‘No,’ I whispered.
‘Promise him, Emma,’ Leo said.
‘Do it, dear,’ the stone said. ‘It would reassure me as well. I don’t want to see you thrown to the Mothers. All three of us are asking you here.’
‘Promise me,’ John said. ‘You will only use the phone if I go down or if Simone is in real danger. And if you must use the phone, you will pretend to give in to the King’s advances. Promise me.’
‘Only if I must,’ I said. I took a deep breath. ‘I promise.’
‘I thank you, my Lady,’ John said, and turned back to the road. ‘Now let’s go and destroy this demon and get our little girl back.’
‘This is all my fault,’ Leo whispered.
‘You have failed us, Leo,’ John said. ‘If you wish to redeem yourself, then do your best to stay alive.’
‘My Lord.’
Leo stopped the car in a yellow-lined no-parking zone directly in front of the Kowloon City Park gates. We slammed the car doors shut, pulled our weapons out of the trunk, and moved as one through the gates of the Park. John took Dark Heavens; he was too weak to carry Seven Stars. I had my Serpent sword. Leo carried Michael’s white sword.
It was nearly six o’clock and there were still many people strolling around. The park was Chinese-style
gardens with paved paths meandering between them, and pavilions alongside the paths. A large pond formed the centrepiece. We attracted quite a few concerned glances as we stormed along the path holding the blades.
The Tiger, the Phoenix, the Dragon and Na Zha appeared from behind a pavilion and joined us. They all appeared as perfectly normal Chinese; they’d even made themselves very plain. The Phoenix was a middle-aged Chinese lady; the Dragon and Tiger were men of similar age. Na Zha looked like a regular Chinese teenager.
‘There is an entrance under the
yamen
building,’ I said.
‘Let’s go,’ the Tiger said, and we headed through the gardens towards the building.
John stopped dead. ‘Wait.’ He concentrated. ‘Stone.’
‘My Lord?’ the stone said.
‘Will you be able to talk to us once we’re under here?’
‘I will be able to communicate with the Lady,’ the stone said. ‘Other than that, I will be silenced.’
‘Not even Gold?’ John said.
‘No,’ the stone said. ‘Only the one who bears me.’
‘Okay,’ John said, glancing around. ‘Mark this place. About one hundred metres below us, directly below me, Simone is being held. Can you guide us back to this location once we’re under?’
‘Yes,’ the stone said. ‘Done.’
‘Can you see through, John?’ I said.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I can just sense her presence. She is there.’
‘Can you talk to her?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘From what I can see, however, she is unharmed.’
‘Can you sense Martin?’ I said.
‘No.’ He hefted his blade and continued along the path, pushing past a family who were strolling very
slowly through the park. ‘Let’s go.’ The family saw the blades, exclaimed loudly and took off, walking quickly.
‘Damn,’ I said. ‘They’ll probably call the police and report a gang war.’
‘Here’s the
yamen
building,’ Na Zha said. ‘The police won’t find anything.’
The
yamen
building was the old administration building for Kowloon Walled City. It was red brick, with a traditional green tiled roof and a pair of cannons flanking the doorway. Inside, it was bare concrete. We all stopped and looked around.
‘This is difficult,’ the Phoenix said, concentrating. ‘Because of the blockage to our vision, we cannot see the entrance at all.’
‘Stone?’ I said.
Gold appeared and saluted us. He took his stone form and floated around the room, checking. The stone drifted out of my ring, grew to a similar size to Gold, and moved along the opposite perimeter of the room from Gold. It shrank and returned to my ring, and Gold returned to human form, gesturing to indicate the floor.
‘The entrance is here. I don’t know how to open it. It appears to be some sort of trapdoor.’
John nodded. ‘Don’t worry, we will find a way in. You are dismissed. Well done.’
‘Get the bastard who did this to my siblings,’ Gold said, and fell to one knee before us, saluting. ‘Lord Xuan. It’s been a blast.’
‘I hope you’re free when I return, because there’s a job for you if you are,’ John said.
‘Double my salary and I may consider it,’ Gold said. ‘I have a family to support now.’
‘Done,’ John said, and Gold disappeared.
‘But we don’t pay him anything,’ I said, crouching to examine the floor.
‘That’s precisely the point,’ John said, crouching next to me.
The other Immortals moved to join us.
‘Stand back,’ Na Zha said. ‘I’ll just blast it open.’
