19
W hile they waited for their father to return, Frankie made a spaceship out of Lego with Smally and Simone found some fruit and a lemon tea in the kitchen, then sat on the couch and checked the news on her phone. She was relieved to see that the war in Europe had abated, with the invading armies retreating for no apparent reason. Her mission with Michael had been a success, even if it felt like she’d lost part of her soul. She logged into her email account and there were a massive number of emails from Tokyo U, but not a single one asking her why she’d been MIA for two weeks. Maybe there was something to be said for using Celestial connections like this.
No messages from Graham. It would take her a long time to meet someone as smart, sweet and ... just overall kind as him. The tears sprang in her eyes, and she swiped her hand over her face as she heard her father returning.
Their father entered the living room in the full Celestial regalia of his administrative kit—flowing black robes without armour embossed in silver with the characters for ‘North’ and ‘Heaven’—‘Bei’ and ‘Tian’—as well as a few ‘Xuan’ among them. His belt had a ba gua symbol for the buckle, and a turtle-shell pattern along its length, again in silver. The front of his long hair was tied in a topknot and held back by the deco-styled twining platinum diadem that Emma had given him for a wedding gift, which stretched from his temples and across his forehead to enhance his Inner Eye.
He raised a dun-coloured scroll bound with a red ribbon. ‘I have Emma’s release document. You two stay here. Simone, please mind your brother while I—’
‘No way, Dad,’ Simone said. ‘We’re coming with you.’
‘I want to see my mum!’ Frankie shouted.
‘This is not the place for a child ...’
‘Dad!’ Simone said, exasperated. ‘He grew up there! He knows all about it! And ...’ She touched the top of Frankie’s head. ‘He’s not much younger than I was when I went down there to get her.’
‘You’re not allowed in Hell, either of you, you promised—’
‘The Celestial side of Hell is part of the Celestial. I’m Immortal, so I’ll go there if I’m ...’ She didn’t finish it, not wanting to scare Frankie.
Their father sighed with defeat. ‘I’ve already lost this argument, haven’t I?’
‘Yes!’ Simone and Frankie said in unison. Simone took Frankie’s hand. ‘Ready?’
‘You betcha!’ Frankie said. His expression faltered. ‘Is there anything I shouldn’t say? Or not do? I want to make sure we get her out.’
‘Let us do the talking, stand at the back and look like a mad little brat who wants to burn the place to the ground,’ Simone said.
Frankie lowered his head and glowered from under his brows.
‘Just like that.’
‘You two are impossible,’ their father said with a smile. ‘Let’s go.’
Xuan Wu stepped forward and held his hand out, but Simone waved her father away and teleported herself and her little brother to Hell.
They arrived on the wide green lawn with perpetually flowering pink peach trees at the edge of the opaque, black lake that separated the Celestial from the Demonic sides of Hell. The sky was a universal warm light with no sun above the Celestial side of Hell, which was a circular island at the centre of the lake. Causeways like spokes of a wheel led out from the island to the Ten Levels of Hell where the demons tortured the souls who were sentenced by the Courts of Hell for crimes committed during their lives, then fed the Soup of Forgetfulness and reattached the Wheel of Life.
Court Ten was presided over by Judge Pao the Uncorruptible, the most senior judge in the courts and a stickler for procedure. It was where all Immortals landed after they died—skipping the other nine levels where Mortals were judged—and it was the largest and most important courtroom because Mortals who had attained Immortality were also judged there, and Pao had the power to confirm their status and send them on to reside on the Celestial Plane.
The building itself was in an ancient style of a two-storey courtyard building with red pillars holding up the traditional pitched roof and decorative red lattices over the windows. A pair of huge, red-scaled tame demons guarded the entrance, and they fell to one knee as Simone’s family approached.
‘Ten thousand years,’ they said.
Simone’s father said, ‘Rise,’ and the demons stood and waited expectantly to obey him.
‘Cool,’ Frankie whispered.
‘It’s a pain in the neck after a while,’ Simone said. ‘You can’t talk to someone because they have to do this stupid years thing.’
‘Precisely,’ Xuan Wu said. He grew from normal human size to his biggest Celestial Form, and Simone smiled at Frankie and took her own.
She grew in height to match her father, and her hair spread around her to float in a breeze that kept it from touching the ground. The scales were gone, and the skin of her hands was pale and glowing. Her robes shifted to the firmament of the night sky, with twinkling stars within them.
Frankie’s eyes widened and his mouth fell open. ‘What? This is?’ He leaned in to speak softly to her. ‘You look like a magic princess . Where did the scales go?’
‘This is the Celestial me,’ Simone whispered back. ‘I like it more.’
‘I like the snake one too, can you still do it?’
