White Tiger (34 page)

‘Are you okay, Leo?’

‘Are you kidding? Staves, day off, I know a place—how about it? Full on, no quarter, you and me, what do you think?’

‘You are damn well on,’ I said. ‘I can take you any day of the week.’

‘We’ll see about that. Now I know how fast you are I can deal with it easily. But if either of us gets injured we will be in deep trouble.’

‘You won’t have a chance to get injured. It will be all over before you even know it’s started,’ I said, and quickly ducked.

I raised my hand and rested the tip of my staff on the floor. ‘Stop, Leo, I’m done. You can best me. I concede.’ I stretched my left arm. ‘And my arms are ready to drop off.’

Leo lowered his staff, then strode to me and quickly embraced me. ‘Mine too.’

We both stiffened when we heard a loud round of applause. We turned to face the glass frontage of the tae kwon do dojo. A crowd of delighted residents of South Horizons, Ap Lei Chau Island’s major residential development, had been watching us. They cheered loudly when they saw us notice them. Both of us quickly saluted them, staves in hand, and the cheers became even wilder.

‘Did you know we had an audience?’ I said.

‘No idea.’

‘Wonder how many of them are demon spies.’

‘Probably at least two or three. They have your number now, Emma.’

I shrugged. ‘Completely worth it.’

The owner of the dojo came up to us, his face full of delight. He put one hand on Leo’s arm and pumped his hand with the other. ‘Thank you, my friend, that was magnificent.’ He nodded to me. ‘Both of you are magnificent. Can you come back next Sunday? I have had thirty or so people asking to learn tae kwon do because of what they’ve seen. Will you come and teach? Please?’

Leo and I shared a look.

‘I may be able to come in on an occasional Sunday and help out,’ Leo said. ‘But Emma’s not ready.’

‘She looks thoroughly ready to me.’

‘I’m just a junior compared to Leo,’ I said. ‘I’m really not qualified to teach anybody.’

‘You are as skilled as anybody I’ve seen,’ he said with awe. ‘How long have you been learning?’

‘Years,’ I said.

Leo nodded. If I told Mr Kim the truth, that I had been learning for less than a year, he wouldn’t believe me. He’d think that I was playing him for a fool or showing off.

‘You sure you won’t come in and teach?’

‘I’m sorry, I can’t.’

He shrugged. ‘Very well.’ He grinned at Leo. ‘Thank you, my friend. Come and let me give you something cool to drink. Both of you are exhausted.’

‘Thanks.’

When we arrived home after dinner Mr Chen charged out of his study and pointed at us. ‘Both of you, in the dining room, right now.’ We sat across from him.

‘Emma, the demons now know
exactly
how good you are. Why have you done this stupid thing?’ I shrugged.

‘Leo, was this your idea?’ ‘Yes, my Lord.’

He glared at us. ‘Leo, swords. Emma, bladed weapons.’

‘Yes, sir,’ we said in unison, saluting. ‘Is this going to happen again?’ ‘No, sir.’

‘Shall I pin a target to your back, Emma?’ ‘I think there’s one there already, my Lord.’

He winced, then rounded on Leo. ‘How about a sign, Leo? “The God of Martial Arts teaches me; challenge me and see how good I am”?’

‘What she said, my Lord. There’s one already there.’

He sighed with exasperation. ‘Go and sharpen those blades.’

We both rose, fell to one knee saluting him, and went out.

There were twenty-nine swords and sixty-three other weapons with blades. After we’d finished sharpening them, neither of us could move.

But it had been completely worth it.

W
e stood opposite the mirrors as Simone floated the chi around the room. ‘Back to your hands,’ Mr Chen said. The chi returned to Simone’s hands and hovered above her outstretched palms. ‘Back inside.’

She took a deep breath, her eyes widened, and the chi dropped into her hands. ‘Good. How do you feel?’ She glanced up at him. ‘I feel okay.’ ‘Do you need to sit?’ ‘No, I’m okay, Daddy.’ ‘Good. Emma.’

I generated the chi and held it above my hands. I had slightly more than Simone had managed. ‘To the mirrors.’

I floated it off my hands and moved it towards the mirrors.

