Heaven to Wudang (35 page)

‘Stop the relay,' John said.

The image of human arms dangling hands-down from the rails blinked out.

Zara rested her head in her hands. ‘I am so sorry. I thought you were right, and they were in a market.'

Jennifer and Amanda went out too; Allan, Colin and Greg quickly followed them.

‘What happened to everybody?' Simone said.

‘They've gone off to be sick,' I said.

‘That was all the people they copied?' she said.

‘Yes.'

‘That could have been my cousins' hands, or Clarissa's hands.'

‘It could have, yes.'

‘Then why aren't I being sick too? Why aren't I affected like them?' She ran her hand over her forehead, desperate. ‘What sort of creature am I?'

‘Look at me,' I said, and reached to take her hand. ‘We're different, Simone. Reptiles, and residents of the Celestial, both of us.'

‘I don't want to be different.'

‘Within the House of the North, you're not. With a bunch of ordinary humans, you are. It all depends on where you stand.' I released her hand and ran my hands through my hair; some of it fell out, clinging to my fingertips. ‘There was a time when seeing something like that would have made me pass out from shock. Now look at me.'

Zara interrupted, speaking with Gold's voice. ‘We have fought our way through a number of demon guards and located a nest with a Mother. We will update when we have a result.'

My parents returned, both looking drained. They sat on the couches.

‘So what's happening now?' my father said.

‘They found a demon, and they're about to attack it,' I said. ‘Gold will let us know when they know more.'

‘Do you still want to be there?' my father said.

‘More than anything,' I said. I turned to Zara. ‘Can you show just me?'

‘Can't you just teleport there?' my mother said.

‘Nobody here could manage the speed they travelled at,' I said. ‘It'd take a few hours, and by the time I got there, they'd be done.'

‘I see.'

‘Gold says it is best you do not see this,' Zara said.

‘It's all right. I'll tell my parents what's happening.'

‘I want to see too,' Simone said.

‘Gold says you really don't.'

‘Tell Gold that's an order,' I said. ‘I want to know what's going on!'

The image appeared in front of me again. They were at the other end of the underground facility, and the tiles had given way to plain concrete. John stood at the edge of the single nest hollow in the middle of the floor, with computer equipment flanking the walls around it. He was embracing a European woman, who was about the
same height as me and clutching him as if she'd never let him go. Five eggs, each forty centimetres across, sat in the hollow, tiny demons twitching inside them.

‘I'm so glad you came,' the woman said. ‘Hold me, don't let me go. I can't believe you're here. Please get me out of this place.'

‘Holy shit,' I said softly. The woman was me.

Simone grabbed my arm, wrenched it behind my back, and held me.

‘I'm the real Emma, Simone. Your father knows the difference,' I said.

Simone hesitated for a moment, then released me. I worked the muscles of my arm.

‘Sorry,' she said.

The copy of me pulled back to smile up at John. He smiled down at her, but his eyes were full of grief.

‘I think I've lost my memory,' she said. ‘It's all blurry after they took me under Kowloon City Park. Are you back for good? Can we go to the Mountain?'

‘I'm back for good,' he said.

She turned in his arms and looked down at the eggs. ‘I think I had something to do with these, but I'm not sure. I remember dreaming about them.' She looked back up at him. ‘Can we take them with us?'

‘We will do whatever you want,' he said.

She buried her head in his chest. ‘God, I love you, Xuan Wu.'

He nuzzled her hair. ‘I love you too, Emma Donahoe.'

‘I will do it,' Ma said. ‘Let me.'

‘No,' John said.

‘Let's go home,' the copy of me said. ‘Is Simone okay? Simon Wong had her.'

‘Simone is fine, love. I'll take you home now.'

She smiled up at him, then slid her hand around the back of his neck and pulled him down for a kiss. He
closed his eyes and kissed her. She went limp in his arms and he gently lowered her to the floor. She changed form to a Snake Mother, the top half still human, and lay motionless with her eyes half-open and a smile on her face.

