Dark Serpent

  All the way into the cover, the stone said. That way they can’t open it from the outside.

  What’s out there? I said as I pushed the ring into the metal cover, then saw what was coming down the corridor towards my cell and quickly backed away. It was a level seventy-five Mother in True Form, holding a writhing snake demon in each hand.

  Her skinless head brushed the ceiling of the hallway as she stopped and stared at me. ‘What the hell are you?’

  ‘I’m just a little snake,’ I said. ‘Nothing important.’

  She moved closer to the bars and flicked her forked tongue. ‘You smell different, and different is important.’ She raised the serpent demon in her right hand and spoke to it. ‘Tell me what she is and I won’t eat you.’

  ‘That’s the Dark Lady, the Xuan Wu’s promised,’ the snake demon said. ‘Let me go!’

  ‘Really?’ The Mother grinned at me through the bars, and absent-mindedly bit off the snake demon’s head. ‘Fascinating.’

  ‘You promised you wouldn’t eat her,’ the other snake demon said.

  The Snake Mother spun and smashed the living demon against the wall of the corridor, making it explode. ‘I know. I forgot. I’ll remember next time.’ She took another bite out of the dead demon’s corpse, licking at the demon essence. ‘What are you doing here, Emma?’

  ‘Oh, you know, the usual,’ I said. ‘Beautiful princess held in the gleaming tower waiting for her handsome prince to come and rescue her.’

  The Mother guffawed. ‘I like that. I heard you’re an ugly bitch, but that he’s an uglier one.’ She took another bite of the snake demon, then popped the end of its tail into her mouth and wiped it with the back of her hand. Her voice went sly. ‘He’s not here right now, though, and you look like you’d taste different.’ She leaned towards the bars and flicked her tongue again. ‘I haven’t eaten Western in a long time.’

  She took hold of one of the bars and pulled at it. When it didn’t give, she yanked harder on it, making the door rattle. The bar bent in her hand. She stopped.

  ‘You don’t seem that big. I wonder if you have to do what I tell you?’

  ‘The King’s holding me here at his pleasure. Do anything to me and he’ll be pissed,’ I said. ‘Really, really pissed.’

  ‘You sure about that?’

  She raised her other hand, summoned a mobile phone and texted someone. She waited for a moment, then a jangling Chinese pop ringtone went off. She checked the message.

  ‘Damn, he says to leave you alone.’

  The phone disappeared and she turned to look back up the hallway. ‘I’m still hungry. See ya.’

  She slithered away, leaving a trail of toxic slime behind her. I went back to the bedding and hid underneath the foam chips as much as I could. I curled myself into the tiniest ball possible and watched the door of the cage.

  How long was I asleep? I asked the stone.

  About four hours. It’s midnight. I think she sneaked in for a snack while the guards aren’t alert.

  How long have I been here? I’m losing track of time.

  Six hours.

  He should be here by now!

  He has to gain permission, Emma, and he won’t be able to do that until court is in session at the Celestial Palace. You’ll be here at least another six to eight hours, and possibly longer if the Jade Emperor delays granting access to Hell.

  What about the Demon King granting access?

  The stone hesitated, then said, I know. He’s supposed to ask the Demon King for permission, but the King knows that the Dark Lord has to find you for the oath to be fulfilled. Its voice changed slightly. Hold tight, dear one, look after yourself. This may take a while.

  I buried myself deeper under the chips.

  When I woke again there were quiet discussions and the sound of movement down the hall, but no screams. I crept out from under the rock ledge and studied the rat in its cage. Maybe later. I sipped at the water bottle and it worked surprisingly well for my serpent form.

  What time is it?

  The stone was silent.

  I’m losing track. I feel like I’ve been here a couple of days already. Tell me it’s morning and he’s coming for me.

  It’s only 2 am. The stone’s voice grew more affectionate. Go back to sleep, Emma, there’s nothing you can do. He will find you, remember that. Once that is done, he can Raise and marry you, and you can live on his Mountain and you will be together. That’s the whole oath, and it will happen.

