Demon Child

I cannot sense any, the Jade Emperor said.

  John sagged with relief. The cost had been appalling, but they’d won.

  ‘Did Franklin Ascend?’ he said.

  There was a long silence, then the Jade Emperor said, No.

  John punched the ground and the glass surface shattered over the dust beneath.

  He silently helped Michael to his feet and escorted him to the safety of the Celestial Palace. There, he would meet with Emma — and kill her.

  ‘I think we’re good to go here,’ I said as we did one last pass over the demon camp in Hell. ‘They’re all gone —’

  A fake stone elemental surged out of the ground and grabbed me, one arm around my waist and another over my mouth.

  Simone summoned yin around her hands and stood frozen.

  I tried to free myself and failed; Emma wasn’t strong enough. The Serpent could break the demon’s hold, but I knew what that would do to Emma — to me. I stayed still and waited, ready to strike against it.

  ‘I have her, Majesty,’ the demon said in a very cultured English accent. ‘Yes. Emma. Yes. No. Majesty.’

  The Celestial island blurred around me and I landed on the dais in the Demon King’s throne room. The room was completely empty; no demons or guards were present, just the two Kings reclining on the throne together, kissing with passion.

  Shit. They weren’t destroyed.

  ‘Majesty,’ the demon holding me said, its voice rumbling through me.

  The Kings jerked up, then separated and rose, fixing their clothing.

  ‘Well done,’ the Eastern King said, and the demon nodded its head over mine. The King sauntered to stand in front of me and put his hands behind his back. ‘This is what we’re going to do.’

  John charged out of the Celestial Palace and straight to the Celestial island in Hell. Simone was still standing, stricken, in front of the hole that had held the demon. It was a clever ambush: none of his family could sense the stone elementals.

  He checked Emma’s location — the King’s throne room. He tried to teleport directly there and couldn’t. That side of Hell was still outside Celestial jurisdiction and sworn Celestial Retainers like himself were barred from entry. Perhaps Simone …

  The King slapped me across the face and I landed back in my own head.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘That worked. Who were you talking to? When did you learn telepathy?’

  ‘You need me, right?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘If you don’t release me right now, I’m gone anyway. Look at me. Take a good hard look, George.’

  He put his hand on my face and held my chin and his cruel essence lanced into my brain like a hot knife. I tried to stay silent and failed, whimpering as he tore my head open and roughly examined me. The Serpent surged inside me, threw him out and slammed my head shut so that he couldn’t re-enter.

  He fell back, stricken. ‘There it is again, that same snake thing inside your head. You’re the Serpent? You were the Serpent all along? No — I had the Serpent. What the fuck was that then?’

  ‘I’ve merged with the Serpent,’ I said. ‘It’s consuming me. I must go to the Jade Emperor so he can extract me.’

  ‘Is she still Frankie’s mother?’ Francis said. ‘We need his mother more than we need the stupid Serpent.’

  ‘She’s both at the same time.’

  ‘She’s way too small to stay separate. It will eat her.’

  ‘Let me look. Hold her tight,’ the King said to the armoured demon.

  It gripped me, and he took my face again and examined me more carefully. The Serpent sat coiled at the back of my head and glowered at him.

  John walked along the street in Beijing. There were the pagodas of Jingshan Park, there was the entrance to the subway … the bicycles flowed everywhere. Where had the gateway been? He sent his senses out and found it. He pushed through the crowd and couldn’t enter the gateway; it was blocked to him.

  The Demon King slapped me again, bringing me back.

  ‘Let the Turtle in,’ I said. ‘Let him take me to the Jade Emperor and extract me. If I’m not extracted soon I’ll be gone. You will lose any chance of taking my son to Heaven for the next fifteen years.’

  Come and destroy them, Turtle. Merge with me in True Form and take them both down. We can do it.

  If we take True Form, Emma will be gone. I know how little of you remains, love.

  Worth it.

  No!

  I jerked my head back. ‘Don’t hit me, I was talking to him. Let him in.’

  The King looked me in the eyes, studying me. ‘How joined are you? If I talk to you, will he hear me?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said with both voices.

  He grinned with malice. ‘Let’s do a deal.’

  Shit.

