Red Phoenix

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Three little russet balls of fluff snuggled together in a nest of warm blankets. I moved quietly towards them, making quite sure that they didn’t wake. I flicked my tongue and tasted them. They were sweet, like babies, but with the slight powdery edge of feathers.

I slid my head gently over the edge of the nest and held my breath. My nose was within touching distance of a slender, elegant neck.

I raised my head slightly, my breath still held. Then I struck. I had always loved the feeling of my fangs piercing the skin with a satisfying pop and then pressing through to the soft flesh beneath. The bitter-sweet taste of my venom mixed with the rich salty flavour of the blood. The little bird didn’t struggle much; my venom was a neurotoxin and the victims were paralysed almost immediately. Rather like the five-point push, the wry thought came to me. Much the same thing.

I would have preferred it alive; the feeling of its tiny wings and legs thrashing inside my throat would have been exquisite. But I didn’t want to wake the other two. I would eat the last one alive and take my time about it.

I unlocked my jaws and pulled the little one in. I wiggled my head from side to side as I sent it slowly down my throat. The feathers were thick and delightful in my mouth. I sent my breathing tube out around it; so clever. My mouth was full of satisfying textures and I could still breathe around them.

When I had it all the way down I closed my neck onto its body and the soft bones collapsed with a satisfying crunch. I tasted the blood as it trickled down my throat and wished that I could close my eyes with relish.

I turned to the next one. Another tiny luscious sleeping ball of fluff.

I reared up and opened my mouth to strike the second one. They were so adorable. And delicious.

I woke with a start, spun onto my belly and banged my head on the pillow a few times.

I did not want to eat the Phoenix’s babies. I was vegetarian.

Maybe I needed to go to the fast food and have a soy sauce chicken leg.

Nope. The idea made me feel quite ill. I was definitely vegetarian. Definitely.

I glanced at the clock. I’d been sitting for an hour staring at the sheets, unable to concentrate. The numbers seemed to be meaningless hieroglyphs. My thesis was due next week, and there was still so much more that needed to be done. I couldn’t let things like this take over my life.

I made a snap decision, and for the first time actually did what the stone wanted me to do.

I threw myself out of my chair and stormed through the door of my office. I thumped down the hall, ignoring the greetings from the demon and human staff in the top-floor administration area. There was a pleasant, constant bustle of work. Normally I enjoyed the sound of the soft conversations and the smell of the tea and coffee brewing, but instead I felt slightly sick.

John had strongly resisted when Gold and I had designed his office. We’d given him a whole corner of the building on the top floor. His office was nearly as big as my old flat back in Sha Tin. Half of it was a normal office with cabinets; the other half was fitted with white training mats. Both Gold and I knew that he liked to be up high, and that he needed the space. He often held meetings with all of the senior Masters over a conjured conference table in his office, and he and I would occasionally spar together in there when the burden of administration was too much for either of us.

When we’d shown him the plans he’d angrily demanded a small office on the first floor next to the armoury. Both Gold and I had easily acquiesced and then ignored him. He needed the space, he needed to be up high, and he needed to be able to shut the door and practise the Arts in private.

Both of us needed to be able to shut the door and wave a sword around sometimes.

When we had finally moved him into his office he hadn’t said a word. But Gold and I both knew that it would be a long time before he forgave us for doing this to him.

I stalked past John’s demon assistant, a smiling young Chinese girl in her mid-twenties, and slammed John’s door open. He was reading some papers on his desk; probably reports on the rebuilding. As I walked in he glanced up and smiled at me, unsurprised. I flung myself into one of the visitor’s chairs, then watched him for a while, not knowing where to start.

He didn’t give me any help whatsoever. He sat behind his desk waiting silently and patiently for me.

‘Tell me about serpents,’ I said.

‘About time,’ the stone said. We both ignored it.

John leaned forward and folded his hands on the desk in front of him. ‘You tell me first. Tell me what you know about them. You used to keep one as a pet; tell me about it. What are snakes like?’