She shifted quickly to her demon form, then back to Celestial. ‘Sure.’
He nodded. ‘Nice.’ He turned to face Court Ten. ‘I need one too.’
‘Call your robes. They’ll come.’
Frankie raised his head and concentrated, and his new robes wafted into being around him. He’d chosen the style himself at the Celestial tailors, and they had three layers—a fine black silk under-robe, a heavier black silk robe over the top with a silver-embossed belt and decorative ribbons along the collar and cuffs embroidered with the character for North, and a final, gauzy black over-robe that floated over the other two. He looked like a little Chinese Prince, and Simone smiled. His sword, the Murasame, appeared on his back, held in place by its telescoping strap, and he touched the strap where it crossed his chest.
‘Anyone tries to keep our mum from us, Muri says it will help convince them.’ He glanced up at Simone and Xuan Wu. ‘I want to be bigger.’
Their father had been watching them with quiet delight. He hooked his thumbs in his belt. ‘You need to get bigger before you can be bigger. Do some growing—and a lot of training—and you’ll be as magical as Simone is.’
‘As soon as we’re home, I’m doing a lot of sword,’ Frankie said.
The Murasame spoke in a voice that grated like metal. ‘Good.’
Xuan Wu moved between Frankie and Simone, put a hand on his daughter’s shoulder, took Frankie’s hand, and nodded. ‘Let’s find our Emma.’
‘Yeah,’ Frankie said softly with resolve.
The three of them walked up to the entrance to Court Ten and the demons opened the doors for them. The courtroom occupied the ground floor, with stairs behind a screen leading to Pao’s residence on the floor above. The floor was simple slate tiles, and there were three rows of benches on either side for spectators, all empty. Demon guards, similar to those at the door, stood wearing armour and carrying halberds at the end of the room on either side of Judge Pao. Pao himself was sitting behind his desk on a raised dais, and Emma was in her prison whites, kneeling on the floor.
Frankie ran to her, and she turned and smiled when she saw them. Her face crumpled and she wailed softly, bent with misery and hugging herself, then exploded into streams of demon essence.
Frankie stopped dead in the middle of the courtroom. He looked from where Emma had exploded to Pao, then shouted, ‘ Where’s my mother ?’
‘That was a demon copy!’ Xuan Wu shouted, nearly as loudly. ‘Where is my wife?’
Pao sat grimly on the dais without responding.
‘Holy shit, you don’t know ?’ Simone shouted.
Pao again didn’t respond.
Xuan Wu stormed up to the dais and stood below it to glare at Pao. ‘Who took her?’
Realisation hit Simone in a bolt of horror. ‘She isn’t in European Hell, is she? She didn’t rush over there to find me?’ She jumped onto the dais to stand over Pao’s desk and leaned into his dark-skinned face, toppling his ink-brush stand and splashing ink all over the sentencing scroll. ‘Confirm that she wasn’t taken to Europe!’ Frankie jumped up to join her, eyeing Pao over the edge of the desk
‘She was taken from her cell in the Sixth Level of Hell by one of five senior Asian demons,’ Pao said, not looking her in the eye. ‘The Celestial confirms that she is not in the European —’
Xuan Wu stomped up the stairs to the dais and stood next to Simone and Frankie, quivering with fury. His voice resonated as the room went cold. ‘The Jade Emperor knew she had been taken?’
‘We have to get her out!’ Frankie said. ‘They’ll hurt her!’
‘No, don’t worry,’ Simone said, putting her hand on his shoulder. ‘She’s too powerful to be held like that, she would have gone along with them to see what they’re up to.’ She glared at Pao. ‘Did she leave any clues behind in her cell as to which demon it was? Come on! She’s a freaking genius and would have left something behind for us ...’
‘She was here in snake form, Simone, she had no hands,’ Xuan Wu said softly.
‘Let’s go check her cell anyway,’ Frankie said.
‘Give me the list of five demons,’ Xuan Wu said, and Pao handed him a scroll. ‘Number One, eh? She’d be thrilled to bits if Edu—’
Frankie made a loud, wordless sound of terror and stepped back.
‘You can go home, Frankie, this might be—’ Simone began.
‘Not without my mum!’ Frankie shouted. ‘Promise or not, we’re finding her! Edu. Who else? I bet Four’s on that list, and the new Twelve, and Eight and Nine probably working together because those two were mean .’
Xuan Wu glanced at the scroll. ‘You are absolutely correct.’
Frankie disappeared.
‘He is too young to be doing that,’ Pao said.
‘I want a full report on everything that happened in the level of Hell where she was incarcerated, and I will return to collect it when I have found my wife.’
Pao hesitated, then said, ‘Good luck, my Lord.’
