White Tiger (20 page)

As the first one he had struck dissipated, he grabbed the one to the right and slammed it into the one on the end, destroying both together, at the same time pivoting and lashing out with his foot to take out the one on the far left.

I didn’t see any more because the remaining demon had sneaked around Leo and was approaching Simone and me. He grinned viciously as he came closer.

Simone moved next to me and took up a long defensive stance, her little face set with determination.

I grabbed her and pulled her behind me.

‘I wanna fight,’ Simone said, but I pushed her back and she didn’t resist. I moved into a defensive stance and readied myself to defend Simone, with my life if necessary.

Leo’s dark forearm appeared around the demon’s throat and yanked. The demon’s face filled with astonishment, then horror, then it dissipated as well.

Simone ran around me to Leo and he knelt to check her.

I knelt with them. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I’ll have a shocking headache later, but otherwise I’m not injured,’ Leo said. ‘Are you all right? Simone?’

‘I’m fine. Leo, you were great,’ Simone said, and moved to hug him.

He pushed her away, keeping her at arm’s length. ‘Sorry, sweetheart, there’s demon stuff on me. I need to go home and wash it off. Don’t touch me until then.’

Simone nodded, understanding. ‘Okay.’

Leo rose and I did as well. I took Simone’s hand.

‘Are you okay, Emma?’ Leo said.

I shrugged. ‘Sure. You were tremendous.’

‘All part of the job.’ He collected the shopping bags from the ground and checked the contents. ‘Nothing broken.’ He turned back to the car. ‘Let’s go.’

I guided Simone to sit in the back. Leo threw the
bags into the boot, pulled out a towel and wiped his arms and face. ‘Better get home and wash this stuff off.’

He got into the car and started the engine.

‘How many of them could you take bare-handed, Leo?’ I said.

‘What level were they, Simone?’ Leo said. ‘Fifteen? Twenty?’

‘Twenty,’ Simone said.

‘I could probably take about ten of them with my bare hands,’ Leo said. ‘More than that, they’d get through me and do some damage. I could take down twenty or thirty of them before going down myself.’ He shrugged. ‘Used to happen all the time, but they eased up a couple of years ago.’ He lowered his voice. ‘They stopped coming after they took Michelle. Obviously they’ve found out about Simone and they’re coming after her now. We need to go home and tell Mr Chen.’

‘You should let me help,’ Simone said. ‘I can kill level ten demons. I wanna fight too.’

‘You are a remarkable little girl,’ I said, giving her a squeeze. ‘But you should let Leo do the demon killing for you right now, because you’re too small.’

Simone crossed her arms in front of her chest and made a face.

Leo eased the car gingerly into the car park lift. ‘I hope your dad’s home to guard you, Simone, ‘cause I’m gonna have to clean the interior of the car now. There’s black demon stuff all over the front seat here.’

‘Does that stuff have a proper name?’ I said.

Leo shrugged. ‘Not as far as I know. There may be a word for it in Chinese, but I’ve never heard anybody use one. Everybody just calls it demon stuff, demon essence.’

‘I’m
hungry
,’ Simone said loudly. ‘I wanna go home and have some ramen.’

‘You’re always hungry,’ Leo said.

A group of young men were lounging around the exit of the stairwell. They grinned menacingly at us as we passed them, but made no move to attack.

‘Are those demons, Simone?’ Leo said.

‘Yes.’

I recognised one of them. ‘Oh my God.’

‘What?’ Leo said.

‘One of them was Simon Wong.’

‘Who?’

‘The guy that attacked us at the charity concert. The one that took off Gold’s arm and nearly killed you. He was at the bottom of the stairs with the rest of the demons.’

Leo stiffened. ‘Let’s get home.’

A
fter Leo had showered and changed we all met in the dining room to discuss the attack. Simone noisily slurped her ramen. ‘How many?’ Mr Chen said.

‘Five. Level twenty, according to Simone,’ Leo said. ‘Appearance?’

‘Young male humans. Looked like triads.’

‘Do you know what their True Form was, Simone?’ Mr Chen said.

Simone shook her head, still slurping the noodles. She swallowed quickly. ‘I don’t know, Daddy.’

‘No demons more senior than that? No indication of who sent them?’

‘The Demon Prince that attacked us at the charity concert was at the bottom of the stairs with more demons,’ I said.

‘Waiting for you to run,’ Mr Chen said. ‘If you’d run out of the car park he’d have grabbed you. You did the right thing in staying together.’

‘Emma’s really good,’ Simone said.

‘I know,’ Mr Chen said, smiling into my eyes. ‘Nobody was injured?’

