‘If we continue down here far enough, we’ll end up in Hell,’ the Monkey King said with amusement.
After about four hundred metres we reached a pair of red wooden double doors with the Door Gods painted on them. We stopped.
‘I can’t sense anything on the other side,’ Simone said.
‘Is this an entrance to Hell?’ Michael asked Na Zha.
‘Nah, man, Hell’s a lot further down,’ Na Zha said. ‘Doors would be the same though.’ He paused, thoughtful for a moment. ‘Tell you what. Everybody move back, and us big Shen will open it up and have a look.’
‘Sounds like a plan,’ the Tiger said. ‘Everybody back. Just me, Sun Wu Kong and Na Zha to have a look.’
‘And me,’ Simone said, moving to stand next to them.
The Tiger opened his mouth to say something to Simone, then smiled slightly and closed it again.
Simone turned to speak to the rest of the group. ‘Move back, everybody.’
I ushered them about fifty metres back along the stone corridor. We turned and stood, grouped together, waiting to see what would happen.
The Tiger opened one of the doors and stuck his head through. ‘Can’t see a damn thing.’ He opened it wider, and Na Zha opened the second door, both of them pulling them all the way back so they were flush with the walls. They took a few steps through, disappearing into the darkness.
The room flared into visibility in front of us; Simone had generated one of her balls of light. She made it larger until it was about a metre across, and raised it so that it was more than ten metres above us.
It showed us a large rectangular hall, about fifty metres to a side. At the other end stood an army of demons, appearing as young humans in brown cotton pants and jackets. They weren’t in any particular formation; they just stood as a clump bristling with weapons.
‘How many?’ I asked.
‘About fifty,’ Simone said.
The Tiger glanced back at us. ‘Everybody but us big Shen — me, Na Zha and Sun Wu Kong — hold off. We’ll start by mincing them.’
‘And me,’ Simone said. She raised her hand to the side and Dark Heavens appeared in it.
The rest of the group moved further back. The demons waited for the command to attack.
I stepped forward, brushing Michael aside as he tried to stop me. I stood next to Simone and the men. ‘Six, if you can hear me,’ I said loudly, ‘this would probably be a good time to negotiate. You went back on your deal last time. Now you’re —’
The demons raced towards us, and the Shen drew their weapons. The Tiger had a large white and gold traditional one-handed Chinese sword; the Monkey King pulled his staff out of his ear; and Na Zha raised his hands and his chain whip appeared in his right hand and his throwing ring in his left.
‘Back up, Emma,’ Simone said, readying herself to face the onslaught.
I moved back, out of the way of any possible demon essence.
As the demons approached, a couple of the Shen concentrated and the demons hesitated, then began to struggle to move.
‘How big?’ Simone said.
‘Big enough to resist our Inner Eyes,’ the Tiger said. ‘Let’s go.’
He raced forward and swung his sword, slicing through demons so fast he was a blur. Na Zha spun, using his chain whip with deadly effectiveness and hitting the demons with his ring without throwing it, slicing pieces off them and making them dissipate into black streamers. The Monkey King whooped with delight and pole-vaulted on his staff right into the middle of the demons, then swung it with wild abandon and destroyed everything around him.
Simone filled Dark Heavens with shen energy, making it glow almost painfully white. Everything she touched disintegrated. She carved a path of destruction through the demons, her tawny hair flying.
As the demons closest to us were destroyed, more sprouted out of the ground behind them, joining the existing group from the rear. Simone, the Tiger, Na Zha and the Monkey King continued to fight, but with the reinforcements we had more to face than we’d started with. Another group of demons sprouted from the ground on either side, tripling the army we were facing. Simone continued to blast shen energy, but she couldn’t destroy them faster than they were replaced.
Na Zha raised his hands and an energy barrier stopped the demons in their tracks. Shen Barrage, he said. Anyone who knows, move up.
Simone hesitated, confused. ‘Shen Barrage?’
‘If you don’t know what it is, move back, girly.’ He glanced back. ‘Anyone who knows what it is, move up quick, ’cause I can’t hold these forever.’
