The Demon and the City (31 page)

"You know who I'm looking for," Mhara said.

"A goddess, I'd imagine. But which one?"

Mhara acknowledged this with a smile. "The one who's causing all the trouble."

"Just as well," Zhu Irzh remarked. "Kuan Yin's gone walkabout. But Senditreya isn't here. She vanished."

"Do you know where?"

"I'd imagine to Hell," Zhu Irzh said. "And as long as I'm not in it, too, I hope she stays there."

Mhara's smile faded. "I don't think that's likely. She won't find her Hellkind conspirators very accommodating, now that she's failed in her plans. It's more likely that they'll kick her out to face the music on Earth."

"They won't find it all that easy to dislodge a goddess," Chen remarked. "Even a failing one."

"Veil between the worlds is going to be very thin tonight," Zhu Irzh said. "What with the Day of the Dead and all."

Chen looked at him. "So you're suggesting they'll try to boot her out of Hell then?"

"And they might make a run at the city, too," Mhara said. Zhu Irzh sighed. He hadn't wanted to raise that subject, since it was all too likely and he was, in any case, hardly on the side of the angels. An assault by Hell on the city sounded like fun for everyone. The demon brightened. Mhara was looking at him, and Zhu Irzh had the sudden uncomfortable impression that the sorrowful blue eyes could see right through his golden ones, into the black soul beneath. He covered his discomfort with a cough, and looked away.

"So there's no question that she'll re-manifest," Mhara said. "The only question is where?"

"Depends whether she's still looking for Jhai."

"Jhai will go to ground. She might even have left the city by now," Chen said. "We can't count on finding them together. Jhai will just have to fend for herself."

"Then how are we to find the goddess?" Zhu Irzh asked.

"We're in a temple, aren't we? We've got oracular equipment. Use your imagination."

Robin gaped at Chen. "That's a risky thing to do, undertake a spell on the Day of the Dead. It's already dark out there."

"All the better," Chen said unruffled. "The thinner the veil, the more probable it is that we'll get an accurate reading."

"And if something comes through?" Robin asked.

"It'll probably be someone I know," the demon said airily.

"So you can deal with it then," Mhara said. He turned to Chen. "Do what you must."

In Bharulay, a woman named Mrs Soi came wearily from her back door into the yard. She had spent most of the previous evening trying to placate her mother-in-law, her aunts and her husband, none of whom got on and all of whom expected her to do something about it. She was the first to rise that morning: party or no party, the chickens had to be fed. Everyone slept in one room, and she cringed as she came out into the living area. It was awash with cracker crumbs ground into their one good carpet, paper streamers, something that looked like foam, and a stack of miniature bottles stuffed down the side of the chair, presumably by Auntie Pei who seemed to think that her sake habit went unnoticed. Mrs Soi was thirty-three, but on mornings like this she felt every day of sixty.

She had to wrench the back door open and stepped out, blinking, into the chilly darkness before the dawn. Icicles, sharp as teeth, hung from the overflowed gutter and the hens were bundles of feathers, puffed up against the cold. Those that were still alive, anyway. With mounting dismay Mrs Soi counted the skinny bodies that littered the yard, five as far as she could tell. Dogs? she thought, but they had heard nothing last night and she was awake for most of the time. She'd checked on the hens around midnight, and they had been all right. Then she raised her head and saw the cause. It was sitting underneath the japonica tree, the one good thing about this house, which they had hung with rags and paper twists to keep the spirits away. Mrs Soi noted this rather grimly, for beneath the japonica tree sat a young person with a dark golden face, smiling a pointed and beatific grin.

"You killed my hens," Mrs Soi said, strangely devoid of shock. The young person jumped down and spread out his long taloned hands.

"So sorry." He took a fluttering step across the yard; ochre robes swirled about his ankles and she saw that he had a tiger's eyes, the color of the sun. He smiled charmingly. "And now, you."

Yin Deng Soi had left her husband snoring in the communal bed. She opened her mouth to cry for help, and then her husband's face rose up before her memory: his mouth open, the smell of old beer, one hand groping for her just as she was falling asleep, the constant demands for food, drink, sex, everything that was wearing her out before she even turned forty. She looked into the demon's golden glowing eyes and closed her own.

