20
D addy, I have a big bunch of data from the demon hotel , Simone said. Where are you guys ?
On the Mountain . Can you bring the data to Emma’s new intelligence department on the West side of the Mountain campus?
Will do.
Simone teleported up to the Mountain and stopped to appreciate its winter beauty. Most of the trees were leafless saplings, but there were some snow-cloaked young cypress trees flanking the red-pillared breezeways with their black-tiled roofs. The pine scent filled the Celestial freshness of the air. The traditional buildings with their stone or wooden walls spread over the pinnacles of the Mountain’s seven peaks, surrounded by the high walls crowned with their snapping black banners bearing her father’s emblem of the seven stars of the Big Dipper.
She took the roller case to the administrative complex on the western side, passing some Celestial Masters teaching weapons to junior Masters on the slate-paved main square, surrounded by its three great halls and below the Golden Temple perched on the highest peak. Emma’s new intelligence department—four stones and a couple of dragons—had their headquarters in the administrative complex, housed in one of the original monastic residences.
She stopped when she saw the Jade Emperor, in full Imperial regalia, standing at one of the waist-high stone guardrails with his back to her, obviously enjoying the view of the sweeping mountains of Celestial Hubei province, green and cloud-misted with rainbows that appeared and disappeared as the clouds moved. He turned and smiled as she glared at him, then he raised one hand.
‘I said I would explain everything when your stepmother had returned, and I chose to come here to do it rather than drag you to the Celestial Palace. Ask me anything, and I will tell you the truth.’
‘Did you set Michael up to do it?’ Simone asked.
‘Yes.’
‘With Semias?’
‘Yes. We’d been talking for a while and decided this was the only way to clear the demons from the European Heavens.’
‘Did you kill Clarissa to make sure he would go?’
He looked shocked. ‘Goodness no, I would never kill anyone! But I knew—’
Simone shook with fury. ‘You knew ?’
—That there was about a one in three chance the childbirth would be lethal.’
‘Why didn’t you tell her that?’ Simone asked.
‘I did.’
‘She did it anyway?’
‘I advised her against it. She did it anyway.’
Simone waved one hand with frustration. ‘You didn’t order her not to have a baby? You could have saved her life!’
He slipped his hands into his long sleeves. ‘Contrary to popular belief, I do not force orders on my citizens unless the need is dire. I warned Clarissa, but I did not try to stop her. The choice was her own.’
Simone shook her head as her eyes stung with tears. ‘What a complete idiot.’ She glared at the Jade Emperor. ‘Look me in the eye and tell me you’re not lying.’
‘I am not lying,’ he said, and it had the ring of truth.
‘Anything else you want to share now that you’re so generously being completely honest with me?’
‘You now have access to Primal Yin, yes?’
She nodded a reply.
‘Pop down onto one knee, swear allegiance—just to me personally, rather than the whole Celestial, is sufficient—and we can both ensure that the Yin will never escape your control, and the realm is safe. Then I’ll leave you alone.’
‘Promise?’
‘Promise. You have done all the Heavens a great service and you deserve a break. I’ll leave you alone for at least six months after the allegiance thing, so relax. You know it’s the right thing to do.’
She went down on one knee, lowered her head, and said, ‘I swear allegiance to you. I vow to serve you for the rest of my life.’
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Merry Christmas. Forget about me, and there won’t be any more red boxes, I promise.’ He gestured towards Emma’s new intelligence department. ‘Go give them the data, they’ll be delighted.’ He disappeared.
The intelligence office was a traditional double-storey courtyard house with red walls and pillars, and decorative carved lattices over its windows. She went inside and around the carved black demon-barrier screen, to find the courtyard set up to be a small modern shooting range. She turned left to go through the ground floor living room, which was equipped as a technology manufacturing area, with wide benches covered in circuit boards and soldering equipment. There were some interesting cameras and weapons on the bench, and she decided to return later to see what they had developed. Someone had pinned up a large poster of a scene from an early James Bond film with Q talking to the Sean Connery Bond with the subtitle, ‘Pay attention, 007’, and she snorted quietly with laughter.
