Red Phoenix (28 page)

I dropped my head, then shook myself out of it. ‘Let’s go and talk to Jennifer and Leonard. I would have
thought Leonard would be taking this better. He knows who you are.’

‘None of my staff has ever been this close before,’ John said. ‘This is the first time any of them have been in danger. They have been brought up with the assurance that, as long as they serve me, they are safe.’

‘This will be very hard,’ I said as we went through the door. ‘I’d rather face a battalion of demons.’

‘Me too, love.’

The return flight was uneventful. We were all subdued, even Simone. We only had a couple of weeks until school started. The demons would probably have another try at us then.

John and I were in agreement. We refused to let this demon spoil our lives. We could handle him. Simone would go to school like a normal little girl. We would be careful.

But we did lock the security down tighter around ourselves. We tried to avoid feeling that we were under siege.

T
he interior of the Science Museum was dark and deserted. The airplane exhibit loomed around me. The propellers on the huge engines to one side looked like grinning teeth against the dimly glowing windows.

‘I don’t like you,’ Simone said in the darkness. I moved to follow her voice.

‘I don’t care,’ he said, and my blood went cold. ‘I’m coming,’ I said loudly. ‘Emma?’ Her sweet voice was full of hope. ‘Oh good,’ he said. ‘Now I have you all.’ ‘Touch one hair on her head and I will make you suffer horribly for the rest of your short existence,’ I said loudly.

‘Oh, do come, Miss Emma,’ he said, his voice full of encouragement. ‘I guarantee there’s enough of me for both of you.’

‘What are you doing?’ Simone said. ‘I don’t like that.’ Her voice raised in pitch. ‘
Stop it
!’

‘
You get your filthy hands off her
!’ I roared, running towards her voice.

‘Help! Emma!’ she shrieked. ‘
Stop it
!’

‘Shut up,’ he said grimly. ‘Keep still.’

I couldn’t move fast enough on legs. I changed.

I slithered forward on my black coils. Good. I could see better this way. The ground felt absolutely wonderful beneath my belly. I’d missed that so much. I could see them in the dark. I could taste them. Yuck. I could taste him. He tasted like shit.

There they were. A large group of low-level demons stood between me and them. He stopped when he saw me. She saw me too. She screamed.

I didn’t have time to reassure her. I took out the demons around me. They were easy. I bit some heads off, then took one in my mouth and shook it wildly, using it as a club to destroy the others. Great fun. They were much too slow for me.

No more. I raised myself on my coils and carefully approached One Two Two and Simone. Good; it looked like he hadn’t gone very far with her. If he’d done anything to hurt her I would not make this quick.

Simone stopped shrieking and sobbed.

‘Holy shit,’ he said, staring at me, stunned.

I didn’t give him a chance to say anything more. I opened my mouth and my fangs sprang out with a spray of venom. The venom hit him in the face and he screamed. Good.

I struck him right in the middle of the chest. My fangs went through the skin and into his chest cavity. Damn, it felt good. But he really did taste like shit.

He fell. He convulsed under my head, making weird choking noises. Dead. Easy. I pulled my mouth free of him and checked Simone. I lowered my head to reassure her, but she had fainted. I nudged her with my nose.

I shot up to sit upright in bed. I looked around. I was back in my room in Hong Kong.

I was drenched in sweat. I checked my hands in the glow of the lights from the city coming through the crack in the curtains. Completely normal.

I rose and quietly went through the door into Simone’s room. She was sleeping, her little face angelic. I sat on the bed and touched her face. She grimaced slightly but didn’t wake. She turned over. I stroked her hair.

I went back into my own room and sat on the bed. I put my head in my hands.

I heard them arguing as I approached the training room. They went silent when I entered.

‘Sifu,’ they all said, and saluted.

‘What’s up, guys? Why the big argument?’

Alvin, the local kid from Guangdong Province, and Julie, a young American, shared an exasperated look.

Finally it was Lai who broke the silence. ‘Alvin and Julie are arguing about how Master Leo was injured. We finally gathered enough nerve to ask him in the lesson we just finished, and he wouldn’t talk about it.’

‘I heard a
Snake Mother
did it,’ Julie said. ‘One of the fifth years told me that.’