"Go on, then," she muttered, and she felt him pick her up and soar high above the Bharulay slums, her slippered feet catching for a moment in the branches of the japonica tree, and when she at last dared open her tired eyes, she saw the rim of the sun, yellow as an eye, engulf the horizon's edge.

The spell was not, according to Chen, a complicated one. He arranged everyone in a four-quarter pattern: Zhu Irzh in the south, Robin in the west, Mhara in the east and himself in the north.

"A bit Western, isn't it?" the demon remarked disparagingly.

"So? Who says we can't take the occasional idea from other cultures? As long as the underlying magical structure remains intact. Besides, think of it as a disguise. We're less likely to get noticed this way. Anyone watching will think we're just a bunch of students or something."

Zhu Irzh thought that this confidence might be somewhat misplaced, but he went along with it anyway. He watched as Chen once more scored a bloody line across his palm, scattering a few red drops to the four quarters. The blood flared up as it touched the floor, as though Chen's veins were filled with hot coals. Then Chen began to chant, long strings of syllables that were vaguely familiar to the demon as a spell. Chen did not, Zhu Irzh noticed, use his rosary: presumably Chen had had enough of gods, for the moment. And who could blame him? He could feel the tension in the room ratcheting up through the soles of his feet and tingling up his spine.

On the wooden boards of the floor, a pattern began to form, congealing out of blood and air. There was a familiarity about it and, after a moment's puzzlement, Zhu Irzh realized what it was: a map of the city. The meridians glowed beneath it, blood red, and Zhu Irzh found himself wincing as he understood for the first time what a battering the city had taken. There seemed to be focal points, nexi of light, and the demon began to work them out: the foremost of them was the abandoned temple of Shai. Chen's strained voice continued to chant and as Zhu Irzh watched, a face began to manifest above the little configuration of lights. It was not human, and no longer divine. It was the horned head of a great cow, but instead of the flat teeth of cattle its long jaw was full of needles and its eyes were black as the Sea of Night. It snapped at Chen and spat fire. Chen dodged back and the demon felt the spell falter and fall apart. There was a momentary wrenching sensation within him, as though someone had taken hold of his guts and given them a swift, sharp tug. He heard Robin cry out in pain and then the room was dark.

"Well," Chen said. "At least we know where she is."

Zhu Irzh frowned. "But why has she gone to Shai?"

"I could tell you that," a voice said. Someone stumbled out of the shadows, someone bruised and singed. It took the demon a minute to recognize him.

"Dowser Roche!"

Paravang Roche stared at him with hatred. "It's taken an age to find you. I had to call your captain and everything. My feet hurt. You want to know why she's gone to Shai? You want to know what she's doing there?"

"I'd appreciate it if you could tell us," Chen said, ever polite.

"Oh no. There's a price." Paravang Roche was glaring at the demon. "I want my license back."

"You'll have it," Zhu Irzh said quickly. If that was all the man wanted . . .but then some humans were notoriously lacking in imagination.

The dowser nodded with grim satisfaction. "All right. What guarantee do I have?"

"I'll give you a written guarantee," Chen said. "Will that do? Although I feel bound to point out that you might find it a bit difficult to find work, after all this is over. The Feng Shui Practitioners' Guild isn't going to be terribly popular."

"I'll take my chances," Paravang Roche said. He accepted Chen's scrawled note, set with the bloody imprint of Chen's personal seal, and stowed it away in his pocket. "Very well, then. That bitch has gone to Shai because it was originally her temple." Mhara was watching the dowser, Zhu Irzh saw, with no surprise. He had known, then. But one would expect him to. The dowser went on: "The Practitioners' Guild doesn't advertise it. Why would we? Senditreya's come down in the world over the last couple of hundred years. She was human first, but then she used to be one of the primary goddesses in this region—not just of
feng shui
but of agriculture and herding—but then technology started taking over and people began to migrate to the cities and, slowly, her worship became eroded. Her priests made the decision to move out of Shai to a smaller temple. Then the land got bought up by the franchise committee and the city developed around it. Shai was just a big, empty space."

