Journey to Wubang 01 - Earth to Hell (46 page)

Martin saluted around the table. ‘It is good to be free.’ He nodded to Simone. ‘Thank you, sister. Now I can take you to Six’s nest. But you must know—there is more than just Six.’

‘Four demons altogether, right?’ I said. ‘I remember them having meetings when I was held by One Two Two.’

Martin nodded. ‘There are actually five—but nobody seems to know who the fifth is. Six and Three—male and female together, mother and son, who are the experts with stones. Then there is Fourteen—the Death Mother—she is the one that has made the demon copies. She escaped from the nests shortly after
being promoted to Snake Mother and has created her own nest of vipers somewhere in the south. She is extremely cruel and dangerous. Thirty-Three, the technological expert, has been making the fake elementals for them. He is lazy and has no real ambition for himself except to survive and have an army of demon servants. There is one more—the expert with the energy. Nobody seems to know who it is.’

‘I saw that energy destroy Xuan Wu in True Form,’ I said.

‘No energy should be able to destroy Xuan Wu’s True Form,’ Marshal Guan said.

‘It’s black and very scary,’ Simone said. ‘I saw it when I was little—Simon Wong used it on me, but I was full of yin and just absorbed it. It starts out a really pretty shade of blue, then turns black, and then just destroys everything. It’s different from yin but it’s still nasty stuff.’

‘And you have no idea where the demon that produces this is?’ I asked Martin.

‘Nobody does,’ Martin said. ‘Maybe Kitty Kwok does, but she’s keeping very much to herself.’ He saw my face. ‘Yes, Kitty is still alive, and working as a gobetween for these four demons.’

‘What’s in it for her?’ I said. ‘She’s lost all her assets on the Earthly Plane, and as a human she can’t go anywhere on the Celestial.’

‘Immortality,’ Martin says. ‘She is helping these demons because she thinks they can give it to her.’

‘Immortality cannot be purchased,’ Guan Yu said with disdain. ‘It can only be earned with cultivation and merit.’

‘She saw what Six and Three were doing with the stone Shen and adapted their methods to herself,’ Martin said.

‘Exactly what are they doing?’ I said.

‘They are in exile outside Hell, and any untamed demon that stays too long outside Hell will eventually weaken and die,’ Martin said. ‘To keep themselves alive, they kidnap stones and carve pieces off them to make children. But the children they create are artificial, because of the imprisonment of the parents. They are able to keep themselves alive using these artificial children, but to return to full strength they need the energy from a real stone child. It is possible that this is what they planned from the start when they sliced a piece off Gold eight years ago. Stone children are only born from the Grandmother once every thousand years or so, and born from the damage to a parent stone even less frequently.’

‘And Kitty is using this stone energy too?’ I said.

‘No, Kitty is using the energy of human children to keep herself young. She believes that if she can take the energy from a Shen child, she will have Immortality.’

‘Oh my God, the kindergartens,’ I said.

‘Yes. She was using the essence of the children to keep her young. The kindergartens were just a way of accessing them.’

‘She wasn’t young though, she looked mid-forties,’ I said.

‘She is one hundred and twenty-eight years old.’

‘Dear Lord, I just thought she had an excellent plastic surgeon.’

‘No surgery. Just draining children.’

‘What about the legal implications of her being older than is humanly possible?’ I said.

‘Easy to change your birth details when people born in the Mainland in the past never had any sort of birth certificate,’ Martin said.

‘How would she drain the children?’ Simone said. ‘I was there, and she took samples off me—but I never felt drained.’

‘Blood,’ Martin said. ‘The essence of life.’ He nodded to me. ‘You are probably aware of the thirst that demons have for blood. It is how they stay alive—draining the essence of other demons. To become extremely strong, they drain the blood and essence of humans.’ He shook his head. ‘But doing this to humans is not permitted under the terms of the treaty that Father brokered with Hell. Any demon caught doing this to humans is tried and destroyed by the Demon Courts.’

‘But Kitty’s not a demon,’ I said.

‘Exactly. She can work with impunity.’

‘So Six and Three have Gold’s child and copies of Leo—and probably the real Leo—in their nest,’ I said. ‘Let’s worry about these two demons now, and then hunt down the other three later. We need to get Leo and Gold’s child out
now.
’

I turned to the gathered Celestials. ‘Now what did you want to share that Er Lang wasn’t to hear?’

‘Quite a few of the Generals have a demon form as well as their Celestial Form,’ Marshal Guan said. ‘They can enter Hell in that form without alerting the demons.’

