by Liz Williams
“Sorry,” Zhu Irzh told him. “Can’t help you right now, old chap. Maybe later.” Hastily, he replaced the cover. He didn’t want to be grassed up by someone’s entrée, but it was too late now, assuming that the head had Agni’s best interests at heart, which Zhu Irzh doubted. Cursing under his breath, he left the magnificent banquet table behind and ran through the columns that separated the dining room from a hallway.
Something glinted in the shadows. Zhu Irzh stooped and picked it up: Jhai was unraveling. The thread led him along the hallway and up a flight of stairs. Halfway up, Zhu Irzh heard footsteps coming down and dived behind a tapestry. He peered out, once the footsteps had passed, to see a turbaned servant disappearing down the staircase, carrying a tea service on a tray. Zhu Irzh followed the thread further and found that it ran under a door. He took a chance, and knocked.
“Yeah?”
Jhai, found!
“Agni, you twat, is that you?” Jhai’s voice dripped contempt.
“No,” Zhu Irzh hissed, “it’s me.”
“Zhu Irzh!” At least she sounded pleased to see him. “Get me the fuck out of here. Agni’s warded the door.”
“All right, stand back. I’ll see what I can do.”
He’d used opening spells before, in a variety of circumstances, but there was still the issue of how magic worked in this realm. The demon agreed with No Ro Shi: sometimes you just have to take a chance. Zhu Irzh was reluctant to use blood magic—too close to the sorceries of fire, in Agni’s lands—so he deployed an incantation instead, one that had been devised for blasting through rock. Not subtle, but he had to work quickly.
The spell worked quite well. Three minutes later, Zhu Irzh was sitting in the middle of the shattered dining table, picking plaster out of his hair. Jhai lay spread-eagled across a dining chair, swearing. The severed heads, freed of their imprisoning platters and domes, bounded around the room like pinballs. Above, a gaping hole in the ceiling gave testimony to the success of Zhu Irzh’s conjuration.
“Bloody hell,” Jhai said. “Agni won’t be pleased.”
“I think we’d better go,” Zhu Irzh told her, clambering to his feet and brushing forks from his coat. The fallen candles had set fire to the white linen tablecloth and it blazed up in a sudden sheet of flame. Jhai took the demon’s hand and they ran out of the French doors. As they did so, the long lace curtains that concealed the diners from view also caught fire, billowing out behind them. As they came out onto the terrace, a shout went up.
“There!”
The assembled crowd was running back up the lawn toward the Hunting Lodge, Agni at their head. Beside the demon, Jhai picked up the trailing skirts of her wedding dress and sprinted for the forest. Zhu Irzh caught a glimpse of Agni’s raised hand and then a fireball shot across the lawn and sizzled into the mango trees.
“Shit!” Jhai reeled back against the demon.
“Just run. He’s not trying to hit you.”
Unfortunately, it seemed that Agni was. The next fireball knocked Zhu Irzh off his feet and sent him sprawling into a flower bed. He glanced toward the forest, saw that they were not going to make it, looked back at the Hunting Lodge and also saw—with some satisfaction—that it was well and truly on fire. Then Jhai cried out. Things were swarming out of the trees, blackened shapes that looked as though they had already been consumed in the flames, their eyes as bright as red-hot coals. Some were small, but most of them were the size of a man. They had long, delicate hands and sharp, black teeth. Two of them had seized Jhai by the arms and lifted her off her feet; Jhai was not a heavy girl, but she still had a demon’s strength, as Zhu Irzh knew, and these creatures lifted her easily and held her despite her struggles.
“You,” said Agni, strolling up behind in dangerous silence, “have set my house on fire.”
“An accident.” It was ironic, the demon reflected bitterly, that the occasions when he actually spoke the literal truth were those in which he was the least likely to be believed.
“How does a life in the fire sound to you?” Agni still spoke mildly, but only a few minutes ago Zhu Irzh had heard him shrieking down on the lawn.
“A bit Catholic, actually.”
Agni smiled. “A lot of them come here. We have a Goanese population on Earth, after all.”
