My stomach lurched with nausea as the smell of the demon essence hit me.
Jade turned away with her hands over her mouth.
‘She cannot do this,’ Martin said in disbelief.
‘No way,’ Gold said.
Kitty raised the cup with both hands and drank the demon essence, then lowered the cup and wiped her mouth. She placed the cup back on the table, then grinned at me. ‘Watch this, Emma, this is very good.’
She dropped her head and concentrated and a pale blue nimbus grew around her head.
‘Holy shit, she can do it too,’ I said.
‘What is she doing?’ Martin said.
Kitty threw her head back, her expression filled with bliss and she generated a ball of black energy over her hands. She spun faster than the eye could follow and shot the black essence at each of Simone’s guard demons in turn, destroying them.
She turned back to me. ‘That will destroy the King.’
‘A human can’t take over Hell,’ I said.
‘She’s not human any more, Emma,’ Martin said. ‘She’s turned. She’s demon.’
I inhaled sharply. ‘She’s changed into a demon?’
Kitty dismissed the black energy. ‘I’ve done enough of the right stuff —’
‘Atrocities!’ Jade said.
‘ — and I’m more powerful than I ever was,’ Kitty went on. ‘But I need a lift down to Hell, and you can provide me with one — straight into the arms of the King.’
‘The Demon King has control over you now,’ I said. ‘You’ve sacrificed your free will for power.’
‘Not if I decide to make a try for the throne,’ Kitty said. ‘Let’s go down and pay him a visit.’
‘The Demon King loves it when you humans turn,’ Martin said. ‘He gains control over what was once a human; and if you try to take his throne, he can destroy you.’
‘I hope he’s ready for you, because I really don’t want you to win,’ I said to Kitty.
‘Do we have an agreement?’ she said.
‘I vow to leave the cage door open when I put you into it.’
She raised her hands, palms out. ‘I’m all yours. You can tie me up if you like — we can play some bondage.’ She smiled slightly. ‘Take me to Hell. I want to say hello to the King.’
I went to Simone and checked her; her pupils were huge. ‘Can you hear me, Simone?’
She made some guttural noises, trying to speak and failing. She changed to silent speech but just generated static.
Leo came and checked the pulse in her neck. ‘God, she’s ice-cold. We have to get her home.’ He looked around at everybody. ‘Who goes and who stays?’
‘Has anyone updated John?’ I said.
‘Doing it now, ma’am,’ Jade said.
A boat is waiting for you next to the dock on the island, John said. Send Simone home with Jade and Gold. Leo, Michael, Martin, stay with Emma. As soon as you are far enough away from the city, I will join you and take you all to Hell.
‘Even both of us together cannot carry the Princess, she is too big,’ Gold said.
‘I’ll take her,’ Michael said, bending to see into Simone’s face. ‘Simone, it’s me. You’re safe. I’ll take you home.’
Simone raised her head and peered at him. ‘Michael?’
He put one hand on the side of her face. ‘It’s me. I’m here.’
She raised her arms and tried to hug him, but failed, dropping them again. He put his hands under her arms and lifted her into an embrace, and she clutched him.
‘Michael, stay with me. Please don’t go away.’
‘I’m here,’ he said, his voice thick with emotion.
‘My Michael,’ she whispered, limp in his arms. ‘Stay with me always.’
Michael, take her. Jade and Gold, retreat with them, you are too small.
‘I’m bigger than Michael!’ Jade said, protesting.
Michael is now Number One of Bai Hu and big enough. You and Gold are both parents. Jade, Gold, Michael, escort Simone to Wudang and notify me immediately upon arrival. Emma, Leo, Martin, go up to the dock, and if the boat goes anywhere except the far western shore of the lake, leave it.
‘We’ve done a deal,’ I said to Kitty. ‘The Dark Lord’s not too far away, so I suggest you don’t go back on it. The three of us here are more than a match for you.’
‘I didn’t know he couldn’t come to Angkor. If I had known, I would have established the whole setup here,’ Kitty said. ‘I’ll keep that in mind in future, when I am King.’
Leo and I moved away from Simone and Michael, who were still locked in an embrace. Jade and Gold stood one on either side of them, and all four disappeared.
