The Demon and the City (28 page)

"Kuan Yin didn't need a temple to send those policemen back," Robin said.

"No, because all of Heaven is her precinct, and that of the other major Lords. But if she manifests on Earth, she can only do so for any great length of time in her own temple, and if she travels to the Night Harbor, for instance, where she has no place of worship, she has to journey there like anyone else. Well," Mhara amended, "not quite like anyone else, but she still needs a vessel." He glanced at the growing light. "They'll soon notice that I'm not in my bed. We have to get going."

He turned and whispered to the deer, who sprang away down the hillside. Then he and Robin stepped together into the quiet ruin and Mhara spoke a word.

It was like stepping into a moving lift. The world fell away, rushing past Robin's ears. She felt them pop with pressure. The breath left her lungs and she clutched Mhara for support. Moments later, the air of Heaven was replaced with fumes and the smell of cat piss. They were back.

Chen and the demon stood outside Kuan Yin's temple, waiting for Sergeant Ma.

"Well," Chen said, looking at the cracked roof of the temple behind them. The temple had not been too badly damaged, but the priests had closed it off just in case the roof came down, and now the faithful milled unhappily around its walls as if seeking shelter. "I think that answers the question of whether Senditreya's here or not."

"Here and on the rampage," Zhu Irzh remarked. "But if so, why?"

"It might not even be intentional," Chen said. "The very presence of a goddess where no goddess is supposed to be—especially one that has such a close connection to the land itself—could be disruptive."

"So how do we go about tracking her down?" the demon asked. "Just follow the fault lines and the havoc?"

"The most obvious place would be Senditreya's own temple."

"She's not likely to hole up there, is she? It's
too
obvious."

"Perhaps not, but she's likely to have come to Earth there. And Zhu Irzh—wherever she goes, it will be obvious. She's a deity." He stepped out into the road and raised a hand. "Hey, there's Ma!"

The squad car skidded to a halt. Behind the wheel, Ma's face was white with fright and concentration. Chen, the demon and the badger bundled themselves into the car.

"Senditreya's temple, Ma. Quickly!"

"What?" Ma stared at him. "They're saying that's the epicenter. You'll be lucky to get within half a mile of it. Buildings are collapsing all over the place."

"Sorry, Ma, but we don't have a choice." As Ma took the car out into the road, Chen brought him up to date.

"Well, at least the lane's clear," Ma said, after a pause. He was right: the traffic was streaming out of the city center.

Zhu Irzh felt a growing hollowness in the pit of his belly. It had nothing to do with hunger: it was a nauseous, heady feeling exacerbated by the uneven motion of the squad car. But he wasn't normally motion sick . . . Perhaps it was something to do with the number of worlds he had so recently traveled through—some disturbance of the inner ear. How annoying, and how undignified: demons shouldn't suffer from anything except the most esoteric and exotic complaints, not just the need to throw up out of a car window.

Beside him, Chen's gaze widened fractionally and the badger gave a low growl. Outside the curved window of the carrier, a fascinated Zhu Irzh saw, Battery Road was beginning to change. He was aware of Chen beside him, staring open-mouthed out of the window. He could feel the structure of the world altering beneath them, the Shaopeng meridian buckling and turning as it began to alter course, pulling its tributaries of
ch'i
with it.

Ma turned the corner of Battery Road and headed up Shaopeng. The disruption going on underneath the city made Zhu Irzh disoriented and lightheaded, with an undertow of nausea that he was trying hard to suppress. He kept his gaze on the fixed point of the seat in front and gritted his teeth. Chen, visibly shaken, was conferring with the badger, but the beast would not speak. Its narrow jaws remained tightly shut. It closed its eyes. Creature of Earth that it was, the demon thought, perhaps it too was feeling unwell.

Beneath the carrier, the meridian, which ran the length of Shaopeng, lurched and twisted. Zhu Irzh's instinct was to lean forward and put his head on his knees, but he was constrained by the seat belt. He shifted uncomfortably. Chen looked at him in some alarm.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes . . . No. The meridian's changing under Shaopeng. It's making me ill."

