by Kylie Chan
‘There is no need for the sun,’ he said, his hands clasped behind his back. ‘This part of Hell is a place of joy and light. Take a deep breath.’
She inhaled, and her expression filled with wonder. ‘It smells like roses, and freesias, and jonquils. It’s lovely.’
He smiled slightly. ‘Just for you.’
She stopped and sat on the edge of a planter. ‘I know that there are places here that aren’t nearly as sweet.’
He stopped as well, still with his hands clasped behind his back. ‘That’s true. And you never need to see them if you don’t wish to.’
She shook her head. ‘It won’t work, you know.’
He shrugged, smiling wryly. ‘Worth a try.’ He turned away.
‘How many more days do I have here?’ she said. ‘I’m losing track of them.’
‘Only a couple more, my Lady,’ the King said. He gestured towards the end of the garden. ‘You could always come and spend the night in my villa instead of your own.’
She shook her head. ‘You’ve said that every evening.’ She looked up. ‘It’s never night or day here, is it? It’s so artificial.’
‘It’s night in some parts.’
‘I don’t want to see them.’
‘You never have to.’ He bowed slightly to her. ‘I bid you good night, madam. And I leave my bedroom door open.’
She sighed. ‘Good night, George.’
She turned and went into the villa, and closed the door behind her. She went into the bathroom, changed into bright floral pyjamas, climbed into bed and turned the light off. Nothing happened for a few minutes, then the recording froze.
‘Neither of you saw that?’ Gold said.
‘I didn’t see anything,’ I said.
‘No,’ John said.
The recording blinked back to when Rhonda was in bed, and stopped. It moved slowly through the frames: there were two bright flashes, then she was in bed again.
‘I saw that,’ I said. ‘What was it?’
‘I will show you at the slowest speed,’ Zara said. ‘This is right at the edge of the damage to the lattice.’
‘One intersection on the lattice is one frame of the recording,’ Gold said. ‘Zara wasn’t keeping the frame rate high — this was just a standard recording for personal use — so it will look a little like film.’
‘I should have kept a high frame rate throughout the time I was there,’ Zara said ruefully. ‘After five days, I relaxed; I thought his intentions were honest.’
She moved the recording back to when Rhonda was in bed. Then came a black frame, half-filled with colour.
‘Garbage from the edge of the damage,’ Zara said.
A horrible, grinning face filled the entire recording, its eyes level with the top, and black stains over it.
I inhaled sharply. It was Demon Prince Six, the expert at manipulating stones.
‘How much time was lost?’ I said.
‘Four hours,’ Zara said. ‘I cycled down to rest, and wasn’t aware of the lost time.’
‘What about your time stamp?’ I said. ‘That’s impossible.’
‘It is,’ Zara said. ‘I have no idea how it happened. Somehow Six managed to blank out my matrix without stopping the time stamp. I was unaware of the lost time until we discovered Clarissa had been taken, and we went through to check.’
‘Is there anything like that where Clarissa was taken?’ John said.
‘I’ll show you,’ Zara said.
Michael and Clarissa appeared, walking through a factory building on Ap Lei Chau Island on the south side of Hong Kong that had been rented out to stores selling imported Asian furniture and homewares. They wandered through the store, discussing whether they should buy a coffee table made out of a Balinese longhouse door. Clarissa kissed Michael on the cheek, then went out to the lift lobby to the ladies’ room. She stopped at the mirror and smiled at her reflection, then went into the cubicle.
‘I don’t want to see this,’ I said. ‘That’s invasion of privacy.’
‘I’ll blank out the video; it’s the audio you need to hear anyway,’ Zara said.
There were the sounds of clothing being adjusted, then water spilling, and Zara slowed the playback, making it deeper. There was a sudden loud screech of noise, then the audio returned to normal. Clarissa came out of the cubicle, rinsed her hands, and returned to Michael.
‘That’s it?’ I said.
‘That’s it. One-fifth of a second of sound. It has to be: there’s damage around that point and nowhere else in my lattice.’
