Black Jade

  ‘With Emma as bait!’ John said.

  ‘— and find out where the stones are. Is there anything else?’

  ‘I would like to invite the Jade Empress to the wedding,’ John said. ‘How are the trees?’

  ‘Fortunately the demons did not remove her from the Peach Garden when they took control, so none of the trees were harmed,’ the Emperor said. ‘When she came down to see Nu Wa, the hour she spent here was nine months in the garden. The watering system failed on one of the trees while she was away, and her staff are repairing it. It will take two days in the garden, which is nearly thirty-five years here. She cannot return here for quite some time.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that; I was hoping to finally meet her,’ I said.

  ‘She has said the same, but her responsibilities come first.’

  ‘Maybe when things have settled down —’ John began.

  ‘— I can take some time and visit her, and you will mind things here,’ the Emperor finished for him. ‘You’ve been saying that for a thousand years, Ah Wu, and we both know the likelihood of it happening.’

  ‘Majesty.’

  ‘She really should delegate,’ I said.

  ‘We tried that in the past, and look what it achieved,’ he said. ‘That wasn’t delegating; that was postponing having to deal with a pain in the ass,’ I said. ‘Sending the Monkey King to look after the garden was beyond stupid, particularly when the peaches were close to ripe.’

  The Jade Emperor stiffened and glared at me.

  I shrugged. ‘Well, it was.’

  ‘Dismissed,’ the Emperor said with dignified restraint. ‘In future, Lord Xuan, I would prefer to see you alone.’

  John put his hand on my shoulder and teleported me out. When we arrived back on the Mountain, he fell to sit on the couch, put his hand over his eyes, and laughed until he couldn’t breathe.

  * * *

  Later that afternoon we visited my family at the new farm. The paddocks were lush and green — the grass had grown too long without stock on it. The house was a three-storey village type, with a flat roof holding potted shrubs in an elegant roof garden.

  A demon answered the door, then backed away, bowing to us. ‘Highnesses, allow me to show you inside. I will tell the Lords and Ladies —’

  ‘Mum, it’s us!’ I shouted.

  The demon’s mouth flopped open and he stared at us.

  My mother trotted into the entry hall wearing jeans and a T-shirt. ‘Well, don’t just stand there, come on through! I want to ask you a few questions.’ She took John by the arm and reached up to kiss him on the cheek. ‘Come and have some tea and biscuits.’

  My mother sat us at the dining table in the sunny room that overlooked the paddocks. She busied herself with the kettle and made a pot of Ceylon tea.

  ‘Where is everybody?’ I said.

  ‘Your father’s out there somewhere checking the fences with Freddo, and the boys are helping them,’ my mother said. ‘Amanda’s on the Mountain with Alan finding out about her new job, and Jen and Greg are upstairs unpacking. Did you find Gold yet?’

  ‘Not yet, but we’re working on it,’ I said.

  Matthew came charging down the stairs and stopped when he saw us. ‘I want to play with Frankie. Where’s Frankie?’

  ‘I’ll tell him you want to play, and I’ll see if he wants to come next time,’ I said.

  ‘Okay,’ Matthew said, and messily tucked into a biscuit.

  ‘No more of them or you won’t eat your dinner,’ my mother said, closing the biscuit packet.

  He made a huffy sound and ran out of the room. He turned the television on in the living room next door.

  ‘And turn that down!’ my mother shouted. She lowered her voice. ‘There’s a few things we want to ask you about the property, Emma.’

  ‘Do anything you want with it and charge it back to me,’ John said.

  My mother hesitated. ‘But I want to buy ponies, and a puppy, and there isn’t enough bed linen, things like that. We may not be able to purchase them in Heaven, and I don’t want to spend all your money on the Earthly!’

  ‘Mum.’ I took her hand. ‘I’m sending Jade here to help you the minute she’s free, and she’ll set up an expense account for you. You can purchase anything you want on the Earthly, up to and including a private jet.’

  My mother glanced at John and he nodded.

  ‘Here in the Heavens you can charge purchases back to us,’ I said. ‘Believe it or not, our expense account is more limited here because of the nature of the Heavenly economy. On the Earthly you have an unlimited account, because if we want more money we just ask the Tiger for some gold.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. She straightened and smiled. ‘Well, that’s all right then. I was worried I’d be emptying your bank account.’

