18
S imone took a few gasping breaths, then summoned her swords, ignoring the pain in her left arm, and took her biggest Celestial Form, robe and armour and stars and everything. A few people in the lobby of the hotel made loud sounds of wonder. She ignored them. She went into the restaurant and floated up to the underside of the glass roof. She summoned a circle of Yin—she wasn’t so out of control that she would drop glass on the diners—to make a hole in the roof, then shot straight up, probably leaving a blowback that knocked tables over. She didn’t care as she screamed towards the East, her heart breaking at the fulfilment of her premonition—that she’d return alone. She arrived at the edge of the Eastern region and headed to the Asian Heavens.
She landed on the island that held the Celestial Palace, and the massive doors opened for her to reveal the main square. The area was the size of a football field with an ornamental stream that passed through it, traversed by three marble bridges. The square was occupied by a number of Celestials gathered to talk or walk in the afternoon breeze, and some phoenixes and dragons tumbled in the crystalline blue sky above her. The golden tiles on the roofs of the Celestial Palace buildings shone in the sun, but she didn’t really see them.
The Primal Yin, her father’s essential element, spiralled around her hands and her long golden hair, and she smiled with grim satisfaction at the level of control she had over it, after so many years of being unable to touch it. Her robes were the full Celestial version, not just deep blue with printed stars but appearing to be a portal into the night sky itself, glittering with brilliant constellations. Her hair floated around her, long enough to touch the ground but floating above it, and she knew that her eyes were huge and black and shimmering.
The Jade Emperor was holding court in the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the largest hall facing onto the square, so she teleported as far as she could before she was blocked by Palace security. She landed at the top of the marble ramp that led to its doors.
The Door Gods, each three metres tall and bearded, saw the swords in her hands and moved to stop her. One was black-skinned, one was red, and they held their halberds diagonally in front of them, then planted themselves side-by-side in front of the doors.
‘Princess, we’ve been ordered—’ General Wei began, but she didn’t give either of them time to finish it. She swept her swords in a spinning attack that cut both of them into three pieces, at a speed that would have her father smiling tightly with satisfaction. From the looks on the Door Gods’ faces as they disappeared, they hadn’t seen the attack at all.
She returned her swords to her back, pulled one of the doors open, and walked onto the golden carpet that ran from the door to the raised dais containing the throne. The usual large crowd of Celestial residents, in all forms, were standing in neat rows on either side of the carpeted aisle to watch as the emperor handed down his proclamations. She drew her swords again as she stalked towards the dais, and the room went completely still.
She stopped halfway to the throne with her robes floating around her and ribbons of Yin winding through her golden hair. The Jade Emperor was sitting on the throne in full Imperial regalia, complete with ridiculous beaded hat, with Er Lang standing as second behind him. She wanted the emperor to burst into flames where he sat.
‘You knew,’ she said, her voice tight with fury. ‘You knew where he would end up.’
‘Stand down, Princess,’ Er Lang said.
‘Clear the hall,’ the Jade Emperor said.
‘No!’ Simone shouted and turned on the spot to see the crowd standing on either side of the carpet. ‘Stay right here, all of you, and hear this!’ She swung back and pointed the tip of her sword at the Jade Emperor, quivering with fury. ‘Michael MacLaren is stuck on a throne in the European Heavens, absorbed by it. He’s completely alone, he’s lost his wife, his child, his individuality and his free will and you did it to him .’
She continued up the carpet but Er Lang appeared in front her with his hands palm down as if he was calming an enraged animal. ‘Simone, please,’ he said. ‘You don’t want to do—’
She went for his head with sweeping strokes from both swords, but he summoned his halberd in time to block her. The swords hit the carbon-fibre clad aluminium shaft of the halberd with a blow that rang through the hall, making the clerestory windows above them rattle.
‘Simone, please,’ Er Lang said through gritted teeth as he tried to hold her off. His feet slid on the carpet from the force of her push.
‘No,’ she said, unlocked her blades, and made three quick cuts that bypassed his guard completely and split him into four astonished pieces before he knew what was happening.
The Er Lang pieces disappeared, leaving blood stains on the carpet.
Er Lang’s dog, who looked like a big black Doberman, raced down the stairs and stood in front of Simone to glare at her, and she glared back. She waved the point of her sword, Bei, in the dog’s face, and he lowered his head, tucked his tail between his legs, and backed away.