‘Do you want tea or coffee, Emma?' my mother said. ‘I'm making a fresh pot.'

I wiped my eyes. ‘Tea, please.'

John studied the demon eggs, then pulled a dagger out of its sheath at his side, and crouched to slit one of them open.

‘No, Daddy, don't kill them,' Simone said.

‘What's happening?' my father said.

The liquid inside the egg spilled out, and along with it came a tiny hairless copy of Michael, only about thirty centimetres long. It blinked its sightless eyes and twitched, then its eyes glazed over and it stopped moving.

‘Oh, shit,' Simone said.

John slit open the other four eggs in the clutch to reveal copies of Simone, me and my two demon servants.

‘I'm glad I returned when I did,' John said quietly.

‘There's a clutch of demon eggs that are copies of me, Michael and Simone,' I told my parents.

My mother tapped my hand and pushed a mug of tea into it.

‘Thanks.'

John rose, wiped the dagger on his trouser pants, and put it away. ‘Now to find the Mother in charge of all of this.' He looked around. ‘I'm glad Emma didn't see that.'

‘Uh, my Lord … she did,' Gold said.

John turned to look straight into Gold's eyes. ‘What?'

‘Tell him I understand,' I said. ‘It's the way I would have wanted it.'

John shook out his shoulders. ‘I will be very happy when I have the real you in my arms.' He raised one hand towards the computers. ‘Gold.'

‘Already in, my Lord,' Gold said.

‘Well?'

‘Give me a moment; these disks are seriously fragmented and they don't even have solid state drives. I am sick to death of backwards Earthly technology. Found it.' All the lights on the computer equipment lit up and flashed at the same time as he worked the drives. ‘The research on this Mother is in these machines. This facility was mostly created for her; she's the tenth Mother copy of Emma they've made. Each Mother has been better than the one before; this is the best so far, and it's produced five eggs that they're extremely proud of. These Emma copies only last a couple of years at the most; they were running out of genetic material to make them.' His voice went softer. ‘Oh, no.'

‘What?' John said.

Gold and John shared information telepathically, and John's face filled with even more grief.

‘Tell me,' I said.

‘I noticed the small wound on your side, Emma. I thought you'd collected it along the way and Edwin had stitched it up,' John said.

‘I had that wound when they found me in Lan Kwai Fong …' I began, and took a deep breath. ‘What did they take? … My right ovary.'

‘Your right ovary,' Gold said at the same time.

‘Gold … the other genetic material they were using from me. Tell me it wasn't …' I took another deep breath and wiped my eyes. ‘Tell me it wasn't the left one.'

‘It's not the end of the world, Emma,' my mother said.

‘It doesn't say, ma'am. I suggest you have yourself checked out tomorrow.'

‘Emma, I want you to know that this makes no difference whatsoever to me,' John said.

‘It makes an enormous difference to me,' I said.

Gold continued searching the drives. ‘There was only one other Snake Mother that would spawn the copies for them: a Mother based on a Chinese woman, but she was killed by One Two Two — by mistake.'

‘April,' I said.

‘They want to use members of your family, my Lady; apparently your genetic material is somehow superior for their experimentation. They are keeping a record of where your family members are. They want more female members of the family, and there are photographs of your mother and sisters. They also have details and photographs of the other European people — the demon boy and his father.'

‘If your family weren't already going into hiding, Emma, I'd be suggesting it anyway,' John said. ‘They will be safe with Greg present and no contact from us.'

‘The rest of the facility is nearby … there's a …' Gold broke into a barrage of Chinese curses, not bothering to translate it for me.

John raised his eyebrows at Gold. ‘It must be something serious to pull that sort of language out of a lump of rock.'

Gold took a step back, nearly treading on Zhu. ‘They have established themselves in a Buddhist temple nearby.'

John's expression went rigid with anger. ‘Show me.'

They shared the information for a moment, and Ma swore as well.

