by Kylie Chan
Sang Shen thrust his shen-loaded spear into the sphere engulfing the Dragon’s head and water splashed everywhere as it disintegrated.
The guards ran into the room, but it was too late: the Shen had taken care of it. We all stood there panting and staring at each other.
The stone folded up and floated back into my crown. I need a nap. Hold my calls, please.
Sang Shen pulled the shen energy out of his spear, held it upright in front of him and pointed an accusing finger at the Dragon. ‘They were yours!’
‘They were demon copies,’ I said. ‘More and more of them are showing up. They’re almost undetectable. My stone was probably too worn out from changing form to record them. Your servants are probably dead, Qing Long.’
‘I’d like to know when that happened,’ Qing Long said with menace. ‘Those girls were some of my best.’
‘You walked out and left them here,’ Sang Shen said.
‘They can look after themselves,’ Qing Long said. He changed back to human form. ‘There’s no way of detecting these copies?’
‘My staff have been sharing the information on this for a while,’ I said. ‘You have to run regular sweeps through your human staff to detect them; they’re not immediately recognisable as demon copies. Didn’t you get the information?’
The Dragon swiped one hand through the air. ‘I’m far too busy to read every memo that crosses my desk. I have staff for that.’
‘Then I suggest you go back, find that memo, read it and check the staff who are supposed to pass that information on to you,’ I said.
The Dragon’s expression changed from angry to concerned and he disappeared.
‘They were trying to get you alone,’ Yue Gui said. ‘They can only be destroyed with shen energy.’
‘And I can’t manipulate energy at all in this form,’ I said.
‘Are they everywhere?’
‘No, they show up in groups whenever their master’s planning something. First time I’ve seen copies that can change to elementals though. Usually they’re copy humans that turn out to be demons.’
‘Something new,’ Yue Gui said. ‘Always a bad thing.’
CHAPTER 7
After the Sang Shen and Blue Dragon hearing I headed out from the main administrative building to one of the smaller buildings skirting the large courtyard. The building was a row of rooms all opening onto the terrace overlooking the courtyard; it reminded me of an Australian motel — all it needed was the cars parked out the front. The room at the far north end of the structure, closest to the residential part of the complex, was my office; and instead of bumping up the stairs, I gripped the balustrade and slithered up it.
Firebrand, the other administrator, and Lily were there already, going through the massive piles of documents related to the cases I’d heard over the past three days, deciding which needed to go down to the Earthly for future reference and which didn’t. There was a pile on the desk at least twenty centimetres tall.
‘That’s not the papers going down with me, is it?’ I said.
Lily and Firebrand shared a look, then both pointedly ignored me and continued shuffling through the transcripts.
Simone and Leo appeared at the door, Simone holding the handles of Leo’s wheelchair.
‘Ready to go yet?’ she said.
‘It’s only three o’clock, you haven’t finished school yet,’ I said. ‘What are you doing back here?’
Leo glared up at her. ‘You’re ditching school to take us? You should go right back down there, missy.’
‘Okay,’ Simone said, and disappeared. She reappeared a moment later. ‘But it looks like you’re ready to go and I’m the only one who can take you.’
I sighed with resignation. ‘Okay, but just this once.’
‘Sure thing, ma’am,’ she said. ‘Just this once, until next time.’
We landed outside my parents’ house in the Western Heavens. Simone guided Leo’s wheelchair to the front door, then pressed the doorbell. We heard footsteps and Simone grinned and yelled, ‘Nanna! Pop! We’re here!’
My mother opened the door and hugged and kissed Simone, then crouched to kiss Leo on the cheek. ‘Here’s our beautiful girls and our handsome man. We’ve been waiting for you.’
My father came up behind her and Simone hugged and kissed him too. He held his hand out to shake Leo’s. ‘Leo, mate, good to see you.’ He squeezed Simone around the waist. ‘How’s my little girl?’
Simone jiggled with excitement. ‘I just got a new horse! He’s only a baby and he talks!’
‘A talking horse, eh,’ my father said, bemused. ‘Come inside and tell us all about it.’
