Kylie Chan - Earth to Hell

‘Nice to meet you,’ I said. ‘Do you have a name?’

‘I was not graced with a name until the Lady Rhonda took possession of me. She has chosen the name of Zara for me, and I am honoured.’

Rhonda shrugged. ‘She’s a sweetie.’

‘I am proud to serve, my Lady,’ the stone said.

Rhonda leaned on the table, serious, her salad forgotten. ‘What will it be like down there?’

‘On the demonic side? I have no idea.’

‘But Simon Wong kept you imprisoned there for a few weeks. What was that like?’

I leaned back. ‘It was exactly like a posh apartment on top of Harbour City. I could even see the cars parking on the roof of Ocean Terminal. The windows were an illusion, and they were sealed, but it was just like an apartment.’

‘All indoors?’

‘The Celestial side of Hell appeared to be outdoors, even though there was no sun. I couldn’t tell you, Rhonda, but my guess is that it’ll be pretty nice.’

‘Hell. Nice.’ She shook her head. ‘Lovely.’

‘It’s good of you to consider doing this for Leo, Rhonda. I really appreciate it.’

She shrugged. ‘The Tiger said I should be fine, and it will prove to everybody on the Celestial that I’m serious about marrying him, so he supports me a hundred per cent.’

‘All the best for both of you then. It’ll be a tough job for you, being Empress of the West. You’ll have a lot to manage.’

She picked up her fork and moved her salad around. ‘You have no idea. He’s putting me in charge of a massive palace and a hundred women who are all baying for my blood.’

‘They’re not. They wouldn’t.’

She smiled up at me. ‘Well, you know — we all like to think that we’re his special wife, the one he’ll leave all the others for. Now I’ve stepped up and I am the one he nearly left the others for — they hate me. Your friend Louise is probably going to come down as soon as she can and ask you to do something about me.’

‘She knows you’re my friend. She wouldn’t ask me to do that.’

‘The others are pushing her. I’ve already been attacked a couple of times.’ She nodded over her shoulder to where two burly sons of the Tiger stood near the door of the restaurant. ‘The Tiger’s had to give me a personal guard.’

‘ To protect you from his other wives ?’

She nodded, amused. ‘He’s said I should start disciplining them the minute we’re married. Apparently during Imperial times it was quite common for the Empress to order misbehaving concubines beaten or executed.’ Her smile became wry. ‘Sometimes he really needs to be dragged tail-first into the twenty-first century.’

‘Good luck managing that,’ I said with disbelief. ‘I’m glad all I have is a Heavenly realm falling to bits and about four hundred young and unruly Disciples skilled in Arts that give them the ability to maim and kill without even thinking. What you have is much worse.’

‘Hey, Zara,’ Rhonda said.

‘Hmm?’ her stone replied.

‘Who has it worse, me or Lady Emma?’

‘Oh, definitely Lady Emma,’ the stone said. ‘She has to deal with that ugly piece of worn-out jade on her finger on top of all her other trials.’

‘It was me that wore you out, baby,’ the stone in my ring said slyly.

‘Pig-dog,’ said Rhonda’s stone.

‘Look, if the cheating works both ways then it’s still cheating and the win isn’t valid,’ Marshal Meng said, looking and sounding more like an exasperated grandfather than a Heavenly General.

‘I cancelled out the cheats they used. I wasn’t cheating myself, just making it fair,’ Marshal Liang said, his huge whiskers bristling.

‘You are all contributing to the wealth of the casino lords, you know that,’ I said as I entered the conference room.

‘What do you think, Emma?’ Marshal Meng said, gracefully indicating his heavy-set companion. ‘Liang here uses his abilities to cancel out the cheat on the roulette wheel. That’s still cheating and invalidates any wins he makes.’

‘I just make it fair,’ Liang said, indignant.

‘Do you lose then?’ I said. ‘As if the wheel wasn’t weighted?’

Liang nodded. ‘Perfectly fair if I win.’

‘Then when you lose you’re still adding to the wealth of the casino lords and you doubly lose,’ I said, to a chorus of chuckles from the other Generals. ‘Some of that wealth is siphoned into the Triads, some of the Triads are controlled by demons, so if you lose at the table you’re helping the enemy. If you win at the table you’re cheating. Give it up.’

Liang opened and closed his mouth, then smiled wryly. ‘You have a point, Lady Emma.’ He looked around at the other Generals. ‘I suppose we should have this meeting now.’

The Generals sat down good-naturedly at the conference table and waited for me. In the past they had kept their forms reasonably standard, but as they’d come to realise that I didn’t really care what they looked like, they’d taken a variety of interesting — and sometimes nondescript — forms.

The highest-ranking General present was Marshal Ma, who was a slim, elegant gentleman in his mid-thirties, his hair cut short in the modern style, wearing a pair of slacks and a polo shirt. He seemed too refined to be involved in killing demons but was a fierce and talented fighter.

Next to him sat Marshal Gao, wearing traditional silvery Tang-style robes and armour, his long hair bound in a topknot. He was concentrating and so, for a change, wasn’t glowing gently, but as the discussion became heated and he forgot, the glow was guaranteed to return, much to his embarrassment.

Marshal Liang sat next to him, a fierce, heavy-set man with huge sideburns, wearing a short yellow robe and large cloth boots in the Mongolian style. He still looked put out at having his gambling habits called into question.

Marshal Meng was on the other side of the table, looking more like a fifty-year-old bureaucrat than anything else in his black robe and old-fashioned plain cloth cap. He smiled serenely, still appearing like a kindly grandfather.

Closest to me was Marshal Zhu, who, although seeming a pretty, fresh-faced young woman of about sixteen, was much tougher and wiser than her appearance suggested.

As the one with highest precedence, I spoke first. ‘Four main things,’ I said. ‘Leo’s kidnapping. Northern Heavens.’ There was a chorus of groans around the table. ‘Me getting called out by Er Lang —’

‘ Er Lang called you out?’ Ma said, shocked.

I nodded. ‘Simone and elementals. Anything major from you guys?’

‘Nothing as bad as that,’ Ma said. ‘Leo first, this is important. We heard about the stone left in his cell in Hell — this is disturbing.’

I leaned on the table. ‘Why are Simon Wong’s little friends who could manipulate stones becoming more active now? You’d think they’d have tried us right after Lord Xuan left. But they’ve waited eight years, and all they’ve done is take Leo.’

‘Of course it’s a trap,’ Marshal Liang said. ‘The Demon King will probably tell you where they are so you can walk right into it.’

‘Do you think he’s helping them?’ I asked. ‘He vowed that he wasn’t, but I don’t know if I can trust him any more. With Lord Xuan gone, he’s making more and more attempts at us. And he’s used Leo’s disappearance as a way of getting Rhonda into Hell for a week. It almost seems too convenient.’

‘I strongly doubt he’s in league with them,’ Ma said. ‘Given half a chance these stone-controlling demons would probably put a knife in the King’s back. He’s hoping you can destroy them without him having to do anything, same as when Simone destroyed One Two Two for him.’