The knowledge was there, and it was even worse than Jin expected. For that moment she was the demon, a true demon, and carried a thousand years of memories of being a demon. The things it had done, and what it had felt as it did them. Watching the sufferers die and now and then dying and being reborn itself once more as a demon in this one hell.
"I'm called Palun Gong," Jin said. She made a show of studying the crude rake, but she did not give it back.
The demon frowned. "I have heard this name, I know, but I can't think where. Why did you want to see my rake?"
"I didn't. I wanted to see you a little more closely," Jin said, and she shuddered to think just how very close she had, in fact, been to the demon. But she had learned what she needed to know, including the demon's name.
"Are you done with your questions then, Palun Gong? If so, please return my rake. Azuki-chan will be returning soon and I have work to do."
"I only have one more: when did Azuki-chan start torturing you?"
"Nonsense! You saw what I did to her! That's -- "
"The truth, Gnasher. You hate what you do to her. You hate what you are. No matter what you do to that poor child she does a thousand times worse to you every time you lift that whip."
"Please go away, Palun Gong. Leave me..."
"To suffer in peace? Was that what you were going to say? See how well Azuki-chan taught you."
"I am a demon! What else is there for me?"
"The same as for anyone else, Gnasher -- Everything."
Jin lifted the rake in her demon's hands and she shattered it. Gnasher screamed in anguish. "My garden...!"
"Doesn't belong here," Jin said firmly. "And neither do you."
There is a certain stubbornness in the mind of a demon that resists reordering, so it took a moment or two for understanding to dawn, but when it did it arrived like a clap of thunder. Gnasher stopped being a demon. He wasn't exactly human, either, but he had changed. Jin dropped the remnants of the rake down the slope onto Gnasher's garden.
"I think I know you now, no matter what you call yourself. Yet what about Azuki-chan?" Gnasher asked. "Who will perform the duties of hell for her now?"
"She'll be fine, I promise. You have a long journey ahead of you, but say hello to Madame Meng for me, will you?"
Another few moments and Gnasher was gone. Jin went back to her rock to wait. She noted with mild interest when a shadow detached itself from the rake from and flowed across the sand, barely visible as a darker patch of blackness as it slipped into the crevices of the mountain.
Shiro.
Jin was not particularly surprised at his appearance there; there had been something familiar about the touch of the rake. Not intense, not vivid nor full of images as her contact with Gnasher had been, or even as much as her first contact with Shiro, but very familiar for all that. Faint, by comparison, and easy to overlook in the rush of knowledge she had gained from Gnasher, but Jin did not overlook it. She knew Shiro had given both Frank and Ling the slip, nor in turn was she surprised that he didn't hang around; Jin had already established that her demon form gave him the screaming willies, and after her conversations with Frank and Ling, Jin even had a pretty good idea as to why that was.
Still, it occurred to Jin that perhaps she had been wrong about what she had seen back on that very first day. Was Shiro helping to trap Rebecca in that corridor, or was he just there because he knew that, sooner or later, Jin would be too? After all, Gnasher hadn't needed any help from Shiro or anyone else to trap himself in hell -- he was a demon and by definition that's where he belonged. The difficult bit was for Gnasher to learn that he didn't have to be trapped, or belong. Shiro hadn't changed any of that, nor really interfered so far as Jin could tell; he was just there....
Oh.
It occurred to Jin that maybe, just maybe, she knew what that meant. The differences in this rescue pointed to something about Shiro that perhaps she had misunderstood before now. She wasn't sure this knowledge changed anything, but it was something she needed to think about later. For now, she had other fish to gut.
Jin didn't have to wait very long. The reborn Azuki-chan soon came wandering out of the plains of hell. When she saw Jin sitting there in her demon form she stopped, looking confused. "Who are you? Where is Gnasher?"
"Gone. Promoted, moved on, not-quite-but-more-so-enlightened, whatever you want to call it. You can drop the act now."
Azuki-chan started to glow. She never changed into anything else, but her clothes changed from rags to flowing white robes. "Well. Took you long enough," the girl said.
With her face no longer smeared with blood and ashes, Jin finally got her first good look at Azuki-chan. Jin nearly fell off her stone.
