Earth to Hell. Kylie Chan
named Simone. Her father was a wealthy Hong Kong businessman.’
Hien didn’t move.
‘After a while, I discovered that he wasn’t a businessman at all, but a god. He was Xuan Wu, the black Turtle Snake God of the North.’
Hien glanced at me through her fringe again.
‘I don’t know how much you know about the gods, but he was the North Wind, an Immortal. He married a human woman and had a child with her. It’s a long story, but because of his wife he was forced to stay in human form for a long time and this made him weak. His wife was murdered by a demon before I met him; that’s why he needed me to nanny. He and I fell in love and he died about three years after that, murdered by a demon. I’ve been looking after his daughter, Simone, ever since. I’ve also been given the job of looking after his martial arts academy and some other stuff related to him being Emperor of the Northern Heavens.’ I put my chin on my hand. ‘Not exactly what I was intending to do with my life, but one day he’ll come back and we’ll get married.’
Hien clasped and unclasped her hands in her lap.
‘Yep, you’re probably thinking: more lies. But this is actually easy to prove because I can have any god or demon wander in here and take their True Form and scare you to death. I won’t do that though.’
She studied her hands carefully, still too traumatised to talk. This would take time.
‘Some of the staff and students here at the Martial Arts Academy are dragons,’ I went on. ‘Dragons are fierce fighters with impeccable honour and completely loyal to us. They are also incredibly fickle in love. They tend to love humans and then leave them without thought; not out of malice, just because that’s the way they are. We’ve been working here to explain to the dragons that this sort of behaviour isn’t really acceptable where humans are concerned. That if you produce a child with a human partner you’re expected to hang around and help care for it. Dragon children hatch fully able to care for themselves, but half-human dragons are generally the same as human babies.’
She sighed gently. I was boring her now.
‘One of your parents took off when you were a small child, Hien, leaving the other to care for you. Was it your mother or father who left you?’
She frowned slightly but didn’t reply.
‘Please answer me, Hien. Was it your mother or your father that left you when you were a small child?’
She tilted her head slightly, still hiding under her long fringe. ‘Mother,’ she whispered.
‘Your mother left when you were little. Your father probably has nothing but good things to say about her, and says that she left because that’s the way she was. He might even say that he still loves her.’
She glanced up at me through her hair.
‘Your mother is a dragon, Hien.’
She looked down again. Lost her.
‘You’re a dragon too, if you can learn to transform. You can be very powerful, able to swim and fly. But you must make this hidden dragon nature emerge. If you can, you will never again have to worry about anybody harming you.’
She remained still and silent.
‘I have one of the Academy dragons outside the door, Hien. She’s been translating for me. I can’t speak a word of Vietnamese.’
A small lie, but worthwhile in the circumstances. Amy wasn’t translating for me; all languages were understood within the walls of the Academy.
‘Right now she looks like an ordinary young woman. She can transform into a dragon to show you, if you like, and then you can decide whether you want to be a dragon and learn what you are capable of, or whether you would just like to go home.’
Hien sat unmoving, thinking about it.
‘Come on in, Amy,’ I said.
Amy opened the door and Hien jumped. Amy smiled reassuringly at her, and sat in the other visitor’s chair.
‘I know this is shocking for you,’ she told the girl. ‘I didn’t know I was a dragon until I was twenty-five years old; my father never told me he was a dragon too. We have a community of dragons here at the Academy and we go out and swim and fly together. It’s great fun. And we’re fierce fighters too; we never have to worry about being hurt.’
‘Amy will look after you now, Hien,’ I said, ‘and introduce you to some other dragons. All of them will be in human form. When you’re ready, you can ask her to show you her dragon form, her True Form. Take a few days, meet the other dragons, then at the end of the time decide whether you would like to learn to become a dragon yourself, or whether you’d like to go home.’
Amy held her hand out to Hien. ‘Come with me, I’ll look after you. Nobody’s going to hurt you any more.’
‘Go with her, Hien,’ I said. ‘And good luck. I hope one day I see you in dragon form. I’d like to see what colour dragon you are. Amy is the most beautiful black dragon with gold fins that I have ever seen.’
I nodded to Amy and she smiled back at me. As she gently guided Hien out, she turned back to me. ‘Don’t worry, Emma, I think we’ll bring her round.’
‘I hope so,’ I said. ‘She’s had a lot of bad stuff happen in her life. It would be nice to see something good happen.’
I was about halfway through the end-of-year leave requests when there was a knock on the door. ‘Enter.’
Lee came in, looking grim, with Silver, one of the Academy dragons. They took the visitors’ chairs and Silver placed the Academy’s video camera on the desk.
‘What did you find?’ I asked.
They both shook their heads.
‘Nothing,’ Lee said. ‘I wasn’t wiped this time. In fact, nothing at all happened. We went right through the place and didn’t find anything. You can watch the video, but it’s basically a tour of a down-market Mong Kok brothel. Four stones and Master Sit came with us, and absolutely nothing happened.’
‘Let’s see,’ I said.
Lee picked the camera up off the desk, flipped open the LCD screen and turned it on. He glanced down at the screen and his face filled with shock.
Silver leapt to his feet and changed to Celestial Form — nearly two metres tall with long, flowing, shining grey hair and scaled silver armour. He summoned a spear and held it to one side in the small office.
‘Don’t attack,’ Lee said to Silver without looking away from the screen. ‘That’s Lady Emma’s serpent form.’
‘What?’ I said.
Lee turned the LCD screen around so that it faced the same way as the lens. I could see myself in the screen; the camera was on record mode, not playback.
I stared at myself. ‘Holy shit.’
Silver changed back to human form, but his hair remained long and grey. ‘The Dark Lady is a serpent?’
‘Nobody knows why, but I can change into a big black snake. Not many people know about it, Silver,’ I said, watching with fascination as the enormous black serpent in the tiny screen also opened its mouth to speak. ‘We’d prefer not to freak out the students.’
I took the camera from Lee and watched myself. ‘I never knew I’d look like that on video; on still cameras I appear human. Wait!’ I looked up. ‘Stone, Simone took a home video about six months ago when we went to London and I was human in that. What the hell?’
‘No idea, Emma,’ the stone said. ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’
‘This information isn’t to be shared,’ Lee said to Silver. ‘Many of the human students would probably take it quite badly.’
Silver nodded.