomplish with my black chi scrolled inside my head. It was an incredibly useful tool and I could achieve so much with it. I hoped I’d remember the list when I came down off this insane blood high.

I moved into a long defensive stance, held the Murasame horizontally above my head with the point towards the demons, put some black chi into it and shot it at the demon with the gun. She exploded. The other three Mothers backed up, intimidated.

‘Who’s the boss?’ I said. ‘I see you all as about the same size.’

One of them summoned a slender Chinese sword and rushed us. Leo hit her with a ball of shen energy sixty centimetres across and she exploded.

‘Nice,’ I said.

‘Thanks.’

The two Mothers remaining changed to True Form and summoned weapons. The one on the left took a polearm; the one on the right, a two-handed battleaxe.

‘Stay back,’ I said. ‘These ones are mine.’

I ran to them and swung the Murasame in a wide circular stroke towards the one on the left, dodged easily under her weapon and cut her in half. Ordinarily a swing like that was an invitation for a skewering, but I moved so fast she didn’t have a chance. I turned to the last one, pulled some demon essence out of her into the ecstatically vibrating Murasame and bound her.

‘Right,’ I said, as casually as I could. ‘Who sent you?’

She relaxed and concentrated, and something to the left of me in a corner of the car park pinged loudly.

I raised my left hand and pulled it towards me: it was a pebble, one of Six’s stones. This was what was blocking teleportation and telepathy inside the car park. It flew into my hand and I crushed it; the blocking ceased.

Leo went to David and Bridget and knelt to check them.

‘A buttload of big Celestials are on their way,’ I said to the demon. ‘You can turn if you like; or you can tell me who sent you and why, and I’ll spare you. Do neither and I’ll suck the life out of you and put you in my demon jar.’

‘The Death Mother sent me,’ she said urgently. ‘She wants you dead. She knows you’ve made a pact with the King to take Kitty Kwok to him. It’s only a matter of time before you know where she is, and she won’t have Kitty’s protection any more.’

‘You’re here because she’s scared,’ I said. ‘Good. She has reason to be. Where’s her base?’

She shook her head, mute.

I put my left hand around her throat and lifted her. A small part of me whistled with admiration at me doing this to a level eighty-three Mother.

‘Holy shit, Emma,’ Leo said softly from behind me.

The Mother’s eyes bugged out and I enjoyed the show as I throttled her. ‘Where’s. Her. Base?’

‘I don’t know!’ she gasped. ‘One of the other Mothers organised this — I don’t know where Forty-Four’s base is. That’s the truth, you can see it!’

It was the truth. I released her slightly.

‘I told you who sent me; you vowed to spare me.’

‘That I did,’ I said, my hand still around her throat. ‘The only one who’ll be able to change you back is the Demon King himself. Good luck going to see him; he may not be as merciful as I am.’ I sent some black chi into my hand, pumped it into her and changed her into a cat. I stroked the top of her head and released her. ‘Go find a rat to eat.’

I sighed. I shouldn’t have destroyed all of the Mothers; the last one hadn’t given me any information that I didn’t already know. I heard footsteps behind me: Simone, with Michael leaning heavily on her. I turned and smiled at their shocked expressions.

‘We have people on their way,’ Simone said. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Just fine,’ I said, going to David and Leo.

Leo had loosened David’s shirt collar and was checking him for injuries. ‘He’s been hit in the abdomen. Bridget’s been shot in the leg.’

Bridget was lying panting on the ground, her eyes wide and glazed.

‘Simone, get me a pad to put on David’s bleeding,’ Leo said.

‘I can’t, I’m flat out telling them where we are,’ Simone said.

‘Bridget,’ I said, and she focused on me. ‘Tell me your home phone number and your domestic helper’s name. We’ll take you to hospital, but we need to tell your boys that you’re all right and you’ll be late home.’

‘We need to call an ambulance,’ Bridget said. She howled with pain. ‘God, it hurts!’

‘Help is coming but we need to fix up your boys,’ I said.

She reeled off a mobile phone number. ‘Rosalinda’s our helper. She’s at home with them right now.’

‘Stone, can you relay through someone?’ I said.

‘We’re underground, Emma,’ Simone said. ‘I’m in touch with Gold and he’s sending the message.’

Bridget groaned and lay back on the floor. I moved to hold her head in my lap and her hand in mine while Leo looked after David, who was still unconscious.

‘God, hurry with the ambulance, any pain relief, please,’ Bridget said.

I used the contact I had with her hand and worked through her meridians, easing the pain.

She panted again and turned her head to see me. ‘What did you do?’

‘Magic,’ I said, but the buzz was leaving me and I was beginning to feel weak. I could barely hold myself upright where I sat.

I turned to Simone. ‘Are they close?’

Meredith and Liu appeared behind her.

‘Do you want us to drop them at a human hospital or take them with us?’ Meredith said.

‘Take them with us,’ I said. ‘David knows all about it; Bridget doesn’t. But they were shot by demons so we’ll have to check the wounds and make sure they weren’t contaminated with essence.’

Meredith pulled Michael’s shirt open and examined him. ‘Let’s get all of these people to the infirmary.’ She leaned towards me. ‘Are you all right? You look terribly drained.’

‘I changed, went bigger,’ I said. ‘I’m coming down off it now.’

‘I see,’ Meredith said. She looked up at Liu. ‘Let’s get them home.’

‘Leo, human male; Meredith, human female,’ Liu said. ‘I’ll take Michael; Simone take Emma.’

The car park disappeared.

We arrived at the infirmary and the staff rushed to help us. I leaned against the nearest wall, but it was moving behind me.

‘Something’s wrong with Emma,’ Simone said loudly as Michael, Bridget and David were put onto gurneys. ‘She changed down there — she did her powerful thing — and now she’s white as a ghost.’

I completely lost my balance and Simone caught me. ‘Someone help Emma!’

‘Bring her in,’ Edwin called from inside, and Simone picked me up and carried me into the ward. I didn’t really understand what was happening as Simone placed me onto one of the four beds. People were rushing from bed to bed, but it was all a blur.

‘Is everybody all right?’ I said, but Simone had gone. I moved my head with difficulty to see where she was and relaxed. She was at Michael’s bedside.

The noise and light faded in and out, and I hoped with detachment that it was just exhaustion and nothing more serious.

Meredith’s face swam into view above me and she put her hands on either side of my face. Her exploratory energy moved through me. ‘Emma’s fine, just exhaustion,’ she said.

I grabbed her hand to stop her before she left me. ‘Is everybody okay?’ I said. ‘They shot David and Bridget because they were with us. Are they all right?’

She smiled and squeezed my hand to reassure me. ‘They’re fine; everybody will be okay. Close your eyes and rest.’

‘Do you need my snake?’

‘Not while you’re half-dead like this,’ she said. ‘So close your eyes, go down deep, rebuild your energy, and when you’re back you can help. Either way they’ll be fine; the injuries aren’t life-threatening.’

‘Good,’ I said, and let go.

CHAPTER 6

I came around in my own bed in the servants’ quarters. As soon as I sat up, Meredith and Simone appeared next to me.

‘How do you feel?’ Simone said.

‘Great. Full of energy. How are the others?’

‘They’re in the infirmary, they’re fine,’ Meredith said. ‘We’ve done some energy healing. With a few hours’ rest they’ll be up and around again.’

‘Any permanent damage?’

‘No,’ Simone said. ‘But we need to talk about Michael later. I honestly think he’s out of his league guarding you; he keeps getting injured.’

Meredith leaned in to study me carefully. ‘That’s right, talk later. Right now, tell me: do you crave Shen blood? Do you want to taste it again?’

I thought about it for a moment, then shook my head. ‘No. Not like I did when I had the demon essence in me. I have to admit that it tasted great, but I don’t feel like an addict.’

‘It tasted great?’ Simone said, incredulous.

‘It doesn’t taste like blood at all,’ I said. ‘Remember that drink at Nu Wa’s palace?’

‘That was awesome.’

‘That’s what Michael’s blood tasted like. Better than that, if possible.’

Simone hesitated. ‘I wonder if it tastes like that to me too.’

I was wearing my pyjamas. ‘How long have I been out?’

‘Only a couple of hours,’ Simone said.

‘So it’s what … 2 am? Why aren’t you in bed?’

‘I wanted to make sure you were okay. I don’t have school tomorrow anyway.’

I found my tatty purple chenille robe in a pile of clothes next to the bed and pulled it around me. ‘Go to bed.’

‘Where are you going?’ Meredith said.

‘I’m going to check on the others.’

‘They’re asleep, leave them,’ Meredith said. ‘Leo’s there watching them. They’re fine.’

‘It’s so cute: Clarissa’s asleep at Michael’s bedside,’ Simone said.

‘I still need to check something out. You two go to bed.’

‘Check what out?’ Simone said suspiciously. ‘It’s the middle of the night.’

‘I want to see if the Murasame came back,’ I said. ‘It won’t come when I call. It only came when I did my strong thing.’

‘You haven’t recovered enough to do any sword work,’ Meredith said. ‘When did you call it?’

‘This evening, when the Mothers cornered us. I just want to pop down to the Armoury and see if it’s there. If it isn’t, then I’ll need to get myself a new one, because it’s probably at the bottom of the sea somewhere, or back in Hell.’

‘Go straight back to bed after you’ve checked it,’ Meredith said, and disappeared.

‘I’m coming too,’ Simone said. ‘I won’t sleep unless I know. That sword is kind of like a bad-tempered guard dog for you.’

‘Careful, you’ll upset the stone,’ I said.

We headed down the hill and around the peaks to the Armoury. Mist had gathered in the gorges and we walked carefully across an arched bridge, the scent of the pine trees filling the air around us. The sky had the clarity of late autumn, and the stars blazed bigger and brighter than any on the Earthly. The seven stars of the Big Dipper shone in the centre of the sky: the symbol of the Dark Lord’s power. I shivered in my robe; the early autumn breeze was chilly. First snow soon.

‘I must have some eucalypts planted here,’ I said. ‘I miss the smell.’

‘Can you see okay?’ Simone said, gesturing towards the ball of light she’d summoned for me.

‘Just fine.’

