The Devil Incarnate (The Devil of Ponong series #2)

by Braden, Jill

  On the street below, people waded through the rising muddy water coursing downslope, their expressions shifting between resignation and impatience, while the addicts headed for the Dragon Pearl were seemingly oblivious to the deluge. They made no attempt to stay dry. They probably hadn’t eaten dinner, because the need for vapor was always stronger than any other hunger. They would pass by the gambling tables on the first floor and walk up the stairs. Some would sprint.

  QuiTai peered between the slats of the typhoon shutters to watch the shadowy outlines of customers enter the den. They took delicate pipes from velvet-lined cases and jostled for their turn to cook the black lotus over the small spirit lamps. As the tar melted, they climbed on the raised platform along the wall and sucked the vapor into their lungs. One by one, they slipped into dream. Some would be lost to the vapor for hours; the heavily addicted would rise for another pipe sooner.

  QuiTai opened the shutters and crept into the den. The reek of black lotus hung in the stuffy air. Pipes cluttered the tables around the still burning oil lamps. Overhead, ceiling fans churned sluggishly in the heat as if they knew their efforts were wasted.

  If they hadn’t been so addicted, the dreamers probably would have grumbled about the lack of a mattress on the crowded communal bed against the wall. They didn’t even have pillows. Thampurian sensibilities had no place here. They sprawled together in a tangle of limbs. Some mumbled. A few stared into the darkness, but if they saw her, they only knew her as part of their dreams.

  QuiTai’s eyelids drooped. She rubbed her face. The deep pink sea wasp scar on her hand was hotter than the rest of her palm. At least it didn’t hurt anymore, but the rest of her body simply ached. She wanted to sleep more than she’d ever wanted anything.

  QuiTai kicked empty vials out of her way. They rolled across the scuffed floor.

  She coaxed the nearest man into swallowing a few precious drops of her venom. The vision the Oracle brought her through him was useless. She didn’t care that the man was embezzling money from the bank where he clerked. She needed the name of the person who had paid Petrof to kill her and her family.

  The connection to the conduit would break when the small dose of her venom worked through his system, but with time so precious, she decided not to wait. She dosed a second dreamer while still connected to the first.

  QuiTai had never tried to use two conduits in such a short span of time, and now she understood why it was a bad idea. The thoughts of both stumbled through her mind as she tried to focus on the Oracle. The dissonance of the dreamers’ thoughts made her dizzy. She gripped the edge of the pallet and pulled deep breaths through her nose. Mind reeling, she waited for the Oracle to speak.

  The second vision came, but it was as useless as the first.

  Please, Goddess, if I offended you, forgive me. But I need this vision. I need an answer.

  Maybe she was a masochist, but she had to try one more time before she gave up. With Petrof dead, she no longer had a conduit at hand. She had to make the most of this night and the den’s supply of dreamers.

  At least the connection to the first had grown weak enough that she could barely sense him. The second conduit was also fading a bit. It would be a couple hours before their minds completely separated from hers, but with each passing minute, her head and stomach felt better. Now if she could only cool the blistering heat under her skin.

  All of the dreamers were Thampurian. With so many to chose from, and only one last chance to get it right, she searched through them for someone who might tempt the Oracle to say something useful. From their clothes, the dreamers in this room were merchants and low-level clerks. Perhaps that was her mistake. The few times she’d summoned the Oracle through a Thampurian, her chosen conduit to the goddess had been a member of the inner circle of the colonial government.

  Except the harbor master’s brother. He’d been dirt, the lowest a Thampurian sea dragon could get, yet the vision the Oracle had brought through him had been so strong.

  She tugged at her bottom lip. Perhaps it was because he had been dying at the time. After all, a proper summoning of the Oracle always ended with the death of the conduit. She’d accidently discovered black lotus as a substitute for the poisonous red paste the Qui used in their ceremonies. While it wasn’t harmless, at least black lotus didn’t kill. At least not quickly. No. It took years.

  A wave of grief overcame her.

  Jezereet had known the danger. She’d chosen the vapor. QuiTai rubbed a tear into her cheek. She didn’t have time for emotions. Sniffling slightly, she frowned at herself and bent over the dreamer with his head near the edge of the pallet. Her fangs sprang from behind her upper teeth. They felt much lighter now that she’d used so much of her venom.