‘Not possible,’ Alvin said. ‘Snake Mothers never leave Hell.’

‘Okay, guys, sit.’ I sat on the mats as well. ‘It took you two weeks to ask him? Most of the other students have already been ignored by him. Revision: Snake Mothers. Lai, you’re a Shen, you start.’

Lai grimaced. ‘I’m a very small Shen, you know that, ma’am. And my mother won’t talk about Snake Mothers. It’s really strange. The minute I turned sixteen she’s telling me what to look for in a mate—’

Julie swallowed a huge gulping laugh.

Lai rounded on Julie. ‘It’s all very well for you to laugh, but do you have any idea how embarrassing it is? She’s such an
old-fashioned
old hen.’ She made her voice thin and wheezy. ‘Make sure he has a fine tail, and a good comb, a good comb is important in a cock—’

Every English speaker in the class collapsed in laughter. Lai appeared bewildered. ‘What did I say?’

‘It’s the language charm,’ I said. ‘Cock.
Cock.
Two different meanings, depending on the way you say it. You heard the two meanings?’

Lai thought about it, then she collapsed laughing as well.

I spoke again when they’d regained a semblance of control. ‘Why won’t your mother talk about Snake Mothers? Everybody needs to be aware of them; they’re so dangerous.’

Lai dropped her head. ‘I think one broke into my mother’s nest once and ate all the chicks. That’s why she won’t talk about them.’

The class went wide-eyed and silent at that.

‘That’s awful,’ Julie whispered.

‘Snake Mothers,’ I said, bringing them back to the point. ‘Anybody know what level they are?’

‘Anything from fifty up,’ Alvin said. ‘The biggest ones are as big as the King himself.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘They occupy the nests, and they bear all the demon spawn. The smaller ones mate with…? Anyone?’

‘The smaller ones can produce spawn with any male demon,’ Julie said. ‘But the biggest ones will spawn only with the King—they produce the Demon Princes.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘Do they leave the nests?’

‘No,’ Alvin said with certainty. ‘They stay in Hell.’

‘No, that’s not right,’ Lai said patiently. ‘Lady Emma herself faced a Mother when the Mountain was attacked.’

‘That’s right, Alvin.’

‘But if they leave the nests…’ Alvin began, his face filling with horror. ‘Then they could come out and attack any of us.’

‘They come shopping here all the time,’ I said. ‘Watch for groups of gorgeous young women, all wearing clothes the colour of dried blood.’

Bunny, a young local girl from Sha Tin, gasped. ‘I don’t believe it, I’ve
seen
them in Pacific Place!’

‘They won’t go for you if you don’t go for them,’ I said.

‘But what about Leo?’ Alvin said. ‘What happened to him?’

I dropped my head and ran my hands through my hair. ‘They kidnapped him and took him to the nests to play. The King wouldn’t let them kill him because I’m so fond of him.’

‘Dear God,’ Julie said softly. ‘
Play
?’

I grinned at her without humour. ‘Yep. They like to amuse themselves with a variety of games in the nests. The victims are usually low-level demons, but sometimes the King will give them a human or Shen to play with, and they regard that as a special treat. They try to make the toy last as long as possible.’

They remained silent for a while, digesting this.

‘They cut Leo’s tongue in half. Master Liu was able to heal it, but he’ll never speak properly again.’ I checked my watch and snapped out of it. ‘Lunchtime. Off you go. Don’t worry, this building is thoroughly sealed, nothing can get in. You’re safe here and in the surrounding district. Anywhere the language charm works, you’re safe.’

‘Come with us, ma’am,’ Julie said. ‘I want to hear about this pact you made.’

‘How do you know about that?’

‘The fifth year has a big mouth.’

I opened my mouth to say I had to work on my thesis and then closed it again. To hell with it; the students needed reassuring. I pulled myself to my feet. ‘Sure. Let’s go to the Seven Brand downstairs, I feel like some ho fan.’

The students grinned and saluted.

As we passed the display rack of the Eighteen Weapons in the lobby, Alvin and Julie had another whispered argument.

I stopped to speak to them. ‘What now?’

Julie gestured towards the weapons. ‘Alvin says they’re wrong, that the mace should be replaced by a spade. I say the trident should be replaced by a spade.’