  I didn’t reply; I just crawled under the stone ledge and buried myself in the foam again.

  If you’re bored and can’t sleep, I can play you a recording of something pleasant, the stone said. Pick a place and I can put you there.

  Thanks for the offer, but I want to be fully aware when he comes.

  I understand.

  There was a disturbance outside my cell. I poked my head out from under the rocky overhang to find a group of demons standing at the door of the cage.

  ‘Look! She stuck her head out,’ one said. ‘The Mother was right.’

  I moved further out to see better. There were two guard demons with a serpent-type demon. One of the guards held a small human male by the scruff of the neck. The man was wearing nothing but a stained loincloth and hung dully in the demon’s grasp, his mouth open and saliva dribbling from one corner.

  The serpent demon raised its head and moved it from side to side. ‘What is it? I’ve never seen anything like it before.’

  ‘It’s the Dark Lady,’ one of the guards said in awe. ‘The real deal. That’s her.’

  ‘But what is she?’

  ‘Some sort of Western snake Shen hybrid thing,’ the other demon guard said. ‘Apparently if they breed two of these things together, you get a powerful snake like her, and the King did it.’

  I waited silently, watching them.

  ‘Does she talk?’ the serpent demon said.

  ‘Should do, supposed to be a major brain.’ The guard grinned, revealing four tusks in the corners of his mouth. ‘For a female, anyway.’

  The snake demon glared at him. ‘I’ll tell the Mothers you said that.’

  His grin was quickly replaced by a look of concern. ‘Hey, no, I didn’t mean that. You girls can be brighter than us men sometimes. Really.’ He moved back so that the snake demon could see better. ‘See if you can get her to talk.’

  The human prisoner wailed quietly, gradually rising in pitch and volume to a scream. He didn’t move or change his expression otherwise.

  ‘Ah, shit, better get this one back to the prison section,’ one of the guards said. ‘Oh, he was heard.’

  ‘Da Shih Yeh,’ the demons said in unison with reverence.

  A tiny, white-skinned elderly man wearing a simple ragged tunic down to his knees and leaning on a twisted wooden staff hobbled up to the group. His beard nearly touched the floor and his eyes glittered with intelligence under his bushy brows.

  ‘Is this the one making that racket?’ he said.

  Don’t say a word, Emma, the stone said urgently.

  The demon guard pushed the human victim towards the old man. ‘Can you shut him up for us, Da Shih Yeh?’

  Da Shih Yeh held out one bony hand and put it square over the prisoner’s face. The man’s eyes went wide and he stared into Da Shih Yeh’s eyes, then completely relaxed. His eyes half-closed and he almost smiled.

  ‘That will keep him quiet for a while,’ Da Shih Yeh said. He swivelled on his staff to look inside my cell. ‘And what is this? I’ve never seen anything like this before.’ He shuffled closer. ‘A human serpent thing?’ He chuckled with delight. ‘I love to see new things, don’t you?’ He spoke over his shoulder to the guards. ‘You’d better put that human back where it belongs before someone realises he’s not where he’s supposed to be.’

  ‘Uh, yeah,’ one of the guards said. ‘Come on, guys, let’s get out of here. The boss’ll be down on us hard if she finds us slacking around here.’

  I waited until they were
out of earshot, then quickly slithered to the bars of the cage. ‘You need to get out of here right now. He knows who you are and if he finds you he’ll have you. Go now.’

  ‘They all know who I am, little one,’ the Grandfather said, leaning on his staff. ‘I just move faster than they do.’

  ‘Those guards will be running to tell the King!’

  He glanced back down the corridor. ‘I’ve done all of those ones a favour in the past. None of them would exist without me and they know it. They won’t do anything.’

  ‘What if he ordered them to tell him if you showed up?’

  ‘They would tell him; they have to. But they can take a couple of days thinking about whether or not it was really me.’ He reached through the bars to touch my nose and the warm feeling of comfort spread through me. ‘I am here if you need me, but sometimes I need to move away quickly.’ He raised his head. ‘Now is one of those times, I am sorry. I will return later if you are still here.’ He took his hand from my nose. ‘I will tell those who need to know what they need to know.’