  ‘Just let me know if you plan to spend more than about a hundred million US dollars, because I’ll have to top it up,’ John said.

  ‘A hundred million,’ she said. ‘A hundred. Million.’

  He shrugged.

  ‘How much are you worth, John?’ she said. ‘On the Earthly, I mean?’

  ‘Ask Jade,’ he said. ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘In the Heavens?’

  ‘All of it.’

  ‘All of what?’

  ‘The Northern Heavens.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Is there anything else you need?’ I said.

  She rose. ‘Come with me and I’ll show you what we’re planning to do with the stables. Freddo wants to live here when he’s not with Simone, and he has some ideas as well. He wants to put a sand arena in, buy some jumps, things like that for when we have the ponies.’

  ‘Actually, Mum, we might do that later,’ I said. ‘Right now we really need to do something with Jennifer. It’s about Colin.’

  John concentrated.

  ‘I saw that, it’s very rude,’ my mother said.

  Greg and Jennifer came in, and Greg grabbed one of the biscuits. ‘We need to buy some blankets, Jen wasn’t warm enough last night.’ He saluted John, still holding the biscuit. ‘My Lord?’

  ‘Jen and Greg, there’s something we need to show you,’ I said. ‘It’s about . . .’ I took a deep breath. ‘Colin. Please brace yourselves, this isn’t pretty, but you need to see and you need to make a decision.’

  I went to John and he put his hand on my shoulder.

  ‘What about Colin?’ my mother said weakly.

  ‘We’ll explain when we come back,’ I said.

  John concentrated on Greg, showing him where to go, and Greg put his hand on Jennifer’s shoulder.

  We landed outside the company building in China. Wind whistled across it, full of dust and smoke, and the air smelled strongly of diesel.

  John and I shared a look, and he nodded to me.

  ‘Jennifer, the Demon King was doing some stuff with biological science — genetic manipulation and cloning,’ I looked away. ‘He cloned Colin. There are twenty-three clones of Colin in here.’

  ‘Colin’s alive?’ she said, delighted.

  ‘His body is in there too, preserved in ice,’ I said.

  ‘We will arrange the funeral,’ John said. ‘He will receive full hero’s honours. He died defending his family.’

  Greg put his arm around Jen’s shoulders.

  ‘But he’s back to life with the clones? Twenty of them?’ she said. ‘Where will we put them all?’

  ‘I don’t think Lord Xuan and Lady Emma want to put them anywhere, love,’ Greg said sadly.

  ‘How old are they?’ Jennifer said. ‘Can I see them?’

  John gestured towards the double entry doors. ‘This way.’

  The same young woman was sitting behind the reception desk when we entered. John concentrated on her and her face went blank. He led us through the doors to the lift well.

  ‘Before we go into the clone lab, you need to know,’ I said as the lift arrived and we entered it. ‘The clones are all snakes.’

  ‘Snakes?’ Jennifer said
with disbelief.

  ‘They cloned Colin’s snake form?’ Greg said.

  ‘Yes,’ John said. ‘It’s possible these clones may never be human.’

  ‘Do they talk?’ Jennifer said.

  ‘They are starting to say a few words, yes,’ I said.

  ‘I feel sick,’ Jennifer said. She leaned into Greg. ‘I’m not sure I want to see Colin’s corpse.’

  ‘You don’t have to,’ I said.

  ‘I’m not sure I want to see the clones either,’ she said weakly. ‘Snakes.’

  ‘I’m here,’ Greg said, holding her.

  The lift doors opened and we went into the lab. Some of the Tiger’s children had taken over, and they’d put a sheet over Colin’s corpse.

  One of them stood waiting for us. ‘Lord Xuan, Lady Emma, Lord Bai Jin, Lady Jennifer.’

  Jen stopped. ‘Is that him?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. I took her hand. ‘The demons cut him up. We understand if you don’t want to see him. It’s a snake; it’s not his human form.’

  ‘No. I don’t.’ She shook her head. ‘That’s not how I want to remember my son. Show me the clones.’

