Earth to Hell. Kylie Chan
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changed …’ She ran her hand over her face. ‘Daddy changed into his Celestial Form, and picked me up and carried me to the Grand Audience Hall. You have no idea what it was like, Emma.’ She turned to gaze into my eyes. ‘You’ve seen it, you know how big his Celestial Form is. He carried me so far from the ground, and I didn’t know him as Daddy. He was so huge! And black, and he didn’t look like Daddy, he was just a giant carrying me so high up that I was afraid, and he walked with these huge strides — it was incredibly scary. I cried, and he did something to me to make me quiet, but I was still …’ She took a deep breath. ‘I was still terrified. Then he took me into the Grand Audience Hall and it was full of dragons and other Shen — animals and nature spirits, all sorts were there to see me, staring at me — and then we went up to the Jade Emperor, and he was in Celestial Form too, and Daddy handed me over to him.’ She smiled wryly. ‘Apparently, the Jade Emperor thought I was adorable. I was bound by Daddy, so I couldn’t move or speak, or cry. I just looked at the Jade Emperor as he held me. He was bigger than Daddy and way scarier.’ She shook her head. ‘It took me a long time to get over that. Even now, I think if I saw Daddy’s Celestial Form, I wouldn’t see it as him, just as this monster that bound me and carried me away.’
‘I wondered about that,’ I said. ‘I remember how scared you were of his Celestial Form.’
‘When he took me back to the apartment, he unbound me and I let loose,’ Simone said. ‘In seven different directions — I wet myself, threw up, everything. I was only about a year and a half old. I can remember Mummy screaming abuse at him. He changed back and tried to console me, but apparently, I would have nothing to do with him for a few weeks afterwards.’
‘I can understand completely,’ I said. ‘If it was me, I would have sent him down to Hell for a few days to “meditate upon his faults”. What a rotten thing to do to a little child.’
Simone made a soft sound of amusement. ‘Mummy did. Shot him right between the eyes, from what I’ve heard.’
‘You are the equal of any Shen in Heaven, Simone. You don’t need to be scared.’
‘I just can’t help feeling that way right now. I’ll be fine once we get there and I can see the Jade Emperor’s not a hundred metres tall.’
‘Would you like to talk to the Lady about it before we go?’
She waved me down. ‘I’ll be fine. Oh, Jade’s on her way back with your armour.’
Jade reappeared and held the armour out for me. ‘Ma’am.’
I rose to take it.
On the morning of 16 November, Marcus dropped me and Simone outside Harbour Centre in Wan Chai. Harbour Centre and Great Eagle Centre were two matched towers, that stood side by side right on the waterfront. They each had large neon signs for Japanese electronics companies on the first-floor level and featured in many Hong Kong postcards.
Simone and I took the escalators up to the first floor to use the walkways across to the China Resources Building, then walked along the covered open-air podium that overlooked the water. The adjacent building, the Convention Centre, jutted into the harbour, its flowing finlike shape making it look like a giant sea creature. I remembered another time I had stood watching the water and felt a twinge of pain. But we had seen him. He was searching for me. He would return.
We crossed the walkways, passed a small traditional Chinese garden, and took the escalators down to the open area under the China Resources Building. Two bronze Chinese unicorn statues, qilin, faced the road, and behind them stood a fountain of dragon heads squirting water. Behind the fountain was a replica of the Nine-Dragon Wall in the Forbidden City in Beijing.
Bai Hu stepped out from under one of the supporting pillars. ‘You have all your gear?’
I raised the shopping bags I was holding. ‘All here.’
‘What about your armour, Emma?’
‘It’s folded up in there as well.’
‘Good. Where’s Gold? I thought he was coming.’
‘He said he’s in enough trouble as it is and begged me to leave him at home. Same with Jade.’
‘That’s true. It’s probably a good idea to leave them at home. Gold particularly has been in trouble with the Celestial many times before.’ Bai Hu gestured with his head. ‘This way.’
We followed the Tiger to the wall. Nobody around seemed to notice us. As we neared the wall, the white stone balustrade in front of it slid smoothly into the ground. The wall grew from two metres to nearly four metres tall, and the nine dragons on it came to life. They writhed across the wall and gathered at the middle.
The gold dragon in the centre stuck its head out and waved its enormous fangs menacingly close to my head. ‘Is this the mortal that wishes to enter the Celestial Domain?’
Let me handle them, the Tiger said into my head.
‘No need,’ I said. I unrolled the scroll and held it in front of the dragon’s face, making it jerk its head back slightly. ‘The Jade Emperor wants to see us.’
‘It is highly unusual for a human to be granted an audience with the Celestial One,’ the dragon huffed. ‘You are accompanied by no Retainers. How are we to know that you are worthy of such an honour?’
‘Cut the bullshit and let us up,’ the Tiger growled. ‘If I knew you were gonna give us this crap, I would have summoned a cloud.’
The dragon glared at the Tiger with disdain. ‘Perhaps that would have been preferable. Then our services would not be used by a mortal.’ It spat the word.
The Tiger grunted and took a couple of steps forward, but I raised my hand to stop him.
‘In this situation the mortal usually flatters the dragon’s enormous ego until the dragon is mollified and lets the mortal through,’ I said. I pulled the Murasame, still in its scabbard, from my shopping bag and waved its point in front of the dragon’s nose. ‘I don’t crawl to anybody though, so I might try the alternative tactic of whacking you with my little sword here until you let me up. Would that work?’
A white dragon on our right sniggered and the gold dragon glared at it. Then it turned back to me and watched me appraisingly.
‘If you’re thinking that she doesn’t have the nerve, then I can assure you she does,’ the Tiger growled. ‘She’s even taken my head off a couple of times when she got pissed with me. She seems to like killing Celestials.’
The dragon lowered its head to look me in the eyes. ‘You have taken the White Tiger’s head?’
A couple more dragons stuck their heads out of the wall to look at me.
‘He can be a complete dick sometimes,’ I said with a shrug.
The dragon hesitated, then threw its head back and roared with laughter. The other dragons joined it in a chorus of loud, high-pitched hissing.
‘Welcome, Lady Emma,’ the gold dragon said when it had regained its breath. ‘Please, walk on the clouds to a destination that you richly deserve.’
The wall separated in the middle and a stairway of mist appeared in the gap.
‘Welcome to Heaven, Lady Emma,’ the gold dragon said. ‘Anyone who takes the Tiger’s head when he’s being an asshole can come on through any time.’
‘That would mean the Tiger never having a head at all,’ a purple dragon said, choking with laughter.
The dragons collapsed into hysterics again, twining around each other with mirth.
I stepped forward into the gap in the wall and put a hesitant foot onto the misty stair. It appeared to be made of thick swirling fog but was also transparent. I relaxed when I realised that it was solid. I put the sword back in my shopping bag and began to climb.
As the Tiger came through behind