by Kylie Chan
The Tiger nodded and concentrated. ‘They’ll be back tomorrow.’
‘Get me Michael,’ I said.
The stone didn’t reply and I tapped it.
‘What?’
‘Get me Michael, stone.’
‘I’ll get him,’ the Tiger said. ‘Why him?’
I gestured around me. ‘The Masters are busy isolating the demons; Ronnie’s showing everybody how to identify them; you’re going to piss off in about two seconds flat, I know you. Simone shouldn’t have to see what happens next. And I need a guard because I’m going to the computer room.’
Michael appeared next to his father; he was dressed in a grey business suit. ‘Ma’am?’
‘Michael, I need you to guard me. Are you free to do it?’
He grimaced. ‘I was at work. How long do you need me for?’
‘For the rest of the day. Go back, I’ll get someone else,’ I said.
‘No, no, I have nothing on right now.’ He pulled out a mobile phone. ‘Hello, Doris? This is Michael. I’ve been called out of the office by one of my clients, he needs advice on his portfolio. Mr Chen. Probably won’t be more than a couple of hours, but I’ll let you know.’ He snapped the phone shut, concentrated and changed his clothes to the white and gold of the Tiger’s Horsemen. He raised one hand and his sword appeared in it. ‘What do you need me for?’
‘To guard my back. We have a demon infiltration,’ I said. ‘Apple, stand up. That’s an order.’
Apple wiped her nose on her sleeve and rose. ‘I’m not a demon, ma’am.’
‘Load your hand with shen energy and touch hers,’ I said to Michael.
She put her hand through the bars for him and he touched it, then gasped when he saw the way she reacted.
‘That is how the demon copies react when touched with shen energy,’ I said.
‘I’m not a demon copy!’ Apple said, becoming desperate again.
I moved slightly closer to the bars, but still out of reach. ‘Apple, stay here, and stay calm. I won’t let anybody hurt you. I promise. Okay?’
She nodded, and went to sit on the bed and hold the other two demons. ‘I trust you, ma’am.’
‘With me, Michael, we’re going to the computer room,’ I said.
‘I’ll stay here,’ the Tiger said. ‘Do you mind if I bring some of my people through to have a look?’
‘Go right ahead.’
The demons we’d borrowed from the Dragon were working in the server room.
‘Test them first,’ I said. ‘Demons, stay still for a moment.’
Michael touched each of the demons in turn, then shook his head. ‘Clear.’
‘Drop what you’re doing and focus on getting back the data that Gold and the other two stones were working on,’ I said to the demons. ‘We need that data urgently; the demon will move and we’ll lose him otherwise.’
‘Understood, ma’am,’ one of the demons said, and moved to eject the tape they had in the tape drive and find another to use.
‘How long to get that data back up?’ I said.
‘Forty-eight hours if we work straight through,’ the second demon said.
I hesitated for a moment, then: ‘I wouldn’t normally ask you guys for this, but I’m requesting it now. This isn’t an order, you can say no…Oh, hell.’ They couldn’t say no, not even to a request. Either I told them or I didn’t. ‘I need you to work twenty-four hours a day without rest on getting this data back. It’s absolutely vital that we find out where this demon’s nest is.’
‘We were doing that anyway, ma’am,’ one of them said.
‘I will ensure you are rested when we have this data back,’ I said. ‘Lord Gold will return in the morning to assist you.’
‘Very good, ma’am,’ they said in robotic unison, and set to work.
I led Michael back down to the armoury. ‘Thanks for helping out on such short notice.’
‘Not a problem. Sometimes I miss the excitement.’
‘We miss you. I’d love to have you back to guard when Leo’s unavailable; and with him attaining Immortality that’s more and more of the time.’
‘Ma’am. Let me think about it.’
We went out of the lift and to the cells to find three more demons had been added to the three already in there. Two of them were Yi Hao and Er Hao; the third was one of the library staff.
‘These are all of them,’ Liu said.
I nodded to Michael. ‘Thanks, Michael, I appreciate your time. Go back to work.’