She wandered further towards the back of the house, where the kitchen and dining room normally stood, to find a modern office with four desks in a standard configuration with dividers between them, reminiscent of a police station. She wheeled the case in and one of the agent’s heads shot up above the partition. He appeared to be the only one present.
‘Princess!’ he yelled and threw himself out of his chair to race to her.
He was a stone Shen, looking like a Filipino in his mid-thirties, bald and heavily built, wearing a pair of tracksuit pants and an oversized fluffy hoodie.
He opened and closed his hands above the wheelie case. ‘Is that the demon data?’
‘Yes. All yours.’ She pushed the case towards him, and he snatched it, then scurried away.
He skidded to a halt at the end of the room. He left the case where it stood, marched rigidly back to her, and saluted her with a small bow. ‘Please excuse my ...’ He appeared to be listening. ‘Excruciatingly poor manners. Profoundest apologies, your ...’ He hesitated again. ‘Highness. I will—’
‘Stone, leave the poor man alone and let him go do the data,’ Simone said. She shooed him away. ‘Go. Analyse! I want to know what they’re up to.’
He collapsed with relief. ‘Thank you!’
‘But I was having fun,’ the stone whined.
‘Let’s go find Emma and Frankie,’ Simone said. ‘I want to hug them and make sure they’re okay.’
I’m in my office with Frankie , Emma said.
*
S imone went back around the administrative area, where her father’s office perched on top of the western side of the wall. These buildings pre-dated some of the main halls and were smaller constructions of grey slate with traditionally styled, black-tiled roofs. A young Japanese maple tree stood outside Emma’s office, devoid of leaves. Simone filled with sadness at the sight of so many of the Mountain’s lovely gardens that had been destroyed when the demons had control over it. She hadn’t seen it since the demons won the war and she’d gone into hiding, then killed the Demon King, absorbed his essence and been barred from the Celestial Plane.
She went inside Emma’s office to find Emma’s tame demon, Yi Hao, sitting with Frankie in the reception area, reading him a story from a picture book. Yi Hao saw Simone, smiled, and nodded to her. Yi Hao was identical in appearance to Er Hao—they were demons from the same clutch—and acted as Emma’s personal assistant on the Mountain.
Frankie jumped up and tackled Simone, then pushed her towards Emma’s inner office. ‘Tell her to hurry up.’
Simone went through to Emma’s office, where Emma was engrossed in her computer, scrolling through emails.
She jumped up and hugged Simone, then sat in one of the visitor’s chairs and guided Simone to sit in the other, holding both her hands.
‘You okay?’ Emma asked.
Simone nodded silently and wiped another tear that had leaked out. She handed the crown to Emma, and it folded up into an engagement ring holding the jade stone and returned to Emma’s finger.
‘You’ve suffered a great deal of loss in the last few days. I’ll take you to see Audrey Au,’ Emma said.
‘Maybe after the break. I just want to enjoy the fact that I have freedom of the Celestial,’ Simone said. ‘Just being here makes some of the pain go away. Can we do Christmas now? Have the demons retreated?’
‘Yes, the demons have gone quiet,’ Emma said. ‘After Edu and the Rhonda copy took out Twelve, they all seem to have gone into hiding.’
‘What about the King? This is full-on threat to him.’
‘It is, but it’s none of our business under the terms of the treaty. We’ll deal with it when Rhonda and Edu make their next move.’
‘Are Nan and Pop still okay for a deferred Christmas?’
‘They are, and we’d like to do it tomorrow, because it’s close to New Year and your father and I have a huge Celestial duty calendar booked. We’ll have lunch in the Mountain residence now—it’s nearly lunch time—then head over to my parents’ to hang out for a while, have dinner with them and set up the Christmas stuff for tomorrow. My little nephew, Matthew, is staying with them, and the rest of the family will join us for lunch and gifts tomorrow. Are you okay with that?’
‘Absolutely, I’m already packed, and that bag I have in the Residence has everything I need.’ Simone studied Emma. ‘Are you okay? You were in Hell ... then went with the demons.’
