‘We knew that already,’ the Tiger said. ‘The Dark Lord has been there for two days and learned more than you did in two weeks. He knows about the demons and Shen and he’s looking for a way in as well. I sent Three and Four to Rotterdam, but the entrance through the cathedral is closed.’
Michael remained silent.
The Tiger threw himself back on the sofa. ‘What a fucking waste of time.’ He nodded to the Jade Emperor. ‘Apologies.’ He turned back to Michael. ‘Two weeks there and you gained us nothing. Why the hell didn’t you come home and report the minute you knew the way in? Why did you hang around there and fucking help them with this gravity engine and then forget it? You should have come back down straight away and showed us how to break in! Dammit, Number One.’ He sighed loudly. ‘I should demote you.’
‘Go right ahead,’ Michael said, his voice hoarse. ‘Please. Demote me. I’m not competent to be your Number One.’
‘What aren’t you telling us?’ the Jade Emperor said.
The Tiger eyed Michael, waiting for his reply.
I killed her, Dad, Michael said to himself. My mother, your wife. I killed the only woman you would give up all the others for. The one you wanted to make your Empress. I found her, and I killed her. The two most important women I’ve ever known, two fragile humans who were counting on this powerful Shen to protect them, and I murdered them with my stupidity. I killed them.
‘Nothing,’ Michael said.
‘Go home to the Western Palace, and come back when you are willing to share the rest,’ the Jade Emperor said.
‘Am I demoted?’ Michael said.
‘No,’ the Tiger said. ‘I need your administrative skills in the Palace. But in future let your brothers and sisters handle the battle and tactics, you’re restricted to paperwork where you won’t do any more damage. You led a team of fifteen of my best Horsemen to their deaths, boy, and that’s the most minor failure in this whole disappointing episode.’ He waved Michael away. ‘Dismissed.’
Michael rose from the couch, knelt to salute them, and teleported back to his apartment in the Western Palace. He headed straight for the kitchen to find something to drink, the stronger the better.
He didn’t know how much later it was. He was lying on the couch, one arm over his eyes and the other holding the coffee mug full of bourbon, when there was a rap on the door. He ignored it, and the rapping turned to knocking. The knocks escalated into bangs, then the door unlocked by itself. He didn’t move from the couch when the door opened.
‘Immortal or not, that’s a breach of privacy.’
‘Michael,’ Rohan said. ‘You’ve been in here for hours, man. What’s going on?’
‘Did Dad send you?’
‘Yeah.’ Rohan came into the living room. ‘Good bourbon. Got another cup?’
Michael waved towards the kitchen.
Rohan came back, filled his coffee mug from the bourbon bottle, and sat on the other couch. ‘Tell me.’
‘No.’
‘Something serious happened, man. Share.’
‘No.’
Rohan took a swig from his cup, then coughed. ‘You were gone for two weeks and won’t tell anyone what happened. Did they torture you? Why’d you stay there, when you could just kill yourself and come back? Did they have a way of holding you so you couldn’t kill yourself? If they did, you have to tell us about it.’ His voice became more intense. ‘What the fuck happened to you?’
Michael looked down at his hands holding the bourbon-filled mug and had another drink, feeling the comforting burn down to his belly. ‘I thought I’d be able to gather some information while I was there. You know, do something really worthwhile and finally gain some parental approval. Prove that I’m worthy of the position of Number One Son, shit like that. I wasn’t up to it, which isn’t surprising. If it was you there, with your two-hundred-odd years of training and experience, you’d probably bring home the head of the Demon King himself.’
‘Three hundred,’ Rohan said into his bourbon. ‘But I doubt it. Look at what happened in that nest: we all died straight away and you fought them off.’
‘I didn’t fight them off. They wanted me for my half-European heritage, and saved me for it.’ Michael lay back on the sofa again. ‘I’m not good enough.’
Rohan lay back as well. ‘Dad thinks you are.’
‘Dad thinks I’m the only one stupid enough to put up with being his Number One.’
Rohan chuckled. ‘Oh no, he knows for sure that you’re the only one stupid enough to put up with it. So tell me about the European Heavens. How do they compare to ours?’
‘Oh, Rohan,’ Michael said with feeling. ‘Let me tell you about one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been, and I’ve been in the Celestial Palace itself.’
Late the next morning, he lay in bed looking at the ceiling for nearly an hour, untying the knots in his aching head. When he couldn’t stand the inactivity any more he washed, dressed, grabbed a cup of coffee out of his apartment’s little kitchen, and teleported to his office. He fell into the chair behind his desk and opened the email program, then winced when he saw how many messages he had.
There were a pile of notes on his desk as well; several from William.
He contacted his brother telepathically. William?
Oh, hey Mike, welcome back, William said. We all missed your rampant assholery around here, Rohan had to fill in and he’s not nearly as much of a total bastard.
It’s good to be back, Michael said.
So what happened to you? You were gone for a while, man.
I did some stupid shit and failed my mission, Michael said. He changed the subject. Hey, did that dragon you were dating get back to you? We still have a hundred tonnes of gold to shift.
William’s voice sounded sheepish. You know how you warned me about dating dragons?
He was cheating on you?
He didn’t understand why I had an issue with it! He even invited me for a threesome. With a woman!
Ooh, tasty. So did you do it? Tell me all!
No! For fuck’s sake, Michael, what the hell… William’s voice petered out. Oh, very funny. I can see your face now. Well, too bad, I’m not seeing him any more and there’s your financial figures gone. So there. William shut off communication.
Michael tossed the notes in the waste basket and turned back to the emails. Many of them weren’t directly for him; they were panic-stricken Celestials sharing concern about the Dark Lord’s foray into the European Heavens and the unpleasant scenario he was discovering – of imminent war with the demons. Fortunately nobody was interested in Michael’s own little misadventure.
More than twenty messages were from his father, with the same subject: DEAL. He thought for a moment that the email program had glitched and sent him the same message multiple times, then he opened the first few.
His father had been receiving desperate messages from other Heavenly Bastions, begging him for weapons-grade steel. Every time the Tiger received one, he forwarded it to Michael with the subject changed to DEAL. Michael opened the messages, one at a time, and jotted down how much steel the Celestials needed. Some of the more senior Celestial residents were offering ridiculously generous amounts of Celestial Jade for weapons-quality steel spun with energy to make it a more effective demon killer, something that only the Tiger’s children could produce.
He gave up with pencil and paper and opened a spreadsheet to calculate the amounts. The total of the requests was more than the gold they were holding, so he’d need to find even more metal after he’d had the gold transformed into steel by several of his senior brothers and sisters. He smiled grimly as he added everything up. Even with the discounted sale price he would offer the Celestials because of the war effort, the Western Heavens were about to see a sudden and much needed surge in Celestial income.