by Kylie Chan
‘I think that’s a “no”,’ Simone said. ‘And the last time you asked, it was a “no” as well.’
The Nemesis stood there, stunned for a moment, then his grin returned. I heard his reply as I walked away. ‘She just needs some time to think about it, darling Simone. You should talk to her about how much better things would be if I were to help.’
‘I will. I’ll make sure she knows every detail of exactly what her life would be like with you,’ Simone said.
The bell rang for everybody to go into the hall. ‘Hurry up, Emma, it’s starting,’ she called to me, and I raised one hand to indicate that I understood.
When I came out of the ladies room Michael was waiting for me, posted at the end of the corridor.
‘What about Simone?’ I said as he fell into step behind me.
‘I’m in constant contact with her, and she can take down just about anything that tries her,’ Michael said. ‘She’s more powerful than me. You, on the other hand, I need to watch. You have to be careful not to destroy any demons and get their essence on you, so it’s more important that you never fight them.’
I hesitated for a moment, then nodded. ‘I guess you’re right.’
‘What is it with that Nemesis guy?’ Michael said. ‘He doesn’t look like the type that’d even be into chicks but he asked you to marry him?’
‘Ultimate trophy wife,’ I said. ‘More than just a European trophy, I’m the wealthy partner of a famous dead billionaire. He wants to be Onassis to my Jackie.’
‘Jackie had some fashion sense,’ he quipped.
‘True, and I have none at all. He’s definitely into girls, he’s just a big nancy boy. He’s dated every young brainless starlet that’s appeared on a TVB variety show. He has at least three of them set up as mistresses. He’s looking for something a little more upmarket for a wife.’
Michael shook his head as he opened the hall door for me. ‘Designer wife. You’re real quality, Madam Emma, very haute couture.’
‘I wish,’ I said.
I steeled myself for three hours of banal name-dropping self-aggrandisement from the other members of our table. ‘Here we go.’
The next morning I waited on the first floor of the Academy with Lok and the Tiger. I ran through the armoury to pass the time, checking the status of some of the rarer and more powerful weapons. The Murasame resided here when not called upon by me, on a special rack in a small heavily sealed area at the back of the armoury. Now that Michael had returned, his sword, the White Tiger, had also returned to its custom-made white and gold weapons rack. Seven Stars and the weapons possessed by the Celestial Masters lived in the armoury at the Mountain, although when they were being used in regular training they occasionally took a space here as well.
The Murasame hadn’t made my life miserable about not being fed after the Er Lang battle, which was unusual. Normally if it required feeding, it made itself so heavy that it was almost unliftable. The first time it had done this, I’d been confused for a week as to why I couldn’t use it, until the sword sorted out the problem itself by becoming so heavy I dropped it and then flying up and slashing me on the upper arm. This time it didn’t need feeding, however, and it was possible that the blade was beginning to accept me as its master, something that was both relieving and a little disturbing.
Lok came over as I checked the blade for nicks and ran the whetstone over it a couple of times.
‘Did you know that a lot of students come in wanting to see the Destroyer and asking questions about it?’ he said.
‘What’s there to see?’ I said. ‘It’s a completely plain katana with very little decoration.’
‘They ask if the legend about it is true. About the Murasame, and the swords produced by the Masamune school.’
‘What, that Murasame was the crazed student of Masamune?’ I said.
‘That, and the stream thing.’
‘Well, first of all, Murasame live a good two hundred years before Masamune, so it’s impossible that the two knew each other,’ I said, sheathing the blade and returning it to its rack. ‘But I think it’s quite true that Murasame, the man, was pretty demented and intent on creating the ultimate destructive weapon.’
‘And the stream thing?’
I glanced down at him. ‘They know about that?’
Lok nodded, then ran his tongue over his canine chops. ‘They ask if it’s true.’
I brushed my hand over the black lacquer scabbard. ‘Yeah, I tried it. I got a bag of leaves from the gardeners and took a Masamune and the Murasame to the stream at the back of the house on the hill in Guangzhou. I put the Masamune in the water and dropped the leaves in upstream. It’s true, they all moved away from the blade of the sword. Everything moving down the stream moved away from the sword. The Masamunes are preservers of life.’
