It was the truth. I released her slightly.
‘I told you who sent me; you vowed to spare me.’
‘That I did,’ I said, my hand still around her throat. ‘The only one who’ll be able to change you back is the Demon King himself. Good luck going to see him; he may not be as merciful as I am.’ I sent some black chi into my hand, pumped it into her and changed her into a cat. I stroked the top of her head and released her. ‘Go find a rat to eat.’
I sighed. I shouldn’t have destroyed all of the Mothers; the last one hadn’t given me any information that I didn’t already know. I heard footsteps behind me: Simone, with Michael leaning heavily on her. I turned and smiled at their shocked expressions.
‘We have people on their way,’ Simone said. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Just fine,’ I said, going to David and Leo.
Leo had loosened David’s shirt collar and was checking him for injuries. ‘He’s been hit in the abdomen. Bridget’s been shot in the leg.’
Bridget was lying panting on the ground, her eyes wide and glazed.
‘Simone, get me a pad to put on David’s bleeding,’ Leo said.
‘I can’t, I’m flat out telling them where we are,’ Simone said.
‘Bridget,’ I said, and she focused on me. ‘Tell me your home phone number and your domestic helper’s name. We’ll take you to hospital, but we need to tell your boys that you’re all right and you’ll be late home.’
‘We need to call an ambulance,’ Bridget said. She howled with pain. ‘God, it hurts!’
‘Help is coming but we need to fix up your boys,’ I said.
She reeled off a mobile phone number. ‘Rosalinda’s our helper. She’s at home with them right now.’
‘Stone, can you relay through someone?’ I said.
‘We’re underground, Emma,’ Simone said. ‘I’m in touch with Gold and he’s sending the message.’
Bridget groaned and lay back on the floor. I moved to hold her head in my lap and her hand in mine while Leo looked after David, who was still unconscious.
‘God, hurry with the ambulance, any pain relief, please,’ Bridget said.
I used the contact I had with her hand and worked through her meridians, easing the pain.
She panted again and turned her head to see me. ‘What did you do?’
‘Magic,’ I said, but the buzz was leaving me and I was beginning to feel weak. I could barely hold myself upright where I sat.
I turned to Simone. ‘Are they close?’
Meredith and Liu appeared behind her.
‘Do you want us to drop them at a human hospital or take them with us?’ Meredith said.
‘Take them with us,’ I said. ‘David knows all about it; Bridget doesn’t. But they were shot by demons so we’ll have to check the wounds and make sure they weren’t contaminated with essence.’
Meredith pulled Michael’s shirt open and examined him. ‘Let’s get all of these people to the infirmary.’ She leaned towards me. ‘Are you all right? You look terribly drained.’
‘I changed, went bigger,’ I said. ‘I’m coming down off it now.’
‘I see,’ Meredith said. She looked up at Liu. ‘Let’s get them home.’
‘Leo, human male; Meredith, human female,’ Liu said. ‘I’ll take Michael; Simone take Emma.’
The car park disappeared.
We arrived at the infirmary and the staff rushed to help us. I leaned against the nearest wall, but it was moving behind me.
‘Something’s wrong with Emma,’ Simone said loudly as Michael, Bridget and David were put onto gurneys. ‘She changed down there — she did her powerful thing — and now she’s white as a ghost.’
I completely lost my balance and Simone caught me. ‘Someone help Emma!’
‘Bring her in,’ Edwin called from inside, and Simone picked me up and carried me into the ward. I didn’t really understand what was happening as Simone placed me onto one of the four beds. People were rushing from bed to bed, but it was all a blur.
‘Is everybody all right?’ I said, but Simone had gone. I moved my head with difficulty to see where she was and relaxed. She was at Michael’s bedside.
The noise and light faded in and out, and I hoped with detachment that it was just exhaustion and nothing more serious.
Meredith’s face swam into view above me and she put her hands on either side of my face. Her exploratory energy moved through me. ‘Emma’s fine, just exhaustion,’ she said.
