The Demon and the City (18 page)

Of all the appeals Chen could have made, this was the one that dived under the demon's defenses. Not for the first time, Zhu Irzh had reason to deplore those unnerving elements within his own character, that made him more than demon, yet less than human. Conscience, and affection, and a desire for someone else's respect. Perhaps he should look for a good therapist to eradicate these personal failings when he finally got back to Hell.

"All right then," he said miserably. "I'll tell you."

After what amounted to the demon's confession, Chen sat silently for several minutes. The demon was expecting an outcry: recriminations, blame. But to Zhu Irzh's surprise, Chen mildly suggested that they take a walk. With the badger following, he led the demon down Lower Murray Street to Ghenret and followed the path that led out onto the market wharf. Out on the boards, the walk was slippery with spray: the tide was high tonight. Beyond the harbor the lights of Tevereya illuminated the sky and drained the light of the moon. From this angle, the bulk of the market blotted out the Paugeng tower. The market's wooden-slatted sides were coated with salt and the eaves dangled with
bagua
mirrors designed to deflect the unwholesome
sha
that shot down the side of Paugeng and bounced off the harbor. The mirrors clattered in the little wind high above Chen and Zhu Irzh, and their mirrored surfaces caught the light. The detective and the demon made their way beyond the empty vault of the market and out onto the wider end of the rickety wharf. The Shendei stretched featureless beyond; the only land between here and Luthen Port was little Lantern Island. Zhu Irzh leaned with care on the old rail and breathed in an approximation of fresh air. Chen stood beside him, screwing up his face against the breeze.

"Look," Zhu Irzh said. He was finding Chen's continued silence unnerving. "There are mirrors here, too." He pointed to the end of the dock, where a single octagon hung on a wire, fixed against the wind. Chen shook off his distraction and turned to and fro, working out the angles of
ch'i
and
sha
.

"Yes, you can follow the path of the meridian—comes down the other side of Paugeng and then across the gully between the go-downs . . ." They both looked at the little mirror. Its dim surface reflected the lights from the shore and then, most oddly, a perfectly reflected face, with eyes like marbles, and a rictus mouth.
How peculiar,
Zhu Irzh thought. He stared at the little face. It was moving.

Zhu Irzh spun and kicked the man's feet from under him. The assassin went down on the deck, skidding on the slippery planks and bounced up again like a ball. The sword whistled past the demon's ear and cleaved neatly through the rotten wood of the rail. It crumbled into wet dust. The demon stumbled backward out of the way and slipped, falling awkwardly on his side and feeling a jarring pain ride up his spine. Chen was balancing on the balls of his feet, waiting for the next rush. While Zhu Irzh regained his footing, the assassin twirled his blade, feinted once, twice, and came at the demon from the side. Zhu Irzh ducked under the blade and slashed at the assassin's throat with his claws. The next minute the demon was off and moving backward. The assassin screamed and rushed him, whirling the sword. Zhu Irzh drew his sword, feinted forward and kicked the swordsman in the kidneys, but the demon was a fraction off and the tip of the assassin's blade sliced across and down, under Zhu Irzh's own blade, catching him under the collarbone. He heard Chen hiss through his teeth. Zhu Irzh and the assassin circled one another. The assassin was gripping the blade with both hands and chanting. He made a start forward and then quite suddenly fell. The sword clattered to the floor. Zhu Irzh saw Chen's silent figure poised above the body. Swiftly, the detective reached down and scooped up the assassin's sword.

"Zhu Irzh, stay where you are. Keep an eye on this one. I want to check if there's anyone else."

The demon ignored this. He hauled himself to his feet and followed Chen. At the end of the market was a sort of hangar, used for storing heavy machinery. The rusty iron lattice of the gate was open. No one was there. Zhu Irzh lowered the sword, very slowly. He rubbed absently at his collarbone. They returned to the body: an unremarkable man in a blue Mao suit. Chen rifled his pockets and found a pair of throwing knives, a garrote and a card bearing the insignia of the Assassins' Guild.

"So, he's a professional." Chen said. "Who wants to kill you? Apart from me, on occasion?"

Zhu Irzh gave him an uneasy glance. "Quite a few, I should think."

