3
T wo days later she sat at her little desk in the postgrad cubicles and attempted to work on the final version of the prospectus literature review. The existing body of research on turtles was extensive, but there wasn’t much that was Asia-based; it was mostly from Australia and the Pacific, with some in the Indian Ocean. Thankfully, the spam filter for JE nonsense was working well, and she wasn’t being constantly distracted by emails from Celestials ordering her to kill a stupid demon.
Her phone pinged and she grabbed it, full of dread. The dread turned to brittle hope when she saw it was Graham.
Hey you
Hi Graham, you okay?
Can we talk?
Oh shit. She tapped a reply.
Sure. I’m in the cubicles on the seventh floor
Omw
She put the papers to one side and wiped her eyes. At least now she would know whether their relationship was over or not. She plastered a false smile on her face as he came through the door and stopped to study her. She pulled an empty chair closer for him.
‘Sit, Graham,’ she said.
He sat on the chair across from her—just out of reach—clasped his hands and looked down.
‘Did your father hypnotise me? What did he do to me?’
‘He just told you the truth about us.’
‘Like a hallucination. But real.’
‘Sorry about that, but it’s a lot to cover, and he can do it with complete certainty so that you know it’s true.’
‘Do you know how mind-blowing that was? Do you have any idea?’ He shook his head. ‘I know it’s true, but it’s still unbelievable. It’s breaking my head. I didn’t know anything about the Chinese gods. My mom said it’s “old people’s superstition”. Why doesn’t anybody know about this? I mean—gods are real, but nobody talks about them?’
‘I think there’s been a concerted effort by high-level demons to destroy any references to the gods, so that people won’t call on them when they need help.’
‘So the supernatural world ... magic ... all of that exists?’
She nodded.
‘Demons? He said that demons exist? Like ... the demons that fung shui consultants protect us from—they’re real ?’
She nodded again. ‘But my father drove them into Hell a few thousand years ago ...’ She saw his shocked expression at these revelations and plunged on. ‘And they aren’t allowed on the surface to hurt people. You’ll always be completely safe with me.’
‘We’re scientists , Simone,’ he said with exasperation. ‘The obvious scientific explanation is that your dad hypnotised me. How am I supposed to believe all of this? Can you prove it?’
‘I don’t think you’re ready for me to prove it in person.’ She tried to stay calm and logical, respecting his legitimate scepticism. ‘I’ve chosen to live an ordinary life away from all of that, but you had the right to know because it’s part of who my family are.’
‘He said that you made a huge sacrifice—thinking that you’d die doing it—and saved everybody,’ he said. ‘Now that I know you well, that’s the most believable part of it.’
She lowered her head. ‘Thanks.’
‘You really did that? Killed the King of the Demons? You murdered someone?’
‘It’s complicated, but it’s what the Demon King wanted, and he ordered my father to do it because it would destroy Dad as well. I just made sure I was the one who did it, instead of my father. I wanted to spare Dad from the consequences. I thought it would kill me.’
‘So doubly a sacrifice.’
‘I don’t see it that way,’ she said.
His eyes bored into hers. ‘If you were some sort of superhero like he said—’
‘Absolutely not a superhero,’ she said. ‘And I said, I’d prefer not to—’
He cut her off. ‘What sort of things can you do? He wasn’t specific, he just said that he’s one of the gods ...’ He hesitated. ‘I can’t believe I just said that. And you’re his daughter. He said you can do things.’ He pulled his chair closer to hers. ‘Like what?’
She didn’t lead with “Destroy the planet and all life on it”, and gave up trying to avoid the topic. ‘He’s one of the most powerful Shen in the heavens, and I’m his daughter. There isn’t much that I can’t do.’
‘Fly?’
She nodded.
He looked hopeful. ‘Wings? Like an angel?’
‘No wings. Like Superman.’
‘Really?’
She nodded again.
‘Super strength? How much can you lift?’
‘When you reach my level, it’s hard to measure with weights, because I can deadlift an A80.’
His mouth flopped open.
‘Uh ... with one hand.’
‘Damn.’ He moved his chair slightly away. ‘What if you ... If you’re that strong ... When we’re being ...’ He shook his head again. ‘You could easily kill me if you lost control. You could crush me like a bug!’
