‘In what way?’ I said.
Charlie stopped and mused. Then, ‘I think he just seems happier. Last time he came, he didn’t talk much, he didn’t laugh, he didn’t want to do anything. It’s good to see him so happy.’
‘I wanna go to the Science Museum!’ Simone yelled.
Leo and I groaned.
The next day we all went shopping in Harrods so that Simone could see the toys and Leo could check out the menswear. After the third time through the toy department Simone was becoming restless, so we went back to the menswear section.
Mr Chen called Leo over. ‘How much longer will you be?’
Leo glanced back at the racks and the shop assistant he’d been talking to. ‘Just a bit more.’
‘You’ve already been more than an hour,’ I said, exasperated.
Leo glared at me.
‘We’ll take Simone to the big toy shop in Regent Street,’ Mr Chen said. ‘Take your time, and we’ll meet you back at the house.’
Leo didn’t hesitate. ‘Yes, sir.’ He returned to the shop assistant without looking back.
Mr Chen and I shared an amused glance.
‘I just prefer to be comfortable,’ I said.
‘Me too.’
‘Yeah,’ Simone said. ‘Both of you are really scruffy. Leo says he’s embarrassed to be seen with you, and I should never let either of you buy clothes for me.’
Mr Chen grinned. ‘Good.’
On the final day, we all went to the zoo in Regent’s Park.
‘I’ll have to take you to the zoo in Sydney one day, Simone,’ I said. ‘It’s heaps bigger than this one, and it has a great view of Sydney Harbour.’
‘Turtles!’ Simone squealed and ran to see the Galapagos giant tortoises. She leaned over the fence, delighted. ‘I love turtles. They’re so ugly.’
Mr Chen came and stood between us, leaning on the railing. ‘You think they’re ugly?’
She grinned up at him. ‘Yes.’
‘What do you think, Emma?’ Mr Chen said.
I suddenly realised that he was standing very close to me. Very, very close: his whole body was stretched alongside mine. He put his arm around me to lean on the rail and the shock of the chemistry went right through me.
I took a deep breath and tried to control my reaction.
‘I like snakes better,’ I said. ‘I had a pet carpet snake back in Australia.’
Mr Chen moved closer and leaned into me. His long hair brushed over my shoulder. I found it extremely difficult to concentrate.
Simone didn’t seem to notice. ‘Was it poisonous?’
‘Was what poisonous?’ I said.
‘The snake, silly.’
‘Uh, no, it was a python.’
Mr Chen pulled his arm closer around me. ‘What did you feed it, Emma?’
Leo made some throat-clearing noises behind us. Neither of us paid him any attention.
I turned and looked up into Mr Chen’s glowing dark eyes. ‘Live mice.’
He shifted even closer. His whole body was pressed into mine. ‘Where did you get your mice from?’
I caught my breath. ‘I bought them from the pet shop. Monty only ate about one a week. Then they found out what I was doing with them, so I had to breed my own.’
‘Monty?’ Simone said, still watching the tortoises.
‘The snake.’
Leo snorted. He was the only one who understood the joke. Then, ‘My Lord…’ he said softly, warning.
‘I wonder if they have any poisonous snakes here, Simone,’ I said without looking away from Mr Chen.
Simone pushed her father out of the way and he snapped out of it. She took my hand. ‘Let’s go and see.’
Mr Chen took Simone’s other hand. ‘Okay, let’s go.’
‘I hate snakes,’ Leo said as we moved towards the snake house.
Mr Chen stopped and spoke over his shoulder. ‘Some of my best friends are snakes, Leo.’ ‘No offence, sir,’ Leo said sheepishly.
About three hours out of Macau, the jet pilot called for Mr Chen on the intercom. Mr Chen went into the cockpit and talked to him for about ten minutes.
When he returned, he sat and picked up the Chinese book he’d been reading.
‘Is there a problem, sir?’ Leo said.
‘Not at this stage,’ Mr Chen said without looking up.
About an hour later, Simone fell asleep on my lap and Leo carried her to the back of the plane and put her in the bunk.