"You're me!" she said. "Well, at least you look like I did, when I was about ten years old. Why do you look like that?"
Azuki-chan hid a smile. "You knew what I was and you don't know that? Maybe you're not as wise as people say."
Jin just stared for another few moments, trying to reconcile what she saw with what she understood, and after all the possibilities where considered and discarded, she was left with only one.
"You don't look like me. You are me."
"In a sense. I'm another incarnation of Guan Yin. Brought here ages ago for the purpose of Gnasher's salvation."
"What do you mean, 'another incarnation'? How many times has Guan Yin reincarnated? How bloody many of us are out here?"
Azuki-chan frowned. "I didn't say 'reincarnation.' I said 'incarnation.' Guan Yin wasn't physically reborn as me. I'm simply an aspect of her, given physical form for a purpose, as you are."
"'Aspect'?" Jin dropped her demon form, just for an instant, then resumed it. "Guess again," she said.
To Jin's considerable surprise, Azuki-chan immediately dropped to her knees. "I crave your pardon, Immanent One. I didn't know you had resumed mortal form."
Jin sighed. "No, of course you didn't. So. Gnasher is gone, you've won. What will you do now?"
"My purpose has been fulfilled. I must cease."
"You mean die?"
"I mean surrender this temporary form and rejoin that from which I was sundered."
"That would be me," Jin said, feeling suddenly uncomfortable.
Auzki-chan smiled. "What you are now is not all that Guan Yin is, or what she will be, or what she was. We are all the same, sooner or later, but not necessarily at the moment. Good fortune in whatever task you have before you."
"Thanks. Listen, one question before you...whatever. How did you bear this, and why? You went through all this for a demon! I saw what he was, I felt it, and, for what seemed like forever, I lived it!"
"And yet you, too, went through that for a demon."
Jin thought about that. "But... does it matter? I really would like to know."
"We are all the same, so how can there be someone, even a demon, who does not matter? Goodbye, Immanent One. Until we are reunited."
The girl did not so much open a doorway of light as become a doorway of light. Then she, too, was gone. Jin just stared at the empty spot where Azuki-chan had been for a very long time, trying to get her mind around what she had seen over the past few hours and not succeeding very well.
Jin tried to imagine herself, or anything that was even remotely an aspect or reflection of her, being brave and selfless enough to suffer torture and death repeatedly through hundreds of centuries, and all for the benefit of something as vile and degraded as a demon. Jin tried to see any part of herself in someone like Azuki-chan and, except for appearance, Jin just couldn't find it there. What little she had suffered when, for that moment, she had become Gnasher, seemed like a hangnail by comparison to what the centuries in that place must have been like for Azuki-chan. Besides, it was not like Jin had a choice if she didn't want that invisible thread tangling behind her for eternity.
We are all the same.
Jin stared at Gnasher's lovely zen garden. Which, to her mind, was another point. How many demons could or would do t
hat? She made a fairly confident guess that, other than Gnasher, that was pretty much an empty set. All the same? What a complete load of crap!
"It is, isn't it?" Jin said aloud.
YOU KNOW IT...OH, ROT.
Jin smiled a grim smile. "Gotcha."
Jin figured the odds were fifty-fifty, so she opened her Third Eye just a bit and glanced at her left shoulder, and there he was: a little imp identical to the one she'd seen riding Joyce's shoulder. Jin grabbed it by the scruff of its neck and held it in front of her at arm's length.
"Just what did you think you were doing?!"
The imp shrugged. WELL, YOU WERE THE CLOSEST MORTAL. I HAD TO TAKE A SHOT. IT'S NOT JUST ANY DEMON WHO'S HAD A CHANCE TO BEDEVIL THE BODHISATTVA OF MERCY.
"I have enough self-doubts and wrong-headedness of my own, thanks," Jin said. "I don't need you making it worse!"
The little imp struggled in her grip. HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT? MAYBE YOU SHOULD JUST STOP TRYING TO BE A GODDESS AND GO WITH THE MORTAL FLOW. IT'S NOT LIKE YOU'RE VERY GOOD AT THE GODDESS THING, the creature added slyly, and Jin shook it until she fancied she could hear its teeth rattle.
