Precious Dragon

by Liz Williams

  “Then what should we do?” Without realising it, her voice had dropped to a whisper.

  “We should just watch. Put the light out. Pretend you’ve gone to bed.”

  Mrs Pa, trying not to look out of the kitchen window, crossed the room and switched the light off.

  “Now,” Precious Dragon said softly. They sat down on the seat by the window and waited. The sky was illuminated by the thousand lights of the city and so the yard was never completely dark, but it was difficult to see what was going on. Various possibilities were going through Mrs Pa’s mind. It would be stupid to burgle her little house; there was nothing here, but someone might be sufficiently desperate or even crazy. They sent those of the demented whom they could not cure to the security fortress on the island of Moritana, but many took refuge in the disused mines of Bharulay or Orichay, or were sent for use in the hospitalisation wings of the corporations. Those people, though, were the really hopeless cases, those who the drugs were unable to reach, and not so many of them were wandering around the streets. Perhaps it was some lout having a joke, which would be on him, Mrs Pa thought. She kept a pepper spray under the sink; used correctly, it would blind. She reached for it now.

  There was definitely something in the outhouse, because she could see the edges of the door rattling. Perhaps someone was stuck. But why on earth go into someone else’s outhouse in the first place, if you didn’t have to, of course? There were high walls between the houses, edged with razor-wire. Mrs Pa was beginning to feel rather unwell, a sick, dense pressure building up behind her eyes that she attributed to nerves, but it was most unpleasant. Unsteadily, she got off the chair and went to the back door. Outside, the light seeping from the door of the outhouse continued to grow, pulsing with the neon colours of sickness.

  “Grandma?” Precious Dragon said in an urgent whisper.

  “I don’t know what’s—” Mrs Pa murmured, indistinctly. She wrenched the back door open, and as she did so the door of the outhouse also flew back on its hinges and something shot across into the kitchen, knocking Mrs Pa aside. The sense of pressure vanished abruptly. She shrieked. The thing was about the size of a person, but it was spinning so quickly that it was impossible to tell what it was. The air around it was streaming with light, a bloodstained red. The whirling stopped with a great rush of air. Bright eyes looked at Mrs Pa out of a pointed black mantis face. Mrs Pa whisked the spray can up and pressed the button, releasing a stream of iridescent gas. The thing ducked its head under the spray then, wheeling round, it made a grab for Precious Dragon. The little boy ran into the bedroom alcove and crawled rapidly under the bed, which stood on four paraffin-soaked feet to deter roaches. The thing bent, seized one small foot and pulled him out, holding him upside down over the bed. Precious Dragon yelled. Mrs Pa took one look and beat at the creature’s black back with her fists. It looked slick, like the skin of a sea lion, but it felt hard, similar to horn. It opened its complex mouth and breathed, a long exhalation that singed Mrs Pa’s hair in passing and raised a wall of flame around the front door. Then it swatted Mrs Pa to one side. Fortunately, she fell on the bed, but knocked the side of her head against the cupboard as she fell. The thing shook Precious Dragon sharply.

  Mrs Pa could not remember the next few minutes very clearly. There were shouts, a sudden sound like a waterfall and then an acrid, smoky smell. The front door crashed open. She thought she recalled seeing her grandson twist in the creature’s grip like a fish and spit at it. He hit it in the eye, and it wailed and staggered backwards, knocking into the chest of drawers, then it span out into the garden as though reeled in on a line. The child ran after it and she heard the door of the outhouse bang shut. Someone was bending over her, speaking soothingly. Gradually, the smoke and the pepper residue began to clear and her eyes stopped watering. She looked into golden eyes, rimmed with a thin black line as though drawn by a careful pen.

  “It’s you,” she told the demon. “From the bus.”

  “So it is,” Zhu Irzh agreed. He squatted down on his haunches in front of her.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I think so.” She struggled upright. “Where’s my grandson?”

  A man came in through the back door, holding the little boy. Mrs Pa had the impression of a pleasant, round face. Precious Dragon was choking. His face was pale and he was wheezing.

  “Give him to me!” she demanded and the man put him gently down on the bed. Other people seemed to be milling indiscriminately about her small house.

