Blue Dragon Part 38

I turned and listened. 'That's Daddy?'

She nodded. 'I've never heard him play that before. I didn't know it was his.'

We went to the music room together, and hesitated outside.

'Let's leave him,' I said.

Come on in.

We shrugged and entered. The music stopped.

'Don't stop, Daddy,' Simone said. 'I like it.'

John returned the black electric guitar to its stand, then switched off the amp in the corner. 'You do? I'm awfully rusty.'

'That was rusty?' I said. 'That was wonderful.'

'You both like it?' he said. 'Mich.e.l.le...' He stopped.

'Mummy didn't like it?' Simone said.

John didn't say anything, he just shook his head.

'Well,' I said, 'we like it, so you're going to play it for us like it, so you're going to play it for us right now right now.'

'Yeah,' Simone said, climbing on the piano stool. 'Play for us.'

I leaned against the stand holding the guzheng guzheng, next to the wall. It was a horizontal stringed instrument, similar to a Western zither. 'Do you play this too?' I said, 'I really like guzheng guzheng.' I plucked one of the strings absently.

'No, Emma!' Simone shouted, but it was too late.

The force of the blast threw me across the room and I slammed side-on into the piano. The keys. .h.i.t me in the ribs and I fell over.

John and Simone both rushed to me.

'Careful you don't touch her, Daddy,' Simone said as she took my hand. 'Now it's okay.'

'Are you badly injured?' John said with concern, taking my other hand.

I checked myself internally. 'Cracked ribs and a bruised liver. Give me a couple of minutes to heal it and I'll be as good as new.'

Neither of them said anything; they just held my hands and watched me as I started to move the energy.

'What hit me?' I said as I moved the energy through my ribs.

'That is the Celestial guzheng guzheng,' John said. 'The one that carries the Mark-'

'-of Six Fingers? That's Six Fingers' guzheng guzheng?' I said, my voice hoa.r.s.e.

'I thought you knew,' he said.

'That thing's legendary.'

'So am I,' John said with amus.e.m.e.nt. 'I think you've ruined the piano. The whole front of it is smashed in.'

'Yay! No piano practice!' Simone cried with glee.

'Simone, are you okay?' I said.

'I'm fine,' Simone said. 'Somehow it went right through me and didn't touch me.'

Leo tapped on the door and entered. He stopped when he saw us. 'What the h.e.l.l happened here?'

Simone giggled. 'Silly Emma touched the guzheng guzheng.'

'You were supposed to tell me what to avoid,' I said fiercely from the floor. 'When I first came to work here, you showed me around, but you didn't mention that thing at all.'

'Oh, by the way, Miss Donahoe,' Leo said, moving further into the room to tower over me, 'the Chinese musical instrument in the music room used to belong to a demon. It's enchanted, and if you play it, it will destroy just about everything around it, so don't touch it.'

'Oh, so now you tell me.'

'Shut up and heal yourself,' John said. 'It'll take all day if you keep talking like this.'

'Yeah, Emma, you can talk underwater,' Simone said cheekily.

John and I shared a look.

'Leo, take Simone out,' John said, releasing my hand. 'I'll stay here and supervise Emma.'

Neither of them said a word as they left the room.

'Concentrate, Emma, you can do this,' John said. 'Do you want me to put on some music?'

'Some of your your music?' I said with derision. 'That would make it take ten times longer.' music?' I said with derision. 'That would make it take ten times longer.'

'Suit yourself.'

'I checked some of that German stuff you play. I found translations to the lyrics. Some of it's really dark, John.'

'I only play clean disks,' John said. 'Hard as they are to find. And since those ones are in German it doesn't really matter.'

'Some of the music you like is very dark.'

'Dark is my first name.' He pulled himself up, went out, and quickly returned with a cushion from the couch in the television room. He fell to one knee and pa.s.sed it to me. 'Put this under your head.'

I pushed the pillow under my head and made myself comfortable on the floor. I moved the energy from my ribs to my liver. A lot of the soft tissue had been crushed and it would take some time to bring it back. I worked carefully; soft tissue was much more fiddly to heal than simple cuts or breaks.

