Red Phoenix

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The world blinked out, then I was next to the bed in Leo’s room. I fell over, but strong arms hoisted me into a chair. The world stopped spinning and I saw Meredith holding me.

‘It will go away very quickly,’ she said. ‘It was just a short distance.’

Somebody pushed a glass of water into my hand but I shoved it away. I threw myself up, ignoring the dizziness, and stumbled to Leo’s bedside to hold his hand. He smiled at me, his mouth carefully closed. His expression went strange.

‘Somebody get him a bowl, very quickly,’ I said, but Meredith was already shoving one in front of him from the other side of the bed. He spat out blood. He gagged on it, and more came out.

‘How much healing energy work have you done, Emma?’ Meredith said softly without turning away from Leo.

‘Apart from using the phoenix feather on Leo last time a demon injured him, none at all.’ I shook my head with remorse. ‘I wish I’d brought it with me.’

‘Waste of time.’ Meredith put the bowl on the bedside table. ‘You’d need at least two feathers to fix this.’

‘Damn.’

‘Let’s see if we can do this. You will be a receptacle.’ Meredith took both of Leo’s hands. ‘You don’t really need to do anything, just be able to hold enough chi.’ She put her hand on my shoulder and studied me closely. ‘You’ll do.’ She turned back to Leo. ‘Has anybody ever done energy healing on you before?’

Leo shook his head without opening his mouth.

‘Then you will find this a most interesting experience. Don’t panic, it won’t hurt. If you feel like you’re suffocating on your tongue at all, just breathe. That’s normal. You won’t suffocate, I promise. Do you understand?’

Leo nodded, perfectly calm.

‘Right, then,’ Meredith said crisply, sounding like an English matron. ‘Let’s get started. Emma, hold my hand.’ She took my left hand in her right. ‘Stay very still and keep your mind clear. Feel free to follow along; you might find this enlightening. You may learn something. Leo.’ She took Leo’s right hand in her left. ‘Just breathe. You won’t suffocate, despite what it feels like. Relax. Don’t worry if you feel sleepy, just let yourself doze off, it will make the procedure go faster for you. Okay, people, let’s do this.’ Her voice softened as she reached inside Leo and his energy meridians lit up like Christmas tree lights. ‘You are in a great deal of serious trouble, young Emma.’ She moved the energy through Leo. ‘I don’t want to be anywhere around when Lord Xuan finally sits you down; he is going to go quite spare.’

John and Gold were waiting in the hall when we came out of the room. Both of us were exhausted. John had a face like thunder; rigid with control.

‘Don’t bother getting stuck into her right now,’ Meredith said to John. ‘She won’t hear you, she’s absolutely exhausted, and so am I. Both of us are going to our rooms to collapse and sleep for a week. When we come round we will be starving, so be ready for us with a great deal of fresh food. After that you can feel free to kill missy Emma if you like.’

She was right. I was too exhausted even to say something cutting.

‘What about Leo?’ John said.

‘Leo will live. I did my best. He has lost an awful lot of blood. You were right about Emma. She is remarkable.’

‘You owe me a gold coin,’ I whispered.

Meredith continued, ignoring me. ‘But Leo will have a serious speech impediment. He will sound like he is profoundly deaf. And when I wake up again, I am going to go out and kill something.’

John looked like he was about to say something, then changed his mind. He gestured down the hallway. ‘Go.’

I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

I woke up. I was paralysed. I knew this: sleep paralysis. It happened when you were exhausted but something woke you. Your body was still asleep. It was still paralysed, like when you were asleep. But your mind was awake.

Wonderful. I hoped nothing was there to get me, ‘cause I really couldn’t move.

My consciousness struggled upwards. My body was made of lead.

Oh my God. Turtle hotpot with vegetables. Roast tiger penis on yin-yang rice. Shredded snake broth with sliced pig’s ear. He looked at me when he said that. I needed to remember that.

My consciousness drifted back down again.