We wound past the forge to the Armoury building, which dwarfed its much smaller neighbour, its roof soaring twenty metres above the ground. The back of the Armoury was flush with the stone mountainside, and it had black walls and a black-tiled roof, making it more difficult to spot from the air. We went to the front of the building. The black stone doors stood silent, each one fifteen metres high and four wide, carved with images of the combined Xuan Wu, the snake and turtle heads facing each other with their mouths open as if in conflict.

‘Open,’ I said, and the doors slid smoothly apart.

We stepped into its dark interior, the black roof tiles visible high above us. The building didn’t have an internal ceiling, making it bitterly cold in the middle of winter. The huge open space stretched for fifty metres away from us, and a rustling sound came from the high beams above.

An unadorned ebony screen, three metres tall, stood just inside the entrance, and in front of that stood a metre-tall bronze urn, filled with sand, to hold incense.

I moved to the side of the urn and opened the cupboard next to it.

‘Move the light closer, I can’t see,’ I said, and Simone obliged.

The cabinet contained open canisters of incense sticks, their wooden ends protruding so they could be easily removed. I rifled through the canisters, checking the sticks: some were dyed red, others were plain wood. Eventually I found the one I was looking for: it had a tiny dot of black on the very end of the stick. I pulled it out, lit it from the candle burning below the urn, then shook it until the flame went out. Blowing out the flame was an insult to the wind spirits. I stuck the incense into the sand and waited a moment for the fragrance to waft through the hall and into the ceiling.

‘I can smell it, we can go,’ Simone said, and we moved into the main part of the hall.

Racks of weapons stood on either side of us, resembling the shelves in a library. Those closest to the door held the standard training weapons used by students; the Celestial weapons were further back.

The rustling above us changed to flapping, and one of the flying demons that resided in the roof flew down to us. Simone readied herself to destroy it, obviously concerned that I’d chosen the wrong incense. The demon was black and a metre long with four legs and wings; it looked something like a flying lizard but much uglier. It clacked its grotesquely toothed beak at me and strutted up and down, blocking my way, then turned to speak. It sounded like a parrot.

‘Dark Lady.’

‘Hello, little one,’ I said.

‘It’s the middle of the night, Lady, why do you disturb us?’

‘I apologise for disturbing you. I wanted to check my weapon. Is it in there?’

The flyer hissed and took a few steps back, shaking its wings. ‘I don’t want to know anything about that thing.’ It took off again, spiralling up into the rafters.

We walked past the shelves to the back wall of the building, which was the Mountain itself.

‘Open,’ I said, and the wall disappeared, revealing a room full of brass that shone in Simone’s light.

The ceiling in the Celestial Weapons Archive was much lower, and carved with twining snakes and turtles. The walls were smooth polished stone, and the pillars and beams holding up the roof were clad with brass, again embossed with the symbols of snakes and turtles. Soft voices sounded just at the edge of hearing: some of the weapons were talking in their sleep.

The far end of the room, from one side to the other, was partitioned off with iron bars clad in gold. I stopped and took a few deep breaths: this was the hard part. I preferred not to do it, but it was the only way.

‘It’s in there, Emma, don’t worry about it,’ Simone said.

‘That’s beside the point,’ I said. ‘I need to go in there and have a little chat with it about why it’s not coming when I call it.’

‘It’s not worth the risk.’

‘No risk. I can do it.’

‘I’ll bring it out for you.’

‘It’s not talking to me so I can’t tell it not to hurt you. Still want to try?’

Simone was silent at that. She’d touched the sword before and knew how much it hurt.

I took some more deep breaths and concentrated, then closed my eyes. I took three steps forward and opened them again. I was inside.

Simone did the same thing, and stood beside me.

Seven Stars stood vertically on a solid silver stand in the centre of the room, its presence dwarfing the auras of the other weapons. I went around it, but Simone stopped to run her finger over the well-worn hilt.

The Murasame sat in the corner, laid horizontally Japanese-style on a stand of carved bone. Its darkness provided an eerie counterpoint to the brittle whiteness of its stand. I went to it and took its handle, then hissed with pain and pulled my hand away.

‘It hurt you?’ Simone said.

‘It doesn’t recognise me,’ I said.

‘This is the first time since you’ve recovered,’ she said.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘It hasn’t seen me without the demon essence.’

‘Want some blood?’ she said.

I turned to her and glared. ‘Don’t you even think about it.’

She shrugged. ‘Worth a try.’

I put my hand out towards the sword. ‘I’ll just have to tell it who’s the master.’

‘Well, that’s what you’re good at,’ she said, and moved away.

‘Is that you, Simone?’ Miss Chen, the Weapons Master, called from the main room.

‘It’s just us, Lucy,’ I said.

She walked through the bars with her eyes closed and approached us. ‘What are you doing here at this time of night?’

She was wearing a hot pink bathrobe pulled around her portly form, over old-fashioned flannel pyjamas decorated with tiny pink flowers. Simone stared at her for a moment, then grinned.

Miss Chen peered at Simone through her thick glasses. ‘What’s so funny?’

Simone smothered the grin and turned away. ‘Nothing, nothing.’

Miss Chen straightened the curlers in her hair. ‘You’ll get as old as me one day, young lady, and it’ll be just as much hard work.’ She turned to me. ‘Now what are you doing here in the Celestial Armoury in your pyjamas? Seems a strange place for a sleepover.’

‘The Murasame won’t come when I call it,’ I said.

She came to stand next to me and studied the sword without touching it. ‘This is the first time you’ve called it since the demon essence was burnt from you?’

I nodded.

She frowned for a moment as she thought about it. ‘I guess the reason you’re not touching it is because it doesn’t recognise you as its master any more and it’s hurting you?’

I nodded again.

She rubbed her chin. ‘But it’s still here, so it hasn’t reverted to anyone else’s ownership. Basically what you have to do is tell it who’s the boss.’

‘Which is what she’s good at,’ Simone repeated with humour.

‘Can you wrap something around your hand and try?’ Miss Chen said.

‘The pain isn’t from the contact itself,’ I said. ‘It’s more like spiritual damage from the proximity.’

‘Go to bed and come back tomorrow,’ Miss Chen said. ‘The sword’s not going anywhere. It’s nearly 3 am and both of you are tired, making it a bad time to be messing around with one of the most powerful destructive forces on the planet. Do it tomorrow, and I’ll come help you.’

‘She’s right, Emma,’ Simone said.

I tapped the sword with frustration and it burned my finger. ‘All right.’

The next morning I headed straight for the infirmary. Bridget, David and Michael were sitting in the courtyard under the peach trees in the sunshine. All three of them were wearing plain black Mountain uniforms, and Bridget had a pair of crutches leaning on the bench next to her. Michael rose, fell to one knee and saluted me, to David’s and Bridget’s obvious amusement.

‘No need, Michael,’ I said as he rose and painfully sat on the bench again. ‘How are you all feeling?’

‘Remarkably good, all things considered,’ David said. ‘Thanks so much for looking after us.’

‘Don’t thank me. You took a bullet because we were there,’ I said. ‘Bridget, do you mind giving me your hand? I’d like to check you.’

She hesitated a moment and looked at David. He nodded confirmation, so she held her hand out. I took it, holding her wrist at the pulse point. She gasped as I entered her energy stream to check the wound in her leg.

‘Does it hurt?’ David said.

‘No,’ Bridget said. ‘It just feels … strange.’

I moved my energy to the wound in her knee. The bullet had lodged itself in her kneecap, but someone had removed it and done a rough job of half-healing it. The energy healers would have been stretched fixing all three of them, particularly as Michael’s and David’s injuries had been severe. I completed the job, moving my energy over the shattered bone, knitting its structure together and fixing the tendon damage. Bridget shivered as I withdrew my consciousness.

‘All fixed,’ I said. ‘Try standing up.’

She leaned heavily on the bench and gingerly put weight on the leg. Her surprise was obvious as she stood with more confidence and took a few steps around the courtyard. ‘This is amazing.’

‘It’s not a hundred per cent yet,’ I said. ‘Don’t do any strenuous exercise on it for a week or so; the bone hasn’t completely healed.’ I turned to David. ‘Hand, please, let me look at you.’

‘What about young Michael?’ David said without giving me his hand. ‘He was hurt more than I was.’

‘I’m Emma’s bodyguard, it’s my job,’ Michael said. ‘You were innocent bystanders and definitely come first, and I know it.’

David shrugged and held his hand out.

‘You are slightly more difficult, Mr Hawkes,’ I said as I entered his energy stream. ‘This is more than a simple bone and muscle injury, there are multiple layers involved here.’ I boosted the healing process as much as I could, and snapped back.

‘Wow, it does feel very strange,’ he said.

‘Same for you: take it easy for a week or so, and no heavy lifting,’ I said. ‘Have you called home?’

‘Yes, one of your staff gave us a mobile phone,’ Bridget said. ‘We need to get home as soon as we can, the boys need us. Emma …’ Her voice trailed off.

‘Hmm?’ I took Michael’s hand. His was the worst injury of all; the bullet had clipped his liver and spleen, and he’d require more than a couple of days to recuperate. I didn’t have enough energy left to help him out. He’d have to wait a day or so before he could be completely healed.

‘Are we really in Heaven?’ Bridget said. ‘Your staff tell us we’re definitely not dead and we can go home, but … really? Heaven? And John is a god?’

‘Really,’ I said. ‘Chinese Heaven doesn’t work like Western mythology. It’s a higher plane of existence.’

‘Is that why you were asking her about Taoist philosophy?’ Bridget asked David.

‘Absolutely,’ David said. He spread his hands. ‘Wouldn’t you want this?’

Bridget took a deep breath. ‘It’s wonderful.’

‘Come and take a walk with me, I’ll show you around,’ I said, releasing Michael. ‘Not you, Michael. You stay put, and don’t move around too much for forty-eight hours.’

‘I have three classes this afternoon!’ Michael said, protesting.

‘No teleporting, no heavy lifting, no energy work, no martial arts for forty-eight hours,’ I said. ‘That’s an order.’

He grinned ruefully and saluted me, shaking his hands in front of his face. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Teleporting?’ David said, looking from Michael to me.

