‘Man the barricades!’ Guan Yu shouted from the top of the Gates, and disappeared.
Back, Emma, John said, and I retreated to the top of the Gates building.
The King continued to speak, unheard, as the stones marched up the hill towards the Gates.
John pushed his left hand out and yinned a hundred of the front demons, then drew Seven Stars.
The small demon holding the iPad scampered away, through the approaching stone demons.
John swung into the demons with Seven Stars, but it did nothing to them; the stones just separated to let the blade through, then reformed. They walked past him as if he didn’t exist. He loaded the sword with energy, making the indentations light up, and attacked the stone demons — again to no effect.
The demon battalion that guarded the Gates came out of the left entrance and threw themselves at the stone demons, but again without effect. Every blow glanced off the stones, who disregarded our forces and marched towards the Gates in loose clusters with no organisation, slow and unstoppable. They walked through the marquee as if it wasn’t there, ignoring the canvas as it caught on their legs and collapsed.
John changed to True Form, and his Serpent and Turtle separated. His Serpent slithered up to a demon, grabbed its head stone in its mouth, and pulled it off. He tossed the stone aside, vacuuming up the demon essence holding it together, then worked at the rest of the stones, dismantling the demon from the top down. The Turtle did the same to another demon nearby.
I changed to snake and flew down into the demons. I slithered up to one and dismantled it the same way. The Heavenly guard were still attacking the demons with weapons and energy, which did nothing.
‘Call the Jade Emperor!’ John’s Turtle and Serpent shouted in unison, their mouths full of stone.
Guan Yu had shut the Gates behind the defending force, and the stone demons ran into the closed portal and piled against the Gates. With other demons already in the Heavens, the Gates no longer had their magical barrier properties and were knocked off their hinges.
The stone demons surged through and split into two columns on the other side. One column headed west and the other south, both continuing their unstoppable slow pace.
John’s two animals and my snake continued to harry the demon force, but it was futile.
I had ingested so much demon essence that my mouth tasted bitter and acidic and my stomach burned. Now that I’d turned to the Celestial, demon essence tasted vile. I couldn’t take any more in and stopped, but John continued to slowly dismantle the stones as they passed.
The two columns marched with mindless determination towards the fallen Southern and Western Bastions, disappearing into the earth with each step and leaving great gashes in the soil behind them.
Guan Yu ran down from the Gates to join us, his buzz cut glowing in the afternoon sun that reflected off the Gates’ red walls.
‘The Jade Emperor can stop this; he’s stone,’ Guan Yu said. ‘Where the hell is he?’
‘These are European stones, he may have no —’ I began.
There was a sharp rattle of explosions and something slapped into me; a stinging blow. We spun to see that a group of twenty humanoids, armed with automatic weapons, had appeared further down the hill. They mowed down Guan Yu’s demon gate defenders.
I felt pain and looked at my coils; I’d been scored by a bullet and was bleeding from between my scales.
The demons fired again as they approached, and John leapt in front of me to shield me. His True Form fell, shredded by the bullets.
Guan Yu’s head exploded and he disappeared.
The next barrage felt like being put through a mincer, and I fell to lie on the grass next to the pieces of John’s corpses. The demons marched over us and continued towards the Gates, some of them treading on me and breaking bones to add to my agony. I lay in pain as afternoon turned to night, gradually growing colder, and regurgitating blood and demon essence for hours.
* * *
I landed in human form in one of the holding cells for Court Ten, then spun and threw up into the cell bucket. At least it wasn’t blood any more, but I still felt violently ill from ingesting so much demon essence followed by a vast amount of my own blood. I retched a few times and bent over the bucket, breathing deeply. When I had control, I wiped my mouth on the scratchy tissue paper, and turned to sit on the floor with my back against the cell wall.