I waited for John in his office on the first floor of the Kensington house. He came in, quietly closed the door and then stood with his hands clasped behind his back. He strode over to the desk and stood behind his office chair. He leaned his arms on the back of the chair. The sunshine streamed through the first-floor window behind him and lit up his dark hair.

I sat silently. I took a sip of the tea. I was perfectly calm.

‘Sometimes, Emma, I think you want to take a trip through the Ten Levels of Hell,’ John said. ‘What’s the big attraction?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Simone is the reason I do everything I do.’ I stopped and glared up at him. ‘I’ll make a trip through there anyway. I’m well aware of that.’

He seemed surprised. ‘How come you know this?’

‘You people don’t keep your activities too much of a secret from the world at large, Xuan Wu,’ I said. ‘All I had to do was some research. There’s a great deal of misguided claptrap, but a lot of truth out there. I’ve been reading. I know.’

‘And you would still face that by choice?’

I shrugged. ‘For Simone.’

‘He would try to win you over, you know,’ John said, looking me in the eyes, his voice still very mild. ‘But when he sees it is a waste of time, he will throw you to the Mothers.’

‘Simone would be safe.’

‘I would return to a gibbering husk of a woman with a mind pummelled into imbecility by their torture. What they did to Leo was just a tiny taste of their capabilities.’

‘Simone would still be safe,’ I said. ‘Look me right in the eye and tell me you wouldn’t have done exactly the same thing.’

He sighed and sat across from me. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a gold coin, and slid it across the desk to me. He put his head in his hands, then rubbed his hands over his face. He leaned back to retie his hair.

We were both thinking: I love you so damn much. One day this will all come together for us.

‘None of this would ever have happened if I had never married Michelle,’ he said. ‘If I had met you first, it could have been completely different. I would have been at full strength, able to train you and defend you. In a short time you would have had the capability to handle any demon. We would be Dark Lord and Dark Lady together on the undamaged Mountain. We would not be in this situation.’

‘How dare you!’ I shouted, furious. I leaned forward and thumped the table, making the tea slop out of the cup onto some of his papers. ‘If you had never married Michelle you would have never had Simone. I can see what Michelle was like, there’s a lot of her in Simone! She must have been a remarkable woman!’ My voice thickened. ‘You are such a bastard sometimes. How could you say such a thing?’

He watched me silently for a while. Then he slid another gold coin to me.

He smiled slightly. ‘You know, I am the one who is supposed to be cross with you.’ He leaned back and put his palms on the table. ‘Well, now you have this pact with the King, I suppose we both just have to make sure that you never use it.’

‘But it’s nice to know that it’s there just in case. And to know that red-headed bastard will keep his ugly nose out of this.’

His face was still expressionless. ‘Will you still be this impossible after we’re married?’

‘Probably,’ I said, matching his even tone. ‘Will you?’ He smiled slightly. Words weren’t necessary.

‘Gold has appeared outside. He says there is something important he needs to discuss with us.’

‘Tell him to come in, if you’re finished with me,’ I said, still very calm. I stopped. There was something I needed to talk to him about as well, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember what it was. Oh well, it would come to me. Couldn’t be that important if I couldn’t remember it.

There was a tap at the door and Gold came in with a sheaf of papers under his arm. He was back to his normal human form, sharp tan suit and everything. He sat down next to me and dropped the papers onto the table. ‘My Lord, my Lady.’

He knew what I’d done. I certainly didn’t look like I’d just been chewed out; I was sitting there calmly drinking tea. He saw the gold coins on the desk in front of me and smiled slightly.

‘My Lord, you have put this house in Kensington on the market. I suggest that you withdraw it immediately, because you can’t sell it.’

‘Why not?’ John said.

‘How long have you owned this house, my Lord?’ Gold said.

‘About a hundred and fifty years,’ John said.

‘The house has been in your name the entire time?’

John stopped. We shared a look.

‘As long as I paid the rates, nobody looked very closely at the deeds,’ John said. ‘The house hasn’t changed hands in that entire time. Not even passed down. Damn.’

