The Demon and the City (21 page)

"I suppose you might have a point," Paravang admitted.

"Think about it," the priest-broker said.

"I will."

Troubled, Paravang took his leave of the priest-broker and wandered thoughtfully out into the street. He wanted to have as little to do with his shrew of a dead mother as possible, but in truth, it was the only way out. But it was unlikely, knowing his mum, that she'd simply give him the money, not without a very good reason. If she knew the Assassins' Guild was after him, might kill him—but then she'd have him down in Hell with her, and she'd be knocking on the door every hour of the day and night, demanding this, that and the other. Hell indeed. So telling her the truth was out. That meant a lie big enough for her to return the money he'd burned for her all these years, yet he couldn't think of anything compelling enough.

But then something happened that made Paravang fleetingly reconsider the essential malice of the universe. He turned the corner and ran into the tail-end of a wedding procession.

Marriage! Of course. His mother, when she was alive, had always been on him to get married, and things hadn't changed just because she was dead. From the content of her phone conversations, Paravang knew that it was still her dearest wish. The only trouble was that he hated women and saw no reason to seek out their company unless they were the kind whom one paid by the hour, and even then he wondered why folk bothered. He barely knew any, apart from his next-door neighbor . . . Paravang sank down onto the bench and contemplated the wedding procession as it meandered by. His neighbor might have a tongue like a shrew on speed, but she was constantly bringing him things—extra soup, leftover dumplings, noodles . . . And now that he thought about it, she seemed to seek his advice rather a lot, too. Paravang had no illusions about his personal charms. As far as he was concerned, he didn't have any. But the neighbor was a widow, and presumably lonely, and she had presumably also been around the block as far as men were concerned. He balked at actually lying to her, but perhaps if he explained, put the suggestion as a business arrangement and offered her a cut, to be paid once he'd got the Guild off his back and his license renewed . . . It might even work. Newly inspired, Paravang rose, overtook the wedding procession and headed for home.

Once on board, Zhu Irzh took an immediate dislike to the boat. It reeked of Heaven: that sickly peach-blossom odor permeating every crack of its ancient wood. The wood itself was dark and glossy, with a curious sparkle to it as if it contained trapped starlight. Perhaps it did, knowing the ways of the Celestials. The demon ran his hand along a railing and found that it burned his fingers. Hastily, he snatched his hand away.

"So sorry," the Celestial maiden said, though Zhu Irzh reckoned that she wasn't actually sorry at all. No doubt she thought it was nothing more than he deserved.

"Perhaps he should have stayed on the dock," Chen said.

"What, I'm not good enough to be in the presence of a Celestial immortal?" Zhu Irzh asked.

The maiden gave him a long, measured look. "Technically, no."

"Oh, thanks!"

"Well, you are from Hell, aren't you?"

"Hell was where I was born. I can't help that, can I?"

"I suppose not," the maiden said after a moment's consideration. Then she added, humbly, "Perhaps I should be more charitable."

"Yes, maybe you should." But the whole exchange set Zhu Irzh to thinking as they followed the maiden along the deck, with the badger trundling along behind. It was true: as far as he knew, he'd had no choice. He wasn't at all clear about the workings of Hellkind's reproduction, at least, not as far as it concerned the soul. Humans were different: born into the flesh, they served out their time in it, discarded it, and then went elsewhere as if snapped back to their true realm by a piece of elastic. But the Celestials and Hellkind were not like that; they were born all of a piece. There was a limited kind of reincarnation—when a demon died, it simply remanifested, and as far as Zhu Irzh knew, the Celestials did not die at all. But did that mean that they could not die, or only that they rarely did? He had heard of demons slaying Celestial beings, but not what happened to them after that. He had assumed that they simply reappeared in Heaven, a bit ruffled. But maybe this wasn't the case at all. Zhu Irzh was starting to feel a distinct theological lack. He frowned as he walked along the deck and was conscious of a sense of nervousness as they approached what was presumably the goddess Kuan Yin's cabin.

When they got to a tall, narrow door, the maiden turned. "Wait here, if you please. I must speak to my mistress." Then she stepped through the closed door, which rippled like water to let her in.