John was in the cell across from me, asleep in True Form. The Turtle’s snout was resting on the floor, and the Serpent was draped across its shell with its head sideways on the Turtle’s. He looked exhausted and I was glad I hadn’t woken him, but I couldn’t help the warm rush of affection — he was adorable. I took more deep breaths and wiped my eyes.
The demon guard walked up to the door; a big humanoid in True Form, nearly two metres tall, green and smooth-skinned. She spoke in a whisper. ‘Do you need anything, Lady Emma?’
‘Emma!’ John said from behind her. My view of him was blocked by the guard, then there was a crash and he was next to her in human form, holding the door of his cell and looking at it with bewilderment. He leaned it on the cell wall behind him, then studied me through the bars of my cell. ‘I thought they had you. You were gone for hours. Did they capture you? You didn’t negotiate anything with the King, did you?’
‘It took me a long time to bleed out and die,’ I said. ‘I was left behind.’
‘Unacceptable,’ John growled. ‘Someone should have checked —’
‘John,’ I said, interrupting him, ‘there was nobody left to check.’
‘I am teaching you shen energy suicide the minute we’re back in the Heavens,’ he began, then raised his head. ‘Shit!’
The guard, Three-Fifty, bowed to him and put her arm out towards the stairs leading up to Court Ten. ‘Celestial Highness. This way, please.’
John looked towards the stairs, then back at me, his expression full of conflict.
I put my hand through the bars of my cell and touched his cheek. ‘I’m fine. You need to be released now so you can report to the Jade Emperor and retake the Gates.’
He covered my hand with his own, then grabbed the bars of my cell door and ripped it off its hinges. He placed it next to the other door he’d broken and gestured with his head.
‘Not without you. Let’s go.’
‘Highness . . .’ Three-Fifty began, following us as we strode up the stairs side by side.
‘I will send someone down to repair the damage directly,’ John said.
‘My thanks,’ she said.
We reached ground level, which was the back of Judge Pao’s courtroom. Two guards were waiting to escort us.
‘If you don’t mind, I’d prefer not to be there when the judge sees you,’ Three-Fifty said.
‘If he gives you any grief about our actions, let me know and I’ll have you reassigned to me,’ I said.
‘My Lady,’ Three-Fifty said, and went back down the stairs.
We strode into the courtroom together, and the guards stationed themselves on either side of us. John stood in the centre of the room facing Pao and crossed his arms over his chest. I mirrored his pose.
‘Lord Xuan, I have not yet released your latest dalliance,’ Pao said. ‘She is to return to the cells immediately.’
Dalliance! John said.
I know. Best one yet!
‘We have decreed that Lady Emma is Our Consort,’ John said. ‘When We are wed, she will be Our Empress of the Dark North and joint Protector of Wudang.’
Pao scowled at John’s use of the Imperial ‘We’. ‘Until then she is nobody,’ he said. ‘I decreed her Unworthy, and despite my wise judgement you Raised her yourself. And we all know how well that has transpired with your women in the past.’
John and I both stiffened at the mention of Peony, the Serpent Concubine, and Pao’s face filled with satisfaction. Touché.
‘Miss Donahoe is to return to the cells immediately,’ Pao said. ‘Guards.’
The gu
ards moved to surround us and John raised one hand to stop them.
‘Miss Donahoe is needed by my side. She is my equal and partner in the management of my realm, and I rely on her wise counsel.’
‘You are vastly older than her, supremely more powerful than her, wiser and more intelligent than her, and in all ways more knowledgeable in the ways of war than her. This small human woman is profoundly not needed, except perhaps to pleasure you, and even then she is an unnecessary distraction when the Heavens are so threatened.’
John and I inhaled sharply in unison.
Mine, I said.
No, mine, John said.
Mine!
Please? he said. I’m extremely concerned about the Gates and we need to get out of here.
I bowed without looking away from Pao. My Lord.
My Lady. John changed to out loud. ‘She is my equal in courage and spirit, and superior to me in will. And those are the only attributes that truly matter.’
