by Liz Williams
“Then we will take a boat.”
“What?”
“We’re at the back of the Shaopeng canal. Once we get on the canal, all we have to do is follow it until we reach—that is, until we find a place where I can return to where I belong.”
Robin gritted her teeth. She was determined not to ask him to stay. She remained, nursing her knee, as he vanished. He was gone a long time. Robin was hot and every time she moved a burning ache ran along her shin. The stuffed sacking was making her nose run and her eyes itch. She had never known such a week for being ill. The beasts stamped in their stalls. Mhara was coming back, she thought with an uplift of hope, but they refused to settle down and he did not come into view. One of the cows kicked out, and the sound echoed around the stalls like a hammer blow.
“Robin? Where are you?” a soft, familiar voice said. Robin kept still. She could see it flickering against the wall of the shed, like a shadow, no shape or form, just movement. Then it collapsed back into its normal being, the powerful hindquarters swaying against the sacks. Wise, orange eyes looked at her.
“There you are.”
“Go away,” Robin cried.
“Oh no,” the beast said.
Do not look at it, she thought, it is not real, it is not there, a spirit, but she felt her head, suddenly bursting with pressure, turned around to meet its gaze.
“Well,” Mhara said softly from the door, “whatever are you?”
The animal looked up at him and whined. It gave a little purring laugh.
“So you’re the one,” it said. “Have you told her yet? What you are, and what they made you?”
Mhara crouched down on his heels and regarded the beast with some interest. He was smiling his vague smile but Robin saw his fists clench slowly. His spine was taut.
“Not yet, no.”
The animal laughed again, and scratched one ear with its heavy, hind foot.
“Better do so then,” it said. Mhara growled. His thin, amiable mouth drew back from the long, sharp incisors and narrowed the blue eyes to a slit. The cows, fretful, shuffled in their stalls. The animal bounded forward and Mhara rose and stepped swiftly from its path. It bounded through the door and was gone. He looked after it.
“Found a boat,” was all that he said.
He helped Robin through the door and down a small set of steps, strewn with dried grass, onto the street. They were, she saw now, outside a long range of warehouses. From here, the go-downs looked like separate buildings, when in fact they were a single long barn. The derelict lot to the side of the sheds was blowing with grass, a pale golden haze in the darkness, and the night air was filled with pollen and dust. This, presumably, was where the beasts were kept in their city pasture, contravening the zoning regulations.
Holding onto Mhara, Robin hopped the remaining few yards to the bank of the canal. This was not the main Shaopeng canal itself, but a narrow tributary. The boat was roped roughly to a post. It was a small, nondescript craft, barely big enough for two people, a flat raft rising slightly to a squared prow and half-covered by a semicircle of canvas. It was the boat of a poor person. Robin’s liberated social conscience protested.
“We can’t take this. This must be all someone’s got.”
“It’s all right,” Mhara soothed. His eyes were shadows under the single wharf light. “I paid for it. Fifteen hundred dollars in gold.”
“How much? Wherever did you get all that?”
“I don’t think we should stand here, Robin. We should go.”
Robin acquiesced as he jumped from the wharf and turned to lift her down. When he had untied the boat and had started its small inadequate engine, she said, “Who did you take the money from?”
Mhara squinted narrowly ahead. “I did not take it from anyone. I just happened to have it.”
“What, you just ‘happened to have’ fifteen hundred bucks in gold?”
“Yes. When I found the boat, it was roped to another one, and I thought perhaps I shouldn’t just take it, so I left the money in exchange. That’s what you do, isn’t it, with money? I don’t understand it very well.”
“Yes,” Robin said, staring at him. “Basically, that’s what you do.” She was beginning to wonder whether she had done the right thing, going quietly along with him, her victim, whether she should not try to escape and raise the alarm, perhaps try and get her job back. But then Deveth was there, dead in the corporate morgue. Then she looked at him, the peaceful, oval face, the veiled eyes, a braid of hair tapping between his shoulder blades, and demon or no demon, job or no job, she knew she could do no such thing.