Precious, Silver, Michael and Sylvie moved forward.
Simone came back and stood next to me. ‘I’ve never heard of this,’ she said.
‘Part of the advanced energy curriculum at Celestial High,’ Sylvie said over her shoulder to us. ‘Watch.’
They stood in a line in front of us, each about two metres from the other. They raised their arms, lowered their heads and radiated shen energy. The energy linked between them, crackling like lightning and moving in vertical bars from person to person, so bright it was almost painful.
The energy coalesced into a barrier in front of them, a wall of brilliant bright light, then expanded out from them in a large arc from wall to wall, destroying everything in its path. The demons didn’t explode as it hit them; they dissolved into black goo that boiled into nothingness. The shen energy hit the far wall and disappeared.
The group in front of us dropped their arms and waited. The only sound was a couple of pebbles dropping to the floor.
‘I think that did it,’ the Tiger said.
‘Why don’t they teach that at Wudangshan?’ Simone demanded. ‘That’s so useful!’
‘Only Shen can do it, and a very senior Celestial has to be present to guide it,’ the Tiger said, walking back to us. ‘And Shen learn to do it in high school before they go to Wudang. They teach more advanced energy work at Wudang; they assume you already know basic guided stuff like this.’
‘But nobody taught me!’ Simone said.
The Tiger put his hands on his hips and glared at her. ‘That’s ’cause you’re never there to learn it!’
Simone’s eyes widened and she didn’t reply.
The Tiger continued, hands still on hips. ‘You should have taken me up on the offer to have a look at CH. You’d like it.’
Simone turned away. ‘I don’t want to go to Freak High!’
‘You calling me a freak?’ Sylvie said with amusement as she returned to us.
‘But you are a freak,’ Precious said behind her.
Sylvie turned to face the other end of the hall. ‘I s’pose you’re right, Precious. So are we going in to have a look around? This place is fascinating.’
She was right. The hall we stood in was about fifty metres wide and long, and had a tiled slate floor and smooth rock walls with a ceiling of rough-hewn stone. The far end looked like a village; there were two-storey buildings on either side with a narrow cobblestone road down the centre, leading a long way away from us.
The Tiger whistled through his teeth. ‘Shit, look at that. This nest is fucking enormous.’ He glanced around at the Rabbits. ‘And it was right under your feet, eh, humans?’
‘We did not know that this existed,’ Tu Gong Wei said. ‘We rely on you Celestials to inform us that Hell is growing beneath our feet; we are only human, after all, and cannot see ourselves.’
‘Nobody can see under here,’ Simone said, studying the small town before us. ‘They’ve done something with stones that makes it invisible.’
‘She is correct,’ one of the stone Shen said. ‘We are blind in here.’
‘This is an evil place, full of the death of stones,’ another stone Shen said.
We walked to the other end of the hall, where the buildings and road began.
‘How were the demon reinforcements teleported here?’ I asked.
‘Dunno,’ the Tiger said. ‘That’s a new one on me, never seen demons travelli
ng when they’re that small.’
‘Someone moved them?’ Simone said.
‘Demons can’t be moved by other demons,’ Na Zha said. He rounded on Simone. ‘Don’t they teach you anything in school?’
‘She goes to a human school,’ the Tiger said.
‘Well, that’s stupid,’ Na Zha said. He grinned menacingly at me. ‘You worried that she’ll be more powerful than you if she’s trained properly?’
‘It was my choice, not Emma’s,’ Simone said.
‘That’s even more stupid,’ Na Zha said.
‘Just shut up,’ Simone said, and stormed towards the village in front of us.
The narrow street was lined with two-storey inns and tea houses all constructed of stained hardwood. Most of them were open on the ground floor, with a wooden bar as serving area, and a number of round old-fashioned rosewood tables with round stools, and stairs to the next floor up. Large red lanterns decorated with birds, flowers and good-luck characters provided lighting.
‘This looks like an Ancient China theme park,’ Simone said as we approached the first tea house.
