Dark Serpent (28 page)

‘She’s not here,’ John said. He led them to the dining room and gestured towards the windows. ‘These may be what the demon copy was talking about, but if so it must be the Heavenly analogue because there’s absolutely nothing untoward here. We need to find the gateway to the Celestial Plane.’

‘Is there one here?’ Simone said.

‘Leo, check the gardens. Simone, stay with me and we’ll look around,’ John said.

Leo dropped his head and disappeared.

‘The top floor’s occupied by the Lord of the manor,’ Simone said. ‘The rest of it’s a museum. Where do we start looking?’

‘The stables,’ John said. ‘The big building next door.’

He took her hand and they teleported to the stables. They were as large as the house and a similar shape, with gothic arched windows. The interior wasn’t as well-kept as the house; assorted junk from the house had been stored there and the paint on the concrete walls of the loose boxes was peeling. They walked the length of the building and found nothing.

‘Back to the house, but I’m sure there’s nothing there,’ John said. ‘Go straight onto the roof.’

The villages and hillsides on the other side of the strait were clearly visible from the roof. John walked around, feeling for anything different, and found nothing. Simone crouched and put her hands on the roof tiles, then shook her head and stood up again.

‘I don’t think there’s a gateway here. We need to find one somewhere else.’

‘There’s one near Holyhead: two stones that are obviously a way to the Celestial Plane. This house looks too much like what the demon was describing to be a coincidence. We’ll go straight there.’

Meet us on the roof
, he said to Leo
. There’s nothing here
.

Already on my way back,
Leo said.
We’re wasting time and need to find her.

They flew over the gateway twice before Simone spotted the field halfway up Holy Mountain that held the stones. The ocean was visible a long way below them. The stones stood behind a grey cottage with a stone wall behind it and a line of laundry flapping in the cold autumnal wind.

‘Just keep an eye out for those crazy snake people,’ Leo said.

‘They were after Emma, not us,’ Simone said.

She hesitated when she neared the ponies in the field, but when they didn’t act aggressively she moved towards the stones with more confidence.

Where are you, Father?
Martin said.

You should not have come, you have duties to perform in the North,
John said, well aware of Martin’s reasons for coming with the squad.
Lock onto my location. We are at the Penrhos Feilw standing stones, preparing to sortie into the Western Celestial Plane. You will take Simone and Leo home before I go.

Understood,
Martin said.

‘Don’t touch them!’ John yelled at Simone when she put her hand out towards one of the stones. ‘Remember that stone that One Two Two used — it was a teleporter to take you to him.’

‘I remember,’ she said, pulling her hand back. ‘These don’t look anything special. I can’t even feel how old they are.’

‘We should have made the Jade Building Block come along,’ Leo said.

‘Stand back from them,’ John said.

He opened all of his senses and prowled around the stones, looking for the gateway. They were mossy slabs of rock, thirty centimetres by five centimetres, three metres high and three apart. Simone was right: they appeared to be ordinary stones.

Martin and the squad appeared down the hill from them. Martin waved as they approached. He quickly embraced Leo and Simone, then fell to one knee in front of John. ‘Xuan Tian.’

‘Rise,’ John said. He turned to the stones. ‘Before you go, take a look at these.’

Martin studied the stones without touching them. ‘I see nothing interesting at all about them except for the fact that they were put up here about three thousand years ago.’

‘They should be a gateway,’ John said, putting his hands on his hips. ‘I’m loathe to touch them; something isn’t right.’

Martin nodded. ‘Let me then.’

John gestured with one hand towards the stones.

‘No, Ge Ge,’ Simone said. ‘Stop him, Daddy.’

‘We can’t risk our father right now,’ Martin said.

He summoned shen energy and put it into his hands, then gingerly rested them on the closest stone. He stood for a moment, investigating the stone with the energy, and John could see that he achieved nothing — it behaved as if it was an ordinary stone. Martin tried the same with the other stone, then looked back at John and shook his head.

Here goes
, he said, and walked between the stones.

‘No!’ Leo said, then, ‘Huh? Nothing happened.’

Martin turned around and walked back through the stones.

John approached and gingerly put his hand on the stone. The minute he touched it he felt the life gone from it.

‘This stone was once alive,’ he said, looking deeply inside the granite’s core. ‘Both these stones were once alive, and they were a gateway. But someone has killed them.’

