Hell to Heaven (18 page)

Simone stiffened, then grimaced. ‘This is
all. I. Need
!’ she shouted, and stomped towards the car. ‘Monica, stay there. There’s no gas; it’s just a demon clearing the area before it shows up.’

Simone stood in the middle of the car park lane, put her hand out and summoned Dark Heavens.

The demon appeared. It was about ten metres long and so tall it nearly touched the roof of the car park. It looked like an insect, with barbed front legs and a bulbous head, but it was made of silvery metal, reflective in the brown haze of the afternoon.

‘What the hell is
that
?’ I said. ‘I’ve never seen one of those before.’

‘It’s some sort of elemental/demon hybrid,’ Gold said, then jumped back in shock as the demon raised its spike-ended feet and tried to impale him. It swept him aside, knocking him into the wall, and came straight for me.

I moved back. I didn’t want to fight this thing; its essence would definitely turn me into a Snake Mother.

‘Change, Emma, there’s nobody around,’ Simone said. ‘You can fight as a snake.’

The demon heard her and tried to impale her on one of its feet, then turned back to me.

There was a metallic clatter as Leo discarded his wheelchair. He came to stand next to me. ‘I think the snake thing is a good idea,’ he said.

The demon approached me with obvious menace and I concentrated, taking snake form. As soon as I changed to snake, the demon stopped, appeared to stare at me with its eyeless head, then cast around, swinging its head from side to side. It swung, its feet clicking on the concrete, to face Simone; then quickly spun and rushed Gold, who’d changed back to his normal form.

Simone raced after it and slashed it from behind with Dark Heavens. A wound opened in the demon’s hindquarters, then closed up again, the metal element moving like mercury. It raised one foreleg and dropped it on Gold, who turned to his stone battle form, raised
one arm, changed its shape to a rough shield and blocked the demon’s blow. He changed his other arm to a lance and skewered it.

It backed quickly off the skewer and the puncture wound healed like the slash that Simone had made in it. It hesitated, rotating slightly as it worked out whether to attack Gold or Simone. Then it rushed Gold again, this time raising both front legs and attempting to pin him against the wall. Gold changed to a pebble and flew so that he was next to me, then reformed in his battle shape.

Simone joined us to face the demon as it turned to attack again. It lowered its head to bite at us, and she ducked under its chin, raised the sword, filled it with shen and swiped its head off, leaving a blank silvery neck. The head liquefied as it hit the ground, turning into something that resembled mercury before it dissipated. The legs collapsed and the body hit the ground.

‘That thing was like the goddamn Terminator,’ Leo said.

‘In more ways than one,’ Gold said as the demon rose again and a bulge appeared in the smooth neck. It grew a new head and lifted itself back onto its legs.

It raised its legs again, and this time grabbed Simone, holding her with one leg each side of her. She took both legs off with her sword and it dropped her. She fell hard on the concrete.

Rage filled me.

‘She’s had enough to deal with today—leave her alone!’ I shouted at the demon, and rushed it. Suddenly I was three times bigger, three times meaner, and
mad as hell.

‘Emma, what…’ Gold began, but I barely heard him. All I knew was this thing was going to
die.

‘…if she doesn’t come around soon, I’ll take her in the back of the Mercedes, and Monica and Marcus can take a taxi,’ Gold was saying.

‘I’m here,’ I said. I felt something soft and warm behind me; my head was in Leo’s lap, and he was sitting on the floor of the car park next to the Mercedes. I pulled myself slightly more upright, leaning on him for support. ‘I blacked out again? I thought I’d stopped doing that!’

‘Can you stand, Emma? We have to be on the Celestial in two hours,’ Gold said.

‘They’ll cut us some slack…‘I began, then stopped. ‘Okay, they won’t.’

Leo, still sitting behind me, put his hand on my shoulder. ‘You okay? Not dizzy?’

I rose. ‘I’m not dizzy at all. I feel just fine. That was really strange; why did I black out?’

Leo tried to get up as well, failed, and then gave up. ‘Lost it. Someone get my chair for me?’

‘You turned into something…else,’ Simone said as Gold brought Leo’s chair and helped him into it. ‘It was…big.’

‘I wasn’t a snake?’

‘Yeah, you were a snake,’ Leo said. ‘Who’s going with you, Gold?’

‘I’ll take Monica,’ Gold said. ‘You can take the rest.’