‘No teleporting, flying, changing shape except to tiger, and no manipulating metal,’ I said, counting them off on my fingers. ‘And you have to stay home from school.’

‘But, Mooom …’ Michael whined, then winced as he realised what he’d said.

I patted him on the shoulder, then turned to Bridget and David. ‘Come on. Let me show you around Celestial Wudangshan.’

‘You often hear about buildings being evacuated because of the smell of gas, then the authorities finding nothing there,’ Bridget said as we headed along the path towards the centre of the complex. ‘Is that what happened to us?’

‘Yes, it’s a tool the demons use to clear an area,’ I said. ‘It’s a damn nuisance.’

‘The police think it’s mass hysteria,’ David said, linking his arm in Bridget’s and looking around with delight as we passed through the gardens.

‘The effect is very similar: everybody gets an awful feeling of horror and foreboding and takes off,’ I said. ‘It’s the best option, actually, as you can see.’

‘The best option for what?’ Bridget said.

‘Emma fights those monsters. She doesn’t want people like us around to get hurt when she does,’ David said.

‘And you knew all about this and didn’t tell me?’ Bridget said.

‘Guess what Emma Donahoe told me today?’ David said. ‘You know John Chen? He’s a god. And Emma lives in Heaven, and her huge black friend Leo is a Taoist Immortal.’

Bridget shook her head, smiling. ‘I see your point.’

We’d arrived at the forecourt of Yuzhengong, in front of Dragon Tiger and Purple Mist halls.

‘This reminds me of somewhere,’ Bridget said, studying the layout. She pointed at Golden Temple. ‘I’ve seen that before.’

‘You’ve been to Earthly Wudang then,’ I said.

Her mouth fell open as she realised. ‘But this is three times bigger, and not nearly as run-down.’

I nodded. ‘Thank you.’

‘Master present!’ someone yelled, and a group of students who had come up behind us saluted me, then waited.

It was a senior weapons class, led by Miss Chen herself. I moved Bridget and David to one side so that the students could go through to the forecourt. Miss Chen saluted me as they passed and I nodded back.

‘When are you going to talk to your sword?’ she said.

‘When I’ve sent these two home.’

‘Don’t start without me, I don’t trust that bastard blade,’ she said. ‘Let me know when you’re going in.’ She turned to the students. ‘Take positions.’

I went to stand next to Bridget and David and we watched the students move into position on the forecourt.

‘Is that the teacher?’ Bridget said.

‘That’s the Weapons Master,’ I said. ‘The only one better than her with weapons is John himself.’

‘Is she an Immortal too?’ David said with interest.

I nodded. ‘She’s over seven hundred years old.’

Bridget raised one hand towards Miss Chen, who began to lead the spear set with elegance and grace despite her short and portly form. ‘Why does she look so ordinary?’

‘You’re stuck in the form you were when you were Raised to be Immortal,’ I said. ‘They can change their form, but it takes effort. And frankly, I think she likes being underestimated.’

The students changed position to work in pairs, and Miss Chen moved between them, supervising.

‘That looks very dangerous,’ Bridget said. ‘They’re going to take each other’s eyes out.’

‘Leo will be furious,’ I said. ‘He loves spear, and never misses a chance to join in. How are you both feeling? You can probably go home now.’

They shared a look, then turned back to me.

‘That would be for the best. We need to reassure the boys, and there’s probably been at least three disasters back at the office,’ David said.

‘I’ll arrange for someone to take you back down,’ I said, and guided them towards my office. ‘I’m so sorry this happened.’

‘I’m not, I got to see what I’m aiming for,’ David said. ‘And I could share it with Bridget.’

‘Yes, I think I may look into this Taoism business a little more myself,’ Bridget said.

CHAPTER 7

Later I went into the Celestial Armoury to try again with the Murasame. Meredith, Simone and Miss Chen were all waiting for me inside, leaving little room for the weapons themselves.

‘This is not a circus sideshow,’ I said.

‘You sure you can’t block the pain, Meredith?’ Simone said.

‘It’s spiritual damage, not physical,’ Meredith said. ‘She just has to bear it for as long as she can until one of them submits.’

Simone came to me and put her hand on my arm. ‘We can always have another weapon made for you. You’re still weak. Don’t hurt yourself, it’s not worth it, okay?’ She leaned her cheek on my shoulder. ‘I need you.’

‘I’ll listen to Meredith —’ I began.

‘Now there’s a first,’ Meredith said with humour.

‘I’ll listen to Meredith, and if she tells me to drop it, I will.’

‘Are you just going to hold it until it concedes?’ Meredith said.

‘She’s going to feed it,’ Miss Chen said grimly.

‘That is a very bad idea in your current state, Emma.’

‘So watch me carefully. Now move back and give me room. I’ll have to take it out of its scabbard to feed it.’

I stood in front of the sword and felt its brooding malevolence. Its corner seemed to be darker than the rest of the room; the sword sucked the light out of the air. I took some slow, deep breaths and moved my chi in time with my breathing, clearing my thoughts and quietly revelling in the absence of the demon essence. I planted my feet on the earth and raised my head to the sky and touched the nature of the Celestial: purer, cleaner and more alive than the Earthly.

I relaxed into it, then made my spirit a well of motionless tranquillity and reached towards the sword. The energy calming didn’t help; the sword’s burn ripped through my hand the minute I touched it. I bit my lip with the effort and took short, gasping breaths to increase my oxygen in the vain hope that it would lessen the pain. I raised the sword off its stand and pulled the black lacquer scabbard off the blade, feeling its bite on my left hand as I let it clatter to the floor.

I rotated the blade in my right hand, keeping it horizontal so that the sharp side faced up, and moved my left wrist above it, ready to slice the back of my hand.

John’s voice sounded in my head. What is hurting you, Emma?

I fought to retain my concentration. The Murasame; it doesn’t recognise me any more.

I didn’t see John appear in human form next to me, but I felt his presence against my back. He reached around and put his right hand on mine where I held the hilt of the sword. The Murasame leapt beneath our hands, its spirit singing with joy at his presence, its dark essence rising to salute his. The pain stopped.

‘It acknowledges you as master,’ I said.

‘All weapons acknowledge me as master,’ he said, his voice a low rumble against my back. ‘I am the master of all weapons.’

‘Hello, Daddy,’ Simone said.

‘We will not talk, we are going to concentrate,’ John said, his hand still on mine holding the quivering sword. ‘If Emma messes this up, the Murasame could eat her alive. Everybody stay quiet.’

Simone squeaked softly with distress.

John guided my left hand so that the palm was up, and released it. ‘Lower it gently onto the blade. Don’t stop breathing.’

I did as he said and lowered my wrist carefully onto the blade. If I dropped my hand even slightly too hard, the sword would take it off with relish. I felt the sting and quickly raised my hand again as the blood spiralled into the sword.

‘I’m letting it go. Talk to it,’ John said, and released my hands.

The contact burned again and I touched consciousness with the sword.

I am your master.

The sword laughed, a ringing sound of steel.

I strengthened my will and made my internal voice stronger.

Acknowledge me, Destroyer, I am your master! We have shared blood and death and destroyed together, and you are mine!

The sword was silent and the pain lessened.

I healed the wound, stopping the feed, and the sword made a metallic squeal inside my head at the withdrawal of the blood. The pain didn’t ease further.

I. Am. Your. Master. Obey me!

The sword seemed to think about it for a moment, then the pain ceased. The sword saluted me, the scabbard flew back onto its blade, and it drifted out of my hand and returned to its rack.

‘The sword is tamed,’ John said. He leaned over my shoulder to smile into my eyes. ‘Well done.’

I slipped my hand around the back of his head and kissed him, and he pulled me closer, side-on to me.

‘Oh come on, you two! Do you have to be so yucky all the time?’ Simone said. ‘I want to talk to you about my horse, Daddy, and what’s been happening, and my grades at school, and everything!’

He released me to gaze into my eyes, then shrugged and grinned. He turned to Simone. ‘Let’s walk around the gardens and you can tell me. I want to see the rebuilt Mountain.’

‘Come on, Emma,’ Simone said, gesturing with her head as I hesitated. ‘Come and have a walk and talk Daddy’s ears off.’ She linked her arm in his. ‘Are you here for good? Please say you are.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Not yet. I remember being nearby though?’

‘You’ve been at the bottom of the lake for nearly a whole day now,’ I said.

‘No wonder I feel so good, that’s like plugging me into a battery charger.’ He walked without difficulty through the bars, then closed his eyes and concentrated for a moment. ‘My Serpent is here!’ He turned back to us, grinning broadly, then his face fell. ‘I’m sure I sensed it right here.’

‘Can you rejoin now? If we find it?’ Simone said.

He waved the others through the bars. ‘Come on, Lucy, Meredith, you can talk to me too, I’m sure you all have a lot to share.’ He turned back to Simone. ‘If we find the Serpent, I can rejoin with it and be more powerful than either of you have ever seen me.’ He shook out his shoulders. ‘Looking forward to that. The demon horde won’t know what hit it. Now.’ He put one arm around each of our shoulders. ‘Come and show me my Mountain. Why aren’t you at the Peak any more? I went there looking for you and the flat was empty. It ripped my heart out.’

‘We still use the flat,’ I said, ‘but we had to move out for a while because Simone’s horse piddled on the carpet in her room and we had to take all the carpet out.’

He glared at her. ‘Simone! You should know better.’

She hung her head. ‘Sorry, Daddy.’

He pulled her in and squeezed her. ‘Are you based here now?’

‘We use the Peak as an Earthly base, but spend most of our time here,’ she said.

He stopped and turned to face us, holding one of our hands in each of his. ‘Do you like being here? Living here? We don’t have to live here if you don’t want it.’

‘I love it,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to live anywhere else.’

‘Let me decide when I’ve graduated,’ Simone said, thoughtful. ‘I may choose the Palace in the Northern Heavens. I don’t think I want to go back to the Earthly — humans can be a real pain to deal with sometimes. Right now though, I want to be here with you and Emma and Leo.’

We went out of the Armoury. John held our hands as we walked through the breezeway towards the central plaza. We passed a small courtyard where a group of students were sitting under the pavilion beneath the trees, working on some academic notes. They stared at us, and a few of them asked each other if that was really John.