I laughed softly. ‘Guys, Lord Xuan himself selected that set. I think they’re the right ones, even though every single student that comes through the door seems to think that they’re wrong.’

‘Oh,’ Alvin and Julie said together.

We filed into the noodle shop and took a table. The owner of the shop thought that we were an English school and was pleased at the business we brought him. We knew him quite well, and he always made sure we had preferential treatment. We had preferential treatment at a few of the eating places around the area, and never had to take a number for the yum cha across the road.

‘Shame I have to be vegetarian,’ Alvin said. ‘Now the cooler weather’s coming, the snake shop will be open. I used to like a bit of snake soup in the winter.’

‘You eat snakes?’ Julie said with disbelief.

‘If its back faces Heaven you can eat it,’ Alvin said with a grin. ‘Snake is yang. Heats up your blood. Makes you warm in winter.’

‘Alvin,’ I said grimly, ‘remember the nature of your Grand Master.’

They all went silent at that. They knew about John’s true nature.

‘Sorry, ma’am,’ Alvin said.

‘I still don’t believe that you eat
snakes
,’ Julie said. She turned to me, concerned. ‘Do you mind me asking about it, ma’am?’

I sighed with resignation. ‘Share your cultures, guys. Just don’t mention this in front of the Dark Lord, or you’ll be sharpening every single weapon on the first floor.’

The first floor was the armoury. There were well in excess of eight hundred bladed weapons stacked in there, neatly arranged. John could keep his weapons tidy, but his office was always a disaster area.

‘The snake soup shop down the street will open soon,’ Alvin said. ‘They close over the summer and open during the winter. They only need to open for a few months of the year, they make enough money.’

‘How do you eat it?’ Julie said.

‘Usually we eat snake in soup,’ Alvin said, enjoying his rapt audience. ‘Sometimes…’ he began, then changed his mind about what he was going to say. ‘Usually in soup. They shred the snake, and add other stuff to it, like fungi, or chicken, or pig’s ear, and boil it up. It’s actually quite…’ He didn’t finish. He tilted his head and smiled. ‘I won’t go into too much detail in front of the Sifu.’ He froze when he saw my face. ‘I apologise, ma’am, I’ve offended you,’ he said, alarmed.

‘No, Alvin, I’m not offended,’ I said absently. ‘I just remembered something.’ I snapped out of it. ‘I just remembered, I have something I need to do. I need to go back to the Academy. I’ll see you later.’

I rose without checking to see if they’d heard me and went out. I walked into someone coming in, but ignored them. I went straight back to the Academy, went into my office, closed the door and fell into my chair.

I sat quietly for a long time.

There was a tap at the door.

‘Come in,’ I said without thinking.

John walked over to the chair across from my desk. I didn’t really see him. He sat without speaking for a while, but I didn’t notice.

‘Emma,’ he said brusquely, and I snapped out of it. He smiled slightly. ‘You just walked right into Meredith at the door of the Seven Brand Noodle Shop and didn’t even see her. What’s the matter?’

‘Shredded snake broth with sliced pig’s ear,’ I said.

His face went expressionless. He leaned back and folded his arms over his chest. ‘Took you a while. You seemed to block that one out.’

‘You’ve known all along?’

He stretched his long legs in front of him. ‘You were upset enough as it was after what the stone said.’

‘He said he wanted to eat all three of us. You, turtle hotpot. Bai Hu, braised tiger. And me, shredded snake soup.’

‘Are you concerned?’ John said, his arms still crossed over his chest and his eyes burning. ‘Yes,’ I choked quietly. ‘Then he has won.’

‘He said I was a snake, John.’ My throat was thick. ‘He said I was a
snake.’

‘He wants to eat you, same as he wants to eat me and Ah Bai,’ he said evenly. ‘And besides, he may be saying that you’re a pig’s ear, anyway.’

I turned away. ‘You are no help at all.’

He rose gracefully. ‘Come and let me buy you lunch downstairs. If you don’t have anything to eat, your blood sugar will be so low that the next class you take, you’ll pass out.’

‘Don’t go near my second years,’ I said. ‘You don’t want to hear what they’re talking about.’

‘They’re talking about eating you,’ he said mildly. ‘Pig’s ear soup.’

