Demon Child Read online

  A machine gun below the tank’s turret gun fired a short barrage and both she and her horse fell, shredded by the bullets. Another Horseman charged in to finish the job, and was also shredded before he was fifty metres from the tank.

  ‘We can’t stop all the bullets, there’s too many of them,’ Michael said. ‘We’re building a wall, but we can’t grab enough —’

  ‘To hell with this,’ the Dragon said, and the camera switched to his viewpoint.

  He leapt to fly and the camera slid dizzyingly up and down as he writhed through the air. The tank followed his progress with its turret gun and fired at him as he approached, but its aim was ruined. He dived onto the tank through the bullets from the other demons’ guns, picked it up with his forefeet, flew over the water and dropped it into the lake with a massive splash that caused waves to cascade over the causeways.

  He lifted into the air. ‘I’m hit. Never mind, just a couple of bullets. I’m fine.’

  ‘We need archers,’ Ma said. ‘Dragons to rake the gunmen from above. Where the hell did they get so many automatic weapons?’

  ‘Obvious place,’ I said under my breath as I watched.

  ‘Range on these is two hundred metres,’ Haruna said. ‘Dad, we’re severely outgunned. It’s like the twenty-first century meets the fifteenth.’

  ‘They’re not carrying extra ammo,’ the Tiger said. ‘At full automatic their weapons will go for thirty seconds max. Obviously nobody’s taught them to conserve their ammunition.’

  The Dragon’s viewpoint remained floating above the three causeways. The demons were close to the ends of the causeways and beginning to overrun the defending armies. As the demons ran out of ammunition they dropped their weapons and charged to fight hand to hand. The Heavenly army held them at the end of the causeways and the demons weren’t able to invade the island, but it wouldn’t be long. The defending armies were outnumbered and the demons seemed to go on forever.

  ‘Hold the line!’ Ma shouted.

  ‘Air support incoming,’ the Phoenix said. ‘I need ground reinforcements where my people were standing.’

  ‘Twenty-Seventh are in position,’ Yang Piao said. ‘Just let us know where to go.’

  ‘Yang, bring your battalion in to reinforce where the birds were,’ Ma said.

  ‘Squads one to five, reinforce causeway eight. Six to ten on nine. Pull them back, I’m going to lift the earth,’ Yang said. ‘In five.’

  ‘Everybody back! Yang’s going to lift the earth!’ the Dragon shouted.

  ‘Back! Back!’ the Tiger yelled.

  The armies retreated to the island at the end of the causeways, and the demons surged to follow them. The ground fell out from under the demons’ feet and the last ten metres of the causeways became deep holes, which the demons toppled into. The demons still on the causeways tried to stop their rush towards the Celestial army, but were pushed into the holes by the demons behind them. The holes filled with water and the demons thrashed and screamed, eventually disappearing beneath the water. The ends of the causeways peeled upwards like ribbons, sending the demons on them sliding down towards the demonic side of Hell. Demons tumbled as the causeways became almost vertical, some demons hitting the water and others landing on their companions and crushing them.

  ‘Birds, go,’ the Phoenix said.

  Glittering red phoenixes, each with a wingspan of four metres, fell into view from the sky above the Dragon and blasted the demons with fire from their beaks.

  ‘I have a visual on camera three. Elementals just appeared on the other side of the Celestial island,’ the young man said over the comms. ‘Wood and metal. Thirty of them.’

  ‘I’ve stopped time around them, but I can’t hold them forever!’ Xiao shouted. ‘I could do with a hand here!’

  ‘Elementals at causeways three and four,’ Haruna said. ‘Wood and metal.’

  ‘I have two fire elementals on camera six,’ the young man said.

  ‘Where the fuck is Ah Wu?’ the Tiger shouted.

  ‘Never mind him. Squad five, are you still with the Dark Princess?’ Ma shouted.

  ‘My Lord,’ a demon soldier said.

  ‘Escort her to the causeways where the elementals are and guard her with your lives, you hear me?’ Ma’s voice dropped. ‘Anything happens to her, we’re all quite majestically fucked.’

  ‘I’m already there,’ Simone said. ‘Shut up and let me work.’