"You know," the demon said. "I don't think I've ever heard of a Celestial being coming all the way to the Night Harbor. I mean, apart from the clerks and so forth. But a goddess?"

"I've been wondering why she's here," Chen replied. "I can't see it as a positive sign, somehow."

"Neither can I." Zhu Irzh glanced up as the maiden reappeared.

"She wants to see both of you," the maiden said, managing to convey an air of discreet distaste as she looked at the demon.

"We'd be honored," Chen said, before Zhu Irzh could answer.

"Then please go in." The maiden opened the door. Zhu Irzh followed Chen into a warm, dark place, confined by red lacquered walls. It reminded him of a womb—that might, after all, be the idea. Smoke curled into the air from several tall incense burners, forcing the demon to stifle a sneeze. As his vision cleared, he saw that the goddess was seated at the far end of the chamber, upon a comfortably upholstered chair. She did not rise as they entered—one would hardly have expected her to—but greeted Chen with warmth. Zhu Irzh received a rather cooler salutation.

"Detective Zhu Irzh. We've met, have we not?"

"Yes, we have. After the—unpleasantness—last year."

"I remember all too well," the goddess said grimly. "And now you are here, on Earth."

"Assigned to the offices of justice," Zhu Irzh said. "Performing good and useful work." He was suddenly aware that he was babbling. He was of one of the aristocracies of Hell, he reminded himself. There was no need to justify himself before the enemy. And yet, looking at Kuan Yin's remote, cool countenance, Zhu Irzh could not help feeling very small.

At last the goddess rose, in a swish of silk and a wave of subtle perfume. "I have come, Chen, to search for someone. Someone who has answers to my questions, and someone who has been transformed."

"With all due respect, Goddess," Chen said. "I'm surprised that you came yourself, and did not send a minion."

"I'm very hands-on sometimes," the goddess remarked, surprising Zhu Irzh. She hesitated. "Besides, there is a question of trust."

Zhu Irzh could almost feel Chen's mouth drop open. "Trust? Among Heavenkind, I thought that would be automatic."

"Then you would be wrong," the goddess said. "We have our factions, just as you do. Aeons ago, perhaps, it was different—but you know the myths of origin. Creation arises not from agreement, but from conflict and tension. These things are the crucible that generates change. And there are many who hold that this is not a good thing, that Heaven must be more united, more cohesive. They do not believe that a certain degree of disagreement is healthy. They seek to unite us, and they seek to do so by withdrawing us from the ways of the world."

Obliquely, Zhu Irzh understood. Heaven was splitting, Kuan Yin couldn't trust any of her peers, and so she had come all the way down here to get her divine hands dirty. One had to have some respect for that: it was almost Hellish.

"I'm glad you're here," Chen was saying. "I have some critical information for you."

"Tell me," the goddess said, and so Chen did.

When he had finished, the goddess was silent for a long time. She was so still that Zhu Irzh wondered whether she might have returned to her marble form: he'd seen her do that before, the Celestial equivalent of locking oneself in the bathroom and having a long think. But it seemed that the goddess was merely processing, for eventually the life flooded back into her features and she turned to Chen.

"And you say it has already begun?"

"Tserai has already altered at least one Celestial being. My colleague here witnessed its transformation."

"Tell me about this being," the goddess said. Beneath the icy calm, Zhu Irzh thought he detected a momentary unease, but the goddess was too difficult to read. Perhaps he had merely imagined it. He related to Kuan Yin the events at the Farm. When he had finished, she said, "And this Celestial being. Tell me again what he looked like."

She was presumably trying to place the entity. Zhu Irzh obliged and again there was that faint stirring beneath the marble facade, this time one of relief. But why should the goddess be relieved to know that one of her kindred had fallen into the hands of the enemy?

Chen said, "You spoke of looking for someone. May we be given to know who?"

"You may. An enemy. The one who has been trying to bring Hellkind through to the city."

For a paranoid moment, Zhu Irzh thought that Kuan Yin meant himself and was being subtle about it. But the goddess continued: "One who has died and is trapped here. One who was murdered."

