Kitabı oku: «Earth to Hell», sayfa 2
CHAPTER 2
The team who’d rescued the prostitutes gathered for a debriefing in the conference room on the ninth floor.
‘Four of them can’t go home; their families sold them into this and they won’t be wanted back,’ Sit said. ‘Of the seven who can go home, we found only three of their passports in the brothel, the other four passports are missing. We’ll have stones tap into the relevant immigration computers to extract their details and make duplicates for them. Something very interesting, ma’am — one of the girls appears to be half-dragon and completely unaware of her nature. One of our dragons recognised her.’
‘I’ll talk to her,’ I said. ‘Arrange for her and Amy to meet me in my office after this; and to bring along the four girls that can’t go home. But first let’s have a look at Mr Lee’s recording. I want to see this energy blast that injured the students.’
Lee folded up from human to stone form and drifted to sit in the middle of the table. We waited for him to produce the recording of the standoff with the demons, but nothing happened. He returned to human form after a couple of minutes, obviously puzzled.
‘The recording’s not there,’ he said.
‘It’s not in your matrix?’ I said.
He shook his head, bewildered. ‘That area of my structure is clear. Like nothing was ever there.’ He looked concerned. ‘I’ve been hacked.’
‘Not possible, they were just Mothers,’ the stone in my ring said. ‘Bring out what you have either side, let’s see.’
Lee rubbed his hands over his face. ‘There isn’t anything there. I recall arriving at the building, going up the stairs, then going into recording mode. Then the next segment of data is me back down in the bus. I’ve been wiped.’
‘Not possible!’ the stone said.
‘Has anything like this happened to you before?’ I said.
Lee shook his head. ‘Very disturbing.’
‘Time to go back and see what’s going on there,’ I said. ‘Lee, grab a couple of other stones, take a couple of Celestials. See if you can get a dragon if they’re free, and teleport directly in. Everybody take a recording. Someone take an old-fashioned video camera from stores; ask Lok for one. We’ll meet back here in a couple of hours and see what we can see.’
‘Ma’am.’ Lee lowered his head and disappeared.
‘Has anything like this ever happened before?’ I asked the stone.
‘It is possible for us to experience damage to part of the matrix, but usually we can piece together the undamaged parts to give us an idea of what went wrong,’ the stone said. ‘Being erased like that is unheard of.’
‘Are you passing it through the stone network?’
‘Quite a few stones have dropped what they’re doing and are going along with Lee. A few want to examine his matrix. We’re looking into it.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘Sit, get a stone to make some duplicate passports for these girls, and let’s send them home. I’ll talk to the dragon and the four that can’t go home in my office. Other than that, I think we’re done here.’
‘Ma’am,’ Sit said, and disappeared.
‘I’m very concerned, Emma,’ the stone said.
‘You’re not the only one.’
‘So it’s your choice,’ I said to the five girls. ‘Go home to your own country, or stay here. If you stay, we can give you the right of abode and you can find a job and work here. We will give you somewhere to live. It is up to you.’
One of the girls sniffled. The others sat looking down at their hands, silent and disbelieving.
‘If you don’t know what you want to do, take your time,’ I said. ‘We will look after you; we won’t make you do sex work. We will train you to do office work if you like, and you can find yourselves good jobs back home.’
None of the girls moved or spoke.
‘My staff will show you where you’re going to live until you decide,’ I said. ‘The lady who brought you here is waiting for you outside the office. If you want to go, just tell her, she’ll take you home. If you’re not sure, then you can stay with us until you know.’
I called to Martha and she opened the door and came in. ‘I’ll do the rest,’ she said.
She smiled at the girls and folded her hands in front of her. ‘I will look after you, nobody will hurt you any more. I can take you home or you can stay here; either way you are safe.’
The girls sat without moving.
Martha put her hand out. ‘Come with me.’
The girls rose like automatons, still looking at the floor, and went out with Martha. One of them sniffled again and wiped her nose on her sleeve.