  ‘No!’ I said urgently. ‘Don’t tell him where I am. He needs to find me —’

  Da Shih Yeh disappeared.

  ‘— himself.’

  Zhenwu

  There were sounds above him, but they didn’t break into his reverie. Then one loud noise did. Someone was calling ‘Father’. Simone?

  ‘Ah Ba! ’

  He opened his eyes and saw the huge humans. They needed him. He pulled himself back into his shell and took human form.

  ‘Is it time to go?’ he said.

  ‘No, there’s a message for you. The fairy won’t give it to anyone else,’ Martin said.

  The fairy floated to John and held out a piece of paper, carefully folded into four. He took the paper and opened it, then shot to his feet.

  ‘Who gave you this?’ he asked the fairy, and his tone made her flit backwards with fright. He waved the paper in front of her face. ‘Who has done this? Where did this come from?’

  The fairy’s face went serene and a voice echoed around the courtyard, whispering with the sound of trees and water, ‘Buddha.’

  ‘Which Buddha?’

  The fairy shook her head.

  ‘I suppose we all look the same to you. What did the Buddha look like?’

  The fairy gestured towards the pond and an image of Kwan Yin appeared in the water.

  John dropped his arm, suddenly limp. ‘I cannot believe she would do this to me.’

  ‘What does it say?’ Martin said.

  John handed him the note and Martin glanced at it, then smiled broadly. ‘This is marvellous. It will mean much less searching.’ He glanced up at John. ‘Why are you unhappy? This is good news.’

  The fairy had disappeared. John fell to sit cross-legged on the grass again and checked his watch: 3 am. Still hours before he could see the Jade Emperor, and Kwan Yin had ruined it.

  Leo glanced at the note. ‘Oh, that was a rotten thing to do. I understand how you feel.’

  ‘What?’ Martin said. ‘What am I missing?’

  Leo gestured towards John. ‘He vowed to find her, Raise her and marry her. She’s lost in Hell, so if he finds her now it’s one of three, and they can stop worrying about being separated. It’s been driving both of them nuts.’

  ‘I don’t see what this has to do with it,’ Martin said.

  Leo tapped the paper in Martin’s hand. ‘Kwan Yin found Emma first. And this tells him where Emma is; she’s not lost any more.’

  ‘If you go through that maze in level six to find Emma, you are still finding her,’ Martin said, confident. ‘Don’t be concerned, Father, this is nothing. I’m sure that finding her in Hell will fulfil your oath.’

  John leaned the back of his head against the tree. ‘I sincerely hope so.’ He pulled himself to his feet. ‘I suppose I should try to sleep until we see the Jade Emperor. I suggest you two return to bed as well.’

  Martin and Leo nodded and turned away. When they reached the doorway into their quarters, Martin stopped and turned back. ‘Do not be concerned, Father. You will find her.’

  ‘Thank you,’ John said.

  He walked around the courtyard to his own bedroom, stripped off and fell onto the black silk sheets naked, too emotionally drained to change into sleep clothes. The fairies would just have to put up with him.

  Emma

  Later that night, it became quiet. The other residents of the cells were parked in the demon equivalent of sleep. I couldn’t sleep, so the stone retrieved the Archivist’s files and projected them into the air in front of the rocky overhang.

  ‘There’s so little to go on,’ I said, frustrated.

  ‘Serves them right for not writing anything down,’ the stone said. ‘Oral tradition. That’s nearly as bad as the way kids learn by recitation rather than understanding.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were pro education reform,’ I said. ‘I would have thought you’d support the way it’s always been done.’

  ‘One of my children helped start the Native English Teacher Scheme,’ the stone said with pride. ‘Look how that’s improved the standard of English in the Territory. When they made all the schooling in native language, he said —’

  ‘Psst! Snake lady!’ someone hissed at the door of the cage.

  The stone blinked the projections off and I poked my head out of the overhang. It was a snake demon; a small one, about level thirty.

  ‘What do you want?’ I said.