"Try that once more," Jin said, "and I'll see to it that you spend the next few eons reincarnated as a dung beetle. And believe me, that is mercy compared to what I'd like to do to you." Jin didn't actually know if she could arrange such a thing, but it felt good to think that she might. The imp, for what it was worth, looked like it had no doubts at all.
I WON'T, I PROMISE! it said.
"That's better. How long have you been here?"
SINCE YOU LEFT THE OFFICE.
"Since I... oh."
Jin understood, then. The imp didn't just resemble the demon who had tempted and led Joyce away from believing in herself -- he was that demon. Which at once infuriated Jin even more, but also gave her an idea.
"Were you with Joyce when she died?"
I WAS ALWAYS WITH HER. YOU KNOW THAT.
"Then why didn't you help her?"
There was open astonishment on the demon's ugly little face. YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS TO A DEMON WHO INTERFERES WITH KARMA? IT MAKES YOUR 'DUNG BEETLE' THREAT SOUND LIKE A VACATION.
Jin hadn't really expected anything different, even though she didn't pretend to know all the rules of Karma. That did leave something else, though. "If you were there, then tell me what happened," Jin said.
WHY SHOULD I?
"We've discussed dung beetles. You want to try for toilet paper?"
FINE, IF YOU MUST KNOW. IT WAS HER BOYFRIEND.
"Boy... you mean Lucius?"
YEAH, THAT'S THE ONE. HE STRANGLED HER.
(())
Chapter 20
In Jin's work with legal aid she'd made more than one contact in the Medias police department. She called one of them as soon as she got back from hell. She'd have called sooner, except for the "out of service" message. Thinking back on it, Jin knew she shouldn't be surprised.
"Detective Mabus? This is Jin Hannigan. From Legal Aid, right. Listen, I know who killed Joyce Masters. I can't prove it, but -- "
There was a bit of static, but the voice was clear enough. Jin pictured John Mabus at his desk: balding, overweight, overworked. "We all know who killed Joyce Masters," he said. "And proving it is not an issue. He confessed."
"He... confessed? Lucius Taylor?"
"At the scene, Jin. Hadn't you heard?"
"I've been...away, for a little bit. I'm-I'm sorry I wasted your time."
He sighed wearily. "Forget it. Listen, I know you're under stress. She was your friend and all. I'm sorry. But we got the guy already. It's over."
Jin thanked him and rang off. On her way back to Medias Jin's mind had been whirling with plots and stratagems to prove what she knew to be true: that Lucius Taylor had murdered Joyce, but it was all for nothing. There was no mystery, no dramatic revelations. Everyone already knew what Jin knew -- that Joyce had gone to Lucius' apartment, and they had argued. Lucius became violent. Neighbors had reported a "domestic disturbance" but it was far too late when the police arrived.
Why did you go there, Joyce?
Jin had no answer to that. As for the demon, he had told Jin only what everyone else in Medias who bothered to listen to the radio already knew. If Jin had hers turned on that morning she would have heard about Joyce's murder before she'd even sent Ling to find her.
Jin received a call from Karl Simon, the Chairman of the Board of the Legal Aid Office, right after she returned -- first supposedly breaking the sad news, then adding that the office was to be closed pending the appointment of a new director which, the Chairman said, could take months. It wouldn't be easy to find a lawyer -- or anyone, really -- willing to do what Joyce had done, day after day.
"Mr. Simon? Have you considered Margaret Kathleen Hannigan?" Jin asked.
"Your mother? You're kidding, right?"
Jin smiled despite herself. "Only a little."
"Well... her heart's in the right place and she's certainly got the skills. But she was involved in setting up the charity in the first place, remember?"
"I do. Why is that a problem?"
"It's just that your mother and the Board go way back. And not in a good way, you know?"
Jin knew, unfortunately. Margaret Kathleen Hannigan was many things, but a politician wasn't one of them. She didn't suffer fools gladly, or much at all, whereas Joyce did it all the time out of necessity. When your life's work depended on dealing with people who had money and the urge to do good but not much else going for them, there really wasn't any choice.