‘Salute your Master!’ Miss Chen barked, and they all dropped to one knee.

John turned and grinned at her. ‘Don’t scare them like that. It will take them a while to become accustomed to having me back.’

After we’d passed, the students rose and took off running, obviously to tell their friends and bring them to see.

‘We’ll be mobbed,’ Miss Chen said.

‘If we are, I’ll demote you,’ John said.

‘If we are, I’ll deserve it.’

We’d arrived at the central area, and the path widened to lead the fifty-metre distance to the terrace in front of True Way. John’s face was alight with joy and he released our hands and turned on the spot, taking it all in.

‘Go up and take a look from above,’ Simone said.

He took her hand and raised it. ‘Can you come up with me?’

She nodded.

He turned to me. ‘Can you?’

‘I can’t fly, John, I’m just an ordinary human.’

He touched me on the cheek with his free hand. ‘Absolutely nothing ordinary about you.’ He took my hand as well and we shot fifty metres straight up, then hovered above the complex.

Simone released his hand and turned in the air, her hair floating in the Celestial breeze. ‘That way’s the Northern Heavens; Emma’s knocked down the Serpent Concubine Pavilion and built a new Hall of Serene Meditation. The barracks are over there, and the training halls are on this side, there.’ She turned towards the higher peaks and pointed. ‘Golden Temple’s all fixed up.’

John released my hand to turn and see, and I concentrated to slow my fall, but I didn’t move. He was still holding me up.

‘It looks wonderful,’ he said.

He took my hand and kissed it, and we drifted back down to land on the forecourt at the bottom of the stairs up to Purple Mist.

He raised my hand and we walked up the stairs to the hall together, Simone on his other side. We went in, and he released my hand, took three sticks of incense from the stand, lit them, and placed them in the urn in front of the Buddha statue. He knelt on a black cushion in front of the statue, bowed three times with his hands clasped in supplication, then rose and studied the statue.

I joined him and did the same thing on the cushion next to him, and we stood contemplating the Buddha together. Simone took some incense and added it, and joined us in studying the serene visage of the Buddha.

John turned back towards the door and sat on the cushion. His hair tie fell out and his hair spread over his shoulders. ‘I’m losing it already. I don’t think I’ll make it to the Three Purities.’

‘They wouldn’t care anyway,’ I said.

‘Go back into the lake,’ Simone said.

‘One more thing to do,’ he said, grabbing both of our hands and rising with renewed energy. He retied his ponytail, then led us briskly down the stairs and onto the forecourt where Meredith and Miss Chen waited for us.

A group of students had gathered, and approached us at the bottom of the stairs. They fell to one knee and saluted us.

‘Up you get,’ I said. ‘Say hello to the boss man.’

They grinned shyly, some of them obviously intimidated.

‘Lucy,’ John said, and waved Miss Chen towards us.

She came and fell to one knee as well.

‘Spread out and face True Way, everybody,’ John said. He spread his arms and turned to face Yuzhengong, the Hall of the True Way, and we all moved as he directed. ‘Now. Eighty-eight form Yang-style Tai Chi Chuan.’

‘We have to move into ranks,’ one of the students said urgently. ‘We can’t just be scattered like this.’

A few students were still arriving and trotted to join the group.

John turned back to face them. ‘Scattered is what you want. Order is good, but chaos is the force that rules the universe, and you must learn to accept it and embrace it, and bend rather than break when it strikes. Yes, when your Masters say to be in ordered ranks, there is purpose. But right here, right now, there will be power in the chaos.’ He waved a few straggling students closer. ‘Not too close to the Western edge, give yourselves room to complete the set.’

He looked around, then spoke silently. Anyone arriving late join the back of the group. He turned and shifted his feet so that he was in position, and we fell into silence as we joined him.

‘Touch the Earth. Touch the sky. Breathe the purity of the chi. Commence,’ John said.

As we performed the first twenty moves of the set, more students arrived, quietly joining the group and catching up with us. They stopped arriving at about the twenty-fifth move, but I didn’t notice; I lost my awareness into the graceful beauty of the set and the joy of completing it with John and Simone together.

Shortly after my awareness disconnected from reality and I lost myself into the set, the air around us began to vibrate with each move we made. The Immortals had generated shen energy and were carrying it on their hands. I kept my chi inside, holding it close to preserve my strength. With each move we made, the air sang: a musical note that rose and fell with our movements, clear and full of the warmth of the chi and shen.

Some exclamations of astonishment came from the students behind us, but as more of them joined the trance state, the singing became louder, filling the court with musical tones that turned the moving meditation of the Tai Chi into a symphony of perfect sounds.

As we completed the set and released the energy, the sounds faded and the air seemed to have become even clearer. John turned, grabbed Simone and me and pulled us into a hug so fierce I thought he would kill us.

The Masters who had joined the set quietly shepherded the students back to their classes, leaving the three of us alone in the forecourt that still resonated with energy.

‘Did that happen because you’re here, Daddy?’ Simone said.

‘Many things will happen when I am fully returned,’ he said. ‘I don’t have much longer.’ He bent to kiss me, then pulled back and gazed into my eyes. ‘My Emma.’ He turned and embraced Simone again, and kissed the top of her head. ‘My little girl, my Simone.’

‘Daddy,’ she said, crushed into his chest, and then he was gone.

Simone wiped her eyes and sighed. ‘I always thought Tai Chi was kind of boring. I think I’ll do it more often now.’

‘Don’t let him hear you say that,’ I said. ‘He’ll say he’s failed as a Master.’

She leaned into me and smiled. ‘He’s back at the bottom of the lake. It won’t be long now, Emma. And then we have to arrange a big fancy wedding.’ She ran away giggling.

I rested on a bench next to a bridge over one of the gorges on the way back to the administrative complex. I was still too weak to handle long distances. The mists had cleared, but the bottom of the gorge wasn’t visible; the Masters often teased the students by claiming, while they were floating over them, that the gorges were bottomless. Chanting from one of the temples, accompanied by a wooden drum, drifted in and out of earshot, adding to the warm buzz of sound that was the Mountain.

I wished I could conjure some tea and retire to one of the pagodas sitting high on the cliffs. Instead, I clumsily pulled myself to my feet and headed towards the offices.

The administrative buildings were terraced into the hillside on the eastern side of the complex, and small by necessity because of the steepness. The larger residential and training buildings were closer to the centre, where there was more available flat land. The buildings were joined together with breezeways that meandered through them, containing stairs that joined the levels. Each breezeway had red columns holding up the traditional bracketed roof, which had scenes of birds and flowers painted on the panels just below it. My office stood on the southern side of the cluster, hard against the side of the mountain. It had been designed as the office for John’s second-in-command and I’d appropriated it as the most suitable place for me — right next to him when he came back.

An ancient cypress tree, twisted with age, stood guard in front of the doorway. I touched its trunk as I passed and it shifted its branches slightly in response. It wasn’t a Shen or sentient as such, but it was aware of the comings and goings around it and seemed to enjoy the times when I performed a Tai Chi set in the small clearing beneath it.

Yi Hao nodded to me as I went past her desk. I stopped when I saw who was in my waiting room.

One of the Tiger’s Horsemen stood against the wall, guarding two of my young nephews. Mark, slender, dark-haired and dark-eyed, was Amanda’s son. Jennifer’s son, Andrew, had an unruly thatch of sandy hair and bright blue eyes similar to my own. They were both fourteen years old, but Andrew was ten centimetres taller than Mark. His father, Leonard, was tall. They both rose as I came in and gave me quick hugs.

‘Both of you here for a visit at the same time? What’s the occasion?’ I said.

They shared a quick look, then Mark said, ‘Can we talk to you, Aunty Emma?’

‘Sure,’ I said, gesturing towards the office. ‘Come on in.’ I nodded again to Yi Hao. ‘Anything urgent?’

‘Nothing urgent, ma’am,’ she said.

‘Good.’ I took the boys into my office, closed the door and leaned on the desk. ‘Is there a problem, guys? It’s not like you to be up here on the Celestial Plane, Mark. You know your mother prefers you to stay on the Earthly.’

Both of them fell to one knee and saluted me Chinese-style.

I jumped up. ‘None of that, you’re family, get up off your knees right now.’

They didn’t rise. ‘Please permit us to join the Dark Disciples, ma’am,’ Mark said. ‘We want to learn the Arts.’

‘I’m not listening to anything you have to say until you’re back on your feet where you belong,’ I said. ‘There’s absolutely no need to kowtow to me.’

‘We want to,’ Andrew said, but they rose anyway. ‘We want to acknowledge you as Master, learn the Arts, and do some of the stuff your Disciples can do.’

I went around the desk and flopped into my chair, then waved for them to sit. ‘They’re not my Disciples, they’re Xuan Wu’s. And I don’t think this is a good idea.’

‘We want to learn,’ Andrew said, stubborn. He glanced at Mark. ‘Both of us.’

‘Your mothers would kill me. They’d chop me into very small pieces with my own sword.’

‘We want different names,’ Mark said. ‘Our names are so boring compared to the Disciples — Cold Wind, Black Tree, Triumphant Dragon. We want to be part of Wudang.’

Andrew put his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. ‘It’s just so cool.’

‘I can’t, guys,’ I said. ‘It’s not cool. It’s joining the army. Are you ready for military service? Boot camp?’

They both grinned broadly. ‘Yes!’

‘Even if you did want this, even if you were talented enough to be accepted, I can’t do this to your mothers,’ I said. ‘I can’t guarantee any Disciple’s safety, guys. You’d be in danger. We all know the risk, and I can’t do that to them.’

‘What if they gave their permission?’ Mark said eagerly.

‘They won’t do that in a million years,’ I said. ‘Guys, you won’t be safe.’

‘We won’t leave until you let us come here,’ Andrew said.

I rose and leaned on the desk. ‘And I’m saying that we won’t take you. You might as well go now, because it’s not going to happen.’

I went to the door and opened it, then nodded to the Horseman. ‘Take them home, please. We’re done here.’ I turned back to the boys. ‘I’ll see you guys on the weekend.’

The Horseman came in and saluted me. ‘Ma’am.’

