Kylie Chan: Heaven to Wudang

The Shen stared at me. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘I’m not a demon!’ the young man shouted, his face fierce with fury. ‘I’m not … I’m not …’

His father put his hand on the young man’s shoulder and spoke soothingly. ‘Don’t lose it, Tom, deep breaths, you can do it. Hold on, lad, you can’t change here. These people know what you are!’

The Shen and I both stepped back as the skin on the young man’s face disappeared.

‘Snake Mother,’ Leo whispered behind us.

‘Can’t be,’ Simone said. ‘The only male Mother-type is the King himself.’

‘What the hell are you people talking about?’ the Shen said, turning to glare at me again.

I raised both hands. ‘Okay. You.’ I pointed at the older man. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Ben O’Breen,’ he said. He pressed his hand harder into Tom’s shoulder and the young man’s face returned to normal. ‘I’m his father, and he won’t hurt anybody.’

I raised one hand towards the Shen. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Vincent Pang,’ the Shen said. ‘Your name is Emma? You know what I am?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then you probably know more about me than I do.’

I turned back to the Europeans. ‘Ben, do you know what your son is?’

‘I know that his mother was something vicious and powerful, and that we had to get away from her before our son turned into something similar,’ Ben said.

‘Was she Chinese or European?’ I said, noticing Tom’s slightly Eurasian features.

‘Chinese,’ Ben said. ‘Do you know what she was? What he is?’ His face filled with hope. ‘Can you help us?’

‘None of them has any idea what they are?’ Simone said, incredulous.

‘Strange as it sounds, I think that’s the case,’ I said. ‘Tom’s half demon. Vincent attacked him because that’s his nature, being what he is.’

‘What am I?’ Vincent said.

‘You’re half Shen, and probably my half-brother,’ Simone said.

He turned to stare at her. ‘You can see what I really am?’ He took a couple of steps back and appeared ready to run.

‘Don’t be ashamed,’ I said quickly. ‘Your father — if you share the same father with her — is the most powerful Shen in the Heavens, second only to the Jade Emperor himself.’

‘All that stuff is real?’ he said.

‘Have you changed to a turtle or snake?’ I said.

He hesitated. Admitting to changing to either was huge; it was understandable that he’d prefer not to share.

‘Do you change, Vincent?’

He nodded once sharply.

‘And you ask me if the Shen are real?’

He sagged against the wall and looked as if he was about to cry. ‘I thought I was an experiment or something. I change into this horrible thing, and I have this urge to kill people like him.’ He bent and put his head in his hands. ‘I’m not a monster at all!’

Simone went to him and pulled him into a fierce hug, and he let go into her shoulder.

I turned back to Ben and Tom. ‘Now, what to do with you two? Tom, when you change, what do you change into?’

‘Can we take this somewhere where we can sit, rather than standing around here talking about it?’ Simone said. She patted Vincent on the back. ‘He’s broken down and he’s heavy.’ She pulled back to look into Vincent’s face. ‘You have a family now, we can help you. Come with us.’

‘Anywhere but the Shang,’ I said.

Leo concentrated. ‘Coffee shop upstairs at the Conrad is empty.’

‘Ask LK Pak to join us, please,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’

We took the glass lift up to the hotel and all entered the coffee shop. The staff were setting out the central display for the lunchtime buffet, moving quietly and with precision. A couple of foreign businessmen sat at a table next to the window, but apart from that the café was deserted.

After some searching through my bag I found a packet of tissues and handed them to Vincent. He took them with a nod and wiped his eyes, then blew his nose.

The waiter took our orders, and when he was gone I leaned on the table.

‘Vincent, your case is simple,’ I said. ‘You’re a lost reptile Shen and we’ll take you in and give you a home. You have a family now.’

‘I already have a family,’ Vincent said. ‘My parents brought me up in a housing estate in Lam Tin.’

‘Both parents?’ Simone said.

‘Of course. When I was about fifteen, I changed. They were … They threw me out, they said I was evil. My father tried to kill me.’

‘A Shen wouldn’t do that,’ Simone said. ‘They’d be proud, not scared. I wonder why your parents reacted like that? Maybe one of them isn’t your real parent?’

‘We’ll find out later. Whatever you are, you’re safe and you have a home now,’ I said. ‘We will look after you.’

He bobbed his head. ‘You’ve given me reason to live.’

‘I hope that’s not true,’ Simone said.

‘I had given up,’ he said. ‘I finally gave in to this horrible urge to hurt people and followed this poor boy and his father in the hope that the boy would end it for me.’

‘That’s our nature, to destroy demons,’ Simone said. ‘You were all lucky that we found you when we did.’

‘Is that what I am?’ Tom said. ‘A demon?’

‘You are something new and different and frankly more than a little scary,’ I said. ‘What do you change into, Tom?’

‘I’ve done a lot of research into it,’ he said. ‘The closest thing I’ve seen is a thing called a lamia: front end of a woman, back end of a snake. I’m something like that — but they’re always female, and I’m not.’

‘You have the top half of a man and the bottom half of a snake, and the human part has no skin?’ I said.

He nodded, his face full of misery.

‘Simone, have a look at Ben, just to be sure that he’s human,’ I said.

Simone touched Ben’s hand and focused on him. He didn’t appear to be concerned by it.

‘Not hurting him, and I’m touching him with shen energy,’ Simone said. ‘He’s completely human.’

She stood and reached for Tom and I raised my hand. ‘Wait until LK gets here. He’s the expert.’

She nodded and sat again.

‘You said your name’s O’Breen?’ I asked Ben. ‘That’s unusual, it sounds like O’Brien.’

‘It’s an ancient form of O’Brien,’ Ben said, obviously something he’d said many times before. ‘It’s spelt differently —’

‘Because it’s an older form and slightly different,’ I finished for him. ‘I have the same issue. My surname’s Donahoe, and I’m always telling people how to spell it because —’

This time it was Ben who finished for me. ‘Because there’s only one letter different.’

‘Freaky,’ Simone said.

‘My dad’s doing our family tree,’ I said. ‘He reckons our family originally came from Wales, though, not Ireland.’

‘Same here,’ Ben said. ‘I’m not Irish, I’m actually Welsh.’

‘Seriously freaky,’ Simone said.

‘Tell me about Tom’s mother,’ I said. ‘She was Chinese, and cruel? What was she like?’

‘I met her when I was here in Hong Kong on business,’ Ben said. ‘About twenty years ago. She was small and sweet and smiled all the time, and I was completely smitten. We married and I took her back to Wales with me, and the minute Tom was born, she changed. She turned into the opposite of what she’d been here; she was manipulative, angry and — there’s no other word for it — she was straight-up evil. I left her after I came home one day to find that she’d stolen the next-door neighbour’s dog, butchered the poor beast on the dining table and was drinking its blood. Tom was with her, she was holding him, and their faces, their hands, were covered in blood…’ He leaned on the table and put his head in his hands. ‘Tom was only two years old. I grabbed him and ran. We went to London, but she found us and nearly stole him back. I ran further — I lived in Singapore for ten years until she found us again, then Kuala Lumpur, then Sydney, then back here. We’ve been on the run ever since. I just pray to God she never finds him because I know that if she does, she’ll change him into something like her.’