Journey to Wubang 01 - Earth to Hell (23 page)

The turtle still didn’t move.

‘Nothing coming from it,’ the Phoenix said. ‘I think it may be some sort of hybrid demon. Take it out and
let it go. It’ll be fine living as a turtle; anything’s better than a life in Hell for them.’

‘I’ll take it somewhere a long way away where there’s plenty of stuff for it to eat,’ Simone said. ‘How are you going to get home, Emma?’

‘I’ll take a taxi,’ I said. ‘You guys go.’

The Phoenix concentrated. ‘Eva’s father is on his way here with the Lotus, Emma. He can give you a lift home.’

Eva lit up. ‘Daddy’s coming?’

The Phoenix touched Eva’s arm. ‘Yes, we were going to have dinner here in one of those Western places that he likes so much.’

She said ‘Western places’ with such scorn that both Simone and I stifled a laugh.

‘Don’t bother him, you guys have your dinner. I’ll just take a cab,’ I said. ‘Simone, take this poor thing out and let it go.’

Simone and the turtle disappeared.

‘Stay here and have dinner with us, Emma,’ the Phoenix said. ‘Phil would love to meet you. He’d probably like to compare notes on dealing with Shen relationships.’

‘Daddy’s human,’ Eva said with amusement. ‘Mom drives him nuts.’

‘I’m sure she does,’ I said, and gestured towards the tiny demons in the tanks. ‘Stone, get a team in here to clean this up, will you?’

‘I have two teams of four juniors on their way; excellent training in carrying for the youngsters,’ the stone said. ‘Nigel is coming as well, to see if we can’t change them to something a little less difficult to handle. We also have six seniors who were having dinner here this evening—they alerted Simone in the first place. She asked them to guard the perimeter so they didn’t see your demon form.’

‘Thank you,’ I said.

The Phoenix smiled slightly. ‘Good delegation. Well done.’

I shrugged. ‘Let’s go eat. Western, you say? I haven’t had a good vegetarian pizza in ages.’

Eva jiggled and clapped her hands. ‘Pizza, yes!’

‘Cheese,’ the Phoenix said grimly. ‘You people are so strange.’

‘Chow dau foo,’ I retorted, ‘stinky bean curd, and you complain about eating cheese.’

‘Chow dau foo is great once you get past the smell,’ the Phoenix said, indignant. ‘Cheese is just yuck.’

‘I like them both,’ Eva said. ‘Now let’s find a pizza!’

Eva’s father was a tall slim African-American with an intelligent, good-humoured expression. He shook hands with me over the table. ‘Nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.’

‘Nice to meet you too,’ I said. ‘How long have you known the Phoenix?’

‘I met her at an IT conference here about twenty years ago,’ he said. ‘I applied for a transfer here to Hong Kong—I’m head of the Asia-Pacific division of Binary Computer Systems.’ He smiled at the Phoenix. ‘Don’t get to spend nearly as much time with her as I would like, her being an Empress and all.’

The Phoenix waved him down. ‘I’m an ordinary Hong Kong housewife, I just happen to have some good investments that keep me comfortably well-off.’

Eva nearly spat out her soft drink. ‘You make me laugh every time you say that, Mom.’

‘You have to deal with this too?’ Phil said.

‘All the time,’ I said. ‘I suppose it’s too late to warn you about forming a relationship with a Shen.’

‘Far too late,’ he said.

Emma
, Simone said into my head.
Um.

‘Um?’ I said. ‘Pass this on to the rest of us here in a conference call, please, stone. We’re waiting for you, Simone.’

‘What is it?’ Phil said.

‘She’s talking to Simone Chen through the stone in her ring,’ the Phoenix said. ‘Apparently there’s some sort of problem.’

Um
, Simone said.
This is…funny.

Phil shook his head.

‘What?’ I said. ‘Tell us.’

Well, I let the turtle go. There’s a lovely deserted island here, a reef just offshore, plenty of sea grass to eat, perfect spot. I dropped the turtle in the water and stood on the beach to make sure it was okay.

‘It’s not okay?’ I said.

It swam up to the beach, climbed out of the water and came up to me.

‘Did you drop it back in the water?’

Yep, and it did it again! Do you have any idea how long it takes a turtle to climb up the beach like that?

‘I have some idea,’ I said.

And it grabbed the bottom of my jeans in its mouth and wouldn’t let go. So I’m sitting on the beach here, with this turtle next to me, and it has its head in my lap and it’s sorta holding on to me with its flippers, and it won’t let go.