"Who, precisely?"

"Jhai Tserai's a possibility. I know too much now. Maybe she started having doubts and decided to take me out of the running. Then there's the dowser I assaulted." Zhu Irzh grimaced. "He's shown remarkable tolerance in not trying to dispatch me before now, if you ask me. There's a whole host of Hellkind—ex-girlfriends and so forth. There's that demon-hunter from Beijing we met earlier in the year—he doesn't like me being here."

"I'd be inclined to think that Tserai and the dowser are the most likely candidates," Chen said, reaching for his cellphone. "I'm calling the precinct. They can deal with the Assassins' Guild."

The rest of the night was spent in tedious and protracted statement-taking. A representative of the Assassins' Guild was summoned. When the woman arrived, she tut-tutted in a perfunctory manner over the body and announced that it had been a freelance contract; there was no record of the attempt on their books, and anyway, the police department knew perfectly well that contracts against law enforcement personnel were not permitted. She and Chen then had an argument about client confidentiality, while the demon sat moodily on a nearby bench, pondering a variety of unpalatable options. It was close to dawn by the time Chen and Zhu Irzh got away. By mutual agreement, they headed for the precinct house.

Even at this early hour, the street was beginning to be crowded and there was a definite atmosphere of anticipation and festivity, a hum of suppressed excitement for the eve of the Day of the Dead. The light was growing, a lemony glow in the east, and the night-lit neon glow of Shaopeng was still bright, fuchsia, orange, turquoise: signs for remedies, soft drinks, drugs, and the screaming stylized faces that advertised the demon lounges near the station. Through the window of the tram, Zhu Irzh saw a lounge client stagger out into the morning and bend double, clutching his head. He looked as though it had been worth every minute, whatever it was. Many of the signs were pushing the latest from Jhai's own commercial labs, the red Jaruda bird symbol above a lightning-bolt spill of tangerine tablets.

Along the length of Shaopeng, the chop and cookhouses were opening for breakfast, already flooded with workers carrying plastic cartons of congee; starting early in order to finish by noon and rush home for the start of the festival. Zhu Irzh found that he was ravenous, but Chen refused to stop for food.

"So," Chen said, when they were within the wards of the precinct house. "If we're to gain any kind of indictment against your new girlfriend, we need to set a number of things in motion. We need proof that she was behind the murder of Sardai, and we need to get Sardai's family on our side. The quickest way to do that, I suggest, is to visit the Night Harbor, assuming that Sardai's spirit hasn't already departed for Hell—and it's likely that it hasn't, since I don't suppose she wants to face the music down there with Tserai's masters. Then it's a question of offering the spirit some kind of deal in order for her to sell out Tserai." Chen paused and took a sip of tea.

"And then?" the demon prompted.

"Then we have to find some way of breaking into the Farm."

"The place is a fortress, Chen."

"Not to someone whom Tserai has already taken into her confidence."

"Perhaps, but she's hardly likely to take me back to the Farm. And if I ask her if I can go, she'll get suspicious."

"Then we'll have to think of something," Chen said. "I have an idea."

"Oh? What?"

"I need to mull it over a bit first. For the moment, I'm going to sort out a permit for the Night Harbor. And another thing, Zhu Irzh. Heaven
must
be informed. As soon as possible."

"No!" Robin screamed. "I'd die for him, Deveth, I wouldn't die for you! I wouldn't die for you!"—and abruptly the attack stopped. Mhara curled whimpering on the ground, the Lion Gate stood silent and empty, and they were alone. Robin sat up and spat blood, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She hardly dared to look at Mhara, and when she did she felt a piercing, icy shock. He was curled on the ground beside her, and he was not moving.

"Mhara?" she faltered. She put a hand to his face and his skin was cold beneath the blood. The beast's assault had ripped through the thin shirt and torn the flesh beneath into long parallel grooves; Mhara was covered in blood. A pulse fluttered in his throat. Robin stripped off her jacket and stuffed it against the worst of the wounds, but after a moment she could see the blood beginning to seep through, staining the material with a thin crust. She looked around. No one was to be seen. It was as quiet as midnight in the country. The fireworks had ceased, and it had grown suddenly cold. The four shining heads of the iron lions were furry with frost, and the rime along the steps gleamed. In the open mouth of the beast above her, the metal ball began to quiver, rocking against the lolling, bronze tongue. The dry noise that it made was the only sound. Then the ball fell, shattering on the hard ground into a thousand fragments.

