‘Is there anything else I can do to atone for the pain I caused you, Emma?’ he said, his face still warm and full of affection.
‘Yi Hao, Er Hao.’ I waved my two demon servants forward without looking behind me. ‘These are my demons from One Two Two’s nest. I want you to tell me if they are the original demons or copies; and if they are programmed to turn. I want your assurance that I am safe with them, because I love them dearly.’
He turned his attention to them and his face lit up. ‘If you can love these two demons then maybe there is room in your heart for one more.’
‘You said you’d love me as snake broth,’ I said.
He leaned back and his expression grew wry. ‘You’ll never let me forget that, will you? It was a spur of the moment thing, Emma, just competitive bullshit. You know I was talking out of my ass.’
‘Will you check my demons for me?’
‘I will.’ He waved them closer. ‘Come here, little ones, I will not harm you.’
‘Or hurt them,’ I said.
He nodded acquiescence. ‘Of course.’ He waved to them again and they sidled towards him. ‘I hear you were willing to sacrifice the Tiger’s wives — one of whom is your own best friend — for these two tiny demons.’
‘The wives had the Tiger’s whole army defending them. All these demons had was me,’ I said. ‘Any creature that chooses to seek humanity and attain the Tao is worthy of protection.’
‘You need to concentrate on the bigger picture, sweetie. Ah Wu would have protected the humans before any demon.’ He gestured towards the demons. ‘Kneel.’ They hesitated, and he spoke more brusquely. ‘Down!’
Yi Hao approached and knelt before him. He put one hand on the side of her head and concentrated; she remained rigid with fear as he studied her.
‘Demons are demons and they don’t have a real life at all,’ he said. ‘Even if they choose to turn and pursue the Way, they’re not worth anything.’
He snapped back, then waved Er Hao forward. She knelt and he touched her head as well, then released her. ‘They’re not copies. They’re nothing special. No programming.’ He glanced up at me. ‘How were you identifying the copies if these ones were suspect?’
‘Touch them loaded with shen energy …’ I hesitated. Had I told him too much?
‘Don’t worry, Emma, I don’t have access to shen energy. You can tell me.’
‘Touch them loaded with shen energy and you get a similar effect to a Shen touching them without protecting them. They go black.’
‘And these little ones go black in response to shen energy as well?’ the King said, turning his attention back to my demons.
‘They do.’
‘They shouldn’t do that. They are probably the result of some of Simon’s breeding experiments before his Mother was destroyed. Or …’ He leaned hungrily towards them. ‘Maybe they’re the spawn of that Mother he made himself.’ He grinned at me. ‘The one he made from your friend.’ He put his hands on his knees. ‘I would love to tear these two apart and see what’s inside. They’re fascinating.’
Yi Hao and Er Hao jumped to their feet and scurried to hide behind me.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said, putting my hands behind me to touch them without looking away from the King. ‘I won’t let him hurt you.’
‘We trust you, ma’am,’ Yi Hao said, but her voice quavered with fear.
‘Can I trust them?’ I said. ‘You said they were probably specially bred by One Two Two. Are they agents for Kitty or the Death Mother? Are they spies?’
‘They are tame demons, and they are yours. They have been tamed with the Fire Essence Pill and cannot turn on you. You can trust them.’
‘Go back to the others,’ I said, and they ran back to my group. ‘Tell the Tiger to summon tikuanyin tea for me.’
‘Allow me,’ the King said, and a pot and cups of priceless crackled green glaze appeared before us. He poured for both of us and raised his cup. ‘Warn the Celestial about the demons those two have created, the ones that are programmed to explode. I never thought I’d see the like again, and here they are. So wrong. Probably just a small part of their arsenal, Emma, be very careful. They may have copies that are undetectable even with shen.’
‘How badly do you want the Death Mother and Kitty taken down?’ I said.
He carefully replaced his cup on the table. ‘Badly enough to enlist your help. Particularly Kitty — she is an unknown quantity. I’ve never seen anyone do what she’s done; she’s well on the way to some sort of twisted Immortality. She can survive in Hell unassisted, but she’s still human enough that I can’t break my vow to Ah Wu and deal with her myself.’ He lifted his teacup again and studied it. ‘To be honest, she scares me. I think she has designs on my throne.’ He gazed at me over the rim of the cup. ‘She has links with the other Centres; being human, she has no limitations on her travel. She helped Six make those hybrid stone elementals using Western stones.’
‘Will you assist the forces of Heaven to find and stop them?’
His blood-coloured eyes were intense. ‘Are you speaking as a representative of the Celestial here? A simple ordinary human female, mortal, un-Raised, and only holding your title in a temporary capacity?’
I raised my teacup. ‘That I am, Wong Mo.’
He took a swig of his tea. ‘You’re doing it again.’
I sipped my own tea: perfectly normal tikuanyin. ‘Thank you.’
‘I will have to walk a very fine line, Dark Lady. Assist you too much and I will appear weak to my subjects; they will see me as a puppet of the Celestial and turn against me. If I do not assist you enough, these two bitches could threaten my throne.’ He placed the teacup on the table and turned it in his manicured fingers. ‘One of the most delicate dances I have ever performed.’
‘In this case we share a common goal,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to see either of them on your throne either.’
He put his hands on the table on either side of the cup and inhaled deeply, throwing his head back and closing his eyes. ‘Oh, but I would so like to see you on my side.’ He opened his eyes and they burned into me. ‘Even without the demon essence, you are so dark and powerful and destructive — so attractive and intriguing. No wonder Ah Wu found you irresistible; you appeal to both his demonic and Celestial sides.’
‘You could tell me what I am as a show of good faith,’ I said.
‘I could,’ he said. ‘But I’ve already cleared you of demon essence. I think that’s enough for now. I have your word.’ He picked up his teacup and drank again. ‘You have the phone. If I get any leads I’ll send you a text or something. Right now I think Kitty’s on the Earthly somewhere overseas, and the Death Mother is in Southeast Asia somewhere like Laos or Vietnam. You’re still weak anyway, Emma. Rest and send in agents, and we’ll both see what we can turn up on the intelligence side.’
He disappeared.
I rose and turned back to our group and the table also disappeared.
I sighed. ‘Now what do I do with these demons?’
‘Start a massage parlour for the Hong Kong ladies that pop across the border on the weekends to have their nails done. You’d make a fortune,’ Leo said.
‘Liu,’ I said loudly. ‘Find something for these demons to do, will you?’
‘Sure thing, Emma. We’ll use them for binding practice until they expire.’