“Agni, listen.” That was Jhai, speaking quickly. “If you keep me here, this won’t be an end to it. You think I’ll just knuckle under? Yes, you can control my cousins. They’ve never known anything else, apart from Lara, and look what a mess she’s made of her independence. But I’ve never known anything but. That’s why you went after me, isn’t it? But can you handle it?”
Zhu Irzh looked from Jhai to Agni, both in their red and gold. Agni’s clothes were as impeccable as ever, but Jhai’s glossy hair-do had come undone and streamed across her shoulders. The magnificent gown was torn at the hem, fraying into ruffles. She had lost her shoes, or kicked them off, and now stood barefoot on the scorched grass. Her face was flecked with soot.
“Well? Better decide if I’m worth the trouble, cousin.”
Zhu Irzh hoped Agni wasn’t too far gone to be reasoned with. The prince hadn’t even bothered to put out the blaze, but just as this occurred to Zhu Irzh, the tiger prince flicked a finger and the fire went out. There was surprisingly little damage left in its wake, only a little smoke stain on the columns. But then, it was Agni’s own element. Would Agni see reason, or would pride hammer him down? Then Agni said, “You’ve certainly caused a remarkable degree of chaos in the space of your visit. Maybe you’re right. I’m not sure I could put up with a lifetime of it.” He turned to Zhu Irzh. “As for you, perhaps eternity in a blazing dungeon wouldn’t prove as great a punishment as marriage to Jhai.”
The demon considered a number of humorous remarks, and wisely kept silent.
“But my guests have come here tonight to expect entertainment,” the prince went on. “I can’t deny them that. We’ve already lost one set of quarry. And you’re not the only one I’m displeased with, Jhai. I’m not all that delighted with little Lara, either.”
“Very well,” Jhai said, warily. She could see what was coming, Zhu Irzh thought, and so could he. “What do you suggest?”
“I think a cat fight’s in order,” the prince said.
61
Inari said, “where do you want to go now?”
“Here,” her child replied. “Here, and then home. Will you let me do the working?”
Inari paused. She was not yet accustomed to sharing her self with this other. Was this what it had been like for Seijin, living with whispers in the head? Seijin had gone mad, she reminded herself.
“It’s only for another eight months,” the child reassured.
Inari shivered. “Do the working.”
She felt two vastnesses drawn together by the thin red thread that was her body. She became, for a moment, the glowing chasm between continents, then blacked out as they came together and overlapped. When she regained consciousness, she was still standing on the steps of the Shadow Pavilion and the child seemed pleased.
Inari looked around her. “What happened?” But she already knew. A tide of long, sweet grass lapped the pagoda steps. It was still twilight, but the storm clouds had gone, leaving the taste of rain in their wake. A single star hung in the water-colored sky and there, not far away, was the scimitar crescent of the new moon, visible from all worlds except Hell. A flock of birds sailed around the summit of the pagoda, now smaller, yet not diminished. It looked—solid. The crack that had run up its length had disappeared and the pagoda’s structure could now be seen, made not from shadows but from oak and stone. It looked like an old family fortress, the sort of place that might one day be a home.
Within, the child radiated assent. “It will do.”
The birds wheeled, flying westward, and now Inari could see that they were not birds after all, but spirits: all those whom the Shadow Pavilion had imprisoned, set free for their long journey to Heaven or Hell.
&nbs
p; “And you?” the child asked. “What would you do now?”
Inari gave a shaky smile and touched a hand to her stomach. “I think we’d better go and find your father.”
62
“You know what? I haven’t done this enough,” Jhai said.
“Tough,” Zhu Irzh replied unhappily. He didn’t want to sound unsympathetic, but Jhai was right. Deny your own true nature and look what happens: suddenly you’re standing on a terrace in someone else’s Hell, while a raging, pacing tiger waits impatiently for your blood. “Do your worst.”
“I always do.” But she was nervous all the same, Zhu Irzh knew. Jhai, still in her tattered bridal finery, stood before Agni and his guests and his harem and closed her eyes. It didn’t take long; she must have been really pissed off, Zhu Irzh thought. Stripes barred Jhai’s skin. A tail switched her ankles, and that was that: the bridal dress fell to the floor like a pool of blood. Jhai turned, snarled, and leaped at Lara.