"I'm surprised no one bought it for redevelopment," Chen said.

The demon saw Robin shiver. "It leads to the Night Harbor."

"Yes, that's part of the problem," Paravang Roche said, looking at Robin for the first time. "When the temple was abandoned, it started to fall into ruin and then it started to leak. Literally—gaps opened up between the worlds. It's my opinion that it was never sealed properly, but perhaps that's not the case. Any one entering it risks becoming lost in the hinterlands of the Night Harbor, even a member of the Practitioners' Guild. The meridians warp as the worlds meet."

"So the goddess has returned to her old temple," Zhu Irzh said. "Do you think she's planning a last stand?"

"I don't know what she's planning," the dowser replied. "She's raving bloody mad."

"Well, she has to be stopped," Chen said. "Her presence here is causing the city itself to leak—you must be more aware of this than any of us."

Paravang Roche nodded. "The meridians have become hopelessly disrupted. All sorts of things are coming up from Hell, through the breaches."

"And that's not all," the demon said. Briefly, he brought the dowser up to speed on the matter of Senditreya's demonic virus.

"She was planning all that?" Paravang Roche said, startled. "I didn't think she had the wit."

"You don't think much of your patron deity, do you?"

"Would you?"

The demon was forced to agree.

"Very well," Chen said. "We're wasting time. Mr Roche, do you know a way into Shai that won't get us hopelessly lost?"

Paravang Roche looked very shifty. "I believe so. I might have glimpsed an old map somewhere . . ."

"I'm not asking you to spill all the Guild's secrets. Just get us into Shai."

And after a pause, the dowser nodded.

She ran swiftly, swerving to avoid the festive people, her feet taking her unerringly down the alleyways of the portside. Later, when she was herself again, Jhai wondered what they had seen: a young woman, half-known from TV interviews and the burgeoning shrines, the famous face panting and distorted by running, dressed conservatively in a crimson jacket and black trousers. Their faces streamed past her, meaning nothing, their mouths opening and closing as though they were underwater, their hair trailing in the wind from the sea, which suddenly seemed so slow, a mere trickle of air.

The currents ran strongly beneath the port. She could feel the Great Meridian, straining to keep to its appointed bed, remaining only because the unlucky
sha
from the Trade House had been inadvertently removed. Jhai did not know this, but she felt it, an inexplicable lightness in the north of the city. But the Great Meridian would not hold for long; already its foundations were loosened and soon, soon it would tear free and take the city with it, opening all the doors to Hell and they would all be washed through on the changed tide. This unspoken understanding lent urgency to her. Dimly, she could sense Zhu Irzh's presence in the city; he was a little blurred around the edges, but still recognizable. She paused for breath, leaning heavily against a doorframe, sought outward for her bearings, and then she was off again.

Hands caught her wrists and twisted.

"Where are you off to, girlie?" a voice said in her ear. Jhai heard the words, but did not understand. The smell of cheap Japanese whisky was bitter on the man's breath. She snapped his hold downward and broke free. "No, no," he mumbled. "You're going to come back here . . ."

Jhai growled, deep in the back of her throat. Uncomprehending, she saw his face slack above her and she struck up at it. His head flicked to one side, easily moved, and she hit him again. Rage grew in her, tiger-hot and filling her mouth with saliva. She beat at him, and he went down on his knees, and she could reach his eyes then. He screamed as her hand stabbed, and flung up his arms to protect his face. Jhai grasped him under the chin, pulled up, and twisted. There was a sudden limp heaviness in her arms. She set him down, quite gently, and ran, her tail flickering about her ankles as she did so. The moving presence of the demon drew her on, surely, as though to a fixed star, her magnetic north.

They were standing outside the back regions of Shai. The journey through the city had been distressing, at least for those folk who weren't Zhu Irzh. The demon had been alternately entertained and puzzled: Hellkind were certainly coming through, but not in any ordered way. Typical, Zhu Irzh thought: no strategy, no planning . . . He supposed that all of that had gone into the intended invasion of Heaven. The city was responding in a variety of ways, chief among them incomprehension, panic and partying. The demon supposed that was as good a reaction as any.