“You should sleep, Robin,” Mhara said. “I will drive the boat.” So she lay uncomfortably down on the damp slats, and watched the walls of the canal slide by, and the watchful face above her, gazing ahead.
By degrees, they came to the lock that joined the tributary of the canal to the main branch of the Jhenrai. Mhara left Robin in the boat and went to investigate the lock. Robin watched as the demon, moving economically, wound down the lock and then rejoined the little boat as it sailed down to meet the canal. To the east, the sky had taken on a watery tinge with the coming day. The lock opened and the boat slid out into the main channel. Mhara steered to the left, and when Robin looked up she met the yellow eyes of the creature that had been pursuing her, pacing along the wharf.
“You are very persistent,” Mhara said, reprovingly.
“I have all the time in the world,” it replied, and yawned, displaying jagged, tartar-stained teeth. It chuckled at the demon and trotted off toward the waking city.
22
“So,” Zhu Irzh said, smiling at Jhai. “How was it for you?”
She twisted round in his arms. “How did you know I was awake?” The first of the dawn’s thin light was coming through the little window.
“I could tell.” The demon, though horizontal, managed to effect a shrug. The memory of the previous evening, hazed by sleep, returned to Jhai in a rush and she sat up. The tail was gone, and so were the teeth. Zhu Irzh nuzzled her neck. There was a now familiar twinge at the base of her spine, eclipsed by rising desire. Zhu Irzh’s pale fingers were almost skeletal against the sudden dark barring of her stripes.
“A deva,” the demon murmured. “I’ve never met a deva before.”
“You know what they are?”
“I have read the Kama Sutra, darling,” Zhu Irzh said reproachfully, adding, “several times. Now, hush. I have things to do.”
An hour later, restored to a semblance of human, Jhai lay in his arms.
“Zhu Irzh?”
“Mmm?”
“Did you know what I was? Before I changed?”
He squinted round at her. “No. I thought you were using pheromones.”
Jhai exhaled a long, pent-up breath. “Good.”
“So why do you hide it?” the demon asked, then answered his own question. “Because you’d be put on the next boat to Hell, I suppose. But plenty of businesspeople have demonic associates.”
“Associates, yes. They’re not actually running corporations, as far as I know. I don’t want to spend my life in Hell, Zhu Irzh. No offense, but Earth is my home. Besides, I’ll end up there soon enough.”
“It’s not so bad. Anyway, you’d be very popular. An exotic, in a Chinese Hell—I’m presuming that’s where you’d end up? Maybe not.” He frowned in momentary theological speculation. “You’d rise straight through the ranks, with your looks.” He smiled reflectively. “And skills.”
“That’s what worries me. I don’t want to end up as some kind of tart, Zhu Irzh.”
“And what’s wrong with that?”
“You were with the vice squad in Hell, weren’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“I see.” She wriggled over so that she could look down at him. The golden eyes were dreamily glazed.
“What do you take?” he murmured. “To keep your true form at bay?”
“Both are my true forms, my mother told me. B
ut certain—circumstances—bring out the devic characteristics. There’s a compound of various drugs that inhibit neuroreceptors. I’ve been taking it since I was a child.”
“That transformation must have taken a few lovers by surprise, though. If what I remember about devic biology is right, then no drug can withstand the powers of arousal.”
Jhai was silent.
“What did they do, hide under the bed?”
“It was never an issue,” Jhai told him, and could not believe she’d said it.
“What do you mean, not an issue? You’re not a virgin.”
“No.”
“So that means—what? Don’t tell me you’ve never become sufficiently aroused.”
Jhai felt her face flaming. “No, never. Because I was so uptight about it, I suppose. I thought it was the drug, holding it back. But now it seems that it might not have been that at all. Also, you’re a demon.”
“But that’s terrible!” Zhu Irzh said with honest indignation. “You must have felt so frustrated.” He caught sight of the look on her face and fell silent.