‘Now. Try something. Walk to the centre of the mats, leaving the chi there. Sometimes you will need to move yourself while you have the chi. Do you think you can do it?’

I concentrated on keeping the chi motionless and nodded. ‘Try.’

I took a careful step forward, still holding the chi next to the mirrors. I wanted to say how difficult it was, but I couldn’t speak and perform the tasks at the same time.

‘Way to go, Emma,’ Leo whispered from the doorway, breaking my concentration. The chi snapped back and hit me in the abdomen, knocking me flat.

I came around with their concerned faces hovering above me. I raised my hand. ‘Help me up, Leo.’

Leo took my hand and helped me to my feet. I staggered and he put his arm around my shoulders to hold me.

‘I’m okay,’ I said, pushing him away. ‘It goes away very quickly.’

‘Sorry, Emma,’ he said.

I shoved him. ‘I’m ready. Let’s try it again.’

‘No,’ Mr Chen said. ‘I think you’ve done enough for the day. Both you and Simone are ready, Emma. We’ll all go to the house on the hill in Guangzhou for a couple of weeks, there’s more space for you to move the chi around there. Leo, help Emma back to her room.’ I opened my mouth to protest. ‘Let him, Emma, that’s an order. You are very drained and I think you need the assistance.’

‘How do you do that?’ Leo asked as he helped me down the hallway. ‘Do you just concentrate and it comes out?’

‘Something like that,’ I said. ‘All of the tai chi and chi gung work that we did before leads up to being able to move the energy outside the body.’

‘I do them too. Do you think I could do the chi if I tried?’

I stopped and looked up at him. ‘You know what would happen if you did, Leo.’

He opened my bedroom door. ‘Yeah. But sometimes I think it would be worth it.’

After he’d helped me inside I embraced him and buried my face in his huge chest. ‘Leo, if you try to do energy work and activate the virus, you won’t die from it because I’ll kill you first. Simone and I need you. We all need you.’

He stroked my hair. ‘Yeah. I know.’

‘Promise me you won’t try.’

‘I promise,’ he whispered, then released me and went out.

A week later we threw our duffel bags into the boot of the Mercedes and headed out to the border. After an hour of driving we reached the riding club where Mr Chen kept his horse. Leo parked the car. Mr Chen grabbed a small rucksack from the floor of the car and went into the club.

‘Why are we stopping here?’ I asked Leo over the back of the seat.

‘Wait and see,’ Leo said.

Simone giggled.

My mobile rang and I managed to get to it in my bag before it stopped ringing. ‘Emma.’ ‘Hello, Emma, it’s Kitty.’ I sighed. ‘Hi, Miss Kwok.’

‘Kitty, please, Emma.’ Her voice was kind. ‘I haven’t seen you in ages, where have you been? You haven’t been to the last two charity functions I arranged. Have you been sick?’

‘No, no, I was there.’ Just avoiding her.

‘You must come and visit me, Emma. Come up to my house for lunch sometime. I’d love to see you. How about tomorrow?’

‘I’m sorry, Kitty, but I’m in China with Mr Chen, and it looks like we’ll be here for a while.’

Mr Chen returned to the car, but he looked completely different. He appeared to be in his mid-sixties, overweight and balding, and he’d changed out of his usual black clothes into a poorly fitting navy business suit. He opened the rear door. ‘Move over, Simone, I’ll sit in the back.’

Simone giggled and shifted over for him.

‘I have something I need to do, Kitty. Talk to you when I’m back in Hong Kong,’ I said, and hung up. Enough!

Mr Chen climbed clumsily into the car, pulled a ridiculous pair of plastic-rimmed glasses out of his jacket pocket and put them on.

‘You look absolutely adorable,’ I said.

‘He looks
stupid
,’ Simone said.

‘Why did you change your appearance?’

‘My travel document says I’m sixty-four years old. Gold was in the process of arranging a new one, but he never made it in time. Who was that on the phone?’

I glared at my mobile. ‘Kitty Kwok. She keeps calling me to talk me into visiting her at her house.’

‘She must really like you.’

I shoved the phone back into my bag. ‘Well, I don’t like her.’