‘But that means Simone and I can’t go,’ I said.

‘No, it just means you can’t go,’ Simone said, her voice small. ‘I can do it too.’

I turned and stared at her. ‘
What
?’

‘As a child of the Xuan Wu, it is not surprising that she has a demon form,’ Martin said. He nodded to Guan Yu, who nodded back. ‘Only four or five of the Generals do not.’

‘But I can’t go, I don’t have one,’ I said.

‘Can she go as a snake?’ Simone asked Martin. ‘There are snakes in Hell.’

‘I won’t remember anything if I do,’ I said.

‘You have no choice,’ Martin said. ‘Humans and Celestials are not welcome there and will be attacked
on sight. If you are a large enough demon, you will be kowtowed to—and there are snakes there.’

‘So who of the Generals can come?’ I said.

Guan Yu and Marshal Ma stopped and concentrated.

Ma snapped back first. ‘Me. Zhou Gong Ming. Liang Tian’s form is a little extreme, but he’s willing. Marshal Shi of the Divine Thunder—’

‘Lord
Shi
has a demon form?’ I said. ‘His normal form is an elderly scholar.’

‘Wait till you see it, it’s thoroughly over the top,’ Ma said with humour. ‘That should be enough; the four of us, you and Princess Simone.’ He bowed to the White Tiger. ‘Are you willing, my Lord?’

‘Sure,’ the Tiger said, his voice quiet and gruff. He’d reappeared at the end of the conference table with his wine. ‘For these girls, I will.’

‘That should suffice. I will guard the Gates while you are gone,’ Guan Yu said.

Ma nodded. ‘Guan Gong doesn’t have a demon form.’

‘I want to come too,’ Michael said.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ the Tiger said. ‘You need a demon form to come along, and you don’t have one. You’re half-Tiger, half-human.’

‘I have a demon form,’ Michael insisted. ‘It’s a very big cat-looking thing, but—’

The Tiger interrupted him, quickly standing. ‘You have a demon form? What the shit?’

Michael glowered at the Tiger for a moment, then said, ‘Don’t sound so surprised. You’re a demon yourself.’

‘I am not!’ the Tiger roared, then grimaced and lowered his voice. ‘I may have been fond of more variety in my diet in the past, but that’s behind me, and I am
not
a demon.’

‘Michael,’ I said, and they both stopped to look at
me. ‘Has Rhonda ever said anything about being more than human?’

‘Yes,’ Michael said, and the Tiger shot him a quick, stunned glance. ‘She’s often said that she wishes she was more than human so she could kick Dad’s ass. And complained that she isn’t.’

‘So she’s sure she’s an ordinary human?’ I said.

Michael nodded. ‘Everything I have, I got from my dad.’

‘Well, you didn’t get a demon form from me,’ the Tiger said gruffly. He saluted me. ‘See you in Hell, babe.’ He disappeared.

I turned to Marshal Ma. ‘Is it possible Michael got his demon form from his father?’

‘Of course it is,’ Ma said. ‘The Tiger may protest—and notice he protests very loudly—but he has very much more in common with the demons than he does with Celestials. Everybody knows that, and he’s been trying to live it down for hundreds of years.’

‘Well, let’s head to Shum Wan and go to Hell,’ I said. ‘The quicker we depart, the quicker we find Gold’s child.’

‘Get your armour from the Academy first, ma’am,’ Ma said. ‘You may decide to fight in human form, and the Murasame could be a great asset.’

‘I’ll drive you,’ Michael said.

The Generals and Celestials rose, their faces grim with satisfaction. Everybody saluted and they disappeared.

Simone grabbed a piece of sushi and wolfed it down, then gulped a quick drink of lemonade. She took a couple of sandwiches and rose. ‘Let’s go.’

We went up to the infirmary to check on the dragon before we departed. It was very quiet. Everybody was gathered in a semicircle in the waiting room, facing Hien who was in dragon form and holding Regina’s
head in her mouth. Her dragon was dark cobalt blue with lighter purple fins. Blood ran down Regina’s face where the dragon’s teeth had pierced her scalp and she seemed only semi-conscious, her eyes open and her body limp.

‘Have we found her mother?’ I said.

‘Nobody knows who her mother is,’ Amy said. ‘You know what dragons are like. Even her mother probably has no idea who she is.’

Jim Edwards entered. ‘Heard you were having some trouble with one of the little girls.’ He saw Hien. ‘Oh, my.’