‘Lousy pets.’ I smiled as I thought about the snake. ‘Absolutely non-affectionate. Don’t care about anything except where their next meal is coming from, and once they’ve been fed they just sleep until they’re hungry again. Rather like men,’ I said, but he didn’t rise to it.

‘What about their nature?’

‘Quiet,’ I said, pondering. ‘Silent. They hide their intelligence.’ I stopped and winced but his face didn’t shift. ‘And they can be very single-minded. Fast,’ I winced again, ‘and merciless.’

‘You’re not very quiet,’ he said with a small smile.

I didn’t say anything and his smile turned wry.

I ran my hands through my hair and gave up. ‘I’ve been having dreams. Last night…’ I couldn’t finish it.

‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Tell me. Let it out.’

‘Last night,’ I said, ‘I dreamed that I…’

‘What?’

‘I dreamed that I ate the Phoenix’s babies,’ I said. ‘I was a snake, and I ate the babies!’

‘Most snakes eat baby birds, it is the main part of their diet,’ he said, looking me straight in the eye over his hands. ‘I used to dream of eating babies all the time.’

I stopped, horrified. ‘You didn’t, you didn’t…’ No. He wasn’t like that at all. But when he had the Serpent, maybe?

‘Never,’ he said, without a hint of emotion in his voice.

‘But you wanted to!’

‘Of course I did,’ he said, his tone not changing. ‘I would also dream about killing my demon staff, about killing my students, even killing Michelle.’ He shrugged. ‘I never dreamed of killing Simone, which is surprising—’

‘Oh my God,’ I said, my voice very small.

‘When I lost the Serpent the dreams stopped.’

‘You lost that evil part of your nature and you stopped dreaming about killing things?’

He wrenched his hands apart and slammed them on the table, palms down. ‘You have a long way to go, sometimes, Emma!’ he spat, his eyes blazing. ‘Haven’t you learned anything?’ He made an obvious conscious effort to control himself, then rubbed his hands over his face. ‘You are a Westerner. I suppose it is inevitable that you would have this attitude.’

I felt thoroughly browbeaten and went silent. He’d never reacted that way before to anything that I’d said in the past.

We studied each other over the table. For the first time since I’d met him, I didn’t know what to say. I even felt slightly afraid of him. There was a gulf between us.

Well then, bridge it.

‘Tell me,’ I said softly. ‘Teach me.’

‘Do you know what you said?’ he said, looking deep into my eyes. ‘You said something that always makes me very angry when I hear it.’

I was silent. I didn’t want to provoke the same reaction.

‘You said that the Serpent is evil. You said that I am evil. The whole concept is abhorrent. And yet still you stamp it onto me. If you still think that there is such a thing as “evil” then you have not learned anything.’ He turned away and tied his hair back.

‘Tell me about serpents then, Xuan Wu,’ I said quietly. ‘They eat babies alive, but they aren’t evil. Tell me.’

‘Have you eaten lamb?’ he said without looking at me.

‘You know I have.’

‘Veal?’ he said. ‘Roast sucking pig? Even chicken? Only six weeks old, most of them.’

I stopped as I understood. ‘Not any more. And never alive.’

He looked me right in the eyes. ‘Imagine that you are walking through Victoria Park, and you see a crow. In its claws, held down with its foot, the crow has a baby sparrow. The baby sparrow is struggling; it is in its death throes. The crow is waiting patiently for the sparrow to die. It is watching the sparrow die with interest. When the sparrow is dead, the crow will dismember it and eat it. What would you do?’

I stopped and deliberated.

‘Don’t think about what you’d do, the answer will be contrived!’ he snapped. ‘Tell me! You are there! What do you do?’

‘I’d walk away,’ I said miserably, my voice small.

‘Good,’ he said, leaning back and eyeing me appraisingly. ‘Perhaps you are learning. Would you try to rescue the baby sparrow?’

‘No,’ I said with more confidence. ‘It’s in its death throes, so it’s already effectively dead.’