Kitty came to me and threw her arm around my shoulders, hugging me. I pulled away.
‘Come on, Emma, let’s go have some fun with the King,’ she said. ‘This should be quite a show.’
We walked back along the tunnel, bringing back unpleasant memories of a walk along a tunnel in Kowloon City Park that hadn’t led to the promised freedom. Leo and Martin were ahead of me, on either side of Kitty. I felt a lurch of nausea. It was possible that she would break the deal again, and the three of us together couldn’t stop her. I had to trust their Immortal reflexes to keep me safe.
‘Don’t worry, I won’t try anything,’ Kitty said. ‘So far everything is going the way I want it, so I’m not going anywhere. Isn’t it a tremendous feeling when everything goes exactly to plan? So rare when that happens.’
Now I’m really worried, Leo said. I can’t hold this much longer, I’ll need a chair soon.
The same Chinese junk that Kitty had taken me to before waited for us at the dock. We boarded it. A human cast us off and drove us across the lake.
‘Are we going in the right direction?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ Martin said.
Leo went into the stateroom and fell to sit on one of the chairs. My stomach lurched again and I rushed into the boat’s bathroom. After a couple of minutes, Martin rapped on the door.
‘Sorry to disturb you, Emma, but the Dark Lord says this is important. Do you have vomiting and diarrhoea?’
‘Go away,’ the stone said loudly as I clutched the toilet. ‘We both know what it is and I have the network looking it up right now.’
‘How bad is it, stone?’ Martin said.
‘I’m right here,’ I growled, then retched again, but nothing came up. I’d puked myself dry.
‘Find some drugs to control the symptoms,’ the stone said. ‘She needs to be able to put Kitty in the cage, then we can get her home.’
Realisation hit me. I hadn’t eaten anything on the Earthly Plane, so it couldn’t be food poisoning. And any stomach bug I’d picked up here wouldn’t show symptoms this quickly. ‘Radiation poisoning, right?’ I said.
‘We can fix it,’ the stone said.
‘And now you’re lying to me. Why is it displaying like a stomach bug?’
‘The cells in the lining of your digestive system are particularly sensitive to ionising radiation and they’ve been severely damaged.’
‘I see.’ I collapsed to sit on the floor next to the toilet and leaned on the wall, which seemed to be falling away from me. ‘Wow, this is really bad.’
‘If it’s bad enough, we’ll give you a cupful of Turtle blood and that will fix it.’
‘We’ll have to time that very carefully, stone.’
‘Let’s just get this done and worry about that later.’
The sound of the boat’s engines changed, and we slowed. We’d reached the western side of the lake.
‘Is Simone okay?’ I said.
‘She is on the Mountain. That was close to a fatal dose of heroin and she’ll need intensive care for a couple of days. But she’s tough, she’ll be fine. She’s out of danger and on a ventilator.’
‘Good.’
I used the wall to heave myself to my feet, then clutched the cistern of the toilet. I desperately wished for a mint: my mouth tasted horrible. I was drenched in s
weat, and my insides were still spasming. I hoped they found something to control this, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to leave the bathroom.
‘They have,’ the stone said. ‘Martin is outside the door with Stemetil and Lomotil for you. Out you go.’
I washed my hands and went out. Martin handed me a couple of foils of pills and a bottle of water. ‘One of each now. If the symptoms are still bad, take another.’
I pushed the pills out and swallowed them, then leaned against the wall. ‘Is Simone damaged by the radiation?’
‘No, it didn’t seem to affect her,’ Martin said. ‘You’re the only one that it hurt.’
I took a deep breath and went up the stairs onto the deck of the boat. Leo and John were there with Kitty. John quickly came to me and pulled me into a hug.
‘Don’t worry, we will heal you,’ he said into my ear. ‘Let’s finish this. I am interested to see which one of these monsters will win.’ He pulled back to speak to Martin. ‘Take Emma. I will take this demon. Let’s go.’
‘I don’t want you touching me,’ Kitty said. ‘Someone else.’