Judge Pao sat glaring at us for a full minute, then picked up his brush to write the sentences. ‘You are both released to the Heavens immediately. I suggest you waste no more time in reporting to the Jade Emperor.’
We turned to face each other, clasped hands, and John teleported us to the Celestial Palace.
‘I’m more stubborn than you?’ I said after we landed.
‘It worked.’
‘I surpass you in only one aspect, and that’s stubbornness? Wow,’ I said as we walked through the breezeway towards our Celestial Palace apartments.
‘That’s not a bad thing, Emma. You know I’m too soft.’
‘And I’m too hard?’
‘You weren’t last night.’
I hissed with laughter.
‘See? We complement each other,’ he said. ‘If I tried to explain to Pao how well we work together, he wouldn’t understand. For him there is only “superior” and “inferior”, and our mutual enhancement does not exist.’
‘Say “synergy” and I’ll divorce you,’ I said.
‘Sy. . .ner. . .gy,’ he said, his voice a low rumble that echoed in the air. ‘You’ll divorce me before we’re married?’
A Palace fairy appeared in front of us and we stopped so that John could speak to it.
‘We wish to refresh ourselves before presenting to the Celestial,’ he said. ‘Is he in his quarters or his hearing room?’
The fairy silently told us to go to Er Lang.
‘Doesn’t the Jade Emperor want to discuss what happened at the Gates?’ I said, incredulous.
The fairy quivered and rang like a bell.
‘Okay, okay,’ I said. ‘Do we have to walk all the way over to Er Lang’s?’
By the time I finished speaking, the Palace had already transferred us directly to outside Er Lang’s office in the Elite residential quarters. A school class was audible nearby, with the children chanting a memory rhyme. All but five of the Elites were dead, and young families were occupying their rooms.
We went into Er Lang’s office to find him sitting behind his desk, studying his computer monitor and looking grim. We sat across from him.
‘Do they have the Gates?’ John said.
‘From all accounts the answer is yes. Everyone present was killed, and nobody can approach the area without being killed as well.’
‘Guan Yu?’ I said. ‘He should know the details —’
‘I will fucking murder that motherfucker, rip out his fucking entrails and fucking shove them up his —’ Guan Yu roared as he entered, stopping dead when he saw us. He fell to one knee before me. ‘My profoundest apologies, my Lady Emma. I did not realise you were present, and I sincerely regret burdening your ears with my filthy outburst.’
John’s eyes were full of amusement. He shot a look at me, then leaned his chin in his hand and waited for it.
‘Get the fuck off the floor,’ I said to Guan Yu. ‘We have much more important things to worry about than my delicate shell-like ears. For fuck’s sake, man, we’re all soldiers here and we need to know the status of the Gates.’
Guan Yu looked from John to me, then smiled with grim satisfaction as he rose and conjured a chair for himself. ‘Very well. The King left about twenty of those stone fuckers in front of the Gates, with another twenty humanoid snipers on top, and anyone who tries to take them down is destroyed immediately. What the hell were you two . . . three reptiles doing that my people can’t? You took them apart easily.’
‘Eating them,’ I said. ‘But they made me sick after a while. Lord Xuan could eat more of them.’
‘They tasted awful,’ John said. ‘What about the rest of the stone demons?’
‘Yeah, they were sinking into the ground. What happened?’ I said.
‘They did sink into the ground,’ Er Lang said. ‘We couldn’t follow their passage through the earth, but it’s obvious they were travelling to reinforce the Southern and Western Bastions.’
‘Shit,’ John said.
‘Can your children do what we did?’ I asked John.
‘They might.’
‘I should round them up then. We can take them down together.’
Er Lang’s expression filled with shock as he looked from me to John. Guan Yu’s face was rigid with control.
‘I know exactly what you are thinking and it is thoroughly beneath both of you,’ I said. ‘Look at me. I’m pure European. I know my genealogy back for two hundred years, and there isn’t a single drop of Chinese blood there. Go further back than that and we run into the common-sense decree about ten generations.’