Martha gently put her hand out to stop one of the girls from leaving the room. ‘Not you, you stay here. Madam needs to talk to you.’
The girl stopped, still staring at the floor. The other girls went with Martha without looking back.
I checked my notes for her name. ‘Hien. Please sit again, and I’ll tell you a story.’
She returned to her seat and glanced up at me through her long fringe. I smiled. Actually looking at me was a promising step.
‘About eleven years ago, I took a job as nanny to a little girl named Simone. Her father was a wealthy Hong Kong businessman.’
Hien didn’t move.
‘After a while, I discovered that he wasn’t a businessman at all, but a god. He was Xuan Wu, the black Turtle Snake God of the North.’
Hien glanced at me through her fringe again.
‘I don’t know how much you know about the gods, but he was the North Wind, an Immortal. He married a human woman and had a child with her. It’s a long story, but because of his wife he was forced to stay in human form for a long time and this made him weak. His wife was murdered by a demon before I met him; that’s why he needed me to nanny. He and I fell in love and he died about three years after that, murdered by a demon. I’ve been looking after his daughter, Simone, ever since. I’ve also been given the job of looking after his martial arts academy and some other stuff related to him being Emperor of the Northern Heavens.’ I put my chin on my hand. ‘Not exactly what I was intending to do with my life, but one day he’ll come back and we’ll get married.’
Hien clasped and unclasped her hands in her lap.
‘Yep, you’re probably thinking: more lies. But this is actually easy to prove because I can have any god or demon wander in here and take their True Form and scare you to death. I won’t do that though.’
She studied her hands carefully, still too traumatised to talk. This would take time.
‘Some of the staff and students here at the Martial Arts Academy are dragons,’ I went on. ‘Dragons are fierce fighters with impeccable honour and completely loyal to us. They are also incredibly fickle in love. They tend to love humans and then leave them without thought; not out of malice, just because that’s the way they are. We’ve been working here to explain to the dragons that this sort of behaviour isn’t really acceptable where humans are concerned. That if you produce a child with a human partner you’re expected to hang around and help care for it. Dragon children hatch fully able to care for themselves, but half-human dragons are generally the same as human babies.’
She sighed gently. I was boring her now.
‘One of your parents took off when you were a small child, Hien, leaving the other to care for you. Was it your mother or father who left you?’
She frowned slightly but didn’t reply.
‘Please answer me, Hien. Was it your mother or your father that left you when you were a small child?’
She tilted her head slightly, still hiding under her long fringe. ‘Mother,’ she whispered.
‘Your mother left when you were little. Your father probably has nothing but good things to say about her, and says that she left because that’s the way she was. He might even say that he still loves her.’
She glanced up at me through her hair.
‘Your mother is a dragon, Hien.’
She looked down again. Lost her.
‘You’re a dragon too, if you can learn to transform. You can be very powerful, able to swim and fly. But you must make this hidden dragon nature emerge. If you can, you will never again have to worry about anybody harming you.’
She remained still and silent.
‘I have one of the Academy dragons outside the door, Hien. She’s been translating for me. I can’t speak a word of Vietnamese.’
A small lie, but worthwhile in the circumstances. Amy wasn’t translating for me; all languages were understood within the walls of the Academy.
‘Right now she looks like an ordinary young woman. She can transform into a dragon to show you, if you like, and then you can decide whether you want to be a dragon and learn what you are capable of, or whether you would just like to go home.’
Hien sat unmoving, thinking about it.
‘Come on in, Amy,’ I said.
Amy opened the door and Hien jumped. Amy smiled reassuringly at her, and sat in the other visitor’s chair.
‘I know this is shocking for you,’ she told the girl. ‘I didn’t know I was a dragon until I was twenty-five years old; my father never told me he was a dragon too. We have a community of dragons here at the Academy and we go out and swim and fly together. It’s great fun. And we’re fierce fighters too; we never have to worry about being hurt.’