Simone spun to face the Jade Emperor, who was standing in front of his throne with one hand on the arm as if to hold himself up. His face was ashen, and he looked very old.
As she continued towards him, she placed the ends of the hilts of her swords together to join them and transformed them into a halberd with the chakra indentations along its length and onto the broadsword blade at its end. She loaded her energy centres into the blade—the first time she’d been able to do this since being filled with demon essence—and revelled in the brilliance of the light.
She spun the halberd in one hand and pointed the tip of the blade at the Jade Emperor as she strode up the stairs. ‘He is stuck there—for who knows how long—mourning his wife, without his child, and you—’ She took a breath and shouted it. ‘—Knew!’
The was a long, ringing silence as he gazed at her, his expression unreadable, then he said, ‘I only know what happens inside my region. I didn’t know—’
‘You knew he wouldn’t return!’
She ran the blade of the halberd straight through the middle of his chest. He looked down at it with shock, then up at her, gurgled an attempt at words and disappeared.
The silence deepened, then there was a rustle and a thump as everyone in the hall fell to their knees and kowtowed to Simone. ‘Ten thousand years.’
She turned to see the neat rows of them prostrate before her. ‘Yeah, to Hell with that.’ She raised her voice. ‘I abdicate the throne. The Qilin Jade Emperor is restored.’
The Jade Emperor reappeared behind her, standing in front of the throne. ‘I knew that if he took the Throne, he would—’
She spun to see him. ‘How? How did you know that? How did you know about the Throne?’ She moved closer to glare into his eyes. ‘Did you arrange this with Semias?’
‘Not as such, but—’
‘Don’t lie to me!’ she shouted, spun and cut him in half at chest height.
The pieces made a few wheezing noises and disappeared.
‘I abdicate the throne. The Qilin Jade Emperor is restored,’ Simone said.
The Jade Emperor reappeared, looking even more exhausted. He stood silently, waiting for her.
‘Stop taking everyone I love away from me!’ she shouted into his face and shoved the blade straight into his throat. He disappeared again.
The heat of her anger finally eased. She placed the butt of the halberd on the floor and sagged against it. She struggled to say the words through the choking misery. ‘I abdicate the throne. The Qilin Jade Emperor is restored.’
The Jade Emperor reappeared, leaned on the arm of the throne and fell to sit. He put his forehead in his hand but didn’t speak.
She wanted to kill him again but didn’t have the energy. Her throat closed up, and she fell to her knees to release huge, gasping, wet, horrible sobs of grief and pain. ‘He’s all. Alone. Suffering. Trapped. Enslaved. It’s ...’ She put her hand on her chest where it felt like the halberd was in it. ‘Made him into something that’s not who he is, and ...’ She glared up at the Jade Emperor and pointed one shaking finger at him. ‘ You did this to him !’
‘I know,’ the Jade Emperor said softly, with infinite sadness. He waved one hand. ‘Clear the hall, and I will tell you the truth.’
There were mumbles and rustles as the crowd departed. Simone didn’t move from her spot kneeling on the floor, gasping with heaving sobs she had no control over—she felt completely drained, and couldn’t move at all. The Jade Emperor gazed down at her from the throne.
‘Yes. I arranged it with Semias. I was in contact with their Shen two thousand years ago, before they stupidly destroyed themselves and returned their spirits to the Earth. I knew about the Throne. Michael was the best choice to take it, second only to you. You would have been a preferable ruler, but your demon nature precluded that.’
‘The demon nature is gone. Let me go back and replace him!’
‘No. Your place is here, and his is there. Take time to recover and retrieve your stepmother. Return here when you have rescued the Dark Empress, and I will share the whole plan with you.’
‘Simone,’ Xuan Wu said from behind her.
‘Daddy!’ She dropped the halberd with a clatter, turned and ran to him. He enfolded her in an embrace that made the rest of the world go away, and she completely lost control, wailing into his shoulder.
*
S imone was aware of movement and being pushed to sit, but it was all a long way away. When she came out of her blur of grief, she was in her father’s small residence in the Celestial Palace, sitting on a ceramic stool at an outdoor ceramic table in the courtyard, with a cup of tea in front of her. She took a sip, then a larger gulp. She grabbed a few tissues from the box on the table to blow her nose, then wiped her eyes. She felt like she’d been punched in the face and her throat was raw from crying.
