Shadow Pavilion

by Liz Williams

  He did not, naturally, mention Askenjuri’s visit either to Lara or Beni. Lara simply did not need to know—it might upset her, like he really cared—and any information that he possessed and Beni didn’t was useful information, to Go’s scheming mind. Even later, once Lara had told him how much she’d hated her home—its stifling protocol, the endless formality—he still did not tell her that her sister had come to see him. At first, he’d been afraid that Askenjuri might have marked him in some way—magically, as with a psychic bruise—but if she had, Lara did not appear to notice. Just as well.

  9

  Seijin moves like water, like wind. Old teachings come back to mind as they glide over the plateau, things learned in the monasteries and palaces of an earlier China. But this is not China, whatever the claims made by Beijing, and not any calendrical time: this is between. Seijin, looking up, sees Himalayan heights in the far distance, barely distinguishable from cloud, and the stones shift underfoot, now golden, now gray. Seijin smiles and casts a handful of coins on bare earth.

  Resolution. But with changing lines.

  Oh. You don’t say.

  The coins turn to leaves as Seijin watches and a sudden gust of wind carries them away, spinning them out across the plateau to cloud-mountain. Seijin sighs. To think that this had been intended as a rest.

  “What do you think?” Seijin says out loud. “Stay, or return?”

  Female self steps out, long black hair whipping in the wind of between. “What does it matter? We can choose our time of return.”

  “Within limits,” male self says, emerging beside her. Seen in a dark place at night, perhaps there wouldn’t be all that great a difference between them: the hair, the slanted, opaque gaze, the scaled armor. Female self is of slighter build, and looks young, but in fact female self was always dominant, until the Riders came and she went into hiding for a while, no more than a hundred years or so, but enough to give male self the upper hand. Seijin’s smile widens. Interesting times.

  “Within limits, true.” Female self is earnest, brow furrowing. “But there is still a great deal of time. The Emperor of Heaven has only just been crowned. We could not have acted before that.”

  “Still, the contract is running now,” male self says.

  “You are so impatient.”

  “We have wasted time before. You have to make a choice. Stay in between forever or act. Which is it to be?”

  “I could wish for between,” female self says, a little wistful. “I get tired of all this running around.”

  Seijin, hollow on the plateau, laughs. “All right. I’ve listened. You both have your way. Another night here and then we return to Earth.”

  Female self is reabsorbed. Male self hesitates, only for a second, but it’s enough to make Seijin frown. Obedient as a hound, male self slides back into place and Seijin is once more liminal, but complete.

  This time, the palace does not take so long to reach. Between shifts and rearranges: it can take days to cross the plateau, or only a few hours, and there’s no predicting it. But shortly after the conversation, Seijin comes around an outcrop of granite and there it is: the Shadow Pavilion, towering and gray as the rocks on which it stands. Seijin bows, once, then climbs the long flight of stone steps and knocks, once, at the doors.

  “Who comes?”

  “Lord Lady Seijin.” And bows again.

  The doors—ancient, the color of twilight, made of wood so weathered that they more closely resemble stone—creak open. The Gatekeeper stands within, barely visible even to Seijin, but a glance over the shoulder shows that night is not far away and that tends to leech the Gatekeeper of whatever shades it might possess.

  “Do you seek entrance, to this your own abode?”

  “I do, if it is the Pavilion’s wish.” A ritual exchange, but one that a person must take care to perform correctly. Not everyone gains access to Shadow Pavilion and with night on the way, that’s not a good thing. Even if you are Seijin.

  The Gatekeeper says, “Then enter,” and stands well back as Seijin glides in. Seijin follows the Gatekeeper upstairs to a room, one of the best suites, although this has not been requested. As the Gatekeeper moves hastily away, Seijin wanders across to the window and looks out across between.

  Night is coming fast, visible as a shadow gliding over the land. But the mountain peaks are still touched with the fire of the sun, glowing rose-gold, and there is a crescent moon hanging over Himalaya, sharp as a silver tooth in the oceanic sky. Female self pulls hard, wanting to stay.