‘And the Destroyer?’ Lok said.
‘When I put the Murasame’s blade into the water,’ I said, ‘I didn’t even need to add the leaves. Things started coming up from the bottom — shrimps, small fish, weeds — everything alive in the stream. All of it was sucked straight into the blade, sliced in half, then ran past it. I pulled the blade out of the water before it could start drawing things from further away.’ I took my hand away from the sword. ‘The legend is true.’
Lok studied the sword. ‘That’s a little scary, Lady Emma.’
‘More than a little,’ I said.
‘Stop playing with Ah Wu’s toys and come down,’ the Tiger said loudly from the lift lobby. ‘Your demon is here.’
Lok made a small doggy whining sound. ‘Ronnie Wong just told me he’s found a stone on floor six that’s been eroding our seals.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ I said.
Lok shook his head, the shake carrying through to his whole body. ‘I should be aware of such things within my building, ma’am. By your leave, I’ll go up to Ronnie and have a look with him.’
I nodded to Lok, and we both headed to the lift lobby. Lok jumped up on his hind legs and pressed the ‘up’ button with his nose. I pressed the ‘down’ button when his head had moved away.
The Tiger looked up at the lift floor indicators above the doors. ‘That explains why the lift buttons on this floor are so gross.’
The bell to go up pinged and the left lift doors opened. Lok went in, then turned around and stared at the Tiger. ‘Up yours, Devil Tiger,’ he said just as the doors closed.
The Tiger grunted with amusement. The right lift arrived and we stepped inside. A couple of students were in the lift already, and fell to one knee to salute both me and the Tiger.
I indicated that they could rise. ‘You are supposed to be at home today,’ I said.
One of the students nodded. ‘Just collecting some books,’ he said. ‘We wanted to catch up on some study this weekend.’
The Tiger moved like lightning. He slammed the stop button on the lift, then pinned both students by the throat against the wall, one in each hand. He moved his face very close to the gasping student on the left, then turned his attention to the one on the right. He hesitated a moment, then released them and stepped back. The two students sagged, breathing heavily.
‘I’m sorry, I thought you were demons,’ the Tiger said without a hint of remorse. ‘You okay?’
The students nodded, obviously unable to speak.
‘How are you getting to the student accommodation?’ the Tiger said, waving one hand over the lift panel so the lift could move again.
‘We were planning to take the bus, sir,’ one of the students gasped.
‘Don’t,’ the Tiger said. ‘Wait in the lobby of this building with us. I’ll take you home.’
I spoke silently to the stone in my ring. Ask him if he still finds them suspicious, and explain about the copies. If he’s not sure about them maybe we should have a closer look.
Nothing happened, so I tapped the stone. ‘Yes, Emma?’ it said.
I explained the situation silently to it, but before I was done, the Tiger spoke into
my head.
I’m still looking at them and I’m still not sure. Permission to take them West?
Tell him provided he doesn’t hurt them, I said.
The lift doors opened and the two students bolted out of the lift, through the lobby, pushed past the surprised security guards and Leo, and disappeared into the crowd.
The Tiger raced to follow them. Stay here and get your Leo. Then he reappeared next to me and spoke out loud. ‘I changed my mind. That could be a diversion to get you alone. You’re in an unsealed area here and I don’t want to leave you by yourself.’ He gestured towards the door the fleeing students had passed through. ‘How long have they been here?’
‘About a month,’ I said. ‘Latest batch.’
‘Let’s find the stones that are wrecking your seals, and see what happens when we get the seals set up again,’ he said. He concentrated for a moment. ‘I’m bringing one of my guys in as well.’
He stepped forward to where Leo was waiting with the security guards, looking completely bewildered. ‘Let’s check out this demon copy.’
As soon as I approached Leo I knew it was a demon.