‘Is the crow evil?’ he said quickly.

‘No,’ I said, just as fast. ‘It just wants its dinner.’

‘Good!’ he said briskly. ‘But the sparrow is suffering. Would you try to kill it sooner? To save its suffering?’

‘If I could, I would,’ I said. ‘But I’d be likely to have my hand taken off by the crow if I tried, and besides, it would scare the crow away.’

‘Excellent!’ he said, his voice full of approval. ‘Why wouldn’t you want to scare the crow away?’

‘Because then the crow would go hungry,’ I said with wonder. I hadn’t even thought of that angle until he asked me. ‘The crow has to eat too, and I have no right to deprive it of its dinner.’

‘Now.’ He leaned forward over the desk and steepled his hands on the papers. ‘What is the purpose of the life of that sparrow? What was the whole point of its existence?’

I was about to say ‘to feed the crow’ but then I stopped. I didn’t know enough to say that. ‘I have no idea.’

He banged his palms on the desk, his face fierce. ‘The stone was right,’ he said with finality. ‘All you need to do is cast off your prejudices. You are already well on the way there.’

I breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed.

His face remained fierce though. ‘Now.’

I straightened, ready for the next koan.

‘You said that the Serpent is evil because it dreamed of eating babies. You said that I am evil because I dreamed of eating babies. Am I? Is the Serpent evil?’

‘No, of course not,’ I said without thinking. ‘You were just dreaming about dinner. That’s the food that snakes eat, so of course you dreamed about eating it. It would have been different if you’d actually gone out and…’ I stopped, seeing the whole point. It didn’t matter that I’d dreamed about eating the babies. The important thing was that I would never actually go out and do it. Snakes in nature, animal snakes, didn’t have the choice; they weren’t evil, it was just the way they were made. But I had the choice; and I made the choice not to do it.

‘Are either of our Serpent essences evil, Emma?’ he said, his voice suddenly very mild and calm.

‘I just wonder if there is such a thing as evil,’ I said. ‘There are always so many sides to the story…’

He fell back and sighed. ‘Took you a very long time. You will get there eventually, I am sure, but sometimes you are very slow to travel. Nothing is evil, Emma. All is yang and yin. Dark and Bright. There is no good or evil.’

‘What about that bastard One Two Two?’

‘It is my opposing force, the yang for my yin. It is unbalanced; yang and yin within it are not in harmony. When the two opposing forces are not in harmony, the results are destructive. When the two forces are in harmony, the result is the One.’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, John,’ I said, bewildered.

‘I would be very surprised if you did.’

‘Tell me about your Serpent. I want to learn about its nature, I think it would help,’ I said, then stopped. ‘If you don’t want to talk about it too much, I would understand.’

‘No, no,’ he said, more relaxed, ‘you’re quite right. Anything to help you understand. My Serpent essence…’ He paused, thoughtful. ‘Well, it is different from the Turtle. The Turtle is mostly vegetarian. It is quite slow, not just in movement, but in thought as well.’

‘You’re not stupid, you’re just cold-blooded,’ I said.

He smiled gently. ‘The Serpent is fast and cunning. It is a dedicated carnivore and likes the taste of blood. It eats things alive, very slowly, enjoying the sensation of their struggles. It is much more unforgiving than the gentle Turtle. It is clever, and can sometimes be spiteful, but it isn’t evil, Emma. That’s just the way it is. Remember, it is still a part of me.’

‘That was in my dream,’ I said miserably. ‘I dreamed that I wanted to eat them alive, because it was more…’ I hesitated, then plunged on, ‘…it was more fun.’

‘It is,’ he said. ‘For a Serpent, dead food is unpleasant. You understand. It is good to share this. It’s not something I could share with many others. I hope that Simone is able to accept it when it finally happens in front of her.’

‘Monty would never eat dead mice,’ I said, remembering. ‘I tried to make him, but he never would. If they were dead he wouldn’t touch them.’