My mother reached one hand towards me. ‘Come on, Emma, don’t hang back. You’re part of this family too, so come on in.’
I took the smallest serpent form I could and followed Leo’s chair inside.
‘So you’re Immortal now, eh?’ my father said to Leo as he handed him a large mug of instant coffee. ‘But you’re still paraplegic. How does that work? I thought Immortals were like gods or something, all perfect.’
‘Emma can tell you how it works,’ Leo said. ‘She knows more about it than I do.’
‘They remain in the form they were in at the moment they were Raised,’ I said. ‘That’s why John’s hair’s always coming out — he was Raised straight after a big battle and his hair was a mess.’
‘Why Chinese men — particularly warriors — choose to have long hair is completely beyond me,’ my father said, shaking his head. ‘It’s always coming out — must be a damn nuisance.’
‘You can ask John about that when he returns,’ I said with humour. ‘He’d occasionally lose his temper about it and have something of a rant.’
‘I can’t imagine John losing his temper, he was the coolest man I’ve ever met,’ my mother said.
‘Is, Nanna,’ Simone corrected her. ‘He’s not a was, he’s an is. He’s out there somewhere, and he’s going to come back for us.’
‘Sorry, sweetheart,’ my mother said, and patted her arm. ‘You know what I mean.’
Simone gave her a friendly squeeze. ‘Yeah, Nanna, I know.’
Everyone sat at the dining table, and I took a larger serpent form and rested my coils on the floor. My mother put a bowl of tea in front of me and I sipped it, enjoying the fine flavour of the Tiger’s best tea.
‘Can you do Immortal stuff, Leo?’ my father said.
Leo grinned, then his wheelchair rose about five centimetres above the floor, hovered and dropped with a rattle. ‘I’m getting there. I can walk if I need to, but it takes a lot of effort. It’s easier to do the black lion thing. I occasionally change into a lion at the Academy so I can get around easier. It’s fun — it freaks everybody out.’
‘A black lion,’ my father said with wonder. ‘I saw you at Rhonda’s wedding, you were huge. Congratulations, mate, it was a sight to see when you were Raised.’
‘And then poor Rhonda exploded everywhere,’ Leo said, his face falling. ‘Michael’s still getting over that. He’s refusing to believe it was his mother; he won’t give up searching for her. Kwan Yin even told him it was really her, but he wouldn’t listen.’
‘I hope it works out all right for him,’ my father said.
‘Your brother was here,’ my mother said to Simone. ‘He said we have to move to the Northern Heavens. Something about Celestial Harmony.’
‘You don’t have to move there unless you want to,’ I said. ‘Martin’s just being old-fashioned.’
‘Well, that’s a relief,’ my father said. ‘Because we’re happy and settled here; we have a lot of friends in the Tiger’s family and we really would prefer not to move.’
My mother flipped open her mobile phone and texted someone. ‘Just telling Jen you’re here, Emma, she wants to see you.’
I shrank my serpent form slightly smaller so I could only just see over the table.
My mother glared at me. ‘Don’t be like that, Jen’s as proud of you as we all are
. Look at you, some sort of general, and Regent, whatever that is. Everybody talks about you in the same sort of voice they used to talk about John.’
‘What, you mean scared?’ Leo said with amusement.
My father pointed at Leo with triumph. ‘Damn straight.’
My mother tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Brendan! It’s rude to point.’
‘And bad luck,’ he added, still amused. He leaned on the arm of his chair to speak conspiratorially to Leo. ‘Did you know that this is villa number four? It has 3A on the letterbox, but everybody knows it’s number four. Nobody would live here until we arrived.’
‘We Aussies don’t care about silly things like bad luck numbers,’ my mother said, busying herself making more tea and pulling out a packet of Australian biscuits. ‘The Tiger’s pleased he finally has someone living here.’ She waved the biscuits at Simone. ‘Tim Tam?’
Simone jiggled with delight. ‘I haven’t had one of those in ages.’
‘Oh, those evil things,’ Leo said. He raised one hand. ‘A couple over here too, ma’am, if you please.’
‘Emma?’ my mother said.
‘Oh, Emma doesn’t eat in snake form,’ Simone said dismissively.