  Time to retire? Seijin muses. It’s become a familiar argument in recent years but this latest contract, this is too magnificent to refuse. After this—if one survives it—would be the perfect time to retire, the crowning glory of a long, long life.

  How often, after all, is one contracted to kill a god?

  10

  Inari was wrestling with her own conscience—something that, as a demon, she is not even supposed to possess, but which may have come from that human ancestor, the ancestor who had brought such shame on their family, tainting it as she had with mortal blood. Inari had often wondered about that woman, since learning of her existence. She would be long dead, but what had happened to her soul? In Hell, presumably, since she had abandoned the Imperial Court of China and fled the shores of Earth for those of Hell. But if in Hell, then where? Not in Inari’s own family home, that was for certain, unless—horrible thought—they had imprisoned her somewhere.

  You could keep a soul in a jar, after all. Inari remembered the high ebony jars that had stood on the landing of the mansion, and despite the stuffy, intrusive heat of Men Ling Street, she shivered. Her thoughts returned to the present. She was sorely tempted to get out of the car and go after Chen, but reason prevailed. She would be more help than hindrance if he encountered a problem, and besides, he had asked her to keep a sense out for badger.

  There had been no trace of the family familiar, however, and she was growing increasingly anxious and frustrated. It must be like this on most stake-outs, she thought. Long hours of tedium and worry, waiting for something to happen.

  And then something did. There was a sudden sharp rattle at the back of the car. Inari turned in her seat, crouching so that her head was below the line of sight, and squinted out the rear window. Nothing was visible. But then the rattle came again—a curious sound, like an instrument, a gourd full of beads. And it was peculiarly compelling.

  Inari felt all the worry drain out of her mind, as gently as water trickling through a crack. A moment later, and it was all gone: she felt blank and clear. With detached interest, she watched her hand reach out and flick the lock of the door open. She got out, to stand in the fetid atmosphere of Men Ling Street, which she could now study with no concern at all. That was interesting, that small section of dark, shadowed wall behind the trash cans. She thought she ought to go and have a closer look at that.

  The rattle came again, playing on her senses and seeming to shake the air around her until it quivered into heat haze. It was hard to see clearly now, but this didn’t matter. Off you go, into the darkness by the wall. See what you can find. Coaxed, encouraged, Inari walked slowly forward until she was level with the trash cans. Somewhere, there was a terrible smell of rotting fruit. Ignore that, it’s irrelevant. Come along now.

  And so she did, and it was summer: not the humid, stifling heat that descended on the city like a lid, nor the torrential downpours that signaled the beginning of the season, nor yet the firestorms of Hell that scoured the great plains bare of life, but a sweet, calm, mildness of day. There were small green flowers springing up beneath her feet and the stench of rot changed to a balmy perfume. Inari stood entranced. This was not even like Heaven—so pretty and yet just a little sickly with it. This was redolent of growth, of life rather than stagnation, and she breathed it in. The rattle sounded again, a stealthy little clatter right at the edges of her awareness and she did not even turn her head.

  Someone was smiling at her. A girl, dressed
in ivory.

  “Hello,” the girl said, and her voice was warm. One of her hands was behind her back. “I’ve got a present for you.”

  “Hello,” said Inari. The girl reached out her hand and then her head burst like a melon, blood and gray matter erupting in a gushing fountain of blood that covered Inari. It reminded her forcibly of her brother’s establishment: he had owned a blood emporium, back in Hell. She was too startled to scream. She simply stood, looking numbly down at the crumpled corpse of the girl, except that it was not a girl, but an armored man—no, a demon. There were claws. She did not recognize the breed but that meant nothing; Hell was filled with all manner of persons. One hand clutched a rattle. Inari bent down and picked it up. It was a hollow sphere, made of stretched skin and from it depended many tiny bones. Someone reached over her shoulder and took it from her hand.