She hit her cousin around the waist, bowling the growling Lara across the length of the terrace. Lara was a lot bigger in her tiger shape, Zhu Irzh noticed, though there was little to choose between the two women in their human aspect. Perhaps it was something to do with the number of kills. In which case, oh dear. Lara rose and swatted Jhai with a paw; Jhai went down, bloody grooves along her flank. She struggled up, but Lara was waiting. Lara sprang onto her cousin’s back, jaws aiming at Jhai’s throat. Jhai rolled over like an angry kitten and raked Lara’s gut with her hind claws.
It didn’t disembowel her, but it must have hurt. Lara screamed and it sounded more human than cat. She sprang backward, curling into a ball, but one paw lashed out and caught Jhai across the throat. There was a lot of blood. Jhai went down, making gargling sounds. Zhu Irzh started forward and was hauled back by one of Agni’s spirits. Lara’s tail twitched, she crouched, her head went down, and she sprang, claws fully extended. And Zhu Irzh, a coward after all (or so he would tell himself later) closed his eyes, but only in the second that it took for a spell to go spinning past him, radiating out like the ripples of a stone hurled into a pool and tasting of blood and Jhai and pain.
When the demon opened his eyes again, Jhai was standing on the blood-slick stones of the terrace, naked. One arm dangled uselessly by her side and her ribs were gouged into furrows. A ragged tear ran across her collarbone to the shoulder. But in her good arm, she was holding a small, surprised, striped cat.
“You didn’t say I couldn’t use magic,” Jhai said.
63
“Perhaps I should apply for paternity leave,” Chen said. “Isn’t that the modern thing to do?”
“Don’t ask me,” the demon shrugged.
“You and Jhai aren’t planning to have one?” Chen smiled. “I recommend it. Ensuring one’s posterity and all that sort of thing.”
“The subject hasn’t come up. She seems curiously averse to looking at wedding dresses, too. We might end up having a quiet private ceremony after all.”
Chen laughed. “That’ll be the day.”
“She’s already revised the guest list, that’s for sure.”
Chen raised his eyebrows. “What, won’t be inviting that nice cousin Agni?”
Zhu Irzh gave a snort. “She also says there won’t be quite so many female guests. Playing havoc with the table settings, apparently. But she’s keeping Lara. Bought her a collar and everything.”
“And if she turns back?”
“Well, the magic Jhai used won’t work outside that particular Hell, so I suppose we’ll just have to call the zoo.”
They were sitting on the deck of the houseboat, a blue afternoon in early summer. Ma and No Ro Shi were back at the station, piecing things together with the help of Paugeng security. Jhai was recuperating.
“What’s that?” Zhu Irzh squinted into the heavens.
“I don’t know.” Chen followed his gaze. Sparks of light had appeared high amongst the clouds and around them were twists and turns of brightness. They fell rapidly toward the ocean, but halfway down the sky, their trajectory flattened out and began to stream toward the city.
“Oh,” Chen said, in realization. Mhara’s Long March had finally reached Earth.
Turn the page to continue reading from the Detective Inspector Chen Novels
1
The ghost horde swept out of the east, moving fast across the black sands. Standing on the rise, legs braced and bow drawn, Omi could see a train in the distance, racing over the desert toward Urumchi. The horde was moving faster than that, quite silent, though in life, Omi reflected, the hooves would have sounded like thunder on the stones. They were heading straight for him. His fingers tightened on the bow and he spoke, also silently, to the Buddha, thinking of those images which still swam out of the shadows of the caves so many miles to the east. The memory gave him courage.
The horde was close enough now for him to see their faces. Not at all Chinese, though he knew that some with local blood had ridden under the Khan. Flat-faced men, black eyes below their topknots, which streamed like horsetails from the back of their helmets. In the front of the horde rode the Khan, in armor the color of night: a man with a thin face, a narrow beard, all angles. He was riding hard up the slope and Omi drew back the arrow, thinking: Not yet, not yet—now! He fired. The arrow sang through the air but the Khan was coming, expressionless, as though he could not see the archer, but Omi knew he had come for this and he leaped forward, springing down the stones of the slope as the arrow sang on. At the last moment the Khan’s pony swerved. The arrow sailed by, nicking the Khan’s face. A single drop of dark blood flew out and Omi had the cup ready: he caught it. It sizzled into the metal cup and Omi snapped shut the lid. But the Khan had turned in the saddle with a bow of his own and as Omi met his blank night eyes the Khan, in turn, loosed an arrow.