Michael hesitated. ‘Do you mind if I hang around here for the rest of the day? Suddenly this seems way more fun than watching the market.’
‘Sure, make yourself at home, you know where everything is,’ I said. ‘Pop up to Celestial Wudang—it’s looking good.’
He saluted me and disappeared.
I crossed my arms over my chest and studied the six demon copies. ‘Now what to do with you?’
‘You promised you wouldn’t hurt me!’ Apple cried, desperate. She fell to her knees next to the bars. ‘I’m not a demon! I’ve been framed!’
‘Just destroy them,’ the Tiger said. ‘They’re too dangerous to leave alive; they could escape and blend into the Celestial community.’
Yi Hao and Er Hao broke down into tears. They rose in unison and went to Apple, then sat with her on the floor and held her, the three of them together.
The Tiger changed to my form. ‘Come and touch me, Apple.’
I quickly backed up. ‘Change back, Tiger, don’t do this to her.’
Apple looked from me to the Tiger, then her face went blank. She strode to the Tiger, held out her hand and touched his. I backed up even further as she exploded in a mass of demon essence that spread like oil across the floor before it disappeared.
‘Anyone else want to touch me?’ the Tiger said, holding his hand out to the other five demons. They all jumped up, ready to do it.
‘Back off, Tiger. Take your own form, that’s an order,’ I said. ‘We need to be able to interrogate them.’ He didn’t change, so I went to him and thumped his shoulder. ‘I promised that poor girl I wouldn’t hurt her. You’ve broken my word and I won’t forget it. Now stand down!’
The Tiger grimaced, changed back and moved away from the cell. The demons looked confused.
Liu appeared between us. ‘What’s going on? Why the faces?’
‘He just took my form, touched Apple and she exploded everywhere,’ I said.
Liu sucked in his breath. ‘They were going to convert you.’
‘He heard me promise the child she wouldn’t be harmed.’
The Tiger spread his hands and grinned his little-boy grin. ‘I confirmed for you that they were trying to convert you. I also confirmed that the Apple chick was definitely demon. I did you a favour.’
Three more demons appeared in the cell; cleaning staff from the Follies.
‘These appear to be the last of them,’ Liu said. ‘Now the Celestial needs to sweep for them as well.’
‘Can they travel to the Celestial Plane or are they limited to here?’ I said.
‘There’s only one way to find out,’ the Tiger said gruffly, and he and one of the demons disappeared.
‘If he doesn’t stop doing this I’ll have him executed,’ I said.
The Tiger and the demon reappeared and the Tiger saluted me. ‘They can travel to the Celestial Plane. You don’t want these putting all your students at risk, ma’am, you need to get rid of them. How about I take them and put them in my demon-research facility, and residents of the Celestial can come and check out how to spot them?’
‘Stone, summon Martin,’ I said.
The Tiger gestured with frustration. ‘The last thing you need right now is that clumsy moron. You give them to him and they’ll escape before they hit the Celestial.’
Martin appeared and fell to one knee before me. ‘This humble Shen greets his Empress.’
‘Regent, not Empress, stupid!’ the Tiger said.
Martin rose and glar
ed at the Tiger with contempt. ‘My Lord Devil Tiger, Emperor of the West,’ he said with audible venom.
‘Share the info, Tiger,’ I said.
The Tiger strode to the other end of the corridor. ‘Share it yourself. No way I’m touching minds with that.’
I gestured towards the demons. ‘Martin, these are extremely advanced demon copies, almost undetectable. They’re also unaware of their nature; they think they’re the original humans. Do we have somewhere in the Northern Heavens where we could hold and study them?’
‘Oh God,’ Tanaka gasped, and bent double with pain. ‘I really am a demon copy, aren’t I?’
‘It doesn’t matter what you are, it matters who you think you are,’ I said. ‘And I promise none of you will be hurt.’
‘Destroy us,’ Jeremy said. ‘We killed Lord Gold and the IT guys. Gold looked after us from the day we arrived and we killed him.’ He rose and strode to the bars. ‘Please, kill me now.’