The pilot called Mr Chen over the intercom again. When Leo returned he looked questioningly at me. I pointed towards the cockpit and he nodded.
Mr Chen came back, sat in his chair, picked up his book and bookmarked his page. He closed the book and put it to one side. ‘A typhoon is headed straight for Macau. It will be a direct hit in the next two hours.’
A direct hit from a typhoon would close the airport. The winds would be ferocious. A small plane had tried to land during a typhoon in Hong Kong a couple of years before, and had flipped over on the runway. Three people had died. And that hadn’t even been a direct hit.
‘So we’ll divert to Taipei or Manila?’ I said.
‘I have to be in Hong Kong later today,’ Mr Chen said. ‘I have an appointment that I must fulfil, regardless of the circumstances. We’ll land in Macau.’
Leo threw himself out of his chair and towered over Mr Chen. ‘If you’re planning what I think you are, you are completely crazy!’
Mr Chen glared up at Leo, irritated. ‘I must be in Hong Kong later today. I have no choice.’
‘You’ll undo all the good work the Lady Kwan did for you!’
‘I’ll probably need to see Mercy about a month earlier.’
‘Wait a minute.’ I pointed at Mr Chen. ‘You’re going to fiddle with the weather?’ Both of them looked at me.
‘Don’t point at a Chinese, Emma, it’s very bad luck,’ Leo said.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Leo,’ Mr Chen said. ‘I am far too big for any fung shui to affect me. I am water. I am shui.’
I dropped my hand and glared at Mr Chen. ‘You’re going to use all that energy that Ms Kwan gave you to move a stupid typhoon? Leo’s right—it had better be damned important if you’re going to waste your energy like that.’
‘I have a meeting with the Jade Emperor,’ Mr Chen said grimly.
Leo sat down, stricken.
‘The Jade Emperor,’ I said softly. ‘The Jade Emperor is so…’ I searched for the word ‘…so awesome, they don’t even have statues of him in the temples.’
‘Believe me,’ Mr Chen said, ‘I would much prefer to divert to Taipei and wait. But the appointment is for this evening at seven and I must be there. The Celestial has come down to the Earthly Plane, to Hong Kong, to see me. It is the first time he’s done this in hundreds of years.’
‘So what are you going to do?’ I said.
‘Move the typhoon, make it hit land about two hundred kilometres from Macau, and make it hit in the next thirty minutes.’
‘You can do that?’
‘I’ll need to change my form, but yes.’ Leo hissed with frustration.
‘Move the chairs, Leo, give me room,’ Mr Chen said. He rose and kicked off his shoes, then pulled his hair from its ponytail and shook it out. ‘Emma, sit with Simone in the back. If she wakes, keep her quiet. I’ll need to concentrate. Make sure she doesn’t come in here. Understood?’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll make sure she doesn’t come in.’
He smiled. ‘I am more impressed with you every day.’
I felt a rush of professional pride at the compliment. Yep, that’s all it was: purely professional.
Mr Chen sat cross-legged on the floor of the cabin. Leo moved the chairs along their rails, then leaned against the side of the plane. Mr Chen closed his eyes, concentrating, and Leo nodded for me to go out.
Simone had slept through all of Leo’s yelling; she was completely worn out. I knelt on the carpet next to her bunk.
The plane rocked slightly,
then shuddered. A brilliant white glow lit up the main cabin and shone through the galley. It was as if somebody had turned the lights up very bright.
Simone shot upright and scrambled to the end of the bunk. She hopped out before I could stop her and ran to the door of the galley. The light formed a halo around her and her hair floated with static.
I quickly went to her and held her to stop her from going in. She didn’t attempt to move; she stood at the door of the galley, frozen, watching her father. Her breath quickened when she saw him.
It had to be him, but he was huge and dark and unrecognisable. He still sat cross-legged on the floor of the plane, but had grown so large that his head nearly brushed the ceiling. His long hair floated around his square, ugly face. The glow came from him; it was all around him. He held one hand in front of his chest and the other in his lap. His eyes were closed, concentrating. Any doubts I had held before completely vanished. What sat in the middle of the cabin was definitely a god.
I gently pulled Simone back into the bunk room and sat her on the bed.