‘It doesn’t work like that,’ she said. ‘My normal strength is normal. Even when I’m excited. If I want to use the extra strength, I have to make a really big effort.’ She reached out to touch his hand and was thrilled when he didn’t move away again. ‘You’ll always be safe with me.’
‘It could all be a lie. I mean, everything you say defies science—and we’re scientists . Is there a way you can physically prove to me that it’s not just your father hypnotising me?’
‘Sure. At this point what I usually do is take you to a completely inaccessible place—somewhere really high, like the top of Burj Khalifa or something, and take selfies with you. But the last guy said it could be a greenscreen, so I—’
‘What last guy?’ he asked sharply.
‘Graham, I’m twenty-five. You aren’t the first man I’ve dated.’
‘What happened to Burj Khalifa guy?’
‘He said that I was insane, my father was insane, it was definitely a hoax and we drugged him then put greenscreen photos of us on his phone. He put a restraining order on me and every member of my family.’
‘It can’t be a greenscreen if I choose where we go and we go right now,’ he said. ‘How about the top of the Sydney Opera House? If we made a video there, we’d get a million YouTube views.’
‘Most of those insane videos of heights and parkour on roofs are actually Shen showing off,’ she said. ‘I wish they wouldn’t do it. Humans emulate them and get killed.’
‘ Humans ?’
She looked away.
‘You’re not human?’
She sighed. ‘Define human.’
‘Me.’
‘I’m not you!’
‘Okay. My sister.’
‘If your sister is the baseline for human, then in many ways I am, and in many ways I’m not.’
‘I think you’re avoiding the issue here, Simone.’
‘In every way that counts, I’m a human being. How about that?’ She sliced one hand through the air. ‘I want to be ordinary! I don’t want to do anything like that, I want to have a normal, happy life—’
‘And be able to lift a superjumbo and fly to the top of the Sydney Opera House.’
‘Effectively, yes. Practically, no, because I’m not allowed in Australia.’
‘But you were planning to do research on the Great Barrier Reef?’
‘The Grandmother negotiated ...’ She saw his face. ‘That big rock in the middle of Australia. Uluru?’
He nodded, then his face filled with wonder. ‘It’s alive?’
‘Many stones are alive. Anyway, the Shen ... Kami ... of Australia are pissed with me because my mother climbed Uluru a long time ago. Uluru’s a sweetheart, and she’s given me a special dispensation to research the turtles on the reef from the station on Heron Island, but I am not to step on the mainland of Australia.’
‘Okay then ...’ He thought about it. ‘Top of the Empire State Building. Higher than the viewing deck. Take some selfies, and it’s all proven to me. Do you have a magic carpet we can ride there?’
‘No, but I can do a Dragon Ball-style cloud for you,’ she said, and felt a bolt of hope as he grinned at the idea. ‘You’d do that? For me? Let me prove everything to you?’
‘I know it sounds weird, but I’d like it to be true.’
She stared at him. ‘There is something seriously wrong with you.’
‘Well yeah, I’m dating you, god-lady.’ His smile widened. ‘This is a whole new field of study, you know? Even though I have to keep it a secret, I can learn more about ... everything. And riding Goku’s cloud? I’m in!’
‘I can make a Goku costume for you when my prospectus is done and I have time for cosplay again,’ she said slyly.
‘Doubly in! How long will it take to go to New York? That’s the other side of the world, and we have work to do. Next week? After your presentation?’
She checked her watch. ‘It’s five pm right now. I can have you there by midnight and back here tomorrow morning.’
‘Midnight photos on top of the Empire State Building—’ he began.
‘It will be the middle of the day there. Yesterday.’
‘Damn!’ He hesitated, looking at her, then grinned again. ‘Let’s do it.’
She held her hand out. ‘Take it.’
He took her hand, still grinning like an idiot.
‘I’m going to teleport us.’
He snatched his hand away. ‘What, really?’
She nodded. ‘You’ll feel dizzy when we arrive, but you’ll be perfectly safe, and I can catch you if you fall. You’ll be safe . Understood?’
He nodded, then held his hand out again and she took it. His smile had returned.