“I don’t want pity,” Jhai snapped. A brief war seemed to cross the demon’s countenance, and tact apparently lost.
“So it was that good, was it?” If there had been more than a trace of smugness in Zhu Irzh’s voice, Jhai would have hit him then and there. A fleeting memory of the previous night, and morning, made her betray herself.
“Yes, if you must know, it was, actually,” she said through gritted teeth.
“What, waves crashing on the shore? The earth moving? Curtains fluttering in the—” He caught her striking hand and laughed. “Anyway,” he added, sobering up. “You can have your cake and eat it, now.”
“Meaning?”
“Well, you can dispense with the drug, for a start. Tell your mum it’s obviously all been a huge misunderstanding and what generates the instability between your two states is simply that you haven’t got satisfactorily laid. Then, when the change starts regenerating itself, all you have to do is—”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Jhai rolled off the bed and reached for her underwear. “That’s so typical of a man. So all I need to sort me out is a good fuck, is that it?”
“I couldn’t have put it better. Obviously, you’ll need someone to supply that particular aspect of your cure, and I will nobly volunteer my services.”
“If you think I’m sleeping with you again after that remark, you’ve got another thing coming.”
The demon studied her for a moment, then appeared to come to a decision. He rose sinuously from the bed, snatching up a silk robe in passing. Knotting it about his waist, he said seriously, “I would like that. You had as great an effect on me as I have had on you, though perhaps a bit more predictable. It’s not just about sex, Jhai, or even love. It’s about meeting your match.”
“Bullshit.” She frowned. “Are you proposing?”
Zhu Irzh laughed. “Not yet. But who knows?” He took her by the shoulders and kissed her, gently and lingeringly. “Perhaps when we’re no longer enemies.”
Jhai took a reluctant step back. “Is that what we are?”
“Two bodies, Jhai. Not ours. Two people ripped apart by something with teeth and claws.” He raised an eyebrow, still smiling. “A human wouldn’t dare to ask you that, after last night. But I will.”
There was a long, arctic silence.
“Are you accusing me of murder, Seneschal Zhu?”
“Maybe. You say this is your first real transformation. Flattering, but is it true, I ask myself?”
Slowly, Jhai sat back down on the bed.
“Yes, it’s true. I’ve never just … changed.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m absolutely sure.” That was the truth, anyway, she thought. She knew exactly who, or what, had killed Deveth and the feng shui man, and it wasn’t herself. The murderer was even now roaming the city, released by the compassion and incompetence of Robin Yuan.
The demon sat down beside her and took Jhai’s chin in his hand, turning her face to meet his own.
“You didn’t kill them. Then who did?”
“Suppose I knew. Suppose I told you. What would you do? Go to your masters in the police department, Hellkind that you are?”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”
“Liar,” she said softly.
“No, I am not lying. I don’t know if you can trust me, Jhai. It depends how high the stakes might be.”
“Pretty damn high.” She met his gaze, as golden as her own could be. “As high as Heaven.”
“I’ve been to Heaven,” the demon said, with seeming irrelevance. “A pretty place, if you like that sort of thing. Bit insipid.”
“Perhaps not for much longer,” Jhai said, taking a risk.
“And why would that be?”
“Zhu Irzh, there’s something I’d like to show you. Not here. At the Farm.”
“The Farm?”
“It’s a nickname, for my mother’s country estate. It’s not far from the city. I could send a car to pick you up.”
The golden gaze narrowed. He didn’t trust her, Jhai thought with reluctant approval. She could hardly blame him.
“Let your colleagues know where you’re going. You can even bring that large sergeant of yours, if you want.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow afternoon? I have things to arrange before then. One o’clock?”
“All right.” Zhu Irzh stepped forward, and kissed her mockingly on the cheek. “I’ll see you then. Send a car to the wharf. I’ll be waiting.”