‘Come with me, Simone,’ Xuan Wu said, and stormed out of the courtroom. Simone followed him across the lawn towards the lake that separated the Celestial from the Demonic sides of Hell, where they encountered Frankie striding backwards and forwards with fury at the end of the causeway to Level Six, the Hell of Poisonous Snakes.
Frankie turned and waved his arms at them. ‘It won’t let me go across!’
‘Stay here, I’ll look for her,’ Xuan Wu said, and touched his crown. ‘This is connected to her, it has her snakeskin on it. It will give me a good idea of where she is.’
‘What—that sword and crown with the bits of you and her in them aren’t creepy and weird? They’re to find each other?’ Simone asked, aghast.
‘You thought they were creepy and weird?’ Xuan Wu asked, even more aghast.
‘I thought it was some bizarre Julia Roberts–Billy Bob Thornton—’
Xuan Wu now looked thoroughly confused, and Simone plunged on.
‘Blood necklace bull ... dust, I’ll explain it later,’ she said. ‘I didn’t realise that you always wanted the ability to find each other—’
‘Wherever we are,’ he finished with her. ‘My shell, her scales—as we are senior Celestials, these things are imbued with immense power.’ He waved them away. ‘Move back. I’m about to use a great deal of that power.’
Simone took Frankie by the shoulder and pulled him back from the lake. Xuan Wu lowered his head, spread his hands palm-down, and rose gently on a wave of dark energy.
‘Wah,’ Frankie said softly.
Xuan Wu floated out over the surface of the lake, and the water rippled in circles below him. His energy thrummed across the surface of the water, then he summoned Yin around his head in a halo of darkness that formed a vortex in front of his Inner Eye. The water bounced in circular waves beneath his feet, then lifted into orbs the size of basketballs, which spun around him. The dark energy twined in ribbons around the water spheres and his hair writhed with a life of its own as his face was set in concentration. Emma’s Serpent skin inlaid on the crown began to glow and formed threads of light that twisted with Xuan Wu’s dark energy.
‘I want to do that one day,’ Frankie whispered with awe.
‘He used to scare me to death,’ Simone said with grim humour.
‘Why? That’s the best part of him being who he is.’
The Yin stopped moving completely and the spheres of water froze, then fell into the water, sending a wave of spray towards Simone and Frankie, who both raised their hands to stop it from reaching them. The crown re-absorbed the Emma light, and Xuan Wu released the Yin and pulled it back into himself. He glided back, landed softly on the grass in front of them, and smiled. ‘Definitely not Europe. She’s to the south-east. Since we’re in the middle of China, at first I thought Hong Kong, but it’s further than that, but not as far as the Philippines.’
‘Taiwan,’ Simone said in unison with him.
‘I know you don’t want a part of it anymore, but you should be aware that the top levels of the demonic administration appear to be under siege from the new hybrids created by the previous Demon King,’ Xuan Wu said. ‘Let’s head over to Yanluo Wang’s office, obtain permission from the King for you two to enter their side of Hell, and get our Emma back.’
‘Will the King let us in?’ Simone asked. ‘He’s scared to death of us.’
‘He’d better,’ Frankie growled.
‘Yanluo Wang has a direct line to the other side,’ Xuan Wu said. ‘This way.’
*
Y anluo Wang was Lord of the Dead and chief administrator of the Celestial court system in Hell. He ran it from a three-storey brutalist concrete building in the middle of the main Celestial Island, on a wide spreading lawn under the sunless warm light. They flew to the building, and he was waiting for them at the entrance. Yanluo Wang wore red Tang-style robes with the character for ‘death’ embroidered in black over them, and a traditional square hat with long extensions on the sides.
‘Xuan Tian Shang Di, ten thousand years,’ he said to Xuan Wu, saluting him. ‘Come and talk to this asshole, then get him out of my face. That last Demon King was duplicitous as hell, but at least he was polite. This one insists on being “modern” and doesn’t even salute and address me. He wants to shake my damn hand! Oh.’ He saw Simone and Frankie. ‘Welcome home, Princess. You sent the Jade Emperor down here three times in quick succession, and I’ve never seen Pao so damn happy in my entire life.’ He opened the door for them. ‘Come on in, they’re in conference room one.’
They passed through modern beige cubicles with officials wearing Tang-styled robes working on computers, and through to the conference room which was also beige with carpet tiles and a pine, rectangular conference table big enough to seat twelve. A whiteboard at the end had a projector showing a view of somewhere in Europe that Simone didn’t recognise but appeared to be a Roman ruin. The Demon King, in a maroon silk suit, was already sitting at the table, accompanied by a pair of Snake Mothers in human form who both appeared to be gorgeous young Chinese women in traditional blood-red cheongsams standing behind him.
Xuan Wu bowed and saluted the King. ‘Mo Wang.’