‘I suppose you didn’t need to,’ I said. ‘You probably never had any intention of selling it, ever.’

Gold glanced down at the papers. ‘It’s too late now for me to hack into the system and fix this, my Lord. I can’t do historical documents. They would be paper. I’m afraid you can’t sell this house right now. It will take me a long time to fix this for you, there will be legal implications.’

‘I’ll spare some tame demons from somewhere,’ John said. He sighed. ‘Oh well, I don’t have to sell the car now either.’

‘You still owe me a drive in that car,’ I said.

‘I promised my nanny a ride in the car. I didn’t promise my Lady anything.’

I smiled grimly. ‘That’s because the Lady’s driving.’

‘By your leave, my Lord,’ Gold said, and John waved him away with one hand, still glaring at me. Gold shook his head and grinned as he disappeared.

Then we heard shouting downstairs. It was Michael and Bai Hu, shouting at each other very loudly. I heard some of the language and winced.

John rose and went to the door.

‘We should stay out of it,’ I said. ‘This is between father and son.’

‘They are both my Retainers,’ he said, his voice calm and firm. ‘And as their Lord I have the right to intervene. I think we had better get down there.’ He cocked his head and listened, then his voice became more urgent. ‘Before they come to blowsY

He threw the door open and rushed downstairs. I ran to follow him, he was right.

‘…why I should go with a fucking bastard like you after what you’ve done, when Lord Xuan and Lady Emma have taken me into their home and treated me like a son!’ Michael was yelling as we went down the stairs.

‘You’re my son and you’ll fucking do what you’re told!’ Bai Hu bellowed back. ‘You’ll come with me, boy, and that’s an order! Now stop giving me this shit and get over here!’

‘Don’t worry about Simone, she’s upstairs with Leo in the nursery,’ John said to me. ‘He saw this coming a mile off.’

‘Leo has the most brains of all of us,’ I said.

‘Oh, I don’t know. Look what he puts up with.’

I shrugged in reply. He was right.

We went across the black and white tiled entry hall to the living room. James hesitated at the kitchen door, and John waved him inside.

Bai Hu and Michael had gone quiet. They faced off in the living room. Michael was rigid with fury and panting. Bai Hu was in human form and just as rigid. When they saw us enter they both saluted. Bai Hu just shook his hands up in front of his face; he was too distraught to salute properly. Michael, on the other hand, dropped to one knee and took his time, saluting John and then me very carefully.

When Michael was back on his feet he bowed slightly to us so that he could have the first word. ‘My Lord, my Lady, please inform Lord Bai Hu that I wish to remain in your service and do not wish to leave.’

‘He should go with me to the West, Ah Wu,’ the Tiger growled. ‘He is too young for this. This is getting really heavy. He doesn’t have the experience to handle it.’

‘Come. Sit.’ John gestured to the comfortable fabriccovered sofas in the living room. It had been decorated in a delightfully relaxed cottage style. Large windows overlooked the quiet leafy Kensington street.

They sat on the sofas as far apart as they could. John and I took one each. I sat next to Michael. John sat next to Bai Hu.

‘Now that the Demon King is out of this, Ah Bai,’ John said, ‘we will not be attacked by anything bigger than about level fifty. Emma and Leo can handle nearly up to that level alone. Michael will be there soon.’

‘I want to stay!’ Michael said loudly. ‘What about that fucking bastard One Two Two?’ the Tiger said.

John stiffened and his face became fierce. ‘You mind your mouth in front of my Lady, or your tail will be in serious trouble.’

I nearly smiled. Weren’t no ladies here, just us demon-killing bitches with swords that made dogs howl with terror.

Bai Hu threw himself up out of the sofa, quickly went to the middle of the rug next to the coffee table, and knelt. He saluted. ‘Please accept my earnest apology, my Lady.’

‘Rise,’ I said wearily.

The Tiger nodded, rose, strode over to the sofa and threw himself back onto it next to John. He flung his arm over the edge and stretched his long legs out in front of him. He grinned at me ruefully. ‘Sorry.’

