Red Phoenix (43 page)

‘I try not to fit any sort of stereotype,’ he growled. His voice softened. ‘What are you, Emma?’

‘Apart from what you see, Leo, which I can’t see myself right now, ‘cause I’m completely blind,’ I said, ‘I have absolutely no idea.’

‘You can’t see?’

‘Not a thing,’ I said. ‘You’ll have to tell me what I look like later.’

‘You don’t want to know.’

‘Is it one hundred per cent snake?’ I said, and turned my head under Leo’s hand.

‘I wish. That would be a major improvement on what I’m looking at.’

‘Do you want me to take a photo, Emma?’ John said.

‘No way. I’m handling this now, don’t freak me out.’ I pulled myself together. ‘Whoa, I’m okay. I really am. I feel fine.’ I turned to Leo. ‘Are you okay, Leo, dear Leo?’

I blindly saw Leo nod. ‘Yes, my Lady.’ John sighed with relief.

‘We have things to do,’ I said briskly. ‘Parents to reassure, demons to kill, things like that. How will we get me back again?’

‘Can I take my hand off?’ Leo said.

‘Sure,’ I said, and his hand moved away.

‘I thought you’d be cold and slimy. But you’re warm and dry and rather nice to touch,’ Leo said.

‘Most reptiles are,’ John said, across from me. ‘What we will do, Emma, is the Tiger will take his claws out of your head.’

‘Ouch,’ I said. ‘That will hurt like hell. You have your claws in my head?’

‘Metaphorically speaking,’ the Tiger said. ‘I’m not actually physically touching you at all right now.’

‘Still feel the same way, Tiger?’ I said.

‘Not so sure now, my Lady,’ the Tiger said. ‘I think it would take a very special sort of guy to love what I’m looking at right now.’

‘Good thing I have one then,’ I said, and I felt John nodding. I felt his amused reaction. Then I felt a jolt of shock. ‘Wait! Tiger. Hold. Don’t do it yet.’

They all hesitated, wondering.

I turned very carefully to face John. I saw him, still blind.

On the other side of the table was a Turtle. Its head was fierce and demonic, with a frilled scaly mane around it; like a cross between a lion’s and a dragon’s, but much uglier. Its black shell stretched forever. Its enormous shining dark eyes watched me with amusement. With John’s eyes. I suddenly wanted to weep with joy, but the snake eyes wouldn’t let me. He was the most beautiful and the most horrifying and the most wonderful thing I had ever seen.

‘I can see you, John. I can see all of you. My God, but you are ugly. No wonder Simone was scared of you.’ I paused. ‘Simone should see me, John. She needs to understand as well.’

‘What we are looking at now is different from what we saw before,’ John said, and the Turtle spoke. The sight took my breath away. ‘What we have now is a halfway point between Emma and the Serpent, artificially forced on you by Bai Hu. It would not be a good idea to show this to Simone. I will talk to her later, and explain.’

‘Michael too,’ I said softly.

The Turtle nodded without speaking. I wanted to smile but I couldn’t. ‘Damn, John, but you are the cutest thing I have ever seen in my entire life.’

‘You’re pretty goddamn cute yourself,’ John shot back. The Turtle grinned and I wanted to laugh. ‘Those black scales are incredibly attractive.’

‘Cute is not a word I would be using right here and now,’ Leo growled.

I took a deep breath. It felt very strange to be
breathing through both forms. ‘Okay, Tiger,’ I said firmly, ‘do it.’

The world exploded into a haze of agony. He ripped my brain out of the top of my head, pulling my eyeballs with it. He tore the skin on my face from my skull.

And then the pain was gone.

‘Open your eyes, Emma,’ Ms Kwan said.

I opened my eyes and quickly checked myself. Perfectly normal. The Tiger sat next to me on my right. Leo stood between him and me. Ms Kwan sat across from me. John sat on the other side of her. They all watched me with varying degrees of incredulity.

Leo bent over me, took my hand and kissed me on the cheek. ‘I’m sorry, Emma,’ he whispered.

I squeezed his hand, then touched his cheek. ‘I love you dearly, Leo, you know I wouldn’t hurt you.’ I looked into his eyes. ‘You were really brave. You are the bravest man I know. I saw what that took.’

He smiled down at me and his eyes sparkled. ‘Thanks, Emma.’

‘You were going to do some other tests? I hope they won’t hurt as much as that.’ I grinned at the Tiger. ‘Those are some serious virtual claws you have there.’

‘Can I stay and watch?’ Leo said.

‘If Emma doesn’t mind, I don’t,’ John said.