I grabbed her hand to stop her before she left me. ‘Is everybody okay?’ I said. ‘They shot David and Bridget because they were with us. Are they all right?’
She smiled and squeezed my hand to reassure me. ‘They’re fine; everybody will be okay. Close your eyes and rest.’
‘Do you need my snake?’
‘Not while you’re half-dead like this,’ she said. ‘So close your eyes, go down deep, rebuild your energy, and when you’re back you can help. Either way they’ll be fine; the injuries aren’t life-threatening.’
‘Good,’ I said, and let go.
CHAPTER 6
I came around in my own bed in the servants’ quarters. As soon as I sat up, Meredith and Simone appeared next to me.
‘How do you feel?’ Simone said.
‘Great. Full of energy. How are the others?’
‘They’re in the infirmary, they’re fine,’ Meredith said. ‘We’ve done some energy healing. With a few hours’ rest they’ll be up and around again.’
‘Any permanent damage?’
‘No,’ Simone said. ‘But we need to talk about Michael later. I honestly think he’s out of his league guarding you; he keeps getting injured.’
Meredith leaned in to study me carefully. ‘That’s right, talk later. Right now, tell me: do you crave Shen blood? Do you want to taste it again?’
I thought about it for a moment, then shook my head. ‘No. Not like I did when I had the demon essence in me. I have to admit that it tasted great, but I don’t feel like an addict.’
‘It tasted great?’ Simone said, incredulous.
‘It doesn’t taste like blood at all,’ I said. ‘Remember that drink at Nu Wa’s palace?’
‘That was awesome.’
‘That’s what Michael’s blood tasted like. Better than that, if possible.’
Simone hesitated. ‘I wonder if it tastes like that to me too.’
I was wearing my pyjamas. ‘How long have I been out?’
‘Only a couple of hours,’ Simone said.
‘So it’s what … 2 am? Why aren’t you in bed?’
‘I wanted to make sure you were okay. I don’t have school tomorrow anyway.’
I found my tatty purple chenille robe in a pile of clothes next to the bed and pulled it around me. ‘Go to bed.’
‘Where are you going?’ Meredith said.
‘I’m going to check on the others.’
‘They’re asleep, leave them,’ Meredith said. ‘Leo’s there watching them. They’re fine.’
‘It’s so cute: Clarissa’s asleep at Michael’s bedside,’ Simone said.
‘I still need to check something out. You two go to bed.’
‘Check what out?’ Simone said suspiciously. ‘It’s the middle of the night.’
‘I want to see if the Murasame came back,’ I said. ‘It won’t come when I call. It only came when I did my strong thing.’
‘You haven’t recovered enough to do any sword work,’ Meredith said. ‘When did you call it?’
‘This evening, when the Mothers cornered us. I just want to pop down to the Armoury and see if it’s there. If it isn’t, then I’ll need to get myself a new one, because it’s probably at the bottom of the sea somewhere, or back in Hell.’
‘Go straight back to bed after you’ve checked it,’ Meredith said, and disappeared.
‘I’m coming too,’ Simone said. ‘I won’t sleep unless I know. That sword is kind of like a bad-tempered guard dog for you.’
‘Careful, you’ll
upset the stone,’ I said.
We headed down the hill and around the peaks to the Armoury. Mist had gathered in the gorges and we walked carefully across an arched bridge, the scent of the pine trees filling the air around us. The sky had the clarity of late autumn, and the stars blazed bigger and brighter than any on the Earthly. The seven stars of the Big Dipper shone in the centre of the sky: the symbol of the Dark Lord’s power. I shivered in my robe; the early autumn breeze was chilly. First snow soon.
‘I must have some eucalypts planted here,’ I said. ‘I miss the smell.’
‘Can you see okay?’ Simone said, gesturing towards the ball of light she’d summoned for me.
‘Just fine.’
We wound past the forge to the Armoury building, which dwarfed its much smaller neighbour, its roof soaring twenty metres above the ground. The back of the Armoury was flush with the stone mountainside, and it had black walls and a black-tiled roof, making it more difficult to spot from the air. We went to the front of the building. The black stone doors stood silent, each one fifteen metres high and four wide, carved with images of the combined Xuan Wu, the snake and turtle heads facing each other with their mouths open as if in conflict.