  “Better let me have that, miss. Are you all right?”

  The voice was sharp with concern. It added, into a handheld radio, “Hostile is down. One victim, probably in shock. I need a medical team.”

  Inari turned. “It’s all right,” she said. “My husband—he’s not far away. Detective Inspector Chen.”

  The man—tall, with iron-gray hair and a long, harsh face—said, amazed, “You’re Chen’s wife?” And then, more sharply yet, “And you’re a demon!”

  Oh, thought Inari, Oh dear. She’d seen this man before, and moments after that first appraisal, the badger had pitched him off the deck of the houseboat and into the harbor. His name was No Ro Shi, principal demon-hunter of the Beijing government.

  11

  Go and Beni stood at the center of the room, their hands linked by a long red sash. Around them burned candles, crimson and gold, sending tongues of tiger-colored flame up into the smoky air. Beni had thrown a handful of incense on the brazier and it smoldered, filling the room with a pungent, gingery scent.

  “We’re only going to get one shot at this,” Go warned his colleague. “We’ve got to get it right.”

  Beni looked uneasy. “I still think she should actually be here.”

  “Yeah, right. That’s entirely realistic. Lara, darling, just come and participate in this ritual for us, would you? It’ll send you back to Hell and your unloving family and seal you there forever.”

  “I understand the reasons for it,” Beni remarked. “I just think it would stand a much better chance of working. Couldn’t you have slipped her something?”

  “Like what? I tried that once, when she was being particularly difficult—put enough valium in her tea to knock out an elephant and what happened? She stayed wide awake and chattering on. She’s not human.”

  “Couldn’t you have asked a remedy man or something? An expert?”

  “And tell him what? ‘My friend and I, we conjured up this tiger spirit from Hell in India, and now she’s a famous movie star, but she’s gone bonkers and we want to get rid of her.’”

  “You don’t have to tell them the truth,” Beni said, exasperated. “Make something up. It’s what you do for a living, after all.”

  “I don’t want any openings for blackmail. You know what these people are like. Look, we don’t have infinite amounts of time. Are you going to help me or not?”

  Beni gave a sullen nod. “Yeah. I suppose.”

  At the other end of the room, lit by a hundred candles, stood a shrine to Lara. Go had raided the archives for stills and these now adorned a wooden frame: Lara in black and white, posing like Ava Gardner; Lara in Bollywood Technicolor, a fuchsia sari whipping around her; several shots from a Vogue shoot and images from her latest movie. The only pictures that Go had failed to come up with had been images of her tiger-self. Lara was cagy about that, too aware of possible consequences, and although Go had surreptitiously tried, he’d never succeeded in capturing a picture of Lara in her true, or at least, non-human form.

  “Okay,” Go said. “Here we go.”

  Letting go of the sash for a moment, he cast a handful of banishing incense onto the brazier. It hissed ominously, smoke billowing out in an acrid cloud across the room and making Go’s eyes water and sting.

  “God, that stuff’s strong,” Beni said, coughing. “What did you put in it?”

  Go did not reply. He was trying to read the scroll that stood before him on a music stand. It was familiar: the same spell that they’d used to bring Lara here, but—a classic touch—in reverse. Nervously, he intoned it.

  “Nothing’s happening,” Beni said.

  Go did not reply to this, either. He was not sure that Beni was right: perhaps more sensitive than the agent, or more paranoid, it seemed to him that they had suddenly attracted all sorts of attention to what was going on in the room. He had the sensation of a thousand eyes fixated upon him, a thousand ears listening, and he had no idea who they might have belonged to. He continued with the litany, which had to be recited three times, as the atmosphere in the chamber curdled and congealed like old milk.

  “Oh my God,” Beni said suddenly.

