The Demon and the City (4 page)

It was a long way down the wharf. Zhu Irzh passed one of his neighbors on the way; an elderly lady who seemed faintly familiar, though all these people looked alike to him. She did not seem to see him, which was probably just as well. It would have been easier in ways if he had been equally invisible to his human colleagues, but the police station was covered with revealing spells, just in case something nasty decided to slip in and wreak havoc, and so Zhu Irzh stood out like a sore thumb once inside the walls of the precinct. The spells made him sneeze, to add insult to injury. Zhu Irzh tended to unnerve those folk who could actually see him, though the people who lived around the harbor seemed a fair old mix themselves. Sometimes fights broke out on the wharf; mostly, it was quiet. The whole community, with the exception of Zhu Irzh and a few other reclusive souls, decamped to the bars down the road during the evenings and lived out their dramas in more congenial surroundings.

Zhu Irzh unlocked the door and shut it behind him. The room was stuffy, so he opened the windows and let in a faint breath of air from the sea. At one end of the cubicle was a tiny shower, which generally worked. He stripped and stood, resigned, under the trickle of water. At least it was cold. Stepping from under the shower, he rummaged for fresh clothes, glancing at himself in the reflected mirror door of the closet as he did so. The reflection smiled back at him, turning and posing. Zhu Irzh frowned. He didn't feel much like the glittering image in the mirror. Any longer, and he might—terrible thought—start losing his looks. The human world was taking it out of him, depleting his energies. He needed a diversion. He needed a
girlfriend
.

The heat grew as the night wore on. Robin slept badly, tossing the damp sheet off the futon and onto the floor, and toward dawn she got up and opened the kitchen hatch. She stood for a moment on the parapet of the fire escape, looking first up at the pearly sky and then down into the shadows of the alleyway. The animal had come back; Robin could see it scuffling among the garbage. It was even larger than she remembered. As she watched, the creature raised its blunt, dark muzzle and laughed at her as she stood half-naked on the fire escape. Its laughter was earthy, unlike the chilly mewing of the seabirds scavenging over the port. Bemused and scared, Robin stepped back into the kitchen and brewed green tea to clear her head. Her dreams had been filled with images of the city, burning.

The world is going to end
.

Now, the thought seemed uncomfortably close to madness. She was imagining things, Robin thought. But surely she couldn't have imagined the whole thing? Mhara had definitely made the prophecy. She couldn't have dreamed it.

Behind her, something gave a hoarse, rattling laugh. She spun round. The brindled beast was sitting on the kitchen floor. Robin yelled. Unhurriedly it rose to its feet and shook itself. Loose hair flew around the kitchen. It was, she realized, nothing like a dog. It had
tusks
. There were only a few feet between the creature and Robin, and the gap was lessened when the beast stepped forward. She heard a small sound break the silence: her own voice raised in squeaky panic. The animal stopped and glanced at her in mild curiosity. Then, ignoring her, it snuffled around the kitchen bin, and Robin was overwhelmingly relieved that she had tied up the full bag of garbage and taken it out earlier. Finding nothing, the animal trotted through the doorway; squeezing past Robin, who backed up against the wall. She felt its heavy, greasy coat brush against her shins and the contact made her shudder. She felt, nauseatingly, as though she'd been molested.

The animal conducted a thorough investigation of the apartment, peering beneath the desk and the sofa and looking into the ashtrays. It paid no attention to the frozen Robin. Eventually, its path returned it to the back door, and now, for the first time, it turned and looked her in the face. Its eyes were neither animal nor human; they held her gaze for a long moment and then the beast raised its head again and laughed. It laughed like a fool, a child, a woman and then it laughed like death. It bunched its squat hindquarters together and sprang through the kitchen hatch. Robin heard its clumsy descent as it bolted down the fire escape. She slammed the hatch closed and sank down on the kitchen floor. She wrapped her arms around her body and clamped her betraying teeth tight and quiet. The kitchen reeked of the uninvited guest, a pungent odor with a rank undertone of meat.

