The Demi-Monde: Summer (39 page)

Again Dong E frowned and then, realising that this could contribute to her premature ageing, she made a conscious effort
not
to frown. But it was difficult, Norma’s observations were
very
perplexing. ‘Burglary? No, there is no theft in the Forbidding City, it is, well, forbidden.’

‘Then I’m betting the City’s security system isn’t the best. I mean, it can’t be up to much if you broke into this apartment so easily.’

Dong E had never really thought about it before, but now she realised that what Norma was saying was perfectly true. Whilst getting into and out of the Forbidding City was impossible, the security
inside
the City was slack. NoNs like Mao might bluster and threaten, but the reality was that with a little thought and a little bribery nothing was impossible and nowhere was impenetrable.

‘I would hazard a guess that Mao’s offices in this Hall of Mental Cultivation of yours aren’t even locked.’ Norma smiled. ‘So here’s the deal, Dong E, you get me the information I need about the YiYi Project and then I’ll allow you to come rescue me.’

As she climbed back into the laundry basket, Dong E couldn’t help thinking that somehow she’d been outnegotiated, but then, she supposed, the Daemon did have ABBA on her side.

Dong E decided that the only time it would be possible for her to enter the Hall of Mental Cultivation unseen would be at night, when the Forbidding City was asleep, but even then
such an escapade was fraught with danger. Not only was traversing the corridors of the City without being seen by a servant or a prowling guard difficult, but as the Empress Wu slept little and was in the habit of summoning one or more of her concubines at any time of the night, there was the ever-present risk of Imperial NoN Mao ZeDong coming looking for her and not finding her in her quarters. Unfortunately, there was no alternative: the Hall of Mental Cultivation was perhaps the busiest room in the whole of the Palace and during the day it swarmed with NoN administrators bustling around dealing with the many and various tasks relating to the running of the Coven.

Dong E had to pick her moment carefully and that moment came a couple of nights later, when Mao ZeDong visited the Pavilion of Delicious Delights bearing two
shanpai
– the picture cards the Empress used to select the Fresh Blooms she would have entertain her. Experience told Dong E that when the Empress demanded
two
Fresh Blooms, then she would not require more. After a couple of hours or so of two-handed (and two-mouthed) Femme2Femme pleasuring, her passions and her vitality would be drained and she would sleep until dawn. But to be on the safe side, Dong E waited while the two girls had been stripped naked, their bodies oiled and perfumed, then wrapped in silk sheets and carried off to the Imperial Bedchamber. Only when this had been done and the unCalled girls had begun to think of sleep did Dong E make her move.

Wearing her plainest
jiangs
– the black ones without embroidery or embellishments which she reserved for the most menial of cleaning duties she was occasionally asked to perform – Dong E slipped out of the Pavilion just after two in the morning. With a black scarf tied tight around her face she melded into the darkness as she moved silently along, her soft slippers making nary a sound as she padded down the empty, shadow-bedecked
corridors. For ten tense minutes she scuttled through the City, expecting at any moment a challenge to be roared out, but, thankfully, she found the City asleep and she came to the Hall of Mental Cultivation without seeing another soul. Just as Norma had suspected, the doors to the hall weren’t locked. Taking a deep breath, Dong E slid through the Door of Destiny Fulfilled and into the dark room beyond.

Well, not
that
dark. She found the Hall of Mental Cultivation swathed in the glow of red light streaming in through the windows lining the right-hand side of the hall. The night was suffused with firelight. Above the Great Wall she could see that the sky was flickering with flames. Rangoon was ablaze. The war, she decided, must be going
very
badly if Rangoon was burning unchecked.

Stunned that the HerEtical sanctuary of the Coven was being so wickedly violated, Dong E stood for a moment transfixed, but finally she remembered why she was there, and turned to survey the Hall. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the red-tinged gloom, and only then did she begin to realise the stupidity of the task she had been set. The room was crammed full of tables, these in turn littered with piles upon piles of paper. It was impossible to believe that she would be able to find the secrets of the YiYi Project within this avalanche of administrative dross.

Dross
.