“Now!” Omi cried. “Make it now!”—and the desert was ripped away from under his boots into the shadows of a cave and a pair of huge, calm eyes, looking down at him.
2
“Missing?” Chen said, into the phone. Behind him, Miss Qi sat with neatly crossed legs, exuding a delicate perfume of cherry blossom. She sat up a little straighter at the tone of Chen’s voice. “When did you last see it?”
On the other end of the receiver, a very long way away, Mhara the Emperor of Heaven answered, “A week ago. We had its annual honoring ceremony to celebrate the time of its writing, if one can say that. The Book wasn’t so much written, as wrote itself.”
“You’ll have to forgive me,” Chen said. “I don’t know anything about all this.”
“It’s kept as secret as possible,” Mhara explained. “Not even all the denizens of Heaven know that it’s a real text. You’ll meet people who think it’s no more than a creation myth.”
Chen caught Miss Qi’s glance and, ever tactful, the Celestial warrior rose and glided from the room, closing the door behind her. “From what you’ve told me,” Chen said, “This isn’t so much a creation myth as a creation manual.”
“Exactly. The words it contains are the blueprint for Heaven. If they’re tampered with—deconstructed—then Heaven itself could begin to unravel. Of course,” Mhara added thoughtfully, “there are those who might say that this is no bad thing.”
After the loss of both of Mhara’s parents—an Emperor gone mad and an Empress turned wicked—Chen couldn’t blame him for those sentiments. “Things are stable now,” he reassured Mhara, “now that you’ve been crowned.”
“Ruling has become somewhat more achievable than it initially appeared,” the current Emperor agreed. “At least, so I thought until yesterday. Then the curator appeared in a flat panic and told me that the Book was gone.”
“And it’s definitely been stolen? Could it have—I don’t know—taken itself off? Does it have a will of its own?”
There was a short pause on the other end of the line. “I don’t really know,” Mhara said slowly. “I’ve never heard anyone mention it. But often these magical artifacts have some degree of cons
ciousness. What a depressing thought, that things might have become so lousy in its own creation that it’s removed itself.”
“Is there any way we can find out?” Chen asked.
Mhara sighed. “That’s why I called you. Sorry, Chen. I know you’ve got a lot on your plate at the moment …”
Chen smiled. This was characteristic of Mhara: to be concerned, but also omniscient. In this instance, however, the Emperor of Heaven was simply being courteous. “I have got a lot to do. But it’s all good stuff, as well you know.”
He could almost feel the Emperor’s smile. “Robin has spoken to Inari, I know. She told her that things are going well with the pregnancy.”
“Yes, it’s been four months now,” Chen mused. He still couldn’t quite believe it. He’d always wanted a child, of course, but never thought it would actually happen. Humans and demons could breed, but it wasn’t always an easy process. And this child … well, they were all special, weren’t they? But it seemed that this child might be more special than most. Not a comfortable thought.
“Inari has hopes,” he confided, “that this might bring herself and her family back together. Children often do reconcile warring relations.”
“And what do you think?” Mhara was being very patient with him, as usual. A theft that could threaten the very foundations of the Celestial Realm and here was Chen waffling on about his family.
“To be honest, I doubt it. I’ve seen rather too much of Hell’s attitude toward family life.”
“How is Zhu Irzh?”
“Actually, he’s fine as far as I know. Jhai had business in the Far West, so she’s out there now. Zhu Irzh chose to cash in some vacation time and go with her. Spoke to him last night. Says there are some nice restaurants. But you didn’t call me to talk about all this, Mhara.”
The Emperor of Heaven sighed. “I wish I had. Everyday life is so relaxing. It would be nice to have more of it.”