He didn’t need to. The building’s external doors slammed shut by themselves and the trapdoor flew open. We all stepped back. About a dozen young men climbed up some stairs into the room. They looked like gang members with their dyed hair and tattoos. They carried small guns and grinned.
‘Damn!’ John said softly.
The Dragon concentrated and they all collapsed as if they were dead.
‘That was unnecessary, Ah Qing,’ the Phoenix said. ‘You will be reprimanded for that.’
‘They were only humans,’ the Dragon said, and gestured for us to follow him down the stairs.
I checked one of the young men. The Dragon was right: they were human. And he’d killed every single one of them with his Internal Eye.
The stairs went a long way down but the corridor didn’t darken. The walls were lined with white enamel panels, similar to the walls of some of the more upmarket exits to the MTR stations, but there was no visible lighting.
‘Touch the wall for me, Emma,’ the stone said softly.
I put my hand on the wall as I walked down.
‘Touch me to it.’
I turned my hand over and slid the stone against the wall.
‘The Grandmother will be nearly as pissed as I am,’ the stone said. ‘I have half a mind to take human form and join you.’
‘Stay there,’ John said. ‘He may not be aware of what you are.’
The stone was silent.
The Tiger took True Form and loped ahead of us. The Phoenix and Dragon stayed in human form; their True Forms would be too big to fit on the narrow stairway. John didn’t transform either.
‘Will you take True Form, my Lord?’ Leo said as he followed us down the stairs.
John was silent, still moving quickly. It was a long way down.
‘Oh my God,’ I said softly.
‘What, Emma?’ Leo said.
I stopped. ‘Wait, John,’ I said. ‘Tell me how bad it is.’
‘At the bottom,’ John said. ‘There are no demons there.’
‘At the bottom you will tell me exactly how bad it is, John Chen Wu,’ I said grimly, rushing to keep up.
When we reached the bottom, I looked back. We were a good five storeys down, and the stairs hadn’t turned so we’d travelled about two hundred metres in as well. The trapdoor was a tiny square of light a long way behind us.
‘Can you sense Simone?’ I said.
John concentrated. ‘Yes. She is behind us, about three hundred metres away.’
‘And about fifty metres down,’ the stone said. ‘You will need to descend further.’
‘Now that we are inside, can you still see the layout?’ the Phoenix said.
‘In a way,’ the stone said. ‘Some of it. I may be able to guide you.’
‘Good,’ John said.
There was an opening at the bottom of the stairs, and we went in. The smell was indescribable. This was obviously where the men had their rest room. There was a television, a table set up for mah jong, a filthy couch and a microwave. Cigarette butts coated the floor and the walls were greasy with smoke. Beer cans were strewn everywhere.
I moved as close to John as I could. ‘You will tell me how bad this is right now, or I swear I’ll use the phone anyway,’ I said.
John glanced at the Tiger.
‘Tell her,’ the Tiger said, his tail twitching.
John gave in. ‘It is very bad. I don’t know how much will remain once I take True Form. If there are demons present, the Turtle will destroy them. After that, I don’t know.’
‘What do you mean, “remain”?’ Leo said.
‘Sometimes I’m glad none of my wives are as smart as this one,’ the Tiger said.
I explained for Leo. ‘If he changes while he’s this drained, the True Form will probably be all animal. John Chen won’t exist. That’s why he’ll be gone for so long. Like he said, if there are demons around, the Turtle will destroy them, that’s its nature. But if there are no demons present, the Turtle could very well just take off.’
Leo glanced at John. John’s face didn’t shift but his eyes blazed.
‘You should have told us this, my Lord,’ Leo said softly.
‘I thought I would be coming in after a week with the Lady,’ John said. ‘If I had spent that week with her, I would have been able to retain control long enough to see the demon destroyed. Now…’ His face didn’t shift. ‘I am very drained. It is best if I do not release the Turtle until we face One Two Two. Let’s go.’
The door opened onto a wider corridor, but it didn’t go down. It did make a U-turn to go in the right direction though. We didn’t hesitate, we followed it. It was lined with the same white enamel panels and seemed to stretch forever.
‘Any corridors or turns or stairs up ahead?’ I said.
Nobody said anything.
‘Can anybody see anything at all?’
There was complete silence as we marched down the hallway.
‘Hold,’ the stone said. ‘I think I can sense some demons ahead on the left.’
Nobody stopped.