‘And I think we have a good idea who,’ Leo said. ‘We’ll have to find another way up.’

‘I will find another way up,’ John said. ‘You and Simone are returning with Martin.’

‘I am staying here and finding Emma!’ Simone said.

John went to her and took her hands. ‘I know you want to, but you will slow me down and I will be concerned about your safety. Let me do this alone, quickly and dangerously.’ He put one hand on the side of her face. ‘I can do this much more effectively alone.’

‘Your father’s right, Simone,’ Leo said.

Simone screwed up her face and turned to Martin, but didn’t say anything.

‘Thank you, Simone. I will be reassured to know that you are safe in the East,’ John said. He nodded to Martin.
Take care of her
.

Martin put his arm around her shoulders.
She is my little sister.

Simone turned back to John. ‘We need to stop in London and collect our stuff. I want to check that Franklin’s okay.’

‘You do that. I will return to the East as soon as I have found Emma. And I will find her, Simone.’

Simone’s eyes widened. ‘Didn’t you already find her in Hell?’

‘The Little Grandfather did,’ John said.

‘So this is it. You have to find her. She’s lost,’ Simone said. ‘Why didn’t you say so before?’

‘I hoped that finding her in Hell was enough. Obviously it wasn’t. Now go home and be safe,’ John said.

Simone ran to him and hugged him fiercely, pressing her face into his shoulder. ‘Find her fast, Daddy.’

He held her close. ‘I will. I have promised.’

She went back to Martin, who summoned a cloud. The three of them rose and flew away.

John headed back to the ruined castle to meet up with the Building Block, trying to control his panic. He was running out of options. He needed to find a way up to the Western Celestial Plane. As he travelled on a cloud, he cursed himself for his lack of curiosity all those years ago. He’d been preoccupied with the interesting events on the Earthly in the seventies and hadn’t thought much about the Celestial Plane. When no Western Shen had sought him out and he hadn’t found any gateways, he’d just shrugged and concentrated on the humans and, to a lesser degree, on studying the fascinating Western demons.

Huge mistake.

He hoped the stones would have more intelligence for him. Just flying upwards wouldn’t guarantee entry to the Celestial Plane; he needed to know the correct harmonics of the gateway. If he died in this region, he would just end up in Eastern Hell again. On top of everything, he was close to complete exhaustion. It was all he could do to stop the cloud around his feet from turning to ice and falling
out of the sky. He had to find the gateway soon; hopefully being on the Celestial Plane would reenergise him. He couldn’t stop now and let the trail go cold.

The castle was an impressive sight from above, its black walls elegantly laid out in an almost perfect square, with the towers punctuating the walls and at the corners. He made himself invisible as he came in to land on the street in front of it. He nearly used his Inner Eye to check inside the pub for Ruby, then changed his mind. He had to conserve his strength. He went to the windows and looked in; she wasn’t there.

He walked across the road, quietly teleported inside the castle’s walls and went to the tower. He took a deep breath and had even more difficulty controlling the yin as he opened the ground. He slipped down the stairs again. Lights blinked at the edge of his vision and he shook his head to clear them. He pulled the door open a crack and had no choice but to send his awareness down into the corridor. The ground froze under his feet as he did.

He sensed nothing, so he pulled the door open further and went in without making himself invisible. He turned right into the first stone storage room and stopped. The shelves were empty. He leaned against the wall — the demons were gone. He eased himself back into the corridor and checked all five rooms; all had empty shelves. The equipment had been removed as well.

He checked his watch, having difficulty focusing on it. The tunnels had been cleared out in the three hours it had taken him to go to the standing stones and return. His thoughts were so sluggish. He needed a stone to help him find the Jade Building Block, or to help him reach the Celestial Plane. The only stone he knew here was Ruby, and he had no way of contacting her directly. But the serpent people knew Ruby and they possibly knew a way of reaching the Western Celestial Plane.

Ice formed under his feet as he walked back out of the tunnel and up the stairs. The walls appeared to be moving around him; he didn’t have much left. He stopped at the exit from the stairs. He couldn’t bring out enough yin to open the ground without destroying the entire town. There was no other way out; he had to rest.