‘Of course not.’

‘Good.’ John pulled the bowl of water towards him. ‘Watch this.’ He put his hand over the water. It quickly boiled. Steam rose from it. ‘Now.’ The water made a sharp crackling sound as it instantly turned to ice. ‘Next.’ The water immediately melted, then rose out of the bowl in a glistening lump.

‘Whoa,’ Leo said.

‘Drop it on the Tiger,’ I said. ‘Wash his dirty mind.’

John and the Tiger both laughed softly. The water went back into the bowl. John put the bowl in front of me. ‘Try.’

I concentrated. Nothing happened.

‘Put your hand in the water, see if you can warm it,’ John said.

I did. I concentrated. Again, nothing.

‘Nothing there,’ John said, and the disappointment was obvious in his voice.

‘If I were your Serpent, I would be able to do that, wouldn’t I?’ I said quietly.

His face was rigid. He nodded once, sharply.

‘You should have tested her while she was that scaly thing,’ Leo said.

‘You are quite right,’ John said, and eyed me appraisingly.

‘No
way
is that cat,’ I said, pointing at the Tiger, ‘sticking his claws into my head again. That damn well
hurt
!’

The knife lifted off the table and moved towards me. ‘Catch,’ the Tiger said, and it fell out of the air. I concentrated quickly. The knife hit the table with a clatter.

‘Try to bend it,’ the Tiger said. I concentrated. Again, nothing.

John grabbed the large bowl, stuffed a piece of newspaper into it, and lit it with the cigarette lighter. He put it in front of me. ‘See if you can change its colour.’

I concentrated. Nothing at all. ‘Put it out,’ John said. Again, nothing.

John lifted the water from the bowl onto the fire and it went out.

‘Not surprising, I suppose,’ Ms Kwan said. ‘Two more.’

John passed me the wooden branch. It was a large twig with leaves on it. ‘Try to make it grow.’ I concentrated. Nothing.

‘I think we’re wasting our time here, guys,’ I said. ‘I think in human form I’m just a perfectly normal human woman, and the Snake part spends most of its time hiding.’ I stopped. ‘I can’t believe I just talked about myself taking human form,’ I said with wonder. ‘That is
so weird.’

‘Try the last one anyway,’ John said. ‘But it’s highly unlikely that you would have Earth; such a thing is extremely rare.’

‘You’re Water.’ I pointed at John, and he nodded. ‘You’re Metal,’ I said to the Tiger, who smiled slightly. ‘Qing Long is Wood, Zhu Que is Fire. Who’s Earth? There’s a Fifth Wind?’

‘There is a Centre, not a Wind, Emma,’ Kwan Yin said, her voice full of deference. ‘Earth is the Middle. It is the Lord of us all. It is the Jade Emperor Himself. He is Earth and Stone.’

‘Oh. I sincerely do not want to meet this guy.’ They all went rigid the minute the word ‘guy’ came out of my mouth. ‘Just the idea of him scares me to death.’

‘I think all creatures know instinctively exactly how formidable the Celestial One is,’ Ms Kwan said softly.

John picked up the stone. ‘The Celestial will be extremely annoyed the minute he finds out about those hybrid elementals.’ He put the stone in front of me. ‘Just try to move it.’

I concentrated on the stone. Nothing.

‘No elemental alignment,’ the Tiger said. ‘See if you can nail the snake down when she transforms again and test it then.’

‘The Serpent was extremely powerful. I still may be able to touch you,’ John said. ‘Let’s try.’

‘You won’t,’ I said. ‘What did Meredith say? You let your love cloud your judgement.’

‘Come and stand between myself and Mercy,’ John said anyway.

I rose and stood between them.

‘Hold my hand, Emma,’ Ms Kwan said, and put her hand out. I took her hand in my left. ‘Now take his.’ I took John’s hand in my right.

‘Release my hand. Rest yours on mine,’ Ms Kwan said. I moved my hand so that it was just resting on hers, palm to palm.

‘I will move my hand. Stay perfectly still,’ Ms Kwan said. ‘Don’t move.’

She moved her hand away from underneath mine. Nothing happened.

‘Yes,’ I said softly.

John moved to say something on my right. A black hole opened up in front of him. I was sucked straight into it. Kwan Yin quickly grabbed my hand. Everything rushed together and I was back between them. I sagged. ‘No.’

John dropped my hand, threw himself up, and stalked away from the table without saying a word.

‘Come back here!’ I yelled. He stopped and turned, expressionless.

