Red Phoenix

him move it.’
    ‘You can communicate telepathically, Emma?’ Michael said with wonder.
    I shook my head. ‘With Leo, I don’t need to.’ Leo and I shared a smile.
    There was a piercing, high-pitched scream from the hallway that went on forever. Simone.
    All three of us threw ourselves up and rushed towards the sound. Both Leo and I knocked our chairs over.
    John was hunched inside the door of the training room. Simone curled up against the back wall of the room, clutching her little sword, screaming. She took a huge breath and screamed again.
    I squeezed past John, careful not to touch him, and went into the training room. Simone’s eyes widened and she went silent. She scurried away from me.
    ‘It’s all right, Simone, it’s us. What are you frightenedof?’ I tried to approach her, but she kept moving away. ‘Are there any demons nearby?’
    Simone raised her little sword in front of her. ‘Stay away from me!’ She cast around frantically and saw Leo behind me. She dropped her sword, ran a huge detour around me, and threw herself into Leo’s arms. ‘Get them away, Leo, get them away from me.’
    ‘Get who away, sweetheart? What’s the matter?’ Leo lifted her and put her on his hip. ‘There’s nothing here, it’s just us.’
    Simone buried her face into his chest. ‘Get me away. Out. Please, Leo, away.’
    Leo carried her out of the training room. John moved further into the room to let them through. Michael stood behind John, looking as confused as I felt.
    ‘What was all that about?’ I said.
    ‘Talk about it later.’ John’s eyes turned inwards and unseeing and his voice became urgent. ‘For now, out. Everybody. Leave me.’ He pointed towards the door and I quickly went out, taking Michael and shutting the door behind me.
    ‘What happened?’ Michael said, baffled.
    ‘I have absolutely no idea,’ I said, just as bewildered. ‘Hopefully Lord Xuan will tell us later.’
    ‘I thought it would be cool to be able to control the weather,’ Michael said. ‘Now I’m not so sure.’
    ‘Sometimes I think us ordinary humans have it easy,’ I said. ‘You want me to include you in the “us”?’
    ‘Sometimes yes, sometimes no,’ Michael said good-naturedly as we went to find Simone and Leo. ‘I’ve tried doing things with metal, like he said. Nothing.’
    ‘Don’t try to rush it. If it comes, it comes.’ We were at the door to Simone’s room; she was clearly audible, sobbing inside. ‘Michael, could you put the tiles away for me? I think maybe I should talk to Simone alone.’
    ‘Yes, ma’am. Will you need me after that?’ ‘You can go and play after that, if the net connection is still up.’
    ‘Thanks,’ he said and turned back to the living room.
    I opened the door to Simone’s room and went in. Leo sat on Simone’s little pink bedcover. Simone sat in his lap facing him, her head turned to one side on his chest, her eyes wide and glittering. He wrapped his arms protectively around her.
    ‘Are you okay now, Simone?’ I said gently. ‘What happened? What did you see?’
    Simone wriggled around to face me and smiled. She hopped out of Leo’s lap and came to me, taking both of my hands in hers. ‘Where were you, Emma? Why didn’t you come?’
    ‘I came straight here from the training room. Why were you frightened?’
    ‘You weren’t in the training room, Emma, there were monsters there.’
    ‘Demons?’ I said quietly. ‘You know demons can’t get in here. Your dad had the seals redone not long ago by a Grand Master.’
    ‘Not demons. Monsters.’
    ‘What’s the difference?’
    Simone went quiet, eyes wide. ‘They were horrible.’ ‘I don’t know either, Emma,’ Leo said softly from the bed.
    I sat cross-legged on the carpet and pulled Simone onto my knee, sideways to me so that I could talk to her. ‘Okay,’ I said firmly. ‘There were horrible monsters in the training room. Is that right?’
    Simone nodded, eyes still wide.
    ‘You didn’t see us when we came in.’
    She shook her head. She gestured towards Leo. ‘I saw Leo.’
    ‘Your dad was at the doorway, Simone. He went in there to meditate.’
    ‘My daddy wasn’t there,’ she said. ‘It was a monster.’
    Leo came and sat cross-legged on the carpet with us. ‘Tell us what happened, Simone, right from the start. What were you doing in there anyway?’
    ‘I was bored. You were playing. So I went to do a sword kata.’
    ‘Is your dad letting you do that by yourself already?’ I