‘I told you I’m HIV positive, and that’s why we brought you in,’ Leo said. Michael nodded. ‘Well, it’s more than that. It’s already full-on AIDS. I was in second stage. But Lord Xuan can keep me clear of the virus as long as I’m in his service. I’ve been tested, and given the all clear, since I joined the household.’
‘But you said you have a mouth ulcer,’ Michael said. ‘Does that mean…?’
‘I’m very drained, Michael,’ John said, his eyes burning.
Michael was silent.
‘I’ve already taken myself off bladed weapons until after the trip,’ Leo said. ‘My Lord, please inform all the staff. Infection control, if I’m wounded. It may be best just to leave me if I’m severely wounded; tell one of the Celestial Masters to send me away. I don’t want to infect anybody. I should stop teaching anyway. I don’t want to put any of the students at risk.’
‘You will continue to teach at the Academy. You will continue your duties as if nothing was different. You will not handle bladed weapons in class, but you will still teach them. That is the only difference that I will permit. And that is an order, Leo,’ John said.
‘My Lord,’ Leo said, full of anguish.
‘Helen Leung,’ John said briskly, returning to the matter at hand. ‘What can we do?’
‘Has Simone had her over to play?’ Michael said.
All of us straightened.
‘Very good, Michael,’ John said. ‘We can have her here and check up on her. We can talk to her.’
‘What if that’s the intention?’ I said. ‘What if Kitty lined her up to be brought over here to try something?’
‘She’s a normal human, yes?’ John said.
I nodded a reply.
‘Then she can’t do anything. Let’s ask Simone to invite her here, and see what happens.’
I showed Helen to the door where her Indonesian domestic helper waited for her. ‘Bye, sweetheart,’ I said. ‘I hope you had fun.’
‘Bye, Emma,’ Helen said. ‘Bye, Simone. See you at school.’
‘Only one week left!’ Simone said with a jiggle of excitement. ‘I’m going to Kota Kinabalu for the holidays!’
‘I’m going to Phuket,’ Helen said. ‘Bye.’
The domestic helper took her out. I dropped Simone with Leo, then went into John’s office. I sat across the desk from him and we studied each other. I shrugged.
‘Why then?’ John said.
There was a tap on the office door.
‘Enter, Michael,’ John said.
Michael came in, his face rigid with restraint, holding something in a towel. He put it on the desk, on top of the pile of papers. ‘I suggest you don’t touch it, my Lord.’
Both John and I leaned forward and studied it carefully. It was a little stone turtle, a very common household decoration in Hong Kong. It appeared to be made of rose quartz.
John put his hand over the turtle without touching it, then closed his eyes and concentrated.
‘The little girl left it here,’ Michael said. ‘I could sense it from my room.’
‘It’s not a bug, is it?’ I said. ‘We don’t have to be careful talking near it?’
‘Nope,’ Michael said. ‘No idea what it is. Not a bug, though.’
John pulled his hand away and opened his eyes, then concentrated again.
Gold appeared between Michael and myself. He leaned forward and studied the turtle carefully. He picked it up. ‘What do you say, Dad?’
The stone was silent.
‘Give it a tap, my Lady,’ Gold said.
I tapped the stone.
‘Yes, my…’ Its voice trailed off, then went fierce. ‘What the hell is that?’
Gold turned it over in his hands. ‘No idea.’
‘Let me have a look,’ the stone said.
‘Take the ring off first, my Lady,’ Gold said. ‘I don’t think you should touch it either.’
I removed the ring and handed it to Gold. He touched the ring to the turtle.
‘Get it off!’ the stone squawked.
Gold jerked the ring away. ‘Sorry, Dad.’
‘Give me back to the Lady,’ the stone said.
Gold returned the ring to me and I put it back on my finger.
‘I’ve opened it. You can see what it is now,’ the stone said.
‘I see,’ John said. ‘Have either of you encountered anything like this before?’
Gold shook his head. The stone was silent.
‘Would it be safe for me to look inside it?’ I said. ‘What’s so different about it anyway?’
‘Look inside,’ John said. ‘But slowly, carefully.’