Robin stared as light, golden and calm, spilled from the fragmented ball and surrounded Mhara's prone form. The ragged wounds began to knit together, forming seams in the skin that soon faded until there was no longer a trace of injury. Moments later, the light seeped away, seeming to sink into the earth itself, and Mhara sat up.

"What happened?"

"Something healed you. A ball, from the lion's mouth."

"It's an Imperial statue," Mhara whispered. "It must have recognized me."

"Mhara, we have to find a way out of here. Deveth's spirit is roaming around and it obviously doesn't wish you well. We have to get back to Earth, or—"

"Not Earth, Robin. I have to return to Heaven. I told you. Someone must tell them what's happening."

"But you said that they won't let you back into Heaven . . . Mhara, if you explained to them—no one could blame you for what you did."

"You think so? Heaven is merciful to human souls, but very hard on its own. We are supposed to know better. And there was—an earlier transgression on my part."

"What do you mean?"

"Tserai was only able to capture me because I was already on Earth, Robin. She did not summon me from Heaven. I should not have come here, I was denied permission, but I wanted—" Mhara stopped.

"Wanted what?"

"Wanted to see for myself. I don't think you understand how remote Heaven has become over the last century. As fewer and fewer people believe in it, so it withdraws itself. Celestials are starting to ask themselves why they bother with the affairs of the Human Realms, when they get so little thanks for it. If it wasn't for a bureaucracy that was set up aeons ago, to bring souls to Heaven and reward them for their efforts, then I am not even sure whether the Celestials would bother."

"But what would happen to all the souls?"

"They'd go to the only place that would have them. Hell is always hungry, Robin."

"But that isn't fair," Robin said, aware that she was sounding like a child.

"Heaven thinks that it is taking too long for your kind to learn anything. It thinks that it has given you thousands of years' worth of grace, and that still does not seem to be enough."

"But the woes of the world, the pestilences and the wars and so forth, are so often engineered by Hell."

"The Celestials say that you have a choice, and they're right, aren't they? You do."

And to that, Robin could only be silent.

"If we are to enter Heaven," Mhara said, and she glanced up sharply at his use of the plural, "then we will have to do so by stealth alone."

The temple of Celestial Goddess Kuan Yin held unfortunate memories for Zhu Irzh. He was not fond of meeting the Celestial beings: partly because they were always so smug, and partly because they produced an unpleasant reaction in him—a kind of burning, itching sensation, combined with dizziness. Chen had explained once that it was rather similar to negative and positive particles, but Zhu Irzh had so little interest in science that he tuned out the rest of the conversation and had only started paying attention again when Chen had suggested getting something to eat. And this particular goddess kept treating him not as a powerful and terrifying demon from Hell, but more like a small child in need of a smack. It was with reluctance, therefore, that the demon accompanied Chen through the portals of the goddess' temple and into the courtyard within.

Even granted that it was midafternoon, the courtyard was quiet. Someone had obviously been here recently because a tall, red stick of incense was smoldering in its holder, and Zhu Irzh could detect a faint cold trace of unhappiness on the air, like snowmelt on the tongue. Prayers for the sick, perhaps. To any normal demon, such emotional residue would have been as sweet as candy, but Zhu Irzh found his spirits sinking. He told himself to get a grip. It was definitely time for a therapist when he finally got back home.

"Even though she's not my patron anymore," Chen was saying, "I should think she'd listen."

"Of course," Zhu Irzh agreed. "She'll want to know what's going on."

Chen gave him a narrow look. "And you. Where do you stand on this?"

"Right, well. I think Heaven's boring. A civil war and an invasion by Hell would certainly liven things up a bit, but on the other hand, we'd have to do something with the place when we took it over and it's so
bland
. We'd have to redecorate. And there's another thing, Chen. Without Heaven, we could do what we want, and I think that might get rather dull as well."