23
Robin and Mhara had come to the end of the side canal some time ago and were now traveling as unobtrusively as possible along the main Jhenrai. Day was coming quickly, the light spilling out of the eastern sky and turning the flat water of the canal into pale gold. Robin was trying to find her bearings. Everything seemed truncated and squashed at this angle. She could see the unpopular angled roof of the Eregeng Trade House from here, and the First Bank of China rising up through the throng of buildings along Shaopeng. There, suddenly glimpsed, rose the dome of the Opera House, in shadow. Then the chugging boat took them around the next long bend. Beyond the storage piers and warehouses was the bulk of the ruined temple of Shai. As they rounded the turn Robin realized that the great iron doors of the temple were open. The canal lapped against the sluice gate.
“Listen!”
“I know.” Mhara’s voice held a grim note. They could hear the erratic swish of a powerboat engine approaching up the western stream of the Jhenrai. It was one of the big troop boats, the Paugeng symbol bright along its side, and as it spun to a showy stop before Mhara and Robin, the latter saw a form, indistinct in the morning light, crouched in the blunt prow. The little boat bobbed uneasily in the wake.
“Have they seen us?” Robin asked from beneath the concealment of the canopy.
“I think so.” She looked at Mhara, whose face was bright and peaceful as he knelt in the shelter of the canopy. The rim of the sun, blazing summer white, crept over the edge of Wuan Chih and the world was abruptly flooded with light. The canal burned in the sudden sun and above them the temple was thrown into a massive angular blackness. The Paugeng troop boat was no more than a shadow against the water. Slowly, Mhara turned the tiller so that the boat spun into the watery entrance of the temple.
“We can’t go in there!” Robin protested, but they were caged and outmaneuvered by the troop boat. The little craft, with Robin trying in vain to see beneath the canopy, began to edge forward. The brimming sunlight ran from the sides of the wharves, spun out of the water. The Jhenrai danced with a fiery brightness and now the edge of the boat was bumping against the sluice. In haste, Mhara spun the wheel and the sluice gate creaked upward. The troop boat surged forward and then Mhara and Robin were through the narrow channel and into the temple vault. Behind them, something gave a low, snickering laugh.
Within, the temple seemed enormous. The top of the dome lay at the edges of sigh
t, though from the outside Robin had always judged it to be a couple of hundred feet high. The vault itself was darkness laid upon darkness, but from the crest of the dome a single beam of light sent the dust motes twirling in the air. The vault was filled with whispering: voices murmured in Robin’s ear, borne on a rushing wind like the breath of the sea. The sound muffled the mechanical beat of the boat’s engines, churning the smooth, black surface of the cistern into a pattern of dappling water. Slowly the boat slid forward, a toy in the midst of vastness, and by the time the wider Paugeng boat had engineered itself through the cistern sluice, Robin and Mhara had turned the corner and vanished into emptiness.
24
The afternoon found Zhu Irzh in a teahouse, reading among the old men. No one batted an eyelid. Reacting to his non-humanity would mean that they lost too much face, and anyway, as he was trying to catch the boy’s eye for more tea, another person walked in, the possessor of a chalky olive skin and a round, beaming face, the eyes like currents in a heavy fold of eyelid, dressed in antique leather armor. He and Zhu Irzh gave one another a polite nod of recognition between Hellkind and then the creature left, having failed to find who, or what, he was seeking.
It was a big teahouse, arranged on four floors, and the shuttered windows were obscured by the usual mass of greenery. Plants were growing in cages, hanging outside the windows, and up here nearer the sun grew ginger and lemon grass, rosemary and sweet basil, fragrant in the late afternoon heat. They made the interior of the teahouse cool and green; Zhu Irzh found it peaceful, despite the chatter of conversation, and, lost in his book, did not realize how late it had become.
When he got back to Lower Murray Street, dusk had fallen and the moon was rising up over Shendei. A figure was sitting on the doorstep of the houseboat, which resolved itself into Jhai Tserai.
“Hello “he said.
“Hello.” He let her in and switched the light on. “I didn’t expect to see you until tomorrow.”