‘Let's go,' John said.

T
hey returned through the hole John had made, again passing the corpses hanging from the butcher's hooks.

‘Don't tell me that's a larder,' I said.

‘Very well, ma'am,' Gold said.

They travelled vertically about two hundred metres, to where they weren't as exposed. A couple more soldiers had joined the group: the leaders of the two demon cohorts that the Generals commanded.

Gold turned in the air, then pointed past the expressway. ‘There.'

They flew over a four-lane main road to another area of narrow streets surrounded by small houses and lawns, then slowed when they came to the correct street.

‘It's a street full of temples,' I said.

All the buildings on this street were small, the blocks only ten metres to a side. The first two buildings were two-storey houses; the third was a European-looking two-storey house with an ornate tower — a mosque. Then three more houses, then a Catholic church, and at the end of the street stood a small Buddhist temple.

‘I wish the whole world was like that,' I said wistfully. ‘Look at them happily coexisting.'

‘The Dark Lord just said exactly the same thing,' Zara said in Gold's voice.

‘They know we're coming,' John said. ‘In through the front door.'

He swept down to land in front of the temple. A pair of bollards held a ribbon across the entrance, and a large sign with ‘CLOSED' scrawled on it in marker in English and Chinese was stuck to the door. John clasped his hands and bowed in front of it, then stepped over the tape, pushed the door open and strode inside.

Gold followed him, and I gasped when I saw the interior.

The gilt Buddha statue had been overturned and its head torn off, the body splattered with either blood or red paint. The altar had been tipped over and the table smashed, and sticky, fly-covered stains spread over everything in sight.

‘Is that urine?' I said.

‘It is,' Zara said. ‘They urinated on everything — which means there are some extremely high-level demons inside. Only the very biggest can do that.' She dropped her voice. ‘Be careful, Gold.'

‘Stand back,' John said, and raised his hands towards the toppled Buddha statue. A sphere of water appeared around it, then swept over the smashed furniture, washing it clean. The head of the Buddha reattached itself to the body, and John went to it, set it upright, and knelt to pay homage to it. Now that it was in one piece, I saw that it was an effigy of Kwan Yin herself.

‘Go get them, John,' I said softly.

‘I cannot bring violence to this place, Emma.'

‘So what will you do?'

‘Seek.'

He walked past the altar to the back of the building, where the caretaker's office was located. The caretaker — an elderly Chinese man in a plain grey cotton shirt and trousers — lay dead in his office, and had obviously been dead for a long time.

John walked out the back of the building into its tiny yard, and turned around as if sniffing the air. He walked back into the building and scouted around the edge, then stopped and put his hands on his hips. ‘Zhu.'

Zhu had already pulled out her mirror and was studying the floor. The floor moved, then heaved upwards, nearly knocking her over, and took the form of a fake stone elemental, towering close to the ceiling. Zhu stepped back, drew her sword and moved into a defensive stance.

John turned his head from side to side. ‘I presume this is a fake stone elemental,' he said.

Ma moved next to him. ‘Let us handle this one. Stand back, Number Ones.'

The demon commanders moved back, then one took up a post at the front of the building, the other at the rear.

‘You presume?' Zhu said, moving to one side so that John was standing between her and Ma.

‘I can't see it,' John said.

Ma flipped his left hand and the Seven Stars banner, a shimmering field of black, appeared in it. ‘Then let us handle it.'

The stone elemental was a collection of head-sized rocks floating in formation. It turned its faceless head as if it was studying them.

‘Put your weapons away. I'll take it down without weapons; this is not the place for fighting,' John said. ‘Last time we faced something like this, my Serpent possessed Emma and she took out a few of them single-handed — a sight to see.'

‘Scared you all to death,' I said.

‘What? What's happening?' my mother said.

‘They're in a temple, and they're facing a stone elemental like the ones at Emma's graduation all that time ago,' Simone said.

