Red Phoenix (34 page)

John studied me. ‘And you don’t remember doing it?’

My throat was thick. ‘No.’

We were all silent for a while.

‘What does this mean, my Lord?’ Leo said.

‘It means that I’m going to pull out a level forty-five and throw it at Emma next time she’s in Wan Chai,’ John said with satisfaction. ‘No, damn, I can’t get anything that big out, I’d start draining everything around me. One of the Masters can do it, and I’ll watch. Should be interesting to see.’

‘You have demons that big in a jar?’ I said.

‘Only one or two,’ John said. ‘May have to make do with a level forty. Don’t often come up against them with the chance to put them into the jar. I don’t have anything bigger than that.’

‘I’m not too sure about this,’ I said.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll have someone on hand just in case,’ John said. ‘But I’d really like to see you take out something that big with your bare hands.’

‘I would too,’ I said. ‘I have no idea how I did it.’

‘Stone?’ John said.

‘No idea either,’ the stone said. ‘I look forward to watching as well. Should be interesting.’

A couple of weeks later I received a clean bill of health from Meredith and we tried it. I stood nervously next to the wall under the mirrors in the training room on the twelfth floor. I really wasn’t sure about this.

Meredith waited next to the demon jar, watching me with quiet amusement. John leaned against the short wall of the room, arms folded over his chest.

‘Just do what you did in Central,’ he said quietly.

‘I have no idea what I did in Central,’ I said.

‘There’s two in here,’ Meredith said. ‘I’ll give you the female one. It’s a big humanoid. Should take human form. Was that what the one in Central was?’

‘I think so,’ I said. ‘Stone? Any idea?’

The stone was silent.

‘It’s spending more and more time sleeping,’ I said. ‘Wake it up, it wanted to see,’ John said. I pulled the chain out from around my neck and tapped the stone. ‘Yes, my Lady?’

‘We’re going to do it. Big female humanoid. Is that the same?’

‘Sounds about right.’

‘Okay.’ I took a deep breath. ‘Go.’

Meredith held her hand above the jar and one of the beads flew up into it. She threw the bead onto the floor at the base of the mirrors. The female demon materialised in human form.

I went into a guard position and nodded without looking away from the demon.

The demon stiffened and straightened to study me. ‘What are you?’

‘Damn. Why do they keep doing that? Okay,’ I said more loudly, ‘what am I?’

The demon glared at me with contempt. ‘If I knew I wouldn’t be asking you.’

‘I’m a Snake Mother,’ I said.

‘Emma…’ John said from the side, but I ignored him.

‘No, you’re not,’ she said. ‘I’m a snake hybrid.’

‘Is that what you are?’ she said, tilting her head. ‘You don’t look like a hybrid.’

‘Emma, don’t worry about it!’ John said. ‘I’m a perfectly normal human being,’ I said.

‘Good,’ she said. ‘Then I should be able to take you
easily
!’ She went straight for my head with both hands, but I ducked under her and went through her, hitting her in the abdomen with both feet, one after the other, as I went past.

She spun to follow me. ‘Trained by the Dark Lord himself,’ she said. ‘Impressive.’

She came at me, her fists a blur. I managed to block the first three or four strikes, but quickly found myself unable to keep up with her and retreated, losing ground. She saw that I wasn’t nearly as fast as her and her face filled with grim satisfaction as she kept the strikes coming at my head. It was all I could do to stay out of the way.

I fell back, dodging and weaving and making feeble attempts to block her flurry of blows.

She hit me on the side of the head with a cracking thump. The floor crashed into me. I couldn’t see.

‘If she’s sustained brain damage, my Lord, I will personally tear your arms off,’ Meredith said.

‘You should have seen that coming and bound the bitch quicker,’ John said.

‘That’s right, blame the woman,’ I said, and opened my eyes.

I lay on my back on the floor where I’d fallen. My head felt like it was stuffed with lead-filled cotton wool. Meredith was above me, her intelligent face full of concern.

‘I’m okay,’ I said. ‘My head feels fuzzy but I’ll live.’ ‘Meredith?’ John said.

Meredith took my hand and studied me. ‘She’s right: mild concussion, that’s all.’ She helped me sit up. I wriggled back so that I was leaning against the mirrors. My head was spinning but my vision was clear.

John wiped his hands over his face and tied back his hair. ‘Damn.’ He and Meredith shared a look but didn’t say anything.

‘So what was the difference?’ John said.

Nobody spoke.

‘Stone?’ John said.

‘I honestly don’t know, my Lord,’ the stone said. ‘In Central, the demon hit her and she moved faster. This time, no difference. Similar demon. Similar circumstances. I have no idea.’