A
week before school started, John called me into his study. ‘School won’t start on time unless I do something,’ he said. ‘Typhoon.’

‘This late in the year? We’ve already had a monsoon.’ I dropped my voice. ‘Is it a natural typhoon?’

He nodded. ‘It happens sometimes. The wind changes. The circulation can happen over the sea, even after a monsoon. A very big typhoon will form east of the Philippines, and it will be a direct hit. The eye will pass right over us on the morning of the first day of school.’ His eyes turned inwards as he concentrated. He could see the weather patterns. ‘Really big one.’ He snapped back and shrugged. ‘I’ll make it miss us so that Simone can start school on time.’

I shot to my feet with fury. ‘Don’t you
dare
! Try anything like that and you will be in serious trouble.
Leo
!’ I yelled without moving.

Leo skidded down the hallway and charged in. ‘What? What?’ He saw John sitting at the desk, arms crossed and relaxed. He saw me standing on the other side of the desk, leaning on it with one hand, furious. ‘What?’

‘This…’ I hesitated, then, with emphasis on the insult, ‘
Turtle…
’

John made a soft sound of amusement.

‘…wants to divert a super typhoon coming this way, purely because it’ll hit us on his daughter’s first day of school.’ I threw myself back from the desk and stood rigid, glaring at John.

Leo glanced at me. Then his expression darkened. He folded his arms over his chest and glowered at John. I did the same.

‘Over our dead bodies,’ I growled. ‘You do any weather manipulation
at all
in the next three weeks and your shell will be in serious trouble.’

‘What she said,’ Leo rasped.

John appeared ready to argue with us for a moment. Then he grinned broadly and spread his hands, palm up, over the table.

Both Leo and I sagged with relief.

‘I think I must be the luckiest old Turtle in the whole wide world,’ John said, his hands still out.

‘You’re definitely the stupidest,’ Leo growled quietly, then stalked out, shaking his head.

I pointed at Leo’s enormous receding back. ‘What he said.’

I warned Ah Yat to buy extra food at the market. If the typhoon was a direct hit, then we could be stuck at home for at least a whole day; but it would quickly dissipate once it hit the land. The storm would be intense on the coast, and then clear as it moved inland.

School was supposed to start the first Tuesday of September. On the Friday before, the Number One standby signal was hoisted by the Hong Kong Observatory. The symbol appeared in the corner of the television screen when Simone watched her children’s shows.

On Sunday afternoon, the Number Three signal was raised. This was the strong wind warning. I watched the typhoon coming towards us on the international weather bureau websites. It was huge. It cut a swathe of destruction across the Philippines. Six people in the northern Philippines were killed in the flooding.

The sky grew very overcast. The clouds came down, thick and grey and low. They swept across the sky like a heavy roiling soup, moving unnaturally fast. The weather made John irritable. He locked his feelings down tight. Hong Kong’s spectacular electric storms made him cheerful to the point of euphoria; his eyes would go very bright and hard. But he didn’t enjoy the weather patterns around typhoons at all.

I suddenly realised that in the previous three years there had been unusually few typhoons that approached the Territory close enough to warrant the raising of a Number Eight signal. There had even been comments made on television about the low number of typhoon hits. He must have been moving them away because he didn’t like them.

The Number Eight was raised on Monday afternoon. Ah Yat and I went through the apartment and put a large cross of tape across every window. If something blew into the window and broke it, the tape would stop glass shards from flying in and hurting us. John had put safety glass in all the windows anyway, but they could still break.

When a Number Eight gale force signal was raised, everybody except vital services stayed at home. Schools, shops and offices closed. As the typhoon approached, bulletins appeared on television informing the people of Hong Kong which buses, trains and ferries were still running.

The noise woke me at about three o’clock Tuesday morning. It was like a rushing freight train directly outside the window. The building swayed gently in the wind.

I hopped out of bed and quickly checked my window. It wasn’t leaking, which was unusual. The flat I had shared with Louise in Sha Tin had leaked during typhoons and water damage was a constant part of life. During one particularly bad typhoon we’d stuffed every single towel we owned, and all of our clothes as well, around the edges of the windows to soak up the water gushing in, and had spent the afternoon wringing out the towels into buckets.