‘I wouldn’t touch anything dead either,’ John said. ‘Dead food. Not moving, and therefore not food. The Turtle will eat dead meat, and sometimes eat very dead meat, but the Serpent never would.’

‘You have the most totally split personality it’s surprising you’re sane,’ I said with derision.

‘Sanity is highly overrated,’ he growled dryly. ‘But,’ he said, sitting straighter, ‘when I was whole, it just seemed to work. The two essences were both me, and they combined seamlessly into me. I was whole. Right now,’ he grimaced so slightly it was almost undetectable, ‘it is very difficult. I’m not whole. I am all Turtle. Without the Serpent, I am not complete, and you only see one side of me.’ He smiled. ‘The Serpent is the mightiest healer on the Celestial Plane.’

My face must have shown my shock because his smile widened and he nodded.

‘All Serpents are healers, and when I had mine I could heal anything.’ He glanced down at the papers on his desk, not seeing them. ‘The Serpent’s healing is sorely missed here in the Academy, and by the residents of the Celestial. Take Leo: the Turtle by itself can only keep the virus at bay. With the Serpent, I could clear him completely, I could heal him.’

‘Oh my God. Does he know?’

‘No. It is your choice to tell him, if you wish. I will not.’

‘Is there any chance of the Serpent returning before you go?’ I said desperately. This could be Leo’s life.

‘I have no idea,’ he said. ‘Nobody has done this before. Nobody else has the same nature as me: two creatures as I am. I am unique, this is a unique situation, and we must just take each day as it comes. I don’t think it would be a good idea for me to have the Serpent back before I go, because to merge I would have to return to True Form, and then I would probably be gone anyway.’

‘I’ve never thought of snakes as healers, just as poisonous,’ I said.

John’s eyes turned inward and he concentrated. Then he snapped back. ‘The Serpent is also the most powerful weather maker on the Celestial. The Turtle can call forth rain; the Serpent can call forth floods and deluges. The Turtle can move typhoons; the Serpent can make them. I suspect that some of the unusual weather patterns that have occurred in the last few years have been a result of the Serpent out there somewhere flexing its muscles.’

There was a tap on the door and Two Five One, John’s demon assistant, poked her head in. She tossed a small white cardboard box into the air on the other side of the room. It floated to John and he picked it out of the air. She disappeared again without saying a word.

He turned the box over in his hand, then held it out to me, pointing to a small mark on the side. I took it. It was a bandage from one of the medicine cabinets.

‘The Serpent, as healer, in the West as well,’ he said.

The mark was the standard Western medical symbol of two snakes wrapped around a staff. ‘I never thought of that,’ I said.

‘The Serpent is the wiser of the two of me. It is extremely clever; its intelligence is not measurable. We tried to measure it on the Celestial a while ago, but the results of the tests were not meaningful because I just answered everything right. I miss its intelligence; the Mountain was much better run when I had it. I’m glad I have you instead.’ He smiled slightly at me. ‘It is a powerful healer, it is a powerful weather maker. It is also cunning, fast, spiteful, and dreams about eating babies.’ He leaned back and put his hands on the desk. ‘And that is the end of the herpetology lesson. In a way, I am looking forward to leaving you…’ He studied me closely to gauge my reaction, and relaxed when he saw that I wasn’t upset. ‘…and having the Serpent back, because I really am not whole.’

I had a horrible thought. ‘Will you change when you have your snake back?’

‘No, of course not,’ he said. ‘I am unchanging.’

He concentrated, and the Tiger appeared next to me in the other visitor’s chair. He saluted us both casually without a word.

‘Ah Bai.’ John leaned his elbow on the desk. ‘Do remember back to when I lost the Serpent?’

‘I remember,’ the Tiger said, and his eyes turned inwards. ‘That was a tough time for all of us. No idea what brought that on.’ He snapped back. ‘It was about 1975. He just completely disappeared for about six months. And then he came back as if nothing had happened at all. The first time he took True Form afterwards, he seemed the most surprised of all of us that the snake was gone.’

