Dark Serpent

  ‘Quiet!’ he roared, and the noise ceased.

  ‘Daddy, I —’ Simone began.

  John raised his hand to stop her. ‘I know. Be quiet. I’m working.’

  Number Two, he called. Number Two!

  Ah Wu? Er Lang said.

  This. He shared the information. Emma knows where my Serpent is! She went to it. I must find it. Check with legal to see if I have the right to go down there and retrieve my wife and Serpent without Celestial permission.

  Give me a moment, Er Lang said.

  John used the time to contact Leo and Martin. Prepare for battle. This happened. We must find them. You two are coming with me. Gather your equipment and meet me on the forecourt.

  John paced the infirmary as he waited for Er Lang to return to him. If he didn’t need permission, he could head down immediately and find both her and his Serpent. He deliberately avoided thinking about the possibility that she was in the jade cage with the Serpent …

  No, Er Lang said. She’s not your wife. Legal says if you’d had a formal betrothal ceremony … No, that still would not have been enough. You need permission from the Jade Emperor to go down there and retrieve her.

  When’s his next appointment?

  He’s finished for the day. Just a moment.

  John continued pacing.

  ‘Daddy?’ Simone said.

  He raised his hand. ‘Wait.’

  Number One, this is most inconvenient, the Jade Emperor said. I have retired for the evening and I will take no more appointments this day. I will see you in the morning; talk to my secretary. You will have priority and be the first I see.

  Majesty, I implore you, my wife —

  She is not your wife and she is not in danger. It can wait. Now if you do not mind, I am fatigued. Good evening to you, Number One.

  The Jade Emperor shut off communication.

  The old bastard won’t see me until the morning! John said to Er Lang. What the hell? They could do anything to my wife —

  She’s not your wife.

  Beside the point! The demons could have her and he won’t give permission until tomorrow morning? Realisation dawned. He knows something.

  Ah Wu, he knows everything. So when will he see you?

  First thing tomorrow.

  I’ll speak to you then. Do you want the paperwork drawn up for an approved sortie into hell?

  Of course I do! What a stupid —

  Good night, Ah Wu.

  Er Lang shut him off as well.

  John snapped back to see Simone and Edwin glaring at him, a couple of bewildered students behind them.

  ‘I need permission from the Jade Emperor before I can go down,’ he said. ‘He won’t see me until first thing tomorrow morning.’

  ‘I’m going down myself right now,’ Simone said. She held out her hand. ‘Give me my yin back.’

  ‘Try,’ John said. ‘Try heading to Hell. The Jade Emperor knows and he’s blocked you.’

  Her face filled with concentration, then frustration. ‘How can he block me like this?’

  ‘He is who he is,’ John said. ‘I’ll be staying in the Celestial Palace tonight and heading directly out after I’ve spoken to him tomorrow morning. Leo and Martin will be with me. Stay here where you are safe.’

  Simone opened her mouth and closed it again. ‘I’d just be in the way in the Celestial Palace, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘That’s why I’m asking you to stay here,’ John said. He nodded to Edwin. ‘Look after the boy.’

  He patted Simone on the shoulder and went out of the infirmary towards the central court. Leo and Martin were standing on the edge of the square together, fully armed and in their black livery. Leo had his sword, the Black Lion, at his side; Martin wore his black enamel armour and carried the Silver Serpent in its scabbard in his right hand. They saluted John when he arrived.

  ‘The Jade Emperor is being a shit and won’t see me until tomorrow morning,’ he said.

  ‘Go now,’ Leo said.

  ‘I’m blocked. I need permission.’

  Leo concentrated and his expression filled with a frustration similar to Simone’s. ‘I see.’

  ‘Gather what you need and we’ll spend the night in the Celestial Palace. We can head out the minute I have permission from the Jade Emperor in the morning.’

  Both of them nodded, and called clouds to take them to the Celestial Palace. John summoned Seven Stars and his battledress and called a cloud to carry him as well. He checked his watch: 7 pm. He had at least twelve hours before he could see the JE. The wait would kill him.