‘Are you sure it’s not your father?’

Absolutely positive.

‘Um,’ I said.

That’s what I said.

‘Stone,’ I said.

‘On it,’ the stone said. ‘Simone, Liu is sending two dragons to you. They will escort the turtle to the Northern Heavens, where it will be appropriately cared for by some of the clergy from the Mountain.’

Oh, good idea! Thanks!

‘It’s obviously intelligent, has it made any attempt to communicate?’ I said. I gasped. ‘Good Lord, it’s not
Martin
, is it?’

Not Martin. Not anyone I know. I don’t think it can communicate, but it’s obviously intelligent.

‘Poor thing,’ Phil said. ‘I wonder if it pissed anybody off.’

‘Probably,’ I said. ‘Want to come and have some pizza with us after you drop the turtle off?’

I’ll get something in the Heavens
, Simone said.
It will take me a good hour to get there and back again.

‘The dragons can handle it,’ I said.

I want to make sure it’s okay. See you back home when we’re done. We need to arrange a little trip to Sham Shui Po.

‘Sham Shui Po?’ Phil asked.

‘We think we’ve found Leo,’ the Phoenix said. ‘The demon that gave us the turtle gave us a lead.’

‘I’d offer to come,’ he said, ‘but I think that’s slightly out of my league. I’ll let you martial arts experts handle it.’

‘Mom doesn’t do martial arts,’ Eva said with amusement. ‘She just barbecues stuff.’

‘Nothing in the world beats the sweet fragrance of roasting demon,’ the Phoenix said with relish.

‘Not even this?’ Phil said, waving one hand over the groaning table of pizza, ribs and salad.

The Phoenix wrinkled her nose. ‘It’s a million times better than the smell of that awful cheese.’

Simone was already home when Phil dropped me off. I waved a cheery goodbye to him and headed up to the front gates of the building. The workers who had been repairing Simone’s swimming pool had left for the day, and the pool sat empty and forlorn with a large puddle of green water from recent rain at its bottom. It had
been poorly constructed from the start, and the concrete had cracked about a year after they’d finished it. And we’d used one of the more
reputable
construction companies and paid extra for them.

I took the lift up. At the top floor the gate hung open in front of the closed wooden front door. Simone often left it open when she was home. We didn’t need to worry about anything entering as long as she was there; just her presence was enough to terrify away most demons.

I didn’t feel the familiar uncomfortable buzz of the seals hitting my demon nature as I walked through the front door, and I stopped. ‘Stone, you awake?’

‘Hmm?’ the stone said.

‘Seals are still down. Did the Tiger send someone?’

‘Not yet, he probably forgot.’

‘Send a reminder please.’

‘Will do.’

‘While we’re on the topic, how’s Rhonda? Can you ask her stone how she is?’

‘She’s underground, Emma,’ the stone reminded me gently.

‘Oh, yeah. Any word through on the network about how she’s going?’

‘No news. In this case it means that everything is fine.’

‘Good,’ I said with feeling. ‘Ask Lok to get someone over here and reset these damn seals, please.’

‘Already done.’

I went through to my bedroom and dumped my bag on the floor, then headed into John’s office and checked the email quickly. I glanced at my diary. Damn. I had a challenge the next day, and I wanted to head to Sham Shui Po this evening. Looked like another night without much sleep.

‘Cancelling your appointments for tomorrow; all you
have now is the challenge,’ the stone said. ‘You can have a granny nap tomorrow afternoon.’

‘A
granny nap
? You’ve been around those kids too much.’

Ah Yat tapped gently on the door, then came into the office with a cup of Ceylon tea for me. ‘Your new driver has arrived, ma’am. I put him in the second student room.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Two Eighty-Three.’

‘No, Ah Yat, what’s his
name
?’

Ah Yat looked blank. ‘I have no idea, ma’am.’

‘I’ll talk to him when he’s settled in then.’

‘I’ll tell him, ma’am,’ she said, and went out.

Simone came in and flopped to sit in one of the visitors’ chairs. ‘The turtle’s fine, it seems to have settled in the lake in the Northern Heavens. The Celestials are arranging for it to be fed regularly. It let me go and pushed me away with its nose, so it’s happy for now. We need to find out more about it though.’ She sat up straighter. ‘I want to go to Sham Shui Po tonight, when the stores are closing. Take them by surprise.’

‘Me too. Call up Liu—let’s see who we can round up to go.’