  ‘Haruna, can you relay a visual of Simone for me?’ I said.

  ‘Hold on and I’ll send a dragon around,’ she said.

  The screen still showed the phoenixes mopping up the ends of the causeways. The demons on the causeways had fled back towards the demonic side of Hell, and there wasn’t much left moving on the battlefield except for the injured soldiers from our side being examined by field medics and the occasional lost and bewildered demon being torched.

  ‘Phoenix, tell your people to stop destroying the stragglers and try to tame them instead,’ I said.

  My ordinary phone rang in my pocket and I answered it.

  ‘Emma, it’s Yue Gui. The Northern Heavens are under attack and we need Father. Where is he? He’s not answering.’

  ‘This is ridiculous!’ I said. ‘He’s unavailable. He’s healing. He can’t help. Where’s Martin?’

  She was silent for a moment. ‘He’s not replying either. Is he with Father?’

  ‘No. What about Leo? Is he with Martin?’

  ‘No answer from him either.’

  ‘This is insane. Where are they?’ I said. ‘Do you need reinforcements?’

  A man’s voice came on the phone: Martin’s second-in-command and general of the defensive legion of the North. ‘It’s these damn insects. We’ve locked down and everybody’s inside the screens, but the seals are gone and the wasps are so big that they’re actually beginning to tunnel through the mesh. How did the Horsemen take them down? The minute my soldiers try to fight them, they sting us and we’re dead.’

  ‘Tiger!’ I shouted at the Dragon’s phone on the floor, which still displayed the deserted ends of the causeways on the screen. ‘How did you destroy the wasp demons?’

  ‘We tried everything and the best thing to hit them with is fucking tennis racquets,’ the Tiger growled. ‘You smack them out of the air and squash them. What, we have them? Where?’

  ‘Northern Heavens.’

  ‘Well, fuck. I’ll have people take a bunch of racquets over to the North for you and hand them out. Your people are trained by Ah Wu; once they have something to hit the little bastards with, it won’t take long.’

  ‘You should have told us this before,’ I said to the Tiger.

  ‘These are too big — I can’t stop them!’ Simone shouted from the phone on the floor. ‘It doesn’t do anything. Help!’

  ‘Fall back!’ Ma shouted. ‘Fall back! And pray to the Buddhas, because we need their help.’

  ‘My elementals did nothing,’ Simone said, distraught.

  ‘Neither did mine, little one,’ the Phoenix said. ‘We’re out of options. We have to retreat.’

  ‘Emma?’ Yue Gui said into my ear, drawing me back to the situation in the Northern Heavens.

  ‘Tennis racquets take them out; the Tiger’s sending you a bunch of them,’ I said.

  ‘Well, that’s a new one,’ she said with amusement.

  I turned on the spot, trying to keep the anguish from my voice.

  ‘Hell’s falling, Ah Yue.’

  ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No!’ She yelled, ‘Smash it! Don’t let it near you!’ The line went dead.

  ‘Where the fuck is Ah Wu?’ the Tiger shouted. ‘Hold them off as long as you can! Simone, encase them in ice.’

  ‘I am!’ Simone shouted, then screamed so loudly that the screen above the phone flickered.

  ‘Come on, little one,’ the Tiger grunted. ‘We’re not letting you go now, you’re not Immortal yet. You still have a lot to do.’

  ‘Michael?’

  ‘Hold on to me, Simone.�
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  ‘Oh, Michael,’ she said. ‘You came for me.’

  ‘Not Michael, I’m Uncle Tiger,’ the Tiger said with gentle affection.

  ‘Oh. I thought you were Michael.’ She coughed. ‘We’re leaving? We can’t leave Hell, we need it.’

  ‘How is she?’ I said.

  ‘She’ll live,’ the Tiger said.

  ‘We have a camera over the … carnage,’ Haruna said.

  The screen flicked to a view over the central island. Four-metre-tall metal and wood elementals were striding through the demonic and Celestial soldiers on the island and indiscriminately tearing them to pieces. The Generals and Winds had retreated onto the roof of Yanluo Wang’s office building, and the Horsemen and Celestial demon soldiers were defending them against a couple of wood elementals and a fire elemental that were attempting to make their way up the stairs. Simone was leaning against the Tiger; her face and arms were blackened with burns and soot and she seemed semi-conscious.