  Emma

  The room containing the jade cage was dark and fearsomely hot. The tiles beneath my coils were scorching, and the heat shot through my scales into my flesh. The Serpent lay coiled in the centre of the cage, in as small a space as possible. It was covered with open wounds from the acid and its black scales were dull and white around the edges.

  I slid over the burning tiles as quietly as I could to the cage and raised my head to see it. ‘John.’

  It moved and lifted its own head to see me, and kept its warm, female voice as quiet as I had. ‘Emma! Emma, my beautiful Emma. What are you doing here? You need to go. Now.’

  ‘I saw you here. I have to get you out.’

  I pressed my nose to the latch on the cage door and pushed it. My nose was too big to move it easily and the bar caught on the edge of the latch so it wouldn’t move. My tongue didn’t have the strength and my tail didn’t have the finesse; it had to be my nose. I slid it across the end of the bar repeatedly, trying to shift it. It moved slightly and I felt a jolt of excitement.

  The Serpent moved so it was on the other side of the cage door. ‘Stop, Emma. I may possess you if I’m released. I can’t do that to you.’ It dropped its head with frustration and lowered its voice to a barely discernible hiss. ‘Quickly, go before they come. If you free me, I could drain and destroy you.’ It tapped its nose on the bars with frustration. ‘Just go!’

  ‘I want to be one with you. I want to be possessed by you and absorbed by you,’ I said, still fiddling with the latch. Then I stopped attacking the latch and raised my head to look straight into its wonderful wise eyes. ‘Hold on, no, I don’t.’ I backed away from the door. ‘Screw that, I want to keep my individuality. Are you sure you’ll absorb me if I let you out?’

  ‘It’s not worth the risk.’

  I made a quick decision. ‘Yes, it is. The world needs you whole to protect it.’

  I pressed my nose against the latch again, but pushed the bar flush with the wall of the cage instead of away from it.

  ‘I have to do this human,’ I said.

  ‘Then go. You can’t teleport human, and they’re probably on their way. Just leave!’

  I tried to change to human, but the form wouldn’t come. I hit the latch again, cursing the lack of sensitivity in my nose. ‘It’s so damn fat!’

  ‘Emma, run,’ the Serpent said, moving closer to me. ‘Get out now!’

  ‘What?’ I said, but it was too late. Something grabbed me around the neck in a double-handed hold and I couldn’t move. I tried to lash my tail but someone was standing on it.

  ‘Got you,’ the Demon King said. He held me so tight I couldn’t turn to see him.

  ‘Ready,’ someone else said.

  ‘Over her head then,’ the King said.

  A noose was dropped over my head and pulled tight around my neck.

  ‘Teleport out, love,’ the Serpent said.

  The King sent a blast of black energy into the cage, knocking the Serpent backwards. ‘You shut the fuck up.’

  I turned to attack him, but he’d stepped out of reach. A huge bull-head demon was holding me with a snake noose on the end of a pole. The pole was so long that they could stand well away from me and I couldn’t touch them. I raised and lowered my head, trying to free it, but the noose held me firmly.

  The King put his hands on his hips. ‘Take her to a cell on level six and leave her there.’

  ?
??Are you sure that’s wise, Dad? Wouldn’t you like her closer to your own quarters?’ the bull-head said.

  The King glared at him. ‘You question me?’

  The bull-head dropped his snout. ‘No way, Dad, I just want to be sure about her. I know how much …’ he shook the pole, making me hiss with pain, ‘misery she’s caused you.’

  ‘I’m going to kill you,’ I said to the King.

  He turned to me. ‘Are you now?’

  I stopped fighting the noose and stared into his eyes. ‘You raped my nephews.’

  He waved me down. ‘They would have passed the time jerking off anyway. Males can’t be raped.’

  ‘What you did to them was rape, George. You hurt my family and my little girl. You’ve caused so much misery to everybody I love …’ My voice cracked, and I took a deep breath. ‘So many innocents. I can’t see my family any more because of you. Watch your back, Kitty Kwok, because one day there will be a snake behind you with her fangs out.’ I felt ice-cold and full of purpose. ‘And I will take a great deal of pleasure in squeezing the life out of your ugly throat.’

