Kylie Chan - Earth to Hell

Simone hesitated.

‘Do it, dear,’ the Jade Emperor said. ‘You have a Celestial Form. You have been ordered. Do it.’

Simone made a short, clipped whimpering sound and changed. She gathered all of the darkness in the hall and wrapped it around her, completely hiding herself from view. The darkness grew and became more massive. A spreading, seeping cold emanated from her and the air around her filled with ice. The darkness exploded out from her in a silent eruption and dissipated. Her Celestial Form became visible.

The voices in the hall erupted to a roar, then quickly faded.

Her livery was deep blue, almost black, and shining gold. She was nearly four metres tall, and her golden-brown hair swept around her, so long it lay on the floor. Much of it floated in a breeze that wasn’t there. Her skin shone translucent in the light; a delicate honey brown. Her enormous golden eyes glowed with wisdom far beyond her years. She appeared to be about twenty-five years old. Her deep blue robes flowed around her, decorated with a thousand tiny pinpoints of golden light, like stars. She was breathtakingly beautiful, more like a force of nature than a young woman.

‘Can you call Seven Stars, Simone?’ the Jade Emperor said.

Simone held out one slim arm and the sword appeared in her hand. The scabbard was black, the hilt was white, and the sword was nearly two metres long. It fitted her perfectly. She lowered her hand and held the sword in front of her. She truly appeared as a goddess with the sword in her hand and an expression of detached ferocity on her face.

‘Good,’ the Jade Emperor said. He rose from the throne and stood before us on the dais with his hands clasped behind his back. ‘What is it you have come to see me about?’

I bowed slightly. ‘Leo Alexander, Retainer of the Dark Lord, is held in Hell at your pleasure,’ I said. ‘We would like your permission, Celestial Majesty, to go and talk to him about accepting Immortality and returning to us.’

‘Why should he do this for you when so many of my staff have been unable to convince him?’

‘Because he loves us,’ Simone said in a voice of sharpened honey.

He smiled slightly. ‘Anything else?’

‘I request the freedom of the Golden Boy, child of the Jade Building Block, and the Jade Girl, eighty-second daughter of the Dragon King.’

Simone glanced at me.

‘And that’s all?’ the Emperor said.

‘Yep,’ I said. ‘Uh, yes, Celestial Majesty.’

‘Return to your normal form, Simone.’

Simone changed back and we shared a small sigh of relief.

‘Meet me in the Imperial Private Offices in one hour, together with your sponsors. Concluded. Dismissed.’ He returned to the throne.

We fell to our knees again. ‘ Wen sui, wen sui, wen wen sui .’

‘Supplicants are permitted to depart,’ Er Lang said.

We backed away for about ten metres, then turned and walked out of the hall with every eye in the place boring into our backs. I could tell from the way Simone walked that she wanted to run out of there as much as I did.

‘What in Heaven possessed you two to do something like that?’ the Tiger shouted. He paced in front of us with his hands clasped behind his back.

Ms Kwan had also returned to human form. She sat at the dining table, as serene as ever. She waved one hand and summoned a pot of tea. ‘Sit. Drink tea. All will be well, Ah Bai.’

The Tiger stopped and glared at her. ‘Don’t encourage them.’ He turned his attention back to me. ‘What if you’d been ordered to take demon form? What would you have done then?’

‘Refused again.’

The Tiger paced once more. ‘I’m glad you weren’t ordered to then. Defying an order from the Celestial once is bad enough; twice would have got you executed. And you .’ He rounded on Simone. ‘You should have refused. Or at least taken something less impressive. God, Simone, what a stupid thing to do.’

‘That is less impressive,’ Simone said. ‘That’s the smallest one I can do. In the full version, I’m more than three metres tall, as big as Daddy’s biggest Celestial Form. The robes appear like space; the gold stars really are stars. My eyes are even bigger and freaking black . And the yin hangs around my hair like some sort of freaking cloak, freezing the air wherever I go. It’s huge .’

‘Shit.’ The Tiger began pacing again. ‘You sure your mother was human? Every Immortal in Heaven is going to be after your hand, my girl. If I saw you like that, and I didn’t love your father like a brother, I’d be after you in a second myself.’ He shook his head. ‘What a fucking disaster.’

Mr Wong tapped on the door and came in. He smiled like a kindly grandfather and we all glowered at him.

‘Well done, ladies. But you should have taken the full version, Simone. Maybe later, eh? Come on up and have some nice tea with me, and we’ll talk about it.’

Bai Hu stood threateningly over Mr Wong. ‘Don’t you dare let anybody grab this little girl, Ah Ting. She’s just a child.’

‘Calm down, Ah Bai, don’t get your whiskers in a twist. I’ll protect them, don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.’ He glanced at me, his eyes sparkling. ‘Come on up to my apartment and we’ll have a little chat.’

‘It’s about time someone reminded that bunch of stiffarsed old farts exactly what it means to pursue the Tao,’ the Jade Emperor said amiably. He poured the tea and we all tapped the table in thanks. ‘See? You show respect in exactly the right amount required, at the time it is required, and not more. And when the order is a stupid one, you make your feelings clear. The most senior Celestials are aware of your serpent form, Emma. They were fully expecting you to take it, even though you made it clear that you regard your human form as your True Form.’ He sighed with feeling. ‘So many blindly follow orders purely to avoid taking responsibility for their actions. Lazy . Now.’ He picked up his teacup, brushing his long sleeve out of the way. ‘Leo Alexander. Stupid bastard. Entirely much more trouble than he is worth. I know why you did it, Lady, but he has still been a massive thorn in my side for many years.’

Kwan Yin nodded silently.

He sipped his tea. ‘You certainly have my permission to try your best to pull Leo out. Go for it. If you can persuade him out of Hell, I’d be very happy indeed.’

‘I wasn’t expecting this to be so easy after all the bureaucracy we’ve had to go through,’ I said.

The Emperor smiled slightly. ‘We thought we would be able to fix this without the intervention of a mortal such as yourself. It makes us look very, very bad to have to call you in on this. The Celestial should be able to handle this type of thing.’

‘Leo’s very stubborn when he wants to be,’ I said.

The Emperor raised his teacup to me. ‘That he is. And thoroughly Worthy. I am looking forward to seeing him take his place here among the Immortals.’

‘He’s black and gay, Ah Ting,’ Bai Hu said.

We all stared at Bai Hu with astonishment, even the Jade Emperor.

‘I’m just saying,’ Bai Hu said with a shrug. ‘He’d be the first.’

I turned back to the Jade Emperor. ‘He’d be the first gay Immortal? Is it allowed? I know the tradition …’

‘Humankind is very fond of rules,’ the Jade Emperor said. ‘Very fond of putting things into little boxes and sticking labels on them. Yang is masculine; yin is feminine. Therefore all males must be yang and be attracted to females. Despite the fact that the universe is obviously not built that way, humans insist on creating their little boxes and pushing things into them even when it’s quite plain that they don’t fit.’ He poured more tea. ‘The nature of the Tao is the true nature of all. If a man is attracted to other men and that is his nature, then how can he pursue the Tao without pursuing that nature? Ridiculous.’