Hell to Heaven (43 page)

‘Michael’s mother didn’t,’ Simone said. ‘She left him.’

‘The only one who did,’ Michael said thoughtfully. ‘And when she went back to him, it killed her.’

Monica brought in the rice and soup. ‘Master Leo’s rice.’

‘Emma, you’re Michael’s boss, right?’ Clarissa said.

‘Until Lord Xuan Wu returns, yes, I am.’

‘How much danger will he be in if he returns to work for you?’

I put my chopsticks down and sat back. ‘You’ll never be in danger.’

‘That’s not what I’m asking,’ she said. ‘We’re talking about moving in together. That dog is great fun, by the way. But if we’re living together, and he’s working for you, how often will I be sitting there waiting for him to come home and not having any idea where he is?’

‘You never asked this before,’ Michael said.

‘I want to ask her, not you,’ Clarissa said. ‘She’s the one you’ll be guarding—the one you’ll be taking a bullet for if need be.’

I nodded. ‘I understand.’ I tapped the stone. ‘Hey, wake up.’

‘Who is this?’ the stone said.

‘Michael’s girlfriend.’

‘Bah, ordinary human,’ the stone said. ‘You woke me up for this?’

‘Who’s that speaking?’ Clarissa said.

‘It’s the stone in my engagement ring, a piece of sentient jade,’ I said. ‘It’s rude, arrogant and abusive.’

‘You forgot lazy,’ the stone said.

‘Yeah, that too. Anyway, stone, ask Zara if she’d like to do a job for me when she’s free from everything else. I need someone to act as a link between Clarissa and Michael while he’s working on the Celestial.’

‘Zara belongs to my dad,’ Michael said.

‘Precisely,’ I said. ‘Is it okay with you?’

‘It’s a great idea,’ he said.

I would be honoured
, Zara said.

All yours
, the Tiger said.

‘Okay, Clarissa, here’s what we’ll do. We’re going to give you a stone—a diamond—that talks just like my engagement ring. You can use it to talk to Michael anytime you like and keep in touch with him regardless of where he is. Right now, the stone is busy doing a computing job for me, but when she’s free, she’s all yours. Her name is Zara.’

‘A diamond?’ Clarissa said, turning to Michael, her eyes wide.

‘You’ll love her when you meet her,’ he said. He turned back to the food. ‘Dinner’s getting cold. Let me get you some of this chicken, Monica does amazing things with it.’

Clarissa opened her mouth to say something, then changed her mind, her disappointment evident.

I don’t know who’s more stupid, you or Michael
, the stone said.

Me
, I said.

Michael smiled at Clarissa, completely unaware.

I
arrived at the Academy the next morning to find a bunch of people in front of Chang’s desk and him sitting bewildered behind it.

‘Chang, escort our honoured guests to meeting room nine, the conference room on this floor, and have the demons serve them tea,’ I said. ‘I’ll be along shortly, everyone.’

‘Come with me,’ Simone said. ‘Chang, stay here. I’ll look after them.’

I went into my office and quickly checked the email.

Nothing important. ‘Are they done?’ I asked the stone. ‘No,’ it said. ‘They’re still cross-indexing.’

’Computers…always takes longer than they say.’

’Call any of the stones “computers” to their faces…’

’I know, I know, mortal insult, et cetera, et cetera. Nothing important here, I might as well go join the generals in room nine,’ I said. ‘Where’s that goddamn Tiger?’

‘No reply,’ the stone said.

‘I know what he’s doing,’ I said. ‘Oversexed bastard.’

‘Ma’am, sometimes…’ the stone said, and its voice trailed off.

‘Yes?’

‘Never mind.’

‘I sound like John. Yes, I’m hearing it myself now.’ I headed out to meeting room nine. ‘And it’s freaking me out as well.’

The generals rose and saluted me as I entered, then we all sat. Zhu Bo Niang’s usual form was a girl of fifteen, but for this meeting she’d aged to about thirty, and wore an elegant pink twin set and cream tailored slacks. The two male generals wore no-nonsense robes and armour.

‘The stones are still working on it,’ I said. ‘We should have a result soon.’

‘You can tell us about Nu Wa while we’re waiting,’ Zhu Bo Niang said. ‘I hear she was nothing as expected.’

‘She’s sad and lonely and won’t leave her pavilion,’ Simone said. ‘I wish the Celestial would send her a message to say she can come back.’

‘We do,’ Guang Ze said. ‘We’ve been sending her messages for thousands of years, and she hasn’t replied.’

‘Tell us about this demon we’re hunting,’ Bi Tian Hua said. ‘Sounds fun.’