The King stood and saluted Xuan Wu back. ‘Xuan Tian. Good, you’re here.’ He waved across the table at them and sat himself. ‘Sit, sit. Let’s be modern about this, and it won’t take long.’ He steepled his fingers as Xuan Wu, Simone and Frankie sat across from him. Yanluo Wang nodded to them and closed the door as he went out.
‘When my father was in charge, he played so many games, leading you all around the place, purely to plant that Black Jade stone thing into your household. I’m not playing games.’ The Demon King placed a late model mobile phone onto the table. ‘Twelve’s an idiot, and kidnapped Emma to ask for her aid to take down the European hybrid-demon running the campaign against me so that he can make an attempt at my throne himself.’ He stopped and studied them. ‘You know who that one is?’
‘I do,’ Simone said. She glanced at her father, and he nodded.
‘Good. I’m dealing with it. Twelve has taken Emma to his Nest, so pop down there, destroy Twelve, and bring her out.’ He pushed the mobile phone across the table to them. ‘This has his location in the maps app. Twelve knows better than to hold Emma in my dominion in Hell—I’d give her back to you immediately—so he’s holding her in one of his Nests on the Earthly. Go and destroy Twelve, release your Empress, done deal.’
‘What should we expect there?’ Xuan Wu asked, taking the phone and passing it to Simone. She opened the maps app and noted the location on the southeast coast of the island of Taiwan.
‘He’s amassed a high-end Nest of Mothers, but it’s nothing that the three of you can’t take down. Good practice for the kids.’ He smiled tightly around at them. ‘It’s possible that Edu’s there as well, Twelve was stupid enough to believe her when Edu said she would help him.’
‘Do you want Edu alive?’ Simone asked.
‘I think the answer to that is completely obvious from what I’ve done here,’ the King said. ‘And if you could do me a favour, and rid me of that piece-of-shit Rhonda as well—’
‘Mind your tongue in front of the children,’ Xuan Wu said.
The King shook his hands over the table at them in a casual salute, and the Mothers scowled. ‘Forgive me, that was inappropriate in front of the dear child.’ He placed his hands on the table and smiled. ‘Rhonda and Edu are in the thick of some high-level infighting, and if you could take them out for me, I’d be in your debt.’ His smile turned vicious. ‘And I mean that in its fullest sense. I would owe you one, Turtle.’ He rose and the Mothers moved behind him. They all saluted around the table, and Xuan Wu saluted back. ‘Have fun.’ They disappeared.
*
‘R honda?’ Xuan Wu asked Simone quietly as they headed down the stairs to leave Yanluo Wang’s office. ‘Michael’s mother?’
‘A Rhonda copy was running everything in Europe,’ Simone said. ‘Looks like the old King made multiple copies of Michael’s mother. He knew she was one of the Celtic Serpent people.’
‘They are in the European Heavens as well?’ he asked. ‘Michael didn’t have to face one, did he?’
She shook her head. ‘He had to face a copy of me .’
‘So there are multiple copies running around. We need to inform the rest of the Celestial.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘We seriously need a thorough debrief on this, and the JE needs to share what he knows. If there’s a Rhonda copy here as well, working with Edu—’
Frankie made another small sound in his throat.
‘We’re here, she can’t hurt you,’ Simone said, putting her hand on Frankie’s shoulder.
He nodded and wiped one eye.
‘So it’s possible there’s more than one Rhonda copy,’ Simone said. She checked the phone again. ‘Let’s go see what this Nest looks like.’ She glanced down at Frankie. ‘You can stay here if—’
‘Not happening,’ Frankie said, sounding much older than his five years. He lifted off the ground. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Nice control,’ Xuan Wu said, rising next to him. ‘No teleporting, though, you’re too little and you’re lucky you didn’t hurt yourself when you did it before. Hand?’
Frankie put his hand out, Xuan Wu took it, and they teleported out of Hell. Simone followed them.
*
S imone had no difficulty flying as fast as her father as he carried Frankie, and they broke the sound barrier over the ocean. Frankie squealed with delight as they screamed through the thin atmosphere, and then went quiet and serious when they followed the coast of Taiwan south. That part of the island wasn’t densely populated, having only small villages clinging to the cliffs that overlooked the water, and most of the landscape was dense with scrub. A few market gardens and rickety farmhouses appeared along the winding road skirting the coast, and there was the occasional inn overlooking the grey-brown rock-strewn beach.
‘Here,’ Simone said. Xuan Wu lowered Frankie, still holding his hand, and they hovered over the location.
It was a small, white, four-storey hotel, with balconies overlooking the ocean beneath the cliffs. There appeared to be twenty rooms, and a larger administrative and conference area to one side. A generous infinity pool sat between the building and the cliffs, and the general air was of restrained indulgence. The facility had a gravel-paved car park next to it, which had enough space for ten cars, but held only three high-end luxury sedans.