‘At least say you’ll think about it!’ Andrew said.

‘I’ll talk to your mothers about it. If they say it’s okay, then I’ll take you,’ I said.

Mark punched the air. ‘Yes!’

The Horseman touched each of the boys and they all disappeared.

I returned to my desk and called my mother.

‘Hello, darling, anything happen?’ she said. ‘You only call me when there’s an emergency.’

‘Mark and Andrew were just in here, wanting to join Wudang,’ I said.

‘Oh, that’s nice. Did you let them?’

‘I can’t let them!’ I said. ‘They wouldn’t be safe.’

‘They’d be safe there with you, wouldn’t they? I mean, that Mountain place is called the Stronghold of Heaven. It’s supposed to be the safest place anywhere.’

‘Not until John is back, Mum. And remember what happened eleven years ago? The Demon King broke in here and burned the place to the ground.’

‘But that was just property damage, wasn’t it? None of his students were killed or anything?’

I sighed with feeling. ‘Three hundred human Disciples died. It was covered up. Not one of Heaven’s greatest triumphs.’

She was silent on the other end of the line.

‘We can’t guarantee anyone’s safety, not even with John here,’ I said. ‘Accidents happen. And I won’t put the boys at risk.’

‘I’ll talk to Amanda and Jen,’ she said. ‘I think you should too.’

‘Don’t worry, I will. I just wanted to check with you first, find out where they are.’

‘Jen’s on a shopping trip down on the Earthly, and Amanda’s at home,’ my mother said. ‘She’s going to be so cross when she finds out Mark went up to visit you! They’re supposed to be living normal lives.’

‘She’s doubly going to kill him then.’

‘I think you’re right.’

Mid-afternoon Yi Hao came into my office with a cup of fresh coffee for me. She put the mug on my desk and stood on the other side of it, fidgeting.

‘What?’ I said.

‘That man is here again.’

‘Show him in!’

She opened the door and stood next to it without speaking.

‘Come on in,’ I called to Er Lang, who was waiting outside.

As soon as Er Lang was in my office, Yi Hao made a snorting sound of disgust, went out and slammed the door behind her.

Er Lang fell to one knee. ‘My Lady First Heavenly General.’

‘My Lord Er Lang. Please rise.’

He remained on one knee, head bowed.

‘Oh no, here we go again,’ I moaned, and took a sip of the coffee. ‘The answer is no. The answer will always be no. Now get the hell up off the floor and you’d better have something worthwhile to bother me about.’

He didn’t get up, he just stayed on one knee. ‘This humble servant respectfully requests of you, most Honoured One, that he be permitted to take his own life and spend a protracted time in the Hell of Trees Full of Swords.’

I made my voice more brisk. ‘Up off the floor now, and get into one of these chairs and talk to me.’

He rose sheepishly and sat, carefully keeping his eyes down in a show of humility.

‘All right, be like that,’ I said. ‘For the last time: no, you can’t go off and kill yourself. I need you to help me out in the Celestial Palace.’

He shook his hands in front of his face. ‘I deserve to suffer.’

I rose and walked around the desk. ‘Stone, are any of the pagodas free?’

‘All of them are free.’

I gestured impatiently to Er Lang. ‘Come with me.’

I went out of the office and told Yi Hao: ‘I’m taking Er Lang up to one of the pagodas for a talk. If anyone needs me, tell them to talk to the stone.’

‘Ma’am,’ Yi Hao said, glaring at Er Lang.

Outside the office, I put my hand out. ‘You’ll have to carry me. I’ll show you the way.’

He lifted me without a word and, as we flew, I guided him to one of the pagodas that sat just below the top of the highest peaks on Wudang Mountain. We landed gently at the edge of the steep drop and sat at the table inside.

‘Tea, my Lady?’ he said, and I nodded. A pot of Sow Mei appeared with a pair of cups.

I turned to view the Wudang complex spread a hundred metres below us. Its black roofs shone in the Celestial sunlight, and the black wall around the entire complex was clearly visible. The central area, with its huge paved court, was a mass of movement: a class was being held there. The halls on either side were visible higher on the mountainside, as well as the glowing Golden Temple above. The rest of the buildings clung in the folds between the peaks. The sound of drums and the shouts of the disciples echoed through the mountain tops.

I turned back to Er Lang. His young-looking face was full of misery.

‘Please allow me to be punished in the Hell of Trees Full of Swords,’ he said.

‘For the last time, no.’

‘Why not?’

‘It wouldn’t achieve anything!’ I snapped, and he jumped.

‘Don’t you want to have your vengeance on me?’

‘No!’ I poured the tea, sloshing it into my cup. ‘Revenge is the most pointless thing ever. I don’t want to see you suffer. What I want is to work alongside you to protect the Celestial Plane.’

‘You are too merciful.’

‘No, I’m not.’ I raised my teacup and waved it at him. ‘You want to go to Hell and suffer horribly because that will make you feel a whole lot better — like you’ve atoned. Well, I won’t let you. You stay here, and you help me out. I don’t want to see you hurt, Er Lang, I just want to work with you. Let’s get past this and move on already!’

‘The Jade Emperor refuses to punish me as well,’ he said, miserable.

‘You know as well as I do that something’s coming. There’s a threat hanging over our heads, and the Dark Lord is still incapacitated. We need to be at full strength to face this — and I need you to liaise with the Celestial. Now for fuck’s sake will you get the hell over yourself, stop feeling sorry for yourself — which is priceless since I’m the one that got barbecued — and do your goddamn job?’

He sat for a while, looking at his teacup, then looked back up at me. ‘I’ve been a complete ass, haven’t I?’

‘Yes!’

He sighed and put his cup down. ‘I just wish the Celestial would demote me. I’m not fit for this. Look at you — ordinary human, female, not even Immortal, and you’re running rings around me. First a monkey, now a woman —’

‘You sexist bastard.’ I slammed my teacup on the table. ‘One on one, down on the forecourt. You, me, staves.’ I glared at him. ‘Come on, show me what you’ve got.’

He hesitated for a moment, watching me, then shot to his feet and held his hand out. I grabbed it and we were on the forecourt in front of Dragon Tiger.

Liu was teaching a group of advanced students Shaolin long sword; they all stopped.

‘Clear the area, bring us two suitable staves, and stand back,’ I called to Liu without looking away from Er Lang. I grinned. ‘No holds barred. No mercy, no quarter, no rules except that you’re not allowed to kill me. Got it?’

Er Lang saluted me with a grim smile.

Liu threw a staff to me and one to Er Lang. The students moved back, discussing the match under their breath.

‘Silence!’ Liu barked, and they went quiet.

I saluted Er Lang, holding my staff, and he saluted back. We moved into position. I held my staff in front of me, guarding, just as I had when I’d kicked Leo’s ass all that time ago. This time, however, my opponent was going to give me a lesson I wouldn’t forget, and I knew it.

We remained motionless for nearly twenty seconds. As the challenger, I had to make a move after that time or the match would be forfeit.

I swung the staff above me in a move that was more show than substance and kept it rotating as a strike towards Er Lang’s head. He blocked it easily, swung it down in the direction it was already moving and locked it onto the ground. He held it there without effort; I was stuck already.

I pulled the staff straight along its length and it slid out. I swung it and tried to take his feet out with the other end; he blocked me. He jammed my staff against the ground again; he was being purely defensive without attacking. I pulled the staff out of the lock and swung it directly up at his face, hoping to hit him under the chin, and he blocked me again, pushed my staff sideways, and used the other end to tap me on the ankle. He hit me right on the nerve point at the protruding bone and I yelped and hopped back, then lifted the foot as the pain eased. A couple of students squeaked with me, feeling my pain.

He followed the advantage, swinging at my staff so fast that I was barely able to block it. He continued to press me back, hitting my staff relentlessly. The worst part was that he wasn’t hitting it very hard, just tapping it, but he was so fast I had trouble keeping up. He raised the speed and I couldn’t stop him: his blow passed my staff and hit me on the abdomen. He finished it with a flick to take my feet out from under me and I hit the ground hard, my muscles soft after so many months of enforced rest.

I lay on my back, trying to get my breath back, and he stood over me.

‘I yield,’ I managed to wheeze out. ‘You’ve beaten me fairly.’

He held his hand out to me and I took it. He pulled me easily to my feet and we stood with our hands clasped for a long moment while he gazed into my eyes.

‘You were holding back,’ he said. ‘You’re much better than that, I know it.’

‘That was the best I can do at the moment,’ I said. ‘I didn’t hold back.’

He released my hand but continued to examine me. ‘But I’ve heard stories about you. You took down some huge Mothers. You turned one into a cat. You fought off One Two Two single-handed. You defeated the Demon King in single combat.’

‘Really?’ I couldn’t help myself: I grinned like an idiot. ‘Who’s spreading these ridiculous stories, and where can I sign them up to write my memoirs? Most of that’s pure fabrication.’

‘Is it?’

‘Hell, yeah. I may have taken down a couple of medium-sized Mothers and done the cat thing, but that was probably when I was possessed by the Xuan Wu’s Serpent. Without any supernatural help I’m about as good as a really good human.’

He studied me with his face rigid.

‘Do it. Go ahead,’ I said, and braced for the impact.

He snapped his Third Eye open in the middle of his forehead. His intense gaze swept right through me like a blast of brilliant light, burning my flesh from my bones and shredding my essence. The light blinked out and I bent over, gasping.

You should have warned me before you let him do that, Emma. You could have damaged me, the stone said.

I don’t think anything can damage you, I said. You’re surrounded by an impenetrable field of your own superiority.

‘I have misjudged you, ma’am,’ Er Lang said. He held his hand out again. ‘My Earthly name is Robert. People call me Rob when they work with me in English.’

I straightened and shook his hand. ‘And I’d prefer to be called Emma, really. Hey, I know where Liu’s secret boutique beer stash is, and where his vintage wines are. He’s occupied with the students right now — want to come and raid it?’

‘What?’ Liu said from the side.

‘I’d love to, Emma,’ Er Lang said. He waved cheerily to Liu. ‘Meet up with us later, we might have some alcohol left over for you.’

This play-acting is extremely tedious, the stone said. Why don’t you just be yourself? Drinking alcohol indeed. You can’t stand the stuff.