‘You do not have time to do sword katas right now!’ I shouted. ‘My parents are in my room, shell-shocked, and we are going to talk to them and sort this out! And then we are going to find out exactly what happened, and go and kick some serious demon ass!’

He put his hands up in defeat. ‘All right, all right,’ he said wryly as he flopped back into his chair. ‘Don’t get your scaly tail in a knot.’

Both Leo and the Tiger laughed gently at that.

‘I don’t have—’ I started to shoot back, and then I stopped.

‘Damn,’ I said quietly and flopped down into a chair. ‘I am
not
having a good day.’

‘I will be watching you,’ Kwan Yin said. ‘I will return to help you with your mother.’ She disappeared.

‘Am I a Shen?’ I said to the Tiger before he disappeared as well.

‘I don’t think so,’ the Tiger said. ‘Like we said, none of us has seen anything like you before.’

‘Am I already Immortal?’ I said more softly.

‘Most definitely not,’ the Tiger said, amused. ‘Don’t try anything stupid. Right now, you are just an ordinary human female.’

‘See?’ the stone in my ring said.

‘Shut the hell up!’ John and I both snapped at the same time.

‘Stay and help, if you can, my friend,’ John said to the Tiger.

‘I am being summoned,’ the Tiger said. ‘I think I’m about to be debriefed. With extreme prejudice. A great deal of brown sticky stuff is about to hit some swiftly rotating blades. I think you should count yourself lucky that you can’t travel very far right now, and that certain Celestials don’t like slumming it on the Earthly. I’ll be back as soon as I’m finished trying to cover for your worthless shell. Okay?’

‘Go,’ John said wearily, waving him away with one hand. ‘Thanks,’ he added sincerely.

‘My Lord, my Lady. Dark Turtle, Dark Serpent,’ Bai Hu added, rubbing it in with relish. ‘By your leave.’

‘Piss off, Tiger,’ I said, just as wearily. ‘Dark Serpent indeed.’

The Tiger grinned at me and winked. He disappeared. John eyed me appraisingly. ‘You think you can do it at will?’

‘I did it because Simone said you were going and I was just so mad I wanted to explode,’ I said. ‘I really don’t think I have any control over it at all.’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘with your temper I don’t think we’ll be waiting too long to see it again.’

Later I sat on the couch in the living room with only a table lamp for illumination. The apartment was dark and quiet; everybody else was asleep. Kwan Yin had shown me to my mother, and my mother had accepted me, but it had been hard for her. Kwan Yin had done something to both of my parents and they’d fallen asleep without trouble.

I heard a soft sound. Simone stood in the hallway in her nightdress, leaning on the doorframe. I held out one arm and she crept onto the couch next to me. She put her head on my shoulder and I wrapped my arm around her.

‘Are you okay, Emma?’ she said softly.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I just can’t sleep. What about you, sweetheart? You weren’t too scared?’

‘I’m okay,’ she whispered. ‘I know it’s you. But why were you a snake?’

I sighed with feeling. ‘I wish I knew.’

‘You wouldn’t hurt us anyway. It’s still you.’

‘I know,’ I whispered.

John appeared in the doorway in his black pyjama pants, his long hair falling over his shoulder. He hesitated, then came to us.

Simone shifted so that he could sit on the other side of her, and he pulled her into his lap. ‘Turn around,’ I whispered, and he swivelled so that I could braid his hair for him. I braided it tight, enjoying the silken feeling. I threw my arms over his shoulders and held him from behind, then pulled away. He turned so that I could cuddle into him and he wrapped his arm around me. I pulled my feet up and leaned on him.

Simone put her head on his chest, her huge golden eyes turned towards me. ‘Your hair smells like the sea, Daddy,’ she whispered. ‘Why?’

‘Because I am what I am,’ he said, his voice rumbling through his chest.

Simone didn’t move or reply.

‘Are you two okay?’ he said softly. ‘You should be sleeping.’

Simone turned her face away from me, still leaning on his chest.

‘You know that Emma loves you,’ John said.

Simone turned her face back to me and smiled. She reached out and touched my cheek. ‘I know. I think she loves me more than she loves you, Daddy.’

‘She would never hurt you,’ he said.

‘I know that,’ she said. ‘But why is she a snake?’

‘Nobody knows,’ he said. ‘It might be because I’m a snake too.’

Simone was silent. Then she pulled herself upright, her little arms around his neck, and smiled into his face. ‘We’ll all be just fine, you know that?’

He wrapped his arm around her and squeezed both of us. ‘Yes, we will.’

Simone dropped her head back onto his chest and sighed. ‘We’re all going to be just fine.’