‘Amy will look after you now, Hien,’ I said, ‘and introduce you to some other dragons. All of them will be in human form. When you’re ready, you can ask her to show you her dragon form, her True Form. Take a few days, meet the other dragons, then at the end of the time decide whether you would like to learn to become a dragon yourself, or whether you’d like to go home.’
Amy held her hand out to Hien. ‘Come with me, I’ll look after you. Nobody’s going to hurt you any more.’
‘Go with her, Hien,’ I said. ‘And good luck. I hope one day I see you in dragon form. I’d like to see what colour dragon you are. Amy is the most beautiful black dragon with gold fins that I have ever seen.’
I nodded to Amy and she smiled back at me. As she gently guided Hien out, she turned back to me. ‘Don’t worry, Emma, I think we’ll bring her round.’
‘I hope so,’ I said. ‘She’s had a lot of bad stuff happen in her life. It would be nice to see something good happen.’
I was about halfway through the end-of-year leave requests when there was a knock on the door. ‘Enter.’
Lee came in, looking grim, with Silver, one of the Academy dragons. They took the visitors’ chairs and Silver placed the Academy’s video camera on the desk.
‘What did you find?’ I asked.
They both shook their heads.
‘Nothing,’ Lee said. ‘I wasn’t wiped this time. In fact, nothing at all happened. We went right through the place and didn’t find anything. You can watch the video, but it’s basically a tour of a down-market Mong Kok brothel. Four stones and Master Sit came with us, and absolutely nothing happened.’
‘Let’s see,’ I said.
Lee picked the camera up off the desk, flipped open the LCD screen and turned it on. He glanced down at the screen and his face filled with shock.
Silver leapt to his feet and changed to Celestial Form — nearly two metres tall with long, flowing, shining grey hair and scaled silver armour. He summoned a spear and held it to one side in the small office.
‘Don’t attack,’ Lee said to Silver without looking away from the screen. ‘That’s Lady Emma’s serpent form.’
‘What?’ I said.
Lee turned the LCD screen around so that it faced the same way as the lens. I could see myself in the screen; the camera was on record mode, not playback.
I stared at myself. ‘Holy shit.’
Silver changed back to human form, but his hair remained long and grey. ‘The Dark Lady is a serpent?’
‘Nobody knows why, but I can change into a big black snake. Not many people know about it, Silver,’ I said, watching with fascination as the enormous black serpent in the tiny screen also opened its mouth to speak. ‘We’d prefer not to freak out the students.’
I took the camera from Lee and watched myself. ‘I never knew I’d look like that on video; on still cameras I appear human. Wait!’ I looked up. ‘Stone, Simone took a home video about six months ago when we went to London and I was human in that. What the hell?’
‘No idea, Emma,’ the stone said. ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’
‘This information isn’t to be shared,’ Lee said to Silver. ‘Many of the human students would probably take it quite badly.’
Silver nodded. ‘I understand. How long have you been able to do this, Lady Emma?’
I paused, embarrassed.
Lee glanced at Silver, obviously sharing the information by telepathy, and Silver’s face cleared. ‘Sharing mind and body with the Dark Lord. That could very well bring out an inherent serpent nature.’
I could feel my face growing red, and Silver grinned. ‘In this respect you are still very human, ma’am.’
‘And I’d like to stay that way, thank you very much,’ I said.
I changed the camera to playback and watched as Lee and Silver swept through the brothel, pausing to focus on the untidy metal beds in each room with their cheap polyester quilts. ‘You were right. Down-market.’
‘Very,’ Lee said. ‘But we didn’t find anything.’
‘I had a serious look around for anything that would give us more detailed information on the nature of these demons,’ Silver said, ‘and I too came up blank. No paperwork, no messages, nothing. I’d say it was stripped clean but they never came back to do it. Which means there was never anything there to link the demons to the operation in the first place.’