I opened my Inner Eye and studied the little pink turtle. Gold placed it on the pile of papers so that I could have a better look. It was like a miniature black hole. It was sucking reality into it. I suddenly knew that if I were to touch it, I would be pulled straight into it.
‘So that was the point of the exercise,’ I said softly. ‘To get one of us to touch that.’
‘That bitch is using human children to do her dirty work,’ John said.
‘Would it just kill me, or would it transport me somewhere?’ I said.
‘Probably a transport device,’ Gold said. ‘Shades of Star Trek.’
‘Never seen anything like it before,’ the stone said. ‘Ingenious. Wait until the Grandmother hears about this. She’ll be after this demon personally.’
I nodded to Michael. ‘Thanks.’
‘Sometimes I am extremely glad we have you around, Michael,’ John said. ‘You are the only one in the household who sensed this thing. Try to keep your abilities to yourself. As long as they aren’t aware of them, we’re at an advantage.’
‘My Lord,’ Michael said, then flashed me a quick smile.
‘I saw that,’ John said quickly. ‘Tell me now. That’s an order.’
‘Damn,’ Michael said softly. He sighed, then shrugged. ‘Okay, coercion. And PK.’
‘You have PK too?’ I said.
‘What’s PK?’ John said. ‘You’ve mentioned that before, Emma.’
‘Psychokinesis,’ I said. ‘The ability to move things with the mind.’
‘Oh, carrying,’ John said, understanding. ‘You have ordering and carrying, Michael? When did you learn this?’
‘A couple of weeks ago,’ Michael said.
‘Your father taught you?’
Michael dropped his head and didn’t reply.
‘Na Zha, I think,’ I said.
‘Damn, I’m impressed,’ John said. ‘Well done, Michael.’
Michael’s head shot up, his blond hair flopping with the movement. ‘You’re not upset?’
‘Every skill you gain is a skill that will give Emma and Simone an edge,’ John said. ‘We will start you on advanced work immediately. If you do not eventually find the Tao I will be extremely surprised.’ He leaned back, his voice full of satisfaction. ‘The Tiger is most definitely not having you back.’
Michael grinned broadly. ‘Thanks, Lord Xuan.’
I rose. ‘I’ll get Simone, see if she could sense it.’
I didn’t need to. Simone came bursting through the door, with Leo close behind her. She skidded to a halt, cast around, saw the turtle, shouted ‘Nobody touch it!’, put her hands out towards it, palms facing away from her, and somehow made it explode into a million tiny pieces.
Everybody disappeared in a cloud of dust. I coughed; my eyes were full of turtle fragments.
‘Gold!’ John said over the sound of everybody coughing.
It was like an exhaust fan was suddenly switched on: Gold somehow vacuumed the fragments into himself. The dust cleared quickly.
‘Whoops, sorry,’ Simone said, her voice very small.
‘No, Simone, you did well,’ John said. ‘When did you know it was there?’
‘I thought something was strange,’ she said. ‘I could feel it. I was going to ask you to look for me. It was in my room, then it came in here, then it kind of went…’ She tilted her head
. ‘Kablooie. What was it?’
‘If you had touched it, it would have taken you to the bad demon,’ I said. ‘But it needed to be turned on. The stone in my ring turned it on.’
Simone nodded.
‘But you sensed it before it was turned on?’ I said.
‘Yep. I knew she’d left it there. I knew there was something strange going on.’ Her little shoulders sagged. ‘I thought Helen was my friend.’
‘I’m taking her out of school,’ John said. ‘Until we have dealt with this, it is no longer safe for her.’
‘NO!’ Everybody shouted it in unison, even Leo.
‘I want to go to school!’ Simone wailed.
‘We can handle it!’ I shouted.
‘She’ll be miserable at home!’ Leo said loudly.
I looked at Leo. He shrugged and smiled slightly.
I turned back to John. Everybody was glaring at him. I leaned over the desk and glared at him too.
‘You have been outvoted, Xuan Wu,’ I said firmly. ‘Give it up. She could sense the device. And she is staying in school.’
‘She won’t be safe,’ John growled.
‘Time for us to disappear,’ Leo said. ‘Come on, Simone, Michael.’