Emma squeezed Simone’s hands where she held them. ‘What you said. Christmas. Family. I’m looking forward to it.’ She brightened. ‘Can you take Frankie over to the Residence while I sort out the last of my emails?’
Simone smiled. ‘Sounds good.’
She rose and went out to the reception area. ‘Frankie, I’m starving,’ she said. ‘Let’s go get some lunch while Mum and Dad tidy things up here.’
‘Yeah!’ Frankie said and jumped out of his chair. He turned to Yi Hao. ‘Thanks for reading to me, Yi Hao. Help Mum sort herself out so she doesn’t get stuck here for the rest of the day, okay?’
Yi Hao nodded, smiling. ‘Yes, my Lord.’
Frankie took Simone’s hand and guided her out of Emma’s office. ‘Yi Hao is arranging for some of the Celestial Masters to teach me up here, when Mum and Lo Dau are busy!’
‘Lo Dau?’ Simone asked him. ‘Who taught you to call Dad “Old Bean”?’
‘Uh ... Uncle Bai?’ he said, using the name that they both called the White Tiger. ‘Mum and Uncle Bai think it’s really funny, and Lo Dau gets this cute smile when I call him that.’
‘Good.’
Frankie continued to ramble excitedly without taking a breath as they walked back over the bridges and through the gardens to the Residence. ‘I need to pack to go to Nanna’s, I hope someone told Smally to pack for me, do you know if Freddo will be there? Cousin Andrew said it snowed. Did you know he has a girlfriend, and he was happy that Christmas was delayed because he said he wanted to spend Christmas with her family, and Nanna said that’s a really big thing, and—’ He took a deep breath.
‘We’ll have a lot of fun,’ Simone said.
They crossed the bridge to the final peak, where the Residence’s front yard was a small open area, divided into a traditional Chinese garden with bamboo lattice edgings around the empty flower beds, and into the Residence. It was a double-storey, traditional-styled house with pillars and lattices over the windows, but completely black instead of the normal good-luck red. A depiction of Xuan Wu in his True Form—the Serpent and Turtle in the combined creature—was in a stone bas-relief over the front door.
‘Smally!’ Frankie shouted as they kicked off their shoes in the entry, and he took off running through the central courtyard towards the kitchen. Smally came out of the dining room into the courtyard, and he tackled her. ‘Is lunch ready? I’m hungry. ’
‘Lunch is on the table. The Dark Lord says to help yourself and he will be along shortly.’ Emma’s tame demon who ran the household on the Mountain bowed to Simone, smiling with cute dimples on her cheeks. ‘Your room is set up for you, my Lady, and I’ve placed your bag in there. Welcome home.’
Simone hesitated—she desperately needed a shower and a change of clothes—but she hadn’t eaten since she left the European Heavens, and she was starving. Frankie made the decision for her and dragged her into the dining room, where a huge pot of fragrant vegetarian ho fan in soup, with straw mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, snow and wood ear fungus, as well as bright green bak choy, sat in the centre.
Simone picked up a couple of big noodle bowls, but Smally took them from her, ladled some of the soup noodles into them, and proudly placed them in front of Simone and Frankie. ‘Do you need help, my Lord?’
Frankie looked from Smally to Simone and obviously made a decision. ‘I want to eat them myself.’
Smally bowed. ‘Let me know if you need anything else.’
Simone watched as Frankie picked up his chopsticks and ceramic spoon—chopsticks in his left hand, as he was left-handed—and used the spoon to slurp some of the soup from the bowl. He clumsily used the chopsticks to guide some noodles onto the spoon—he was obviously still working on fine motor control—and Simone made a point of enjoying her own noodles and not making an issue of his minor struggles.
Emma and their father entered, in their scruffy human forms, both wearing black cotton Mountain uniforms without adornment. They sat at the table and Smally re-emerged from the kitchen to serve them.
‘Need a hand?’ Emma asked Frankie.
‘I have it,’ Frankie said as the noodles fell off his spoon. He set his jaw and scooped them back on, then smiled with triumph when he got them into his mouth without losing most of them.
Their father looked down at his noodle bowl, then around at the family. ‘All of us all here together, and the rest of the family safe and loved. I am a very happy old Turtle.’