‘It will come out in the end,’ John said. ‘We have all the time in the world. Help her up, Meredith, let’s get her home.’

Meredith lifted me with one strong hand under my arm. I was slightly woozy, but I would make it.

‘We don’t have all the time in the world, John,’ I said. ‘Time is the one thing that we’re rapidly running out of.’

‘It will happen for us,’ John said grimly. ‘Live for the present and look to the future.’

‘The future is the only thing keeping me going,’ I whispered.

‘I won’t take you directly home, Emma, it’ll make your head ten times worse,’ Meredith said. ‘Let’s get you down to the car, and Lord Xuan can drive you.’

‘Okay.’

A
fter we returned from the party the following Saturday we kicked off our shoes and I helped Simone drag all of the gear into her bedroom. The treat sack was huge and stuffed full of gifts. There was a tap on the door. ‘Come in, Leo, let me show you,’ Simone said. Leo came in and sat next to Simone and me on the floor.

‘Did you have fun, sweetheart?’ he said.

Simone studied me, her little face very serious. ‘Emma, you said I’ll have a party too. Will it be like that?’

‘No,’ I said with a laugh. ‘Nothing like that. We’ll invite about six or eight of your friends over, you can all play in the living room, and we won’t have an entertainer.’

‘What about the food?’ Simone said, eyes wide. ‘Like that?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘We’ll just have some little snacks.’

‘Good,’ Simone said. She tipped the contents of the treat sack onto the floor. There was a mountain of sweets, some expensive toys and a large amount of costume jewellery.

‘It was one of
them,
wasn’t it?’ Leo said.

‘They rented the entire YMCA in King’s Park,’ I said to Leo. ‘The whole centre.’

‘Which one is that?’ Leo said. ‘I don’t remember a YMCA there.’

‘It’s a new one. Behind QE Hospital. It has tennis courts, a few climbing walls, a big roller hockey rink, an indoor sports hall. Huge.’

‘And they took it
all
?’ Leo said. ‘How many kids did they invite?’

‘Must have been more than sixty.’

Leo was speechless.

‘We went into the gift room to put our gift on the table, but it had overflowed onto the floor. The room was packed full of presents for this little girl.’

‘I don’t want that many presents,’ Simone said without looking up. ‘I want to have a party and play with my friends.’

‘They had the staff of the Y pull out the rollerskating gear so the kids could have a skate. But they didn’t have enough equipment. Lots of the kids missed out. The parents stood around and watched—you know what it’s like.’

‘Yeah, parents and grandparents bring the kids. You have to look after them too. And the little brothers and sisters and cousins.’

‘Then they did rock climbing, but of course they were all too small to make any progress up the wall. And the Y didn’t have enough staff, so I belayed as well.’

Leo gestured towards my T-shirt. ‘So that’s what happened.’

I glanced down. My T-shirt was absolutely filthy on one side, from the rope rubbing as I’d belayed for the kids. ‘Yeah. I had to lift them up the wall; they couldn’t do it by themselves.’ I stretched my shoulders. ‘My arms are killing me.’

‘What did they eat?’

‘It was catered—big professional firm. None of the kids liked the food. And they had
two
entertainers. Magicians. But the kids ignored them—they’d all seen the shows before.’

‘I’ve seen one of those guys do those tricks
three times
now,’ Simone said irritably. She took some of the candy and threw it into her little wastepaper basket next to the door. ‘He was
boring.
Daddy can do much better things than that.’ She had a sudden idea, charged over and threw herself at me. ‘Hey! At my party, can we ask Daddy to do some stuff with water? He can pretend to be a magician! That would be
so cool
!’

I gave Simone a huge hug. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, sweetheart.’

‘So it was a typical Hong Kong birthday party,’ Leo said as he pulled himself up from the floor.

‘Absolutely the
most
typical one I’ve ever been to,’ I said. ‘They must think it’s some sort of competition or something.’

‘What did the birthday girl think?’

‘I don’t think she had very much fun at all,’ I said. ‘She spent most of the time crying.’

‘How long to my party, Emma?’ Simone said.

‘About three weeks, sweetheart,’ I said. I gave her a squeeze. ‘We need to make invitations.’

Simone jumped up and threw her arms above her head. ‘Yay!’ she squealed. She jumped around the room. ‘Party for
me!
Friends for
me!
I
love
having friends!’ She threw herself at Leo and he hoisted her to sit on his hip. ‘When’s your birthday, Leo?’

‘I’m too old to have birthdays,’ Leo said, grinning and holding her close.