‘How stupid you are to have forsaken your humanity,’ John said. ‘While all the world strives to attain the Tao, you have taken a huge leap backwards. The King will enjoy destroying you.’
‘How about we go see?’ Kitty said. ‘But not you; you can kill me with a touch. Have the black one or the stupid one take me.’
‘I’m both,’ Leo said.
‘So am I,’ Martin said.
‘Then both of you,’ Kitty said.
John took my hand and raised it. Leo and Martin went to either side of Kitty and put a hand on her shoulder.
‘Follow,’ John said.
We landed in a huge, brightly lit, oval-shaped hall. The walls were faced with tan-coloured stone etched all around with gold filigree. The ceiling appeared to be glass and open to the sky: blue with clouds, which had to be an illusion. The hall was twenty metres long and fifteen wide, and the stone floor was decorated with more gold filigree in the shapes of plants and flowers. The jade cage stood in the middle of the hall, also oval; it looked like a giant barred egg lying on its side, three metres long, two high, and two wide, with a full-sized door that hung open. The bars were each three centimetres wide, spaced at three-centimetre intervals.
‘This can’t be Celestial Jade,’ John said. ‘There has never been any piece of Celestial Jade that large.’
‘Six was very talented indeed,’ the Demon King said, emerging from the other side of the cage and patting its side. ‘He could join pieces of Celestial Jade together using the blood of living stones. Six used quite a few to make this for Simon; it would be a shame if they had died for no purpose.’ He gestured towards the door. ‘Put her in.’
Martin and Leo still held Kitty’s shoulders. They turned to put her in the cage.
‘No, Emma and I need to do it, as promised,’ John said. ‘Stand down.’
John and I took her, one arm each, and guided her into the cage. She didn’t fight us. The King closed the door on us.
I quickly tried to open it, but it was locked. The jade latch was brittle, but I couldn’t break it.
‘It’s Celestial Jade, you can’t open it,’ John said.
‘You vowed to let us go!’ I yelled through the bars at the King.
‘I’m not holding you, honey, you can teleport out,’ the King said. ‘Both of you can. Bring her out, Turtle.’
Something blasted me from behind, slamming my head into the jade and stunning me. The floor flew up to meet me, hitting my head hard, and I couldn’t breathe. The jade around me turned black and I realised Kitty had hit me in the back with the black energy.
John knelt next to me and held me. ‘Hold on, Emma, I’ll take you out.’
‘She’s too weak to teleport out, Turtle,’ Kitty said from a safe distance. ‘She’s dying. What will you do?’
John glared up at the King. ‘Let us out!’
‘I’m not holding you in,’ the King said. ‘You can teleport out anytime. I promised I didn’t want you, and I meant it. Out you come, you two.’
John lifted my head slightly and I moaned at the movement; my head was throbbing with agony.
‘I can’t teleport her out,’ John said. ‘You have to open the door and let her out! You vowed you wouldn’t hold her.’
‘Just change to Turtle and give her some of your blood,’ Kitty said. ‘That’ll fix her right up, and you can teleport out.’
John hesitated for a moment, thinking about it.
I clutched his arm. ‘Don’t take True Form,’ I said, trying to suck the breath in. ‘You’ll be trapped.’
‘I don’t need True Form,’ he said.
Leo and Martin were at the edge of the cage; I could see their faces at the corner of my eye.
‘Get me a blade,’ John said to them. ‘Cut open my arm.’
He lowered me gently to the floor and reached out. Martin summoned a dagger and tried to push it through the bars of the cage, but it wouldn’t fit.
‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘The bars are too close together.’
John dropped his head and concentrated, his jaw clenched with effort.
‘You’re too weak to be doing this,’ I said. ‘Take yourself out.’
‘Not without you,’ he said.
A dagger appeared in his hand and he slashed at the stump of his left arm, crying out with pain as he did it. Blood flowed, and he dug the point of the knife into the wound, widening it. I tried to breathe, but he was fading and my ears were full of roaring. Something huge and black and cold appeared behind him, and he turned to see. It was his Serpent.
‘Hello, Emma,’ it said in John’s female voice. ‘You’re very hurt. Can I help?’
John’s eyes went black and he held his arm out towards it.
