by Jill Braden
Petrof shoved her to the wall. The heat of his body rolled over her in a soap-scented cloud. “I chose you because I believed you knew where the Oracle was. Now I think she’s another of your lies.”
Ah, that had been a mistake, telling him when they first met that the Oracle had led her to him. Over the time they’d been together, he alternately wooed and threatened her for more information. Now she answered him as she always did: “When do I speak of her? She’s a vapor dream. Don’t waste your time chasing oblivion.”
What Petrof did not know was that the Oracle had spoken through him many times. He simply didn’t remember. That was perhaps for the best; if he had been able to recall the voice that spoke from his lips, he would have been driven mad by it.
“You’re the key to finding her,” Petrof said.
QuiTai knew how to evoke the Oracle, as did all the women of her clan; but the Oracle was their goddess, not a tool for Petrof to bend to his bidding. And he would not like her; her answers seemed to make sense only in retrospect, when it was too late to change the course of time. Petrof did not like anything he could not control.
QuiTai tugged on his towel and let it fall to the floor. “Enough talking.” He glowered down at her. Maybe it was his wolf nature, but he hated it when she initiated sex. Every time had to be a conquest. He only wanted the unobtainable.
She slipped under his arm and sauntered to the bedroom. “Maybe I’ll head downslope and see to my own dinner, since the only food you have here is beer and bones.”
As she bent to grab her sarong, he gripped her arm. “You’ll stay.”
“I told you that I have further business tonight.” It was getting harder to pretend she didn’t want him to take her to bed again. His lips tickled her neck, and she trembled as his breath sent a chill down her spine.
“And I told you that you’re staying,” he said. He dragged her to his bed and pushed her onto the mattress. “Cold, cruel, devious QuiTai. What does it take to melt your reptilian heart?”
Even though his hands weren’t on her throat, she felt as if she couldn’t breathe. Warnings flashed through her brain. If she struggled against him in earnest, she’d never escape his touch. This called for a subtler approach. Luckily, there was a temptation he could never resist.
“Shall we take the vapor first?” she asked.
Thirty minutes later, she sped across the timbergrass bridge, leaving Petrof lost in vapor dream. His memory of the evening would be hazy; he wouldn’t remember if he’d let her go. Halfway to the funicular station, she paused: In her hurry to escape, she’d forgotten to scrape the remains of the black lotus from his pipe. And perhaps she should have taken the opportunity to summon the Oracle and ask for guidance on what might be amiss in Levapur.
No. To summon the Oracle she had to inject Petrof with a non-lethal dose of her venom. The Goddess of the Hunt fated the Ponongese to feel a connection with the animals they poisoned, so they’d have empathy for their food. QuiTai couldn’t bear linking her mind and emotions to Petrof, especially this close to a full moon. His thoughts were ugly enough when he wasn’t completely unhinged. Besides, she could find the answer without the Oracle’s help.
And maybe Kyam Zul was the first place she should start looking.
Chapter 2: The Red Happiness
Over the next few days, Petrof became more furious that no information was forthcoming about the smugglers. He threatened QuiTai; he beat his pack; he broke things. But none of it made any news happen. And that made it harder to talk him into allowing her to have her portrait painted. But tonight she finally had his permission, and she wanted to act before he changed his mind. She hurried from the wolves’ den toward Levapur, intent on making her way to the Red Happiness.
While Levapur didn’t have official boundaries, the apartment building squatting near the Jupoli Gorge was considered the outskirts. QuiTai grimaced as she neared it. She never liked to pass by the hovel, but there was only one path into town from upslope. The sun and humidity had long ago peeled the paint from the graying wood where ferns sprouted like hair on the ears of old men. There were gaps in the upstairs veranda where the wood had rotted away. The jungle had consumed the houses that used to stand near it, but the old dwelling refused to go away. Someone should have burned it down long ago.
Silent children with suspicious eyes darted onto the veranda to stare at her as she walked down the center of the dirt trail. She never saw them play during the day, but at night they stirred to life. A woman leaning against the veranda railing left her watchful sisters to duck behind the sheet hanging in the doorway. QuiTai often wondered if all these aloof people were related to each other, or if the town pushed everyone like them to the margins.