  The Tiger’s son led her into the next room, where one of his daughters was waiting for us, wearing a white lab coat and holding a clipboard. The clones were in a room with a large glass viewing window. They had soft mats and balls, and were a black mass of bodies writhing over the floor.

  Jennifer put her hand over her mouth at the sight of them, and her shoulders heaved. Greg led her to the side of the room and she vomited into one of the lab sinks, hacking and coughing.

  ‘It’s okay, it’s okay,’ he said gently. ‘The staff will take care of it. We understand.’

  John and I waited next to the viewing window for her to recover. She leaned against the wall and wiped her eyes, and Greg gave her some tissues. She nodded with her eyes shut, shaking with silent gasps of air.

  ‘Lord Xuan, Lady Emma,’ the woman with the clipboard said, ‘I’m daughter Ninety-Three.’ She looked down at the papers, then back at us. ‘The test results have come back. These aren’t identical copies to the snake on the autopsy table. These have been modified to be more aggressive and . . .’ Her voice faded away, and she gathered herself. ‘Cruel. They’re sadistic little psychopaths. Very strong demon nature.’

  Jennifer approached us, obviously scared by the snakes. Two of them saw her and attacked the window, their fangs leaving trails of venom on the glass. Jennifer jumped back and screamed.

  One of the larger ones raised itself on its coils. ‘Come and play, little human,’ it hissed in a voice that held a fragment of Colin’s. ‘We won’t hurt you, we promise.’ It lowered its head. ‘Come in and join us.’

  ‘We want to play with you,’ another one said.

  ‘Oh god,’ Jennifer moaned. She glared at John. ‘Why are you keeping these monsters alive?’

  ‘The final decision is yours, as mother of the original,’ John said. ‘They have a great deal of your son in them. It is your choice whether we destroy them or let them live.’

  ‘If they break out, they’ll go on a rampage,’ Greg said. ‘What level are they?’

  ‘As with the black-armoured demons, we’re unable to tell,’ the Tiger’s daughter said. ‘But we lost twenty-five demon staff when they hatched — they overpowered everything and nearly killed both of us too. In the end we had to bring in a single-digit warrior daughter to contain them.’

  ‘So it’s either destroy them or keep them caged for the rest of their lives,’ Greg said.

  ‘That is not Colin,’ Jennifer said. ‘None of them are Colin. They’re monsters. Destroy them.’

  ‘Are you sure, love?’ Greg said.

  ‘I’ve never been more sure of anything in my entire life,’ she said fiercely. ‘They’re like the serpent people, but more demon, and Em told us what happens when one of the serpent people go mad: people die. This is what happens. They need to be . . .’ She shook her head. ‘They need to be destroyed.’

  ‘Don’t do it just yet,’ Greg said to John. ‘Let her think about it. She may change her mind in a couple of days.’

  ‘Never,’ Jennifer said.

  ‘Very well,’ John said. ‘Let’s go back to the farm and talk about buying horses. That will be much more pleasant than dealing with this.’

  Jennifer brightened. ‘The boys will love having ponies.’ She turned away from the snakes; more had gathered at the window and were trying to break the glass to reach her. ‘Let’s go.’

  * * *

  The next morning we all gathered at the site of the Demon King’s Versailles palace. A crowd of White Horsemen and the Tiger’s wives, as well as many residents of the Celestial, stood in front of the palace in the half-finished gardens. A platform had been raised on the gravel drive, similar to the one that John had stood on outside the Northern Palace, but at a height of ten metres. Small surveying flags were set up in a pattern around the site, indicating where the new Western Palace would be built.

  I stopped at the base of the platform. ‘This is for the Four Winds.’

  ‘You too,’ John said.

  ‘Not my place,’ I said.

  ‘Empress of the North, absolutely your place,’ the Tiger said. He grinned. ‘Cannot wait. That will be a hell of a party.’

  John took my hand and lifted me onto the platform. The Four Winds joined us, and we stood together studying the building.

  ‘Fucking ugly piece of shit,’ the Tiger said.

  ‘I don’t know, it’s rather elegant in its own way,’ the Dragon said. ‘Have you considered keeping it as a new Residence? It fits your style perfectly.’

  The Tiger rounded on the Dragon, then saw his face.