  The Dragon became visible as he dropped over one of the wood elementals, picked it up in his claws and flew it over the water. Long branches whipped out of the tree-like elemental and stabbed him in the eyes, killing him. He dropped it and fell into the water.

  ‘All evacuate at the same time!’ Ma shouted from the middle of the rooftop garden. ‘On my mark!’

  ‘Wait,’ someone said, more a rumble through the earth than a sound.

  The people on the roof looked around, bewildered. A fire elemental, a human shape of flame, hesitated halfway up the stairs to the roof.

  ‘Haruna?’ I said.

  ‘Do you know what that was?’ Haruna said at the same time.

  ‘What was that?’ Ma said.

  A swirling cloud of dust materialised above the roof. ‘Everybody stay put,’ it said, sounding like the wind.

  ‘It’s stones! Do as they say!’ Ma shouted, and everybody on the rooftop stopped moving.

  The cloud of tiny stones swirled so that parts of it became thicker and then thinned again. The cloud split into several, and parts of it blew over the fire elemental, surrounding it. The cloud shrank and changed from dust to a single huge boulder that continued to shrink. When it was the size of a basketball, it fell onto the ground.

  Another cloud of stones encased a wood elemental that was making a try for the stairs and contracted that down to a similar size.

  The stones encasing the fire elemental lifted from the ground and flew up to hover in front of Simone.

  ‘Princess, we need your help,’ they said.

  The Tiger assisted Simone to stand upright.

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ she said, then bent to cough, wincing at the pain.

  ‘The wood we can kill without difficulty, but we need your help with the fire ones,’ the stones said, sounding like hundreds of people speaking in unison. ‘We will make a hole in ourselves. Can you push ice into it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Simone said, her voice a hoarse whisper. She straightened with difficulty and raised her hand towards the stone ball.

  ‘Not water ice,’ the stones said. ‘Frozen oxygen.’

  ‘That’s a very bad idea,’ she said. ‘It’ll explode.’

  ‘We’ll hold the blast. Can you do it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Be quick. The elemental will try to escape through the hole.’

  ‘I’m ready.’

  ‘On three.’

  The stones counted, and Simone slapped her hand on the side of the ball. It expanded then contracted quickly. It fell open in two halves and dust came out.

  ‘Thank you. Can you do the other one for us?’ the stones said, returning to their cloud form.

  Simone leaned on the Tiger again and he held her. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Just bring it here and I’ll do it.’

  ‘Dragon’s daughter on the comms,’ Ma said. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Haruna,’ she said.

  ‘Do you have a visual on the other demons on the causeways? Are they returning?’

  ‘Yes. No,’ Haruna said. ‘I can see them and they’re not returning. I’ve sent one of my brothers to fly over them and they’re headed back to the demonic side.’

  ‘Give me a visual,’ Ma said.

  The view over the phone switched to one of the causeways. The demons were running, checking behind them and obviously terrified. It appeared that whoever was controlling them had let go and they were fleeing the battle in panic.

  ‘They won’t be permitted back into the demonic side if they run,’ Ma said. ‘Twenty-First, follow them and mop up. Maybe recruit a few.’ He dropped his voice. ‘Heavens know we will need them.’

  The camera zoomed in on the air above the fleeing demons. A pair of flyers with riders were hovering, their wings flapping too fast to see. The camera zoomed in closer but the resolution was too poor to show any detail of the riders.

  ‘Who is that?’ Ma said.

  ‘Could be the Demon King, hard to tell,’ the male dragon said. ‘And a really small demon on the other one. They saw me — they’re taking off.’

  The two flyers spun in the air and headed back towards the demonic side of Hell, faster than the running demons below them.

  ‘The day is ours,’ Ma said. ‘Haruna, we need transport and care for the wounded and collection for the dead. Can you arrange that?’

  ‘I can coordinate from here,’ Haruna said, her voice thick with relief and grief at the same time.

  ‘And we need that goddamn Turtle back as soon as possible so he can reassign defensive units back here and we can build some barriers,’ Ma said. ‘How much longer will he be washing his hair, Emma?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘I’ll keep you informed.’