‘Was I different when I had the Serpent? To how I am now?’ John said.

The Tiger studied him appraisingly for a while. He appeared to be thinking about it. Then, ‘Yeah,’ he said with a grin. ‘Come to think of it, you were different.’

John frowned. ‘No, I wasn’t. I was exactly the same person.’

‘Nah.’ The Tiger’s grin widened. He shook his head and raised his hand. ‘You’ve changed. Be interesting to see what happens when you have that Snake thing back.’ He realised what he’d said. ‘By the Heavens, Emma, I’m sorry. Don’t worry, he’ll still be the same person.’

My blood ran cold. ‘How different was he?’

The Tiger turned back to John. John glared under his brows at him, obviously irritated.

‘He was much more yang, but that’s understandable,’ the Tiger said. ‘Much brighter, much harder, much more…I dunno…’ He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, my Lord, there’s no other way to put this. He was much more of a bastard.’

‘Oh, thank you very much,’ John said, leaning back and glowering.

‘Why is it understandable that he would be more yang?’ I said.

‘Suppose it wouldn’t hurt you to know, Emma, you’ll be spending most of your time with this thing, you’d better be aware of the strange nature of its essence,’ the Tiger said.

‘He’s not a thing!’ I said, horrified.

‘Yes, I am,’ John said equably. ‘Because I encapsulate both essences in one creature. Two creatures.’

‘Essences? Turtle and Serpent?’

‘Yang and yin,’ the Tiger said. ‘You know?’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘Yang is bright, hard, life, light, metal, hot, male.’ I gestured towards the Tiger. ‘You are extremely yang.’ He nodded and grinned. I thought about yin. ‘Yin is soft, dark, death, black, water, cold, female,’ and I gasped. I looked at John. He was all of those things, except for the female. He nodded. I hadn’t thought of it that way.

‘How female are you?’ I said with horror. This was something about him—and something about myself— that I wasn’t really sure I wanted to look at too closely.

The Tiger chuckled. ‘Ever done it, Ah Wu?’ he said slyly. ‘I know I have.’

I stared at the Tiger, aghast. ‘You’ve turned yourself into a chick?’

The Tiger nodded, and his grin widened. ‘We choose the form we take. Gender is part of the form. For us, gender is completely optional. Humans seem to have a great deal of attachment to gender, and often seem to find change in gender threatening. No idea why; most of us Shen can’t understand this preoccupation. The Phoenix’s human form used to spend most of its time male, now it spends most of its time female, and won’t tell anyone why.’

‘The Tiger will go to any length to get the girl, sometimes,’ John said, his voice a low rumble.

I collapsed forward over my knees, laughing silently. I could believe it. I looked up at the Tiger. You guy. Living every hot-blooded guy’s dream. I shook my head. Even as a chick, he would still have been a full-blooded male. This was so weird, and here I was handling it perfectly.

I crossed my arms over my knees and leaned on them. I glanced up at John. He watched me placidly. Gender was completely optional.

‘Is the Turtle female?’ I said softly.

‘That question doesn’t really apply to our True Forms, Emma,’ he said. ‘We are essence.’

‘But he’s always male in True Form,’ I said, leaning back and pointing at the Tiger. ‘Extremely male.’

‘You noticed,’ the Tiger said, grinning evilly.

‘Bit hard to miss,’ I shot back, ‘you’re a shocking exhibitionist.’

The Tiger just shrugged, the grin not shifting.

‘The Bai Hu’s essence is yang,’ John said. ‘Extremely yang, even though he is the Lesser Yang. Of course his True Form is male.’

‘But your essence is yin,’ I said. ‘Female.’

‘I encapsulate both essences, Emma,’ John said. ‘Yang and yin. I am two creatures. The Turtle is yin. The Serpent is yang. The essence of the Xuan Wu, combined, is yin. I am the ultimate yin creature: I am dark, cold, water, winter, death. But my human form has always been male.’