'Good,' John said. 'You're doing very well.'

'Have you ever killed a human, John?'

He looked me in the eyes and didn't say anything.

'How many?'

He remained silent.

'When was the last time?'

He flopped onto the floor to sit cross-legged next to me. 'Nanjing. A long time ago.'

'Tell me,' I said softly as I moved the energy through my liver.

'I'm very old, Emma. I've been around for a long time. I am the Arts of War. I am yin incarnate: cold, darkness, death. And times change.'

'Tell me. Nanjing.'

'They were mad.' He looked away. 'Berserk. Crazed. They killed everything in their path. Some of them did it in cold blood as well.' He turned back to me. 'Humans are astonishing sometimes.'

I didn't say anything.

'They were killing children,' he said softly. 'The children of my people; my my children.' children.'

'How many?'

'Them or us?'

'Them.'

He dropped his head. 'I have no idea.' He raised his head and gazed at me. 'A lot.'

'You protected your children.'

He dropped his head and was silent again.

I concentrated on the energy in my liver. Some of the damage was very deep. I would be sore for a while.

'They were your children as well,' I said. 'They are all subjects of the Eastern Centre.'

'I know,' he said softly, almost a moan of pain. 'And they are all human, regardless of the Centre. They are the ones who seem to ignore that fact the most.'

'Have you ever killed anyone in cold blood?'

He wiped his hand over his face. 'Everything I kill, I kill in cold blood, Emma. I am cold-blooded.'

'Have you ever killed anyone without honour?'

'Nearly everybody I killed was without honour.'

'No,' I said, 'I meant, have you killed anybody in a dishonourable way? Have you ever stabbed anybody in the back?'

He pulled his knees into his chest with his ankles crossed and wrapped his arms around them. 'Of course not. But I can't really see how that makes a difference. Dead is dead.'

'You know I love you anyway, and I always will,' I said. 'I know you. I know you have only killed when there was no other alternative. And I know that times have changed. What was acceptable even a hundred years ago is completely unthinkable now.'

He dropped his arms from his knees and moved away. 'You are much wiser than your years, little Emma Donahoe.'

I sighed and finished healing my liver. I rounded up the energy and put it back. I sat up and the room spun around me. 'I need to sleep now.'

Leo opened the door and entered. He didn't say anything, he just came to me and put one ma.s.sive hand under my arm to help me up. He lifted me as if I didn't weigh anything.

I leaned on him as he led me back to my room. He scooped me up and put me on the bed, pulled off my slippers, and tucked me in like a parent. He kissed me on the cheek and brushed his hand over my forehead.

'He hasn't played that guitar since Mich.e.l.le died. He'd only play it when she wasn't around, before.'

'He's very good,' I said.

'One of the best. You brought it back for him.'

'I don't deserve him,' I said softly.

'I know,' he said, his voice a low rumble. 'You don't deserve any of us.'

'I know,' I whispered as I drifted away.

The next day was Sunday and both John and Leo forced me to rest so I could heal. Simone demanded sushi for lunch, and John and I trailed along. She loved raw fish so much it was like she was a sea creature herself. We could find something vegetarian later.

It was only a half hour wait before we were given three stools at the bar in front of the conveyor belt that held the small plates of covered sushi.

'Can you come to the end of term concert, Daddy?' Simone said as she munched on her third plate of raw tuna.

'When is it, sweetheart?'

Simone quickly swallowed. 'I don't know. Emma knows.'

'I'll talk to your daddy about it,' I said. 'We'll look at his diary.'

'Then you don't need to talk to him,' Simone said cheekily. 'He doesn't do his own diary. You and Two Five One do it.'

'That's right,' John said. 'I can't do anything without my Emma. Are you in the concert?'

Simone nodded, her eyes wide.

'Then I'll come.'

Simone squealed and hugged him, dropping her chopsticks. 'Whoops.'

I gave her a new set of chopsticks from the box on the bench. 'There's hardly any vegetarian sushi going past,' I said, watching the plates meander on the conveyer belt in front of us. 'It's all raw salmon and seaweed, and I've already had seaweed.'