He staggered back down the stairs and into the first room, then sat cross-legged on the damp earth and leaned his back on the wall. Ice crystallised and spread from him, covering the walls, floor and ceiling as he relaxed into a trance. Only for five minutes, and then he would move again.

I landed and it felt like I’d fallen about five centimetres. I staggered and put my arms out to balance myself. I was holding the Murasame in my weak right hand.

I looked around. I was in a training room. The wall to the left of me was four-metre-high windows, the glass decorated with dandelions and clover. The room stretched away from me for twenty metres, with a mirror on my right. About fifty demons stood watching me, all with weapons.

‘Now let’s try it again,’ the Western demon said. ‘Show the squad the basic Wudang sword set.’

I moved into the starting position and froze. The order to do the set warred with the Jade Emperor’s restriction on me teaching, and the restriction won. I couldn’t move.

‘Show them,’ the Western demon said, becoming irritated.

‘I can’t.’

‘You said that before. Why not?’

‘The Jade Emperor himself commanded me not to teach anyone.’

‘You’re not under his jurisdiction here. Do it.’

‘I’m under his jurisdiction wherever I am; I pledged allegiance to him.’

‘This is ridiculous.’ He pulled out a mobile phone and speed dialled. ‘I need you. Something’s gone seriously wrong here.’ He
smiled slightly. ‘No, no, she hasn’t broken free of my control; you worry too much. Come down and see this.’

He pressed the button on the phone and walked to the mirrors and back again.

I used the time to relax and study the room. We were on a lower floor of the same tower, but I had no idea how much time had passed. I was in different clothing: someone had dressed me in a Japanese martial arts gi, fortunately with a T-shirt under the wraparound top because they always gaped horribly. I didn’t feel violated and I wasn’t sore anywhere, which was reassuring. I studied my arms: needle tracks. They’d taken more blood, at least half a dozen times from the looks of it.

John
, I called telepathically in desperate hope.
John, Leo, Simone, Jade Building Block, I’m in Caer Wydr.

I repeated the message as loudly as I could in my head. If they heard me, it would be a simple task to look up the Glass Citadel and find out where on the Western Plane it was.

I touched minds with the sword and found that it was full of glee at the amount of mayhem it could wreak if I let it. It was absolutely no help at all and showed no sign of sentience.

The Demon King came through the door at the other end of the room and approached us. ‘What’s seriously wrong?’ He put his hands on his hips and studied me. ‘I can’t see anything wrong with her.’

‘Stand back,’ the Western demon said, pulling the Demon King to the side. ‘Watch this.’ He raised his voice to order me. ‘Do the first-level Wudang sword set.’

Once again I raised the sword into the start position and was unable to take it further.

‘Told you she’d break your control,’ the Demon King said.

‘It’s not broken. She says the Jade Emperor has ordered her not to teach and he takes precedence over me.’

‘Well, he would,’ the Demon King said, crossing his arms over his chest. ‘Jade Emperor, one; King Francis, zero.’

‘He knew she’d end up here?’

‘Possibly. Or the Jade Emperor was just being a dick; he’s done that before.’

‘What am I supposed to do? She won’t teach them for me.’

‘Find a workaround. Have her do the sets and video her or something. You’ll find a way.’ He turned back to the door. ‘Oh, I need you to stop taking blood for two or three days. The lab’s nearly ready for her.’

I couldn’t stop the sound coming from my throat as I tried to break his control.

The Demon King turned back to me. ‘See? She’s working her way out of it already. You should put her under again.’

‘What do you want to say?’ King Francis said with interest.

‘Don’t do anything to me! I don’t want to have your children. Leave me alone!’

‘Oh, okay, I won’t,’ the Demon King said. ‘I’ll just leave fifteen years of research sitting in the lab and won’t put it to good use.’ He walked out of the room, waving one hand behind him. ‘Day after tomorrow we’ll be prepping her for the procedure. I suggest you find a workaround before then.’

King Francis glared at me. ‘When I say “now” you will lose all individual thought and will and exist only to serve me.’

‘No!’ I screamed.

‘Now,’ he said, and grinned.

I was sitting alone in my room when I saw the movement in the mirror again. Even though I hadn’t been told to approach the mirror, something about it called to me. I placed my hand on the glass and everything snapped into focus.

It was the same woman, this time wearing tan breeches and a soft white tunic.