‘Then why can you do it too?’ Er Lang said.
‘Because she used to be a demon snake, just like me,’ John said.
Er Lang opened his mouth, but I said it first. ‘I still am.’
‘Conceded,’ John said.
‘So let me bring your children in,’ I said. ‘They might be able to do it.’
John rubbed his chin. ‘Are you sure that’s a good idea? Most of them live as humans. They’ve never met me and have no reason to put themselves in danger for us.’
‘It’s worth a try. They’re family.’
‘But they’re reptiles.’
‘So are we!’
‘We need to take back the Gates, my Lord,’ Er Lang said, and John winced at the use of the honorific. ‘As long as Hell holds the Gates, travel in and out of Heaven is severely restricted. The two of you destroyed them easily; a group of ten reptiles with some ranged attackers should be able to retake the Gates.’
‘I want to confirm that it will work first,’ John said. ‘I will send Ming Gui in to try, and if it works Emma can round up the other children. Anything else?’
Er Lang and Guan Yu didn’t reply.
‘Very well. I will summon Ming Gui, and we will meet close to the Gates in an hour to see if my reptile children can retake them for us.’
‘You forgot your latest dalliance,’ I said.
‘Her too,’ John said.
3
John, Martin and I approached carefully, but the minute we were within range of the Gates, there came a volley of sharp explosions from the building. John generated a circle of yin to absorb the bullets. Smoke rose from where the demons had fired at us.
‘They’re too far away for me to disable the weapons,’ John said. ‘Ming?’
Martin nodded and raised his right hand. A magnificent carbon-fibre-compound bow, a complex series of pulleys and balancing weights, appeared in it. He conjured an arrow, nocked it, and raised the bow. ‘Simone will win another ten dollars,’ he said as he loaded the arrowhead with shen energy, and let the arrow fly.
We were rewarded with another volley of bullets, which John absorbed again.
Martin summoned another arrow. He took aim, filled the arrow with energy, and fired.
‘Incoming,’ John said, and the ground trembled.
Martin passed the bow to John and took True Form: a sea turtle, four metres long, that floated slightly above the ground.
‘Three,’ Joh
n said.
I changed to True Form as well.
John conjured an arrow and shot at the Gates, using the left-handed bow with his usual flawless skill.
‘Nice,’ he said. ‘You can hold the draw forever with this. These modern materials are so light for so much power.’
‘Great for sniping, but too slow for battle,’ Martin said, his flippers swaying.
The three stone demons approached us and Martin swam through the air to meet them, with John walking next to him as an escort. Martin raised his front end, bit the head off one of the demons, and vacuumed the demon essence into himself. He dismantled the rest of the demon and spat the stones away.
I joined him, dismantling the second demon while he started work on the third.
There was another volley of bullets and John dealt with them.
‘How many more can you do?’ John said, aiming another arrow at the top of the Gates.
‘I think about three or four at the most,’ Martin said. ‘They taste awful.’
‘All right,’ John said, and lowered the bow. ‘Let’s go.’
He took a couple of steps forward, put his hand on the back of my head, and the Gates disappeared.
* * *
We sat together at the head of the U-shaped table in the war room on the Mountain. I checked my phone: three missed calls with no caller ID and no messages, which was supposedly impossible on one of Gold’s specials. It was already five minutes past the time that John had asked his children to attend. I shot a wry glance at him and he shrugged.
A woman in her mid-sixties entered, round and tiny in black slacks and a dark blue silk jacket. She looked very much like the female human form the Turtle used when it wanted to avoid attention. She stood just inside the door and stared at us for a moment.
‘It’s all right, Grace,’ I said gently. ‘Come on in.’
She jumped as if she’d been stung and fell to one knee. ‘Xuan Tian Shang Di.’
John, that was unnecessary. She’s your daughter!