White Tiger

me.’
    ‘I won’t leave you, John.’
    He drifted away.
    Leo and Simone returned the next morning to pick him up. The doctor tried to make him stay longer, but he insisted that he was fine and wanted to go home. Leo backed him up and together they bullied the doctor into releasing him.
    He couldn’t use crutches with a broken arm. The hospital lent us a wheelchair. Leo wheeled him down to the car, but he climbed clumsily into the passenger seat himself. He wouldn’t let Leo carry him. Leo shook his head, folded the wheelchair up and put it in the boot.
    Mr Chen was mortified when he was wheeled past the smiling security guards back at the Peak. ‘This is not fitting.’
    ‘Deal with it,’ Leo said unsympathetically. ‘You won’t need it after you call the Lady.’
    Mr Chen’s face went rigid and he didn’t say anything.
    Leo wheeled him into his room. I hung back in the hallway, but Simone dragged me in with her.
    Leo bent to assist Mr Chen into bed, but Mr Chen raised his hand. ‘Leo, I need your help. This is not an order, this is a request.’
    Leo stopped.
    ‘The hospital staff tried to clean me up, but there is still mud and blood on me. There is also demon venom and it needs to come off. Will you help me?’
    Leo silently watched him.
    Mr Chen’s face was full of regret. ‘I would understand if you declined.’
    They looked at each other for a long time.
    Leo turned to me. ‘Emma, have a look in the kitchen and see if you can find some plastic bags and rubber bands. We’ll need to keep the plaster dry.’
    Leo came into the kitchen later. Simone was noisily slurping the ramen that I’d made for her.
    “Bout time you ate something,’ Leo said.
    Simone slammed her chopsticks onto the table. ‘I want to see Daddy.’
    ‘Daddy’s sleeping.’ Leo pulled a coffee mug out of the cupboard. ‘Leave him alone.’
    Simone returned to the noodles and ate them more slowly.
    ‘Where’s Monica?’ I said.
    ‘Gone to the market,’ Leo said.
    When Simone had finished the noodles I took her for a nap. She fell asleep almost immediately; she’d been awake most of the night with Leo. I went into my room, showered and changed, and returned to the kitchen. Leo was still there, glowering at his coffee.
    I sat across from him. ‘He’s not out of the woods yet, is he?’
    Leo shook his head without looking up. ‘He needs Kwan Yin.’ He nodded.
    I inhaled sharply as I understood. ‘He’s too damn proud to call her.’
    ‘He drives me completely crazy sometimes.’
    ‘Do you have the number for the house in Montmartre?’
    He smiled at me. ‘That house doesn’t exist.’ ‘What?’
    ‘Ms Kwan made it for him. It’s not real. It’s about as far from the demons’ power centre as you can get, that’s why they do it there. But the house isn’t real at all.’
    ‘What about London? Charlie? James?’
    ‘Oh, they’re real all right; he’s had that house for years. But they’d have even less chance of contacting her than we would.’
    I ran my hands through my hair. ‘Jade? Gold?’
    ‘Yeah.’ He grimaced at his coffee. ‘I asked him why he didn’t want Gold to help clean him up instead of me.’ He shrugged. ‘The demons killed them. They’re dead.’
    ‘No!’ I rubbed my hands over my face. ‘No, Leo, they’re Shen, I know they are. You can’t kill Shen. They just go away for a while and then come back.’
    ‘He says about three or four months.’
    ‘That long?’
    He nodded.
    ‘What are we going to do?’
    He studied his coffee, full of misery. ‘Hope that he has the sense to call her before he fades away.’
    I crossed my arms on the table and flopped my head on them. ‘No.’
    He sighed with feeling, finished his coffee and rose. ‘I’ll be in the training room.’
    When Simone woke she was listless and uninterested in everything I tried to do with her. Eventually I planted her in front of the television and she watched it, eyes wide and unseeing.
    I pulled a book out and attempted to read. I kept reading the same page over and over without comprehension.
    I jumped; I’d heard a noise. I rushed to the door and looked outside. Nope; not Ms Kwan at the door.
    I went to Mr Chen’s room, opened the door slightly and checked on him. He appeared to be asleep, his face peaceful. He looked very, very old. He didn’t move.
    I returned to the television room and tried to read the book.
    A couple of hours later Monica prepared lunch for us and we sat around the table looking