‘Stop,’ I said. ‘The stone says there are demons up ahead on the left.’
‘You will need to relay for me now, Emma. I’m silenced,’ the stone said.
The Immortals stopped and concentrated.
‘Hard to tell,’ the Phoenix said.
‘A large number of very big ones, about ten metres along this corridor on the left,’ Na Zha said. ‘I’ll take them. You go past.’
‘You sure?’ I said.
Na Zha transformed into his True Form. His pale blue robes flowed around him and his long hair was down to his waist. He held his whip in his left hand and his ring weapon in his right.
‘Just go past,’ he said. ‘Let me take them.’ He shook out his shoulders. ‘I’ve been looking forward to having fun with some real opposition for a while. This should be good.’
‘Meet up with us later,’ John said. ‘Enjoy.’
About fifty metres down the hallway, on the left side, was a door. The corridor turned a corner at the door and continued to the right. Na Zha stopped at the door and nodded to us as we went past. When we were about twenty metres away he opened the door and laughed loudly.
We didn’t look back. We raced down the hallway. It turned a sharp left at the end. We went around.
A slime waited for us. It was a fluorescent lurid shade of green and hung off the ceiling in a mucousy stringing curtain.
‘What the hell is that?’ Leo said behind me.
‘Slime,’ I said. ‘Very rare and highly toxic. Only energy can take it out. Impossible to tell how big it is until you’ve hit it. Energy workers have to be very careful with these; sometimes they’re big enough to kill you with the chi backlash, but you don’t know until you’ve tried.’
‘Then it’s obviously meant for you,’ Leo said.
‘Obviously,’ I said. ‘It’s probably big enough to kill me.’
‘That’s beside the point,’ the Phoenix said. She quickly transformed to True Form and blew a shaft of searing flame directly at the demon from her beak. It shrivelled, blackened and fell off the ceiling. The Phoenix turned back into her preferred human form, with flowing long red hair and a red robe.
‘Don’t step in it,’ she said as she lifted her robes to walk carefully over the smouldering mass on the floor.
We all followed her, the Tiger leaping easily over the blackened slime. The corridor ended about ten metres away at another door. As one the Immortals stiffened and spun. The Dragon grabbed me and pulled me behind him.
‘What?’ I said.
‘Back,’ John said.
‘What?’ Leo said.
‘Ah Na Zha was taken down,’ the Dragon said softly. ‘I am not sure what these things are that destroyed him, but they are on their way.’
We backed to the door. It was tiled with white enamel and didn’t have a handle. I gave it an experimental push. It didn’t move.
The Dragon and the Phoenix transformed and moved into position in front of us.
‘Go,’ the Dragon said, and the door flew open behind me. ‘Go and find Simone. Zhu Que and I will handle them. Tiger, Turtle, take them.’
I heard them coming down the hallway, but never saw them. The Dragon pushed me through the doorway with his tail, then pushed Leo and John after me. The Tiger came last. The door closed in our faces.
We were at the top of a flight of stairs that went down about fifty metres to a door at the bottom.
‘Simone is at the bottom of the stairs, about twenty metres further along,’ the stone said. ‘You are nearly there.’
‘Nearly there,’ I said. ‘Bottom of the stairs, about twenty metres further along.’
John didn’t say anything as we raced down the stairs. Then he and the Tiger stopped and concentrated.
‘There are more on the other side of this door, waiting for us,’ John said. Then he went rigid. ‘The Dragon and Phoenix are gone—the demons destroyed them—but they managed to take the last couple of turtles with them.’
‘Can you three handle them?’ the Tiger said.
John concentrated. ‘Yes. There are about fifteen level sixty snakes on the other side of this door.’
‘I’ll scout ahead and find the demon, you get Simone,’ the Tiger said. His body shimmered, then he snapped back. ‘Can’t travel in here; interesting.’ He shook his shaggy head. ‘Ouch.’ He grinned up at me. ‘I’ll just have to destroy these demons with you.’
‘Let me go through the door first,’ Leo said. ‘I’ll see how many I can take out before I go down. You can take the rest.’
‘Go through together,’ the stone said. ‘Emma, with energy. Turtle, Lion, Tiger, physical. Go in swinging. You will have more of a chance.’
‘Stop, Leo,’ I said. ‘The stone says go in swinging together. Me with energy, you three with physical.’
‘Yes,’ John said. ‘I’ll open the door, Leo stand back, Emma hit them first with energy.’