She teleported them to the top of the biology building, in the centre of the roof so he couldn’t fall off if he passed out. It was high above Hong Kong Harbour on the Western side of Hong Kong Island, close to the top of the Island’s highest point. She held his hand as he staggered, then righted himself and shook his head. He looked around, still clutching her hand.
‘Shit, we’re a long way up,’ he said. ‘There’s no railing!’
She stepped up into the air and floated just above the rooftop, still holding his hand. ‘We don’t need a railing, Graham. I won’t let you fall.’
He stared at her, then lowered his head to see her feet. He pushed his free hand under her feet, then stood again. ‘It’s true.’
She dropped back to the surface of the roof and summoned a cloud. ‘Ready to go?’
‘We’ll be higher,’ he said, staring at the cloud as if it was a deadly animal. ‘With no railing. On a cloud. For a long way.’
‘We can skip it if you don’t want to,’ she said quickly.
‘How do I get onto it?’
She moved the cloud so that it was directly next to them, and he put one hand out—still holding hers with the other—to touch it. He pressed his hand through the surface of the cloud until it met the hardness beneath. ‘That’s remarkable.’ He grinned at her. ‘Just like all the martial arts television series. Riding on a cloud. Wild.’
‘Just step up,’ she said, and helped him onto it. She stepped up behind him and turned him so that his back was against her chest.
She had a sudden flashback of doing this when her father had been lost to her. She and Emma had led a Celestial strike team to the mountainous region of Guilin. Michael had gone along with them, summoning a cloud for Emma to ride on. He’d sung the Magic Carpet Song from the Aladdin movie, and his voice had been so sweet—
‘Is there anything I need to do?’ Graham asked.
She put her arms around his waist and leaned her head on his arm so she could see around him—he was a few centimetres taller than her. ‘Just stand still—you can sit if you want—and I’ll take us. You can’t fall off, I have you. Okay?’
He nodded and she slowly lifted the cloud higher.
He clutched her arms where she held him around his waist, gripping her so tight it hurt.
When they were fifty metres above the rooftop, he started to yell. It was a single long sound of terror, then he managed to form it into words.
‘No, no, no, too high, too high, fuck! Take me down, this is too high! Simone, enough!’
She gently carried them back down the rooftop.
‘Down to the ground! Please!’ he said.
She teleported him back to her cubicle without letting go of him. He staggered away from her and fell to sit in one of the chairs.
‘You won’t be sick, will you?’ she asked with concern.
He shook his head, gasping, and bent over his knees. He breathed faster and more heavily: he was having a panic attack. She put her hand on his arm and calmed him just enough to ease his hyperventilation. He settled back in the chair and stared at her.
‘You did something to my mind,’ he said, his eyes wide with shock.
‘I am so sorry,’ she said, still with her hand on his arm. ‘It’s okay. Really. We don’t need to do anything to prove it.’ His eyes were glazed. ‘I’d prefer a normal, ordinary life, hopefully with you. We can forget that this conversation happened and go back to just being us. I won’t do anything like that to you ever again. Okay?’
‘I need a drink,’ he said, then stood and lurched down the corridor to the exit.
She didn’t follow him.
*
‘A nd you haven’t seen him for two days?’ Emma asked from behind her desk in the Peak apartment.
Simone shook her head.
‘Not even a text?’
‘No.’
Simone’s father poked his head into Emma’s office, his long hair falling over his shoulder. ‘I’m taking Frankie for his bath and putting him to bed.’ He saw Simone’s face. ‘Are you okay? Is there anything I can do?’
‘We’re talking about human relationships,’ Emma said.
‘Really not my area of expertise. I’ll leave you to it.’
‘Let me know when to say goodnight to him,’ Emma said.
Xuan Wu nodded, pulled back and softly closed the door behind him.
‘Have you seen Graham around the campus?’ Emma asked Simone.
‘I think he’s avoiding me.’ She leaned her forehead on her hand in the visitor’s chair. ‘He’s terrified of me.’ She wiped her eyes. ‘This is the third one, Emma.’
‘He’s not scared of you, silly Simone,’ Emma said. ‘He’s embarrassed. He probably thinks that you see him as a terrible coward for being afraid of something that he should have enjoyed. Scared of heights? Not Goku after all? He had a panic attack right in front of you! He’s mortified.’
