White Tiger

me to our table. As staff, we were put out on the edge of the hall. That was the way it worked. Simone and Mr Chen sat at the red table with the senior notables. Kwan Yin was there and greeted Simone with a warm hug.
    Most of the guests were in Western business suits, but quite a few wore traditional Chinese floor lengthrobes: mandarin collars, long sleeves, with trousers underneath.
    ‘This won’t be as much fun as one of their usual parties,’ Leo said as we sat at our table. ‘The staff here are human and don’t know about them. They’ll all have to behave.’
    ‘You talk like you do this all the time,’ I said.
    ‘Before…’ He took a deep breath. ‘Before Michelle died, we went to a lot of dinners like this. Simone’s onemonth birthday party was a night I’ll never forget. They completely let their hair down. Some of the Shen took True Form and scared Michelle half to death.’
    ‘Is this the first one since then?’
    He looked wistful. ‘Yeah. Even for Simone’s fourth birthday, he only had a couple of them over at our place.’ He smiled. ‘Looks like he’s finally starting to come out of his shell.’
    I turned to watch some of the other guests arrive. Qing Long came in; he’d shed the long turquoise hair and settled for standard Chinese short and black, but he was still more than six feet tall. He wore a silver robe embossed with turquoise scales.
    ‘It’s good to see Mr Chen getting out more,’ Leo said. ‘He’s been a lot happier since you came.’
    I looked at him.
    ‘Don’t even think about it though. It can’t happen,’ he said.
    ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’ I turned back to the guests.
    A young European man in a tan suit came in. He had sandy hair and tawny eyes. He came straight over to me, dragged me out of my chair, hugged me and kissed me on the cheek. ‘Hello, Emma.’
    I pulled back to see him properly. He grinned evilly at me, and suddenly I knew who he was. ‘Bai Hu. What the hell are you doing looking like that?’
    He shrugged. ‘Don’t you like me better like this? As one of you?’
    I moved closer. ‘I liked you better with fur.’
    ‘I knew you liked my fur,’ he said.
    I glanced at the main table. Mr Chen had seen us. His face was rigid.
    ‘You should see the look on his face,’ I whispered.
    ‘I know. We should do this more often.’ He clasped my hand and pulled away.
    ‘Are you going to spend the whole evening like this?’
    He shrugged. ‘Sure. Drives the waiters nuts. They can understand me, so they think I’m speaking Cantonese. Like a native. Confuses the hell out of them.’
    ‘What language are you speaking?’
    ‘No idea. I just talk and they understand. For all I know, I could be speaking Tiger.’ He stiffened. ‘Whoops. He wants me. Probably going to tell me to lay off his staff again.’ He turned away. ‘Later.’
    ‘Don’t go falling for that one either,’ Leo said.
    I snorted with amusement. ‘Not likely.’
    ‘Zhu Que hasn’t turned up.’
    ‘The Tiger threatened to eat her last time she was over. She’s probably still mad with him.’
    A group of stern-looking middle-aged men in standard Western business suits came in, accompanied by aloof women. They went to Mr Chen and paid their respects, saluting him.
    ‘Generals,’ Leo said. ‘There are thirty-six of them altogether. Only about ten of them here tonight.’
    I could see from her face that Simone thought they were really boring.
    Jade entered and came straight to me. She wore a beautiful green silk cheongsam with embroidery of gold peonies. It had three-quarter sleeves and swept nearly to the floor, with short splits up the sides. The mandarin collar framed her slender neck beautifully.
    ‘That’s a gorgeous dress, Jade,’ I said after we’d said hello. ‘Where did you have it made?’
    ‘I know a place in Central where you could have a lovely cheongsam made, Emma.’
    ‘You think I could get away with it?’
    ‘Anything would be better than what you’re wearing now,’ Leo said from behind me. I swiped a kick at his shins without looking back, but missed.
    Jade’s smile widened. ‘Let me take you shopping. I’m sure you would look lovely in one.’ Her eyes became unfocused. ‘I’ve been summoned.’ She took my hands and squeezed them. ‘I’ll call you, we’ll have lunch and have a dress made for you.’
    ‘That sounds like great fun, thanks, Jade.’
    She waved me down and went to Mr Chen.
    I sat and pulled my chair in,