  ‘You can’t throttle me, I don’t breathe,’ he said.

  ‘Then I will crush your bones within my coils.’

  He took True Form: a snake back end and a male human front end with no skin. Where the Mothers were black, he was the colour of blood. He towered over me, close on five metres, even bigger than the last time I’d seen his True Form. His voice changed to a deep hiss. ‘Try me.’ He slithered closer. ‘I won’t force myself on you, but with the right tools your human form could still be very useful. You may even come to like me.’

  He changed back to his human form, still smiling. ‘Hopefully I’ll have the opportunity, but there’s something that needs to be done first.’ He spoke to the bull-head without looking away from me. ‘He made an oath to her that he would find her. They probably don’t know that I’m aware of it. Before I can do anything with her, I have to get this oath out of the way.’

  He bent to see me more closely, and I spat poison at him. It landed on his face and hair and he jerked back. He pulled an ordinary packet of Hong Kong tissues out of his pocket and wiped his face.

  ‘Demons thrive on poison, Emma, don’t waste your spit,’ he said.

  He threw the dirty tissue onto the floor and put the packet back in his pocket. He took his blood-red hair out of its short ponytail, swept his hands through it and retied it.

  ‘Put her somewhere where it’ll take a while for him to find her, but he will find her in the end,’ he said. ‘Let him find her and take her, and then we’ll take her back and she’ll be ours.’ He straightened. ‘You hear me, Emma? We will have you.’

  ‘I will kill you with the sword you gave me,’ I said.

  ‘Not today, sweetie.’

  ‘So, level six?’ the bull-head said.

  ‘Put her in a cell right up the back where it’ll take them a while to find her. Make sure she’s fed and watered and kept reasonably clean. If she changes to human, let me know immediately; I have some plans for her in that form.’ He turned back to me. ‘If he comes for her, make sure it’s him, that he finds her and that he gets her out. One of his oaths is a very powerful thing and we can’t do anything with her as long as it’s over our heads.’

  The bull-head bowed slightly. ‘Majesty.’

  The King nodded to him with approval. ‘Show some more respect like this, son, and you may find yourself promoted.’

  The bull-head grinned, revealing even cow’s teeth. ‘How about I clear a spot for myself?’

  ‘After she’s been taken home, you can challenge anyone you like for their spot. Go for it.’

  The bull-head’s grin widened. ‘You’re a prince, Dad.’

  ‘Do a good job and you may be one as well,’ the Demon King said. He glanced back at me. ‘Off you go.’

  The bull-head raised the pole and took me with it. I tried to see behind me for a last look at John’s Serpent, but I couldn’t.

  9

  Zhenwu

  John, Leo and Martin landed their clouds outside the North Gate of the Celestial Palace. It was embossed in black and silver with a ten-metre-tall motif of the Xuan Wu in True Form. John walked towards it and it swung open for them. He stormed through the breezeway under the red-gold trees towards his apartments, unable to control his frustration. The Jade Emperor’s quarters and casual hearing rooms were less than two hundred metres away on his left, but he was unable to do anything until the next morning. He wound his way through the corridors, distantly aware of voices nagging at him.

  ‘John!’ someone said loudly, and he stopped and turned.

  Leo’s jaw was set, ready to face the consequences of calling him by his first name.

  Then John saw the problem. Yin was following him in a trail of destruction; the walls and floor of the corridor had been stripped down to the wooden framework. A Celestial Palace fairy floated five metres away between Leo and Martin, out of range of the cloud of yin, wearing an expression of mild exasperation.

  John called the yin back and bowed to the fairy. ‘My apologies. Do not spend your own energy repairing this. Have it repaired by hand and pass the cost on to me.’

  She quickly shook her head and floated past him towards his apartments, nodding to him as she passed.

  ‘Looks like you’re forgiven,’ Martin said with amusement.

  ‘I guess the Palace is becoming accustomed to me,’ John said, continuing towards his apartments, this time keeping his anger in check.