Xuan Wu concentrated, and a small spiral of Yin appeared in front of his crown.
‘There’s a vast chamber beneath the hotel,’ he said. ‘Nest cavern.’
‘Mummy?’ Frankie asked.
‘I cannot sense her.’ He turned and knelt on the air to speak to Frankie. ‘Remember, your mother is Immortal. If she is killed, she is taken to Court Ten—’ He stopped speaking and his head shot up. ‘Her stone just spoke to me.’
‘What did it say?’ Simone asked.
‘To collect it, because she left it behind.’ Xuan Wu rose. ‘Stay here, I do not want you to see this.’
‘I’m coming—’ Frankie shouted.
Xuan Wu shook his head. ‘The stone says you should not see what happened to Emma.’
‘But—’ Frankie began.
Simone took Frankie’s hand. ‘They’re right. Wait for Dad. It might be messy.’
‘Find my mum,’ Frankie said.
‘I will.’ Xuan Wu spoke silently to Simone. I have had this talk with him, but he may ask you questions that have difficult answers.
He drifted down and made himself invisible.
The birds and bees talk? Simone asked.
No, that one was easy after what he saw in Hell. I mean—the difference between Mortal and Immortal, and why for some, death is permanent. Clarissa’s death affected him greatly and he railed for some time about the unfairness of it. Here she is.
‘He found her,’ Simone said. ‘It sounds like she left ...’ Her voice trailed off, and she didn’t say, ‘Her body behind.’
‘What about the demons? What about Twelve?’
Twelve? Simone asked her father.
No sign. Probably eaten. Don’t let Frankie down, Emma left her Serpent body behind, and it looks like they shot her in the head at close range with a large calibre weapon. I’m collecting her crown, and her stone is awake and helping.
Hello, Princess , the stone that lived in Emma’s engagement ring said.
Simone smiled. It had been a while since she’d heard the stone’s affected English accent. Hey there, stone.
She left me behind! She’s really not big enough to take the body yet? I’m disappointed in her training and she needs to work harder.
As soon as she’s out of the cells in Court Ten and back online she’ll call for you, so she must be ... It felt strange using the term. Newly dead.
Yes, it just happened. If you’d been half-an-hour earlier, you would have caught them.
Tell me everything that happened while my father looks around.
‘This is taking too long, I want my mum,’ Frankie said, and disappeared.
Dad, Frankie just teleported again!
He really needs to stop doing that, he will hurt— Xuan Wu started, and Simone jumped when Frankie screamed above the building, a wailing sound of terror that sounded like he was falling. There was a splash and the scream cut off—he’d fallen into the pool.
She raced down towards the sound to find Frankie lying in the water at the edge of the pool with a spreading blossom of blood around him. Her father appeared next to her, and lifted Frankie’s sodden body out of the water. Frankie screamed again with the movement, and Xuan Wu put his hand on Frankie’s forehead. Frankie went limp, unconscious, and Xuan Wu gently laid him on the slate edge of the pool.
‘Both legs broken, internal injuries, he hit the concrete hard,’ Xuan Wu said, holding one hand over Frankie’s torso. He glanced up at Simone. ‘Move back.’
Simone flew back as her father changed into his True Form. He was a massive Turtle with a black, spiked shell, surrounded by a Serpent that twined around its body and disappeared into it. The Serpent separated from the Turtle and held its nose over Frankie, and Simone felt the healing energy coming from it—ice-cold, like the nature of her father. The energy coiled around Frankie and his little body went rigid, then relaxed. The water in his clothes changed to ice, then melted and disappeared, leaving him dry.
‘Healed,’ the Serpent said in its warm female voice. ‘Come here, Simone, let me look at that arm.’
Simone held her left arm out for it and hissed as the freezing energy hit the newly broken bone there. The energy retreated, and the Serpent nodded with satisfaction. ‘It didn’t need much, whoever set it for you did a good job.’
‘Michael and Semias,’ Simone said, swinging her arm and nodding when there was no twinge of pain. The break was completely healed. She went to Frankie, knelt next to him, and put her hand on his forehead.
The Serpent re-joined the Turtle and changed back to her father’s human form. ‘Take him home while I check through—’
‘No,’ Simone said. ‘Emma’s dead, so she’s in Court Ten. Take him there to collect her, because he’s feeling abandoned and it’s important that he sees she’s okay.’ She looked up at him. ‘It needs to be you, to reassure him that he can trust you.’ She stood and summoned her swords. ‘I’ll have a look around, kill some demons, usual stuff.’
