Kylie Chan: The Gravity Engine

The King turned back to Michael and concentrated for a moment. Five huddling, terrified demons came out of the kitchen.

‘Go up and get the young one and bring her down here,’ the King ordered without looking at them.

‘No, wait. Why do you want her?’ Michael said.

‘No bamboo here, I’ll have to stick slivers of wood under her fingernails.’

Michael reeled back, nauseous. ‘Don’t hurt her! Why would you want to do that?’

The demons stopped halfway up the stairs.

‘Will you vow to remain in this building?’ the King said.

‘I give you my word,’ Michael said. ‘I won’t leave the building. There’s no need to hurt either of them!’

The King waved the demon servants away, again without looking at them. ‘Good.’ He gestured behind him towards the spirit of the city. ‘Semias, this is Michael. Michael’s visiting from the Asian Heavens, he’s the son of the spirit of their western heavens. I want you take him to see the gravity engine.’

‘He just vowed never to leave the building,’ Semias said.

The King gestured with frustration. ‘He can leave it to go to the engine!’

‘Very well,’ Semias said. ‘Michael, was it? Come with me.’ He held his thin, pale hand out to Michael.

Michael took his hand and heard the Demon King say, ‘Wait, what?’ as the mansion disappeared.

The room around them changed to a vast hall, fifty metres high and three times that long, nearly filled by an enormous shining brass cube. Michael’s mouth fell open; they were standing on a walkway halfway up the building that circled the hall and gave a good view of the cube. Lights sparkled and sank around the structure, and the glass-tiled floor around it rippled in expanding circles. He sent his sense out to check where they were and found himself deep underground. No tunnels led into the room; it was only reachable by teleportation.

He jerked back as Semias moved right up into his face to challenge him, the spirit’s expression rigid with anger.

‘What the hell is going on here, young man?’ the spirit said. ‘Why are there Asian demons here, what are those two poor women doing here, and more than anything what the hell are you doing here?’

Michael opened and closed his mouth a few times then pulled himself together. ‘I was hoping you could tell me that. Why are you working with them?’

‘I’m not. They’re forcing me to cooperate.’ The spirit sagged and turned to face the machine, leaning on the railing. ‘I need answers.’

Michael leaned on the railing next to him. ‘So do I, sir.’

‘How did you travel up here? Our world is blocked off and nobody should be able to enter.’

‘The Asian Demon King brought me. I have no idea how he did it. The gateway was a cathedral in Rotterdam.’

Semias banged his hand on the brass railing. ‘This should not have happened!’ He turned to Michael and jabbed a finger in his face. ‘If you’re the son of one of the Asian spirits, you shouldn’t be working with him.’

‘I’m not. I came to investigate, and discovered that he’s holding my mother and fiancée.’

‘And he threatened to torture them if you don’t cooperate.’ Semias sagged and leaned back on the railing. ‘Do you know what he wants?’

‘Mostly he wants control of the Asian Heavens. It looks like he’s already invaded the European ones. Why didn’t the Shen here stop him?’

‘Shen?’

‘God? Spirits?’ Michael shook his head. ‘It’s what we call ourselves in Asia.’

‘Calling them Sidhe would be close enough. They’re gone. It’s just me here, guarding the empty Heavens.’

‘So why didn’t you stop them? They’re demons and they should not be here!’

‘You think I didn’t try?’ Semias said, his voice fierce with anger. ‘I have no idea how they made it up here. When they came to my city I blocked them, I closed my gates and made my walls slippery and unclimbable – and that bastard took a huge mechanical battering ram to me. He broke the glass and framework on my eastern gates…’ He dropped his head and shook it. ‘Do you have any idea much it hurts if I’m dismantled without any preparation or proper care? It was agony. Torture. I fought them, but they broke into me.’ He raised his head and glared at Michael again. ‘And when you took a piece out of the palace’s ceiling it gave me a massive headache.’

‘Sorry,’ Michael said. ‘But we need to find a way to stop them. How many demons are here in the European Heavens? Are there more than a hundred?’

‘Three thousand.’

‘Holy shit .’

‘But that’s just the big ones. There are six thousand small ones as well.’

Michael was speechless.

‘You’re a Sidhe yourself, I can see it. Kill yourself now and go home and warn them. Tell them what’s happening here.’

Michael gestured towards the cube. ‘What if the demons work out the secret of the gravity?’

‘We’re underground, a hundred feet below the city, and nobody but me can travel here. There’s no other way in. Go now while they’re waiting for us to return.’

‘I can’t leave my mother and fiancée. I have to take them back with me.’

‘They’re demons, lad. Leave them.’

‘Are you sure?’

Semias hesitated.

Michael turned away. ‘Yeah. Neither am I.’

‘It’s hard to tell,’ Semias said. ‘Your fiancée isn’t from my region, and your mother has an unusual part-demonic nature. She may be a descendent of the ancient Serpent people.’

‘What Serpent people? I’ve heard that before. Tell me about them, I think it’s important.’

‘We don’t have time. The Demon King just pulled your fiancée down to the entrance hall and is threatening her if we don’t return immediately. We need to go.’

Semias teleported them back to find the Demon King in the mansion’s foyer, yelling at a terrified Clarissa, who was being held by two guards. When he saw Semias and Michael he rounded on them. ‘Next time do what I tell you!’

‘I did exactly what you told me to, I took him to see the engine,’ Semias said.

Michael ran to Clarissa and pulled her out of the demon guards’ grasps. ‘Did he hurt you?’ He held her close and brushed his hand over her hair. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I didn’t touch her. She broke down herself, the coward,’ the Demon King said.

‘Leave her alone!’ Michael pulled back to see her face, and his heart broke when it mirrored the haunted Clarissa back at the Western Palace. ‘Clarissa, honey? Talk to me.’

‘Where’s Rhonda?’ Clarissa clutched him. ‘Can I go back to my room? I want to be away from here.’

Semias disappeared, then reappeared with Rhonda. She ran to Clarissa and Michael released his fiancée into his mother’s arms. Rhonda led Clarissa, still dazed, up the stairs to their rooms.

‘Next time don’t take anyone anywhere without my permission or I’ll put you back in your cell,’ the Demon King said to Semias with venom. He turned to Michael. ‘Did you see the gravity engine?’

‘Yes.’

‘What does it look like?’

Michael hesitated. ‘You won’t believe me.’

‘Try me.’

‘It’s a brass cube. Featureless. No external moving parts.’

The King nodded, unsurprised. ‘All right. Now both of you listen carefully to me. Michael, if you can map the internal workings of the engine and provide me with a blueprint, I’ll let you and the women go back to the Asian Heavens, free and unharmed. Semias.’

‘I know,’ Semias said. ‘If I give him the information you’ll leave me here in the city and I won’t be kept locked up and separated from myself any more.’

‘That’s the deal. Will you both cooperate?’