The phone rang and Ah Yat picked it up in the kitchen.

Simone unfocused, talking to Liu, and I waited for her. The intercom beeped on the phone on my desk and I picked it up.

‘Call for you, ma’am, it’s the fung shui man,’ Ah Yat said, and put the call through.

‘Ronnie,’ I said with pleasure. ‘Good to talk to you.’

‘Ms Donahoe,’ Ronnie Wong said. ‘Good to talk to you too. Just wondering when you’d like me to come in and have a look at your seals? I hear that you’re having some difficulty with them. Lok gave me a call.’

‘What an excellent idea,’ I said. ‘How soon can you be here?’

‘If I hang up now I can be there in about three minutes. I need to collect some stuff.’

‘Simone and I are going out as soon as we can get a suitable group of warriors together—we’re going to raid a nest. Can you handle things without us?’

‘Certainly. I’ll be right there,’ Ronnie said, and hung up.

‘Same situation as when you went into One Two Two’s nest, Emma,’ Simone said, still unfocused. ‘The Winds can’t really spare any of their armies because of the danger of attack right now. There’s something of a feeling of being besieged at the moment, with the Demon King and the higher-ranking demons attacking just about everything Celestial all the time.’

‘I understand that completely,’ I said. ‘A couple of Celestial Masters and a few seniors from the Mountain should probably do us for this, unless the demon that tipped us off has warned our target.’

‘Liu is putting a team together, and suggests that you start heading out that way now since you can’t teleport,’ Simone said.

‘Right after I talk to Ronnie.’ The front doorbell rang. ‘There he is.’

I went to the front door. Ah Yat had already opened it and let Ronnie in, and he was giving her a warm hug.

‘Hi, Ronnie,’ I said.

Ronnie released Ah Yat and saluted me. He appeared to be a thirty-year-old Chinese wearing a plain white shirt with no tie and a pair of tan slacks with loafers. He grinned at me through his thick plastic-rimmed glasses. ‘Hi, Emma, your seals are completely down. What’s causing this? The ink is still damp on the paper!’

‘I have no idea, and if you could find the cause I’d very much appreciate it,’ I said.

Ronnie concentrated, and moved into the living room. ‘Something weird here. I may have to change and check it after I’ve reset the seals.’

‘Warn Ah Yat before you do.’

Ronnie grinned at Ah Yat. ‘This one knows exactly what I am.’

Ah Yat smiled back at Ronnie and returned to the kitchen.

Simone came into the living room. ‘Hi, Ronnie. Emma, we have fifteen, and we’re good to go. Did you talk to the new driver yet?’

‘Not yet,’ I said.

Simone concentrated. ‘Done.’

The new driver came out from the students’ quarters at the other end of the flat, and fell to one knee, saluting Simone and myself.

‘Up you get,’ I said, and he rose. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Two Seven Three, ma’am.’

‘No, your
name
.’

‘Oh. Denis.’

‘Welcome to the insanity, Denis. The keys to the big Mercedes in the number one car park downstairs are on the hall table. Please bring it round the front. We’re going to raid a nest in Sham Shui Po.’

He grinned broadly. ‘Excellent. I’ll meet you downstairs.’

I nodded. ‘Be right there.’ I raised my hand to stop Denis before he walked out the door. ‘Denis, this is Ronnie, he’s resetting the seals on the apartment for me.’ Denis nodded to Ronnie, who nodded back. ‘You can probably sense his demon nature; he’s half-demon, which makes him particularly skilled in this. He may have to change later to check some stuff for us; please don’t destroy him.’

Denis nodded to me. ‘Understood, ma’am. I’ll get the car out for you.’

‘Be right down.’

‘See you at Sham Shui Po, Emma,’ Simone said, and disappeared.

Ronnie placed a large, battered briefcase on the coffee table and opened it. He pulled out a fung shui mirror with the complicated direction and elemental symbols around the edge, and a stack of paper seals held together with a rubber band. ‘These won’t cut it for this type of job. Need hand-made ones.’

He scrabbled through the case and pulled out a smaller, ebony case that he flipped open. It contained an ink brush, a stone tablet for mixing the ink, and an ink block. The ink block was a solid black block, square in cross-section, that had been intricately carved and highlighted with gold paint around the edges. Ronnie summoned some water into the cavity of the tablet and ran the ink block in circles over it, dissolving the block to make the ink.

‘I heard you spoke to my father recently,’ he said. ‘How is he?’

‘Alive,’ I said. ‘Has he gone after you lately?’