Leo drove out of the club to the border crossing. The car had both Hong Kong and Mainland licence plates; very common for people who often travelled across the border. When we reached the crossing we didn’t even need to get out of the car. The officials checked our exit documents at the first gate, then we drove a couple of hundred metres and the guards at the second gate checked our entry documents.

It was strange to be on the right side of the road after so long driving on the left in Hong Kong.

‘I’m letting my hair go, Leo,’ Mr Chen said. ‘I can’t hold it. Tell me if we approach a checkpoint.’

‘My Lord,’ Leo said.

Mr Chen grew his hair back out to its usual length with a sigh of relief, but nothing else about his appearance changed. His hair covered Simone’s face and she huffed and blew it out of the way.

‘Sorry, sweetheart,’ he said and brushed his hair to one side. ‘How about that?’

‘That’s better,’ she said, and grinned.

The road was four lanes wide and planted with flowers on both sides; something not often seen in Hong Kong. After about forty minutes on the highway, Leo pulled off onto a narrower winding road that led into some hills. He slowed the car and carefully negotiated the turns.

We passed through a village of ugly brick and concrete houses. There were no sidewalks, only dirt and mud paths. Piles of rubbish and open drains lined the sides of the road. A few bored-looking young women in brightly coloured pants and jackets stood behind ramshackle stalls selling alcohol and cigarettes. We passed a butcher, huge cleaver in hand, with pieces of pig—lungs and intestines—hanging in the open air from the rails of his stall. A few grubby children emerged from one of the houses and ran beside the car for a while, then gave up.

Further up the hillside, past the village, the potholed bitumen changed to gravel that crunched under the wheels of the car. Leo slowed even more.

Close to the top of the hill we turned off the gravel onto a narrow dirt track that twisted through bamboo groves. Leo slowed the car to a crawl and we inched through the cool greenery.

As we approached the top of the hill the bamboo opened up. We passed through a Chinese-style gate topped with green tiles, adorned with complex calligraphy and flanked by a pair of stone lions. Leo
drove slowly through and we came to a high red stone wall with similar green tiles on top. A groove of putty ran along the top of the wall, with shards of broken glass set in it.

Mr Chen raised his hand and the black steel gates in front of us swung smoothly open.

‘You can get young again now, Daddy,’ Simone said.

‘Can’t,’ he said. ‘I’d break these clothes and I need them to go back in.’

She giggled.

‘You know other kids’ dads can’t do that, Simone,’ I said. ‘When you go to school you can’t talk about it.’

‘I know that, silly Emma.’ Simone gazed up at her father with adoration. ‘My daddy’s
really special
.’

‘So are you,’ he said.

We drove for about three hundred metres along the driveway then crested the hill. A huge white concrete mansion with a green tiled roof nestled into the hillside on the other side. The view from the top of the hill was spectacular, overlooking the fish ponds and rice paddies below. The haze of pollution from Shenzhen economic zone, where many goods for the West were manufactured, made the horizon a blur.

‘We’re lucky we’re so high here—we’re out of the pollution,’ I said. ‘I should be able to generate twice as much chi.’

‘That’s why I brought you,’ Mr Chen said.

Leo stopped the car in front of the house. Two gardeners who had been trimming a hedge dropped their tools and rushed inside.

A tiny round-faced middle-aged Chinese lady wearing the traditional black pants and white jacket of a servant came out the front door.

Mr Chen leapt out of the car and charged into the house without stopping, his long hair flying. The servant smiled indulgently as he passed her. Simone
jumped out of the car and ran to the servant. The woman hugged Simone, then walked to the car holding her hand.

Leo opened the boot. The gardeners and another female servant came out of the house to help him with the bags.

The servant holding Simone’s hand came to me and said in perfect English, ‘Hello, madam. I am Ah Yat.’

‘I’m Emma, and I’m not madam, I’m just the nanny.’

‘Yes, Miss Emma.’ Ah Yat smiled down at Simone. ‘Long time no see, my darling.’

‘I’m
hungry
,’ Simone said.

‘Come with me.’ Ah Yat patted my arm. ‘I have tea.’

The minute she touched me, I knew. Ah Yat was a demon. I took Simone’s arm and pulled her away.

‘Emma, stop!’ Simone shouted. ‘Don’t do anything! It’s okay!’

