by Jill Braden
“So you want them taken alive?”
Her forefinger slowly tapped against the arm of the chair. “Keeping prisoners is too much trouble. They’re always trying to escape. The soldiers are sea dragons, so we can’t simply maroon them on a monolith stone fifty miles from shore. They’d make it back to Levapur before you did. And I have no desire to put you in greater peril, favored uncle.”
He pressed his hands together and bowed.
“So they can’t be killed, can’t be allowed to report to the colonial government, can’t be held prisoner... Well, you see my difficulty.”
“It is a puzzle,” LiHoun admitted. His tongue darted out to wet his lips as he squatted. “While you decide, perhaps you’d like to hear a story? This is a whole suckling pig for your bowl.”
With a satisfied sigh, she moved the machete and settled back in the throne. “I do so enjoy your stories.”
“Late last night, the Ravidians locked the gate of the compound on Cay Rhi and stayed inside the walls. We were able to sneak over to the tide pools and take the sea wasps without being seen. It was an elegant operation, to use one of your favorite phrases, auntie.” He inclined his head toward her. She returned the gesture. “The people at your estate received two large glass containers of the sea wasps early this morning.”
QuiTai nodded.
LiHoun hesitated before continuing. “I don’t know if you’re aware, but PhaNyan is dead. Since he didn’t come with us, we chose to leave his body behind. We were afraid its disappearance would raise questions, and you said that speed was vital.”
“Of course. I trust you to make wise decisions. Little brother PhaNyan was careless.” She would miss PhaNyan, but there was no sense dwelling on his death. The soldiers were a more pressing concern, and she had to decide now what to do about them.
Her fingers curled over the arm of the chair. She could understand why Petrof had liked sitting in it. She felt positively regal in such a throne. Setting was so important for a scene.
Petrof. The Devil. She felt his rage and fear. He was still alive, and every sound and shadow of the jungle brought him closer to complete madness. She relished it.
How frightened they all were of the jungle – the werewolves and the Thampurians.
Her lips curved.
“I have decided how to deal with the soldiers, uncle LiHoun. Hire a dozen of the swiftest hunters to dress in the clothes of the escaped Ponongese and lure the soldiers deeper into the interior of the island along the game trails, keeping far away from any villages and the coastline. Warn the hunters that they’ll be killed if they’re caught. Offer them enough money to make it a merry chase that will ideally continue for several days. Once the soldiers are thoroughly lost, the hunters may leave them to their own devices. If they find their way back to Levapur, I’ll have enough of a head start on them that their report won’t matter. If the soldiers remain lost in the jungle forever, well, I might have promised Kyam Zul that I wouldn’t harm any Thampurians by my actions.” She steepled her fingers under her chin. “But the Devil made no such bargain about harm by inaction.”
LiHoun glanced again at Petrof’s hands. He seemed confused. “I thought the Devil was killed tonight. If I am wrong, grandmother QuiTai, forgive this old fool for telling a poor story.”
In the jungle, after she had taken Petrof’s hands, he had said in a voice not his own, You are the Devil. The goddess had spoken; the Oracle was never wrong.
QuiTai spread her bloodied hands and smiled at LiHoun.
“The Devil lives,” she said.
THE END
The Story Continues…
The Devil Incarnate picks up where The Devil’s Concubine left off:
There’s no rest for the wicked, especially for the Devil. While QuiTai recovers from her last adventure, Levapur is turning into a police state. The Pongonese are pushed to the brink of rebellion against their colonial masters, the Thampurians – but who is behind it, and why? As the new Devil, QuiTai must wield her power and use her brilliant mind to outsmart her mysterious nemesis before a bloody uprising erupts.
Chapter 1: A Plan
The morning QuiTai awoke completely sane, she knew Petrof was dead.
He’d killed her family. He’d eaten her daughter. And he’d tried to kill her too. Three days wasn’t nearly long enough for him to suffer, but it would have to do.
Her arms, legs, stomach, and face were raw where she’d scratched at imaginary ants that crawled over her skin on millions of tiny, prickling feet. She hadn’t been taught how to shield her mind from the empathic connection with Petrof through her venom. Some would call it sacrilege to try. The goddess Hunt decreed that the Ponongese should feel their prey’s suffering, so they’d deliver a quick, merciful death, but QuiTai had enjoyed sharing every moment of Petrof’s horror and descent into madness as the jungle consumed him.
Now that her mind was free of him, she had business to attend to. The first step was to get out of bed. Her thick, wavy black hair had come undone from its traditional braid, and every wrinkle in her sarong reminded her of how sour her skin was, but the steady drum of monsoon rain against the shack’s tin roof made her want to pull the sheet over her head and drift back into sleep.
The inland shack she’d withdrawn to was smaller than Kyam Zul’s apartment, too small to divide into rooms. The shack’s only bed was a low, wide cot of woven leather strips. The thin bedroll she’d put on top of it hadn’t done much to smooth out the lumps. Days before, she’d told Kyam that her bed had countless pillows, each as comfortable as a lover’s lap. There was a bed like that waiting for her, but not on Ponong. She’d have to travel through the mouth of the underworld to reach her hidden estate on the tiny island of Quinong to reach it. The vision of soft sheets tempted her, but she knew there was far too much for her to do in Levapur to run away now.
She forced herself to sit up. Her first step on the bare dirt floor made her wince. The infected werewolf bite on her ankle oozed pus. If she’d been in her right mind the past few days, she would have gathered herbs and cleaned the wound properly. Now it was going to be much harder to heal. Although the weather was soul-sappingly hot, she suspected the dull ache in her bones was the start of a fever.