‘Leo was hit in the head,’ I said.

Mr Chen glanced sharply at Leo. Leo shrugged. ‘I’m fine.’

‘I’ll check you,’ Mr Chen said. ‘Give me your hand. I’ll have a look.’

Leo leaned over the table and banged it softly. ‘Don’t you dare waste your energy trying to heal me. I’m fine.’

‘If your head is injured it may not show up for days, Leo,’ Mr Chen said, unfazed.

I leaned over the table as well. ‘Don’t waste your energy. If Leo’s unwell, he can see a doctor. Trying to heal him is total overkill. You need to look after yourself.’

Mr Chen looked from me to Leo, then smiled and shook his head. Both Leo and I relaxed.

Simone giggled. ‘There’re two of them shouting at you now, Daddy.’

‘He needs it,’ I said without looking away from Mr Chen. He smiled into my eyes again and I felt a rush of affection for him. I slapped it down. Friends.

Mr Chen rose. ‘I have work to do. Believe it or not, there are people who work for me who do as they’re told. Stay vigilant, Leo, it appears that the demons are starting to move in. This one in particular appears to have made Simone a target. And mind your head; if you feel unwell tell me immediately.’

After he had gone I studied Leo. ‘Are you really okay?’

He shrugged. ‘Yeah, I’m fine. I know what to look for, don’t worry about me.’ He rose, pushing his chair back. ‘Mind Simone, I’ll go down and clean the car up. I made a hell of a mess in the front, and if Mr Chen wants to use it and finds it like that he’ll skin me alive.’

‘You’re the one that shouts at him, silly Leo,’ Simone said, grinning through the noodles.

‘Emma’s pretty good at shouting too,’ Leo said, amused.

‘He needs it,’ I said.

‘Yep,’ Leo said as he closed the door.

Leo drove us to Tsim Sha Tsui for Simone’s birthday dinner. Simone was excited and jiggled all the way through the Cross-Harbour Tunnel.

We pulled into the lay-by in front of one of the five-star hotels and the doorman came to open the doors for us.

‘Whoa, I thought you said you rented a room,’ I said over the back of the seat to Mr Chen.

‘I did,’ Mr Chen said. The doorman opened the car for him and he got out.

Leo grinned triumphantly as he opened the door for me. ‘Told you to wear that dress I bought you.’

‘Buy me another item of clothing and I will delete every single file on your computer.’

His grin widened. ‘You wouldn’t dare.’

I shook my head and followed Mr Chen and Simone into the high-ceilinged lobby of the hotel. I had worn plain jeans and a shirt because I thought we’d just be going to a rented room in a restaurant. I hadn’t realised it would be a five-star hotel restaurant.

When Mr Chen led us into the ballroom I hung back. Leo grabbed my arm and escorted me. ‘Come on, Emma, this is going to be fun.’

Mr Chen had taken the whole ballroom. About twenty-five huge twelve-seater tables were set up around the hall under the glittering chandeliers. The main table had a red tablecloth instead of white.

Leo led me to our table. As staff, we were put out on the edge of the hall. That was the way it worked. Simone and Mr Chen sat at the red table with the senior notables. Kwan Yin was there and greeted Simone with a warm hug.

Most of the guests were in Western business suits, but quite a few wore traditional Chinese floor length
robes: mandarin collars, long sleeves, with trousers underneath.

‘This won’t be as much fun as one of their usual parties,’ Leo said as we sat at our table. ‘The staff here are human and don’t know about them. They’ll all have to behave.’

‘You talk like you do this all the time,’ I said.

‘Before…’ He took a deep breath. ‘Before Michelle died, we went to a lot of dinners like this. Simone’s onemonth birthday party was a night I’ll never forget. They completely let their hair down. Some of the Shen took True Form and scared Michelle half to death.’

‘Is this the first one since then?’

He looked wistful. ‘Yeah. Even for Simone’s fourth birthday, he only had a couple of them over at our place.’ He smiled. ‘Looks like he’s finally starting to come out of his shell.’

I turned to watch some of the other guests arrive. Qing Long came in; he’d shed the long turquoise hair and settled for standard Chinese short and black, but he was still more than six feet tall. He wore a silver robe embossed with turquoise scales.

‘It’s good to see Mr Chen getting out more,’ Leo said. ‘He’s been a lot happier since you came.’

I looked at him.

‘Don’t even think about it though. It can’t happen,’ he said.

‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’ I turned back to the guests.

A young European man in a tan suit came in. He had sandy hair and tawny eyes. He came straight over to me, dragged me out of my chair, hugged me and kissed me on the cheek. ‘Hello, Emma.’

