Going Under (2 page)

Lila heard padding sounds just behind her and turned to look. A white demon, griffonesque, dragonish, horsey, with feathers and fur and quills and the air of a big cat, had crossed the floor. It lay down in the lozenge of sunlight beside her and closed its long, silver eyes to enjoy the heat. Its lengthy tail was curled upwards in a semicircle of pleasure as it made minor adjustments to reach perfect basking posture and settled down. Its wings, with their thorny and razored edges, were furled neatly along its back. Its ribs moved under its iridescent skin as it breathed, and elsewhere thin muscles like iron bands ran in ropes of efficient power that looked dynamic even though it was, she was certain, already and properly asleep again after its move. Teazle, her husband, could sleep for Demonia.

He could fall asleep at the drop of a hat though she had always found him getting up halfway through the night. He would fall asleep in human form, out of politeness, but then slide out of bed to shift to this, his natural shape. This was unsuited to humanoid beds and had a tendency to rip sheets and mattresses. He had his own nest that hung from the ceiling like a giant beehive. He said that the luxurious furs that made it up were all stripped from the bodies of his enemies but he might have been lying. Most demons just didn't have such great fur.

Husband. What a stupid word that was. Wife. That was even stupider. Both carried a vast and toxic cargo of expectations and she could only stomach the associations for an instant because Zal was an elf demon and Teazle was a demon and the marriage was Demonian in nature and had nothing to do with her human culture's hulking great trainloads of stupidity. Some people, she understood, found marriage and its roles a pleasantly comforting drama to enact. A shudder and a vision of her parents screaming at one another through a fog of alcholic disappointment invariably accompanied thoughts about it. As her mother gambled away fortunes and then flung herself into torments of guilt and self-loathing, her father became sweetly dutiful and the picture of noble caretaking. Then as their finances recovered and Mom got increasingly bored and began to fuss around the house, he would quietly pickle himself with vodka until he lost his job. Mom would then solve their problems by entering various poker tournaments at which, sober and determined, she would do well, until recklessness took over and so the cycle began again ... Lila had, by the age of fourteen, long since given up the hope that this round would be the last of its kind and something banal and comforting would take its place.

Death had brought the curtain down on that one. How curious that in death they should so quickly forget the petty occupations that had obsessed every living moment. But they had. She'd met them there, in the afterworld, and it was as though they had never struggled. Her heart stabbed her with pain as she remembered, because in their faces, just before they had crossed over the final brink to Thanatopia's unknown shores, she had seen their lonely and sober knowledge that the lives that were over had mostly been wasted. And there was nothing to be done about it. Nothing at all.

And she had not saved them.

Until they were dead she hadn't even known that was her mission in life. Her firm, yet unacknowledged plan: she would make a successful career, save plenty of money, become socially impeccable and marry someone also of that mould in order to set an example and to become wealthy enough to start both parents off in detox programmes that really worked ... gaining their undying love and gratitude and, above all, attention. No, that motive hadn't revealed its tawdry mar tyred glory until she was back in her own body, what was left of it, and they were gone for good.

reyou yoihy to maund r afony affday ?Murmured a testy voice just to
the left of the middle of her head.

She shot a dart of sullen loathing at Tath, the presence in her chest. The elf made the spiritual equivalent of a shrug as his aetheric body-the last surviving fragment of his being-circulated slowly around inside her heart where he had lived since his physical death, months ago. He sounded as precise and chilly as a mathematics professor intent on lecturing a tardy student even though-and, she thought, possibly because-he had been young and full of hopes when he died. Amons usual vent t~ieir ra ye more creative. let us io somet~iin y excessive.

You hate demon ways.

'am 6e yinnin y to finr[t~iem curious lileratin y. t least they ct not date
t~eemsefves more t~ean once a day.

Stop badgering.

zvalfouiny.
It.

Trauma much? I'm allowed some wallow time.

cannot see the joint of it.

Lila flicked at her sleeve, flicking away his comment as she glared down at the sleeping white demon near her feet. She let Tath have his superiority, since it was all he'd got, but damn if he didn't test her to the limit. She wanted to scream but that would entail a conversation with the living afterwards.

Teazle didn't know about Tath's permanent residency-his andalune body supported by her physical one. Only Zal knew, as far as she was aware, and she intended to keep it that way but Tath was unhappy and restless in a human host; anyone would be, she reasoned, if they were a helpless passenger in somebody else's body. She ought to be more compassionate towards him, but she was tired of his eternal presence too, never knowing how much of her feeling and thoughts he was privy to. It made intimacy difficult with others whilst between Tath and herself their enforced closeness was like a wound that could open at any time and must be carefully protected. Since her parents had been murdered, they had entered a strange and sympathetic truce of sorts and as time passed they had naturally become more relaxed about the whole thing. She didn't like that. She wanted it to stay frosty and uncomfortable, as that was the only distance possible. It ate at her that eventually casual attitudes would lead to a nasty truth as she started another round of

maritafbitch'in y ?he said, beating her to it.

Thank you.

Yes, marital bitching, with him.

Yrave not marriedry ou, Neuman.

I wouldn't marry you, elf if you were the last person alive.

ortunate~ teat situation wiffnever arise, Tath said with sufficient frost
that she had cause to stop and doubt his sincerity for a moment. But she
was too anxious to think on it, instead rushing into another defence.

I hope you didn't find last night too ... soiling. She was surprised at the stinging tone of her thought, which amply conveyed her embarrassment and anger at being perpetually spied upon, whether wilfully or not. It was a struggle not to let any memory surface for his perusal: she clearly saw one image of Zal naked.

1,hVt my promise. cf~iave no idea zv/iatyou are taf in y about. Aiyou affenact
some dire oW to yet/ er ? 6"o £nezv suc/ an innocent fittfe t/iin y li keyourse f couJi
be cvaEfe of t/at sort of r Eauchery ?