‘Don’t you want to stay and see the fireworks?’ I said, still glaring at John.
‘I’m staying,’ Simone said. ‘I’m staying in school.’ She ran around the desk and threw herself at her father. He pulled her into his lap. She turned to face him, her hands on his shoulders, and smiled into his eyes. ‘Please let me stay in school, Daddy.’ She smiled sweetly, wheedling. ‘Please?’
John’s face was grim but his eyes sparkled with amusement.
‘You know you can’t say no to her,’ I said softly.
Simone put her chin on his chest and smiled up into his eyes. ‘Please?’
‘Women!’ Leo growled. ‘Come on, Michael, let’s get out of here. You’d better take off too, Gold. When the Dark Lord surrenders to his women it’s not a pretty sight.’
I didn’t look away but I heard the door close.
‘I’ll let you kiss Emma,’ Simone said slyly. ‘For as long as you like.’
John glanced up at me and couldn’t hold his face any more. He chuckled.
I dropped my head and shook it. ‘I didn’t teach her this, John, don’t blame me.’
‘Come and give Daddy a kiss, Emma, and then you and me are going to check through my room and see if Helen dropped anything else,’ Simone said. ‘And on Monday you have to tell Miss Atkinson to give me a different desk in the classroom, so I’m not so close to Helen.’
I went around the desk. Simone pulled herself out of John’s lap and stood next to him, still holding his hand.
John rose, grabbed me around the waist with his free hand, pulled me in and kissed me hard. I threw my arms around his neck and pressed myself into him.
‘Tell me when you’re finished ’cause I’m not looking,’ Simone said loudly.
We smiled into each other’s mouth, but we didn’t stop. For a long time.
Leo, Michael and I went to Sha Tin, where Helen’s family lived, on Monday. Leo parked in the car park of City One, a large estate of high-rise residential blocks, about fifty of them, all white-tiled and around twenty storeys. They were spread around a central market and shopping centre, but still very close together. Some of them had a view over the Shing Mun River. Each floor of the apartment blocks held about eight units.
‘Block thirty-three,’ I said as we walked out of the car park.
The three of us attracted some attention as we made our way through the estate. A small Caucasian woman, an enormous black man and a blond half-Chinese were hardly the usual sort of people seen in an estate like this.
The entrance to block thirty-three was standard: a large metal gate with a keypad beside it. I pressed the floor and flat numbers for the Leungs’ unit and moved back.
‘Wei?’
Michael moved his head next to the intercom microphone. ‘Mgoi, Pak Gai. Hui mun.’
The door buzzed.
‘She does order things from the supermarket,’ I said as Leo opened the gate and gestured for us to go in. ‘Well done, Michael.’
‘Gold helped me,’ Michael said.
The security guard wasn’t asleep. He watched us curiously as we waited for the lift but didn’t challenge us. Understandable: Leo was huge. I smiled and waved to the guard and he smiled slightly in return, but still watched Leo.
‘I still think we should have brought weapons,’ Leo said as we stepped out of the lift into the lobby of the nineteenth floor.
‘The guard would be on the phone to the police right away.’ I gestured towards the apartment door. ‘Michael.’
I opened the door for the stairwell and Leo and I stood inside, out of the line of sight of the apartment. Michael pressed the button for the bell.
The door was opened by a young, innocent-looking Indonesian domestic helper. She studied Michael through the bars of the metal gate.
Michael grinned broadly. ‘Pak Gai!’
‘Did we order?’ she said with a thick provincial accent.
Michael’s grin didn’t shift. ‘Pak Gai! Mgoi, hui mun!’
The domestic helper unlocked the gate.
Michael grabbed the gate and threw it open, and Leo and I moved quickly. The three of us stormed into the apartment, pushing past the domestic helper, who shrieked and ducked.
Mrs Leung sat in the dining room, reading the newspaper. She saw the three of us and shot to her feet.
‘We won’t hurt you,’ I said. ‘Come with us, we want to talk to you.’
Her English was perfect. ‘Who are you?’ she said, obviously trying to control her terror. ‘It’s not a good idea to mess with me. I have friends.’
‘We want to talk to you about a little pink stone turtle,’ Leo said.