‘You said you didn’t want to do this anymore,’ he said. ‘I can send a senior lieutenant from the Mountain or the Thirty-Five, you don’t have to do it.’
‘I want to find the demons who were stupid enough to kidnap our Emma,’ Simone said with menace. ‘And make sure that it never happens again.’
He slipped his hand into the side of his robe and pulled Emma’s crown out of a pocket in his pants. It was made of twining platinum and shaped to fit her Serpent head. Her snake form couldn’t wear the engagement ring that normally held the stone, so it morphed into the crown when she was a snake. ‘Maybe wear this so the stone can help you. If there’s anything out of the ordinary, you call for backup, okay?’
She was pleased that he didn’t argue—he trusted her to handle herself in a high-level Nest, and his confidence in her was flattering. ‘Sure.’ She slid the crown onto her forehead, and it adjusted itself to fit.
‘I am only allowing you to do this because you need my assistance,’ the stone said from Emma’s crown. ‘Otherwise, I would be horrified that anyone but my Mistress dared to don me.’
‘Sure, stone,’ Simone said patiently. ‘Let’s see what the Rhonda copy and Edu are up to.’ She crouched and touched Frankie’s head. ‘Look after them.’
Xuan Wu picked Frankie’s limp body up and cradled him. He gazed down at his son with adoration. ‘He’s a brave little fighter and he will cause no end of trouble when he comes into his power.’
‘I know, he’s wonderful, isn’t he?’ Simone said. She touched her father on the arm. ‘Go and find our Emma.’
Xuan Wu nodded, bent in to kiss her on the forehead, then shot into the air and screamed away.
*
S imone turned back to the building and sent her senses out. Empty—they’d cleared out, which was normal when they became aware that the Xuan Wu, the demons’ worst nightmare, was on his way. There was a huge Nest of Snake Mothers—the senior demons who were mated with the King to breed the Princes—in a cavern underneath it, and it was deserted as well.
She went into the building. There was a hotel-style lobby, with a reception desk, and she pulled the locked door open to go behind it. The administration computer wasn’t plugged into the wall.
‘Unused,’ the stone said. ‘There’s another door behind you, to Twelve’s office.’
‘What happened to Twelve?’ she asked as she forced the next locked door and entered. The office overlooked the pool and had a heavy-set teak nineties-style desk on it. Emma’s serpent corpse covered most of the floor, and her father was right—instead of her snake head, there was a ragged mess of skin and flesh, with her spinal column sticking up in the stump, and the room looked like a flesh bomb had exploded in it. ‘Ew.’
‘Eaten. Edu and ...’ its voice softened. ‘The Rhonda copy actually calls itself Rhonda. They ate him.’
‘I’m sorry you had to see that.’
Its voice filled with grim humour. ‘Me too, believe me. Check if there’s anything in the desk drawers? Twelve was old-school and did everything on paper.’
She checked the drawers. Fortunately, they were on the lee side of the Emma explosion, so they were relatively clean. She found a bound stack of envelopes, checked inside them, and was astonished to find ...
‘Love letters?’ the stone asked with mirth. ‘From a human woman. Twelve was so stupid. Wow.’
Simone looked around, found Twelve’s handbag—rectangular, brown leather, multiple pockets including one for a phone that was still present, with a long carry strap. ‘This is an ‘old boss man’—a Lao Ban bag?’
‘He did the whole Lao Ban schtick,’ the stone said. ‘Expensive sateen polo shirt tucked into pants high up around his waist, belt with the gold buckle, the loafer-sneaker hybrid shoes, the works.’
‘Keys on a chain?’
‘Yes, them too. He was a caricature of ... what did Emma call him? “A senior government bully”.’
She slipped the letters inside the old-man bag. ‘That’s all that’s here, have you infiltrated the network? Downloaded the data on the devices?’
The stone’s voice was chagrined. ‘Uh, Princess. I apologise, but the damage to my lattice from the war precludes any downloads. I’m too broken to hold data. Can you collect the devices that the demons left behind, and take them up to Emma’s intelligence department on the Mountain? There are at least twelve high-end phones and four laptops here.’
‘Isn’t their data on the cloud rather than on the devices?’ Simone asked. ‘They’re all about appearances, so they use expensive Apple gear.’ She understood. ‘You can access their passwords if we take the hardware with us.’
‘That’s correct,’ the stone said. ‘Some of them are making a show of performative patriotism and moving to Huawei, as well.’
‘Okay, locate the devices, and let’s round them up.’ She went back out to the lobby and checked behind the desk for a luggage storage room and found one. She broke the lock on a high-end, hard-sided carry-on and opened it, then tipped out the maroon and black designer clothing. She snapped it closed and pulled the handle up. ‘Let’s get some data.’