“Auntie QuiTai!” A whiskered man with bowed legs pushed aside the sheet and headed toward her. She would never set foot on that veranda, so she did not stop, but slowed her steps to give him time to catch up. She hadn’t planned to contact her spies this evening, but she couldn’t ignore LiHoun.
He pressed his hands together. “Auntie QuiTai, have you eaten?”
She was no more the man’s aunt than he was her uncle, but respect was a balm for many woes. QuiTai returned the bow. “Yes, uncle LiHoun. Thank you for asking. And you?”
“Yes. Very well,” he said.
“You must have an appetite for air.”
He laughed, showing teeth that sprouted from his jaw like the monolith stones in the harbor. His pupils were vertical like hers, but his iris was like the jungle under the canopy, muted green with patches of brown. He had no inner eyelid and no fangs. His people were from a cluster of volcanic islands several hundred miles south of the Ponong archipelago. Despite their similar coloring and language, the Li weren’t related to the Ponongese.
He stopped at a glade of banana trees at the foot of an eroded hillside. After pushing the back hem of his homespun sarong into the front waistband, making billowy shorts, he squatted. “I heard a story.”
Despite the fancy Thampurian style dress she wore, with a heavy velvet jacket that reached her knees, velvet leggings, a long scarf that draped across her chest and shoulders, and a hat from the finest milliner on the continent, QuiTai squatted beside him in Ponongese fashion and set down the black box she carried. Both faced the road. They watched the turning shades of twilight draw across the sky and the night spirit moths flutter through the thicket of trees. She lit a tightly rolled kur, inhaled deeply, and passed it to him. Then she rested her hands on her knees.
“A good story is meat for your rice,” she said.
“This story is a plump chicken.” He took a long drag on the kur, pulling the orange line of embers close to his curved fingernails, and held the smoke in his lungs before slowly releasing it in a plume. QuiTai quietly coughed. He smiled shyly, took another drag, and handed the roll back to her with an apologetic shrug.
QuiTai pulled the hot smoke into her mouth and returned the nub to him. The stimulant made her blood feel hot. “I’d rather have meat than smoke anyway, uncle.” She exhaled.
Time slowed as it always did during these meetings. They leisurely discussed LiHoun’s family, the price of rice, working conditions in the upslope plantations, and rumors of another typhoon forming over the Te’Am Ocean. Thankfully, impatience wasn’t a Ponongese vice. It was always better to let matters unfold at their own pace.
Finally, LiHoun came around to it. “PhaNyan regularly sticks his finger into a dirt Thampurian’s bowl, without giving the Devil his share. Several weeks ago, the dirt Thampurian, by the grace of gods in a capricious mood, smuggled several large crates onto the island. When he didn’t share his bounty with PhaNyan, PhaNyan cried to a cat, who whispered the story to the wolf slayer. But somewhere in the retelling, PhaNyan’s name was lost to the story.”
QuiTai could imagine where. She’d deal with that later. For now, she wanted to know more about the Thampurian who aided the smugglers. His name hadn’t been attached to the rumor either when it reached her, which meant tha
t someone down the line had held back information. That person would regret his foolish decision.
If she’d passed by LiHoun, it might have been another few days before she heard his information. Manners, she reflected, were never wasted effort.
“The gods love and protect their fools,” she said.
A rasping cough shook LiHoun’s thin shoulders. “So it’s said. I wonder how a dirt Thampurian talked anyone into trusting him with their shipment, and how he managed to do everything right except get paid?” His cunning eyes narrowed as he tilted his head.
Unless he was paid in some other way than coin. There were few ways for a Thampurian to sink to dirt: the most assured route was becoming a vapor addict. If PhaNyan’s source knew smugglers who brought black lotus onto the island outside of the Devil’s syndicate, she wanted to talk to him.
“I wonder what was in those crates,” she said.
LiHoun nodded. “That would be a story worth telling.”