Her father sat on the other side of the table, glowering down at his own tea.
‘How long will Michael be stuck like that?’ Simone asked him. ‘Does the JE know?’
‘At least a hundred years,’ Xuan Wu said.
Simone slammed her teacup onto the ceramic table, shattering the cup, then stood and stormed around the courtyard, over the lawn and past the small pond and waterfall that stood at one side. Her father sat quietly and waited for her.
She went back and stood next to the table. ‘Michael said that the Throne wants people of European heritage to repopulate?’
Xuan Wu nodded. ‘But Michael himself is stuck there until all of the demons are gone—and that will take some time and effort.’
‘At least a hundred years.’
He nodded again.
She strode backwards and forwards across the courtyard again.
‘We can send someone to take his place,’ she said as she paced. ‘I’ll do it. The JE said I’d be better at it.’
‘Michael has contacted the Asian Region,’ Xuan Wu said. ‘We made him that offer. He said no, that he’s the most suited for the position and asks for your understanding.’
She stopped and waved her arms with frustration. ‘My understanding!’ she shouted. ‘Oh, I understand, all right. That idiot is punishing himself for losing Clarissa. I will kill him.’
‘Let’s go home,’ he said. ‘Frankie’s been worried sick about you. And now that you’re back and the mission was a success, we can free Emma from her cell in Hell.’
‘That was not a success, that was a sacrificial execution,’ she growled. ‘The Jade Emperor tied a willing martyr to a stake and burned him alive.’
‘I know.’ He rose. ‘Come on.’
They landed on her father’s heavenly martial arts academy, Wudang Mountain, in the front yard of the family manor, a double-storey, courtyard-styled house with its back flush against the stone spine of the tallest peak.
She followed him into the entry, then through the courtyard to the living room on the right. Frankie was sitting with both demon servants, Smally and Er Hao, on the floor between the rosewood couches and the coffee table, with a mountain of toys. When he heard them, he dropped his toy car, spun and ran to Simone, hitting her hard. He buried his face in her stomach.
‘You were gone for so long ,’ he said into her. ‘Don’t go away again, please?’
‘It was only a couple of days,’ she said to the top of his head.
He scowled up at her. ‘You were gone for a lot of days.’
‘You were up there for two weeks,’ Xuan Wu said.
Simone straightened, still holding Frankie. ‘Wait? Two weeks? It was only a couple of days...’ Her voice trailed off. ‘Time flows differently there.’ Realisation flooded through her. ‘He’ll miss most of his daughter’s growing years!’
‘It’s a symptom of not having enough Shen residing there to control the Heavens.’
Simone squeezed Frankie. ‘Did you notice that I can come up here now?’
He pulled back and his mouth fell open. Then he grabbed her and clutched her again. ‘Finally,’ he said, his voice full of tears. ‘You can come and help us at Nanna’s! We can get Mum out and have Christmas !’
‘We can,’ Simone said, and Christmas suddenly seemed like something to look forward to—delayed or not.
‘The Tiger is here and requests an update on what happened to his son,’ Xuan Wu said. ‘I can tell him to do it later ...’
‘No, let me talk to him,’ Simone said. ‘All my stuff is still at his hotel in Paris—’
‘Kimberly packed it for you, here it is,’ the Tiger said from the courtyard, and pushed her suitcase towards her. ‘Don’t worry, I didn’t touch anything.’
‘Good,’ Simone said, and gestured towards the couches. ‘I’ll tell you what happened.’ She turned to her father. ‘Clear the paperwork with Court Ten to get Emma out. We’re done, she’s in no danger, and he probably made it a month because he knew it would be two weeks and he doubled the time to ensure her safety.’
Xuan Wu nodded. ‘You okay?’
She sighed with feeling and wiped the tears that had started again. ‘I’m Immortal,’ she said through them. ‘Of course I am.’
Frankie was still holding her hand and shook it. ‘Talk to Doctor Au if you need to. She can help if you’re sad about Michael.’
‘No,’ Simone said. ‘The person I really need to talk to ... is Emma. Go and do her paperwork, Daddy, and we can be a family here on the Mountain and have Christmas at Nan and Pop’s.’
Xuan Wu smiled. ‘That is the best idea ever.’