"Deveth Sardai?" Zhu Irzh said before he could stop himself. Chen shot him an unreadable glance and it was only then that he realized that Chen himself may wish to keep secrets from Heaven, though he did not understand why.

"She is here, in the Night Harbor. Heaven has had its eye on her for years."

"Surely she's hardly a candidate for the Celestial pastures!" Zhu Irzh remarked.

"I meant, demon, in the sense that we continue to watch our enemies. Sardai's family has long been in league with Hell. And Deveth was one of the most promising sorcerers of her generation. Naturally, we watched her."

"You realize that Deveth is not the prime mover here?" Chen said carefully. He glanced at the demon again, as if wondering whether to ask Zhu Irzh to leave. The demon stood his ground. He knew what Chen was about to say.

"You mentioned the name of Jhai Tserai. I understand that she is the focus of all this. But Tserai is not human, and subject to other jurisdiction. I am licensed only to go in search of Sardai."

"Other jurisdiction? What other jurisdiction?"

"The family is Keralan," Zhu Irzh said. "I'm assuming that makes Tserai subject to other deities."

"We could issue a kind of extradition order," Kuan Yin answered, "but such things are complex and take time. Sardai has all the answers I need for the moment, and her presence and witness is all the evidence."

"You're planning to bargain with her?" Chen asked doubtfully.

"I see no conflict here, Detective. She is your murder victim, after all, not a suspect. You have only to seek out the one who slew her. No, Sardai will be subject to our courts and our justice. There is, however, no difficulty in granting you the right to question her before I take her to Heaven."

The goddess seemed very confident, Zhu Irzh thought, but he supposed that this went with the territory.

"Then if we help you look for Sardai," Chen said, "and she tells us exactly who it was who murdered her, you can take things from there?"

"She can't appear in your courts, can she? All you need is a signed and sealed witness statement."

"Yes, that's perfectly adequate under these circumstances. It isn't possible for a spirit to lie about their death: it's the one thing on which they have to speak the truth."

"Then we are in accord," the goddess said, smiling. "All we have to do now is find her."

But Zhu Irzh, thinking of the vast and shadowed hinterlands of the Night Harbor, suddenly realized that he was unable to share the goddess' presumption of success.

Robin knew that no sunlight penetrated into the lands of the Night Harbor, and yet a kind of dawn seemed to come nonetheless. The outlines of the squalid room shimmered into view and she could see once more through the slats of the hovel. Bad Dog Village stirred slowly into life. Robin watched through the slats as dogs bounded from their houses, blurring into their humanoid forms as they did so, scratching, yawning, bickering and occasionally squatting down in the street to shit. No wonder she had no memories of this place. The essential mind-wiping nature of the Night Harbor aside, her spirit had undoubtedly hastened through it as quickly as possible with eyes averted.

She had not expected breakfast and, indeed, none came. This was no hardship, for she was not hungry, but the thirst was dreadful and she was relieved when the door opened and a scruffy, sharp-toothed woman with matted hair entered with a bowl of water.

"This is for you. You'll be thirsty," she said, roughly but not with unkindness. The woman stared curiously at Robin as she awkwardly drank.

"So, you're the brindled bitch's bitch. Not dead, are you?"

"No," Robin said, after a moment. No point in trying to lie: she was sure these people could smell the life in her.

"We don't get many live ones through here. You'd be all they could talk about if it wasn't for the other one."

"Mhara? My friend? Do you know where he is?"

"Oh, I'm not going to tell you that. He's special, is that one. Heavenkind, and they think they know who, too." The woman put on a sly look as though she enjoyed knowing something that Robin did not. "You don't know, do you? He hasn't told you."

"Told me what?"

"Oh, I couldn't say. Tesk would whip the life out of me." She gave a short, harsh laugh. "If there was any in me, that is."

Robin wasn't going to let on that she didn't know what the woman was talking about. She hid her disquiet and said, "So tell me. Who are you people?"

"Us? We're the outcasts. Too good for Hell, too bad for Heaven. People the bureaucrats don't know what to do with. All our cases are pending. Supposedly. But I know what happens—they just shove them in a drawer somewhere and forget about them because they don't want the hassle."