  This one’s lips were deep red, and his clothes, while still in good repair, looked as if they belonged to a stouter man. Those were sure signs of a long-term user. Perhaps her mistake had been picking dreamers who weren’t deeply addicted. The dirt Thampurian had been a heavy user. Yet Petrof, who had been her main conduit to the Oracle the past few years, had taken the vapors only occasionally.

  She could mull this over later. When the Thampurian soldiers returned – if they returned – she’d have plenty of time to reflect while in hiding.

  She took deep breaths and steeled herself for the trial to come. If only she could wait an hour; but by then the dreamers would be rousing, and she didn’t want to wait for one to take a second pipe.

  QuiTai pressed her mouth to the chosen dreamer’s. Her tongue slipped between his lips and pried them open. His breath stank like a bloated corpse. She milked two drops of her venom from her fangs and let them slide onto his tongue. Any more than that could be dangerous, not that anyone would suspect venom if he died. Without puncture marks from her fangs, they’d think he was simply another black lotus addict lost forever to the vapor.

  She pushed another dreamer onto his side to make space for her to sit on the edge of the pallet. He rolled back with a sigh. His arm flopped over her thighs. Glaring at him was useless; he didn’t know she was there.

  QuiTai turned her attention to her chosen conduit. He swallowed. She felt the bob in her throat. Exhaustion swept over her and her mind went blank for a moment, but she couldn’t be sure if it was she or the dreamer causing the void.

  Her thoughts jolted to a dream. She floated through a stylish continental casino. The black and white floor tilted so sharply she should have slipped, but she had no problem walking across it. She was sure she stood upright, but so did the woman in the skeletal hoop skirt who walked on the wall. The laugher of grotesquely distorted gamblers and prostitutes seemed to come from another room in muffled waves. A powdered face, green in the glow of a jellylantern, popped up inches from her. The lips were obscenely red. She reeled back.

  Forcing herself to touch on reality, she put her hand to her chest, as if that would push down the tiny bubble of panic rising through her ribs. As she’d been taught, she reminded herself that it was his dream that she saw. Every Qui had her own mantra to ground her. QuiTai repeated hers with eyes shut tight. Her parched lips moved as she exhaled the words.

  The conduit’s dreams meandered like Kirith Diaal celebrants stumbling through a darkened maze. Now they were out of the casino. Her stomach lurched as they moved to the deck of a ship, but quickly whisked away to him frolicking in the sea with another sea dragon in their shifted forms. She felt the slide of a long, scaled body against hers. The intention was clear as its coils wrapped around her.

  QuiTai was no prude, but she really didn’t want to take part in his dream encounter. Sexual fantasies tended to jolt from scene to scene, sometimes replaying the smallest part many times. Besides, that slither of a muscular, scaled body against hers reminded her too much of Kyam Zul, and she couldn’t be distracted by thoughts of him right now. She pushed past the conduit’s dreams and into his memories.

  She heard footsteps. Not sure if it was part of the memory she’d connected to, she opened her ey
es.

  In the real world, an Ingosolian slid open the den’s door. Her eyes widened when she saw QuiTai, but she didn’t make a sound. She slipped in and quietly slid the door closed behind her. She took her time drawing the latch before turning her head and watching QuiTai from the corner of her eye.

  QuiTai didn’t dare suck in the breath for which her lungs burned. She knew that this Ingosolian, Lizzriat, wasn’t Jezereet. Jezereet was dead. Petrof had killed her when she’d stopped him from strangling QuiTai. Her body had been shipped back to Rantuum several days ago. She knew that Jezereet was dead. She’d closed her beloved’s eyes. But Lizzriat’s soft, pale blue cheek in profile, framed by rampant shoulder-length paprika curls, was like a glimpse of Jezereet ages ago, before she’d taken the vapor, back when she was the toast of the stage on the continent; and it hurt, how it hurt when a tiny sliver of hope and denial stabbed her heart.