‘They are unbelievably skilled,’ Gold said. ‘Frankly, it’s more than a little scary.’
‘The Demon King allowed Six into Rhonda’s villa,’ John said.
‘He can’t have,’ I said. ‘While you were gone, I asked the King and he vowed he wasn’t in league with them. I had a suspicion he was helping them, but he gave his word he wasn’t. Six must have sneaked in by himself.’
‘Interesting,’ John said.
‘I have failed you,’ Zara said.
‘Yes, you have,’ John said. ‘But failure in the face of opposition as skilled as this is not cause for discipline. It is cause for retribution. It is time to find these demons and neutralise them.’
‘How do we find them?’ I said.
‘Gold. Take Emma’s stone and wake it up. I don’t care how you do it. It knows where they are.’
Gold bowed slightly. ‘I will do my best.’
‘The Tiger just put it back in its setting — take the whole ring,’ I said, handing it over.
‘Leave it with me,’ Gold said. ‘I will talk to the people in the Eastern Palace. They may have some high-technology way of waking the stone up.’
‘I’m sure they’d be delighted to see you,’ I said.
‘Dismissed,’ John said. After Gold had gone, he leaned back in his executive chair and studied me. ‘Lady Emma, I have a request to make of you.’
‘Oh no, this sounds formal,’ I said.
‘I have much to catch up on, my Lady, and I request that you give me an hour until dinnertime to do so. I also request that you take yourself to our residence and rest until dinner, because frankly, my love, you look awful.’
‘My in-tray’s probably piled higher than yours,’ I said.
‘Zara,’ John said loudly.
‘My Lord?’
‘Liaise with Lady Emma’s secretary, sort through her in-tray and find all tasks that can be done by someone else, and bring them to me,’ he said. ‘Then find all tasks that must be done by Lady Emma herself, and also bring them to me.’
‘My Lord,’ Zara said, and disappeared off his desk.
‘Now go and have a lie-down, Emma,’ John said, rising to guide me out of his office. ‘I need you strong.’
I wanted to argue with him, but I didn’t have the strength.
CHAPTER 30
Leo didn’t join us for dinner that evening; he’d been spending most of his time in Persimmon Tree with Martin. When we’d finished eating, he came to visit us by himself, waiting for us in the Throne Room.
Simone came out of the dining room, stopped in front of him, saw his face and put her hands on her hips. ‘You suck.’
‘That’s why I’m doing this,’ he said.
She crouched in front of his wheelchair and put her hands on his knees. ‘Is there anything at all I can say to stop you?’
He shook his head, silent.
She stood up, appeared as if she was about to hit him, then sagged, defeated. ‘I won’t be able to watch.’
‘I don’t want you to.’
She leaned down to hug him, then broke down and went out.
‘You agreed,’ Leo said to John. ‘Stop putting this off. I want it.’
John concentrated for a moment.
‘Don’t even think about making another excuse to put it off!’ Leo said. ‘The nest in Singapore is cleaned out, and you’ll soon find Kitty and fix her. You don’t need me any more, so stop putting it off and do it a
lready!’
‘I was checking my appointments,’ John said. ‘I have nothing until tomorrow afternoon.’
‘Tomorrow morning then,’ Leo said, and turned to wheel himself out.
‘Leo —’ I said, but he cut me off.
‘I failed,’ he said. ‘I’ve failed systematically and consistently ever since I joined this household. I deserve this.’
‘You’re family,’ I said. ‘We love you whatever you do.’
‘Then love me enough to let me go.’ He nodded to John. ‘Tomorrow morning, 9am.’
‘Done,’ John said. He leaned on the back of the couch. ‘You break my heart, Leo. You are one of the finest humans I have ever met.’
‘Then I’ll be honoured to be one with you,’ Leo said, and left.
I went to John, and he wrapped his arm around me, and we stood silently for a while.
In the bathroom later that evening, as we were preparing for bed, I unwound the bandage that I kept on my arm to hide the demon essence, and stopped when I saw it. The essence had seeped through the bandage, and when I touched my arm, my fingers came away black.