That was the clue. If this Project YiYi was as important as Norma said it was, it wouldn’t be handled by mere NoN Administrators; only the most senior of officials would be privy to its secrets and
that
meant papers relating to the project would be held in the office of the Imperial NoN Mao ZeDong. Dong E shivered: to be discovered trespassing the Hall of Mental Cultivation might be punishable by death, but to be discovered violating the office of Mao ZeDong would be punishable by a
very slow and very painful death. But she had no choice. The prophecy of the iChing had to be fulfilled.

She had only been in Mao ZeDong’s office once before – when, as a ten-year-old girl, she had been brought to the Forbidding City – and the remembrance of the interview she’d been subjected to still brought goose bumps to her skin. For over an hour Mao had quizzed her about what she knew of her family and for an hour she had told him – truthfully – that she knew nothing about her real mother and father, that she was an orphan who had been brought up as a ward of foster parents. Finally – grudgingly – he had placed the Seal of Acceptance on the residency papers making her a Citizen of the Forbidding City.

Pushing these terrible remembrances to the back of her mind, Dong E moved across the hall towards the door which, as best she could remember, led to the private offices of Mao. Taking a quick look over her shoulder – the deserted hall was very, very spooky – she ghosted her way into the room. Unpleasant memories came flooding back. The room was dominated by a metre-high plinth set in the middle of the marbled floor upon which sat a huge gilded desk decorated with carved dragons. It had been in front of this desk that a tiny, trembling Dong E had stood when she had been interrogated by Mao. It was from this desk that the NoN had peered down at her and made his judgement of life and death.

Bastard
.

Shaking with fear, Dong E stepped up onto the plinth and examined the top of the huge desk. There were four files stacked neatly to one side, obviously laid out ready for review in the morning. Taking a box of matches from the pocket of her
jiangs
, she lit the candle on the desk and began to examine the titles on the spines of the files. The first two merely related to the preparations being made to repel the invasion of the ForthRight
and to the disposition of the Covenite Army: these she discarded. It was what was written on the third and fourth files that made Dong E’s body clock begin to tick more quickly. The third was entitled ‘Project YiYi: Male DeContamination and the Culling of nonFemmes’ whilst the fourth read ‘Progress towards the Translation of the
Flagellum Hominum
’.

The name rang a gong. The
Flagellum Hominum
had been referred to by Xi Kang in his book, and she could see by the seals used on the documents the file contained that they were of the greatest importance: only Papers of State bore the Dragon Seal of the Empress Wu. Unfortunately, all the documents seemed to have been written in some form of code and as such they were totally unintelligible. Perhaps, thought Dong E, Xi Kang would be able to decipher them. So, with a shrug, she scooped both files into the canvas bag she had on her shoulder and turned towards the door.

‘It is not often that I am blessed with a visitor so late at night,’ came a lilting, lisping voice from the shadowed depths of the room.

Gulping back her terror, Dong E looked around to see Imperial NoN Mao waddling across the room towards her. She was reminded of the description of the NoN given by Xi Kang, when he had observed that Mao was not human at all, rather he was a monster that was part monkey and part tiger, cunning and viciousness fused in one NoN. And by the glint in his eyes Dong E was sure that tonight it was the tiger aspect of Mao ZeDong that was in the ascendance.

The NoN stepped daintily up onto the plinth to stand beside the quaking Dong E, towering over the small, delicate Fresh Bloom. ‘ABBA Herself must have roused me, alerted me that the sanctity of the Hall of Mental Cultivation was being despoiled. So come, my little crypto, reveal yourself, untie your scarf from your face in order that I might see who it is so traitorously
violating this, the most private of all the rooms in the Forbidding City.’

Dong E had no option but to obey. Mao was a powerful man, and though he was unarmed – since Heii’s betrayal no weapons except those carried by Imperial guardFemmes were allowed in the Forbidding City – she knew his hugely strong hands could break her neck as easily as they might snap a reed. Slowly she unwound the scarf from around her face.

‘Fresh Bloom Dong E: I should have known. The shades of your Ancestors despoil the corridors of the Forbidding City and now you follow their perverse example. I knew it was a mistake to allow you to live, I should have had you snuffed out just as your father was. But no matter, by tomorrow you will be gone; tonight’s escapade will overturn the Empress’s scruples regarding offending the ancestors of the pigEmperor Qin Shi Huang. She will have no option but to forgo the delightful pleasure of fucking the daughter of her vilest enemy.’

