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were there.’
    Complete silence.
    ‘Please permit us to return you immediately,’ the stone said.
    Again, nothing.
    ‘This was entirely unintentional,’ the stone whispered.
    ‘Dickhead,’ the opal said loudly with a very strong Australian accent. It sounded like a middle-aged Australian man. ‘Where the hell am I?’
    ‘Sorry,’ the stone said ruefully. ‘Hong Kong.’
    ‘That’s a bloody enormous Dark Spirit over there. What is it?’ the opal said.
    ‘I’m the North Wind,’ John said. ‘Good day to you, Opal. Thanks for not hurting the lady.’
    ‘I’d never hurt my lovely Amanda in a million years,’ the opal said, and everybody breathed a sigh of relief. ‘But this ugly green bastard floating in front of me, and that pretentious little prick who thinks he’s made of gold, are both in serious trouble.’
    ‘I’ve been wearing a stone that can talk for more than ten years?’ Amanda said with disbelief.
    ‘Remember when your car suddenly swerved out of the way of that runaway truck?’ the opal said. ‘And the time you fell off the ladder but weren’t hurt at all? And the car accident in Adelaide, where the car was a wreck but nobody was injured?’
    ‘I thought I was just lucky,’ Amanda said.
    ‘Lucky my arse,’ the opal said. ‘You and your lovely little family wouldn’t be around right now if it weren’t for me.’
    ‘Can I say thank you now?’ Alan said.
    ‘You are more than welcome, mate,’ the opal said. ‘You lot are the most delightful family it has ever been my pleasure to adorn. But why the hell are you in Hong Kong? And how come you know about these spirits? You’re just ordinary humans. How come you’re mixed up in this? That’s an enormous tiger over there behind the North Wind, you know that? And what the hell is this ?’
    ‘What?’ Amanda said.
    ‘This snake thing. No, wait, it’s an ordinary human. Is that your sister, Mandy? Why the hell is she…Good God, but she’s a bloody great black snake, you know that? A human and a big snake at the same time. Never seen her like before. Hey, Emma, is that you?’
    ‘Yes,’ I said.
    ‘Geez, have you changed. What have you been doing to yourself?’ the opal said. ‘Come and pay a visit to the Grandmother with me one day, pet. I’m sure she’d love to have a look at you.’
    I took the opportunity. ‘Am I a Rainbow Serpent?’
    ‘Mandy, dear,’ the opal said. ‘Do me a favour, love? Take me off and hand me to your little sister?’
    Mandy removed the chain from her neck and passed it to me, the opal dangling from its links.
    ‘Hold me in your hand, I want to look at you,’ the opal said.
    I dropped the stone into my hand and held it. It was warm and seemed to be pulsing with energy.
    ‘Nope,’ it said.
    ‘Damn,’ I said under my breath. ‘Any idea what I am? None of us knows,’ I said more loudly.
    ‘No idea,’ the opal said. ‘Pass me back. I feel lost without my little Mandy.’
    I opened my hand to see the stone. It was quite large, about three centimetres long and two wide, a roughrectangular shape. It was almost jet black with flashes of midnight blue and fiery red through it.
    ‘You are absolutely spectacular, you know that?’ I said.
    ‘Yep,’ the stone said. ‘Pass me back, and then this geological mistake can tell me how I got here and what the story is.’
    ‘Humph,’ the stone in my ring said. ‘You always were a rude bastard.’
    ‘Shut the hell up and tell me what’s going on,’ the opal said.
    The stone in the ring returned to my finger. Amanda put the opal back around her neck.
    ‘You can talk, I’ll just tell the opal what’s happening,’ the stone said. ‘Don’t mind us, we’ll have a little stone-to-stone talk.’
    ‘Dickhead,’ the opal said, and went quiet.

CHAPTER SIX
    I burst into John’s office without knocking. ‘We need some more pillows. Can I send—’ I stopped dead. A young Chinese woman I’d never seen before was sitting across the desk from