Lila's fear and anger suddenly evaporated and she snorted with laughter.

foverdir[it ?

You can't carry off Puritan, she told him. It's not your nature.

Tath grumbled but she sensed that he was pleased. She was reasonably sure that he hadn't missed a trick either. At least he had been completely discreet about it and that was about the only mercy she was going to get.

She moved to the wall and pressed her face for a moment against the cool stone of the pillar that supported the window arch. Its solidity was reassuring. Memories of other kinds: her parents walking away to the cruise liner that would take them far from Thanatopia's fragile shores into the infinite; an imagined vision of Zal's first wife, Adai, taking the same journey, forlorn aboard an airship with white wings-these visions came as they always did, accompanied by a flood of guilt and sadness. And then other visions-darker and less certain. These came later, tripping trapping across the bridge of suspicion: she was not the first person to be made over using the bomb fault technology. There had been others. Surely. What happened to them? The existence of remote controllers was proven, but not how many there were, or of what kind. The intentions of those who held them were also a mystery. And for how long could she attempt to embrace the demon life when she was no demon? Or an elven life, being no elf, nor anything but herself-and even that not what she had dreamed it a few scant months before.

Something moving caught the corner of her eye and she looked up to see the imp, Thingamajig, hopping over the baskets on the balcony towards the door. He pressed his small, hideous face to the glass and stared at her; the pet who could not come in. On the carpet Teazle yawned and hooked some loops with his claws in a satisfied sort of way that seemed entirely in keeping with his leisurely pose but which signalled to Lila that he was highly alert. Teazle didn't have a lot of time for imps; possibly less than ten seconds.

Outside Thingamajig was doing an elaborate mime. When she frowned at him, he went off and shortly returned with a dead bird. He tore out the tail feathers and stuck them to his bottom and then held the loose-necked head in front of his face. Then he dropped his props and wiggled his fingers close to his eyes before stretching his arms out, indicating all directions. Satisfied from the change on her face that she had understood, he returned to yanking ribbons off the baskets and licking them for traces of aether.

"He's right," Teazle murmured without opening his eyes. His tail twitched. "You should go and see her. It's time."

"If it's time why is he still here?" she folded her arms and watched the imp's activities. "Surely I'm still hellbound if he hasn't gone away of his own accord?"

Teazle grunted, "Unlike most imps he seems to have an agenda that goes beyond tormenting the damned." He sounded vaguely intrigued, but only vaguely. "If that weren't the case I'd have eaten him already. But he hasn't been on your shoulder in a week, and that's good enough. Will you go alone?"

She knew enough about the white demon by now to know that a leading question from him was always a taunting opportunity in the making; if she said no, she'd drop in his estimation and his power over her-always a factor that must be accounted for, even with demons with whom you were intimate-would rise. This was a world where yielding to fear had dire consequences.

"I'll get dressed and take a flight," she said casually, not wishing in the slightest to make the visit.

"Zal and I will amuse ourselves," Teazle murmured, making it sound in just those few words as though he had elaborate plans that would involve a great deal of life-threatening activity. No doubt he did. Lila wondered just how long they could survive a vacation in Demonia. "Don't worry your human head about it," was added into her silence.

"I don't have a human head," she said and turned around, heading towards the bathroom.

"Heart then," the demon said with surprising fondness. "I know you love him. I'll be sure and be the first to die."

She couldn't think of an adequate reply to that, so she just went and took her bath.

hingamajig rode on Lila's shoulder to the Souk. He babbled anxiously all the way about whatever caught his attention and, instead of his customary piercing of her earlobe with his sharp talon, he clutched the cloth of her padded vest in a vice grip.

"Can't you sit still? I don't know what you have to be nervous about," she said crossly. The day was hot and humid, the roads seemingly full of lazy, torpid demons who were content to simply stare at her and mutter or else call various congratulations or deathwishes on her marriage. They oiled from their idleness into sudden huddles as she passed. She wanted to smack them, but for once nobody seemed in the mood for a duel.

Occasionally strangers attempted to press small gifts on her, as she had been warned they would, and she directed them to the servant behind her whom Teazle had instructed to collect and check all items. The servant had already sent one full bag back to the house. Lila hoped that personalised thank-you notes were not required, but reasoned that for what amounted to bribes, they were almost certainly not. The House of Ahriman had been a major demon cabal and the House of Sikarza was in a similar position before the wedding. Now their joint power was vast. Everybody who wasn't allied to one of the great families was angling for a position with them.

The imp by her ear came to the end of his babbling history of the allegiances of the House of Ceriza, which they had passed some time ago, and made an unhappy noise before piping, "I have more business than you being damn nervous. She ..." but he wasn't able to go on. In fact, the word as he said it was so loaded with dread and the impossibility of escape, that it was quite sufficient.

"You will tell her that you want me around strictly on a retainer basis, won't you?" he asked, for the thousandth time. "I mean you'll say it quickly. I don't want her getting the wrong idea and banishing me before you get to say it when you really intend to keep your promise and help me discover my true identity, which is your mission, you and the others, to do good things, like heroes of old, eh? Like the Maha Animae of the old days. You'd not let a small friend such as myself languish in the abysses of the infinite like just any old imp, waiting for some hopeless neurotic to walk past and pull them back into physical being with the force of their madness, would you? No. That would be a terrible thing indeed. And who knows where I might be stuck? I could be stuck halfway up the sky over the Lagoon and not even in the city, and then what would the chances be of some possessed dimwit flapping by close enough to pull me free of the miserable torment of limbo? None. Not for thousands and thousands and thousands ..." he continued for a second as Lila's hand clamped over his head but then stopped as she closed the implacable machinery of her fist.