‘This isn’t the same one,’ I said. I took its right hand and turned it over. There was no tattoo on the inside of its wrist. ‘Definitely not the same Leo; they’ve used a different one to drop off the identification. This one scans strongly as demon.’
I looked up at Leo. ‘Do you know who I am?’
The Leo copy stared down at me, but didn’t speak.
‘I see this as about a level twenty, and the only unusual thing about it is that it looks like the Black Lion,’ Bai Hu said. ‘Definitely not the same one. They went back on their deal.’
‘Any way to contact Six and Three?’ I asked the stone. ‘They haven’t fulfilled their part of the deal, so the deal is off.’
‘I will put feelers out through the network, but most of us would prefer not to have any contact with that pair,’ the stone said, ‘after what they did to my children.’
‘Understandable,’ I said.
I smiled reassuringly up at the Leo demon, which still looked completely confused, and gestured towards its left hand, which was holding a scroll. ‘Is that for me?’
The demon appeared to notice the scroll for the first time and stared at it silently. Then it raised the scroll and held it out to me.
‘Can you speak?’ I said.
The demon just stared impassively at me.
‘I don’t think so,’ the Tiger said. ‘This is extremely basic, whatever it is. I suspect that it’s a very thin shell of a façade with a half-formed low-level demon inside.’
I took the scroll out of the demon’s hand and opened it.
The demon exploded all over me. I was thrown back by the shockwave and found it difficult to breathe. I quickly realised I’d been injured — and it felt serious. Dazed, I looked at my arm and it was covered in black demon essence.
‘Snake! Now! Snake, Emma, snake!’ the Tiger yelled. ‘Quickly change before you absorb it all!’
I concentrated on bringing out the serpent as I watched the essence disappear into me with a quiet liquid sucking sound.
‘Shit,’ the Tiger said softly. ‘Get that snake out, woman.’
Snake. Snake. Serpent. I tried to concentrate.
Bright light dazzled me through my eyelids. I opened my eyes to a brilliantly blue sky, then shaded them with my forearm and closed them again. I could hear the gentle sound of water on sand and opened my eyes again, squinting against the brightness.
I pulled myself up so I was sitting. I was on a beach of pure white gritty coral sand, and the water before me was perfectly flat, aqua, clear and shallow — a tropical lagoon. I could see breakers on a reef further out and then the deeper blue of the true ocean. I looked behind me and immediately recognised the place — the Phi Phi Islands in Thailand. Simone and I had travelled there a couple of years before, and she’d taken me for a swim on the reef to share her underwater abilities — her ‘mermaid skills’ as she called them.
The beach I was sitting on was only about a hundred metres long and about twenty metres wide at its widest. Behind it was a sheer rock face, overhanging near its base, a jungle high above me on its top — at least twenty metres up. The only way anyone else could visit this island was by boat.
I saw a flash of movement at the end of the beach on the left. Ms Kwan stood there in her white swimsuit and matching white over-shirt, wearing huge sunglasses and an enormous white floppy hat. She caught the hem of her shirt and waved it at me, smiling broadly.
I rose, staggered slightly, then gathered myself and walked over to her, already sweating in the tropical warmth.
‘There is a bure here,’ she said as I approached. ‘Relaxation, deep tissue, hot stone or shiatsu?’
I gently embraced her and pulled back. ‘Relaxation sounds exactly what I need.’
‘I completely agree,’ she said, and led me through the palms to a thatched-roof cottage. A smiling young demon appearing as a Thai woman in a sarong was waiting for me with a handful of fluffy towels.
I sat on the massage table and took a thorough look at myself. I had absorbed some more demon essence, but not a whole demon’s worth — I’d been lucky.
‘Yes, the serpent training could not have come at a more opportune time,’ Ms Kwan said. ‘I think your snake has, in its own way, rescued your humanity.’
The demon handed me a thick white robe and gestured to the left. ‘There is a screen there, ma’am.’
‘Is this place real, Ms Kwan?’ I said as I moved behind the screen to change into the robe. ‘And is everybody okay?’