Leo nodded, and opened the driver’s door of the Mercedes to get in. Gold helped him, then folded the wheelchair and put it into the boot.

‘You were a snake, but you were
huge
,’ Simone said. ‘Like a freaking big Shen or something. It was you, but like…not you. Really strange.’

‘Did I talk?’ I said.

‘Yeah, mostly just saying how much you wanted the demon to die,’ Simone said. ‘You sounded like you were having fun.’

She got into the front of the car, and I went around to get in the back next to Marcus. ‘So who killed it?’ I said. ‘It is dead, isn’t it?’

‘You took it apart and ate it, and had a lot of fun doing it,’ Leo said. ‘Never seen anything quite so disturbing in my entire life.’

‘What I’d like to know,’ Simone said, ‘is why that demon went for Gold.’

‘It went for me at first,’ I said, then stopped. ‘I was still disguised as Gold.’

‘Exactly, and when you changed to a snake it went straight for the real Gold,’ Simone said. She turned in her seat to look into the back of the car. ‘Is your stone awake, Emma? Jade Building Block, are you awake?’

‘No, go away,’ the stone said, sounding like a cranky old Englishman.

‘Geez, everybody hates me today,’ Simone said, and turned back around. ‘Got any tissues, Emma?’

I reached into my bag and passed her a pack of tissues. She took them with a nod.

‘I’m sorry, little one, you’ve had a terrible day,’ the stone said, more understanding. ‘What did you want to know?’

‘Whether you took a recording of that demon,’ Simone said, her voice thick with tears.

‘No, I didn’t,’ the stone said. ‘I should have. Gold didn’t either, he was busy defending himself.’

‘It’s just that…’ Simone said, and her voice trailed off. She took a few gasping breaths. ‘It’s just…it’s just…’

‘What, Simone?’ I said.

‘You looked like
Daddy
,’ Simone said, and collapsed into sobs.

‘What?’

‘She has a point, Emma, your serpent form there did look a lot like the Dark Lord’s Serpent,’ the stone said.

‘No.’

Oh no, damn girl, don’t be his Serpent now when Simone needs you
, Leo said.

It was well past dinnertime when we arrived at the Wan Chai gateway to the Celestial. Monica had tried to coax Simone to eat something, but, like the rest of us, she hadn’t been interested. Marcus parked the car and came with us to the podium level, where he sat next to the fountain to wait for us. We approached the wall and it changed, but the dragons didn’t gather at the middle in the way they usually did. They remained in their places without speaking.

Michael appeared next to us as the wall separated. He went to Simone and took her hand. ‘You all right, squirt?’

‘I swear I’m going to yin you if…’ Simone started, then shrugged. ‘Just don’t freaking call me squirt, okay?’

He released her hand and nodded, then turned to face the wall. ‘I got your back, Princess.’

‘Thanks, Michael,’ she said, her voice small. ‘What do you think they’ll do to me? You spend more time around them than I do.’

‘Not any more.’ He walked around her to the wall.

‘Michael, stop and tell me,’ Simone said.

Gold went to stand next to Simone. ‘We’ll plead manslaughter, that you had no intention of killing him.
Normally the sentence for killing a human is execution, but since you’re not Immortal and it was in self-defence, they won’t do that.’

Simone studied Gold’s face carefully. ‘Are you sure about that? And if it’s not execution—then what? Prison? This is way worse than what you did.’

‘I honestly don’t know, Simone,’ he said. ‘Just remember—it was in self-defence. They will have to be lenient because of that.’

‘It wasn’t really self-defence—my life wasn’t at risk at all, he had no chance of hurting me,’ Simone said. She began to tremble. ‘I had no reason to yin him—it was total overkill.’ She laughed, and there was a brittle edge to it. ‘Complete overkill, because I killed him, and nearly killed everybody else. One day I’m going to lose control of it and destroy the whole freaking world.’

I changed to snake and went to her, butting her with my head. She grabbed me and held me so tight she nearly strangled me.

‘It’ll be all right, Simone, believe me,’ I said.

‘Thanks, Emma.’ She took a deep breath and walked up to the wall, and Michael fell into step behind her. ‘Here we go.’

I slithered up the stairs after them, and Leo concentrated and floated his wheelchair over them and up.

The cherry blossoms still flowered at the Celestial Palace, but it was dark and the cool breeze was brisk. The stars blazed brilliantly in the clear sky. As we approached the ten-metre high palace gates, they swung open outwards.