  “It must be the pepper spray,” someone said. Precious Dragon shook his head violently. His lips were turning blue and his eyes started.

  “He’s got a picture in his head,” the demon said, dreamily. “Something round.”

  “It’s on the floor!” Mrs Pa said, catching on. She and the demon dived for the carpet.

  “What am I looking for?” he asked.

  “It’s a big white pearl! There it is!” She could see it, gleaming in the corner under the bed. The demon slid beneath and retrieved it.

  “It must have rolled.” She stuffed the pearl, fluff and all, into her grandson’s mouth. He drew a painful breath. The other man was staring, his eyebrows up near his hairline. Zhu Irzh stalked rapidly through the kitchen and out. When he returned, he remarked, “There’s not much damage. The carpet’s wet, but the fire doesn’t seem to have touched it, nor the wall. There’s no one in your lavatory, either,” he commented to the child, now recovered and sitting quietly on his grandmother’s lap.

  “Not any more,” Precious Dragon said. There was a dangerous glint in his eye.

  “What happened?” Mrs Pa had time to feel bewildered now.

  “One of your neighbours saw the fire and kicked the door in,” the round-faced man said. “He had an extinguisher, luckily. His wife called the police precinct and they called my colleague and he spoke to me. I live on the harbour, you see, so it didn’t take us long to get here.” The round-faced man displayed a policeman’s badge as the neighbour in question, Mr Sheng, appeared in the doorway.

  “I’ll ask my wife to come in,” he said. His forehead was beaded with sweat.

  “No, please. We’ll be all right.” Mrs Pa said. Her neighbour took a lot of convincing, but after many protestations of gratitude agreed to go back home. Everyone else seemed to melt away around him, apart from the middle aged man and the demon.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re living here,” Mrs Pa told Zhu Irzh. “Whatever people may say.” In the universal human response to a crisis, she got up and made tea. When she came back in she said to her grandson, “What was that thing?”

  “A demon. Like me. Well. Not quite like me. I’m from the upper levels of Hell. That wasn’t. Actually, I don’t know what it was.”

  “I thought it must be something to do with Hell.” She didn’t know much about Hell, but she knew a bit. “It’s where my daughter lives, you see. She’s been there since she was three.”

  The round-faced man frowned. “Why did a three year old go to Hell?”

  Mrs Pa sighed. “It was a long time ago. Things are better now, they say—more regulated. But it was different then. My husband and my daughter died at the same time and I paid a funeral parlour to have the papers filled out for Heaven. That’s where they were supposed to go. My husband was a good man and Mai—of course she was good, she was just a little girl. But the man who ran the funeral place took the money and didn’t do what he was supposed to do—I think now that he had some kind of arrangement with Hell. But he’s dead himself, anyway. I hope he went there. The same sort of thing happened with the Kungs’ son—my daughter’s husband, you know. We fixed things for my husband, but it wasn’t possible for Mai—she’d already become indentured to one of the Ministries. It wasn’t until years later that my husband managed to contact me and we can’t talk much, I don’t know why. It seems easier to talk with Mai.”

  “I’m sorry,” the middle-aged man said. “Things like that shouldn’t happen. If you want, I can try and d
o something about it. It’s my department now.”

  Mrs Pa seized his hand. “That would be wonderful.” And it was. A new grandson, Mai married, and now the chance that things would finally be put right.

  Zhu Irzh yawned with a snap of his fanged teeth. His companion looked at him askance, but after the events of this evening Mrs Pa was past being alarmed. They stayed quite late, talking to her. How strange it was, she thought, that this young man from Hell could still be so like her own people in some ways.

  Precious Dragon, worn out, slept beside her as they talked. She checked on him occasionally, for there were things that she did not want him to hear, but he slept soundly on, his mouth open around the bulge of the pearl. When Chen and Zhu Irzh left, the dove-coloured light of the rising sun was already pale in the sky behind Paugeng, and Ghenret was awakening around her. Just as well, Mrs Pa thought, because she wouldn’t have gone to that outhouse in the dark for anything after all that.

  14

  After the episode with Mrs Pa’s unpleasant visitor on the previous night, Chen had found himself fretting and worrying. The station house was horribly hot. Zhu Irzh was at the Opera, following up on the demonic visit of the day before.