  ‘War room on the Mountain in two hours to debrief, I suppose,’ Ma said. ‘I’m sending Simone home with the Tiger, and stationing the remaining legions here to make sure the demons don’t try to come back.’

  ‘Thanks, Ma. Simone, are you okay?’

  ‘Burnt,’ the Tiger said. ‘I’m taking her to the Mountain infirmary. Be there soon.’

  I sat on the bench and rested my head in my hands. The turtle didn’t move.

  9

  ‘Emma,’ John said, waking me.

  I sat up; I’d fallen asleep with my head on the cage. The tortoise was sitting inside with a wise, ancient grin on his face.

  ‘Let me out, love,’ John said.

  ‘You’re completely yourself?’ I said.

  He nodded. ‘Open up, let me out. I must do this more often, it’s a huge relief to have my feet back. You have lines on your face from the cage …’ He saw my expression. ‘Something happened.’

  ‘We nearly lost Hell.’

  I opened the latches, lifted the lid, and the tortoise floated out of the cage. He changed to his human form and landed lightly on the rock in front of me.

  ‘How nearly?’

  ‘We won, but it was a close thing. How are you feeling? You’re not dizzy or weak or anything?’

  ‘No. Why do you ask?’

  ‘They did something to you. You were completely out of it when they attacked Hell.’

  He unfocused for a moment, remembering, then his face went rigid with shock for a second before he composed himself.

  I sagged on the bench. ‘They can see through my eyes. They waited until you were in the cage and then they attacked.’

  ‘No,’ John said. ‘They knocked the Serpent unconscious to have me out of the way. I heard what they said: they were hoping my Turtle would be somewhere dangerous and killed and I would rejoin. They didn’t know the Turtle was in the cage. They can’t see through your eyes, Emma, you don’t need to worry.’ He crouched in front of me. ‘Tell me what happened in Hell.’

  I pointed at my forehead. ‘Too much to tell. Just take it out directly.’

  He shook his head and sat on the bench on the other side of the cage. ‘No need. No rush. Just tell me.’

  ‘The Generals are waiting for us in the war room for a debrief.’ I took his hand
and placed it on my forehead. ‘Go ahead, you know I don’t mind.’

  ‘I mind. I hate invading your privacy like this, and twice in one day is too much.’ He moved his hand so his index finger was directly over my third eye. ‘Go.’

  I quickly ran through everything that had happened and he absorbed the information.

  He took his hand away and leaned on his knees. ‘Just a minute.’

  He communicated silently for a while as I put the lid back on the jade cage and returned it to its casket.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he said, studying me. ‘You look …’ He searched for the word.

  ‘Wrecked,’ I said. ‘I watched it all happen.’ I raised one hand and dropped it, feeling helpless. ‘I feel the same way that I did when the Mountain was attacked by those copies and I had to bring you back. We won, but it feels like we lost.’

  ‘That’s because we did.’ He took the casket from me and helped me to rise with his other hand. ‘The minute we take up arms, we lose.’

  ‘We don’t have a choice when it’s demons; they can’t give up. No room for compromise.’ I leaned into him and we started back up the stairs. ‘You need to put that casket somewhere safe before we go to the war room.’

  ‘I’ll put it in the armoury on the way.’

  ‘Did you ask about Simone? The Tiger says she’s all right.’

  ‘He is with her. He says her lungs were burnt and all her breathing passages are damaged. Nothing terribly serious; she’ll just have to rest for a few days. He’s helping out with some energy healing.’ He squeezed me around the shoulders as we walked. ‘Are you okay to join the meeting? As you said, you look wrecked.’

  I hesitated; I really was exhausted. I sighed deeply. ‘I need to be there.’

  ‘I know. Duty calls,’ he said, and opened the door for us.

  It was late afternoon. The sky was grey and cold, stinging rain was falling. Smally was waiting outside the Grotto, holding an umbrella and a warm padded silk jacket for me.

  The five Generals from the battle were waiting for us, seated at the table already. The Phoenix was there too, talking softly and intensely to Yue Gui. They all stood and saluted John and me as we took our places at the head of the table.