‘Open,’ I said, and the doors slid smoothly apart.
We stepped into its dark interior, the black roof tiles visible high above us. The building didn’t have an internal ceiling, making it bitterly cold in the middle of winter. The huge open space stretched for fifty metres away from us, and a rustling sound came from the high beams above.
An unadorned ebony screen, three metres tall, stood just inside the entrance, and in front of that stood a metre-tall bronze urn, filled with sand, to hold incense.
I moved to the side of the urn and opened the cupboard next to it.
‘Move the light closer, I can’t see,’ I said, and Simone obliged.
The cabinet contained open canisters of incense sticks, their wooden ends protruding so they could be easily removed. I rifled through the canisters, checking the sticks: some were dyed red, others were plain wood. Eventually I found the one I was looking for: it had a tiny dot of black on the very end of the stick. I pulled it out, lit it from the candle burning below the urn, then shook it until the flame went out. Blowing out the flame was an insult to the wind spirits. I stuck the incense into the sand and waited a moment for the fragrance to waft through the hall and into the ceiling.
‘I can smell it, we can go,’ Simone said, and we moved into the main part of the hall.
Racks of weapons stood on either side of us, resembling the shelves in a library. Those closest to the door held the standard training weapons used by students; the Celestial weapons were further back.
The rustling above us changed to flapping, and one of the flying demons that resided in the roof flew down to us. Simone readied herself to destroy it, obviously concerned that I’d chosen the wrong incense. The demon was black and a metre long with four legs and wings; it looked something like a flying lizard but much uglier. It clacked its grotesquely toothed beak at me and strutted up and down, blocking my way, then turned to speak. It sounded like a parrot.
‘Dark Lady.’
‘Hello, little one,’ I said.
‘It’s the middle of the night, Lady, why do you disturb us?’
‘I apologise for disturbing you. I wanted to check my weapon. Is it in there?’
The flyer hissed and took a few steps back, shaking its wings. ‘I don’t want to know anything about that thing.’ It took off again, spiralling up into the rafters.
We walked past the shelves to the back wall of the building, which was the Mountain itself.
‘Open,’ I said, and the wall disappeared, revealing a room full of brass that shone in Simone’s light.
The ceiling in the Celestial Weapons Archive was much lower, and carved with twining snakes and turtles. The walls were smooth polished stone, and the pillars and beams holding up the roof were clad with brass, again embossed with the symbols of snakes and turtles. Soft voices sounded just at the edge of hearing: some of the weapons were talking in their sleep.
The far end of the room, from one side to the other, was partitioned off with iron bars clad in gold. I stopped and took a few deep breaths: this was the hard part. I preferred not to do it, but it was the only way.
‘It’s in there, Emma, don’t worry about it,’ Simone said.
‘That’s beside the point,’ I said. ‘I need to go in there and have a little chat with it about why it’s not coming when I call it.’
‘It’s not worth the risk.’
‘No risk. I can do it.’
‘I’ll bring it out for you.’
‘It’s not talking to me so I can’t tell it not to hurt you. Still want to try?’
Simone was silent at that. She’d touched the sword before and knew how much it hurt.
I took some more deep breaths and concentrated, then closed my eyes. I took three steps forward and opened them again. I was inside.
Simone did the same thing, and stood beside me.
Seven Stars stood vertically on a solid silver stand in the centre of the room, its presence dwarfing the auras of the other weapons. I went around it, but Simone stopped to run her finger over the well-worn hilt.
The Murasame sat in the corner, laid horizontally Japanese-style on a stand of carved bone. Its darkness provided an eerie counterpoint to the brittle whiteness of its stand. I went to it and took its handle, then hissed with pain and pulled my hand away.
‘It hurt you?’ Simone said.
‘It doesn’t recognise me,’ I said.
‘This is the first time since you’ve recovered,’ she said.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘It hasn’t seen me without the demon essence.’