‘It’s completely deserted,’ Precious said.
The restaurants had wooden bowls and chopsticks on the tables, apparently left behind when the demons had fled. The inns had closed-in lower floors, with paper windows and wooden doors, and signboards next to the doorways.
‘Brothels,’ Na Zha said with amusement. ‘Demon brothels.’
‘And gambling houses. This is an entertainment district for demons,’ the Tiger said. He opened the door to one of the buildings and peered inside. ‘All the demons are gone though.’ He came back out. ‘The demons that owned this place must have been making a killing.’
‘Demons spend money like this?’ Simone asked.
The Monkey King nodded. ‘They even use normal human currency. Rob people to get it.’
‘But where are all the demons?’ Simone said. She stopped and gasped. ‘Oh my God.’
The third restaurant along the lane had a vat of food out the front, with wooden bowls scattered on the ground. I could smell it before I saw it; the vat was emitting the strong smell of roast beef. It was full of cow’s blood, and the bowls had spilled some blood on the ground. Inside the restaurant on the left, hung the cow’s raw innards, lungs and intestines from hooks off metal racks. The head was on a spike at the front door with the character for ‘cow’ splashed in blood on a sign underneath it.
The next building on the left was also a restaurant, but instead of blood it served demon eggs; each about twenty centimetres across, the shells opaque with age. A couple of eggs lay broken open, the tiny demons inside dead on the ground.
‘This is creeping me out,’ Simone said.
Three stone elemental demons grew out of the floor in the demon egg restaurant and lurched towards us. They were about two-and-a-half metres tall, made of several rocks that floated together in a roughly human form.
Silver and Precious both took two steps back and raised their hands towards some rosewood dining chairs in the restaurant behind us. The chairs shattered into wooden pieces, which flew into the dragons’ hands. The dragons strode up to the stone demons and shoved the shards of wood into them, then concentrated. The wood sprouted buds and leaves that quickly grew like a time-lapse movie. The demons’ stone faces seemed to register shock for a moment, then they shattered where the wood had been inserted into them.
Precious dusted her hands against each other. ‘That was easy.’ She looked around. ‘Any more?’
‘Let’s keep going,’ the Tiger said. ‘I want to see what’s at the end of this.’
The next restaurant smelt strongly of stinky bean curd. Inside was a charcoal-fired cylindrical pottery stove with a large flat frying surface holding the rectangular bean curd pieces. Another stove held a large soup boiler with a flat metal lid and the flat spoon used to scoop out sweet bean curd. Behind the counter a large number of catering-sized jars of peanut butter stood on a shelf.
‘I didn’t know demons liked bean curd as well,’ Simone said. ‘And look at all the peanut butter.’
‘They really go for chau dau foo and dau foo fa,’ the Tiger said. ‘And you would know this if you went to CH.’
‘Shut up about CH already,’ Sylvie said. ‘She’s already said she doesn’t want to go to school with us freaks, and I don’t blame her.’
‘You’re not freaks,’ Simone said, her voice more gentle.
‘We snakes are used to being on the outside, Princess,’ Sylvie said.
‘My father’s a snake,’ Simone said. ‘And he’s a wonderful person.’
‘Then you’re lucky that you know him. Usually our parents lay us as eggs and then ditch us. No snake ever has a family,’ Sylvie said.
‘Emo bullshit,’ Na Zha said. ‘You snakes only complain about being alone when it suits you. The rest of the time you’re off by yourselves anyway.’
Sylvie grimaced at Na Zha, then turned towards the end of the street. ‘There’s a mansion there.’
The street ended in a traditional Chinese gate, with a single character — the number six — on it. Instead of statues of fu dogs or lions flanking the gates, there were stone images of Snake Mothers.
‘Well, we know who lives here,’ the Tiger said.
‘The Demon King was right,’ I said.
‘Looks like he had a demon entertainment business going here, and decided to expand upstairs,’ the Monkey King said.
‘He inherited One Two Two’s crime empire,’ I said.
The Monkey King glanced at me. ‘And you let him?’