  Go had come to the end of the third recitation and he looked up. There was a mass of movement around the base of the shrine, spreading outward. At first, he thought they were dustballs, but then little red eyes opened and through the incense smoke he glimpsed the skittering ghosts of rats and mice, a thin, transparent snake winding its way through the floorboards. A shape—much larger—stepped out of the air, seemingly made of smoke. It was a child, hair streaming down her back, mouth open in horror, a blood-red necklace around her throat that gaped and spilled.

  Go and Beni cried out, but she was gone, taking the vermin-spirits with her.

  “What the hell—?” Go whispered.

  Beni glanced feverishly about him. “It’s the house, man. This is such an old place—must have been full of psychic crap. You just sent it onward.”

  “No bloody Lara, though.” The realization of failure ran cold down his spine, despite the choking warmth of the room.

  “Oh yes, bloody Lara,” a voice said. Go nearly dropped the sash. The child had not been the only thing emerging from the candlelit mouth of the shrine. At first, there was only an outline in the air: tall, slender, tail twitching.

  “Shit,” he heard Beni’s panicked murmur.

  At the top of the outline appeared two furious yellow eyes. And then the teeth. A moment later, Lara herself was almost fully visible: naked, with the black slashes of her tiger-striped marking all the way down her body. Her face, however, had changed and instead of the beautiful human mask it was elongated, snarling, the jaw dropping impossibly far to show the razor teeth.

  “What are you doing?” Lara said, in a voice that was more of a growl.

  “Lara—look, babe. Things change.”

  Beni, Go thought, don’t make the mistake of trying to reason with her. She’s way beyond that point. She’s never been at that point. Even at her sweetest, logic had never been Lara’s strongest feature.

  “You know what I’m saying?”

  “Beni—” Go said, in warning. You’re not firing a bloody grip or something. But the warning went unheeded. The agent was too accustomed to talking his way out of a problem. “Things haven’t been great for any of us lately—I know you’re not happy, babe, and there was the whole pay dispute thing, which I fully concede was unfortunate, could have handled it a lot better, and—”

  “So you’re sending me back to Hell?” Lara said, in that voice that still was not human, at all, and filled with fire. “You brought me here, and now you can’t handle it, you can’t deal with me because I won’t be your simpering demon bimbo, and you’re trying to send me back, you pathetic little shit.”

  “Lara—” Go and Beni said together, but it was at Beni that she sprang. Go had a single, appalled image of Lara: her long legs bending backward at the knee, claws ripping on the polished wooden floor, her striped body arcing through the smoking air as she fell upon her agent and tore out his throat.

  That was almost all he saw, because Go was off and running, knocking over the gutte
ring candles in his flight for the door. He kicked the door open and fell out into the hallway. The clear, warm air came as a shock, as if he’d been punched. For a despairing moment, he thought Lara had struck him in the back.

  Almost, but not quite all. Staggering against the opposite wall, he took one look back and saw, behind the curtain of sudden fire, Lara’s head raised and fresh red blood running down her chin into the flames. The gold of the fire was trapped in her eyes and then she leaped upward. He heard the crash and shatter of broken glass as she sprang through the window and then Go himself was stumbling backward, bare feet slipping on the boards of the hallway, and he threw himself out of the front door and into the still and midnight garden as the house caught light and flared up like a firecracker.

  12

  It was a relief to reach the temple. Mhara stepped out of the oppressive air of Heaven into a calm, white-plastered room: the little annex that he and Robin used as a portal. Robin—priestess, ghost, but still scientist—had come up with a spell that keyed the annex to her own soul, and Mhara’s: nothing that could be stolen or used, but enough to deter anyone following either of them through, either to Heaven, or from it. It was sad, Mhara thought, to have to be so untrusting, but it was the way of things and he supported Robin’s installation of the spell. He could see it now, taking the form of a thin gilt lattice, suspended in the air before him. He reached out a hand and the lattice was gone.

  “Robin?” There was a lamp burning somewhere in the temple; he could feel its tranquil small presence and that of another, far more complex, being. He followed the sense of those two presences until he came to the main room of the temple, the shrine that lay at the end of the simple living quarters, just inside the main door.