‘Want some blood?’ she said.
I turned to her and glared. ‘Don’t you even think about it.’
She shrugged. ‘Worth a try.’
I put my hand out towards the sword. ‘I’ll just have to tell it who’s the master.’
‘Well, that’s what you’re good at,’ she said, and moved away.
‘Is that you, Simone?’ Miss Chen, the Weapons Master, called from the main room.
‘It’s just us, Lucy,’ I said.
She walked through the bars with her eyes closed and approached us. ‘What are you doing here at this time of night?’
She was wearing a hot pink bathrobe pulled around her portly form, over old-fashioned flannel pyjamas decorated with tiny pink flowers. Simone stared at her for a moment, then grinned.
Miss Chen peered at Simone through her thick glasses. ‘What’s so funny?’
Simone smothered the grin and turned away. ‘Nothing, nothing.’
Miss Chen straightened the curlers in her hair. ‘You’ll get as old as me one day, young lady, and it’ll be just as much hard work.’ She turned to me. ‘Now what are you doing here in the Celestial Armoury in your pyjamas? Seems a strange place for a sleepover.’
‘The Murasame won’t come when I call it,’ I said.
She came to stand next to me and studied the sword without touching it. ‘This is the first time you’ve called it since the demon essence was burnt from you?’
I nodded.
She frowned for a moment as she thought about it. ‘I guess the reason you’re not touching it is because it doesn’t recognise you as its master any more and it’s hurting you?’
I nodded again.
She rubbed her chin. ‘But it’s still here, so it hasn’t reverted to anyone else’s ownership. Basically what you have to do is tell it who’s the boss.’
‘Which is what she’s good at,’ Simone repeated with humour.
‘Can you wrap something around your hand and try?’ Miss Chen said.
‘The pain isn’t from the contact itself,’ I said. ‘It’s more like spiritual damage from the proximity.’
‘Go to bed and come back tomorrow,’ Miss Chen said. ‘The sword’s not going anywhere. It’s nearly 3 am and bot
h of you are tired, making it a bad time to be messing around with one of the most powerful destructive forces on the planet. Do it tomorrow, and I’ll come help you.’
‘She’s right, Emma,’ Simone said.
I tapped the sword with frustration and it burned my finger. ‘All right.’
The next morning I headed straight for the infirmary. Bridget, David and Michael were sitting in the courtyard under the peach trees in the sunshine. All three of them were wearing plain black Mountain uniforms, and Bridget had a pair of crutches leaning on the bench next to her. Michael rose, fell to one knee and saluted me, to David’s and Bridget’s obvious amusement.
‘No need, Michael,’ I said as he rose and painfully sat on the bench again. ‘How are you all feeling?’
‘Remarkably good, all things considered,’ David said. ‘Thanks so much for looking after us.’
‘Don’t thank me. You took a bullet because we were there,’ I said. ‘Bridget, do you mind giving me your hand? I’d like to check you.’
She hesitated a moment and looked at David. He nodded confirmation, so she held her hand out. I took it, holding her wrist at the pulse point. She gasped as I entered her energy stream to check the wound in her leg.
‘Does it hurt?’ David said.
‘No,’ Bridget said. ‘It just feels … strange.’
I moved my energy to the wound in her knee. The bullet had lodged itself in her kneecap, but someone had removed it and done a rough job of half-healing it. The energy healers would have been stretched fixing all three of them, particularly as Michael’s and David’s injuries had been severe. I completed the job, moving my energy over the shattered bone, knitting its structure together and fixing the tendon damage. Bridget shivered as I withdrew my consciousness.
‘All fixed,’ I said. ‘Try standing up.’
She leaned heavily on the bench and gingerly put weight on the leg. Her surprise was obvious as she stood with more confidence and took a few steps around the courtyard. ‘This is amazing.’
‘It’s not a hundred per cent yet,’ I said. ‘Don’t do any strenuous exercise on it for a week or so; the bone hasn’t completely healed.’ I turned to David. ‘Hand, please, let me look at you.’