We entered. An official that I’d never seen before was waiting for us just inside the gates, and saluted us. ‘Princess Xuan. Your matter has been scheduled to be
heard in Courtroom Four. Please follow me.’ He turned, said, ‘Courtroom Four,’ loudly, then disappeared.

We all repeated the words and followed him.

Courtroom Four was a building located at the back of the Celestial Palace complex, with a small garden around it and a bridge over a tiny pond. The building was about four metres to a side, dwarfed by the four-metre-high external wall of the palace, which stood a couple of metres from it. The official bowed slightly and gestured for us to enter.

This is highly unusual
, Gold said.
I’ve never seen this building before, and it’s very informal for a serious hearing like this. The number four is ominous.

I nodded my understanding and went in.

Inside, it looked more like a Chinese living room than a courtroom. Rosewood sofas with thick silk cushions were set in a circle around a large, heavy, Ming-style coffee table. The walls were decorated with calligraphy scrolls—there must have been more than ten of them—all in the Jade Emperor’s own hand. There were a couple of delicately brushed ink paintings of Taoist mountains, which also had the Jade Emperor’s seal on the bottom. Tall plant stands under the scrolls held large vases of spectacular chrysanthemums; each blossom had to be nearly thirty centimetres across.

The Jade Emperor himself, in a simple yellow robe, was filling a kettle with water from a large jug. He sat the kettle on a small gas burner and waved for us to enter.

‘Come in, come in, sit down,’ he said. ‘No formality, this is just to talk.’

Kowtow anyway
, Gold said, and the humans quickly fell to one knee and saluted. I bobbed my serpent head and Leo saluted from his chair.

The Jade Emperor waved one hand at us. ‘Up, up, let’s talk about this.’ He turned and flicked his robe, then sat on the sofa closest to the tea set. ‘Please, sit.’

We all took seats on the sofas around the coffee table. I curled up on the silk cushions and Simone sat next to me, one hand resting on my coils.

A stone Shen in human form appeared sitting at a table to one side, and the Jade Emperor waved one hand at him without looking at him. ‘Good, he’s here. Now, Simone, tell me in your own words what happened.’

‘Um,’ Simone said, then took a deep breath. ‘I had a boat party. The girls brought boys along, even though I told them not to. The boys were already there so I let it go. They brought beer, and I was really annoyed at them. One of them tried to get me drunk, he kept putting beer in my Coke, and when I wouldn’t drink it he got one of the girls to put something, like a drug or something, in my Coke. I was really sleepy so I went to the front cabin, and he followed me in, and tried…’ She took another deep breath. ‘He tried to rape me. I got really mad at him and yinned him, and took half the boat with him, and it sank.’

‘You killed him?’ the Jade Emperor said.

Simone nodded, then jumped as Gold corrected her. ‘Yes, Majesty.’

‘Very well. Your words are validated by the records; we already knew what happened, but it’s good to hear a succinct and truthful account. Now.’ He leaned back. ‘What to do with you?’

Simone cringed.

‘What I think we should do…’ the Jade Emperor began, and the kettle whistled loudly. He leaned forward and took it off the heat.

The tea set in front of him was set for Chiu Chow tea; the teapot was black with tannin and only five centimetres across. Each cup was a shallow bowl of two centimetres across. The pot and cups were held on a large tray that had slots to allow the water through into another tray underneath. The Jade Emperor pulled the lid off a cylindrical pewter tea canister and filled the tiny teapot to the brim with the tikuanyin tea, packing it in tightly. He filled the teapot with hot water, put the lid back on, and poured the tea into the cups.

‘What we’ll do is this,’ he said, rinsing the teacups with tea and tipping the liquid out into the tray. He filled the teapot again and quickly poured the extremely strong tea into the tiny cups. He gestured for us to help ourselves, taking one of the teacups himself and sipping its contents with obvious enjoyment.

‘Majesty,’ Gold said, lifting a teacup and toasting the Jade Emperor with it. ‘Please understand that this was not premeditated, and Simone was acting in self-defence. She could honestly have thought her life was at stake and was defending herself. Therefore the Celestial has every reason to be merciful in its judging of this matter.’

‘Oh, come on, we both know she was in no danger. But you did the right thing, Simone,’ the Jade Emperor said. ‘Normally in this sort of situation you should bring him up here for us to deal with, though. We’d try him and execute him for this attempt on you.’