‘John,’ I said, trying to keep the urgency from my voice.
He came in wearing his pyjama pants and carefully studied my arm without touching the essence. He picked the bandage up and used it to mop at the essence; it came away onto the bandage in a sticky stain.
‘It’s breaking down because you’re on the Celestial Plane,’ he said. ‘It’s like a demon exploding on the Plane, but in slow-motion because you’re mostly human.’
‘How long before I lose my arm?’
‘I have no idea,’ he said, still focused on the arm. ‘Wrap it again, and we will clear it tomorrow for you.’ He concentrated on me. ‘Does it hurt?’
‘No,’ I said, finding another roll of bandage.
‘If it hurts you during the night, wake me and we will clear it. Otherwise, I think you are safe until morning. It has taken a few days for it to break down this far.’
‘Now you’re scaring me.’
‘You’re scaring me,’ he said. ‘Unlike me, you can’t grow it back.’
The pain woke me at 3am. I sat up, looked with horror at my arm, and gently shoved John. ‘Wake up. I think we need to do something.’
He rolled over, sat up, saw my arm and concentrated.
We reappeared in the temporary infirmary, and John went around the room switching on the lights. ‘Meredith and Edwin will be here shortly.’
I raised my arm: the essence was dripping off it onto the treatment couch, as thick as black tar. John pulled a large examination light towards me and shone it on the arm. It was already a centimetre narrower, and the structure of the bones inside was becoming visible as the external part dissolved.
He glanced up at me. ‘Meredith will put you under and we’ll do it.’
‘Start now,’ I said.
‘I need Edwin to open me up.’
‘Edwin’s human, it’ll take him a while to get here.’ I tried to control the urgency in my voice. ‘I’m losing my arm!’ My hand was becoming numb, and the pain in the bones was more than I could bear. ‘Do something — it’s killing me!’
John scrabbled through the medical cabinets until he found a scalpel. He tore the sterile wrapper open with his teeth. ‘Sit still and put the arm out.’ He ripped the bandages off his left arm with the scalpel, then used it to roughly tear open the stump. He took my right hand with his and held the bleeding stump above the damage. ‘Keep very still, and if it hurts too much, I’ll stop.’
I closed my eyes and tried to go to a calm place, centring my awareness between my eyes and separating it from the rest of my body, but it didn’t help when he touched his blood to my arm. I managed to stay silent, quivering with the shock of each touch, my teeth gritted so hard that my head ached nearly as much as the arm hurt.
I heard Meredith and Edwin come in.
‘You should have waited for us,’ Meredith said.
‘See this and tell me that again,’ John said.
Meredith was quiet for a moment, then put her hands on either side of my head. ‘Sorry I took so long,’ she said gently, and everything faded away.
‘You’re not weak from blood loss?’ Edwin said to John. ‘Let me take your blood pressure.’
‘You don’t need to bother; I know how bad it is,’ John said. ‘I’ve sustained more damage than I can handle in the last forty-eight hours. But I can manage. You really don’t need to wait. Go back to bed.’
‘She’s coming around,’ Meredith said.
I tried to focus, but everything was blurry. I rubbed my eyes, but my right arm wouldn’t move; it was tied down. I ripped it free and jumped off the couch.
‘Emma, relax, you’re on the Mountain,’ John said. ‘Find another sling for the arm, Edwin.’
I peered around me, trying to focus, and saw a dark shape. I concentrated on it — it was him. I threw myself at him and he held me.
‘Did you save it?’ I said. ‘I can’t see anything.’
He pushed me gently away and his face swam into view. I released him and checked my right arm. It was significantly smaller than it had been; the muscles wasted and the bones visible as shapes beneath the skin. I stepped further back from John and flexed my hand, moving my arm through the air. I settled into my feet and performed a few basic hand-to-hand moves, and the arm worked. I sighed with relief.
‘Can we bring it back to the way it was?’ I said.