  Ingosolians outside Ingosol usually chose to shift to a conforming gender aspect for safety’s sake. There was never a female as curvaceous or a male as broad-shouldered and firm-jawed as an Ingosolian living in another country. They found other cultures’ obsession with gender absurd and loved to mock it. That mischievous streak was just one of the many things QuiTai adored about them. Lizzriat, however, chose an androgynous aspect, as if she were in Ingosol, where being any gender for an extended period was considered eccentric. Even thinking of Lizzriat in terms of gender was dangerously close to an insult. Since the workers at the Red Happiness almost always chose to shift feminine, QuiTai often referred to all Ingosolians as female – but that was a limitation imposed by the Ponongese and Thampurian languages. It was simply impossible to refer to someone as just a person, and only an ignorant, boorish fool would be low enough to refer to another person as ‘it.’ So even though Lizzriat’s vest, white shirt, and trousers were cut in a masculine silhouette, QuiTai thought of Lizzriat as female. The effect of the foppish suit, to QuiTai’s way of thinking, was far more enticing and sensual than a purely male or female form.

  Everything about the Ingosolians was beautiful.

  Jezereet had always claimed that black lotus made QuiTai amorous, even poetic. QuiTai remembered no such thing, but as long as she was connected to the conduits, she too was under the influence of the vapor. If Jezereet had been telling the truth, she had better keep tight control over her thoughts of Lizzriat.

  Lizzriat turned slowly but kept her hand on the door. “I’m surprised to see you here, Lady QuiTai.”

  “I won’t stay long.” QuiTai bit the insides of her cheeks and pinched her arms to help her focus.

  “Perhaps, if I knew what you wanted...” Her long fingers extended an invitation for QuiTai to speak.

  “Right now, only that you don’t summon the soldiers who are no doubt downstairs at your gaming tables. I realize that I’m asking for a huge favor, given our history.”

  “We’ve never been enemies,” Lizzriat said.

  “Nor are we friends.”

  Petrof had often commented that QuiTai was a consummate liar. That was true, but she also made it a habit to speak blunt truths because Thampurians loved to dance around a subject for hours. It always shocked them when she went straight to the heart of the matter. She enjoyed their dismay and embarrassment. Lizzriat’s eyes shone though, as if she were enjoying a private joke. Jezereet had often reacted the same way to QuiTai’s attempts to shock her.

  QuiTai folded her hands on her lap. “If the soldiers knew a Ponongese was here and that you failed to report me, they’d close this place. Maybe arrest you. At the least, they’d levy a hefty fine before you could open your doors again. It would be unforgiveable of me to hurt your profits like that.”

  That should be enough to warn her to keep her distance from me.

  Lizzriat chuckled. “So it seems that all I have to gain by reporting you is harm to my business. I’m not that stupid.”

  “I’m still endangering you. I want you to know that I recognize the risk that I pose to you, and the debt implied.”

  Lizzriat inclined her head slightly, acknowledging the debt rather than denying it. She crossed the room and extinguished the oil lamps. “Let me worry about the soldiers, Lady QuiTai. I hold too many of their markers for them to get greedy about payoffs.”

  “All the more reason to hang you.”

  Lizzriat’s faint smile drew into a serious line. In the green glow of the jellylanterns, her bluish skin appeared the color of a warm lagoon. “So stop endangering me. Tell me what you’re looking for. I will help you, if only to get you out of here sooner.”

  QuiTai held up a finger. “I may have it in a moment.”

  While she didn’t think Lizzriat would summon the soldiers, QuiTai was still glad that she’d already shared her venom with the dreamer. It wasn’t a lack of trust in the Dragon Pearl’s owner... QuiTai almost laughed out loud at her thoughts. Of course she didn’t trust Lizzriat. There were very few people who’d earned that honor. Lizzriat probably didn’t trust her either, with good cause. QuiTai owned the Red Happiness brothel, but most people assumed the Devil did. The thinking, QuiTai assumed, was that if the Devil were willing to muscle into a legal business like the brothels, surely he’d turn his interest to the gambling dens next. That would explain why the owners of the gambling dens flinched when QuiTai walked in.

  Or maybe it didn’t.

  No, there was no love lost between her and Lizzriat, although they treated each other with careful respect. Still, baring her fangs to a Thampurian, even one lost to the vapor, was punishable by death. It was safer that Lizzriat didn’t know what she’d done.