‘I have no idea what you are talking about,’ she said, but her face was ashen.
‘We won’t hurt you,’ I said. ‘We just want to ask you some questions.’
She cast around, looking for a way to escape. Then she gave up. ‘Please don’t hurt me,’ she whispered.
An elderly Chinese lady came in from the hallway. She stopped when she saw us.
‘Go inside, Mummy,’ Mrs Leung said in Cantonese. ‘I can handle this.’
The old lady squeaked and scurried back down the hallway.
I turned and gestured. ‘Please, come with us.’
‘Who are you?’ she said once we were in the car and Leo was driving us back to the Peak. ‘What are you?’
‘Wait until we get there and then we can talk,’ I said. ‘Will Helen be okay if this takes a while? If you need us to, we can collect her from school as well.’
‘Don’t you go near her!’ Mrs Leung snapped. ‘I have enough trouble with that Kwok woman as it is! You stay away from her!’
‘Thought so,’ Leo said.
When we reached the front door to our apartment I stopped and studied Mrs Leung carefully. ‘There are seals on this apartment,’ I said. ‘Big ones. If you’re a demon, then tell me now. I don’t want you destroyed by trying to walk in the door.’
‘I am not a demon,’ she said stiffly.
‘Michael?’ I said.
‘She’s not,’ Michael said.
Leo opened the door and we guided her in. We all kicked off our shoes, even Mrs Leung.
John charged out of his office, slamming the door loudly behind him. He stormed up the hallway towards us, his face a grim mask of fury. He raised his hand and Dark Heavens sprang from its clips and flew into it. He quickly drew the sword, throwing the scabbard aside, and charged towards us.
Mrs Leung changed into a fox, ran into the living room and hid behind one of the sofas.
John walked into the centre of the living room, still holding the sword.
Leo softly closed the door behind us and we all moved to stand behind John.
‘What is your name?’ John demanded loudly.
‘Leung Hong Wai Lam,’ Mrs Leung said. ‘Please don’t hurt me. I had nothing to do with it, it was way before my time. My Lord, Celestial Highness, please. Mercy.’
‘How old are you?’
‘Fifty-seven.’
John lowered his sword. ‘You are only a child.’
‘Your Celestial Highness,’ Mrs Leung said softly, ‘I didn’t know you were Simone’s father. Please don’t kill me. I am with child.’
‘This is why you have been allowing the demon to control you?’
‘I am not working with any demons,’ she said, indignant. ‘Kitty Kwok is human. She occasionally takes Helen. I don’t know why, but she never hurts her, so I let her. The alternative is too horrible to contemplate.’
‘Kitty Kwok is in league with a Demon Prince who wants to take my head,’ John said.
Mrs Leung was silent.
‘Come out, I won’t hurt you,’ John said with resignation. ‘Leo.’ He held Dark Heavens out to Leo, and Leo took the blade, collected the scabbard, and returned the sword to the wall.
Mrs Leung came out from behind the couch. She was a small red fox with a white tip on her tail. She cowered as she walked.
‘Take human form,’ John said. ‘I want to ask you some questions.’
She changed back to a normal-looking Chinese woman in her mid-thirties wearing a smart pair of slacks and a designer polo shirt.
‘Sit,’ John said, gesturing towards the couch. ‘I give you my word, I won’t harm you.’
Mrs Leung gingerly turned and sat.
‘Leo, take Simone to school,’ John said. ‘Make an excuse for her. Michael, go too. I will talk to this…’ His voice went cold. ‘Child of Daji.’
Mrs Leung stiffened. ‘I had nothing to do with that. I am not related in any way to that vixen.’ Her voice softened and she looked down. ‘My husband is human. I am attempting perfection. I live as a human. I have children.’ She looked back up at John, desperate. ‘You know what my husband would say if he were to discover my true nature.’
‘Very well,’ John said, sitting on the other couch across from her. ‘Tell us the whole story.’
I moved to stand behind John, leaning on the back of the couch.
‘Not much to tell,’ she said with a shrug. ‘Kitty takes Helen and returns her unharmed.’
‘Completely unharmed?’ I interrupted. ‘She doesn’t have any minor injuries or small wounds when she’s returned?’