I peered out the window. The rain blew sideways. Central District below me was a horizontal blur of lights. The roar of the wind was furious outside the window. No chance of going back to sleep with that, particularly with the building swaying just enough to make me feel seasick as I lay in bed.

I pulled on some clothes and slipped through the door into Simone’s room. She could sleep through anything; her little face was angelic in the soft glow of her night light. I quietly checked her window. Not leaking either.

I went into the unlit living room. John and Leo were there already, standing at one of the windows in the faint glow of the city lights, watching the typhoon.

I moved to stand in front of Leo. He threw his massive arm over my shoulder and I leaned back into him. He was like a black boulder behind me, solid and unmoving.

‘You are my rock,’ I said quietly. ‘I can always rely on you.’

He squeezed me gently but didn’t say anything. The building directly below us on the hill had lights on the roof, illuminating the roof garden. The rain hit
the building horizontally and then flew directly up in the wind. The roar was even louder on this side of the apartment.

John stood silently on the other side of Leo, wearing his black pyjama pants with an old black T-shirt over the top. He had his arms folded in front of him; dark, sullen and dour.

I leaned around Leo to speak to John. ‘How far away is the eye?’

He shifted slightly, but didn’t uncross his arms. ‘About three hours away. Still not the worst.’

I turned back to the window. ‘Any windows leaking?’

John went still and concentrated. ‘No.’ He shifted slightly again. ‘I had the windows resealed after the last one. They did a good job.’

I leaned back into the silent Leo. ‘Is it really that unpleasant?’

John’s voice was very soft and mild. ‘Yes.’ He uncrossed his arms and put his hands on his hips. ‘Like a strong current. Pulling. All directions at once. Very unpleasant.’

‘You used to move them all away, didn’t you?’

He didn’t say anything.

‘If Michelle or me caught him at it, his shell would be in serious trouble,’ Leo said, his voice rumbling through my back.

‘I have made some very serious mistakes in my life, and employing you was one of the biggest,’ John said mildly, still looking out the window.

‘Michelle employed me. You never did,’ Leo said. ‘By the time she was gone I wasn’t an employee any more, anyway.’

John crossed his arms over his chest again. ‘Employing Emma was absolutely the biggest mistake.’

‘Coming to work for you was a huge mistake for me too,’ I said.

‘And here we are,’ Leo lisped softly.

Simone appeared in the doorway, and stopped when she saw us. The three of us turned to look at her. She hesitated. She didn’t know which of us to go to. She loved us all.

Nobody needed to say anything.

The storm went quiet as the eye went over. Michael made a fourth leg and we played mah jong in the living room. Over the period of an hour, the roaring slowed, and then stopped. The wind didn’t stop completely, but it was greatly reduced. The clouds thinned, but they were still there. The rain eased. John visibly relaxed.

‘Eye. Interesting. Double-walled eye,’ John said. He grabbed the tile I had just discarded and banged it hard on the table. ‘
Seung
.’

‘Damn,’ Leo said.

‘You’re silly to go for bamboo when Mr Chen is, Leo,’ I said. ‘It’s like it’s blown itself out on the coast. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that it had passed over and finished.’

John nodded as he sorted his tiles. ‘This will be interesting to watch. In about half an hour, the eye will pass over and the wind will pick up to the fierceness it was before. The change will be dramatic.’

‘You think people will be stupid enough to go out?’ Leo said.

John glanced sideways at him without smiling. ‘We have a saying on the Celestial: if there’s a stupid thing that can be done, then there’s always a human who’s stupid enough to do it. Where’s Simone?’

‘Last time I checked on her, she was in her room playing,’ I said. ‘She’s fine.’

‘When the eye passes over and the wind picks up, I will go into the training room for a while and I do not
wish to be disturbed,’ John said quietly. ‘It will be very unpleasant for me when the eye passes over. It will go from calm to furious very quickly. I won’t be able to concentrate on anything.’

‘What did you do before?’ I said softly, wondering if maybe we should have let him move this typhoon after all.

‘Go to the Mountain,’ he said. Michael listened but didn’t say a word.

‘Here it comes,’ John said a short while later. ‘Give me about an hour. Now that it’s hit land it will dissipate quickly. The wind will only stay strong for two or three more hours.’ His face went strange. ‘Stay away from me. Don’t come in.’