‘I gave you my word, Jeremy,’ I said. I turned back to Martin. ‘Can we hold them in the North?’
Martin grimaced. ‘The best place would be the Tiger’s facility in the West, ma’am,’ he said with obvious distaste. ‘He has the most advanced demon-research facility in the Heavens, and his army of Horsemen are there all the time. We only have a skeleton staff of guards up in the Northern Heavens with the Thirty-Six constantly being deployed.’ He gestured towards the Tiger. ‘Give them to him.’
The Tiger came back. ‘Well, look at that, the turtle grew a brain.’
‘You can have them only if you promise not to destroy them,’ I said. ‘Don’t hurt them.’
‘I promise. Even better, when all this is over, you can order my execution, no trouble at all.’
‘Done,’ I said. I nodded to him. ‘Take them. Take care of them. Spread the word on the Celestial.’
The Tiger fell to one knee, saluted me, and he and the demons disappeared.
‘By your leave, ma’am,’ Martin said, and I nodded to him. He disappeared too.
I headed up to my office. ‘I need a new secretary. Where the hell am I going to find one? I don’t want to inflict those long hours on a human; a demon would be best.’
‘I’ll see if one of my kids wants the job,’ the stone said. ‘Might be one who lives as a human on the Earthly who wouldn’t mind the prestige of the position.’
‘Prestige? I don’t know about that,’ I said. ‘And thanks.’
I sat down in Yi Hao’s chair to go through the in-tray. Only an hour ago she’d been my trusted right hand and now she was gone. At least I’d made the Tiger promise not to destroy her.
Gold, Zara and Calcite returned early the next morning. I met them in the hub room, and found Gold jumping up and down with the two demons in hysterical delight. He came to me, grinning broadly.
‘Please keep these demons, ma’am,’ he said. ‘I know them from when I was bonded to serving the Dragon all that time ago. They’re hard workers and he treats them very poorly. Please let them stay.’
‘That’s already organised,’ I said, to a chorus of whoops from the two demons.
Gold touched my arm. ‘I appreciate your compassion, my Lady. These demons will work hard for us.’
‘Is the data back up? How close were you to finding the demon we want?’ I said.
‘Another thirty-six hours, ma’am. I’m sorry but the data transfer from tape takes time; it’s not a fast backup method but it is reliable and holds a lot of data,’ one of the demons said. ‘We have to physically run the tape past the reader and we can’t do it too fast.’
‘We can help,’ Gold said, and Zara and Calcite nodded agreement. ‘But it is still a slow process reading the tape, so we won’t be able to start processing the data again until at least lunchtime tomorrow.’
‘How much more time did you need on the original run-through?’
‘A pattern was beginning to emerge,’ Gold said. ‘Not so much showing people all headed to the same place, but they were being channelled through a number of different agencies to some common locations. We were narrowing it down.’
‘The web of companies involved is huge and complex,’ Zara said. ‘But we were definitely getting there.’
‘How much longer?’
‘We have about six more hours of crunching to do once we have the data back up, so by midnight tomorrow we should have something.’
‘Okay.’ I sat at one of the terminals. ‘Can I help?’
‘Yes,’ Gold said. He came to me and leaned on the desk. ‘Get out and give us room to work.’
I stared at him for a moment, then rose. ‘Suit yourself.’
I went up to my office to find the Tiger lying across the doorway.
He rose and stretched. ‘We have to stop meeting like this.’
‘Out of the way,’ I said, grabbing the documents out of Yi Hao’s in-tray and jumping over him to get into my office.
‘Whoa,’ he said as I sailed over his body. ‘That was a good three metres, babe. How far can you jump?’
‘Dunno, haven’t jumped in human form in a long time,’ I said. ‘Don’t have the room here, and on the Celestial I’m a snake and snakes can’t jump.’
‘Seems like they do sometimes, they move so damn fast,’ he said, sauntering into my office and sitting in the middle of the floor. He licked his paw, carefully running his tongue between his toes. ‘Your hard suit is ready.’