What was the NoN talking about?

Mao manoeuvred himself directly in front of Dong E, so close that she could smell his perfume and feel his hot breath on her cheek. ‘I have always rued the day that I was gelded because it has deprived me of the pleasure of taking you, Dong E, of inflicting on you something akin to the pain and humiliation your father inflicted upon me.’ He raised a hand and trailed a finger down her long neck. ‘Oh, how I have dreamed of defiling you. If I were whole and if the Empress had been less superstitious, I would have made such sport of your body. I would have tortured and fucked you in ways that would have wrung screams from your very soul, all the while delighting in the knowledge that the shade of your father watched on helpless.’

It was the way Mao said the word ‘fucked’ and the gleam in his eye that persuaded Dong E to do what she did. There were
rumours rife amongst the Fresh Blooms that Mao’s heterosexuality had never been fully eradicated by his gelding, that he spied on the Fresh Blooms and punished any he thought had not been wanton enough when called by the Empress. Mao might be a NoN, but he had obviously not freed himself of the abhorrent and corrosive lusts that nonFemmes were prey to.

‘I know I have transgressed, Honoured NoN Mao,’ she simpered, ‘but I ask you to grant me forgiveness. Show mercy and I will be forever the dutiful and obedient Fresh Bloom.’ Then slowly, artfully, Dong E unbuttoned the front of her
jiangs
and shucked the dungarees from her shoulders, displaying the nakedness beneath. She was rewarded by a small sigh from Mao. He hesitated, obviously struggling with the commandment that the body of a Fresh Bloom might only be touched by the Empress. Then he lifted his hand and drifted his long and beautifully decorated fingernails over her breast. Dong E stood silent, still and compliant, and Mao ZeDong, emboldened by her submissiveness, began to toy with the dark nipple. She saw the glint of lust in his eyes and wasn’t surprised given that hers was a tantalising, an irresistible beauty.

With a shrug she let her
jiangs
flutter to the floor to pool around her feet. Now she stood naked before Mao, waiting for the magic of her beauty to cast its spell. She was, she knew, flawless: her skin covered her like tawny silk; her body was perfectly proportioned in an ideal compromise of softness and muscularity, of the svelte and the curved; and her face, which – so she had been told by her foster mother – blended the high cheekbones and strong nose of her mother with the full lips and broad forehead of her father, was truly lovely.

For several long seconds she stood motionless, tempting Mao, and then finally she spoke: ‘I am yours, Imperial NoN Mao, to command as you will. Forgive me for my trespassing and my body is yours to do with as you choose.’

‘It’s been so long,’ he murmured. ‘Your skin … so soft … so wonderful.’

As though dismissive of these oh-so-cautious overtures, Dong E hitched her naked bottom onto the sandalwood top of the desk and stretched back. The message was unmistakable: she was offering herself to Mao.

‘You are very certain,’ Mao ZeDong muttered as he stepped closer to the girl.

‘Never more so in my life,’ Dong E announced as she grabbed one of the pens from the set adorning his desk, pirouetted on her backside and drove the pen, nib first, through the NoN’s neck. The thrust skewered the scream he was inclined to utter and turned it into an incoherent cough. It didn’t kill him. It was the second pen Dong E stabbed into his right eye and deep into his mind that did that. With a reflexive widening of his one remaining eye and a voiding of his belly Mao pitched forward to fall across her lap. With a heavy, wet thud his head smashed onto the desk, his body twitching as he reluctantly released hold on life.

Finally he was still: Mao ZeDong, the second-most powerful person in the Coven, was dead.

‘I have assassinated Guardian of the Imperial Bedchamber, NoN Mao ZeDong.’

‘Good, that bastard deserved killing,’ said Xi Kang. ‘Now put out that fucking candle and let an old NoN get some sleep.’

‘But what am I to do? When his body is discovered tomorrow—’

‘No one will suspect a Fresh Bloom, suspicion will fall on the other NoNs. After what Heii did Wu thinks every one of them is an UnFunDaMentalist crypto. She’ll think he was killed by order of Heydrich.’