  ‘The Dragon’s right, this is very you,’ the Phoenix said.

  The Tiger opened his mouth, then closed it and turned to face the palace. ‘Who’s first?’

  ‘Me,’ the Dragon said.

  He changed to True Form, floating above the platform. His blue and silver scales glittered in the sun as he concentrated. All the trees and shrubs planted by the human slaves lifted out of the ground, their root balls still covered in dirt, and floated a hundred metres behind us to land in a neat pile.

  ‘Take the glass and metal out and I’ll see if there’s any wood worth saving,’ the Dragon said as he changed back to Celestial Form and returned to the platform.

  ‘Very well,’ the Phoenix said.

  She took True Form, spread her wings and launched herself to float above the platform. She glowed with light and heat that was stronger than the sun, almost uncomfortably hot at such close proximity. She raised her red crested head, opened her beak, then snapped it shut. All of the building’s windows shot out of their frames and stopped a metre away from them, suspended in the air. The glass stacked itself and flew to land next to the trees behind us. The roof tiles lifted off the building and landed in a pile with the glass.

  The Phoenix shrank to human form and floated down to stand next to us. ‘Steel girders holding up the roof. Nothing else in there worth salvaging.’

  ‘All right,’ the Tiger said. He raised his arms and the metal girders that had held the roof tiles coalesced into a single shiny blob of steel and floated to land on the ground in front of us. ‘Now for the gold. My wives and children were tortured to create this. I don’t want it, but I don’t know what to do with it. It’s not worth anything here on the Celestial.’

  ‘Pass it to me,’ I said. ‘I’ll sell it on the Earthly to create a fund for the mortals whose loved ones were replaced by demons.’

  John rubbed my back.

  ‘You have a deal,’ the Tiger said. Two dozen kilogram-sized gold bars shot out of the building and stacked themselves behind us. ‘Let me know when you go on a demon-destroying sortie. I’ll enjoy taking them down.’

  ‘Do any of the human families think the demon copies are the originals?’ the Phoenix said.

  The Jade Emperor stepped forward, facing the palace. ‘Some of them hav
e remained with the demon copies, despite the abuse, because of the love they held for the originals,’ he said. ‘They think they just need to love them more and the abuse will stop. Destroying the demon copies will free them from fruitlessly trying to make the demons into something they are not.’

  He raised one hand towards the palace and flicked his wrist. A piece of stone the size of a house brick slotted out of a wall and floated towards us.

  ‘Ah Bai,’ the Emperor said, ‘this is sandstone, high silica content, giving its golden colour. The original stones were more iron-heavy, giving them their rich red hue. Which do you prefer?’

  ‘The original red, same as the mountains,’ the Tiger said, gesturing towards the crinkled mountains that towered on the western horizon. ‘The red colour complements the surrounding environment. This yellow palace looks like a tumour.’

  The stone floating in front of us changed colour, becoming more red. ‘This?’

  ‘More,’ the Tiger said.

  The stone went a deeper red.

  ‘Stop,’ the Tiger said. ‘Damn, Ah Ting, you’re breaking my heart. That’s it.’

  ‘Do you want this or not?’ the Emperor said, glaring at the Tiger over the top of the stone.

  The Tiger bowed. ‘Celestial Majesty.’

  ‘Asshole,’ the Emperor said under his breath. The stone drifted to float at the Jade Emperor’s right. The Emperor raised both arms towards the palace, and the air around us went still. ‘Taking a video?’ he said. ‘This will be good.’

  ‘Wait,’ the Dragon said, and summoned one of his AI phones. He held his hand out and released the phone so it hovered in front of us. ‘Go.’

  ‘Change it to horizontal, you barbarian,’ I said.

  The Dragon smiled and snapped his wrist at the phone. It spun from vertical to horizontal. ‘Apologies, my Lady.’

  The Jade Emperor stepped to the front of the platform. He removed his hat with the beads that hung in front of his eyes, and passed it to John. He then stood facing the palace and concentrated. The air went still around us and everybody was silenced. The entire building fell vertically into the earth with a massive shockwave that shook the ground. The flags fluttered as the dust settled, and it was gone, only bare red earth where the building had stood.