Michael had remained perfectly still during this entire exchange. All he wanted was to stay with us. He didn’t care about anything else that happened.

‘I will deal with the Prince in my own good time,’ John said evenly.

Oh dear Lord. I knew exactly what he meant. No.

John continued. ‘He can only rally small demons around him; Leo has already killed his Mother. It won’t be long before Michael is able to easily handle anything he throws at us.’

Bai Hu leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees and spoke softly. ‘This kid is really talented, Ah Wu. I think when he reaches maturity he may be able to Transform. His mother is,’ he hesitated, ‘astonishing. A league of her own. The only one who’s ever left.’ His voice dropped. ‘I don’t want to lose this one.’

‘Don’t I have a say in this?’ Michael said loudly.

‘No!’ the Tiger shot back. ‘You do as you’re told, boy!’

‘Go to hell,’ Michael said.

John and I were both hard pressed to conceal our amusement. Michael was more than a match for the Tiger.

The Tiger went rigid with fury. He opened his mouth to let loose another tirade at Michael but John raised his hand. The Tiger subsided, still furious, and glared at Michael. Michael glared back.

John studied Michael appraisingly. I knew what he was thinking.

‘Ah Bai,’ John said, ‘for the first time in I think about six hundred years I am pulling rank on you. The kid stays.’

Bai Hu threw himself back into the sofa and flung his arm over the edge again. ‘Eight hundred years,’ he said softly. ‘I want this kid, Ah Wu. You can see the potential.’

‘That is why he would be better off with me,’ John said. ‘I am the best. You know that. Let me teach him. When I go, the pair of you can decide what to do. I would prefer he guard Simone. I can’t think of anybody better for the job, apart from yourself, and you don’t have the time. Tell me I don’t speak the truth.’

The Tiger stayed very still for a long time. Then he shifted slightly. ‘One condition. He spends his time off with me. One day a week, Western Palace. He needs to learn the skills of a Horseman. I won’t have a son of mine unable to ride a horse.’

‘Until Lord Xuan leaves, Bai Hu, I think Michael can probably spend some of his school holidays in the West as well,’ I said. ‘How about that? Is that acceptable? Michael?’

Bai Hu was about to say something but he thought better of it. He glowered at Michael.

‘Dak han le. Can do.’ Michael’s handsome face lit up. He smiled shyly at me. ‘Thanks, Lady Emma.’

‘Is he old enough to go to the Celestial Plane without his mother?’ I said.

‘Yes.’ Bai Hu shook his hands in front of his face without moving on the sofa. ‘My Lord. My Lady. By your leave.’ He disappeared.

I sighed and relaxed. John and I shared a look. Another disaster averted. We smiled.

‘My Lord,’ Michael said, ‘he said that I may be able to Transform. Did he mean that I could turn into a tiger?’

‘It is a rare gift. Only about one in a hundred of his children inherits the ability. To answer your question: yes,’ John said. ‘Once you have reached adulthood and your powers are set. It will be interesting to see. You may also be able to manipulate metal.’

‘Way cool,’ Michael said under his breath. ‘I could be a were-tiger.’

‘Are you sure you’re all right to be spending your Sundays with him, Michael?’ I said.

Michael grinned. ‘Child custody arrangements.’

I laughed softly at that. ‘You’re the product of a broken home.’

His grin broadened. ‘Little pieces.’ He sobered. He looked from me to John. ‘I just want to say thanks. You are the best. Lord Xuan, thank you. I really appreciate this. I want to stay with you guys. Both of you.’

‘Just don’t get yourself killed, lad,’ John said, amused. ‘If you do I’ll never hear the end of it. From either of them.’ He pulled himself up. ‘I’m summoning Jade. She’ll have to help reorganise the demon staff. This will take a while.’

‘Take your time,’ I said to his back. I turned to Michael. ‘Up for a spar?’

His whole face lit up. ‘Yes, please, ma’am.’