  At last, Chen discharged himself from the precinct and caught the tram back to Ghenret, finding that it was marginally cooler at the port. Ghenret was peaceful mid-evening, with the oily tide lapping at the walls of the docks. The light was kind to the surroundings, blurring the decay of warehouses and go-downs, throwing the monstrous architecture of the rebuilt Paugeng and the labs into sharp relief and hazing the viscous waters of Ghenret into silver. It seemed peaceful and quiet after the events of the previous night. When he made his way across the harbour, the door of the houseboat was unlocked. Chen pushed it open and stepped inside.

  “Inari?”

  Within, the houseboat was green and cool. Water shadows rippled across the low ceiling. Neither his wife nor the badger were anywhere to be seen, but Zhu Irzh lay sprawled in sleep across the couch, one hand thrown over his chest. Chen watched, intrigued, as his claws flexed in and out; the demon was dreaming. In sleep, relieved of the hellish charm, Zhu Irzh’s face was peaceful. Chen felt a sudden un­expected wave of affection. Zhu Irzh woke up. There was a momentary flash of alarm in the golden eyes, then Zhu Irzh smiled.

  “Sorry,” Chen said. “Didn’t mean to wake you up.”

  “No, that’s okay.” Zhu Irzh blinked. He rose from the couch and walked across to the window, where he stood stretching. “Sorry to crash out on your couch. I came straight here from the Opera and Inari wasn’t here … I’ve slept for too long. It’s time we got going, anyway.”

  “Yes, it is.” Chen felt as though he’d been put through a mangle.

  “Did you find out anything more at the Opera?”

  “No. The missing kids are still missing. I couldn’t find any trace of the thing we saw, either. I did some magical work—couldn’t make any progress there.”

  “We’re supposed to be meeting Miss Qi at nine.”

  The demon rolled golden eyes. “Ah yes. Heavenly little Miss Qi.”

  “I’d watch the sarcasm. She might roll you up like a moth.”

  “And do what? Send me to Hell?”

  “You never know,” Chen said. “She might decide that the time is finally right for you to enter Heaven.”

  Zhu Irzh’s face was a study in alarm. “No thanks! I didn’t enjoy it much the last time. A distinct lack of uncivilised amenities, if you ask me.”

  “It is Heaven, after all. Your mind’s supposed to be on higher things.” Chen picked up his small bag from the side of the couch and swung it over his shoulder, just as Inari came in with the badger at her heels. His wife wore huge sunglasses, hiding her crimson gaze and making her look rather like a pretty insect, but she took them off as soon as she entered the room and Chen could see that her face was worried.

  “You’ll be careful, won’t you?” she said to Chen.

  “He will,” Zhu Irzh replied before Chen could say anything. “We’ll give your regards to your family if we run into anyone.”

  Inari sighed. “Please don’t. I’m not really speaking to any of them these days.”

  “Very wise,” said the demon. “The less I have to do with mine, the better. Although—” He stopped and an expression of sheer horror came over his face.

  “Zhu Irzh?” Chen said sharply. “Are you all right?”

  “No.” The demon collapsed back onto the couch.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’ve just remembered. I knew there was something. It’s my mother’s birthday. Tomorrow. And we’ll be in Hell.”

  “She doesn’t have to know that you’re in Hell, does she?”

  “She’ll know,” Zhu Irzh sounded bleak. “She’s my mother. Don’t ask me how she does it.”

  “Can’t you phone her?” Inari said. “Pretend you’re still here, that the connection is bad?”

  Chen looked at her with renewed respect. Every time he thought he knew Inari, she surprised him.

  “It’s a thought, I suppose. But she’ll know. That’s the terrible thing.”

  “Look,” Chen said. “It’s after eight thirty. We’ve got to get on the road; we can’t keep Miss Qi waiting.” Turning to Inari, he gave her a farewell embrace and then was stepping out onto the deck with Zhu Irzh trailing at his heels.