‘He’s right, Emma,’ the Tiger said. ‘He’s always been male in human form, despite his yin nature, his dual nature.’

‘No wonder everybody keeps saying you’re a very strange creature, Xuan Wu,’ I said softly with wonder. ‘They’re right.’

‘Both essences, combined into yin. Two creatures, combined into one. His colour is black, his number is one, his direction is North, and he is Master of the Arts of War. And in human form, he has always been male,’ the Tiger said softly. ‘With perfect alignment.’

‘Okay. So you’re a very yin guy, but still a guy,’ I said.

John nodded. ‘And you’re a very yang woman, but still a woman. Think about it. Aren’t you?’

I mentally stepped back and studied myself. ‘I suppose I am,’ I said. ‘But I’m still one hundred per cent female, all the way through. I’ve never thought of myself any other way.’ I hesitated. ‘That explains our compatibility, I suppose. Yang and yin.’

I had a sudden brilliant, wonderful thought.

‘Could I be your Serpent?’ I said quietly with delight.

He wasn’t surprised at all.

‘You thought that too,’ I said. ‘You’ve thought that for a long time.’

He shrugged. ‘We don’t need words.’

‘No, we don’t.’

‘I’m not sure I’d want that, Emma,’ he said. ‘Because if you were my Serpent, then when we joined, I would lose you. You would be absorbed into me and no longer exist as a separate entity; you would become part of the Dark Lord, you would become part of me.’

‘I can’t imagine anything that I want more in the whole world.’

‘But we have loved, we have shared our minds and our bodies. If you were my Serpent, we would have rejoined. I have often wondered, but it’s not really possible.’

‘Damn,’ I said softly.

‘Not possible at all,’ the Tiger cut in from where he was sitting, completely forgotten by both of us. ‘Because the Serpent’s been found. That’s probably why he brought it up, he’s somehow subconsciously aware of it. I was on my way to tell him anyway.’

‘I brought it up,’ I said, but neither of them heard me.

‘Where is it?’ John said, excited. He leapt to his feet, full of energy. ‘I must go to it. It would be good to be whole again.’

‘You would lose everything, Ah Wu, you forget yourself,’ the Tiger said. ‘It is better that it stays where it is.’

John rubbed his hands over his face and grimaced. ‘You’re right.’

‘Where is it?’ I said. ‘What’s it doing?’

‘It is at the bottom of the Mariana Trench,’ the Tiger said, his face expressionless. ‘It is hiding in the deepest reaches of the ocean. It sleeps at the bottom of the darkest seas.’

‘Who found it?’ John said.

‘The Lady,’ the Tiger whispered. ‘She heard its cries.’

‘It cries?’ I said, my heart breaking.

John’s face was expressionless.

‘Can you hear it, Ah Wu?’ the Tiger said gently.

‘No,’ John said, his face still expressionless. He stalked out without saying a word.

‘Is anyone holding it there, Tiger?’ I said. Maybe someone had imprisoned it.

‘No,’ the Tiger said softly, his face a mask of misery. ‘I think. I think…’ He looked down. ‘I think that the Serpent may have forgotten what it is, who it is. It only knows that it is missing…’ He hesitated. ‘It is missing half of itself. It cries for its lost half.’ He looked me straight in the eye. ‘So does he.’

‘You know what?’ My throat thickened. ‘Even if he were to be a different person, and no longer loved me, I think it would be worth it to have him whole.’

‘It is very hard to see him like this, Emma,’ the Tiger said, looking down. He looked back up at me. ‘Remind me to give you a gold coin.’ He shook his hands in front of his miserable face. ‘By your leave.’

I nodded and he disappeared.

I knew what John was doing. He was in one of the training rooms, doing sword katas until he dropped from exhaustion.

I went back to my spreadsheets. Suddenly I wished that I was his Serpent and that he could have absorbed me completely. It would be worth it to have him whole, and Leo healed, even if it meant that I would no longer exist.