White Tiger

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

I checked my watch: 6 p.m. Two hours had passed. Simone lay asleep on the bed, exhausted. I sat on the other side of the bed and put my head in my hands.

The demon hadn’t returned. I’d checked the room thoroughly; there was no way out. There was a small bathroom in one corner of the room with running water, so at least we wouldn’t die of thirst. But if we were in China the water wasn’t drinkable anyway.

I glanced at Simone’s peaceful face. Simon Wong was probably holding us to swap for John’s head. It was quite likely that the negotiations were happening right now. If John wasn’t dead.

I shivered. Simone was strong enough to hold him off if he tried anything. I wasn’t.

I woke and shot upright to sitting. Simon Wong stood over me, grinning.

Up close, he looked like a perfectly ordinary Chinese. About thirty, good-looking; only his eyes betrayed his true nature.

He sat on the bed next to me and stroked my arm, smiling into my eyes. ‘Hello.’

I wrenched my arm away and he bound me again. I couldn’t hold myself upright; I fell back. I lay helpless as he leaned over me.

He ran his hand down the side of my face and over my throat. I wanted to scream but I couldn’t make a sound.

His hand traced lower, between my breasts. I desperately struggled to free myself.

The hand circled my stomach. He lowered his face and kissed me on the side of the throat, then ran his tongue over the edge of my jaw. He licked up the side of my face.

I relaxed, tried to phase out. I released all of the tension and gathered my chi.

He slipped his hand under the hem of my shirt, above my riding pants, and I blasted the chi straight out of my dan tian into his hand. He snatched his hand away, tearing my shirt, and leapt back, clutching his arm to his side. I’d burnt him.

He lunged towards me again. I scrambled to sit upright against the bedhead, generated a ball of chi and held it in front of me.

He hung back, his face rigid with menace. I raised the chi slightly and floated it between us.

‘I’ll be back,’ he growled, and disappeared.

Simone whimpered and rolled over. She’d slept through the whole thing.

‘Emma.’ A soft voice in my ear. ‘Emma.’

I woke up and cast around. I saw a pair of blood-red eyes and scrambled away, knocking into Simone and waking her.

I grabbed Simone and leapt off the bed, moving as far away from this strange person as I could. He smiled.

It wasn’t Wong; it was somebody else. He was Chinese, about twenty-five, with a boyish, cheeky face. He had black hair tied in a short ponytail, but his eyes were the colour of dried blood. He wore a pair of maroon stonewashed jeans and a maroon T-shirt.

He held his hands out. ‘I’m not here to hurt you.’

‘This is a really big demon,’ Simone whispered. ‘Bigger than the bad one?’ Simone nodded.

‘I swear,’ the demon said. ‘I can get you out. Would you like to come with me?’

I lowered Simone to the floor and she held onto my leg. ‘Why do you want to help us?’

He shrugged. ‘Maybe I think One Two Two is a creepy bastard.’

‘So?’

‘Maybe I don’t want him to be Number One.’

‘You’ll just take us to swap for the Dark Lord’s head,’ I said. ‘You want to be Number One yourself.’

He chuckled. ‘I have absolutely no desire to be Number One. None at all.’

The scene around us shifted and we were in a street in Guangzhou; the sounds of voices and traffic blasted around us. Simone clutched my leg.

Silence. We were back in the prison.

‘I can take you out,’ he said. ‘All you have to do is come with me.’

‘Promise you won’t hurt Simone.’

He smiled gently at Simone. ‘I give you my word I will not harm Simone.’ He glanced at me. ‘I promise I will not harm either of you. I am here to get you out.’

I moved closer to him. ‘Which one are you? Are you one of the other princes?’

‘You can call me George.’

‘George?’

He shrugged. ‘You want me to take you out? You want to come with me?’

‘Yes, please,’ Simone said, her voice very small. ‘Okay,’ I said.

‘I want something in return.’