The nausea was ebbing, mercifully, but his head was pounding. It felt as though someone had rung a bell in his ear. The world was full of sickly color, coming in waves and accompanied by a hot, electric smell. Zhu Irzh concentrated on his breathing. He felt unpleasantly hot. Ma took the car onto the highway toward Murray Town, and they were moving away from the main meridian. The sickness faded a little more.

"How are you feeling now?" Chen asked, then without waiting for a reply added: "Goddess! Something's happening here as well."

Zhu Irzh strained to look past him. Through the window he could see a line of intense color, incredibly bright, waist-high along the air. Above it, the shabby go-down entrances and shop fronts were unchanged, but below, the structures were obscured by a seething mass of air, like something seen through a blast of heat. The air writhed and billowed, causing a sort of mental recoil. Passers-by had seen it, too, and were pointing and exclaiming. Slowly, the car ground to a halt. Ma gunned the accelerator, but nothing happened. Underneath the carrier, the ground started to shake, a queasy wave of motion traveling up through the frame of the vehicle and shuddering to rest. It came again, and again.

"Out of the car," Chen ordered. Zhu Irzh scrambled clear, but the sickness was intensifying. Humiliated, he retched into the gutter but produced nothing.

"Sorry!"

"Don't worry about it, Zhu Irzh. Can you walk?"

"I think so," the demon replied. He was by no means sure.

Once they stepped into the road, they had an unobstructed view along Shaopeng. The whole city was bathed in unnatural light, and as they watched, it quivered momentarily, as though someone was shaking a picture. Very slowly, the steep angle of the Eregeng Trade House tilted to one side and the building leaned over gracefully. It hung in the air for a moment, suspended, and then as they watched, the stem of the tower strained and cracked to send the upper stories of the Trade House down into the street. There was a crash so loud it was almost beyond sound, and the earth leaped under their feet. A wave of dust rolled up from the fallen building, and as it did so the ground once more began to quiver. A slow crack appeared in the road, began to widen. Ma stared at it in disbelief. Chen was thrown forward onto his knees, and struggled to get up.

There was a thundering sound coming from further up Shaopeng.
What the hell?
thought Zhu Irzh. It sounded like
hooves
. Moments later, a chariot turned the corner and bolted down Shaopeng. It was drawn by two red cattle with enormous golden horns, their sides streaming with flame as they ran. Steam boiled from their mouths and nostrils. Zhu Irzh, leaping out of the way, caught sight of Senditreya standing in the chariot, wielding a flail. She looked completely mad. Her eyes were wide and staring, her mouth fixed into a rictus of hate. There was someone in the chariot with her, a crouching form, but the vehicle was moving too swiftly for Zhu Irzh to get more than a glimpse. As the chariot passed, the ground cracked in its wake. Zhu Irzh hauled a spluttering Chen to his feet.

"Well, looks like we've found her."

Paravang Roche huddled in the chariot, hanging on grimly, his vision obscured by the goddess' flying skirts. The presence of Senditreya in the chariot with him was almost too much to bear—boiling rage, incandescent anger, a cold hate that was somehow worse than either. The goddess' emotions felt planet-sized. Paravang considered throwing himself from the chariot, but they were moving too quickly. He was dimly aware that something major had just occurred, a wave of sound and dust, but he did not know what it might be. Whatever had just happened paled in comparison with the roaring emotions churning around the chariot. And the flames from the cattle's sides occasionally erupted over the edge of the vehicle, causing the singed odor of hair to become added to the mix.

"You!" bellowed the goddess. Paravang cringed, believing at first that she was addressing him. Then he realized that the divine hand was pointing forward, like an arrow of hate. The chariot ground to a halt, the hooves of the cattle skidding on melting tarmac. The flames shot upward, then ceased. Cautiously, Paravang peered over the rim of the chariot.

There was a car in the road—a taxi. Its windows were grimy with dust, but as Paravang stared, the door fell open and someone stumbled out into the street. Jhai Tserai took one look at the outraged, exiled deity, mouthed something that might have been, "Oh shit," and scrambled back into the cab.

"Stop!" Senditreya cried, but the cab was already spinning around and heading away. The goddess cracked the reins with a sound like thunder, and followed. Paravang, clinging on once more, risked a glance behind him and saw that they were being followed by a police car, blue lights flashing. Paravang's initial thought was of how ridiculous this was, and then he caught sight of a familiar face beside the driver. Seneschal Zhu Irzh. Talk about being caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, Paravang thought. He wished he could faint at will, but it wasn't an option.