You must work harder to free your will,
she said. She smiled, and the whole world filled with the joy only a Shen could share.
You do not need much help, Emma, you are already breaking his hold when he frees your thoughts. It will not take long before he has no control at all. Remember that.

What’s your name?
I said.

Emmaline, the same as yours.

You’re my ancestor?

No. If you were descended from me you would be much more powerful.

Wow, thanks.

You’re welcome. Someone is coming. I suggest you pretend to be still controlled, and concentrate on breaking his hold.

I have an idea how I can do that,
I said.

Well done.
She faded away.

I sat back in the chair next to the window and mentally linked King Francis’s orders with something so terrible that it would break anyone’s hold over me: memories of the Demon King’s experiments.

John jerked awake, but was unable to move. He was completely encased in ice. He had a moment of disorientation, then melted the ice around him, causing a small flood out of the stone-walled room.

As he stood, he checked his watch: the ice had killed it. He pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket and pressed the button to wake it, but it didn’t. He tried to turn it on or off and nothing happened. Either the battery was dead or the moisture had killed that as well. He opened the back of the phone and water dripped out. Dead.

He sent his now-stronger senses out and saw that the tunnels were still deserted. He went back to the stairs, opened a portal and climbed out. It appeared to be early morning; he’d slept the whole night. Ruby wasn’t anywhere nearby.

He prowled the town looking for a phone box, but when he found one it had been vandalised and was useless. He walked to the sea, checked around to ensure that nobody was watching him, climbed over the low breakwater wall and fell into the water. He swam around the north side of Anglesey and into the harbour at Holyhead. He pulled himself out close to the point where the train and ferry stations intersected, and dried his clothes. He then walked up the hill to the inn run by Mabel Defaoite.

There was no reply to his rap on the front door, so he put his hand over the lock and unlocked it. The house was quiet; the clock in the entry showed that it was 6:30 am. They were sleeping in their
bedroom on the ground floor at the back of the house. Unlike the rest of the inn, it was full of clutter, with clothes and possessions thrown all over the bed and the floor. The warm fug of sleeping mammal hit him as he entered the room, both of them breathing in slight snores. A cat curled up at the end of the bed saw him and ran away.

‘Mabel,’ he said.

Her partner heard him before she did. He turned over and sat up, blearily studying him. ‘What the holy fuck are you doing here?’

He struggled out of bed and looked around, obviously searching for a weapon. Mabel sat up and peered at him, half-asleep.

The man didn’t have anything to grab, so he rounded on John and jabbed his finger at him. ‘I don’t know what you want, mister, but it’s fucking 6 am. You can just get out before I call the police.’

Mabel saw John and scrambled away from him to cower against the bedhead.

‘I won’t hurt you,’ he said. ‘I just want to talk to you.’

‘I have nothing to say to you,’ she said, turning away and picking up a purple floral dressing gown.

‘I need to find Ruby. My stone’s missing, and she’s the only one who knows where it is. You serpent people have to help me to find Ruby and then the gateway to the Celestial Plane so that I can stop the demons. They’re planning something big.’

‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ Mabel’s partner said. ‘Stones? Demons? You’re making no sense.’

Mabel rose, the dressing gown clutched around her. ‘Come with me into the breakfast room. It’s all right, Ross, go back to sleep.’

‘Oh, sure I’ll go back to sleep while you’re entertaining this big man in your nightie,’ Ross said. ‘I’m coming with you.’

Mabel turned on the lights in the breakfast room and put the urn on to boil, then sat at one of the tables. ‘I want you to know that it wasn’t my idea. I thought we were going to talk. Margaret just said to bring you to the hall, and then it all went stupid.’

‘Margaret? Doctor Margaret?’ Ross said.

‘You killed me,’ John said. ‘I was sent back to my own Hell. It took me a full day to return here, and by then the demons had taken Emma.’ He leaned towards her. ‘You are all responsible for this and you will —’

‘What are you talking about, man?’ Ross said, interrupting. ‘What do you mean, they killed you?’

‘He’s not one of you?’ John said.

‘Of course not, we never marry our own kind,’ Mabel said. ‘He’s no part of it.’

‘Is this some sort of joke?’ Ross said.

John touched Ross’s mind and slowed down the connections to mildly sedate him. Ross sat back, dazed.