I sagged. ‘Why am I not surprised?’

He gestured towards me. ‘Leave Simone there, I want to talk to you in private. Come over here. I’ll tell you what I want.’

Simone released me and gave me a push. ‘I’ll be okay, Emma, talk to him.’ Her eyes were wide with hope. ‘I want to go home to Daddy.’

I nodded and went to the demon. He led me to the other side of the room and leaned against the wall.

‘Well, what do you want?’ I said.

‘Here’s the deal,’ he said, businesslike. ‘Agree to come with me and I’ll take you out of here.’ He nodded towards Simone. ‘I’ll put her under for a while and we can do it.’

‘You want to have sex with me?’

He nodded.

I raised my arms. ‘Why the hell me? I’m nothing special, I’m just an ordinary human female. I’m not even particularly good-looking. Why?’

He smiled slightly. ‘The Dark Lord seems to think that you’re something special.’

I stared at him.

‘Regent of the Northern Heavens, eh?’ he said. ‘You must be something extremely special.’

‘You know about that?’

‘Everybody knows about it. Heaven and Hell are both abuzz.’ He moved his face closer to mine and studied me carefully, still smiling. ‘I’d really like to see what all the fuss is about.’

I stood watching him as I thought about it. Then, ‘No. I’ll take my chances with Wong.’

‘How about a bit of oral? No penetration.’

‘Shit!’ I cried softly. ‘This isn’t a market stall!’

He moved closer and gazed at me with his blood-red eyes. ‘I’ll take you out of here for a kiss.’ I looked at him. ‘One kiss?’

‘You would do that for Simone, wouldn’t you?’ He moved even closer and touched my arm. ‘One kiss won’t hurt you. It’s not being unfaithful to your Dark Lord; he would understand.’ He glanced at Simone. ‘I’ll get her out of here for you. All you have to do is kiss me, and agree to come along.’

‘Okay. One kiss. You take Simone and me out of here, you don’t hurt either of us, and then you let us go.’

He jerked with surprise, then smiled. ‘You drive a hard bargain.’

‘Do we have a deal?’

‘Tell Simone to stay put and not interfere, and we have a deal.’

I turned to Simone. ‘Stay right there and don’t do anything, Simone. He wants to kiss me before he takes us out. Don’t look, okay?’

‘Daddy won’t like that.’

‘I hope he has the chance to be jealous.’ I turned back to the demon. ‘Do it.’

His eyes were very intense. ‘You have to kiss me like you mean it.’

‘Whatever. Get us out, let us go. Okay?’

He moved his face right into mine. ‘Okay,’ he breathed against my mouth, then closed the gap.

His hands slipped down my back and pulled me into him. He opened his mouth and his tongue flicked against my lips.

My hands were limp by my sides; he took them and put them onto his back.

‘Relax into it, Emma,’ he whispered into my mouth. ‘Do it right, or I won’t take you anywhere. Do it like you mean it.’

I wanted Simone out of there. I pulled him into me, opened my mouth and put everything I had into it.

He moaned and thrust gently against me, then pulled away slightly to speak. ‘Sure you don’t want more?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘Shame,’ he said. ‘Every human woman I’ve ever had has said I’m absolutely the best.’

‘You going to take us out now?’ I whispered.

‘One more,’ he said, and closed his mouth on mine again.

He stopped kissing me and went still. Then he thrust his consciousness into me, like a black dagger between my eyes. He held me, his mouth on mine, and raided my brain. What John had done gently he did with brutal force. He wrenched my soul open and examined it.

I struggled to fight him, but my body and my mind were in a vice; I couldn’t move anything.

Something huge, dark and fierce erupted from the base of my skull. It coiled through my brain, surrounded him and thrust him out roughly. It slammed the door in his face.

He released me and staggered back, stricken. ‘What the hell was that?’

I was three times bigger, three times darker and three times more ready to kill. I grinned at him. ‘Me.’