It was some time before Robin could move and when she did, she sat wakeful, staring through the slats of the window by the futon at the small visible patch of sky. Robin's idea of stars was of a faded, pale dust strewn above the western sea, and none were visible now, so close to sunrise. Her imagination ran riot in the dimness of the kitchen. She was sure that she could hear the thing, rooting about again, until the shadowy glow from the street told her that this was only the recycling collector's cart out in the back alley. It was now well past dawn. Robin got up and walked stiffly about the apartment, back and forth. Her legs felt heavy and leaden and her head was furry with lack of sleep; when the videolink sounded, she sat and stared at it for a moment before springing to answer.

"Yes?"

A thin, ascetic face appeared on the little screen. "Citizen Yuan?" it said with faint distaste.

"That's me."

"Giris Sardai. Deveth's father."

"Oh." Robin felt hollow inside, as though her stay of execution was over, but the voice was cool and polite.

"I'm looking for my daughter," Giris Sardai said. "I understand she's a friend of yours." A brief expression of bemusement crossed his features, as though he couldn't understand why this should be.

"She is, yes," said Robin cautiously. "But I haven't seen her for a week. I'm afraid I don't know where she is."

Giris Sardai was silent. The black eyes bored into Robin's own. At last, Deveth's father said, "My wife and I would like you to visit us. Discuss the matter further"—as if this were simply a business proposition and not a question of a missing daughter. His tone made it apparent that this was not open to choice.

"I—that is, I've got to go to work."

"Yes, I'm aware of that." Sardai was patient, as if reasoning with a child.

"Well, when?" Robin asked, feeling feeble and hating herself for it.

"This afternoon would be convenient. I'll talk to your employer. Paugeng, isn't it? Very well. I'll send a car."

And before Robin had a chance to speak, the system closed. Robin, wondering, dressed and left to catch the downtown tram.

She got into Paugeng early that morning, the unreliable tram running like clockwork this time. It seemed much later, the result of rising at dawn. She found Mhara still sleeping. One arm sprawled above his head; the gentle face seemed vulnerable and, somehow, younger. Robin did not want to wake him. Instead, she went to sit at the edge of the cot. His fingers were bound up, as usual. Robin wondered:
Why doesn't he try to free them?
The dangerous clawed hands were limp in sleep.

"What the hell is going on?" Robin whispered, consulting her sleeping oracle. "Can you tell me?"

The blue eyes opened suddenly. The face was one she did not know: animal and alive. Then the experiment was yawning. There was no reproach in his face for waking him up.

"Did you say something?" he asked politely.

"No," Robin whispered.

"Then I must have been dreaming," the experiment said, and smiled. They ran through the tests and checks in silence and then Robin tidied the lab. She wanted to establish some degree of order, somewhere.

Jhai paid her a visit halfway through the morning.

"Could I have a quick word, Robin? Thanks." Her face was calm, concerned, neutral.

"I had a call from Giris Sardai," Jhai said. "He wants to see you—did he call?"

"This morning. He said he'd speak to you and that he'll send a car. Is that okay? I'm really sorry, Madam Tserai—Jhai. I didn't know how to refuse."

"It's all right, Robin. It's not your fault. I told him we'd be glad to help. I gather there's a problem? Their daughter's missing—your friend?" Robin nodded, dumbly. Jhai purred, "That's
such
a worry. But you mustn't let it upset you. I'm sure everything's going to be fine."

"I'm sorry I'm taking time off—" Robin began again.

"It isn't a problem. George Su can cover, it's just an afternoon and you've got the link if anything happens, haven't you? Anyway, I won't be able to see you again today; I'm flying to Beijing later. So don't worry. Go and get this sorted out. And obviously, Robin, there's no wage payback, or anything. I'll square it." She left in a flurry of silks, leaving Robin standing in suspicious gratitude behind her. Jhai had been very decent, really. Jhai was always so sweet, and yet—there was always something so calculating behind it. Perhaps Robin was just envious of her employer's wealth and beauty and talent, but still . . . Jhai never quite rang true. Anyway, Robin told herself, firmly, that wasn't her problem.

The forensics lab had come through with a positive ID on the murdered girl. She was, scandalously, one Deveth Sardai: the daughter of a prominent socialite with links to half the city's aristocracy.

"Went a bit off the rails, if you ask me," Sergeant Ma said lugubriously.

"You knew her?" Zhu Irzh's elegant eyebrows crawled upward; he had not pictured Ma's social circle as being so elevated. Ma looked slightly abashed.