‘Is that his True Form?’ I whispered.
‘No,’ she whispered back, her voice trembling. Her little face screwed up with fear. ‘That’s his Celestial Form, for when he’s doing his special things. He’s not supposed to do that.’
‘Lie down and go back to sleep,’ I said. ‘He’s just stopping the big wind outside so that we can go home.’
She threw her little arms around my neck and clutched me. I pulled her into my lap.
‘He’s so scary,’ she whispered.
‘It’s just your dad.’
‘He’s scary.’
I sat with her for about twenty minutes as the plane shuddered and rocked. She buried her face in my chest and wouldn’t move.
Then the light blinked out and I heard something hit the floor with a sickening thump. I quickly rose, still holding Simone, and went to the door.
Mr Chen lay on the floor in his normal form, his long hair spread around his head. Leo was bent over him, his face a mask of misery. When Leo saw us he nodded. I gently lowered Simone and led her to her father.
Mr Chen was unconscious. Leo picked him up like a child and gently placed him into a chair.
Simone took her father’s hand and ran her other hand over his face. ‘Daddy. Daddy!’
‘Will he be all right?’ I said.
‘Yes,’ Simone said, with an expression that belonged on a much older face. ‘He’ll wake up soon.’
Leo rubbed his hands over his face and went into the bathroom.
Mr Chen’s eyes flickered open and he looked around. He saw Simone and pulled himself to sit more upright. ‘Where’s Leo?’
‘In the bathroom,’ I said.
He nodded and relaxed. Simone crawled into his lap and put her head on his chest.
The intercom clicked on. ‘The typhoon made landfall about two hundred kilometres south of Macau, Mr Chen,’ the pilot said. ‘It will be choppy, but we’ll land in Macau on time. I’ll tell you when it’s time to put on your seatbelts.’ The intercom clicked off with an audible pop.
‘You’re a very silly daddy.’
He kissed the top of her head. ‘I know.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
The wind was still blowing fiercely when we landed in Macau, but the pilot handled it easily. We piled out of the plane and took our bags through the nearly deserted airport; every other plane scheduled to land had been diverted.
We raced through customs and immigration. Mr Chen didn’t even bother putting our bags on the X-ray machines; he just hypnotised the staff and they waved us through. Leo glowered.
We hustled onto the boat and took off through Macau’s muddy water, under the enormous spanning bridge that joined the three islands. The water was completely flat.
When we hit the open sea the water still didn’t have any waves at all, and Leo’s expression went even darker.
‘Not my doing, Leo,’ Mr Chen said. ‘The water is always like this after a typhoon, you know that.’
Leo didn’t say anything; he just stomped into the cabin at the front of the boat and sulked.
The boat ride back to Hong Kong only took an hour; as fast as one of the Macau Ferry’s jetfoils—the jet-propelled hydrofoils that carried the gamblers between Macau and Hong Kong. I glared at Mr Chen when we reached the pier, but he ignored me. It shouldn’t have been such a quick trip. The jetfoils travelled much faster than ordinary boats.
Leo jumped off the boat and charged through the afternoon Central crowd into a nearby office building to collect the car from its parking space underneath.
When he pulled the car into the lay-by under City Hall, we threw the bags into the boot. I put Simone in the back with me, Mr Chen sat in the front with Leo, and we raced up the overpass to take us to the Peak.
Mr Chen kept glancing at his watch.
‘Will you make it?’ I said.
He checked his watch again. ‘If I’m quick. I’ll need to shower and change first—I can’t go like this.’ ‘Where’s the meeting?’ Leo hissed under his breath.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.’
‘Grand Hyatt,’ Mr Chen said. ‘Next to the Convention Centre.’ The Convention Centre was shaped like a flowing sea creature, jutted into the Harbour and was clearly visible from all over Hong Kong. ‘He’s taken a suite there for this meeting.’
‘What’s the meeting about? It must be important.’
‘Emma!’ Leo snapped.
Mr Chen sat silently, his face grim. Then he shook his head. ‘No.’ ‘Okay,’ I said. Leo visibly relaxed.