Leo grabbed me from behind and held me before I could attack Ah Yat.

‘What the hell are you doing, Leo? It’s a
demon
!’ I shouted.

Ah Yat stood silently and watched us with amusement.

‘Emma, calm down, it won’t hurt anybody,’ Leo said into my ear. ‘It’s a tame one.’

I stopped struggling. Leo released me.

Simone put her little hands on her hips and scowled. ‘Don’t you dare hurt Ah Yat! She’s a
good
demon.’

I rounded on Leo and stuck my finger into his chest. ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me? I could have destroyed her!’ I dropped my voice to speak with more menace and continued to poke him in the chest, making him take a step back. ‘The next time there is something I should know that is
important enough to save my life,
you had better tell me, Mr Alexander.’

Leo opened his mouth to protest and then realised I was talking about more than just Ah Yat. He rubbed the back of his neck, sheepish.

‘Watch my chi,’ I said softly. ‘It will be out to get you next time.’

I turned back to Ah Yat. ‘So sorry, Ah Yat, but these
stupid
people didn’t think it would be necessary to tell me about you.’

‘Not a problem, Miss Emma. You have done very well to spot me. Master Leo didn’t pick me at all when he first met me. Would you like some tea?’

‘Absolutely,’ I said, and followed her into the house.

Ah Yat sat us in the kitchen and presented us with a pot of Chinese tea.

‘How long have you worked for Lord Xuan Wu?’ I said.

‘About…’ She stopped and her face went strange. Then she snapped back. ‘Sorry, Miss Emma. I am the head demon here. I tell the others what to do. I have been in the Dark Lord’s service for nearly six hundred years.’ She put a saucepan on the stove to make some instant ramen for Simone. ‘I am close to attaining perfection and gaining humanity.’

‘I don’t want you to go, Ah Yat,’ Simone said.

‘Don’t you want me to be human and live a real life?’

Simone screwed up her little face with deliberation. ‘Yes, but I want you to stay here and look after us too.’

‘The Dark Lord will not release me until he is sure that I am no longer needed.’

‘Good,’ Simone said, relieved, and slurped her apple juice.

‘What do you have to do to attain perfection?’ I said.

Ah Yat stirred the noodles. ‘There are a number of paths a demon may choose to follow. Serving a mighty lord such as Lord Xuan Wu is one of them. If I serve
him well, he will put in a recommendation for me when I am ready. I am nearly there.’

She poured the noodles into a bowl and presented them to Simone. ‘Take care, my darling, they are very hot. Wait a moment, I will cool them.’ She put one hand over the noodles and concentrated. ‘There.’

‘Thanks, Ah Yat,’ Simone said. She pulled the noodles closer and attacked them with gusto.

‘Where do you buy your groceries?’ I said. ‘You’re miles from anywhere here.’

‘The Dark Lord has a house in the city. I travel to that house, walk out the door and do the shopping. Then I return to the house and travel here. To others it appears that I live in the city.’

‘I can see why he has this particular type of staff up here. Normal people would be limited by its remoteness.’

‘We are
demons,
Miss Emma. Do not hesitate to say the word. We are aware of our nature and are working to overcome it, with help from the Dark Lord.’ She sighed through her smile. ‘It is true bliss to serve in such a manner.’

One of the male demons, Ah Sum, showed me to my room. It was decorated like a colonial-style hotel, with white wicker furniture and a large window overlooking the spectacular view. A fluffy double bed sat under the window, and a pair of rattan chairs flanked a side table. Another chair sat under a desk on the other side of the room, beneath a large mirror with a white wicker frame. It was spotlessly clean, and the demons had already unpacked for me and put my clothes into the dresser.

‘Is your name Number Three?’ I asked Ah Sum.

‘That is correct. Ah Yat is Number One, Ah Yee is Number Two, I am Number Three, and Ah Say is Number Four.’

‘You should have real names. Just being numbers isn’t really enough.’

‘We are delighted to be called anything, ma’am,’ he said, and went out.

A while later there was a tap on the door. ‘Come in,’ I said.

Mr Chen came in, stood uncomfortably for a moment, then flopped down in one of the rattan chairs next to the wall. He raised his hands. ‘I don’t know what to say.’