She handed him several coins. “It would be a story worth hearing, uncle. Worth ten times this tale.” She held up another coin between her fingertips. “Those crates went somewhere. Find them.” She put a second, larger, coin with the first. LiHoun’s eyes widened with appreciation. “For me alone. Not the wolves.”
He took the coins. “Wolves eat cats.” She flinched, but he didn’t seem to see it. He went on, “I don’t do business with them.”
“The wisest hairs are gray.” QuiTai gripped the black box by her ankle and rose.
“May your bowl always be full, auntie.”
“May yours be full of anything but sorrow, uncle.”
“Or air!” He laughed heartily as she headed down the road in search of PhaNyan.
~ ~ ~
She found PhaNyan drinking among a row of plantation workers at a plank nailed to the railing of a veranda. Like the other men in the back alley bar, the weight of the day hunched his back. His hand curled around his beer as if someone might snatch it away. The fragrant haze of kur rose in heavy tendrils that reflected the sickly green light of an aging jellylantern.
The man beside him saw QuiTai first. He nudged PhaNyan with his elbow.
PhaNyan bolted down the alley, but stopped running after only a few steps. His shoulders slumped as he turned to face her. Tall for a Ponongese, he was delicately featured, except for his flattened nose.
As angry as she was that she had to hunt him down, QuiTai knew better than to talk the Devil’s business in front of the bar’s patrons. She gestured for him to walk with her deeper into the maze of alleys off the main road.
“Little brother PhaNyan, have you eaten?”
PhaNyan licked his bottom lip as he cast side glances at her. “Yes, auntie. And you?”
“Alas, no. When the Devil does not eat, either do I.”
He made a face. “He’s from the continent. Why do you share a bowl with him, auntie QuiTai?”
“You question my loyalties?”
“I’m not the only one.”
“Ah.” The last thing she needed was that sort of trouble. The werewolves were good at enforcement, but her network was mostly natives who were far better at the subtle art of intelligence gathering. If they questioned her, they wouldn’t continue to help the Devil.
She stopped in a dark alley with a dead end. “Setting aside my choice of bedmates for the moment, you’re fortunate that the Devil hasn’t heard of your betrayal yet. There’s still time to replace the meat in his bowl before he notices it’s gone.”
His head snapped up. She could see understanding dawning in his eyes. It wouldn’t matter to the Devil why he’d withheld information. Her protection was the only thing standing between him and a painful death.
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. “I would be grateful.”
She cupped his chin in her hand. “Gratitude becomes you. But, of course, he’ll be ravenous when I do tell him, so it’s best to make sure he has extra to feast on.”
“I have to eat too.”
“Don’t we all.”
“But they haven’t sold anything to our fences yet, so I have no cut to offer the Devil as penance.”
The crack of QuiTai’s fist hitting his jaw echoed through the alleyway. He staggered back against a wall, and shook his head as if to clear it.
“I name your penance. Not you,” QuiTai said.
PhaNyan’s fingers traced over his jaw. She gave him cool silence so that he would know she wouldn’t strike him again. He grimaced before grasping her hand and bowing over it to place a reverent kiss on her knuckles.
Knowing that her displeasure would spur his efforts, she soured her smile. “Bring me the names and movements of every stranger on the island.”
Still bent in his bow, he lifted his gaze to hers. “Are you searching for the Ravidian smugglers to make an alliance against the Thampurians?”
So the smugglers were Ravidians. Many shipments that passed under the harbor master’s greedy eye weren’t legal, but as a Thampurian, he would have drawn the line at aiding Ravidians. Or maybe not: the dirt Thampurian had worked for them, after all. Still, chances were that the Ravidians used one of the smugglers’ coves to bring their crates ashore. If so, LiHoun would find out.
PhaNyan said, “I knew it! You’re only working with the Devil until you can start the revolution.”
She grabbed his hand and bent it back until he dropped to his knees. “Foolish little brother! Don’t ever speak of such things where we might be overheard. Spies are everywhere.”