‘Credit card machine? EFTPOS?’ I said. ‘Any cables you could hook into to get information, Lee?’
‘They had an EFTPOS line to the Hong Kong Bank. I traced it back and it was listed to a company registered at the brothel’s address, but with names of nonexistent people as the directors,’ Lee said. ‘Drawing a blank, ma’am. We have nothing.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Let’s leave it for now. Warn the third years, and keep an eye on the criminal operations for these demons.’
‘They’ll probably keep a low profile for a while now,’ Lee said. ‘But I’d really like to know what they did to me.’
‘Are you okay?’ I said.
‘I’ve been checked over, I’m fine.’ His mouth tweaked in a small smile. ‘I’ve just been erased.’
‘We’ll let the others know. The stone network is on the lookout. That’s basically all we can do,’ Silver said.
‘Thanks, guys,’ I said.
They stood patiently in front of my desk.
‘Dismissed!’ I said. ‘And you know you don’t need to wait for it!’
Silver bowed slightly, grinning knowingly. ‘Serpent Lady.’
‘And don’t call me that!’
They both disappeared.
CHAPTER 3
I’d just finished the last of the end-of-year leave forms when I heard a soft sound and a red box materialised on my desk. Thank you very much, Heavenly Bureaucracy: 7 pm, a hell of a day, and this lands on my desk. I hoped it wasn’t urgent.
I pressed my thumb to the elaborate gold filigree clasp on the front of the box. Inside was a single scroll, dun-coloured vellum tied with a red ribbon. I opened it and perused the black Chinese characters. Not written in red, so not an edict from the Jade Emperor, but from the complexity of the large square seal at the bottom of the document it was from someone quite high up. I couldn’t read the flowing Chinese calligraphic characters but the Celestial nature of the scroll made their meaning apparent as I scanned them. My heart leapt when I saw Leo’s name.
Lady Emma Donahoe, Grand Master (Acting), New Wudang Academy of Martial Arts; Probational Regent of the Northern Heavens
Madam,
Your application to attend to the matter of your Retainer Leo Gerald Alexander has been reviewed by the Office.
In light of the nature of the circumstances it has been decided that this matter will be forwarded to the Secretary for Underworld Affairs for further consultation.
Signed and chopped
Undersecretary for Review of Promotion
Yes. Finally we were getting somewhere. The Secretary for Underworld Affairs was the head of the Department of Hell and Yanluo Wang’s second in command. Yanluo Wang, Lord of the Underworld, answered only to the Jade Emperor when it came to the judgement of those found Worthy for Immortality. After eight years of tedious bureaucratic blockades I was close to being able to enter Hell and talk Leo into coming out.
I grabbed the scroll, rolled it up and shoved it into my handbag. Simone would be thrilled. I was meeting her for dinner at a Thai restaurant nearby and then we were going shopping in Pacific Place. I walked to the door, then stopped when I heard a soft sound outside. I listened. Quiet voices. Damn, in this form I couldn’t use my Inner Eye to check.
I tapped the stone, then put my hand over it to signal that it should stay silent.
I hear them, it said in my mind. It paused. Demons, Emma, big ones.
Not again. And right when I was about to go home. This was becoming ridiculous.
Yep, the stone said. It’s only three weeks since the last bunch.
I dropped my bag on the floor of my office, strode out the door, down the hall to the lift lobby, and switched on all the lights. There was a soft exclamation, then silence.
I stormed back into the middle of the main office cubicles, stopped in front of the demons, and crossed my arms.
They had taken the form of ordinary Chinese teenagers: two boys and a girl. I studied them carefully. The stone was right: really big ones. The girl was a shape-shifter; the two boys were humanoids.
‘Looking for me?’ I said.
The demons shared a look, then the girl stepped forward. ‘Are you Emma?’
‘Yes I am.’
