Blue Dragon

shop.’
    ‘No,’ Leo whispered. ‘You can’t.’
    ‘We’ll send them all home, Leo,’ I said. ‘There’s not much else we can do.’
    ‘I’ll rent the ballroom of one of the hotels in Admiralty, have a farewell dinner, make the announcement,’ John said, his voice full of pain. ‘The seniors who want to remain with us can stay at the Folly. Many of them have no other family, no other interests, and nowhere else to go. Emma and the remaining Celestials can look after them after I’m gone. All the juniors should go home to their families.’
    ‘It’s the only thing we can do,’ I said, my heart breaking. The juniors would be devastated when they heard.
    ‘Once the juniors are home, the seniors are organised, and the demon is taken out, you have my permission,’ John said to Liu.
    ‘My Lord,’ Liu whispered, his voice hoarse.
    ‘Hold it a minute,’ I said. ‘You can’t rent a ballroom—we don’t have Gold. We’ll have to do it at Hennessy Road. And we don’t have space for everybody in one room.’
    ‘What’s the problem?’ Leo said.
    ‘Language,’ I said. ‘They’ll be able to understand Lord Xuan, but nobody else.’
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘You’re quite correct,’ John said.
    ‘Gather them into the training rooms at Hennessy Road, make the announcement by telepathy,’ I said. ‘It’s the only way.’
    ‘We lost Jade and Gold as well?’ Leo said.
    ‘We lost Gold,’ I said. ‘Have you heard from him? Is he in Hell?’
    ‘We haven’t heard from him,’ the stone said, completely emotionless. ‘He has disappeared. He is not in Hell, he is not on Earth, he is not on the Celestial. He does not answer when he is called.’
    ‘Oh God ,’ I whispered.
    Leo moaned gently and rubbed his hands over his face.
    ‘We lost all the stones,’ John said without looking up. ‘All of them. The attackers had some way of disabling them. At this stage it is not clear whether the same thing has happened to them.’
    The stone made a soft hissing sound, but didn’t say anything.
    ‘What about the dragons?’ I said.
    ‘Most of the dragons escaped death because of their speed,’ John said. ‘They fought valiantly. Many of them were injured, though, and have been moved to the East to recover. We have about a dozen dragons left, including Jade, who couldn’t fight.’
    ‘Is Jade okay?’ Leo said.
    ‘Jade’s apparently sitting on a clutch of eggs and didn’t tell anybody,’ I said.
    ‘Terrific timing,’ Leo growled. ‘She didn’t even look pregnant.’
    ‘Typical dragon behaviour. Never tell anybody anything.’ I sighed and rested my chin on my hand. ‘Geez. This is really bad.’
    John leaned back, his face tight but his eyes burning. ‘Anything else?’
    ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Why couldn’t you sense them?’
    Leo glanced at John.
    ‘Nobody could sense them,’ Liu said. ‘They were specifically engineered to appear human right the way through. There was absolutely no demon essence that was visible to any sort of inspection.’
    ‘Sounds like the fire elementals, except more so,’ I said.
    ‘Precisely,’ John said.
    ‘How did you recognise them once you knew then?’ I said. ‘If there’s no demon essence about them?’
    ‘They are not completely human, and the difference is easy to spot once you are looking for it,’ John said. ‘In the past we only looked for existence of the blackdemon essence, and if it wasn’t there we could safely assume it was human. Now we can’t; we must look at its human nature as well.’
    ‘We need to see Helen again,’ I said. ‘Were you awake, stone?’
    ‘Yes,’ the stone said. ‘I can show you.’
    ‘First, I must report,’ John said. ‘The residents of the Celestial must be notified about the new demons. Only the Heavens know how far they have infiltrated. I’ve summoned the Tiger, he’ll be here shortly. Then we can examine Helen.’
    ‘Were you awake when Kitty came to get her from school?’ I said.
    ‘Yes,’ the stone said.
    ‘Good, we’ll look at Kitty too. Oh,’ I said, suddenly remembering, ‘was that April?’
    ‘No,’ the stone said. ‘And it wasn’t a Mother either.’
    ‘Well then, what the hell was it?’ I said. ‘It sure as hell looked like a Mother.’
    ‘Something completely new,’ the stone said. ‘You’ll need to devise a name for them, I think.’
    The Tiger appeared at the other end of the room and fell to one knee, saluting. ‘Xuan Tian Shang Di.’
    ‘Emma,’ John said, ‘what