‘Don’t worry, Bridget, I have too much respect for you to do anything like that,’ I said, also watching David as he introduced the auctioneer. ‘I’ll give him the information he asks for, but I know that his family needs him.’
She turned, quickly hugged me and kissed my cheek. ‘Thanks, Emma.’
The auctioneer moved up to the lectern and David returned to the floor to sit in front of the bidders.
‘We’re up,’ I said to Bridget. ‘Time to spend some money.’
When the auction was over, most of the guests hung around chatting, but Simone had spent a long day in school and we decided to head home to the Peak. We’d return to the Mountain in the morning after she’d rested. We paid for the parking at the shroff office under the Convention Centre and made our way to the car. Our footsteps echoed eerily in the car park; there weren’t many other people around.
A loud bang reverberated around the concrete walls. There was a horrible wet splat sound and Michael staggered. Someone was shooting at us.
I quickly raised my arms and summoned chi armour, which snapped into existence around me. Then I grabbed Michael and headed for the car. Leo threw himself out of the wheelchair, wrapped himself around Simone and pushed her towards the car as well.
‘Get low and run alongside the wall!’ Leo shouted.
A bullet hit my chi armour in the middle of my back and I staggered at the impact. There was a metallic ping as the bullet hit the concrete, its energy spent. Another bullet hit the floor behind us and shards of concrete sprayed across the back of my legs.
I half-pushed, half-dragged Michael towards the car, squeezing between the backs of parked cars and the wall. When we got there, I dragged him to the side and propped him against the concrete. My chi armour disintegrated; it would only hold for a minute at most and I’d done well to keep it around me that long.
‘Come on, Simone!’ Leo said, his voice full of urgency. ‘Disable that thing.’
‘What?’ Simone said.
‘Someone’s shooting at us,’ Michael said through his teeth. ‘I’m hit, I can’t … I’m sorry.’
He slid down the wall of the car park to sit, pulling me down with him. I pulled his jacket away and wrenched open his dress shirt; he’d been hit in the abdomen just below his ribs. Leo took off his tuxedo jacket and held it out to me. I wadded it into a rough pad and shoved it into Michael’s shirt.
‘Oh, shit, I didn’t realise,’ Simone said. ‘Give me a second …’ She hissed a long breath. ‘There are four enormous Snake Mothers out there, and they’re headed straight for us.’
‘Stop talking and disable that gun!’ Leo said.
‘I can’t see it,’ Simone said. ‘Michael …’ She knelt next to us and peered into his face. ‘How bad is it?’
‘I can’t heal it,’ Michael said, gasping. ‘There’s a lot of damage.’
One of the Mothers called from the centre of the car park lane: ‘Come out and play, little humans. We want to see what you can do.’
‘You take Emma, I’ll take Michael,’ Leo told Simone. ‘Let’s get them out of here.’
Simone put her hand on my arm and concentrated again. ‘Blocked,’ she said. She moved her head from side to side. ‘I think one of Six’s stones is in here somewhere.’
David Hawkes’s voice called out from the edge of the car park. ‘Emma, are you here? Emma, they say there’s a gas leak —’
The gun went off again and Bridget shrieked. I crawled towards the end of the car to see: David was lying on the ground, and he looked dead. Bridget stood over him, mouth open, frozen and screaming. Then they shot her too and she fell next to him, whimpering with pain.
‘They killed humans,’ Leo said.
‘What do you want?’ I called. ‘Don’t kill anybody. Let’s do a deal.’
‘They’re fine, they’re alive,’ one of the Mothers said, her voice hissing. ‘We’re not One Two Two, we’re honourable demons. We just want you, Emma. Come on out and we’ll let the others go.’
Simone’s head shot up and her eyes unfocused. She shook her head violently, grimacing with distaste, then appeared to give in.
‘What?’ I said. ‘Who’s talking to you?’
‘Your stone,’ she said. ‘Through your touch. Michael, Emma, hold still, this is worth a try.’
She reached towards Michael, slipped her hand inside his shirt, then pulled it out covered in blood. She quickly turned to me and swiped her hand across my face. I put my hand up to stop her, but too late.
‘What the hell, Simone?’ I started, then I tasted it. Michael’s blood tasted of Shen: warmth, sunshine and fresh air full of an icy fizz and mown grass. It poured into me and something dark and strong grew. I rose to stand and the power sang inside me with a deep bass rolling surge.
I pulled Leo up with one hand so he was standing next to me. ‘You and me, Lion, let’s go get them. When you have a good view of them, try your new shen energy.’ I glanced at him. ‘You’ve been abstaining, right?’
‘What happened to you, Emma?’ Simone said.
‘I have no idea,’ I said, the power growing and roaring, making me bigger, wider, darker and much, much meaner. ‘But it worked.’
Leo stared at me. ‘Yeah, I’ve been abstaining. What have you been doing?’
‘Tasting the blood of a child of Shen,’ I said, my voice deeper than it normally was. ‘Call your sword, it’s time for some reckoning. David and Bridget didn’t deserve that.’
I put my hand out and demanded that the Murasame obey me. It appeared in my hand, then grew slightly to fit me.
‘Am I in some sort of Celestial Form?’ I said.
‘No, you’re just … taller,’ Simone said.
‘Stay here. Stay back.’
Leo called his sword, the Black Lion, and flanked me on my left shoulder. I walked around the front of the car into the centre of the lane. I smelled the demons before I saw them. The earthy rich scent of human blood from David and Bridget was a nagging distraction on the edge of my senses, but these demons needed to die.
They shot at me, but I saw the bullet slide slowly towards me and easily evaded it. The four Mothers stood in front of a van in human form: tall, sleek, beautiful women. One of them had a modern assault rifle, but I didn’t recognise the type; time to ask the Mountain staff about firearms training so I knew what I was up against. She shot at me again, and again I easily evaded it; obviously not an automatic weapon.
The range of effects I could accomplish with my black chi scrolled inside my head. It was an incredibly useful tool and I could achieve so much with it. I hoped I’d remember the list when I came down off this insane blood high.
I moved into a long defensive stance, held the Murasame horizontally above my head with the point towards the demons, put some black chi into it and shot it at the demon with the gun. She exploded. The other three Mothers backed up, intimidated.
‘Who’s the boss?’ I said. ‘I see you all as about the same size.’
One of them summoned a slender Chinese sword and rushed us. Leo hit her with a ball of shen energy sixty centimetres across and she exploded.
‘Nice,’ I said.
‘Thanks.’
The two Mothers remaining changed to True Form and summoned weapons. The one on the left took a polearm; the one on the right, a two-handed battleaxe.