  Just agree to everything they offer. Then come and take merged True Form and destroy them, I said.

  No!

  ‘I’ll let you have her, Turtle, but if I ever want to take the child to Heaven, she has to escort him for me.’

  We hesitated.

  ‘That’ll only happen when I win, Ah Wu. And you’ll be gone anyway. Your Lady and child will be safe in Heaven.’ The King moved closer to see into my eyes. ‘Not such a sacrifice, eh? Give me your word and you can take her.’

  ‘Guarantee Simone’s safety as well,’ I said.

  ‘Done. Turtle?’

  You vowed to protect the Celestial, Xuan Wu, and you can end this now. Agree to everything they offer, then combine with the Serpent and destroy them when you are here.

  The Turtle was silent for a long time, considering. He could renounce his Celestial alignment, throw it all away, and come to collect me and keep me safe …

  And you can’t extract me yourself. Stop pretending you could betray the Celestial and come destroy both Kings with one strike. I love you, John. Come and take these monsters down and free the world from their cruelty.

  No!

  Once they are gone, the King’s Number One will become King. He has agreed to stay on his side of Hell and renounce all claim to the Earthly. Make sure he keeps his word with a blood oath, and both the Earthly and Heaven will be safe.

  He was silent for a long time, then: You were the best thing that ever happened to me, Emma.

  Thank you, Xuan Wu. Free our son when they are gone and tell him that I loved him.

  I will.

  ‘You have my word as the Xuan Wu,’ I said. ‘Release Emma into my care, and when you need her to escort the child into Heaven, she will do it.’

  ‘Good,’ the King said. ‘Meet her in Tin Hau station in Hong Kong.’

  ‘No, let me in to collect her. We need to hurry!’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Let you in here? No. Tin Hau. I’ll let her out from the gateway there.’

  John was full of relief as he teleported from Beijing to Hong Kong. He no longer had the option of merging and taking down the Kings. Emma would be safe, and now she could be extracted.

  He arrived at Tin Hau station with the evening rush hour — so normal and mundane. These humans had no idea of the conflict that had occurred above them.

  Emma stood blank and unseeing on the concourse before the turnstiles, in front of the unmarked metal door that was the gateway to Hell. People swirled around her, paying her no attention. He took her hand and she didn’t respond. He checked inside her and it was like looking into a mirror: his own consciousness looked back.

  ‘Emma? Can you hear me?’

  She didn’t respond.

  He sought her inside himself and heard an echo, a glimmer …

  We may still be able to extract her, the Jade Emperor said. Bring her now.

  John followed the Jade Emperor’s guidance to his own quarters in the Celestial Palace. Simone was there waiting for them.

  ‘You need to do this now, Ah Wu. Emma is almost completely you,’ the Jade Emperor said.

  The Jade Emperor was right. Emma stood stiff and unseeing when John released her hand. He
waved his hand in front of her face …

  And I snapped back into my own head.

  ‘Now, Ah Wu.’

  ‘I can’t just kill her!’ John looked into my eyes, desperate. ‘You must survive this.’ He nodded over my head to the Jade Emperor. ‘Give her a scale or a claw or something. Anything!’

  ‘She’s already back inside your head, Ah Wu,’ the Emperor said, and John pulled back to see … Emma was blank again.

  ‘Emma? Return into your own head, Emma. What are your parents’ names? Brendan. Barbara … No — you speak, Emma. Return to yourself. I’m trying —’

  ‘She’s gone,’ the Emperor said.

  ‘Hurry!’ Simone said. ‘We can’t lose her.’

  ‘You already have.’

  John held his hand out to the Jade Emperor. ‘Scale. Come on, old man, help us out.’

  The Jade Emperor hesitated.

  ‘We won’t tell anyone. Scale. Please!’

  The Jade Emperor passed John a gleaming silver scale and John pressed it into Emma’s hand.

  The scale was like a brilliant point of freezing white light in my hand and the shock of the cold pushed me back into my own head.

  ‘Now do it. You must send her to Court One immediately,’ the Jade Emperor said.

  ‘What’s the easiest and fastest way?’ I said. ‘Just take my head?’

  ‘I can’t watch that!’ Simone said, distraught.