‘Christmas!’ Frankie crowed and raised both hands, still holding spoon and chopsticks.
When she had eaten her fill, Simone climbed the stairs at the back of the ground floor to the balcony that wrapped around the interior of the upper floor, with the bedroom doors opening from it. She went past the master suite at the back, which had the stone of the Mountain’s peak one of its walls. Emma and her father were inside, checking what the demons had packed for them and arguing about him wearing something that wasn’t black.
Simone turned left. There were two doors here that opened onto the internal veranda, the first opening onto Frankie’s room—it was tidy, but full of the books and toys of a small boy. Smally and Frankie were inside together, packing.
‘You have clothes there, sir,’ Smally said. ‘And toys. You don’t need to take everything.’
‘But I need to show them my car!’ Frankie said. ‘Freddo wants to see it!’
Simone was delighted to see that her old doll’s house sat in the back of Frankie’s room, with figurines of a family in it. Emma would be using it, in play, to teach Frankie how normal families worked. Good for her.
The second door was the shared bathroom, and she poked her head inside to check. Everything she needed was there; she just had to find a change of clothes and then she could finally have that long, hot shower.
‘I’m going to have a shower,’ she yelled at nobody in particular. ‘I really need it.’
‘Take your time, and you can meet up with us at Nan’s later if you want,’ Emma shouted back.
‘Nanna’s!’ Frankie yelled with joy.
She went to the second and final door, took a breath and opened it. She went in to find that nothing had changed. The room was larger than a standard single bedroom, and the spacious area was furnished with antique rosewood. Her double-sized four-poster bed, made up with dark grey bed linen and enclosed with gauzy black curtains, stood next to the window that overlooked the front garden. The wheelie bag that Kimberley had packed for her stood next to it. Her bookshelf filled with children’s books that she’d asked Emma to keep for her was still there. Her rosewood desk, where she’d studied when she was at Celestial High, stood against the wall, next to an old-fashioned, solid-timber, stand-alone wardrobe. The five years that had passed since she’d destroyed the King and been filled with demon essence felt like an eternity, but at the same time it was if she had been there just the day before.
She went to the window to look out at the garden, and fat flakes of snow began to fall over the Mountain, adding to its loveliness. She sighed with bliss—she had a decision to make. She could move back into this room on the Mountain where her family spent most of their time, or an apartment in the Palace of the Northern Heavens as a Celestial Princess and help them with the administration of their realm. Or she could live on the Peak—but the family didn’t need to stay there now that she was cleared of the demon essence, and the pollution from the demon presence in the upper Earthly administration, combined with the police harassment of both her and Emma, had been increasing to an unbearable level. She also had the option of returning to the apartment in Japan and completing her research and then decide what to do after she finished it.
The decision was easy. She found a change of clothes and her toiletry bag, carried them into the bathroom and locked the door behind her.
Ten minutes later she came out, pink and shining with warmth. She sat on the bed, then fell to lie on her back. A knot of tension inside her unravelled, and for the first time in what felt like forever, she allowed herself to completely relax and enjoy the feeling of being home and safe and loved. The hate-filled angry demon essence that had filled her when she killed the Demon King no longer poisoned her life. She was free and pure, and her soul was liberated. She had multiple agreeable options for the near future and the only negative aspect to her life was the lack of a partner to share it with.
She wondered how Michael was faring now that his grief had been returned to him. She filled with sadness of the memory of him alone in their Heavens suffering so brutally. Maybe she could go and visit him—if she could do it without causing a Celestial scandal. And maybe she should just give up on a love life until Fate had tortured them to its satisfaction and allowed them to be together.
She woke disoriented some time later, lying on top of her bed and under an old-fashioned silk wadding quilt that had been thrown over her. She checked around and realised where she was, then sat up and stretched. She hadn’t intended to fall asleep, and the rest of the house was quiet.
Her clock said that an hour had passed, and there was a note on the nightstand, under her Hello Kitty bedside lamp. It was in Emma’s neat hand in English and said, ‘We went on ahead, so catch up with us when you’re awake. You needed the rest.’