‘Oh,’ Simone said.
‘Write him a letter,’ Emma said. ‘No, send him an email. Tell him it’s fine, it’s okay, and that he’s normal.’
‘And I’m not,’ Simone said. ‘I want to be normal, and I’m not!’
‘No, you’re completely exceptional,’ Emma said. ‘Wait until your father has a chance to tell Graham that you saved the world .’
‘He already did, but I don’t think it went in amongst all the weirdness.’ Simone tilted her head back and stared at the ceiling. ‘I’d rather save this relationship. He’s a total sweetie.’
‘Go to your room, pull out your computer, throw all the words at it and send them to him,’ Emma said. ‘If he comes around, he’s worth it.’
‘And if he doesn’t?’
‘Then he’s not.’
Simone rose to leave, and Emma stopped her.
‘When’s your prospectus presentation? I’d like to go along and cheer for you.’
‘Four more days, Thursday morning.’ Simone leaned on the desk, hesitated, then decided to be frank. ‘Could you not come? No family? I’d like to do this one hundred per cent myself.’
Emma wasn’t fazed. ‘No problem. Do it, succeed, then come home and we’ll have dinner to celebrate. Do you want to invite your uncles and aunts?’
‘No, but dinner with the close family would be great.’
‘Done.’ Emma waved her away. ‘Go. I have a hundred Dark Disciples to induct into the Mountain schedules and your father keeps stealing them, taking them to remote mountaintops, and teaching them esoteric martial arts that they aren’t ready for.’
Simone smiled. ‘He’s the God of Martial Arts, Emma, I think he knows what he’s doing.’
Emma raised both hands. ‘One of the new disciples has been on the Mountain for a week already and still hasn’t provided me with a contact for next of kin!’
‘None of my business,’ Simone said with satisfaction, went out the door and closed it behind her. She re-opened it and poked her head back in. ‘Thanks, Emma.’
‘I love you!’ Emma shouted at the screen.
*
S imone went into the apartment’s training room to think. It was the size of her suite and had modern gymnastic mats covering the polished-wood floor. One of the long walls was mirrored, and a short wall had a collection of her father’s favourite legendary weapons—of all types—hanging on hooks. A stand next to the picture windows held Emma’s weapon, a gorgeous Japanese-style katana called ‘Scales of Wisdom’. The sword had been a wedding gift to Emma from Xuan Wu and was decorated with his Serpent skin wrapped around the handle and pieces of his Turtle shell inlaid into the tsuba , the guard. Emma had presented Xuan Wu with a silver filigree crown that also had skin from her Serpent form inlaid into it. Each had been delighted with their respective wedding gifts, claiming that the essences in the sword and crown would enhance them through the love they shared. Simone thought it was strange and a little creepy for them to carry around pieces of each other’s dead bodies, but respected their relationship enough to keep quiet about it.
Simone was aware that her father and stepmother had a ... creative private life. He was a snake and turtle at the same time, and could take two human forms, male and female. Emma was a Celtic serpent, and capable of taking a big black snake form. They made it very clear, way too often in Simone’s opinion, that they found each other’s reptilian forms intensely attractive, and she didn’t want to know the details. But she did sometimes wonder what it would be like to be with Michael in his Tiger form, and to bury her hands into that soft golden fur ...
She called her swords and they appeared in her hands. They were khopesh-derivative, shaped roughly like sickles, with curved blades that were lethally sharp on both sides and perfect for tearing demons to pieces. The forge on the Celestial Mountain had made them specifically for her in a deep blue that mirrored her own livery, with seven holes through each blade to hold her energy chakras. She had named them Bo and Bei after the only two women who were Heavenly Generals in her father’s Thirty-Six. She smiled as she remembered the generals’ horrified reactions to having Simone’s weapons named after them and how she’d told them to shut up and take the compliment.
She moved into a wide defensive stance and began a top-level Shaolin double-sword set. The movements helped her shift into a meditative trance and allowed the words to flow freely in her imagination as she composed an email, in her head, to Graham. She really wanted to salvage this relationship and hoped that he could learn to deal with her weirdness. She wished she could fill the indentations on her curved short swords with her chakras, but since she’d killed the Demon King, her essence was tainted and she couldn’t use Celestial abilities or enter the Heavens.