"Will you at least float the idea?"
"I will, Jin. And it will be shot full of holes and sink like a stone. But you and I know she'd be great."
"Yeah. She would. Pity."
Jin thanked the man and hung up. She found an empty box and started to clean out her desk. She heard the bell over the office door before Jin was even through cleaning out her desk. "I'm sorry, but we're closed..."
"I know, Lotus Blossom. Jonathan called me. I came as soon as I heard," said Margaret Hannigan.
Later Jin would wonder how she had let what happened next, happen. Later Jin would remember who had told her mother about Joyce and why, perhaps, that was important. Later. Right at that moment she understood one thing and one thing only.
Mom?
Jin dropped a plastic Bay St. Louis souvenir mug and it clattered on the linoleum, but she paid it no heed. Her mother just stood there for a moment, a sort of sad half-smile on her face. Then Margaret Kathleen Hannigan held out her arms and Jin didn't even hesitate. She took three quick steps and then burst into tears as her mother hugged her tight.
"...sucks, Mom. Just sucks!"
"I know, hon. It'll be all right."
Jin didn't think it would be all right at all. Even though she had seen Joyce at the Ninth Hell and she knew beyond any doubt that the person who was Joyce Masters had survived and would go on, would have to go on, none of that seemed to make any difference.
"Why now, dammit..."
Jin's mother just held on, swaying gently. "I don't know why Joyce had to die now, Jin. I don't think there is an answer."
But that wasn't what Jin meant. The question that burst out in Jin's anguish wasn't about Joyce at all -- it was about herself. She was crying. She knew it was right to cry for Joyce, for what she might have achieved as Joyce with more time, with more help. Many more years of the good she had done as Director, as Jin's friend. Maybe, just maybe, Joyce could have done whatever she had come to Medias to do and moved on, but that wasn't going to happen now, not for a very long time. All that deserved Jin's grief, but why now? Was it because she had been so busy, so angry since Joyce's death? Or was it because her mother was there, and it was all right to cry now? Jin didn't think that was the answer either. It was always all right to cry, when there was enough reason.
Not all right, Jin realized. Safe. That's why I'm crying now.
She would not cry in front of Shan Cai, or Lung Nu, and certainly not T
eacher, nor even before Madame Meng. Yet, in her mother's arms, it was safe to cry and she did just that, until her face was hot and flushed and no more tears would come. She finally regained her breath and composure and took a step back.
"Better?" asked her mother, handing her a handkerchief. Jin blew her nose and managed a weak smile.
"Much."
"All right. Are you ready to talk about what comes next?"
Jin frowned. "You mean the funeral?"
"I mean you cleaning out your desk. What's the status of the Office?"
Jin told her mother about her conversation with the Chairman. Margaret just laughed. "Typical. I helped set up this office. I guess I wasn't as polite about it as I should have been. That doesn't explain why you're packing up. The office will reopen, sooner or later."
"I know. I'm just not sure I want to come back, Mom. Even now I keep expecting Joyce to come around that corner and ask me about a mis-filed deposition, or my love life. I don't think I could take that."
"You're a strong girl. You can take anything you have to," Margaret said. "And pay it back with interest."
Jin shook her head. "You make it sound so easy. I'm not you, Mom."
"No, you're not," Margaret said very seriously. "For which I thank whatever god, goddesses or universal forces allowed that to happen."
"Ummm, what are you talking about?"
Margaret Hannigan looked at her daughter with open admiration. "You, my beautiful Lotus Blossom. I've made a lot of messes in my life; I'll admit that under oath in any court you'd care to name. But you're the one thing I got right."
Jin thought maybe she was blushing, but her face already felt red and puffy from crying and she just couldn't tell. "Flatterer."
Her mother sighed. "Not even a little. Jin, I know this may not be the best time to tell you this, but frankly I don't know when would be a good time. Probably never, so I'm going to be selfish and say what I have to say, all right?"
"Tell me what, Mom?"
"Why do you think I'm the way I am? It's you, Jin. It's all and only because of you."
Jin took a deep breath, let it out. "Mom, you're not going to pin that on me. Not now."
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