The safety of all the Celestial is at stake, I said. It’s worth a little play-acting.

And you could have done better against him.

Uh, no, I gave it all I have. He’s just straight-up better than me.

I completely disagree.

CHAPTER 8

I sat with Mum and Dad on the back terrace of their house, talking as the sun set over the Western Plains. I took a deep breath: they’d planted a few wattle trees in the yard and the powdery fragrance spread over us. I was fiddling with my still-full plate of salad when my sister Jen knocked on the door and the demon maid let her in. She came out to the terrace and sat next to me, giving me a quick hug.

‘Emma, you should have told me that Andrew’s visiting the Mountain. I didn’t know he was heading over there. I only just got it out of Colin when I came home from work.’

My stomach fell out. ‘Andrew never made it home?’ Her eyes widened. ‘Isn’t he staying at your Academy?’

I shook my head. ‘I sent him home with the Horseman and Mark. I told them I wouldn’t take them, it’s too dangerous.’

She sagged with relief. ‘Thank you.’

‘But he never came home?’

‘No,’ Jennifer said, her voice weak.

‘Call him, see if he answers,’ I said, and pulled out my own phone. I dialled Amanda’s number and she answered. ‘Amanda, it’s me. Did Mark come back from Wudang?’

‘I don’t know — he’s not home. He went to Wudang? He knows we’re trying to live a normal life down here and he was specifically told not to harass you about joining Wudang. He did it anyway?’

I dropped the phone into my lap, my mind racing. I put it back to my ear. ‘Amanda, I’m going to hang up now. I want you to call around and try to find Mark. He was with Andrew, but he’s not home either. Get your opal to help.’

‘Oh my God,’ she said.

‘Hang up, and start looking for him. I want to make sure both boys are okay.’

She hung up and I turned to Jen, who was holding her phone to her ear. She shook her head and snapped it shut. ‘Voicemail.’

‘They’ve taken them,’ Simone said.

‘We can’t be sure of that. They may have tried to find another way into Wudang,’ I said. ‘They were determined.’

Jen thumped the table, then rose and paced the terrace. ‘You are non-stop trouble, you know that, Emma Donahoe? You cause nothing but difficulty for this family.’

‘That’s not fair, Jen,’ my mother said.

I raised a hand to stop her. ‘She’s right, Mum. I’ve caused the family nothing but strife since I met John.’

Simone made a small gasping sound of pain and disappeared.

‘Where’d she go?’ my father said.

‘Probably to look for the boys. She’ll feel as responsible as I do.’ I tapped the stone. ‘Wake up.’

‘I’m awake, I’m hooked into the network,’ the stone said. ‘Opal says that Amanda’s son isn’t answering his phone. Hold.’

My father leaned on the table to speak to me, the burning steaks behind him forgotten. ‘Who’s taken them?’

I shook my head.

‘Tell us,’ Jennifer said. ‘Don’t try to keep it a secret from us.’

‘There’s a chance the Death Mother may have abducted them,’ I said. ‘She knows we’re after her and she wants to stop us before we get there. She tried to assassinate us last night; Michael and a couple of our human friends were shot.’

My father thumped the table. ‘Someone tried to kill you and you didn’t bother to tell us?’

‘There’s always someone trying to kill me.’

My mother put her hand over her mouth and turned away.

‘Where’s John?’ my father said. ‘Can’t he protect you?’

‘He’s a turtle in the heart of Wudang Mountain, and no,’ I said. ‘He may come to defend me if my life’s in danger, but then again he may not.’

Simone reappeared. ‘I have no idea where they are.’

‘Opal’s looking, also has no idea,’ the stone said. ‘They seem to have just disappeared.’

‘What about the Horseman who was looking after them?’ I said. ‘Ask the Tiger.’

The Tiger knocked on the door and came in without being invited. ‘They ditched the guard, they were very clever about it. He’s close on committing suicide over it. Don’t worry, we’ll find them. This is an insult to the House of the West — not being able to defend our own. It will not go unavenged.’

Jen leaned on the table, holding her stomach. The Tiger went to her and guided her to a chair. ‘Take it easy. You’re in no condition to be under stress. Don’t worry, we’ll find them.’

‘What condition?’ I said, alarmed.

‘I’m pregnant,’ Jennifer said.

‘Congratulations,’ I said.

‘You and my son must marry, it’s the honourable thing to do,’ the Tiger said.

‘Not while my son is missing.’ Jennifer glanced at me. ‘We have to tell Leonard; he has a right to know as well.’

‘Stone?’

‘Done,’ the stone said. ‘Leonard requests entry to the Western Heavens to join the search.’

‘There isn’t much he can do here,’ the Tiger said.

‘Let him come. It’ll be better than him staying at home worrying,’ Jennifer said. She leaned her forehead on her hand.

‘You okay to see him?’ I said.

She nodded into her hand. ‘It’s been a few years since the divorce now, Emma. We’re still friends.’

‘Tiger?’ I said.

The Tiger nodded. ‘Ma’am.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Now what? We have absolutely no leads on where they went.’

Jennifer’s phone rang and she jumped, then answered it. ‘Hello?’ She listened for a while, then burst into tears. ‘You have no idea how worried we were. Where were you?’ She didn’t wait for a reply. ‘I don’t care what you were doing, you get yourself home now! Then you’re grounded for a month, young man. We thought you’d been taken by … by …’ She took a deep breath and shook her head. ‘Is Mark with you? He went home too? I’ll be there shortly. Don’t you go anywhere, I want to have a serious talk with you.’

She snapped the phone shut and grabbed some napkins from the table to wipe her face. ‘They’re home. They’re all home. He says he wanted to show Mark the Celestial Plane since Mark isn’t allowed up here.’ She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. ‘They’re okay.’ She rose. ‘I have to go see him. And give him a big hug.’

I got up too and embraced her. ‘Go tell him what an idiot he is for giving all of us such a scare, and never to do it again. And congratulations again on the little one.’

She nodded and left.

The Tiger’s face was grim. ‘I have to go talk to their guard. I have no idea what the fuck that idiot was thinking.’ He disappeared.

My father sighed loudly and tipped the burnt meat into the garbage. ‘I’ll find something else to cook. Won’t be a minute.’ He left the plate on the table and went inside.

My mother buttered a slice of bread and pushed the plate across to share it with Simone. ‘The Tiger gave us some giraffe steaks once. Your father popped them on the barbecue and they were absolutely horrible. We’re sticking to good old beef and lamb now.’

Simone wrinkled her nose. ‘Lamb is too strong.’

I gave her a friendly push. ‘You’re such a Chinese kid sometimes.’

She shrugged. ‘Lamb is yuck.’

My father returned with a plate of sausages. ‘This is it, I’m afraid.’

‘Whatever,’ Simone said. ‘I’m starving.’

Michael and Clarissa came and visited me the next morning, and I waved them into my office. Since returning to the Celestial, Michael had gained muscle mass from spending time practising the Arts, and he’d grown his hair out into a short ponytail. Clarissa looked much the same as she always had: a slender Chinese girl with a sweet smile and shoulder-length hair cut to frame her face.

‘The Mountain is very beautiful,’ she said. ‘Michael told me about the attack, but you’d hardly know it ever happened.’

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘We’ve worked hard to bring it back to what it was.’ I turned to Michael. ‘I hear you’ve been promoted. Congratulations.’

Michael shook his head. ‘I’ve been given a lower number, that’s all. He had to move fifty of us up because of the fifty that died when the elementals attacked the ski lodge. It doesn’t mean much, particularly when everybody calls me by name anyway.’

‘Apparently it’s a huge honour,’ Clarissa said, glancing sideways at him with obvious pride. ‘He’s not even thirty years old and already lower than two hundred. It’s unheard of. Some say he’ll be given a double-digit number even before he attains Immortality.’

Michael gestured dismissively. ‘Means nothing. I am here because of the promotion, though. I want to ask you something.’

‘Ask away,’ I said.

‘Dad’s offered us space in the barracks in the West, as is fitting for a high-ranking son. But what I’d really like to do, if I’m going to full-time it on the Celestial, is to be here …’ His voice petered out.

‘We want to move here and join the Wudang staff, if that’s okay,’ Clarissa finished for him, and he looked relieved at her assistance.

‘How do you feel about it, Clarissa?’ I asked.

‘About moving to the Celestial or moving here?’

‘Both.’

‘Moving to the Celestial …’ She smiled slightly. ‘It’s a chance that’s too good to refuse. I’ll be able to learn what to do to attain Immortality, and who wouldn’t want that? Even if I don’t attain it, I’ll live extra long and illness free. I’d have to be completely crazy to turn down an opportunity like this.’

‘And the Mountain?’

‘Doesn’t matter where we live, as long as Michael’s happy,’ she said. ‘Both places are beautiful in different ways, and we’ll spend time in the Western Heavens anyway.’ She leaned towards me. ‘But … would you have something like a job for me to do? I’d die of boredom being a housewife for Michael. I’d rather stay on the Earthly Plane if I can’t work.’

‘We’ll definitely have something for you to do, and it won’t be mundane, I can guarantee it,’ I said. ‘We have extensive investments on the Earthly that need to be managed, and frankly, if you could take over the management of the shares and properties down there it would be a boon for both me and Jade.’

‘A portfolio?’ she said.

‘Several hundred million Hong Kong dollars worth,’ I said.

‘A really big portfolio all to myself? That’s a dream come true,’ Clarissa said with enthusiasm.

‘As for me, I want to take up duty full-time as your personal bodyguard again, ma’am,’ Michael said. ‘If you’ll have me, that is. I want to permanently join the staff of Wudang, as opposed to the Western Heavens.’

Clarissa turned to glare at him. ‘What are you talking about? I never agreed to that. You said you were just coming on staff to teach, there wasn’t anything about being her bodyguard again.’ She glanced from me to Michael. ‘You just took a bullet for her the other night, you haven’t even recovered from that and you want to put yourself back in the firing line again?’

‘It’s all right, Clarissa, I won’t let him do it anyway,’ I said. ‘Michael’s been injured too many times protecting me, and we’ve decided it’ll be best if I’m only guarded by Immortals.’