‘My students regularly shut down their operations,’ I said. ‘That’s what brought us here in the first place. He got annoyed with us and took Leo.’
The Monkey King turned back to check out the mansion. ‘And you’ve known that a demon was running the show in your own backyard for so many years and you’ve never done anything about it?’
‘You know we can’t interfere in demon matters unless they attack us,’ I said.
‘The King was right,’ Simone said. ‘They’ve cleared out. I hope we can find a lead on where they went.’
We approached the mansion. It bore an unsettling resemblance to the paper house effigies that were burnt at funerals: two storeys with a veranda over the entrance. The stone-paved front yard had a few silk flowers in pots placed around the edge. The front door hung open.
Directly inside was the entrance hall, with stairs leading up and around to the first floor. On the left a living room held a couple of hard-backed square rosewood couches with red silk cushions and a rosewood tea table, still with teapot and cups on it. A widescreen plasma television stood on a more modern-looking veneer television unit across the room.
Simone ducked her head to check out the library of DVDs. ‘He really likes Canto soaps,’ she said. ‘These are all pirate copies.’
The Tiger grunted with amusement. ‘I own one of the production houses — he’s been taking money off me.’
‘The Dragon’s gonna get pissy at you owning so much stuff in the East,’ the Monkey King said.
‘Fuck the Dragon,’ the Tiger said.
‘Dragon Tiger Energy Connection Golden Lotus Tao!’ Na Zha said, clasping his hands together in the prayer position, holding one foot against the other knee, and swiftly making an expression of bliss.
‘You insult the True Path,’ the Monkey King growled.
‘I insult everything,’ Na Zha said. He went further into the dining room, which held a round rosewood ten-seater table inlaid with mother-of-pearl. ‘Nice table. Looks like it came from one of those furniture shops in Wan Chai.’
‘Surprised he hasn’t upgraded to something garish and European,’ Simone said. ‘They usually go for expensive-looking ultra-rococo with lots of gold.’
‘Six is old demon, first generation, he’ll be a traditionalist,’ the Tiger said. ‘Won’t go for that modern rubbish.’
The strong smell of smoke filled the room. Simone unfoc
used for a moment, then snapped back. ‘The top floor’s on fire!’
We raced up the stairs to the first-floor landing, which was filled with smoke billowing from one of the rooms. The room was completely ablaze with huge flames from the floor to the ceiling. The human members of the group, myself included, started coughing uncontrollably and raced downstairs to get away from the choking smoke.
A gush of water surged down the stairs behind us, nearly knocking us off our feet, and we heard the hiss of steam. The smoke dissipated.
‘Safe to come up,’ Simone said.
The stones vacuumed the smoke into themselves, clearing the air. Simone gingerly picked her way into the burnt-out room, the walls dripping around her.
‘It was a fake fire elemental,’ she said, looking around. ‘It ran when I hit it with a real water one.’
The room appeared to be a study; the walls were covered in bookshelves but only a few books remained after the fire: old-fashioned Chinese books, flimsy pages bound by large stitches along the edges. The Tiger picked one of them up off the floor. ‘These are lab notes.’
‘What about?’ I said, fascinated. I couldn’t read any of the flowing Chinese cursive script; my ability to read was limited to standard printed characters, and even then not many because most Celestial documents didn’t need translation.
‘From what I can make out from what’s left of it, experiments on stones,’ the Tiger said. He flipped through the remains of the book. ‘This one is about different ways of making stones into slaves.’
The Tiger moved from shelf to shelf reading out their brass labels. ‘Fake stone elements, making of. Planting stones on humans to make them obedient …’ He turned to me. ‘Isn’t that what happened to the Lion?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘At that school thing. You were there — they planted a stone on him and he did what they told him. He nearly killed Michael.’
‘I remember,’ the Tiger said. He continued to look at the shelves. ‘They have more advanced control techniques — implanting stones in people …’ He glanced at me. ‘I’d be checking your students to see if they’ve got any stones implanted in them.’
‘Any sign of where Leo is being held?’ I said.