‘What did you do?’ Mabel said.

‘Calmed him. We need to talk.’

‘You didn’t hurt him?’

‘A couple of pints of beer would have more effect on him.’

‘All right then.’ Mabel rose and went to the urn to make herself a cup of tea. She raised the teaspoon to John. ‘Tea or coffee?’

‘Tea. Strong and black.’

‘How strong?’

‘British Rail.’

She smiled slightly. ‘You sound very British sometimes.’

‘I spent a few years here in the early seventies, studying your culture.’

‘That was forty years ago. You hardly look more than forty yourself,’ Ross said, amused. ‘Who’s your plastic surgeon?’

‘Lao Tzu, the Ancient Sage, and the Holy Buddhas,’ John said. ‘I have studied the Way and attained Immortality.’

‘I found it hard to believe you are what you are,’ Mabel said, fussing with teabags and cups. ‘But I saw the bullet hit you, and then you disappeared, and now here you are back again.’ She turned and put cups in front of John and Ross. ‘Ruby was the only one who could do that.’ She poured herself a cup and sat. ‘We should have listened to Ruby when she said to give you the benefit of the doubt.’

‘I am one of the biggest gods of the Eastern Plane,’ John said. ‘The demons have been taking advantage of a difficult situation, and they’re preparing to make a move against not only my Heaven but I think yours as well. It’s possible they may have infiltrated the other regions and are planning to take over the entire Earthly Plane. The riots you saw in 2011 would be nothing compared to the destruction an army of demons could produce.’

‘Is this a movie script or something?’ Ross said.

‘I could explain it for you, love, but I doubt you’d believe a word of it,’ Mabel said.

‘I need to find Ruby,’ John said. ‘The demons are holding Emma, the woman who came here with me, and now they’ve taken her stone companion as well. I need to find out where they are and stop them, and Ruby is the only supernatural creature I know in this part of the world, apart from you.’

‘We don’t qualify, we’re too human,’ Mabel said.

‘You have the same sort of heedless courage that Emma does, and that makes you more than human.’

‘We don’t want to be.’ She stood up. ‘I’ll call Margaret, you should talk to her. She has access to the DDOMA archives and might have something for you.’

She went to an old-fashioned dial telephone sitting on the sideboard. ‘Margaret, sorry to wake you, love, but that Chinese god is back and says he can help us find Ruby. Will you talk to him? No, he’s not mad, he just wants to find Ruby. Yes, come on up, we’re in the breakfast room. Okay. Bye.’

She put the phone down. ‘I am so sorry about all of this, Ross. You were never supposed to be involved in any of our secrets.’

Ross was staring at John. ‘Chinese god?’

‘Where I come from we’re not called gods, we’re called Shen.’

‘You both sound like you actually believe this,’ Ross said.

‘We’re concerned about Ruby,’ Mabel said to John. ‘We’d appreciate your help. It’s not like her to disappear for a week. She’s normally very careful about keeping her pharmacy open, and she has regular customers who need her.’

‘I saw Ruby yesterday,’ John said.

‘That’s reassuring,’ Mabel said. ‘We’ve called her several times on her mobile phone and there was no answer. We really were beginning to worry.’

John felt a shock of concern. ‘Wait a moment — what day is it?’

Margaret looked up at a calendar on the wall. ‘Friday.’

‘But yesterday was Friday.’ John saw the calendar and shot to his feet. ‘I passed out for a week. I need to use your phone. Can I use your phone?’

‘You pay for it if you call international,’ Mabel said.

‘I don’t even know my daughter’s phone number; it was stored in my phone,’ John said, picking up the receiver. ‘I have to call my house in London.’

Peta answered. ‘Chen residence.’

‘Just tell me yes or no. Is Simone safe?’

‘Yes. Where have you been? We’ve all been frantic! There’s a team out looking for you. They went to that castle you visited, and couldn’t find a way in.’

‘Have you heard from Emma?’

‘No, sir. Gold advised us not to call the police, but we are very worried about her.’

‘I passed out from exhaustion and slept for a week,’ John said. ‘I didn’t mean to do it. I’m back in Holyhead, talking to the serpent people. Listen carefully, Peta.’

‘Just let me get a pencil,’ Peta said. ‘Go.’