She smiled and tilted her head. ‘We found your wallet downstairs and wanted to return it to you. But I left it back at my apartment. Can you come with us and I’ll give it back to you?’
Wow, that was lame even by their standards.
‘I suggest you leave right now,’ I said, ‘before you find yourselves in serious trouble, kids. How did you get in past the seals anyway? I just had them reset three weeks ago.’
Her eyes glazed over. ‘Seals?’
Great, a genius leading the group.
‘Yes, seals. Ours are some of the best. Who helped you to get in?’
A fleeting expression of vicious cunning crossed the face of one of the boys. Ah, the real brains.
‘We don’t know what you’re talking about, Emma,’ he said. ‘We just have your wallet and want to give it back to you.’
‘You were told by the Demon King that if you brought me to him in one piece, he’d let you back into Hell,’ I said. ‘What did you do to piss him off? You’re the fourth bunch of kids since November.’
The girl recovered herself. ‘I’m sorry, Emma, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Don’t you want your wallet?’
‘It’s in my bag back in my office,’ I said. ‘And now I’m giving you fair warning. Turn, and I will take you in. Run, and you’ll probably starve to death locked out of Hell. If you wish to take the third option, I will oblige but I won’t be happy about it. You could attain humanity if you just gave it a try. I’m a generous master to all my demons, you can ask any of them.’
When I said the word demons they stiffened slightly.
‘Very well,’ the smart one said. ‘You know what we are. Fine. Come with us and we won’t hurt you. Our dad just wants to talk to you, that’s all. Come along, and we promise nothing will happen to you.’
‘I can take all three of you down, you know,’ I said.
The girl snorted with laughter. ‘Yeah, right. We’re all spawn of the King himself. No chance, lady. Come quietly or you’ll regret it.’
The cunning one studied me appraisingly.
‘We can take her,’ the girl told him. ‘Dad said she’s just an ordinary human. We can do it.’
I held my hand out. ‘Three against one is hardly fair. May I use a weapon?’
The second boy shrugged. He hadn’t spoken yet, and his presence radiated apathy. The follower. ‘Whatever. We can take you, doesn’t matter what you use against us.’
‘Anything at all?’ I said. ‘How about this then?’
I called the Murasame, the Destroyer, and it appeared in my hand. I held the katana in front of me and used my thumb to slide the blade five centimetres out of its scabbard in a visible threat. ‘So who’s first?’
‘That’s the Murasame, guys,’ the second boy said quietly. ‘Oh my God, we are in big trouble.’
‘Not possible,’ the girl said.
‘Why? Because the Murasame belongs to the Dark Lady, head of New Wudang?’ I said. ‘Check the first floor of this building with your demon vision, kids, and tell me what you see.’
Their eyes unfocused and their faces filled with horror as they saw the armoury that took up most of the floor.
The girl made a soft wailing sound of terror. ‘This is New Wudang. He sent us to New Wudang.’
‘Let’s get out of here,’ the cunning boy whispered.
‘Join me and I’ll treat you well, you know I will,’ I said. ‘If you run you’ll end up dead.’
The girl and the cunning boy disappeared. Running. The follower boy didn’t run; he stood and watched me.
I bowed slightly and dismissed the sword. ‘Welcome. Kneel and pledge.’
He fell to his knees in front of me and his face filled with wonder. ‘I pledge allegiance to you, Dark Lady. I am your servant. Protect me, I am yours.’
‘Rise,’ I said. ‘Someone will have to complete the taming process for me because I really am an ordinary human.’
The demon rose and the expression of wonder faded into contentment. ‘As you wish, my Lady.’
‘Stone, can you see who is on the night shift for demon duty and ask them to come up and get him?’
‘Did it a while ago,’ the stone said. ‘Nigel’s on his way.’
‘Now tell me what you did that got the King so annoyed,’ I said to the demon.
He sagged, miserable. ‘We were on guard duty for the black one.’