I grabbed the dagger from John’s hand, but my right arm was too weak and wasted to use it. I quickly passed it to my left hand and plunged it with all my remaining strength into John’s right eye.
‘No!’ Kitty and the Demon King yelled at the same time.
John looked at me, shocked, for a long horrible moment with the dagger handle jutting from his eye socket, then he collapsed on top of me and disappeared.
‘Shit!’ Kitty yelled. ‘So close!’
She stormed up to me, her appearance changing from female to male. My vision turned into a dark tunnel with her outline at the end of it. She kicked me in the abdomen a few times, then the Serpent grabbed her in its mouth and tossed her aside.
The Serpent turned back to me. ‘What have they done to you?’
I tried to reach up to touch it, but I couldn’t move my arms. I wanted to speak, but the words didn’t come out.
The stone spoke for me. ‘Radiation poisoning, AIDS, and just generally being thrown around. You should not be in here, Serpent, this cage isn’t for you.’
‘I’m trapped,’ it said. It touched its nose to me. ‘But you need healing.’
Its ice-cold fire shot through me and I screamed.
‘Sorry,’ it whispered. ‘You are close to death.’
‘Shit shit shit shit shit,’ the Demon King said, hitting the jade and making it ring with each word. I couldn’t see him, but I could hear that his voice was coming from the other side of the cage where Kitty was. ‘So close, and she had to go and do that.’
‘It was you!’ Leo yelled, his voice deep with fury. ‘All along, it was you!’
The Serpent’s healing eased and I panted, trying to suck in air.
‘That’s the second time you’ve come when I needed you,’ I said to it.
‘And she thinks the test run was an accident!’ the King yelled.
The Serpent touched its nose to me again. ‘I’ll always come when you need me.’ It raised its head and looked around. ‘Or not. I appear to be stuck now; this is not good.’ It spoke to the Demon King, who I now saw was pacing the interior of the cage. ‘You did this.’
The King lowered his head and disappeared,
reappearing on the outside of the cage. Too weak to move, I watched him walk to where Martin and Leo were staring at him with horror. Before he reached them, he passed an exact copy of himself also standing outside the cage.
‘Leave my dominion immediately,’ he said to Martin and Leo.
They disappeared.
The demon that had represented the Demon King while he was Kitty Kwok changed its form. It was the blond horse-head from the restaurant in China.
‘Well,’ the King said, pacing around the outside of the cage. ‘What do I do with you? I’ve achieved half of what I wanted, so I suppose it was worth the effort.’
The Serpent raised its head to see him. ‘You vowed that you had nothing to do with these demons.’
‘I vowed that I as Demon King had nothing to do with them. I didn’t say anything about me as Kitty Kwok.’ The King shrugged. ‘Having my word unconditionally trusted is an asset I’ve built over many years, Ah Wu.’ He leaned towards the cage. ‘Seeing you in there now, it was an asset well worth the cost.’
I pulled myself to sit upright, and the Serpent coiled protectively around me.
‘You vowed to let me out,’ I said. ‘Will you go back on that as well?’
‘I’ll still let you out,’ the King said. ‘I have half the prize. Well, less than half, actually. Babies from you and young Mr O’Breen would have been a nice bonus, but that didn’t work out either. You keep as many suits in your hand as you can, but eventually you draw one tile that forces you to decide which suit you’ll go for.’ He slammed one fist on the jade, making it ring. ‘Number One, go in and teleport her out.’
The blond demon shifted his feet and moved back. ‘That snake thing will eat me.’
‘I will not eat you,’ the Serpent said. ‘If you take her out and return her to the Celestial side, I will not hurt you.’ Its voice dropped to silky menace. ‘But beware, because you are the very last demon that I will not hurt. I have vowed to destroy you all.’ It raised its head to speak to the King. ‘Did you do this to me? Did you split me into two pieces?’
The King raised his hands. ‘Nothing at all to do with me, I swear.’
‘Your word is worth nothing,’ I said.
‘I vowed as Demon King. I made no such vow as Kitty Kwok,’ he said. ‘As King of the Demons, I have never gone back on my word.’