‘I may fade during the process, so here’s a map of the building, with all the devices in it,’ the stone said. It slotted the map directly into her head—through the contact of the crown—and it felt like a flow of lava through her brain. She hissed with pain.
‘Sorry, I don’t do that often,’ the stone said.
‘I’m okay,’ Simone said. ‘Let’s go.’
She went up the lift to the first floor. The corridor had windows on her right and a row of four doors on the left. The first computer was in the second room to the left, and she went in and promptly covered her nose at the pungent, strong smell of expensive musky perfume.
‘Ugh, I hate this fragrance,’ she said through her fingers. ‘It sticks to everything and it’s impossible to wash off. It’ll be in my nose for ages .’
‘I think they use it because they feel that they smell of demon,’ the stone said. ‘On the desk.’
‘They do smell ...’ Simone stopped as she stared at the room with horror. It looked like one of the rooms in the student residence in Japan—when it was occupied by a spoilt rich girl. There were clothes thrown everywhere, a couple of dirty plates on the bed, underwear bunched on the floor, and litter on every surface—from chip packets to coke cans. The smell of rot from the food on the plates added to the strong odour of the perfume and her eyes watered.
‘She probably ate the cleaning demons, then complained about the mess,’ the stone said.
Simone went to the desk and unhooked the latest-model, high-end iPhone from the Apple laptop, and placed them both in the carry-on bag. She checked the map in her head. ‘Okay. Next.’
She sensed it as she was taking the phone and iPad from the third Mother’s dorm, which was as filthy as the first two. A massive demon presence—at least Prince level—had teleported into the Nest below the building. She summoned her swords, changed to her working form, and slipped the swords into their sheaths on her back.
‘What do you sense?’ the stone asked.
‘A Prince-level,’ she said. ‘In the basement.’
‘Can you handle it?’
‘With one arm behind my back.’
‘You sure? If you’re out of practice ...’
‘Do not question me,’ she said, her voice flinty. ‘I spend at least an hour training every day. There are always demons stupid enough to make a try for me.’
‘Wah,’ the stone said. ‘You sound just like your dad.’
‘Good.’
Simone went out onto the balcony and flew directly down to ground level. The lift to the basement Nest was at the bottom of some white concrete steps that passed through a large indent in the swimming pool, down to a basement lift lobby. The floor below her was sealed against Celestials and for the first time in ages, she could feel it. She resisted the urge to do a little ‘I’m back in the Celestial’ dance and pressed the button. The lift arrived immediately.
She drew her swords and held them ready as the lift descended. It took a long time to travel, and she went far further down than a single floor, finishing deep underground. The doors opened and the Nest smell hit her—a stronger mix of the decay and perfume from the rooms above. It was completely dark, but she had no difficulty seeing, and she slid quietly along the short tunnel from the lift into the Nest cavern.
Usually, Nests held multiple shallow rounded indentations for the eggs, spaced apart so that the Mothers didn’t attempt to eat each other’s eggs. This one had the smooth black stone floor that was the norm to facilitate cleaning after a particularly nasty Mother altercation—but there were partitions between the hollows, which Simone had never seen before. The partitions looked like stage sets for a show located in a 90s love hotel—salmon wallpaper with small cream flowers, and skirtings and wainscoting of cream-coloured timber. The partitions weren’t joined in the corners to divide the hollows into rooms, and they were only two metres tall so they didn’t reach the high ceiling, but they would ensure that the mothers in their hollows wouldn’t be able to see each other. Some of the partitions even had European-style landscape oil paintings on them. The splashes of black essence—or blood—on the lower walls of many of the partitions were a gruesome touch.
She heard them talking to each other before she saw them. Edu’s little-girl voice was easily recognisable, and she was talking to another woman. Simone walked quietly, swords ready, around the edge of the cavern and listened to what they were saying.
‘It will work,’ Edu said. ‘She loves him and won’t be able to hurt his mother.’
‘Are you absolutely positive?’ the other woman asked, in a familiar voice.
‘Shh,’ Edu said. ‘She can probably hear us. Trust me.’
‘Trust you,’ the other woman said, her voice heavy with sarcasm.
Simone rounded the final partition and stopped. Edu was in her little-girl form, ten years old with twin braids and a black frilly dress with many petticoats. The other demon was a copy of Rhonda. It broke Simone’s heart to see Michael’s mother again—but this obviously wasn’t the Rhonda she knew.
The real Rhonda had been a snappily dressed White American businesswoman in a tailored suit, refined make-up and blonde hair neatly pinned back. She had died ten years before, when the Tiger had married her, made her his Empress, and given the Elixir of Immortality that had reacted with her Celtic Serpent nature to destroy her.
This Rhonda had her head shaved nearly bald and was taller and more muscular than the real Rhonda ever was. She wore traditional Chinese-warrior black leather armour and had a scimitar sheathed at her waist.
