‘Come on, Mrs Leung,’ I said. ‘I’ll take you home.’
‘Thank you, madam,’ she said. ‘What is your honoured name?’
‘Just call me Emma, not madam,’ I said. ‘I’m nothing special.’
She gasped and fell to her knees, quickly saluting. ‘Forgive me, my Lady, I did not know. I am doubly honoured — the Dark Lord and the Dark Lady in one room.’
‘You don’t need to kneel to me,’ I said, exasperated, ‘I’m just a human. Come on, I’ll take you home.’
I checked my watch. ‘Seven thirty. She’s half an hour late.’
‘Something happened to her,’ Michael said.
‘Go,’ John said. ‘I’ll stay here with Simone.’ He glanced at me. ‘Take your weapons with you. I think you may need them.’
There was no answer from the Leungs’ flat when we buzzed the intercom. We shared a look. Michael concentrated and the front door clicked open. There was no security guard this time.
‘I have a bad feeling about this,’ Leo said as we went up in the lift.
It was completely silent on the nineteenth floor. We came to the Leungs’ apartment and stopped dead. Mrs Leung’s door had been splashed with red paint: a Triad warning sign. The metal gate hung open, but the wooden door inside it was closed.
Michael concentrated again. The latch sprang open. He carefully pushed the door open with PK; the paint was still wet.
They’d killed Mrs Leung in her fox form and then skinned her. Her husband lay dead beside her in a pool of blood.
The old woman was dead in the kitchen doorway. The Indonesian domestic helper was in the kitchen, decapitated.
We checked the apartment thoroughly, carefully not touching anything. Helen was gone.
Michael locked the door behind us as we went out and we returned to the Peak without saying a word to each other.
Back home, I sat down in the chair on the other side of John’s desk. ‘We keep making major mistakes,’ I whispered. ‘We should have brought her family in right away. We shouldn’t have waited.’
‘Making mistakes is what makes us human,’ John said. ‘You can only do what you feel is the right thing at the right time. Sometimes it is the wrong thing.’
I glanced up at him.
‘This is just one of many, many mistakes I have made in my life that have caused untold suffering to countless people,’ he said, his voice mild. ‘I could sense the death on her, but I hoped that we could protect the husband and child if we kept the situation normal so that the demons would not notice. I was wrong.’
‘You can sense death on a person? You knew she was going to die? Why didn’t you say something?’
‘What would I say? “Hello, Mrs Leung, you are going to die today”?’
I stopped dead. ‘Can you sense death on any of us?’
He gazed silently at me.
‘Answer me!’
‘Yes.’ He tied his hair back. ‘We are all surrounded by death. There is so much death in this household that it is difficult to say where and when and who. I will die. Leo will die. You and Simone . . .’ He took a deep breath and exhaled. He shook his head and the anguish showed, just for an instant. ‘I hope not. I cannot tell. There is too much death. Everywhere. And I am not perfect.’
‘But you’ve attained perfection,’ I said, bewildered. ‘You’ve attained the Tao.’
‘And I am not perfect,’ he said. ‘Nothing on the Earthly is.’ He leaned back and sighed again. ‘Fate has a hand, even for things as powerful as me. All we can do is try to make the best decisions we can with the information we receive.’
‘And people die,’ I whispered.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And death is part of life.’
‘Yang and yin,’ I said.
‘Exactly. Yang and yin.’
Simone and Michael finally fell out of bed at eleven o’clock on Saturday morning. School had worn them out, and they’d both stayed up late the night before. Thank God the term was finished. They really needed the break.
I found them in the kitchen, bickering over their cereal.
‘Don’t call me squirt!’ Simone snapped.
‘What do you want me to call you? Princess?’ Michael said, glowering.
Simone straightened. ‘Well, I am.’
‘Simone! Cut it out, both of you.’ I sighed. Michael particularly wasn’t a morning person. ‘Michael’s a prince anyway. You’re both very special.’
They glared at each other. Simone poked her tongue out at Michael, who turned back to his cereal and pointedly ignored her.
‘Ah Yat,’ I said, ‘where’s Lord Xuan? I just had a call from the Academy; he was supposed to be there and never turned up.’
‘The Lord is still sleeping, ma’am,’ Ah Yat said with a smile.
I glanced at the clock over the kitchen door. Eleven o’clock and he was still sleeping? Simone looked worried. I tried to control my face.
‘What?’ Michael said.
‘That’s very late,’ I said. ‘He wasn’t up late last night either. Where’s Leo, Ah Yat?’
‘In the training room, ma’am,’ Ah Yat said, the smile gone. ‘Is the Dark Lord all right?’
‘I hope so,’ I said softly. ‘He is just sleeping?’
Ah Yat’s eyes unfocused, and she nodded.
‘We should go and have a look, Emma,’ Simone said.
I hesitated.
Simone rose and took my hand. ‘Come on, Emma, you’re nearly married anyway. It’s okay. He won’t mind.’ She sounded much more mature than her six years. Her eyes unfocused, then she snapped back. ‘I told Leo.’
We went down the hall together, leaving Michael in the kitchen, his expression grim. Leo met us outside the training room.
‘He has been sleeping much more lately,’ Leo said. ‘Most days last week he wasn’t out of bed before we took them to school.’
I nodded. He was right.
‘He said to call the Lady if he went into a coma,’ I whispered.
Leo’s face went rigid. ‘Oh my God.’
‘Let’s go and see if he’s okay,’ Simone said, pulling my hand. ‘Come on, Leo.’
My heart was in my throat as we approached his door. Simone tapped on it. Not a sound. My stomach fell out.
Simone opened the door for us and led us in. The room was dark and he was asleep, as Ah Yat had said.
Simone dragged me to him. He was on his back, his noble face peaceful, his dark hair spread in a wild tangle around his head.
‘Daddy,’ Simone whispered. ‘Daddy, wake up.’
He didn’t move.
‘Oh, dear Lord,’ I said softly.
Simone reached under the covers and found his hand. She pulled it out and held it. ‘Daddy.’ She brushed her hand over his