  Miss Qi was waiting in the atrium of her hotel, looking prim and well-rested. Chen felt dishevelled in comparison, but then he always did when confronted with Heavenkind. He doubted whether they ever sweated, except for that faintly radiant glow redolent of peach blossom or roses, and they certainly never did any of the cruder things to which the human organism was so regrettably prone. But the result was that he felt like an ox next to Miss Qi.

  Zhu Irzh did not seem to be experiencing similar misgivings. He said, “Miss Qi? How are you finding the city? Sleeping all right?”

  “Well,” Miss Qi said. “Not as well as I’m used to. It’s rather noisy here, isn’t it?”

  “It’s a big, human city,” Chen answered. “There’s a lot going on.”

  “I suppose so.” Miss Qi looked doubtful. “And so many very unhappy people. I could feel them in the night, so restless.”

  “Singapore Three isn’t a nice place,” the demon said. “It’s why I like it.”

  Miss Qi looked at him with an expression that, in a less refined being, might have been malice. “And now you’re going home to Hell.”

  “Don’t,” Zhu Irzh said, “remind me.”

  “It’s his mother’s birthday tomorrow,” explained Chen.

  Miss Qi clapped pallid hands together. “But how wonderful! Will we meet her?”

  “God, I hope not.”

  “I really don’t have a very clear idea of our schedule,” Chen said. “Someone’s supposed to be meeting us at the other side of the Night Harbour, but I don’t have a name—Sung wasn’t clear. Did they give you any information?”

  Miss Qi shook her head. “None at all.”

  Chen sighed. “Oh well. We’ll just have to manage, as usual.” At that, the hotel doorbell rang and Chen looked up to see Sergeant Ma’s lugubrious form standing in the entrance to the atrium.

  “Ma!” He introduced the sergeant to Miss Qi. Ma looked at her with interest. “Please to meet you, Miss. I’ll be taking you to—to the point of your departure.”

  “Thank you so much.” Miss Qi fluttered through the door. In an undertone, Ma said, “She’s going with you?”

  “Don’t underestimate Miss Qi,” Chen said. “She’s a heavenly warrior.”

  “With respect, Sir,” said Ma. “Are you sure? She looks as though she’d be more at home at a tea party.”

  “I’m sure,” Chen said. Zhu Irzh shrugged. They followed Ma out to the car.

  Singapore Three, evening at this time of night, was still almost gridlocked. The city had been bad even before the earthquakes, and now it was close to impossible. Chen had thought he’d been give
n a tough job, as liaison officer with Hell, but it was as nothing compared to being a member of the traffic department. He felt almost smug as Ma took the police car the wrong way along a one-way street, up a flight of steps, and shot along the harbour road against the flow of in-bound traffic.

  And then they were at the sinister black warehouse that housed the Night Harbour.

  15

  The clerk barely registered Chen’s passport, which he gloomily regarded as a sign of how often he had now passed into Hell. And that was just through official channels. Zhu Irzh was waved into the antechamber with a mere gesture of the clerk’s hand; he looked pardonably smug, but then in Zhu Irzh’s case, immigration didn’t really apply.

  The processing of Miss Qi’s details, however, proved to be another matter. Chen and the demon waited for half an hour in the antechamber before the Celestial reappeared. Zhu Irzh was uncharacteristically lost in thought, so Chen picked up a glossy magazine and flicked through it, finding it filled with celebrities whom he did not recognise and eulogies over movie stars of whom he had never heard. Still, he had to admit that this was a vast improvement over his previous expeditions through the Night Harbour, most of which had involved extreme discomfort and hazard. Now, they were being treated almost with respect: he supposed this was a function of travelling first class.

  He was starting to become slightly concerned about Miss Qi when she came through the door, looking ruffled.

  “I’m so sorry,” she explained. “There was some problem with my papers—I can’t think what can have gone awry. Our clerk was most careful.”

  “I very much doubt that there was any fault on the part of your clerk,” Chen said. “I suspect they give any Celestial who ventures here a hard time. Except possibly Kuan Yin. But then, she is a goddess.”

  “And she has her own boat,” Miss Qi pointed out, sitting down beside him. “Inspector Chen, I can’t help being worried. If it’s like this in the Night Harbour, when we are still technically on Earth, then how will I be treated in Hell itself?”