  She lightly placed her hand on the dreamer’s chest and leaned over his body. Thankfully, they still had a connection. QuiTai closed her eyes again. Her conduit’s dreams had fractured and now floated on a vast void inside his mind. She’d been in that oblivion. Most people who used black lotus spoke of that place in hushed voices that betrayed their longing to return. She loathed it. Her conduit wanted to sink further into it. She forced herself not to fight her way out since she might drag him to consciousness. While he drifted, she imagined a place where she could hold onto solid reality and bridge through him to the Oracle. She caught onto a memory and dragged herself out of his void.

  She bit her rough lips. The temptation to ask the Oracle a question almost overwhelmed her.

  “Never ask the goddess. She will bring you a vision of what she wants you to see,” her mother and grandmother had lectured.

  QuiTai exhaled slowly and opened herself to the vision.

  Grief and anger rushed over her. She caught glimpses of a Thampurian woman. One moment the woman was young and happy, the next older and suspicious. The woman was sad and angry that her husband addicted himself to black lotus. He was angry with her for trying to stop him from taking the vapor, but he didn’t have the strength to pour his fury out on her. Impotent in many ways, all he could do was let the rage, and black lotus, slowly eat his soul and body.

  In a voice not his own, he said, “She will marry the rice merchant days after my funeral.”

  The Oracle had spoken.

  QuiTai’s shoulders slumped. She opened her eyes. Why would the Oracle want her to know that? All this trouble for another useless vision. She was so damn tired. The hot, stuffy room didn’t help. She turned to Lizzriat. “I’m sorry to have endangered you for that.” Her hand flicked toward the dreamer dismissively.

  Lizzriat seemed puzzled. “For what?”

  QuiTai cocked her head as she regarded Lizzriat. “Didn’t you hear him speak?”

  Lizzriat shook her head.

  QuiTai wished she had enough venom left to use Lizzriat as a conduit. Maybe then she’d know if she lied. But what little she had left she might need to defend herself.

  “Did his lips move?”

  Lizzriat’s paprika curls fell into her eyes as she shook her head.

  There were times when QuiTai swore she could feel time slow. Her pulse boomed at half the speed of her normal he
art beat. Or perhaps it was because her mind sped up and she could see things at an accelerated pace.

  This was interesting beyond measure, if the Ingosolian told the truth. Could it be that the Oracle spoke directly into her mind? She tried to think back to when she’d been very young and she’d witnessed the Qui priestesses summon the Oracle. Had the conduit’s mouth moved then? She couldn’t remember. They’d taken a tiny drop of her venom and mixed it with theirs so that she’d been connected too.

  She put on one of her resigned smiles with a tiny overtone of chagrin, so Lizzriat would think she was a little embarrassed. “That’s the problem with vapor addicts. Sometimes they ramble. Other times, they say nothing.”

  “So you didn’t find it?” Lizzriat frowned as she bowed her head as if deep in thought.

  “No. But I will go anyway. May your rice bowl always be full, Lizzriat.”

  Lizzriat didn’t seem relieved that she was leaving.

  QuiTai set aside her musings over the Oracle and concentrated on the now. The Ingosolian seemed to be holding something back. “Is there a favor I could do for you in return, since you’ve been so accommodating?”

  Lizzriat drew in a long breath. So there was something, but not a question that came easily. QuiTai waited for her to work up the courage.

  “I was warned never to approach you, but the werewolves were hanged.”

  QuiTai suddenly had a clear understanding of the problem Lizzriat feared to speak about. “You’re running out of black lotus.”

  The tension in Lizzriat’s shoulders eased.

  The regular black lotus distribution had ended when the werewolves were arrested and executed. How interesting that no one bought enough to last more than a few days; or maybe they couldn’t resist smoking all they had once they’d taken the vapor.

  QuiTai had run every facet of the Devil’s organization except the black lotus trade. Petrof expressly forbade any dealer to allow her to buy it, and made an example of the one who’d dared break his rule. It had been his way of controlling Jezereet, and through Jezereet, hurting QuiTai. But now Petrof was dead, and QuiTai had reclaimed the criminal enterprise she’d built for him. There was no one left to stop her from controlling the black lotus trade.