‘Good. More for us,’ my father said with a wink.
‘Why not? That means you never eat while you’re up here in Shangri-La,’ my mother said. ‘That’s just silly, Emma.’
‘Yeah, she goes for days at a time without eating,’ Simone said through a mouthful of chocolate biscuit. ‘She’s probably starving right now; she’s been up on the Celestial for three days and hasn’t eaten a thing.’
‘So go find me a live rat or a bird,’ I said softly.
They were all silent at that.
The doorbell rang and my mother’s face lit up. ‘There’s Jen now.’
My sister Jennifer and my friend Louise came in. Jennifer grimaced when she saw me, but Louise came right up and tapped me on the head.
‘That you?’ she said.
‘No, I’m a wild, venomous python and I’m going to eat you,’ I said.
‘Cool, it is you,’ Louise said, and sat at the table. ‘Oh my God, are those Tim Tams?’
‘Help yourself, love,’ my mother said, and Louise didn’t need to be asked twice.
Jennifer stayed on the opposite side of the room from me, her face rigid with restraint. ‘Uh, hi, Emma. Good to see you.’
‘I didn’t know you had a snake phobia,’ I said.
Jen grimaced again. ‘Sort of.’
‘Chicken,’ Louise said with a grin. ‘Emma’s not gonna hurt you, Jen. Oh,’ she turned to face me, ‘the reason we’re here is to invite you to a party in the main part of the palace tonight. Can you come? A lot of the girls would love to meet you.’
I hesitated. Simone was right: I was starving and couldn’t wait to get home to eat. But it would be fun to spend some time with the girls. ‘Sure.’
‘Cool. Oh, and by the way,’ Louise leaned closer to me and grinned, ‘pythons aren’t venomous.’
‘Just mention the Nemesis and this one becomes extremely venomous,’ Simone said, still munching on the biscuit. ‘It’s just like a Harlequin romance: she hates him but he pursues her, sure that one day she’ll see exactly how great he really is.’
‘He’d be great turning green and foaming at the mouth,’ I said quietly.
‘See?’ Simone said with triumph. ‘Venomous!’
The party was held in the Tiger’s Grand Audience Hall, which was filled with wives of about the same age as Louise — most of them wearing skin-tight miniskirts — together with many of the Elite Seraglio Guards, some in uniform and some in designer outfits, obviously off-duty. A dance floor had been set up at one end of the hall, complete with disco ball and laser lights. One of the Tiger’s sons had set up double turntables and was acting as DJ. I felt the music vibrating through the floor beneath my coils.
Louise and Jen guided me out through the French doors along the side of the hall into the garden decked with coloured fairy lights. A buffet had been set up here, and many of the wives stood around eating or sat at the tables on the lawn.
‘Isn’t this awesome?’ Louise said. ‘We have one of these every couple of weeks; we alternate with the twenty-somethings. Sometimes the Tiger wanders in and then it gets really wild.’
A trio of giggling women approached us cautiously.
‘Excuse me, but are you, like, Emma?’ one of them said.
I bowed my head slightly. ‘Yes, I’m Emma.’
‘The Dark Lady? The real one?’
‘That’d be me.’
‘We were wondering,’ she glanced at her two friends, ‘if there was, like, anything you need? Anything we could do for you? How about some PR work or secretarial stuff?’
‘I can type,’ one of her friends said.
‘I worked in a fashion magazine before I met the Tiger,’ the other one added. ‘I can help out if you need it.’
‘Why would you want to work for me?’ I said, suspicious. Then I realised what they were after. ‘No, I’m sorry, I won’t tell the Tiger to give you more time if you do things for me. I don’t work like that.’
‘How about I share my skills as a personal shopper and you have a quick word with Tigger on my behalf?’ the first girl said.
‘I think I just said no,’ I said.
‘Louise,’ one of them said in a drawn-out whine, ‘tell her to get us more time with him. We’ll let you in on the deal.’
‘Honey,’ Louise said, ‘she won’t even talk to him on my behalf and I’m supposed to be her best friend.’