They chased Jhai's car along the length of Shaopeng, dazed passers-by hurling themselves out of the way. The chariot caught the side of an awning, already listing to one side, and tore it free. A banner now snapped behind the chariot, obscuring Paravang's view of the police car, but he could hear it, the siren wailing like a condemned soul. And then they turned the corner and beneath the snapping banner and the streaming flames Paravang saw that the spire of the Eregeng Trade House was lying across the street.

Jhai's cab ground to a halt seconds before it hit this unnatural barrier. The goddess gave a shriek of triumph that deafened Paravang Roche, but somehow its force lent him the strength to throw himself from the chariot. He landed almost in the arms of Zhu Irzh. Under the circumstances, seeing the demon was almost a relief.

Robin liked the little temple, in a way that she had never liked Heaven. It was rough, and somewhat squalid, but it was real. She reached out a hand to one of the shadowy cats that prowled its meager precincts and said, "The city's falling apart."

Beside her, Mhara gave an unhappy nod. "Senditreya's gone on the rampage. And because she is goddess of the meridians, of the earth itself, they are responding to her presence."

It was, Robin thought, as though the goddess had a very heavy footfall. Every step she took caused the earth to crack and tremble. A little earlier, Robin had watched in appalled fascination as the tower of the Eregeng Trade House crashed down into the street, sending up a billow of blond dust that still hung over the city, and filtered the sunlight into a prism of filthy color. When Robin had been a child, New York had been attacked, and this reminded her horribly of those scenes. Terrorism from Heaven: Who would ever have thought such a thing?

"Mhara—what can we do?"

"We have to find her. We have to stop her."

And so they left the temple to its attendant cats and made their way down into the city. At first, Robin tried to get a cab. She still had a few coins in her pocket, but then she realized it was hopeless. The city was hopelessly blocked, by earthquake, by people fleeing from it to the hills, by partygoers who, amazingly, were starting to make merry for the Day of the Dead. Robin supposed that they might have nothing else to lose.

As they walked, Robin tried to talk to Mhara, remarking on the passing scenes of devastation, but after the third monosyllabic reply, she became silent.

"I'm sorry," Mhara said after a while. "I've been thinking. And what I think is this: the only one who can stop Senditreya is me. Heaven has thrown her out, washed their hands of the world. Only a god has the power to stop her, and I'm the only god who is here."

"What about Kuan Yin?"

"Kuan Yin defies the current order as much as she can, but she is still bound by Heaven's mandate."

"And you aren't?"

"Oh," Mhara said. "I've gone so far already, it doesn't matter what I do. Nothing can prevent me from becoming Emperor: you inherit, you don't get elected."

"Then we'd better find Senditreya," Robin said with a sinking heart. In this world, Mhara seemed such a frail being: He'd let Jhai Tserai imprison him, so how could he stand up to an enraged and vengeful deity? As far as she understood things, only the
kuei
had the power to do that, within Heaven itself. And they were not in Heaven now. Mhara fell silent, and they walked on.

As they neared the heart of the city, Mhara suddenly stopped. He leaned against a wall, his face ashen, and when Robin asked him what was the matter, he did not reply, but only shook his head. After a few moments, he said, "It's all right. I'll be all right."

"Mhara? What's wrong?"

"I don't know. I felt—" There was something in his face that could almost have been fear. He said, "Let's move on."

After another hour or so, Robin realized that they were heading toward the temple of Kuan Yin. She mentioned this.

"I know. Senditreya will not be far away, Robin. She's in the city at the moment, but I don't know where. She blames Kuan Yin for her present plight."

"That's outrageous. If she hadn't started bargaining with Hell—"

"She is a goddess, Robin, and an old one who no longer enjoys the power she was once used to. And she was also human once, too. She was a girl, a dowser who mapped the meridians of this region and was elevated to godhood. It's different for those who are elevated. Once they taste the power, they never want to go back. Over a long period of time, one's sense of entitlement grows. I've seen it happen. Whereas the ancient gods know when their time has come, and fade with grace from the Wheel. I am certain that Senditreya thinks that she is absolutely in the right, and that the city is hers to control as she sees fit."