She exhaled loudly. ‘Well, that’s a relief.’

‘You decided, did you? Without consulting me? You can’t give the job to anyone else — I won’t let you!’ Michael said.

‘Not even Leo?’

Michael swiped his hand through the air. ‘Leo’s in a wheelchair.’

‘You say that in front of him and he’ll call you out,’ I said.

‘And own my ass,’ he said wryly. He sagged. ‘I concede if it’s Leo.’ His expression grew stern. ‘But nobody else; and if I get good enough or attain Immortality, the job is mine, right?’

‘Deal,’ I said.

I put my hand out over the table and he shook it.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘So, can I come?’

I pulled a blank scroll off a stack sitting to one side, pushed it open, scribbled the directions to give Michael a staff position and residence on the Mountain, then signed it. I pulled my black jade chop — square and three centimetres to a side — closer, flipped open the modern Japanese stamp pad, inked the chop well and stamped it over my signature. I rolled the scroll back up and handed it to Michael. ‘Orders. Give them to Gold.’

He took the scroll with both hands. ‘Ma’am.’

‘That seal is beautiful. What’s that on top of it? Is it a dragon?’ Clarissa said, curious.

I passed the chop to her and she admired it, carefully avoiding the remaining red ink on the bottom. ‘Oh, it’s a snake.’ She turned it in her hands, then glanced up at me. ‘Is that what you look like?’

I nodded.

‘Is it big?’

‘Huge,’ Michael said. ‘Smallest is about three metres long, and I’ve seen her up to ten metres when she’s really big.’

Clarissa appeared thoughtful as she handed the seal back. ‘To look at you, no one would ever think you’re something so completely scary.’

‘What you’re seeing now is the scariest Emma ever,’ Michael said. ‘The snake is nothing.’

‘Give me that scroll back and go home to your father,’ I said. ‘I don’t want you.’

He saluted me with it. ‘I’ll be back when I’m done moving in, and we can talk about what you want me to do.’

‘I’ve told Gold to give you Persimmon Tree Pavilion; it’s a nice one, and nobody’s living there right now.’

He fell to one knee and saluted me. Clarissa smiled and they went out together.

A couple of hours later my mobile rang.

‘Miss Donahoe, is Citrus. We have major problem in Wellington Street. Can you come over visit now? We need you.’

‘I’m on my way,’ I said, then called Leo. ‘I have to go down to Wellington Street — Citrus sounded really upset. Can you take me?’

‘On my way.’

I thought for a moment, then tapped the stone in my ring.

‘Yes? I was asleep.’

‘Of course you were. I need to go down to Wellington Street. Ask Zara if Clarissa would like to come along.’

The stone was silent for a moment, then said, ‘Clarissa’s on her way. Zara says she’s eager to take up her duties. Do we have to continue calling it Zara? It should take its stone name back.’

‘Zara says she likes being female and she likes being called something that means “star”, so deal.’

‘Humph.’

Leo wheeled himself into my office. ‘What happened?’

‘Citrus wouldn’t say. Can you carry me and Clarissa?’

Clarissa came in behind him, obviously excited. ‘Looks like I have things to manage before I’ve even signed the contract with you. Do you guys even work with contracts? How much do you pay? What are my hours?’

‘Whatever you like, on both counts,’ I said.

‘She’s tiny. I can carry both of you,’ Leo said.

‘So, how about ten million a year and four hours a day?’ she said, grinning with mischief.

‘Oh, I like this one,’ Leo said.

‘Done,’ I said. ‘Whatever it takes to get the job done and free me and Jade up.’

She saluted me Western style, hand to forehead. ‘Ma’am. Let’s go down to Wellington Street and see the paperwork. How old is the building?’

‘About thirty years old.’

‘Okay. I want to start by ensuring that you’re making enough rent, and that the property’s being maintained to a satisfactory standard. Some of those older buildings in Central are falling down. Let’s go down and check.’

‘I really like this one,’ Leo said.

Clarissa touched his arm where it rested on his wheelchair. ‘That means a lot to me, Leo. Michael’s told me about you — how you saved him and helped make him into what he is today.’

Leo dropped his head.

‘He’s blushing,’ I said. ‘Shame you can’t see it.’

Leo waved me forward. ‘Get over here and let’s see what the big emergency is.’

We landed outside the Celestial Arena door at the end of Wo On Lane where it connected with Wellington Street — a small, narrow, well-hidden spot. The hoardings had gone from the building across from us and the new grey granite wall was polished to a mirror-like finish. Leo led us down the alley towards Wellington Street, then stopped and checked the traffic.

Wellington Street was only a couple of streets inland from Des Voeux Road, the main thoroughfare through Central, but it was perilously narrow, only just wide enough to allow two taxis to pass. It was also so steep that the footpaths on either side had been concreted into steps in some parts, meaning that Leo had to wheel himself on the road.

He swung out onto the road and a taxi blared its horn at him as it passed. Leo stopped the chair, waited a moment as the taxi headed a little more up the hill, then, when it was fifty metres away, he concentrated and one of its tyres blew out. The taxi stopped and the passenger and driver got out and stood on the road, arguing loudly about what they were going to do.

‘Karma’s a bitch, eh?’ he said in their general direction.

We headed up the hill towards the Wellington Street building, passing a couple of noodle shops and a temporary clearance store with piles of socks and underwear tossed into laundry baskets with prices stuck on the front.

Leo stopped first and whistled as he looked up at the building. I looked up too and took a step back.

‘Holy shit,’ Clarissa said quietly.

The entire side of the building, all eleven storeys, was covered in a black spray painted depiction of a snake striking. A circle with a flame rising from it — the fire wheel — was painted in at the bottom right corner.

I pointed at the fire wheel. ‘Na Zha did this. I will take his head off.’

‘Who’s Na Zha?’ Clarissa said.

‘Demigod,’ I said. ‘Spirit of youth. Looks and acts like a teen. He used to be good friends with Michael, but I think Michael outgrew him and they stopped hanging out.’ I stomped to the entrance of the building. ‘And a royal pain in the ass.’

We took the lift up to the first floor.

‘Needs refurbishing,’ Clarissa said.

‘Go right ahead. Ask Jade for the list of preferred contractors,’ I said. The lift doors opened and we went out. I dropped my voice so those inside the lift behind us couldn’t hear. ‘We mostly deal with Earth-based Shen, helping them to keep their cover and make a living here.’

‘There are Shen who live on the Earthly? Why would anyone want to do that?’ Clarissa said as we went down the corridor towards the management office.

‘Some have committed crimes and are in hiding from Celestial justice — we generally don’t deal with them. Others are in hiding from other Shen who have a vendetta against them because of a romantic entanglement. Others are keeping a very low profile because they’ve pissed off a senior Celestial. There’s any number of reasons.’

‘I thought the Celestial Plane was supposed to be perfect, filled with wise and enlightened spirits living in loving harmony,’ she said.

‘That’s the Second Platform,’ I said.

‘You’re not supposed to talk about that,’ Leo said.

I pressed the button to request that the glass office door be unlocked. ‘Yes, sir, Mr Shen, sir, I won’t talk about it at all.’ I smiled at Clarissa as I opened the door. ‘The Second Platform is the higher level of Heaven where the Buddhas live. The Heaven of Perfection and Enlightenment. Our Celestial Plane, where the Immortals and Shen live, is nearly as prone to bad behaviour as the Earthly is.’

‘Is there a book or something about this?’ she said, moving out of the way so Leo could wheel himself into the cramped management office.

‘I’ll see what I can find for you,’ I said. ‘But the answer to your question is: not really.’

‘Stop it,’ Leo said.

‘Sorry,’ I said.

‘Stop what?’ Clarissa said.

‘Sounding like John,’ I said. I leaned on the reception desk to talk to Citrus. ‘Hi, Citrus. I saw the graffiti. This is Clarissa, she’ll be doing the property management and can arrange for it to be removed.’

‘Already arranging,’ Citrus said, glaring at Clarissa. ‘Police are here to talk to you, Emma.’

I straightened. ‘What?’

She gestured with her head towards the tiny meeting room. ‘Policeman in there, wants to talk to you about the snake painting.’

‘Oh, I see,’ I said. ‘They probably want to know if we have a security video of it being done. Clarissa, introduce yourself to Citrus and Feena and get them to show you the files.’ I touched Citrus’s arm. ‘Clarissa’s very good, Citrus, she’s Michael MacLaren’s girlfriend and part of the family.’

‘Michael’s girlfriend?’ Citrus said.

‘That’s right,’ Clarissa said.

Citrus moved closer to Clarissa and spoke softly. ‘You’re lucky.’ Her expression softened to a smile. ‘Let me show you the files.’

‘I’ll hang around out here,’ Leo said.

‘Okay,’ I said, and went into the meeting room. I felt a jolt of dismay when I saw who the policeman was, and tapped the stone in my ring, then held my hand out for the policeman to shake. ‘Hello, Lieutenant Cheung.’

‘Miss Donahoe.’ He gestured towards the other seat at the meeting table and sat himself. ‘Please sit and tell me what happened.’

‘I have no idea,’ I said. ‘I just saw this myself.’

He flipped open a file containing photographs of graffiti from all over town. ‘There is a suggestion that this may be a Triad territorial mark.’ He snapped the folder shut. ‘Tell me, Miss Donahoe, why would the Triads be marking your building in such a large and obvious manner? And why didn’t anyone notice it being done?’

Think quickly, Emma. ‘I don’t think it’s a Triad mark, Lieutenant. I actually have a pretty good idea who did it — his tag is on the bottom. It’s a kid called …’ I furiously tried to think of a name. ‘A kid called Neil; he used to be a friend of the family, and he’s been in trouble a few times.’

‘Neil who?’

‘Uh … Neil Zhou. He —’

He didn’t let me finish. ‘Address?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘But you say he was a friend of the family? You don’t know where he lives? How about a phone number?’

‘We stopped being friends with him about four years ago, mostly because he was so much trouble,’ I said.

‘If you give me a previous address or phone number, we can find him and you can press charges. We take defacement of property seriously, ma’am, and this is particularly bad. We’d very much like to talk to him, and I’m sure you want to help. This will be expensive to remove, and you don’t want it to happen again.’