  He dropped his head. He had many similarities to a natural snake, but his scales jutted out in spiked disarray, his head had horns and there were pointed projections under his chin.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  He looked around furtively, then back to me. ‘Come closer. I don’t want anybody to hear.’

  Are there any other demons close by?

  No.

  I slithered out of my alcove and approached the bars, but stayed well back.

  ‘Go ahead,’ I said from two metres away.

  ‘You have a crown,’ he said in awe.

  ‘It’s to hold my engagement stone. It’s pretty, isn’t it? The Tiger made it for me.’

  ‘Is it silver?’

  ‘Platinum.’

  ‘I love the work they put into it,’ he said. ‘It’s all twisted wires, so lovely.’

  I dropped my head slightly. ‘Thank you. Is that what you wanted to ask?’

  He looked around again, then moved closer to the bars. ‘Can you give me a lesson?’

  ‘A lesson in what?’

  He dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘Kung fu.’

  ‘Why do you want to learn?’ I said with interest.

  ‘You must have seen what happened earlier. That Mother grabbed my sister and ate her. I don’t want that to happen to me.’ He raised his head and spoke with dignity. ‘I want to be a Mother too one day. There has to be more to life than torturing adulterers.’

  ‘You torture adulterers?’

  Don’t ask, Emma, you really don’t want to know, the stone said.

  ‘Not all of them,’ the demon said. ‘Just the ones the judges send here, which is only a small fraction of them. The boss keeps complaining that the judges are too lenient, whatever that means. We only get the really bad ones — you know, the ones who messed with little kids, or hurt other people physically or mentally. Some of the people we get down here are really nasty pieces of work.’ He dropped his head. ‘I can’t believe how cruel humans are sometimes. They put our efforts to shame.’ He looked back down the hallway. ‘Had one evil bastard here for close on ten years and every day we made him scream. I enjoyed every second of that, until they took him to the Hell of Red-Hot Grates next level down.’ He cocked his head at me. ‘So will you teach me? I don’t want to die like my sister did.’

  ‘I can’t teach you,’ I said.

  ‘Could you just tell me what to do?’

  ‘No. The Jade Emperor’s locked me out from teaching a
s punishment. I can’t teach anyone.’

  ‘He has no jurisdiction down here,’ he said.

  ‘His Edict applies to me wherever I am.’

  ‘Okay.’ He sounded disappointed. ‘Hey, it’s been nice talking to you anyway, Emma. I hope we never meet again.’

  ‘Thanks. So do I. What’s your name?’

  ‘Rocky.’ He took human form: a young, round-faced Chinese boy with dyed blond hair, wearing the white shirt and pants that served as a school uniform in China. ‘What do you think of my human form? I’ve been working on it for a while.’

  ‘You need to either make your head smaller or the rest of you taller,’ I said. ‘Your head’s slightly too big so it looks a little strange. Apart from that, it’s very fetching.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said shyly.

  There was a loud hiss down the corridor. He looked and his face filled with terror. He backed towards the wall. ‘Oh shit, no, a Mother. No, no, no.’

  He spun towards the cell across from me, which was empty, and frantically worked at the door. ‘Let me in! Let me in!’

  The door wouldn’t open and he huddled against the wall.

  I went to the door of my cell and opened it. ‘Come in here. Quickly! You’ll be safe.’

  No, Emma! the stone said, but I ignored it.

  Rocky raced into my cell and I slammed the door shut, flipping the latch across just as the Mother appeared on the other side of it. She was in True Form: massive snake back end with human front end.

  ‘You two having some sexy times?’ she said. ‘Don’t stop on my account.’

  I backed away from the door. ‘We were just talking.’

  ‘What the hell sort of accent is that?’ She moved closer to me and I backed further away. ‘You don’t belong here. What are you?’

  Rocky changed back to snake and moved next to me; we were of a similar size.

  ‘This is the Dark Lady herself, Ninety-Four, so piss off. We were just talking, and if you hurt her the King will rip your scales off.’

  ‘So this is her. She smells delicious,’ the Mother said, then focused on Rocky. ‘So do you.’