"Only from the papers."

"What papers?"

After some evasion, it turned out that Ma was a fan of the cheaper, glossier press: the sort of magazines that turned up in supermarket racks, their pages displaying film stars' lovely homes. Deveth Sardai, it seemed, along with her artfully Bohemian lifestyle, had featured regularly. Ma took an example from his desk drawer. Zhu Irzh stared down at a strong, willful face with heavy brows: Malaysian, he estimated, with a Westerner's blue eyes. Unless she had worn contacts.

"She isn't married, it says. Any mention of boyfriends?"

"No. Girlfriends, though."

"She was a lesbian?" Zhu Irzh asked, vaguely intrigued.

"Fashionably so," Ma told him. Zhu Irzh smiled; it wasn't the kind of comment he expected from Ma.

"Well, any of her contacts could prove helpful. Better start making a list. I suggest you ring the magazine. Meanwhile, I suppose I'd better ask the captain to break it to her parents. Though since they haven't reported her missing, I don't suppose they were that close, but even so . . .they'd probably like to know what happened to her."

In his office, Captain Sung regarded Zhu Irzh with his usual inexpressive gaze and the demon found himself fidgeting, like a child on the carpet of the principal's study. The captain made Zhu Irzh uncomfortable; he could not shake off the impression that Sung was thinking back to the days of his ancestors, who had ridden the Mongolian steppes, sweeping all before them. Including demons. With Chen, who was after all married to a former citizen of Hell, Zhu Irzh was allowed to feel almost human, or at least, not noxious. With Sung, he had no doubt as to where he stood in the hierarchy of lower lifeforms, but the captain never let his animosity show and that unnerved Zhu Irzh more than anything.

"Seneschal," Sung said formally.

"Captain. Good morning."

"So. We have an identity for the victim, I believe? Just as well."

"I'm sorry?" Zhu Irzh frowned. Of course it was "just as well." What a strange thing to say.

Sung's gaze grew colder and heavier. "You haven't heard? Word hasn't filtered back? I suppose that's encouraging. Usually I'm the last one to hear the rumors."

"Heard what?"

"It is just as well that the lab got a positive ID from the samples it took from the body, Seneschal Irzh, because now the body is gone."

The demon gaped at him. "Gone?"

Sung nodded. "It disappeared from the morgue last night. No signs of forced entry, no locks tampered with, nothing out of order except that the body of the unfortunate Ms Sardai is simply no longer there."

"Could it have walked by itself?" was the first thing that occurred to Zhu Irzh. "Let itself out?"

"You tell me."

"It
is
sometimes possible to raise a corpse," Zhu Irzh said, frowning. "But it's not easy. You'd need a very powerful piece of necromancy to do that, and anyway, I wouldn't have thought that the body was in any real shape to walk . . . Crawl, maybe. But it wouldn't have been able to see. She didn't have much face left."

"Could someone have spirited it out by magic?"

"Possibly. But that would have entailed opening a gate between the worlds, and that's not so easily done."

"Think about the possibilities, would you? I've put Exorcist Ghi on this particular part of the case; he'll be liaising with you in due course. Try and be co-operative, please."

"I'm always co-operative," Zhu Irzh protested. Sung gave him a long, level look. "I suppose you'd like me to alert the family?"

Sung sighed. "Actually, no. Look, don't take this the wrong way, but I'll have to put some of our top people on the Sardai case. It's high profile. It was one thing to send you out on a murder investigation when we didn't know it was such an important victim, but now—"

The demon bridled. "It's an embarrassment to have me on the case, is that what you're saying?"

"I'm not saying you haven't been useful, Zhu Irzh. The fact that not everyone can see you is often to our advantage, but you can see how it might be a bit of a handicap if I were to put you in charge of the investigation. Besides, your specialty is really vice, isn't it?"

"I see." Impossible to resent it, really. Sung's reasons were good ones and now that Zhu Irzh thought about it, he couldn't see a couple of socialites wanting a demon investigating their daughter's death.

"Although how we're going to tell this extremely rich and powerful clan that we've managed to mislay their daughter's mutilated corpse, I have no idea. I suppose I'll think of something. Leave it with me." For which small mercy Zhu Irzh found himself extremely grateful.