He flopped to sit on the floor and stared up at me.

I leaned over him. ‘Now you have to take us out.’

‘Sure, Emma, whatever you say.’ He shook his head. ‘Give me a moment. Whatever that was, it was powerful.’

The dark thing receded and I sank to the floor as well. I put my head in my hands as I felt a moment of dizziness; then my vision cleared. ‘What was that?’

‘That was the first time that thing has come out?’

I shook my head, trying to clear it. ‘Yes.’

‘Hm,’ he said, studying me. ‘Maybe it was me.’

I didn’t have time to worry about it. ‘Just take us out of here.’

He rose and held out his hand.

I pulled myself up without his help, and leaned against the wall.

‘You are something extremely special,’ he said.

He turned to Simone. ‘Come on, sweetheart, I’ll take you out.’

Simone sidled towards us. ‘Are you okay, Emma?’

‘I’m okay,’ I said, and we were in the street again.

It was the wild animal market in Guangzhou. We were in front of the frog stall. A man held a wriggling frog on a chopping board, sliced down the middle of its back, turned it inside out and ripped its legs off. He threw the wriggling front end into a bamboo waste basket and added the skinned hind legs to a pile at the side of the chopping board. An elderly Chinese woman watched carefully as he did it.

The demon eyed the basket of frog heads with fascination. Then he shook himself and grinned at me. ‘Maybe later.’

‘Doesn’t that hurt them?’ Simone said.

‘No, sweetheart, they’re only low animals, they don’t feel anything,’ the demon said.

‘Don’t lie to her,’ I said. ‘Of course it hurts them, Simone.’

‘Is that why you wouldn’t eat frogs’ legs?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s wrong,’ Simone said. ‘They should cut the poor frogs’ heads off before they do it.’

‘You are teaching her too much of your soft Western ways, Emma,’ the demon said. He gestured. ‘Come with me. I’ll take you to your house demons.’

‘Is Daddy okay?’ Simone said.

‘Everybody is just fine,’ the demon said. ‘Leo has been injured, but he’ll live.’ He smiled. ‘It seems that Leo is always putting himself in harm’s way for you. All of you.’

The pavement was slick with blood and water as the stall holders hosed it down. We passed stalls selling meat from animals of all types. Regular poultry stalls killed chickens, ducks, geese, pigeons and quails to order; more exotic shops sold mammals like cats, dogs and wildlife like monkeys and civets. A reptile stall had aquariums full of snakes and tortoises.

‘Daddy would be very cross,’ Simone said.

‘I know.’

A small crowd had gathered outside one cage. As we neared, the people stopped looking at the animal in the cage and stared at me. Foreigners weren’t terribly common in Guangzhou, particularly in this part of town.

The cage held a dark brown animal about the size of a corgi, with short fur and long ears. It looked like a giant rabbit.

‘What’s that?’ Simone said.

The animal shifted slightly and I saw its tiny hooves. ‘It’s a baby donkey,’ I said.

Simone raced to it and crouched in front of the cage on the wet concrete. The people who had been looking at the donkey watched her with broad, artless grins.

The demon stood behind Simone. ‘Baby donkey is the latest fad here right now. It’s called “exotic beef”. Supposed to be really good.’ He shrugged. ‘I haven’t tried it yet.’

Simone looked up at me, eyes wide. ‘I want to take it home. Can I take it?’

‘I’m sorry, Simone. Remember, we can’t even have a dog. We don’t have room.’

‘The house on the hill has room.’ Simone rose and took my hand. ‘Ah Yee can look after it. Please buy it. I don’t want anybody to eat it. It’s so tiny!’

‘How about I buy it for you?’ the demon said. ‘A show of good faith. I’ll even take it up to the house for you, but you’ll have to meet me at the front gate. I can’t go in.’

Simone gazed imploringly at me. ‘Please, Emma.’ I looked from Simone to the demon. He smiled slightly and raised his eyebrows. I sagged. ‘Okay.’