Need a sparring partner? her father asked her telepathically.
Always , she said, and he appeared on the other side of the room. His own double-handed Chinese great sword, Seven Stars, appeared in his hands and he lit the indentations in it, filling the room with glowing colours. He changed the sword to a spear and spun it, still glowing, in his hands, then stood on one leg with the other toe on his knee and the spear pointed at the ground in front of him in a classic ‘Monkey King Prepares for Battle’ stance.
‘You keeping your skills sharp?’ he asked.
She crossed her swords above her head in a salute and moved into a defensive stance as well. ‘An hour every day, because high-level demons still occasionally try me out.’
‘Good to hear.’
He moved too fast for the human eye to see and went straight for her face. It wasn’t a feint, so she slid to the side and attempted to take his feet out from under him as he passed. He jumped and span in the air to stab at her abdomen, but she blocked the spear with both blades, then used all her strength to force him down and back. He hit the floor and slid backwards a metre.
‘Nice,’ he said, then swung the spear in his hands in a big swinging blow at her head.
She saw the feint, jumped over the spear as he lowered it to target her feet, used her left blade to guide the spear in the direction it was already going, and stabbed him in the side with her right, slicing right through him so that point of the blade came out in the middle of his back.
The look of astonishment on his face was matched by her own horror at what she’d done. She dropped both blades, but Bei was still lodged in his abdomen. His face was pale with shock, and he dropped the spear, then fell like a dead tree onto his back.
‘Daddy!’ She ran to him and knelt next to him. She took his hand in hers. ‘I am so sorry. What were you thinking? You let me stab you!’
He raised his hand as he gasped. ‘Minute. Take the sword out.’
She studied him desperately. Removing the sword would hurt like anything. ‘Do you need me to block the pain for you? Do you need Emma to help?’
He smiled through the agony. ‘Don’t tell Emma, she’ll never let me hear the end of it! Just take the sword out. I have it, the pain’s under control.’
She winced, took the handle of Bei and wrenched it out of him. The wound was huge and horrendous, and blood fountained from it.
‘Ugh. What a mess. Minute,’ he said, and changed.
He transformed into his True Form, the Turtle and Serpent. He was so large that his shell pushed her back; his smallest form was a good three metres long and he filled the room. The Serpent writhed around the Turtle’s shell, with its head above the Turtle’s.
‘Much better,’ they said with male and female voices in unison, before changing back to her father’s normal human form. He fell to sit on the mat and put his head on his knees. ‘Wah, lost some blood. Give me a minute.’
She knelt next to him, carefully avoiding the puddle of blood they’d made on the mats. ‘Why did you let me do that? That must have hurt like anything! What were you trying to teach me—’
He raised his hand to stop her speaking and took a deep breath. ‘Simone. It wasn’t intentional.’
She stopped. ‘What?’
He grabbed her in a fierce embrace, then kissed her on the cheek. ‘You bested me! Finally. Someone who can take me down.’ He pulled back, his eyes glistening with tears, and hugged her fiercely again. ‘I am so damn proud of you. I must tell Emma. This is ...’ He shook his head. ‘Magnificent.’
‘I’m better than you?’ she asked weakly. ‘That’s not possible, Dad, you’re the freaking God of Martial Arts .’
‘You aren’t better than me,’ he said. ‘But you are close to my equal, and I underestimated you. I was careless and paid the price.’ He lowered his voice. ‘ Finally . Someone who can take me down if I turn.’ He took both her hands and shook them. ‘Thank you.’
‘What?’ she asked, aghast. ‘What do you mean, take you down if you turn?’
‘There is always a small chance that I will return to what I was,’ he said. ‘The Bodhisattva Kwan Yin has helped me, but that demon is still there, inside me, and it is immensely powerful. Now I know: the Heavens are safe. You and Emma, working together, are more than capable of destroying me if I turn.’ He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. ‘The Heavens are safe .’
‘I could never do that.’
‘I will do my very best to ensure that you never have to.’ He rose and put his hand out to help her up. ‘I owe you a cup of my best tea. The Tiger gave us these mats and will make my life hell about getting blood on them again. And Emma will want to take my head off for putting you through that.’