John turned side-on to the elemental, opened his hands in front of him, then turned on the balls of his feet so that his palms were towards the elemental. He raised his hands slightly, but nothing happened.

The elemental swung at his head and he dodged it easily.

‘Ah Wu …' Ma said.

‘Stand back, I have an idea,' John said. ‘Give me about two metres.'

Ma and Zhu stood back and watched. Zhu put her sword away, but Ma still held his black banner.

John changed to True Form, his Turtle shape three metres long from its dragon-like head to tiny black tail. He stomped up to the elemental, stretched his head on its long neck, turned it sideways and bit one of the rocks. He proceeded to dismantle the demon rock by rock, spitting each one out, and the elemental seemed unable to do anything about it. When it was just a jumbled pile of rocks, the Turtle changed back to John, and he shook out his shoulders.

‘I nearly forgot I could do that, it's been such a long time,' he said.

He kicked some of the rocks to the side and looked down. Gold looked too: the fake elemental had been acting as a combined trapdoor and guard over a tunnel. Gold's vision lurched and flowed across the floor, went into the hole and looked around.

‘Geez, Gold,' I said.

‘Sorry, stretched my neck out to have a look inside,' Gold said. His vision returned to above-ground. ‘There's a long tunnel, heading north. Can't see the end.'

John jumped down into the hole, then stopped and concentrated. ‘Again, I can't see anything, but there may be more of those fake elementals on the way.'

He gestured for the others to follow him, then changed into a Turtle again.

‘Gold, how much time did he spend in True Form before he was unable to?' I said. ‘Will he spend more time as an animal now he can do it?'

‘I don't know, ma'am. He'd already made his promise to Lady Michelle when I joined the household.'

The Turtle spoke in John's voice as it led them along the tunnel, the top of its shell brushing the ceiling. ‘It depends on the circumstances. Please don't make me swear not to take True Form again, Emma. I think it would kill me.'

‘I won't. I think your Turtle form is extremely cute,' I said.

‘Wait until you see the combined creature,' Gold said. ‘That's never been called cute. First time I saw it, it scared me to death.'

‘Quiet. There's something up ahead,' John said. ‘Cover your eyes.'

There were a few heavy footsteps up ahead: another stone elemental. John opened his mouth, sending out a stream of shen energy towards the end of the tunnel. The elemental absorbed the shen energy, glowing with white brilliance, until it became too bright to look at and completely shattered.

The ground rumbled and Gold's vision shook.

‘They heard us, they're running,' John said.

He changed back to human form and ran to the end of the tunnel, which was unblocked now the elemental was gone. He jumped up to the floor above, the other members of the team following.

‘Call the demon soldiers,' John said.

As Gold jumped out of the hole, we saw what appeared to be a warehouse with a series of five-metre-high pitched roofs. Light shone in through windows randomly placed along the wall, and the floor was bare concrete. The space was divided into smaller areas with two-metre high screens, so all that was immediately
visible from Gold's view was a three-by-three-metre room with walls, no ceiling and a hole in the floor.

The whole building echoed with the sound of the demons running in terror from John. He jumped high into the air, and Gold followed, floating just below the pitched roof and viewing the interior as if it were a laboratory rat maze. The way the demons were running, it could have been. The tunnel appeared to be the only exit. The demons, in their panic to get away from John and the Generals, were crushing each other in the corners of the building.

‘Send the two demon cohorts to round them up,' John said. He raised his voice to cut through the sound of the demons' terror. ‘Turn and we will spare you.'

The Celestial demon soldiers started to emerge from the tunnel, causing even more panic.

John rotated in the air. ‘Now to find the one who's in charge of all of this.'

‘There, my Lord,' Gold said, pointing towards the corner of the building the furthest from them.

A small group was pushing its way out of an ordinary household front door set into a section of wall filled with biotech and computer equipment. The group included Kitty Kwok and the Death Mother, along with a few demon guards.