I raised my hand to stop him. ‘The black one? You mean Leo Alexander?’
He shrugged. ‘Yeah, that one.’
A stab of pain hit me. ‘Is he okay?’
‘Apart from refusing Immortality, ma’am, yes, he is.’
‘So, what happened?’
‘We were guarding Leo when a hawker came past with sweet bean curd. We all went to buy some, and left Leo’s cell unattended.’
‘Is Leo alive?’
‘Uh …’ The boy hesitated. ‘Define “alive”, ma’am, and I’ll be able to answer that.’
‘If I were to go down there and talk the Courts into releasing him back to the Earthly Plane, would he be able to return to his previous life?’
He thought for a while, then shrugged. ‘I have no idea, ma’am, because nobody’s ever done that.’
‘Na Zha did.’
His expression cleared. ‘Yes, ma’am, yes, he did, I remember that very well. He went in and took his parents out of Hell. So yes, it theoretically could be done.’
Nigel appeared next to me, and sagged when he saw the demon. ‘Not another one, Emma.’
‘’Fraid so, Nigel,’ I said. ‘Have the seals reset as well, please. Three of them broke in without Lok even knowing.’
‘Lok’s over at the New Folly with the girls we rescued today,’ Nigel said.
He held his hand out to the demon. ‘Take my hand.’
The demon didn’t move.
‘Good,’ I said. ‘Take Nigel’s hand.’
The demon raised his hand, hesitated for a second, then strode to Nigel and took his hand. His eyes widened.
‘Done,’ Nigel said. ‘Where do you want to put it?’
‘Wait,’ I said. ‘What number are you?’
‘Four Seven Three,’ the demon said, its voice weak with awe.
‘Okay, Four Seventy-Three,’ I said. ‘How the hell did you get in here? Our seals are the best.’
‘I have no idea,’ the demon said, as if in a dream. ‘We were just told to come to the top floor of this office building and find a woman named Emma. We were told we would be able to come in, and we did.’
‘Someone on the inside?’ Nigel said, still holding the demon’s hand and studying it appraisingly.
‘No, of course not,’ I said. ‘The Masters are completely loyal, and all the students are examined before entering. We need to recheck those prostitutes’ natures — one of them might be the cause of the problem — but the seals are failing all the time. Stone.’
‘Yes, Emma?’
‘Get together with Yi Hao tomorrow and arrange a meeting about this. Something needs to be done now about the failure of the seals; we can’t let it go any more.’
‘By your leave, my Lady,’ Nigel said. ‘I’ll take this one down and put it away.’
‘One more question before you take it.’ I nodded to the demon. ‘As far as you know, is your father planning anything against us?’
‘No,’ the demon said.
He answered very quickly. Interesting. He didn’t need to think about it at all.
‘Very well, dismissed,’ I said. ‘Thanks, Nigel. I’m going to have dinner with Simone.’
‘And about time too, Emma, it’s past seven o’clock,’ Nigel said. ‘Stop working so hard.’ He and the demon disappeared.
I grabbed my bag out of my office, returned to the lift lobby, turned off the lights, and pressed the button to call the lift.
‘You should have called for backup, Emma,’ the stone said. ‘If you’d destroyed those three and absorbed their essence you would have been converted completely to a Snake Mother.’
‘Don’t worry, I had no intention of destroying them,’ I said.
‘Just be careful, dear,’ the stone said.
The lift came and I stepped in and pressed the button for the ground floor. ‘Reminders,’ I said to the stone. ‘Have the seals reset on Hennessy Road again, have those girls rechecked, and call George about sending his kids here for punishment. What do I have on tomorrow? I might get something from the Secretary about Leo; I want to be free if it happens.’
‘Energy novices at ten and three,’ the stone said. ‘Gold wants to talk to you about the school for dragons — I’ve scheduled him for four.’
‘Lunch?’ I said.
‘Free. Any particular time you want to schedule the meeting about the seals?’