‘Stone, put up a couple of pictures of the fake elementals he’s made,’ I said, and a collection of three-dimensional images of the various types of elementals appeared over the table. ‘He’s part of the original trio that was assisting One Two Two nine years ago; they were controlling stones, making fake elementals and making demonic copies of humans that are close to undetectable.’

‘I’ve heard about that,’ Guang Ze said. ‘Very disturbing.’ He leaned on the table. ‘Any word on the return of the Dark Lord? His presence would be extremely reassuring.’

‘Daddy doesn’t know when. Nobody knows,’ Simone said. ‘He’s in pieces.’

‘We should search for him, bring him back together,’ Guang Ze said. ‘Why hasn’t Ma suggested this?’

‘Ma himself went out into the world looking for him and found nothing,’ I said. ‘He’s still too wild and elemental to be found.’

‘If Ma can’t do it, nobody can,’ Bi Tian Hua said. ‘Ma can go places none of us are able to. We just have to cultivate patience.’

‘When he is strong enough to be found, we may be able to join forces—all thirty-six of us—and bring him back,’ Bo Niang said.

‘That would incapacitate all of us for a considerable time,’ Guang Ze said.

Bo Niang shrugged. ‘It’s an option if things become desperate. He’s more powerful than all of us put together—if needed, we can be sacrificed to ensure his return.’

‘Just one of us could sacrifice themselves completely, as well,’ Bi Tian Hua said.

Bo Niang nodded agreement. ‘That would work, and the other thirty-five would remain at full strength.’

‘What do you mean completely?’ Simone said.

‘You’re talking about total absorption and destruction to bring him back?’ I said.

Bi Tian Hua nodded. ‘It is an option.’

‘No it isn’t!’ I said.

‘They’re done,’ the stone said. ‘Gold is on his way.’

Gold appeared at the end of the table. ‘Turn the freak show off, Dad, I need the space,’ he said.

The elementals disappeared, and a map of Shenzhen took their place floating above the table.

‘Everything comes together at this point,’ Gold said. The map zoomed in to a compound on the north side of the city, far from the Hong Kong border. ‘Shenzhen Ming Dian Electronics Company. They have three factory buildings and dorms as well. Every single person we processed has some sort of link with this company.’ He smiled, triumphant. ‘That’s where the Geek is.’

The Tiger appeared at the end of the table, tucking his shirt in. ‘What are we waiting for? Let’s go.’

The rest of the group rose and I stopped them. ‘Wait, wait, wait. What did the company specialise in?’

‘Just computers.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Video cards, motherboards, what?’

‘Ironically enough, storage,’ Gold said. ‘Hard disks, disk controllers, RAID controllers—’

‘Raid?’ Guang Ze said.

‘Not that sort of raid. It means Random Array of Independent Disks; it’s a way of storing—’

‘I see,’ Guang Ze said. ‘Computer stuff.’

‘Yes. How is this relevant, ma’am? If you don’t mind me saying so, we need to move.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘He’s been one step ahead of us all the way, and he’s had three days to move his operation. Find all the
other
computer companies in Shenzhen that are producing the same stuff, because one of them will be where he’s moved to.’

‘He could still be in the same place,’ Gold said, protesting.

‘Simone and Tiger, work together and send some
elementals to Ming Dian and see if there are any demons there,’ I said. ‘I bet you ten dollars it’s been cleared out.’

‘I need to be about fifty metres away to send in elementals,’ Simone said.

‘Then hurry up and teleport!’ I said. ‘Come back with an answer for us. Keep your head down and stay invisible, don’t let them know you’re there.’

‘Come on, Simone, let me show you how it’s done,’ the Tiger said, and he and Simone disappeared.

‘Let me hook up with Calcite and Zara,’ Gold said. He disappeared as well.

‘You’d better be right, Emma, otherwise you’ll never live this down,’ Bo Niang said with humour.

‘Either way, he’s there or he’s not,’ I said. ‘My bet is that he’s moved on, but he needs the same sort of equipment to keep making the elementals.’

The Tiger and Simone reappeared.

‘She’s right,’ Simone said. ‘All cleared out, nothing there.’

‘Ma was right,’ Guang Ze said.

‘Damn straight,’ Bi said.

‘About what?’ I said.

‘You,’ Bo Niang said.

‘Scares the living shit out of me,’ the Tiger said. He sat at the table. ‘No beer? What sort of hospitality is this, woman?’ He summoned a can of beer and popped it open. ‘Tell those stones to hurry up. I got three women on the boil and I want something to dig my claws into.’