He gracefully hoisted himself to his feet and strode out. Leo and I shared a look.

‘I agree,’ Leo said. ‘Next time we let him move it.’

‘You can communicate telepathically, Emma?’ Michael said with wonder.

I shook my head. ‘With Leo, I don’t need to.’ Leo and I shared a smile.

There was a piercing, high-pitched scream from the hallway that went on forever. Simone.

All three of us threw ourselves up and rushed towards the sound. Both Leo and I knocked our chairs over.

John was hunched inside the door of the training room. Simone curled up against the back wall of the room, clutching her little sword, screaming. She took a huge breath and screamed again.

I squeezed past John, careful not to touch him, and went into the training room. Simone’s eyes widened and she went silent. She scurried away from me.

‘It’s all right, Simone, it’s us. What are you frightened
of?’ I tried to approach her, but she kept moving away. ‘Are there any demons nearby?’

Simone raised her little sword in front of her. ‘Stay
away
from me!’ She cast around frantically and saw Leo behind me. She dropped her sword, ran a huge detour around me, and threw herself into Leo’s arms. ‘Get them away, Leo, get them away from me.’

‘Get who away, sweetheart? What’s the matter?’ Leo lifted her and put her on his hip. ‘There’s nothing here, it’s just us.’

Simone buried her face into his chest. ‘Get me away. Out. Please, Leo, away.’

Leo carried her out of the training room. John moved further into the room to let them through. Michael stood behind John, looking as confused as I felt.

‘What was all that about?’ I said.

‘Talk about it later.’ John’s eyes turned inwards and unseeing and his voice became urgent. ‘For now, out. Everybody. Leave me.’ He pointed towards the door and I quickly went out, taking Michael and shutting the door behind me.

‘What happened?’ Michael said, baffled.

‘I have absolutely no idea,’ I said, just as bewildered. ‘Hopefully Lord Xuan will tell us later.’

‘I thought it would be cool to be able to control the weather,’ Michael said. ‘Now I’m not so sure.’

‘Sometimes I think us ordinary humans have it easy,’ I said. ‘You want me to include you in the “us”?’

‘Sometimes yes, sometimes no,’ Michael said good-naturedly as we went to find Simone and Leo. ‘I’ve tried doing things with metal, like he said. Nothing.’

‘Don’t try to rush it. If it comes, it comes.’ We were at the door to Simone’s room; she was clearly audible, sobbing inside. ‘Michael, could you put the tiles away for me? I think maybe I should talk to Simone alone.’

‘Yes, ma’am. Will you need me after that?’ ‘You can go and play after that, if the net connection is still up.’

‘Thanks,’ he said and turned back to the living room.

I opened the door to Simone’s room and went in. Leo sat on Simone’s little pink bedcover. Simone sat in his lap facing him, her head turned to one side on his chest, her eyes wide and glittering. He wrapped his arms protectively around her.

‘Are you okay now, Simone?’ I said gently. ‘What happened? What did you see?’

Simone wriggled around to face me and smiled. She hopped out of Leo’s lap and came to me, taking both of my hands in hers. ‘Where were you, Emma? Why didn’t you come?’

‘I came straight here from the training room. Why were you frightened?’

‘You weren’t in the training room, Emma, there were monsters there.’

‘Demons?’ I said quietly. ‘You know demons can’t get in here. Your dad had the seals redone not long ago by a Grand Master.’

‘Not demons.
Monsters.’

‘What’s the difference?’

Simone went quiet, eyes wide. ‘They were horrible.’ ‘I don’t know either, Emma,’ Leo said softly from the bed.

I sat cross-legged on the carpet and pulled Simone onto my knee, sideways to me so that I could talk to her. ‘Okay,’ I said firmly. ‘There were horrible monsters in the training room. Is that right?’

Simone nodded, eyes still wide.

‘You didn’t see us when we came in.’

She shook her head. She gestured towards Leo. ‘I saw Leo.’

‘Your dad was at the doorway, Simone. He went in there to meditate.’

‘My daddy wasn’t there,’ she said. ‘It was a
monster.’

Leo came and sat cross-legged on the carpet with us. ‘Tell us what happened, Simone, right from the start. What were you doing in there anyway?’