‘No, whenever.’
Its voice softened. ‘Don’t go in after Leo, Emma, you’ll get yourself killed. Or the King will find a way to hold you. Or, even worse, convert you. Don’t do it.’
‘Leo’s been in there for eight years and there’s still no sign of him relenting,’ I said. ‘If I can talk to him, he might agree to come out.’
‘You shouldn’t even be talking to the King, Emma,’ the stone said. ‘That bastard wants you and you know it.’
‘He’s a creature of honour,’ I said. ‘He won’t do anything underhand. If he does try me, he’ll do it right upfront. I can handle him.’
‘When the Dark Lord finds out he’ll have kittens.’
‘Turtles or snakes. Not kittens,’ I said with grim humour. ‘Bai Hu’s the one who’ll have kittens.’
I walked out of the lift onto the ground floor of the Academy building. The coffee shop occupying one of the shopfronts was still ablaze and the owner gave me a friendly wave from behind the counter. He was a Shen in some trouble with demons and was under the protection of New Wudang. He made a modest living out of the café, which also provided the Academy with cover. I waved back and then walked down the steps into busy Wan Chai street. The pavement was packed with pedestrians hurrying home, and Hennessy Road was bumper to bumper with buses at a standstill in the usual evening rush-hour gridlock.
Are you far away, Emma? Simone said into my ear. I have a table already.
As I pulled out my mobile phone to call her, it rang. I pressed the button to answer. ‘I’m on my way now, I’ll be there in about five minutes. Order me a coconut, will you?’
‘That’s wonderful,’ said the Demon King on the other end of the line. ‘I’m so looking forward to it. I own a strip club just around the corner from your Academy and they serve fabulous coconuts. Do you want the address? If you come I’ll tell the staff not to put poppy in the coconut, just for you.’
I sighed with exasperation. ‘Stop sending your kids over, George. They’re making my life miserable.’
‘Oh, that’s too bad,’ he said without a hint of remorse. ‘If you come pay me a visit, they’ll stop, you know. I won’t hurt you, I promise. I just want to buy you a cup of coffee and have a chat.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t have anything to say to you, Wong Mo.’
‘Oh, I’m cut. My title and everything.’
‘Loathsome Majesty.’
He chuckled. ‘Now you’re just rubbing it in, Dark Lady. But I’m serious — come and chat, and the kids will stop. I want to talk to you about Leo.’
I nearly walked into a light pole. ‘Leo? Why didn’t you say so?’ I hesitated, then, ‘Can you get him out?’
‘He doesn’t want to go, Emma,’ he said. ‘He wants to kill himself. He doesn’t understand that’s not the way it works. Please, come down and talk to him; we’re thoroughly sick of him.’
‘I need permission from the Jade Emperor,’ I said. ‘I’ve been petitioning him for years, working my way up through the Celestial bureaucracy. I’ve made it as far as the Secretary for the Underworld. As soon as I have sanction, I’ll be straight down there.’
He sounded like a little boy who’d just been granted his fondest wish. ‘You’ll really come down for Leo?’
‘Of course I will.’
‘You should have told me, Emma. I’m on good terms with Yanluo Wang, I could have speeded up the process for you. I’ll help you any way I can, and I mean it,’ he said. ‘Okay, the kids will stop. No need now.’
Simone put the scroll down beside her plate and sat back. ‘So this means there’s only one more step before we can get permission from the Jade Emperor?’ she said excitedly.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘If we’re lucky we won’t even need to bother the Jade Emperor. This Secretary guy can give us sanction to talk to Leo.’
‘I hope that ugly dragon kid isn’t hanging around when we talk to them. I heard he crawls to all the most senior Celestials trying to win favour.’
‘Geez, that won’t work up there,’ I said. ‘He should know better.’
‘Oh, it works for some of the Celestials that are promoted rather than Raised. I heard if you find yourself a good patron up there you can go a long way.’