‘Remember? We had a cake for Leo, and he was all cross with us, and we had to get your dad to order him to stay and blow out the candles?’ I said.
‘And then we made him go out with all of his silly friends?’

‘Some of your friends are funny, Leo,’ Simone said into Leo’s grinning face, ‘but I liked them.’ She turned to me, still in his arms. ‘When’s your birthday, Emma?’

‘Not telling,’ I said.

‘October twenty-third,’ Leo said. ‘Next Thursday.’

‘Don’t you
dare
,’ I said fiercely.

Leo grinned. ‘No idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Leo, can we go into your room and talk for a minute, please?’ Simone said, suddenly serious.

‘Don’t either of you
dare
!’ I shouted at them.

‘Still don’t know what you’re talking about, Emma,’ Leo said as he lowered Simone and took her hand. ‘Come on, Simone.’

Simone glanced over her shoulder at me. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about either, Emma.’ She tugged Leo’s hand. ‘Come on, Leo, we need to talk.’

I got out of the lift on the eighth floor to go to my energy work class. It was unusually quiet. Normally the first years would be chatting and laughing in the room, but as I walked towards the door the hall was completely silent. I wondered whether I had the time wrong as I opened the door.

Fortunately they had the brains not to jump out and yell ‘surprise!’ at me; I probably would have taken all of them out with energy without even thinking. They stood around a large table with a monstrous birthday cake on it.

I spun to leave but Leo was way ahead of me. He grabbed me, lifted me completely off my feet before I had a chance to struggle, turned me around and put me in front of the cake.

Then they all began to sing goddamn ‘Happy Birthday’ to me.

Simone ran to me with her arms up. I lifted her and sat her on my hip. ‘Happy birthday, Emma!’ she yelled right into my ear.

‘You will thoroughly keep for this, Leo,’ I growled softly.

‘You did it to me,’ Leo said with a huge grin.

‘Don’t put Simone down,’ John said, and charged over to me, wrapped his arms around both of us, and gave me a huge kiss right on the mouth.

Damned if they all didn’t cheer and clap. Even Simone squealed with delight.

I looked around. My energy work students were there. Meredith, Liu, most of the other Celestial Masters and all of the human ones. Most of the demon staff from the top floor. Michael and Rhonda, standing together. The White Tiger, standing behind Rhonda with a huge grin. Jade and Gold, both of them grinning like idiots.

‘You will all keep,’ I said loudly.

‘
Now
who’s over the hill?’ Leo said with delight, gesturing towards the cake with the big ‘30’ on top.

‘All of us!’ I shouted, and squeezed Simone tight.

‘Put her down, Emma, I have a gift for you,’ John said.

‘I have everything I could possibly want in the whole world,’ I said as I lowered Simone. ‘You don’t need to give me anything.’

John gestured, and one of the demons handed him a wrapped cylinder. He presented it to me with both hands, a small bow and a huge grin.

I wondered if I should open it immediately Western-style, or hold on to it and open it privately later, Chinese-style.

‘Western-style,’ John said, reading my mind. ‘Open it. They want to see.’

I carefully pulled off the red wrapping paper. It was a scroll; it had wooden dowels at the top and the
bottom, and a red silk ribbon for hanging. I held the top dowel and let the scroll carefully fall.

It was a single character. The character
si;
made of a field above a heart, done in John’s elegant flowing hand.

‘What does it mean?’ Leo said into my ear.

‘Thought. Contemplation. Remembrance. I will see it and remember.’ I turned the scroll around so that they could all see, and they went quiet.

‘Could somebody get me a tissue, please?’ I choked.

‘That was a bad present, Daddy,’ Simone said. ‘You made her cry.’

‘These are tears of happiness, Simone,’ I said, my voice thick. ‘I’ll have this on the wall in my room for a long time.’

‘Good,’ John said. ‘For a moment there I thought I’d made a huge mistake.’

‘You don’t have any bad ideas, John,’ I said. ‘Only good ones.’

Leo helped me put the scroll up in my room later. He banged a nail into the wall, high enough for the scroll to clear the floor.

‘Don’t know why he didn’t wait until next year,’ Leo growled. ‘It’s a big birthday for you, this one. This is a really depressing gift.’

‘No, it’s wonderful,’ I said. ‘But don’t you realise?’

‘What?’

I sighed with exasperation. ‘You’ve been living in China longer than I have, Leo. You haven’t learned anything.’

‘What?’ Leo said impatiently.

‘Everything they say and do has hidden layers of meaning. Everything is symbolic.’ ‘And?’

‘And,’ I said, ‘Immortals are renowned for their ability to see the future.’