  The fairies had prepared a meal for them and waited in the dining room to serve them.

  ‘Eat,’ he said to Leo and Martin, and went into the courtyard.

  He sat cross-legged on the grass under the tree in the clear, cool evening. He wished he could return to the sea for the night, but he wouldn’t risk being late to see the Jade Emperor in the morning. He and Emma had sat under this very tree, making plans for their future together, and the pain of missing her pierced him.

  He wound down completely, stowing his intelligence away and becoming nothing, unaware of his transformation into a small tortoise sitting on the grass.

  Martin and Leo came into the courtyard.

  ‘We should make him eat something,’ Leo said. ‘They must have some lettuce or grapes or cat food around here.’

  ‘He doesn’t need to eat. He’s gone,’ Martin said. ‘He’s completely insensible.’

  ‘What if something happens?’

  ‘He’s relying on us to tell him. Come on, even if he won’t eat, we should. We have a long night ahead of us and we need to be strong. We can do this.’

  ‘As long as we have each other we can do anything,’ Leo said.

  Emma

  The bull-head demon led me through corridors of rough-hewn black stone that glittered with hidden jewels. Other demons, mostly humanoid guards, passed us. Some stopped to study me curiously, then saw the bull-head’s sneer and quickly moved on. We dropped down a ten-metre-wide hole, and I could taste and smell the decay from below as we fell. We landed on a platform that edged the hole, and he pulled me through an opening into a black tunnel. Screams could be heard coming from the other end, and the bullhead grinned.

  He turned right before the end, into a tunnel flanked by stone chambers, each with a barred front and door. Some held sleeping serpent-type demons; others were empty. He took me down the corridor to the very end and into a cell, the screams of the tormented drifting all the way into this part of the complex.

  He led me into the cell, which although black stone was warm and dry. He poked the end of the pole out through the bars, went out and closed the door. Then he released the noose around my neck and pulled the pole quickly out.

  ‘Just sit tight and your boyfriend will be along shortly,’ he said. ‘Anything you need, give the guards a yell. It’d be sort of pointless to try to escape since we plan to let you go anyway.’ He shook his head, flicking his ears. ‘Try to see it as a research trip. I don’t think you’v
e been this far into the demonic side of Hell before. If you’re lucky, you might see some of the poor wretches that we play with on this level. We love it when we get one with a snake phobia; we see how long we can play before they go mad.’

  He nodded to me and walked away.

  I slithered around the perimeter of the cell. Three of the cell walls were rough-hewn black rock and the fourth was the cell door set into the bars. I was trapped.

  For a human, the cell would be unpleasant, but for a snake it was a cosy habitat. The black stone was warm and dry, and there was a pile of soft rubber foam chips in one corner under a rocky overhang, perfect for making a nest. Next to it stood a small cage containing a live rat. All I had to do was bang the push-button door with my nose and the rat would be released: dinner. A rodent-type drip water feeder was clipped to the bars of the cell.

  You there? I asked the stone.

  I’m underground, I can’t contact anybody, it said.

  I’m well aware of that.

  A series of screams drifted down the hallway, then abruptly stopped.

  I hope he comes soon, I said.

  I curled up in the nest of foam chips and moved my chi through my serpent body, cycling down to meditate and trying to ignore fresh wails of terror.

  Don’t attempt to change to human, the stone said. You heard what the Demon King said.

  He wanted to do things to my human form, and I had a good idea what they involved. What my nephews had suffered would be nothing in comparison. I know.

  I’m here. You’re not alone.

  I was silent for a moment, trying to think of a way to express exactly how much I appreciated it, and found myself lost for words.

  Thanks, was all I could manage.

  Emma, quick! the stone roared telepathically, so loudly that I banged my head on the overhanging stone ledge. Lock your door!

  I can’t lock the door, I’m on the inside.

  They lock on the inside. They’re to keep things out not in. Now hurry!

  I slithered up to the cell door. The stone was right. The door was closed and the latch was on the inside; a large wide ring that was easily manageable by my serpent nose. Screams and the sound of scuffling echoed down the hall as I pushed the latch across.