Simone squeaked when she saw the half-dozen demons they'd left behind. They were unlike anything I'd seen before: three-metre-long, headless snake skeletons; rows of ribs along a central bony spine. They lifted their front ends and rattled at John and Gold, then rushed them.

John didn't mess around; he just raised his hands and sent a blast of chi through them, turning in place to take them all out. He ran through the door, closely followed by the others.

They stopped on the other side: they were in a suburban street. Night had fallen and the streetlights
were on. They quickly reduced to human form, and checked up and down the street.

It was one of the enclaves that passed for suburbia in some parts of Asia: tiny two-storey houses, each only four by five metres, packed side by side along narrow streets. All the houses had originally been identical, but many were now painted in gaudy colours or decorated with awnings, stonework and elaborate windows, giving the street a festive air. They all had high steel-spike fences and electric driveway gates, and some had cars parked diagonally to fit in their front yards. Cars lined the street as well, making it only just wide enough to drive through.

The door they'd exited was the front door of one of these houses. It seemed all the houses on that block were joined together inside: a single massive building masquerading as houses. The building's internal light shone from all the windows.

‘There,' John said, and took off running down the street.

The Generals sprinted after him, and Gold was hard-pressed to keep up.

John turned right at the end of the street, past a bemused resident who was watering the pot plants in her front yard. Gold reached the corner a few seconds after him, and followed him down another street. John stopped in the middle of the street, and had to jump out of the way of an oncoming car. The Generals pulled up beside him; Gold caught up with them a few seconds later.

‘How's the mopping up going?' John said without looking away from the end of the street.

‘There are strange hybrids and elementals among the demons, my Lord,' Ma said. He raised one hand. ‘I suggest we move off the road before someone hits you and destroys their car.'

They moved to the side.

‘Some of these demons are too much for the brigades to handle: we are losing our soldiers,' Zhu said. ‘Permission to return and lead them.'

John raised his hand behind him, still not looking away from the end of the street. ‘Granted. Return and bolster your armies. Call upon Xun or Zhou if required. I am summoning Guan and Zhao to go with me; these two are moving extremely fast. Gold, stay here. They're running too quickly for you to keep up.'

He shot straight up into the air, leaving a visible blast of dust behind him, and disappeared.

I thumped the arm of the chair. ‘Dammit!'

‘What, Emma?' my father said.

‘Kitty and the Death Mother took off and they're moving too fast for Gold to keep up. John's gone off with Zhao Gong Ming and Guan Yu to take them down, and I can't see what's happening.'

‘Those are two of the biggest Generals, aren't they?' my mother said.

‘Only Ma himself is bigger than those two guys,' I said. ‘It's serious if John has taken Guan off gate duty.'

‘Those demons were so gross,' Simone said weakly.

‘What did they look like?' Colin said. I hadn't seen him return with the rest of the group.

‘Bones,' I said. ‘Living snake bones. Horrible.'

Gold turned back and followed Zhu and Ma towards the row of houses that was a front for the Death Mother's operation. They went to the end house and through the front door into the facility, then flew up to hover below the ceiling to get an overview.

The screams of the panicked demons echoed through the building, bouncing off the ceiling. They were trying to escape down the tunnel, and were crushing each other in the stampede. The floor was black with demon essence. Demon warriors from John's army were pulling
them out of the crush, clubbing them unconscious and throwing them to one side without destroying them.

Zhu pulled the Shadow Sword from its scabbard and raised it horizontally above her head. Lightning flashed from the sword through the massed demons, knocking them senseless. She did this three more times, each time disabling another wave of demons.

One of the demon officers, in three-metre-tall True Form with black scales and tusks, floated up to Zhu and saluted her. ‘Southeast corner, ma'am — Fifty-Seven is having some difficulty there. We can handle these now.'

Zhu turned and flew to the area he'd mentioned: a large open space, twenty metres long and five wide, bounded on two sides by the external walls and on the other two by the internal screens. Rows of benches filled the space.