‘That would explain why they’re so goddamned serene all the time,’ Leo said. He hung the scroll on the nail. ‘They know what’s going to happen.’

‘It’s hard to tell how much they know; none of them will talk about it. You know there’s some things that none of them will talk about. But the symbolism of this gift is obvious.’

We stepped back to admire the scroll.

‘No, it isn’t,’ Leo said. ‘Not to me, anyway.’

‘He thinks he won’t have the chance to give it to me for my next birthday,’ I said as calmly as I could.

Leo was silent.

‘We have to get Simone up to speed.’ Leo still didn’t say anything. He turned and went out.

I didn’t turn around when I heard the tap on the door a couple of days later, just called out, ‘Come on in.’

Michael poked his head around the door. ‘A friend of mine’s dropped by, Emma, and wants to know if we can go to the mall together.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Michael,’ I said. ‘You know you won’t be safe by yourself and just one other. Go with a group, or take either Leo or myself to guard you.’

Michael sighed. He obviously hadn’t wanted to tell me. ‘It’s Na Zha.’

‘Damn.’ I pushed myself away from my desk. ‘You know how I feel about him.’

Michael shrugged. ‘Come on, Emma, he’s okay, he promises to behave. We just want to go and look at the new software in the shops. No trouble, promise.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Outside the living room window.’

I stormed out to the living room. Michael was right: Na Zha floated outside the living room window, poised on his fire wheels. He saw me coming and grinned.

He moved back about three metres, then rode the fire wheels right through the window without doing any damage whatsoever to the glass. He landed lightly on the carpet without the wheels; he’d already been in major trouble once with John for singeing the carpet.

‘Yo,’ he said briskly. ‘How about it?’

He looked about seventeen. He wore a pair of jeans that were more than four sizes too big for him and floated somewhere down around his hips, with his designer underwear plainly showing and the bottoms crumpled and torn. His T-shirt was black, sleeveless and much too small for him. He wore a black baseball cap back-to-front. His sunglasses and sports shoes were the most expensive on the market. An MP3 player was slung around his neck, rap metal blaring loudly from the tiny headphones. He was the image of the rich, rebellious, spoilt Hong Kong teenager.

I swallowed my feelings as I carefully saluted him. ‘My Lord Third Prince.’

Na Zha grinned evilly at me. ‘Lady Emma.’ He shrugged. ‘Come on, we’ll be fine, no trouble, I promise.’

‘You’ve just given me your word, Na Zha,’ I said. ‘No trouble.’ I sighed with resignation. ‘I suppose it’s all right. Back by ten, okay? Michael’s half human, he needs his rest.’

‘Sweet,’ Michael said.

‘There’s a great mall in Bel Air. Wanna go?’ Na Zha asked Michael.

‘Bel Air Gardens in Sha Tin? There’s not much over there,’ I said.

‘Not Sha Tin, LA,’ Na Zha snapped impatiently.

‘
No way
!’ I shouted, and both of them glanced at me. ‘I said back by ten, and I meant ten
tonight
! You two will stay here in Hong Kong where I can call Michael. Do you have your phone, Michael?’

I don’t need a phone any more,
Michael said, straight into my ear.

‘When the hell did you learn to do that?’

The Dark Lord taught me last week.

‘That’s all well and good, Michael, but you know I can’t do it, so I can’t call you if I need you. So take your phone, okay? And you two
talk out loud
when you’re near me, or there’ll be serious trouble.’

Michael nodded. Na Zha put his hand on his hip, exasperated, but didn’t say anything.

‘Festie?’ Michael said.

‘Whatever.’ Na Zha turned and jumped through the glass of the living room window. The fire wheels materialised under his feet. He summoned a cloud for Michael.

‘Michael, please don’t get into any trouble. If you do, your mother will kill me,’ I said wearily. ‘A little restraint goes a long way, you know?’

‘Don’t worry, Emma, we’ll behave. There’s a new game out, we just want to check it out,’ Michael said. Na Zha gestured towards the cloud. Michael ran straight through the glass of the window and landed on the cloud. ‘Hey,’ Michael called as they left. ‘Thanks.’

‘Just don’t make me come down there and get you,’ I told their backs as they flew away.

I stormed back to my room and returned to the spreadsheets. Oh well, at least I knew there was no chance of a demon getting him when he was with that little…
gentleman.

John must have known that Simone and I had arrived for breakfast in the dining room the next morning.

Come and see me in my office after you’ve eaten, Emma.

I picked up my tea and opened the newspaper. I froze completely.

Simone saw my face. ‘What’s the matter, Emma?’