‘I don’t know,’ Edwin said. ‘With exercise and physical therapy we may be able to rebuild the muscles. But we’ve never seen anything like this before —’
‘Yeah, I know the drill,’ I said. ‘Thanks so much for your help, guys. Now go back to bed. We have work to do tomorrow.’
‘Both of you need to sleep as well,’ Edwin said. ‘I’ll have your appointments cancelled until lunchtime. Rest.’
‘It’s freezing out there. Take my hand and I’ll carry us home,’ John said.
‘You should walk!’ Edwin said, but it was too late.
John went to the fire in our bedroom and poked the embers until they flared back into life, then crawled into bed next to me. ‘Edwin doesn’t need to cancel any appointments; we only have one tomorrow morning. Now come here, hold me close, and go to sleep.’
I snuggled into him. ‘Yes, sir.’ I lifted my head. ‘One appointment?’
‘One.’
I dropped my head again, my throat thick. ‘Damn.’
The next morning dawned bright, clear and cold. The sun was brilliant overhead, making the Golden Temple glow. We did it on the steps just below the Golden Temple, high above the Mountain complex, so there was no chance of John draining anyone but Leo. Leo had agreed to let me and Martin attend; he’d said his goodbyes to everyone else and a small group of distraught students stood on the square in front of Yuzhengong below us.
John sat at the top of the steps in front of Golden Temple while Leo and Martin said goodbye a few steps below him. John’s face was expressionless but his eyes were dark with misery.
Leo embraced Martin, and Martin held him like he would never let him go. They kissed, a farewell kiss between lovers, and Martin told Leo softly that he loved him. Leo just smiled, put his hand on Martin’s cheek, and turned away.
Leo went to John at the top of the stairs and sat on the steps next to him. I fell to sit as well, my legs weak. Martin came to sit next to me and put his arm around my shoulders, and I leaned into him. He passed me a packet of tissues and I nodded my thanks as I pulled one out to wipe my eyes.
John smiled a sad smile and gazed into Leo’s eyes. He ran his fingertips over Leo’s face, as if seeing him for the first time, and slid his palm over Leo’s neck. Leo closed his eyes with bliss.
‘You were like a son to me,’ John said, holding the side of Leo’s face.
‘You are more to me,’ Leo said.
‘One last time to change your mind.’
‘Please make me one with you, John.’
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John drew Leo closer and kissed him, and Leo closed his eyes, relishing the touch. Leo pushed the kiss deeper, more passionate, and his Shen energy flared to life, shining so brightly that even the Golden Temple seemed to dim next to it. John’s dark nature became visible, a cloud centring on him, and Leo’s light was drawn into it, spiralling away inside John. Leo became transparent, then suddenly wrenched his face away from John’s and stared at him in horror. ‘Not you.’
‘John, stop,’ I said, standing to go up to them.
Martin held me back. ‘He can’t, it’s too late. Leo’s gone.’
John lowered his head and his face became rigid with restraint. He dropped his arms from Leo and clenched his remaining hand to a fist by his side. His face became more and more strained as he raised his head, the dark energy glowing around him. He let loose a roar of anguish, an inhuman sound of agony, and disappeared.
Leo sat there in a daze for a moment, then toppled sideways, hitting the steps hard.
Martin and I rushed to him and lifted him. Martin put Leo’s head into his lap and his hand on Leo’s forehead. ‘Father gave it back,’ he said. ‘He’s still here.’
Leo’s eyes snapped open. He grabbed Martin’s hand and clutched it. ‘I closed my eyes, and it wasn’t him, it was you. All this time, I thought I wanted him, and when I finally had him, I wanted it to be you.’
‘You have me for as long as you want me, Lion,’ Martin said, his voice thick with emotion.
‘I can’t believe how stupid I’ve been.’ Leo raised one hand from the ground and touched Martin’s face, his own full of wonder. ‘I love you.’
Martin broke down into silent sobs and I handed back the packet of tissues. He nodded his thanks.
‘How do I face everybody now?’ Leo said, still prone on the ground.
Martin squeezed his hand. ‘By my side.’