  ‘No,’ John said. ‘Decapitation is quick and painless, but kneeling and waiting for the blow to fall is very unpleasant. Trust me, it’s awful.’ He turned to the Jade Emperor. ‘Majesty, can you?’

  ‘No! You do it, John,’ I said. ‘You’re the only one I trust. Please. Hurry.’

  He turned back to me. ‘I can’t!’

  ‘Get your damn sword and cut off my head!’ I said. ‘I’m slipping away, I can feel it.’

  He put his hand out and Dark Heavens appeared in it. I closed my eyes and waited for the blow.

  ‘I can’t,’ he said, desperate.

  I opened my eyes. He was standing slumped with defeat. ‘I can’t do this to you.’

  ‘John …’ we said in unison.

  ‘Do it, Daddy!’ Simone said.

  ‘Ah Wu, you are losing her. Do this now or she is gone.’

  He stood, balanced on the indecision that I felt as well. I could lose my identity in Court One and be gone. He couldn’t do it.

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, Dad!’ Simone shouted.

  She summoned her blades, took two huge strides and ran one of them straight through me. She ripped it upwards, scraping it along the bones of my spine and tearing my ribs away with a remarkable feeling of separation, then hit my breastbone with enough force to lift me off my feet. The blood filled my lungs and everything broke inside me.

  She held me impaled on her blade and looked me in the eye. ‘I love you, Emma.’

  ‘No!’ John shouted as Simone pulled the blade out. He caught me as I fell.

  ‘It’s time,’ the Jade Emperor said. ‘Move back.’

  John gently lowered me to the ground. I tried to see him but he had narrowed to a tiny tunnel of light, his burning dark eyes the only thing I could see. I searched for Simone with my narrowed vision and saw her standing with her blood-stained sword, tears running down her cheeks.

  ‘It’s all right, Simone,’ I said. ‘You always were the brave one. Find a way to get your little brother out. He deserves better.’

  ‘I will, Mum.’ She smiled when she saw my face and shook her head through the tears. ‘You were my dad for a while. Close enough.’

  I looked up at John again, and coughed up a vast amount of blood. He wiped my face with his sleeve, already soaked and blackened with it.

  ‘I love you. I love you both …’ I said, the words bubbling out of me.

  I am so sorry, my love, he said.

  Do not be. Even if this is the end for me, I would not have lived my life any other way. I am happy to end it here. And if it is not the end, I will serve the Celestial by your side with complete contentment.

  My life slipped away and I tried to remember who I was. It was important that I remember. I stopped breathing and it wasn’t significant. My hand was weak and I couldn’t hold the important thing in it … I couldn’t remember why the thing was important and it fell out of my hand. The cold filled me from my centre out and everything faded.

  The Jade Emperor reached into me with heat and gold and ripped me out of my body, leaving the Serpent alone and bereft.

  The warm golden force threw me and I shattered.

  I exploded into a million joyful shards of golden light and drifted down.

  I landed in Court Ten and staggered. I was wearing the white of a convict and Judge Pao sat at his desk on the dais above me, his arrogant composure obviously restored after we’d regained Hell. He glared at me from under his dark brows.

  ‘Kneel before your judge,’ one of the guards said.

  I crossed my arms over my chest. ‘No.’

  Pao sighed with exasperation and tossed his brush onto the desk in front of him. ‘The Jade Emperor promised me you’d land in Court One!’

  I grinned without mirth. ‘Too bad, here I am. And you can’t Raise me, Pao, the Dark Lord has to do it.’ I raised my chin. ‘First time ever?’

  ‘I would not Raise you, Miss Donahoe, you are not ready. You are too wilful. You need more incarnations of suffering so that arrogant streak is beaten from you.’

  ‘If I was a man you’d call it strength, not arrogance.’

  ‘Nonsense. You are disobedient, overconfident and conceited, madam, and you should not be Raised.’ He picked up his brush again and spoke with grim satisfaction. ‘Emma Donahoe, I find you Unworthy. Return to Court One and prepare —’

  ‘I don’t think even you have the power to override one of the Dark Lord’s vows,’ I said, interrupting him. I sent my senses out and found him: he was charging from Court One already. ‘Oh good, here’s my ride.’