‘This had better be worth it,’ the Rhonda copy said, then she drew her sword and rushed Simone.
Simone stepped aside without drawing her own swords and neatly avoided the blade coming at her head. The Rhonda copy was well-trained, but Simone was the daughter of the God of War.
‘Leave now,’ Simone said. She ducked beneath another swing from the Rhonda copy’s sword as she glared at Edu. ‘I don’t do this anymore. I don’t fight stupid Mothers and Dukes and Princes who want to test their skill against me. I have my own ...’ She jumped back as the Rhonda copy tried to get into her personal space and used a double-handed unarmed block to push the demon away. ‘Life, and I’m not part of this anymore, and leave me alone !’
‘But you’d love it if I attacked you, wouldn’t you, honey?’ Edu asked. ‘You’d take my head in a second. I had so much fun making Emma and Frankie’s lives so miserable when Dad owned the Heavens and kept them in Hell. Emma was my nanny—’
‘Fight ... me!’ the Rhonda copy growled, making multiple slashes at Simone’s abdomen and then aiming a kick at her midriff. ‘Show me what you have! I want to see!’
Simone lost her patience with them and drew her swords, lighting the chakras along their lengths to seal the deal. She was properly annoyed with Edu and the Rhonda copy now.
Edu changed from her frilly dress, little-girl form to a slender, graceful young man with short hair in his mid-twenties, wearing a tailored suit. He was heavily cosmetically enhanced, with a narrow nose and widened eyes, and looked like a Korean or Canto-pop star. ‘Now it gets interesting. Let’s see if you’re as good as you say you are.’
Simone nearly snapped back about how good she was, then realised that Edu had been speaking to the Rhonda copy.
The Rhonda copy stepped back, facing Simone, and moved so that they were between the salmon-coloured partitions and the wall of the cavern. ‘I can do it . I’ll kill her and take her place, and the Dark Lord will never know.’
‘Holy shit, you’re stupid,’ Simone said, aghast. ‘You think we don’t know that you’re a copy?’
The Rhonda copy swung her swords. ‘Edu says he won’t look too closely at his own beloved daughter. Let’s see if she’s right.’
She attacked Simone in a series of beautifully formed butterfly swings of her sword, and Simone, fed up, parried them all with her own swords, the lights in the blades sparking as they hit the demon’s dark essence. Simone’s heart filled with grim joy at being able to use her full Celestial powers against the demon threat. It had been a long time.
Simone attacked back in a dual-bladed hurricane that made the Rhonda copy give ground in turn. Simone tried to turn the demon so that she would back into either the wall or one of the partitions and be trapped, but the demon kept free space behind her. She was exceptionally well-trained and some of her moves were reminiscent of Emma’s elegant style.
‘An Emma copy taught you?’ Simone asked, stepping back, crossing her swords in front of her, and waiting to see what the demon would do next.
‘We have all sorts of cute copies,’ Edu said from the side, his male voice sounding bored. ‘Can one of you win already and wind this up? I have places to be.’
‘Sure thing, boss,’ the Rhonda copy said, and made another flurry of strikes. Simone grew tired of playing with the demon and took her feet out from under her in a kick that the demon obviously never saw. The Rhonda copy lay on her back, panting, and stared up at Simone. ‘You’d better be right about this.’
Simone lunged to spear the demon through the throat, and hesitated. The sword quivered as she tried to make the killing blow and couldn’t.
She couldn’t kill Rhonda—even if it was a copy of Rhonda. She couldn’t destroy a demon that looked like Michael’s mother. She’d loved that woman for the short time she’d known her, and Rhonda had been smart, compassionate and cared for both Simone and Michael with all her heart. She was the only true parent Michael had known after Rhonda left Michael’s father, and she’d done a wonderful job raising the half-Shen with intelligence and common sense.
Simone stepped back and lowered her sword. The Rhonda copy was still on her back staring at her.
‘Holy fucking shit I was actually right,’ Edu said quietly with wonder. ‘I don’t believe it.’
‘Just go,’ Simone said wearily. ‘Tell the other Princes that I don’t fight stupid demons who are out to prove their superiority or training or whatever. I’m done. I’m not a part of that world anymore—’
‘Your presence here today disproves that,’ Edu said, still very quiet.
The Rhonda copy stood, and Simone readied herself for another attack. Instead, the Rhonda copy sheathed her sword, raised her hands and smiled. ‘Thanks for a good bout,’ she said, and glanced at Edu. ‘You were right. Let’s go.’
Simone turned to see Edu, who was standing with a gentle smile on his face. He blew Simone a kiss. ‘Thanks for demonstrating your weakness. Later, darling.’
They both disappeared.