Another group of wives approached, five of them this time. ‘Is this Emma?’ one said.
‘Yeah,’ replied one of the women from the first group. ‘The real one.’
‘Hey,’ said one of the newcomers, ‘I just wanted to say thank you. You helped us all out and we appreciate it.’
There was a chorus of assent from the other wives.
‘What did I do?’ I said.
One of them turned to address the rest of the women in the garden. ‘Hey, guys, this is Emma! The Dark Lady! The snake one!’
More wives gathered, smiling with encouragement. Some of them burst into spontaneous applause, a few of them cheering.
‘What did I do?’ I repeated. ‘Is this because I defeated Demon Prince Six?’
‘No, silly,’ one of the wives said. ‘We want to show our appreciation because you got that uppity bitch Rhonda out of our faces and now we’re all equal again.’
‘Yeah!’ some of the others shouted. ‘Way to go, Emma!’
I slithered away and back into the hall as fast as my coils could take me. Louise and Jennifer had to run to keep up.
‘Emma, wait!’ Louise shouted after me.
Suddenly the music stopped and all the lights in the hall came on. I stopped, dazzled by the brightness.
‘Emperor present. All show respect!’ a Horseman shouted from the main entrance. In a single smooth movement all of the women and guards present fell to their knees, their heads bowed.
The Tiger walked in, came to me, fell to one knee, saluted, then rose again. ‘Hope my girls are showing you a good time, ma’am.’
I pulled out the oldest excuse in the book. ‘I need some air.’ I turned to Louise and Jennifer. ‘I need to talk to the Tiger alone, if you don’t mind.’
‘Whoa, listen to the boss lady,’ Louise said. ‘Top-secret, superhero god stuff, eh?’
I slithered out of the hall, the Tiger following me. When we were some distance from the crowd I stopped. ‘They just gave me three cheers for killing Rhonda,’ I said, my voice hissing with frustration. ‘Bitches.’
‘That they are,’ the Tiger said, glancing back at the hall. ‘Not many women aren’t. Particularly when things get tough.’
I glared at him. ‘That goes for me too, I suppose.’
He put his hands on his hips and smiled slightly. ‘You more than any of them.’
I turned away. ‘Make it qu
ite clear to them that I had nothing to do with Rhonda.’
‘I have. They need someone to hero-worship, and you’re it. Some of them have started learning the arts from the Masters here. You’ve even inspired some of them to talk back to me.’
‘I think Rhonda would have had something to do with that as well,’ I said, turning back to look at him. ‘Now I see why she said you had to be dragged tail-first into the twenty-first century.’
‘I love the twenty-first century; health care is at an amazing level. Used to be if my wives went down to the Earthly for a trip, they’d come back with all sorts of nasty shit and die in no time. Now, just about everything’s curable.’
‘Doesn’t it bother you — you living so long, and them ageing and dying?’
He concentrated on me. ‘You worried about Ah Wu ditching you because you’re getting old?’
‘Actually, no. But it must be hard to lose so many that you love.’
‘Meh. They live a good, long, healthy and luxurious life here, and they die and I move on.’
‘Damn, you’re a callous bastard. Don’t you mourn them?’
‘I prefer practical. I lose a few a year — I’m not spending all my time mourning them, that’d be a waste. They live a good life. That’s worth celebrating.’
The sweet scent of fresh, young blood wafted over the lawn and I raised my head. ‘What’s that?’
The Tiger sniffed the air. ‘Just some birds.’
A woman walked past with a couple of small children, both about five years old. She wore a traditional long silk tunic with matching leggings, and the children wore pantsuits in black cotton with toggles and loops, their hair shaved except for a topknot each. When the woman saw the Tiger she dropped to one knee, bowed gracefully, then rose and continued.
The scent was coming from them; the children in particular exuded the wonderfully sweet, rich scent of fresh blood. It drew me closer. The woman saw me approaching, grabbed the children’s hands and ran. I didn’t think; I just pursued them. One of those children would keep me satisfied for weeks, and the feeling of swallowing it whole would be precious indeed. If I grabbed it and squeezed hard enough, it might even take bird form and be even more delicious to eat.