Simone jumped up and down and nearly fell over on the slippery concrete. She hugged me tight, then turned to hug the demon.

He quickly stepped away, raising his hands. ‘Don’t touch me, please, dear. I don’t know how much damage you would do to me.’

Simone dropped her arms and stood very still, watching him. Then she nodded, more restrained. ‘Thank you.’

‘My pleasure.’ He gestured towards the end of the street. ‘Your city house is about two li that way. I’ll take you there, then come back and collect this little fellow for you.’

He shouted into the shop, and a few of the people who had been watching us laughed. The shopkeeper came out. He wore a pair of jeans and a T-shirt underneath an enormous white apron stained with blood. The demon negotiated quickly for the donkey, then pulled his wallet out of his hip pocket and handed over a few hundred Chinese yuan.

‘Daddy will pay you back,’ Simone said.

‘Your father won’t give me money,’ the demon said. ‘I’ve tried to sell him a few things in the past, but he won’t deal.’

I took Simone’s hand. ‘Let’s go home.’

We walked further and eventually stopped at an apartment building with a single door facing onto the street. The demon held his hand over the handle of the metal gate, and it unlocked and fell open. He led us up the narrow stairs to the landing.

‘Have you been here before, Simone?’ I said.

‘No. I only go to the house on the hill. This place is just for the demons.’

The demon stopped in front of the apartment’s metal gate and concentrated.

The door flew open; Ah Yat stood there. She saw us and smiled broadly, then saw the demon and her smile froze.

‘Hello, little one,’ the demon said. ‘I’ve brought your mistresses home.’

Ah Yat didn’t move or speak. She watched the demon like a rabbit caught in headlights.

‘Let us all in, Ah Yat,’ Simone said.

Ah Yat carefully opened the metal gate and it swung outwards. Simone threw herself at Ah Yat and buried her face in her stomach. Ah Yat didn’t stop watching the demon.

‘I’ve brought them back unharmed,’ the demon said. ‘Take them home.’

Ah Yat glanced at me. ‘You have not been harmed, my Lady?’

‘We’re fine,’ I said. ‘I hope you have something to drink in here, I’m dying of thirst.’

‘Me too,’ Simone said.

‘Me three,’ the demon said, and Simone giggled. ‘Can I come in and have a drink too? Buying your donkey was hot work.’

‘Yeah, sure!’ Simone said. ‘Let us in, Ah Yat.’

Ah Yat moved back and gestured for us to enter. The demon followed, closing the door behind us.

The living room had a high ceiling and bare concrete walls. The only furniture was a rosewood sofa and coffee table.

The demon strolled in and sat on the sofa.

‘I’m really thirsty, Ah Yat,’ Simone said. ‘Do you have any lemon tea?’

Ah Yat dropped to hug Simone and held her close. Her voice trembled. ‘Yes, my darling.’ She glanced at me. ‘My Lady?’

‘Cold filtered water, please, Ah Yat.’

‘Me too,’ the demon said.

‘Wait here.’ Ah Yat released Simone and went out of the room.

Ah Yee, Ah Sum and Ah Say sidled into the room. They saw the demon and froze.

The demon gestured. ‘Come in.’

They crept further into the room.

The demon leaned his arms on the back of the seat. ‘Tamed, eh?’

The three house demons didn’t move or speak.

‘How many of them do you need to escort you home, Simone?’ the demon said.

‘Ah Yat can take me home,’ Simone said.

‘Good.’ The demon waved one hand. The three house demons exploded into black streamers and disappeared.

‘Bye, girls, see you later.’ The demon disappeared too.

Simone flopped to her knees and put her head in her hands. I went to her, wrapped my arms around her and rocked her as she cried with huge gasping sobs. We stayed like that until Ah Yat returned with the drinks on a tray.

When Ah Yat realised what had happened, she fell onto the sofa and wept as well.