When we reached the Peak apartment building, Leo left the car running in the ground-floor car park. We went into the lift lobby, and Leo brought the bags. Mr Chen lowered his head and disappeared.
‘He’s not supposed to do that,’ Simone said.
‘He’s in a big hurry,’ I said.
‘No excuse,’ Leo said, glowering.
‘At least he waited until we were in here,’ I said.
When we reached the apartment, the door was already hanging open. Monica came out of the kitchen to help Leo with the bags, and I took Simone into the living room out of the way.
Mr Chen came charging down the hallway in a pair of black silk pants and a black T-shirt, pulling on a stunningly embossed black silk robe. He stopped at the front door and fiddled with the silk toggles and loops on the robe. The toggles fastened across the front of his chest and then down the side. The robe had a stiff mandarin collar, long sleeves, and fell to the floor.
I rushed to help him with the toggles. He nodded his thanks and tied back his hair as I quickly straightened the collar around his throat, then brushed his shoulders.
I was very close to him, with my hands on his broad shoulders. I looked up into his dark eyes and I saw every detail of his noble face.
He reached up, took my hands and lowered them. He looked into my eyes as he held my hands, and something inside me leapt.
He gently pushed my hands away. ‘Thanks.’
‘You’re welcome.’
He grabbed his sword from its hooks on the wall, then spun to pull his shoes out of the shoe cupboard. He tugged them on and raced out the door, his long hair flying behind him—it had already started to come out of its tie. He pressed the button for the lift, fidgeting with impatience as he waited for it.
‘You’ll make it,’ I said.
He turned and smiled. ‘I think I will.’
The lift came and he went in. He smiled into my eyes as the doors closed.
Damn! He looked incredible in that outfit.
Then there was a most satisfying bellow from inside the apartment as Leo discovered the rubber snake in his suitcase on top of his clothes.
We all slept late the next day, even Leo. I checked Simone; still sleeping. If I let her, she’d sleep the day away and be up all night. I would have to wake her soon.
Mr Chen was already locked in his study. I w
ent into the kitchen for a cup of tea.
‘What time did he come in, Monica?’
‘I don’t know, Emma, it was very late.’
When I’d finished my tea, I woke Simone and took her into the kitchen. She didn’t want to eat, but she drank the juice I gave her and asked for more. She sat in my lap with her head on my shoulder, drowsy. The poor child was exhausted, dehydrated and jet-lagged. I didn’t feel much better myself; I had a massive headache.
Simone suddenly perked up and jumped out of my lap. She went to the kitchen door, poked her head around it, then rushed out. The front door banged and I raced after her.
Mr Chen’s personal assistant and his accountant had arrived. I didn’t know their names; I’d just watched them go in and out during the months I’d been working there. They’d never spoken to me before, and now I had some idea why.
The accountant was a smartly dressed woman in her twenties. She never seemed to smile, and completely ignored me whenever she saw me. She wore a beautifully tailored pale green silk suit, expensive shoes and carried a slim designer briefcase. Her hair was tied into a severe bun, but she had a round, elegant face and a slender, petite figure. I’d tried to speak to her in the past but she was always ice-cool and refused to reply.
Mr Chen’s personal assistant was a slim, charming young man of about the same age, with light brown hair. He wore a tan suit and a jolly expression; he had cute dimples when he smiled. He crouched to say hello to Simone.
Simone kissed the young man on the cheek; she obviously really liked him. He smiled up at me from where he was crouched on the floor and I smiled back.
The girl stiffly told him in Chinese to hurry, and he rose, still smiling warmly.
Leo came out of his room, nodded to both of them, and went into the kitchen. They nodded back and headed down the hall to Mr Chen’s study.
I took Simone into the kitchen. Leo sat at the table with a huge mug of coffee and eyes like road maps. My head began to throb. Simone pulled herself to sit in one of the chairs and asked for more juice.
I heard a sound behind me and turned. Mr Chen was leaning with one hand on either side of the doorframe in his scruffy black cotton pants and T-shirt, his long hair coming out over his shoulder and a huge grin on his face. He looked as if he’d just woken from the best sleep in the world.