I flipped through the documents, then waved one hand at him without looking up. ‘Give me twenty minutes, there’s some important stuff here.’
‘You got it,’ he said, and sauntered out again, his tail twitching.
‘Wait,’ I said, looking up. ‘Where are you going?’
He grinned his tiger grin. ‘Oh, around.’
I glared at him. ‘Stay away from my students, and be back here in twenty. Seduce anyone and your tail is mine.’
His grin broadened, revealing his huge canines. ‘That’s Gold’s domain, not mine. I don’t seduce anyone, I just have them falling all over themselves to marry me.’
‘Not my students,’ I said. I waved him away again. ‘Be back in twenty.’
He bowed over his front legs. ‘Ma’am.’
CHAPTER 20
‘I want to see the demon-research facility first,’ I yelled over the roar of the jeep’s engine. ‘Then look at the suit after. Is that okay?’
The Tiger hit the handbrake and spun the jeep, skidding on the gravel, then took off again in a different direction. I slipped off the seat and slammed into the back of the front seat, then slid across the floor to hit the door tail-first.
‘You nearly tipped me out!’ I yelled at him.
‘You okay?’ he shouted.
I pulled myself back up onto the seat. ‘Yeah, I’m fine. Just take it easy.’
‘You sure you can’t wear a seatbelt?’
‘Nothing to hold,’ I said. ‘I just slide through.’
‘If you got thrown out it would be bad,’ he said, slowing down to about a hundred kilometres an hour.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
We drove back past the Western Palace complex and onto a paved road without guttering that cut through the desert in a completely straight line.
‘How far is it?’ I said, leaning my head on the back of the front seat.
‘Two hundred li, in the foothills of the mountains.’
‘I must come back one day and check out the towns in the mountains,’ I said. ‘I’ve heard great things about them.’
‘You’re heading to Kun Lun later anyway,’ he said. ‘You can use them as stops on the journey.’
I gazed up at the red mountains, their slopes covered with snow. Behind them even higher mountains soared, their jagged tops decorated with glowing plumes of ice where the high-altitude winds swept it into the sunlight.
‘It’s a long way up,’ I said.
‘That’s why you have the Snakemobile.’
‘No way. They’re not calling it that.’
&nbs
p; ‘They wanted to fit an MP3 player and have it cycle the Inspector Gadget theme.’
‘That would drive me nuts.’
‘That’s the idea.’
Half an hour later we reached the mountains. There was no gentle incline; they rose like a sheer cliff out of the desert. The road turned right and went up a ramp cut into the cliff face, winding like a switchback up the rock. I turned and looked back as we rose, enjoying the view of the desert. The palace complex spread before us, a darker shade of red than the desert, with the desert landscape stretching as far as the eye could see beyond it. Occasionally water glittered between the buildings: the fountains, watercourses and swimming pools of the complex.
‘I didn’t realise your palace was so big,’ I said. ‘It’s at least five times the size of John’s.’
‘Smaller than his real palace,’ the Tiger said. ‘The complex at Wudang. We measured; Wudangshan is slightly larger in area than the Western Palace.’
I turned to him. ‘You measured? What an incredibly male thing to do!’
‘Not the only thing we’ve measured,’ he said, smiling smugly at the steering wheel.
We seemed to be incredibly high up by the time the Tiger drove inland from the cliff onto a flat area. I turned away from the view below to see where we were. A four-storey complex stood on the thickly snow-covered slope before us, with a large paved circular drive. Balconies skirted each floor, and peaked windows gave glimpses of luxurious hotel rooms inside. An indoor pool was visible on the ground floor of one of the wings, leading further into a health and beauty spa.
‘This is a ski resort,’ I said.
‘That it is,’ the Tiger said, driving up to the front door where a white-and-gold-liveried footman opened the jeep’s doors for us. ‘It’s for the wives. Full right now with the snow so good; the girls have to take turns coming up.’
‘I see,’ I said, slithering out of the jeep and looking around. ‘Nice.’