Gold reappeared, Calcite and Zara with him.

‘How many?’ I said.

The map zoomed out over the table and five red dots appeared, three close to each other and two on the
other side of town. ‘Five that specialise in storage,’ Gold said. Several green dots appeared, most of them in a cluster with two or three in separate locations. ‘Plus ten more that do it as well as other types of technology.’

I studied the map and pointed. ‘Tiger and Simone, see that one? That’s the specialty producer that’s furthest from Hong Kong, and it’s not clustered with the others.’ I turned to Simone. ‘This teleporting isn’t wearing you out, is it? We need you strong when we find it.’

‘Let’s go,’ Simone said, and she and the Tiger disappeared again, the Tiger’s beer left forgotten on the table.

Not here
, Simone said.
It’s closed up. Financial crisis, probably. The signs out the front say that it’s a joint venture with an American firm.

Passing on the location of the next furthest one away
, Gold said.

On our way
, Simone said.

‘So many firms folded up and blamed the GFC,’ Guang Ze said, ‘when in fact the owners just siphoned off all the funds and left. It’s disgusting.’

‘Corruption is a problem you just have to deal with,’ Bo Niang said.

‘How do you deal with it when you encounter it?’ Bi Tian Hua said, leaning forward with interest.

‘It depends on the situation,’ Bo Niang said. ‘If it’s a government official—’

Found it!
the Tiger roared in my head.
Holy fucking SHIT but this place is full of demons. Get your asses down here right now, there’s some serious fun brewing! Oh
—
I forgot.
His beer disappeared off the table.

Simone reappeared. ‘Change to snake, Emma, I’ll carry you down. Everybody else can teleport.’

‘This is wearing you out too much,’ I said.

‘I’m fine,’ Simone said. ‘Change. If we don’t get down there right now the Tiger’ll go in solo and mess it all up.’

I changed to serpent, she touched my head, and we arrived in Shenzhen. The rest of the group appeared behind me; Bo Niang had changed to robes and armour, the same as Bi and Guang. Leo appeared in his wheelchair then changed to lion form and leapt out of it, tipping it over. Gold appeared as well, in battle form: his human shape made of stone.

The Tiger grinned when he saw us. ‘Good job.’

I changed back to human form and summoned the Murasame.

‘Waste of time,’ Simone said. ‘You kill anything with that, you’re converted. Better to come as snake.’

‘If I change again I’ll be weak; give me a chance to get my breath,’ I said.

‘Let’s go,’ the Tiger said, and walked up to the gates.

The complex was a set of rectangular concrete buildings in the modern Stalinist Chinese style: utilitarian and unrelentingly ugly. The only greenery was a few large pots containing nondescript plants heavily coated in dust and yellowed from the pollution. There was a single driveway entrance to the complex off the road, blocked by wire gates under a larger concrete gate structure in the wall. The gates were chained and padlocked, with an armed security guard on either side. The guards hadn’t seen us—one of the Shen must have made us invisible—but they appeared uneasy, glancing around.

‘Demon or human?’ I said.

‘Demon,’ the Tiger said. ‘Stand back.’

The guards crumpled to the ground and demon goo splattered everywhere.

‘Oh, good job letting them know we’re here,’ Bo Niang said.

‘They wouldn’t have had a chance to report back,’ the Tiger said. He raised one hand and the gates sprang open.

‘Camera,’ Gold said, and pointed at the CCTV camera above the gate. ‘Fixed. I’m in the network. I can see the other security cameras; not showing anything unusual. Not surprising, I suppose. If you have something nasty going on you don’t want anybody to see it.’

We went through the gates and they closed and locked behind us. A large sign just inside showed a map of the different buildings in the complex.

‘Four buildings,’ the Tiger said. ‘One dormitory. One administration. Two manufacturing.’ He turned to me. ‘Which one?’

‘Administration,’ I said.

He pointed at the four-storey building next to us. ‘That’s it.’

I changed to serpent. ‘Time to move. Zara and Calcite, stay here and guard the exits. Let us know if he tries to get out.’

‘Ma’am,’ they said, and shrank to tiny stones.

We charged into the reception area of the administration block entrance. Two demons in the form of pretty young women jumped up when they saw us, and Simone destroyed them with blasts of chi. We raced past the reception desk and crashed through the doors on the other side—which led into a large room with manufacturing assembly lines stretching away from us all the way to the other end of the building. We stopped to check whether the workers seated in the cheap student chairs at the
assembly line were demons, and they all turned to look at us at the same time—all women with exactly the same face.