  John stormed into the Court in his Celestial Dark Lord form — the first time he’d taken it since his Serpent was free of me. He was taller, leaner, darker and much, much fiercer. I smiled. I liked this new Dark Lord a lot.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he said. ‘I couldn’t do it, and you were —’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, John, I understand. I’m here now and that’s all that’s important.’

  ‘The Jade Emperor said you’d land in Court One!’ he said.

  ‘Of course he did.’ I gestured with my chin towards Pao on his dais. ‘You know how Pao would react if he knew I was coming here.’

  ‘He’d try to send you to Court One anyway,’ John said.

  I turned back to Pao and looked him in the eye. ‘Yep, he just did.’

  Pao didn’t reply as he sat glaring at both of us.

  ‘You said the Jade Emperor would never lie,’ I said to John.

  ‘Oh, he’ll lie to your face when it suits him. It’s Kwan Yin who never deals in untruths.’ John stood next to me, facing Pao. ‘You’d better not get in my way,’ he growled.

  John was too tall. Not good enough. I reached into my dark serpent nature and grew as well. My hair darkened and twined around my head. Echoes of being joined with the Xuan Wu still resonated inside me and probably would for the rest of my … Immortal existence. I had a small moment of satisfaction when my white convict clothes changed to my black robes and armour, as scuffed and worn as they always were. I concentrated and they changed to clean and new, shining black and silver in the light of the Judge’s courtroom.

  Pao’s eyes widened and his mouth clamped into a grim line.

  Impressive, John said.

  Thank you.

  I shot him some images of exactly what I wanted to do with him while we were both in these forms and he fought to control his smile. He sent back images of what both of him wanted to do with me and I had similar trouble holding back my own smile.

  ‘I have one regret, Xuan Wu,’ I said without turning away
from Pao.

  John glanced down at me, concerned.

  ‘I never had a chance to take you down, one on one, while I was the Serpent.’

  John turned back to Pao. ‘I share your regret, Emma. But I think with some training you will be a definite challenge for me.’

  ‘Oh, come on, John. You know damn well nobody will ever defeat you in a fair fight. You’re the best.’

  He slumped almost imperceptibly. ‘I know.’

  I turned to him and gazed into his eyes and saw everything he felt in them. He was full of joy to be here with me, and I wanted to break down and weep at the strength of the love we shared. Our souls were joined in more intimate ways than any human would know; reptiles together.

  ‘Together,’ I whispered.

  ‘Joined,’ he said, and held his hand out.

  I took his hand and he fell to one knee before me. The guards made quiet sounds of wonder.

  ‘Celestial Worthy Lady Emma Donahoe, Dark Lady. Will you marry me and share my home, my dominion and my Mountain as Empress of the North?’

  ‘I am greatly honoured by your proposal, Supreme Emperor of the Dark Northern Heavens, and I respectfully accept. It would give me no greater joy.’

  The court guards broke into spontaneous applause. John smiled up into my eyes and stood. We embraced and shared a long kiss, and the guards cheered and whistled.

  ‘Damn reptiles,’ Pao said under his breath, and added more loudly, ‘This is most inappropriate in my courtroom!’

  John pulled back to gaze into my eyes again. This will feel extremely strange, he said. Don’t fight it, go with it.

  ‘But you don’t have the Elixir. Won’t I have to wait here for it to be ready?’

  ‘No,’ John said. ‘I am equal in precedence and authority to Pao. Ready?’

  I nodded.

  Here goes; I’ve only done this once before. He put his hands on either side of my face. ‘I am First Heavenly General Zhenwu, Demon-conquering Celestial Worthy, Celestial Minister of Jade Emptiness, Master of the Glorious Teachings of Primeval Chaos and the Nine Heavens. Arise, Emma Donahoe, you are judged Worthy. Take your place among the Celestial and rejoice.’

  ‘Your wording is incorrect,’ Pao said.

  ‘Too bad,’ John said.

  My feet weren’t touching the floor. I was floating with John’s hands on either side of my face. The gold that had been sitting quiescent within me since the Jade Emperor had sent me to the Court flamed into a huge ball of wild energy that I couldn’t hold. It surged out of control and I exploded.