He screamed as she broke one of his fingers.
“That’s for withholding information. Refuse to tell the werewolves if you must, but never try to hide anything from me.”
“Forgive me, grandmother QuiTai!”
She wrapped her hand around his thumb. “Dirt has a name. I want it, and where I will find him. Now.”
He sobbed out an answer as his thumb snapped.
~ ~ ~
As she headed for the Red Happiness, the scent of a thousand different dinners wafted from hibachis on verandas. People leaned over the railings of the upstairs verandas to chat with neighbors below. Lovers gathered in alleyways to smile shyly and share long silences. Only the full moon could drive Ponongese to seek shelter inside their apartments.
The line between the Thampurian and Ponongese neighborhoods was visible at night as a change in the color of light that filtered through their intricate carved wood window screens. The blue jellylanterns the Thampurians could afford were much stronger than the cheaper green, but they were still too weak to conquer the night’s shadows. Like a giant jellyfish floating in a misty ocean, Levapur glowed everywhere she looked. Beyond the town, the Sea of Erykoli was a different sort of darkness, one that seethed with the remnant power cast off by the last typhoon.
QuiTai’s Thampurian-style clothes were ridiculous in Ponong’s tropical climate, but it seemed to irk Kyam Zul when she dressed like his people, so she endured the layers of undergarments and heavy fabrics. With every breath, the corset under her jacket tightened around her ribs like a constrictor: that explained why Thampurian ladies, who wore such outfits every day rather than a sensible sarong, swooned so often in the streets of Levapur. No matter how hard she fought to breathe, QuiTai refused to faint. She wouldn’t give anyone the satisfaction, especially Kyam Zul.
Standing in the light mist, she opened her dainty umbrella and watched the Red Happiness brothel from across the road. The scent of damp plants and Ponong’s rich soil filled the air as clouds released warm, fat raindrops. Customers and workers sat on the wide veranda of the Red Happiness in white wicker chairs, the veranda’s roof protecting them from the rain while allowing the cooling breezes from the ocean to waft over them.
Conversations stopped as QuiTai entered the brothel through the open typhoon shutters. She shook the water off her umbrella and closed it. Kyam sat toward the back of the long, narrow room where small cabaret tables clustered. He had been waiting three days for her to answer his message.
By now, he was probably furious. She didn’t let her gaze linger on him long enough to find out.
In Thampur’s capital Surrayya or one of the other glittering cities on the continent, the Red Happiness would have been considered vulgar. The red velvet wallpaper curled from the humidity and the brass fixtures around the room featured illustrations from the ancient Book of Carnal Bliss. Blue light jellychandeliers and wall sconces bathed the bar in stark light. It was an outrageous, almost obscene luxury, but QuiTai considered it part of the cost of doing business with the clientele the brothel attracted.
The brothel was too empty for her taste, even if every room upstairs was in use. Most of the crushed velvet divans lining the public room’s walls were unoccupied. Kyam and two other men were the only customers at the tables. The barkeep at the far end of the room ran a cloth over the bar in a pretense of work. It would rain almost every day for the next four months, but at the beginning of monsoon season, Thampurians tended to stay at home when the clouds gathered. The typhoon that had just passed probably had something to do with the lack of business too. Until she knew what Kyam wanted, she wasn’t sure if she was glad or not it was a slow night.
Belts slowly churned ceiling fans over head. Lizards skittered down the walls. Two redheaded Ingosolians giggled before kissing, to the delight the chubby Thampurian who sat between them on a divan. And Madame Jezereet perched on the banister of the staircase that led to the upstairs rooms. She wore a brown and tan striped waist cincher over a deep purple dress that fell in ruffled layers to the floor, and paprika curls piled high on her head that fell in ringlets to her creamy décolletage. Her skin was pale as the daytime moon. Such coloring was common for the Ingosolians, but her pallor was as unnatural as her bright garnet lips. Her once famously curvaceous figure had shrunk so that every rib in her sternum stuck out. Two years ago, every customer from the continent recognized her from her days on the stage. Nowadays, no one did.
