‘Let me speak to them before I start to build anything.’
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ the King said. ‘Rest and eat while I gather the materials for you. Believe me, I would let you go now, but I want this to work and you’re the best way of ensuring it. Humour me and build it.’
‘I just want Rhonda and Clarissa free and unharmed,’ Michael said.
‘Then we both want the same thing. I’ll be back with the metal.’ He turned and left.
Semias sat at the table across from Michael. ‘Any word?’
Michael shook his head.
‘Do as the King said. You’ve been working yourself into the ground. I think you’ve had about two hours’ sleep every night. Rest and eat until he brings you the metal.’
Michael rubbed his gritty eyes. ‘I just want to go home with my family.’
‘We’ll get you there, lad. It will happen.’
Michael didn’t reply. He should have been on the way home with the women he loved, but he wasn’t surprised at having to stay and build the damn thing.
Three days later he was going nearly mad with inactivity, even though he and Semias were evenly matched at chess, when the helicopter thundered overhead. He went to the entry and waited, watching with his Inner Eye as the demons unloaded a crate full of the metal that he required. He wished his Eye could do more damage as the King approached and opened the door.
‘Do you mind? That’s extremely uncomfortable,’ the King said as he came in.
Michael closed his Inner Eye.
‘Thank you,’ the King said. ‘I have the metal, and it’s the right elements as well. You said three days?’
‘I want to speak to my family first. Let me talk to my mother and fiancée and I’ll get right to work.’
‘I thought you might say that,’ the King said. He gestured with his head towards the living room. ‘In here.’
Michael followed the King into the room and watched, standing, as the King pulled a tablet computer out of his laptop bag and flipped it up onto its stand. He placed it on a side table and indicated for Michael to join him.
‘We had to set up our own communication network, the logistics were a nightmare,’ the King said as he turned the tablet on. ‘But we have it working.’ He leaned back. ‘There you are.’
Rhonda and Clarissa appeared on the screen, obviously in front of a webcam. Michael gasped; Clarissa appeared fine but Rhonda looked terrible. She’d lost weight, her eyes were sunken and had blackened rings around them, and her skin hung from her emaciated face.
Michael rounded on the King. ‘What did you do to her?’
‘Nothing,’ the King said, raising his hands. ‘Being here in the Heavens isn’t good for her, probably because of her part-demon nature. She can’t survive here much longer, Prince Michael, you need to finish the engine so I can release her.’
Michael turned back to the screen. Rhonda looked terrible, but Clarissa looked okay? Maybe Rhonda was a copy and Clarissa was the original… He couldn’t risk it.
‘Mom? How are you holding up? You look unwell.’
‘I’m fine, really,’ Rhonda said with forced cheerfulness. ‘They’re looking after me but they say something about my nature doesn’t suit these Heavens.’ She leaned into the screen. ‘The King says you can take us home in three days?’
Michael touched the screen, wishing he could comfort them directly. ‘Three days and we’re out of here. I’ll take you home. I promise.’
‘We trust you,’ Clarissa said, and clutched Rhonda’s hand. ‘I always knew you would protect me, Michael. You’ll find us a way out of this.’
‘I will.’
‘All right, that’s enough,’ the King said. He turned the tablet off and folded it up. ‘If you hurry on this you can have them home with you in three days. I promise as well.’
‘My mother may not last three days!’ Michael said.
‘She’s fine. I’ve seen others like this – it takes them years to fade. Really. You just need to pull her out of the Heavens and get her back on the Earthly where she belongs. Will you start work on the engine for me?’
‘Show me where the metal is,’ Michael said.
‘Right this way.’
When night fell, Michael moved the metal into the entry hall of the palace where it was warmer. Producing the cogs was fiddly and time-consuming, but once he had a few cast in the right shape his work sped up. It was deep into the night when one of the demons entered, left him a cup of something, and left again. He tasted it; some sort of warm grape juice, sweetened with honey. He drank it without really noticing as he worked on the gears, making sure that they fitted together perfectly.
He stopped to take a sip of the drink and something hit his mouth. Revolted, he peered into the cup and saw a packet in the bottom. He looked around; nobody nearby. He took the drink with him up to his room, ostensibly to use the bathroom, and when he was inside he quickly untied the oilskin packet and read the message scribbled on it.
Three hundred kilometres north-north-west of you, in a large rectangular mansion on the coast between England and Wales. Follow coastline where the two regions join and you will find it easily.
He didn’t even need to do that; when he was fifty kilometres from them he’d be able to sense them. He raised his head. ‘Semias.’
Semias appeared next to him. ‘I know. We need to go down into the engine room again, and compare the work we’ve done with what’s in place there.’
Michael put his hand out, Semias took it, and they teleported into the engine room where they could talk freely.
‘I know that place,’ Semias said. ‘There’s a large island off the west coast, and this estate is where the channel is at its narrowest. It’s surrounded by lawns and gardens. It’ll be a cleared area in the middle of a large forest; you can’t miss it.’
‘It’s a long way away, can you carry me there?’ Michael said.
‘No. Best I can do is the edge of the city. Can you do the rest of the way?’
‘Of course.’ Michael put his hand out and Semias took it again. They landed on the glass wall that surrounded the city.
Michael slapped Semias on the shoulder. ‘I will be back for you.’
‘You can’t take a whole city with you, lad,’ Semias said. ‘Just go and leave me to it. Free your family.’
‘I won’t forget what you’ve done for me,’ Michael said. ‘We will return and clear the demons from the European Heavens.’
‘Just go!’ Semias said with urgency. ‘They could return any time.’
Michael clasped Semias’s hand then released it and flew up and west.
He kept flying west, though the cold night sky of the deserted Heavens. The Asian Heavens were full of the telepathic buzz and energy signatures of the Shen that lived there; these skies were eerily silent. The cold and emptiness bit into him, and he missed the warmth and camaraderie of his brothers and sisters back in the White Tiger’s palace. The skies blazed with stars overhead and he was glad for his ability to see in the dark.
It was obvious when he approached the estate where his family were being held – it registered as a seething mass of demonkind. He approached the manor carefully and felt the women’s presence inside, on the top floor. Stupid demons, that was the easiest place to free them. Unless it was a trap for him, but he couldn’t see any reason for them to suspect he knew where the women were.
The manor was as Semias had described – about a hundred metres long, three storeys high, with a tall ground floor that was double the height of the others. The land around it had been cleared and planted with a variety of domestic flowers, the gardens overgrown and tangled from neglect.
He landed silently on the roof and sent his senses down through it. Rhonda and Clarissa were in the room directly below him, playing cards at a table in a bedroom they obviously shared. Demons filled every other room, all the way through the mansion, and some of the demons were enormous. His best bet was to sneak in the window, grab the women, and run back to Semias’s city where the spirit could open the gateway to Rotterdam for them. He made himself invisible and floated down to hover outside their window.