Each step sent sharp pains up her leg as she hobbled across the room. Three low stools sat around the cooking pit, but she forced herself to stand as she lifted the small iron teapot onto the hook and swung it over the remains of the fire. The fire looked as if it had died, but as she stirred it, bright orange embers glowed in the downy white ashes. She added a small log and a handful of dry leaves. The kindling flamed too quickly to light the log, but the embers she’d banked against it would eventually catch.
There were signs around the shack that hunters had used the remote shelter despite the green symbols painted around the doorway. They hadn’t touched her emergency food and water, though. Taboos against violating the trust of communal shelters were stronger inland than they were near Levapur.
While she waited for the water to heat, she went to the doorway and leaned against the threshold. There were no wood screens over the windows. Rain blown inside by gusts of wind turned the dirt floor to mud in places. She combed through her hair knee-length hair and braided it, even though she planned to hobble to the nearby stream and bathe as soon as she had the strength. She didn’t consider herself a beautiful woman – not even particularly alluring, despite the many lovers who spouted such nonsense words during their love-making – but she had her vanities. She’d never risk being seen with her hair down as if she were a child, even in this remote place. And she most certainly wouldn’t let anyone see her in a wrinkled, filthy sarong.
The shack sat on the north face of Ponong’s mother mountain. According to legend, at night the bioluminescent jellyfish floating in mountain’s caldera lake cast green light to the stars, but she’d never seen it.
Curious birds with orange heads and bright green breasts watched her from nearby trees, their heads swiveling constantl
y. From the tracks in the mud and piles of little round black droppings, she guessed a herd of the diminutive island goats had passed this way only a few days before. Perhaps the hunters had been after them, but there was no sign of a kill.
Through a break in the trees, QuiTai looked down into the valley. The wide, shallow river winding between the steep mountain slopes was as gray as the sky. Sheets of rain pocked the surface of the water. She’d seen children play in the river before and knew of two small villages along its banks, but there wasn’t a human to be seen there this morning.
Her gaze moved to the smaller mountain across the valley. Agricultural terraces like bands of malachite carved laboriously into the mountain’s rock face reached all the way to the peak. The villagers working in the rice paddies would have blended into the scenery if it hadn’t been for the pale yellow of their woven hats.
It was a good thing the Thampurians rarely set foot across the Jupoli Gorge Bridge, although they claimed to control the entire Ponong Archipelago. Some day, when they grew brave – or greedier – they might dare to explore the island and discover these and many other forbidden farms. If they thought Levapur was hot and humid, they’d melt in the interior valleys, but the Ponongese couldn’t rely on that to keep the Thampurians from stealing the food from their mouths.
She wished nature had provided other deep water routes through the archipelago besides the Ponong Fangs, which separated the island of Ponong from a much smaller island. Or maybe if there hadn’t been a natural harbor on the sheltered side of the island, the Thampurians would have left the Ponongese alone. She’d often heard her grandmother ask their gods, “Why us? Why not some other people?”
Gifts from the gods always came with a price.
The whistle of the tea kettle roused her from her thoughts. Although she knew she should drink tiuhon tea to help fight the fever rising in her blood, she chose pale leaves that smelled like fresh grass and sunlight. While it steeped, she went back to the doorway.
Could she be content now that Petrof was dead? Vengeance had robbed her of too much time already. It had made her do unforgivable things. She wanted to let it go, to find peace and move on with her life, but she knew she couldn’t. Once people figured out that Petrof was dead and she was still alive, the men who’d hired him to kill her might seek another assassin. She would be foolish to give them the chance. Despite how weary she was of killing, it came down to them or her, and she definitely chose herself.
Taking inventory of her situation, she put into the negative column an ankle that had to be tended to and a colonial militia that would gladly hang her on sight. On the plus side, she was the Devil now. Better than that, she was QuiTai. If there was one thing she excelled at, it was gathering information and digging for the truth. The men who’d hired Petrof didn’t stand a chance against her.
She blew a gentle breath over the surface of her tea. Before she tasted it, she glanced at the tin in which it had been stored.
“Maybe the people who stayed here were hunters. Maybe they were hunting me.”
To her ears, her voice seemed to crack uncontrollably, like a teenage boy’s.
With a flick of her wrist, the tea flew out of the cup and onto the ground outside the shelter. Several of the tiny birds flew down to see if she’d scattered food, then flew back to their perches and scolded her for fooling them.
“How should I find the men who paid Petrof to kill me?” she asked the birds. “Tell me that, and I’ll give you crumbs.”
Their trust, once lost, seemingly couldn’t be restored. If they knew, they kept the answer to themselves. What she needed was some sage advice. A vision. She slumped against the doorway.
Across the valley, mist swirled over the higher mountain peaks like curls of smoke.
Or vapor.
The corners of her mouth curved.
A plan unfolded in her mind.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Table of Contents
Chapter 2: The Red Happiness
Chapter 3: A Proposition
Chapter 4: Death of a Vapor Addict
Chapter 5: Jezereet
Chapter 6: An Unlikely Alliance
Chapter 7: Tracking the Ravidians
Chapter 8: A Narrow Escape
Chapter 9: The Harbor Master
Chapter 10: Betrayal
Chapter 11: The Fortress
Chapter 12: The Golden Barracuda
Chapter 13: A Vision
Chapter 14: Race to Cay Rhi
Chapter 15: Enter the Military
Chapter 16: The Tide Pools
Chapter 17: Escape from the Island
Chapter 18: Petrof
Chapter 19: The Devil