‘No, and yes,’ Ms Kwan said. ‘You are still in my Garden, but this is a very special place that I think is exactly what you need right now.’
‘You have no idea,’ I said as I pulled the robe around me. The demon helped me onto the table and used the towels to cover me as I eased the robe off again. ‘It’s been so full-on the last couple of weeks I haven’t been able to take a breath.’
‘I understand,’ she said. She sat next to the edge of the bure and a white fan appeared in her hand. She waved it lazily in front of her face. ‘The Tiger requested some breathing time for you. You can always ask for my help yourself, remember, Emma.’
‘There is one thing I would like to ask you,’ I said.
‘Hmm?’
‘Tell me about the Xuan Wu’s true nature.’
Her fan stopped.
‘Mixed heritage of Heaven and Hell. Is he a demon that changed sides, Ms Kwan?’
‘Have you read Journey to the North, Emma?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I gave up about halfway through Journey to the West. The classics are just so damn hard, and I have so many other things happening right now that I don’t have the time they deserve to study them properly.’
‘And no crib notes on them either,’ she said wryly.
‘I wish.’
The stone in my ring piped up. ‘It is my understanding that the Dark Lord forbade his Retainers from giving Miss Emma any sort of education in the classics.’
Both I and Ms Kwan made disgusted sounds of derision.
‘But of course you women would ignore such an edict,’ the stone said.
‘Read Journey to the North, then ask to see me again. We will talk,’ Ms Kwan said.
The demon worked her smooth hands over my shoulders and I collapsed into the relaxation with a small gasp of pleasure.
‘Good,’ Ms Kwan said. ‘Enjoy the massage. Lie in the deckchairs on the beach. The demons can provide you with anything you need. Swim in the ocean; I have made it warm and calm for you. I will return later.’
I glanced up from the table. ‘Ms Kwan?’
‘Hmm?’
‘Why don’t you do this for people who are really in need — the poor, the abused, the disadvantaged? Why for me and not for them?’
‘Who says I do not provide this for them?’ she said. She smiled gently. ‘But for those who are t
ruly suffering, coming here would not be a gift. Nobody can stay here forever. All must return.’
‘I see,’ I said. I dropped my head onto the silky soft towel. ‘And thank you.’
‘You are most welcome,’ she said.
‘Is this Potakala Island?’ I said, but she had gone.
‘I have some messages from home for you,’ the stone said.
‘I don’t want to hear anything except that Simone and everyone at the Academy are okay.’
‘They are. Louise is planning to come down and visit you this afternoon and bring her kids to say hello, and wants to know if that’s all right with you.’
‘No, thanks,’ I said. ‘She wants to bitch about Rhonda before Rhonda gets back tomorrow. Tell her I’ll have lunch with her later in the week, when things have settled down.’
‘You mean never,’ the stone said. ‘Things never settle down.’
I shook my head into the towel. ‘No, I really do want to see her, I haven’t seen her in ages. I just don’t want to get stuck in the middle of this Rhonda thing right now.’
‘Perfectly understandable, ma’am,’ the stone said.
‘Anything else?’
The stone made a soft snoring noise.
The masseuse raised the towel covering one of my legs and began to work the tension out. A large bird flew overhead. The water rippled in front of me. I sighed and closed my eyes.
CHAPTER 23
The next morning, I waited with the Tiger, Michael and Simone in the Chinese restaurant of one of the hotels in Causeway Bay. We’d filled in the order sheet and the dim sum were arriving steamer by steamer at the table, but nobody had the appetite to eat much.
The Demon King walked in accompanied by Rhonda and Martin. Rhonda raced to where Michael had risen to greet her and was engulfed by his huge hug. She then embraced the Tiger, who kissed her loudly on the cheek and grinned at her, his tawny eyes sparkling with delight. She smiled around the table, and Michael quickly moved so that she could sit between him and the Tiger.
The Demon King sat at the table, waved for Martin to follow suit, and examined the dim sum baskets with interest. ‘Any fish cheeks?’