He moved to the front of the group to face Hien. ‘Hello, Hien. Remember me? I helped you out of that awful place you were in.’

‘It hurts!’ Hien wailed, her voice muffled by Regina’s head. She shook Regina and the doctor flopped like a rag doll.

‘Regina can take the pain away. You just need to let her go, honey,’ Edwards said.

‘She tried!’ Hien said, her voice still muffled. ‘It didn’t work!’

‘I’m not surprised—you’re a reptile,’ Edwards said with humour. ‘You probably need some special reptile medicine.’

Hien stopped moving and concentrated on him. ‘There is special medicine that can fix me?’

‘How about you let Regina go, and we can have a look?’ Edwards said.

Hien’s bright blue eyes focused on him for a moment, then she dropped Regina.

‘Good girl,’ Edwards said. ‘Now, what I want you to do is go into one of the treatment rooms and wait there, and we’ll get someone who specialises in dragons to see what we can do about this.’

Hien jumped forward and took Regina’s head in
her mouth again. ‘Don’t make me wait! It hurts too much!’

Edwards raised his hands. ‘We won’t make you wait. We just need to find someone who can help. Now drop Regina…’

Hien lowered her head, looking at him, then gently released Regina.

Edwards stepped forward and put his hand on Hien’s head. ‘Good girl. You’re a very pretty dragon, you know that?’ He opened one of the treatment room doors. ‘Come in here and wait with me while they find someone to help you. I’ll stay with you.’

‘You’ll stay?’ Hien said, her voice full of hope.

Edwards stroked her head. ‘I’ll stay with you. Did you know, I know what you’re going through because I used to have a daughter just like you, who was on this stuff too? I know how much it hurts.’

‘You know?’ Hien said, sounding more like a little girl than a dragon.

Edwards cupped her face with one hand and nodded. ‘I know exactly what it feels like, and I know how to fix it. So come with me in here, and they’ll find someone with the right stuff for you.’

Hien ducked her head and then gazed up at him again. ‘Okay.’

He led her gently into the treatment room. As he closed the door, he grimaced back at us and mouthed, ‘Better find something fast.’

As soon as the door closed we raced to Regina. She seemed unconscious. A couple of the students lifted her and carried her to the bed in the other treatment room.

‘Find a dragon who is an expert in either transforming or, as Jim said, in healing,’ Meredith said. ‘Someone find Regina’s sidekick, Edwin. He can take a look at her.’

She put her hands on Regina and concentrated. ‘Never mind. Regina’s dead.’ She dropped her head and
shook it, then gathered herself and looked up. ‘Move, people! Dragons—find someone who can help.’

She saw Simone and me. ‘Why aren’t you in Hell getting Gold’s baby out?’

‘We’re going now. We wanted to make sure Regina was okay,’ Simone said.

Meredith sighed and looked down at Regina’s limp body. Regina didn’t seem dead; her eyes were open and her skin still had a normal flush. I touched her hand and it was still warm. A horrible heartless voice inside me commented on how alive she still looked, and an even more horrible voice lamented the loss of so much warm rich human blood.

My phone rang and I answered it. ‘Emma.’

It was Edwards. ‘She changed back. She’s human. Get someone in here in a hurry, Emma.’

‘Did you hear that?’ I asked Meredith, but she’d already grabbed a syringe.

‘Go, Emma,’ she said as she filled it. ‘We can handle the rest. We’ll keep her sedated until we work out what to do.’

I touched Regina’s hand again. ‘I am so sorry, dear Regina. You worked so hard for all of us.’

‘The Celestial Judiciary is going to be down on this poor little dragon like a ton of bricks,’ Meredith said, her voice crisp. ‘Hurry back, Lady Emma, she’ll need a great deal of assistance to avoid a death penalty. Jim lost his daughter to drugs; let’s not lose this little one too.’

‘Let’s go to Hell and find the demons that gave her the drugs in the first place,’ Simone said. ‘
They’re
the ones who are going to pay. For Regina, and for Hien.’

I turned to the door. ‘Good idea, Simone. Some demons need to suffer for this.’

The lift to Hell once again let us out on the roof of the main administration building. Nobody else was there. We went down the stairs to the side of the lake and saw a large black Mercedes van parked on the road.

I stopped and stared. ‘They have cars in
Hell
?’

Marshal Ma, still in human form, leaned out of the driver’s side window. ‘Of course we do. How else do we get around?’

‘Float, fly, I don’t know; however demons get around?’ I said as I slid the side door open and pulled myself into the van.