‘I’m sure it won’t happen again,’ I said.

‘And why is that? Have you spoken to someone? How do you know for sure it won’t happen again?’

I wiped my forehead. I was sweating, even though this wasn’t something I needed to worry about. I had much more pressing business on the Celestial Plane and didn’t really have time to deal with this.

‘I know this kid and he’s a one-off prankster,’ I said.

‘Do you have a security camera?’

‘Yes, but it’s facing outwards in the lobby.’

‘It may show him walking past.’

I deliberately made myself look happier. ‘Yes, it may! What a good idea. How about I get my staff to go through the tapes and see if there’s any of him last night?’

‘Your staff?’

made my voice deliberately mechanical. ‘Staff employed by the Chen Corporation acting in trust for Miss Simone Chen. It’s easier to just say “my”.’

He glanced down at his folder. ‘You have a really bad attitude, you know that?’

I nearly exploded but bit my tongue. ‘I’ll have the staff go through the tapes, and if we see any video of the young man who did it, I will be in touch. I’ll also go through my records and try to find anything on Neil that we have, an old address or phone number. Michael might know.’

‘Who is Michael?’

I nearly thumped the table with frustration, annoyed at myself. The last thing Michael needed was the police digging up his old Triad involvement.

‘Another friend of the family. One of Simone’s friends from when she was at school. I’ll go through her old school records.’ I rose. ‘Is there anything else I can help you with, sir?’ I didn’t wait for him to reply. ‘Leo, come show the gentleman out, please.’

Leo wheeled himself into the doorway. ‘If you’ll come with me, sir.’

Cheung hesitated for a moment, his face rigid, then followed Leo out the door.

I waited until I saw him safely in the lift through the office’s glass doors before I spoke to Citrus and Clarissa again. ‘Don’t worry about having the graffiti cleaned off. I’m getting the person who did it to clean it for us.’

‘Can you do that?’ Clarissa said.

‘Just watch me,’ I growled, and opened the office door. ‘I’m going up to the roof to see how we can arrange this. Stay down here, Clarissa, but call me if anything happens.’

‘I’ll start checking the files,’ Clarissa said.

I waited until we were out in the corridor with the office door shut behind us before I spoke to Leo. ‘Can you talk to Liu?’

Leo’s eyes turned inwards for a moment, then he nodded.

‘Tell Liu that I summon the Third Prince, and he has to get his ass to the top of 15 Wellington Street, Central, in less than five minutes. And that’s an order, as First Heavenly General.’

Leo relayed the message as we walked to the lift.

‘I added that you were on the warpath,’ Leo said.

‘Won’t make any difference to that little asshole,’ I said.

‘Then he’s unique,’ Leo said.

We took the lift up to the top floor, then I unlocked the stairway to the roof. The rooftop was bare concrete stained with mould, the lift mechanism and the large concrete water tank the only features.

Leo looked around. ‘Not even a window-cleaning cradle.’

Na Zha appeared, flying towards us, clouds of mist forming and disappearing around him as he broke the sound barrier. He halted three metres away from the roof, standing on his fire wheels over the road. He was wearing a pair of black skinny jeans and a black tank top, and didn’t even salute me.

I pointed towards the ground. ‘Clean that off. Now.’

‘What?’

I jabbed my finger. ‘That. Get rid of it. The police were here, accusing me of being a Triad member because they thought that was a Triad mark.’

He leaned over to see and grinned broadly. ‘Really? Cool. I wish I’d done it.’

‘They’re on my case constantly because of this bullshit. They may even look Michael up now because I mentioned him. If they go after him, Na Zha, it’s your fault.’

He shrugged. ‘Not my fault, I didn’t do it.’

I stomped to the edge of the roof. ‘I’m giving you an order as First Heavenly General, asshole. Make that go away.’

He grew irate. ‘I didn’t do it — don’t blame me!’ he said, then his face went blank with shock.

Leo shouted, ‘Watch out!’

I was struck from behind and propelled over the edge of the roof. My legs hit the waist-high concrete wall as I went over with a shock of pain in my shins. I tried to concentrate on the energy centres as I fell, my shins screaming with pain. I slowed my fall, but it wasn’t enough: I was going to land on a car going up Wellington Street.

Na Zha caught me with a blow that knocked the wind out of me. He carried me back up to the rooftop, hoisted me over the edge and dropped me next to Leo’s empty wheelchair. I lay helpless for a few long moments, trying to get my breath back.

Na Zha landed and immediately joined Leo in fighting the demons that had attacked us. There were three of them: big red humanoids carrying swords. I checked them and they were at least level eighty: really big ones. A challenge for Leo but Na Zha shouldn’t have a problem.

I hauled myself to my feet, my shins still sharp with pain. One felt like a fracture and was already starting to swell. I did my best to stand on it but when the adrenaline wore off I’d be in trouble. My vision blurred, and I took deep breaths and dropped my head. The last thing I needed was to pass out.

I leaned against the wall and watched. The two Shen had changed to Celestial Form: Leo in his larger form, wearing the Mountain uniform; Na Zha in his more adult form, wearing pale blue Tang robes. Na Zha had no difficulty with the two demons he was facing, and Leo was more than a match for his. I sat down on the concrete with the wall at my back, still trying to suck in air.

Na Zha seemed to be enjoying himself, blocking the blows from weapons on both sides with his whip and wheel without doing any damage to the demons in return. Leo wasn’t wasting energy, though; as I watched, he broke through the demon’s guard and sliced it from midriff to shoulder and out, making it dissipate. He turned and took the head off one of the demons fighting Na Zha, then dismissed his sword and came to check on me. He knelt in front of me and put his hands on my head, feeling for lumps, then pulled my eyelids open, checking my pupils.

‘I’m okay,’ I said. ‘Just winded.’

‘Did you hit your head?’

‘No.’

‘Lion!’ Na Zha yelled, and Leo turned, then jumped back up and recalled his sword.

Na Zha had finished the humanoid he was facing and had taken a couple of steps back. A flock of flyers approached us, more than twenty of them.

‘These are really big ones,’ Na Zha said. He glanced back at me. ‘Run, Emma. Take off over the rooftops and wait for us.’

I shook my head; I wouldn’t leave them.

‘A stray could get through us with this many,’ Na Zha said. ‘We’ll keep them busy; just move so we don’t have to worry about you.’

The flyers landed on the roof between us and the stairs. I couldn’t go back inside now.

Leo patted me on the shoulder, then helped me up. ‘He’s right. Head along a few roofs to the end of the street and wait for us there.’

‘Let me help you,’ I said. ‘Let me fight.’ I summoned the Murasame and it came to me without difficulty. I raised it. ‘I can do it.’

Na Zha backed up slightly as the flyers moved menacingly towards him. ‘Remind me to get you to sign a waiver next time I see you, so that black bastard doesn’t blame me if something happens to you.’

Leo stood in front of me and faced them. ‘I won’t blame you, because nothing will happen to her.’

‘I didn’t mean you.’

‘Call Simone,’ I said to the stone.

‘I’m blocked,’ it said.

‘Absolutely bloody useless in a crisis,’ I grumbled.

‘Stay behind us,’ Leo said, and moved next to Na Zha.

‘They’re scared of you,’ I said, watching the flyers hesitate. None of them wanted to be first to attack. I gathered the energy within me, generated a ball of chi and blew up a couple of them that were trying to ease their way around Na Zha and Leo to me. The energy return bolstered me and I stood straighter and stronger.

That was enough to set them off. The demons attacked.

Leo and Na Zha had no difficulty with them, the flyers never made it through their guard. Leo worked with elegant precision, close on the skill he’d had before he’d gone to Hell all that time ago. It wouldn’t be long before he exceeded any human warrior.

A flyer leapt over Na Zha’s head and he missed it on the way through. I destroyed it with chi and enjoyed the sensation of its energy returning to me — it’d been a long time since I’d felt that rush.

A couple more made it round Na Zha, and I destroyed them with the Murasame before they even hit me.

I scanned around, watching for anything bigger that could possibly ambush us. These were too easy; there had to be something else.

The rooftop door opened and Clarissa appeared behind the flyers. She looked around and her face filled with fear.

I took a huge leap over the top of the flyers to Clarissa and pushed her behind me into the top of the stairwell. The demons turned to face me, and Leo and Na Zha took advantage of their distraction to hit them from behind.

‘Stay there, don’t move,’ I said to Clarissa, and stepped forward.

The stairwell was in the corner of the roof and only a couple of them could try for me at a time. They were slower than me and, although bigger and stronger, also clumsy. The one in front of me swiped with its front leg and I stepped back to avoid it. It swung its head to grab me in its mouth, and I rolled under its chin and shoved my sword into its belly.

‘That is very bad technique!’ Leo shouted as I ducked to avoid the spray of demon essence then jumped back.

‘You can talk!’ I shouted back as I used my backwards momentum to avoid another flyer’s foreleg, bounced off the wall of the stairwell and sliced its head off, somersaulting over it.

I stuck my sword into the forehead of the next one, turned sideways to avoid the attack behind me, and sliced off the head of the one behind. I continued the stroke to take both the front legs off the one to the right of me, and ducked to avoid the head of the one to the left. I rolled backwards and righted myself, leaning against the wall of the stairwell.

Leo’s face went rigid and he sent a blast of chi from his sword into one of the three remaining demons. He stepped forward and took the head off another; and Na Zha’s ring weapon sliced the third into two pieces.

The three of us stood there panting. Now that the adrenaline and chi rush had worn off I felt like I’d run a marathon, and that shin really did feel cracked.

I caught my breath then checked on Clarissa. She was huddled in a corner of the stairs with her arm over her eyes. I knelt next to her and put my arms around her. She let go into my shoulder, her whole body shaking with sobs.

‘Humans,’ Na Zha said with distaste. ‘Always making a fuss.’

I spoke to him over Clarissa’s head. ‘Get rid of that goddamn graffiti before I haul you before the Courts of the Northern Heavens. And never do that to any of the Dark Lord’s property again.’

He shrugged and turned his back on me.

‘Leo,’ I said, and he came to sit with Clarissa for me.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.