I pulled back to see him properly. He grinned evilly at me, and suddenly I knew who he was. ‘Bai Hu. What the hell are you doing looking like that?’

He shrugged. ‘Don’t you like me better like this? As one of you?’

I moved closer. ‘I liked you better with fur.’

‘I knew you liked my fur,’ he said.

I glanced at the main table. Mr Chen had seen us. His face was rigid.

‘You should see the look on his face,’ I whispered.

‘I know. We should do this more often.’ He clasped my hand and pulled away.

‘Are you going to spend the whole evening like this?’

He shrugged. ‘Sure. Drives the waiters nuts. They can understand me, so they think I’m speaking Cantonese. Like a native. Confuses the hell out of them.’

‘What language are you speaking?’

‘No idea. I just talk and they understand. For all I know, I could be speaking Tiger.’ He stiffened. ‘Whoops. He wants me. Probably going to tell me to lay off his staff again.’ He turned away. ‘Later.’

‘Don’t go falling for that one either,’ Leo said.

I snorted with amusement. ‘Not likely.’

‘Zhu Que hasn’t turned up.’

‘The Tiger threatened to eat her last time she was over. She’s probably still mad with him.’

A group of stern-looking middle-aged men in standard Western business suits came in, accompanied by aloof women. They went to Mr Chen and paid their respects, saluting him.

‘Generals,’ Leo said. ‘There are thirty-six of them altogether. Only about ten of them here tonight.’

I could see from her face that Simone thought they were really boring.

Jade entered and came straight to me. She wore a beautiful green silk cheongsam with embroidery of gold peonies. It had three-quarter sleeves and swept nearly to the floor, with short splits up the sides. The mandarin collar framed her slender neck beautifully.

‘That’s a gorgeous dress, Jade,’ I said after we’d said hello. ‘Where did you have it made?’

‘I know a place in Central where you could have a lovely cheongsam made, Emma.’

‘You think I could get away with it?’

‘Anything would be better than what you’re wearing now,’ Leo said from behind me. I swiped a kick at his shins without looking back, but missed.

Jade’s smile widened. ‘Let me take you shopping. I’m sure you would look lovely in one.’ Her eyes became unfocused. ‘I’ve been summoned.’ She took my hands and squeezed them. ‘I’ll call you, we’ll have lunch and have a dress made for you.’

‘That sounds like great fun, thanks, Jade.’

She waved me down and went to Mr Chen.

I sat and pulled my chair in, then saw that Leo’s face was rigid with restraint.

‘What?’

‘Leo. A pleasure,’ an elderly male voice said behind me.

I turned to see a tiny ancient Chinese man in a threadbare suit three sizes too big for him. ‘Great Sage,’ Leo said, saluting. ‘Lord Sun,’ I said, also saluting.

‘Emma.’ The Monkey King pulled his staff from his ear and expanded it from the size of a toothpick to a full-sized bo. He spun it in front of himself and leaned on it.

‘The staff here are human, my Lord,’ Leo said.

The Monkey King shrugged. He didn’t care.

‘My Lord.’ I twisted in my chair to face him and he grinned down at me, still leaning on his staff. ‘Lord Xuan has a copy of
Journey to the West
in Wu Cheng’en’s hand, the original. I thought it would be more appropriate if he gave it to you. It’s your story, after all.’

He threw his head back and roared with laughter, attracting the irritated attention of some of the nearby Shen. When he’d stopped laughing he shook his head. ‘I gave it to him.’

I watched him, bewildered.

‘I love it that you offer it as if it were your own,’ he said, leaning further down to watch me intently. ‘You are very presumptuous.’

I struggled to explain. ‘I just thought, that it’s your story, and that you would probably—’

‘She only wishes to assist you, my Lord,’ Leo said, breaking in to defend me. ‘Emma has the best interests of everybody in mind.’

The Monkey King turned his attention to Leo. ‘You, me. Any time. Think you could take me?’

‘Your skills far outweigh mine, my Lord,’ Leo said, carefully polite. ‘I would not presume to challenge you.’

The Monkey King grinned. ‘One day, Leo. One day we’ll know.’

‘My Lord,’ Leo said.

The Monkey King disappeared.

‘Geez, he’s going to blow it and be in
so
much trouble,’ Leo said.

‘For him, that’s behaving himself,’ I said. ‘I know.’

The celebration was a huge multi-course vegetarian dinner that seemed to go on forever. By the end of it Simone was falling asleep.

I quietly vowed that for her sixth birthday, Simone would have a proper children’s party with plenty of kids her own age and absolutely no Shen.