DAC 3 Precious Dragon (29 page)

"Reminds me of Beijing, on military day," Chen said as they watched the tanks roll past. The parkland, which previously had been almost pleasant, was now a wasteland of churned mud and clouds of dust, thrown up by the tank treads. Like the other engines of destruction that they had seen on the plain, the machines were much larger than their human equivalents. Chen had no idea whether the hotel management had been consulted on the sudden transformation of their gardens into a military test site; one assumed that they hadn't. The tanks rolled over what was left of the Ministry of Lust and left bloody smears of flesh behind, trampled into the soil. Hell was a better place for the destruction of the Ministry, in Chen's opinion, but he also wondered what the repercussions were going to be.

Overhead, aircraft of proportionately massive size thundered along, leaving billowing fumes in their wake. There were hundreds of machines, both aircraft and infantry, a rolling panoply of military might that moved through the heart of the city.

"What prompted all this?" Chen asked. "Surely not the destruction of Lust?"

"It would be helpful if we still had Underling No," Zhu Irzh said. "Assuming she'd tell us. But they've been building up to this for a long time. Remember what we saw inside the Ministry of War? Those planes? Something's been on the go for a while."

"Told you so," Daisy said.

Someone hammered on the door, making Miss Qi leap.

"What is it?" shouted Zhu Irzh. "We're in a meeting."

"For gods' sake," Jhai muttered. "That's not going to put them off, is it?"

But a voice said, "Oh, sorry! We'll come back later, then."

Zhu Irzh turned to Jhai and was about to say something, but next moment, the entire door burst inward in a shower of splintered wood, and the Lesser Lord of the Ministry of War appeared in the gap, holding a weapon like a howitzer.

"You lot," the Lesser Lord said with remarkable cheerfulness, "are coming with me."

Pin and Mai's demonic captor loped across the yellow plain for what seemed like hours. Pin, bonded uncomfortably to the sticky web, eventually drifted into a kind of doze that was closer to unconsciousness. Beside him, Mai's head also drooped and caught against the net.

When Pin came round again, he saw that the sky above them was beginning to lighten, but this time it was boiling with cloud, a yellow-gray billow, moving fast. Then the demon turned and Pin saw that it wasn't cloud at all, but smoke, roaring out of the chimney of a sprawling factory.

"What is that?" Mai whispered.

The factory covered the floor of a wide valley. Pin saw great derricks reaching out of the soil, gouts of flame shooting out of refinery chimneys, and huge open containers in which fires blazed. The churn and pound of industrial processes filled the air. It was like an amalgamation of every heavy industry that Pin could imagine: mining, steelworks, oil refineries . . . .

Soon, they came upon the freight rail: a group of sweating, panting demons, their skin burned and cracked to black, pulling a cart behind them. The cart was loaded with yellow ore.

"Pin," Mai whispered. "Remember how we glowed? I think this might be some kind of uranium mine."

"In Hell?" Pin asked, but then he thought: Where else?

The demon strode alongside the track. More and more carts were coming out of the mine, all of them heavily loaded.

"Where are they going?" Pin asked.

"I don't know. I've never heard of such a place even being here. I thought this level was empty."

"Silence!" the demon said in a voice as thick as the yellow earth. "Your chatter is annoying me."

Pin and Mai shut up. They were moving between the chimneys now and it was difficult to see what lay ahead, with the smoke pouring out into the already soupy air. Then the air cleared a little and Pin saw that they had entered a compound: an ordinary looking place, like any of the hastily erected warehouses and office sheds that appeared so readily in Singapore Three. The demon walked straight into one of the office sheds without knocking and threw the net down on the floor.

"Couple more for you."

"Thanks, Oshi," a voice said. "Where'd you find them?"

Footsteps approached. Squinting up, Pin saw a squat demon in a leather apron, with tough yellow skin and a flat head, as though someone had sat on it. Pendulous breasts, however, proclaimed the demon's gender.

"Out in the desert," Oshi said.

"Whatever were they doing there? These are ghosts." The new demon bent close over Pin and sniffed. "No, wait. This one is not even dead. Odd."

"Is that so?" Oshi sounded only mildly surprised. "All sorts of shit finds its way down here. You know that."

"Curious." The demon stood. "Undo the net, Oshi, if you would."

Oshi stretched out a hand and the net unwound itself and flowed back up the demon's arm beneath the skin, forming alarming twists and bulges. Then it disappeared. Oshi shook himself like a dog.

"I am Foreperson Tung," the squat female demon said to Pin and Mai. "You're to be placed on cart detail and kitchen; we're short a couple of workers."

"What happened?" Oshi said.

"They ran off into the desert last night. They won't get far." Tung gave a snuffling laugh. "There's nowhere to go from here, after all. They'll be demoted to toilet detail when they get back, though. Get up, you two."

Mai and Pin did as they were instructed. It was surprising, Pin thought bitterly, how stiff you could become even when you didn't have a proper body. He stifled a grunt of pain.

"Never mind!" Tung said, clapping him on the shoulder. "You'll soon get fit. It's not a bad life for a lad down here. You'll soon work your way up through the ranks. You might even make Foreperson someday! And you," she turned to Mai. "Can you cook?"

"Yes."

"Good. We have provisions sent down by elevator from the upper levels, so you'll actually have something to cook with, you'll be pleased to hear."

"Tell me," Mai said. "What is this place?"

"This?" the Foreperson looked surprised. "Why, this is the feed-mine for the Lowest Level Nuclear Plant. We power the whole of Hell."

"Hell runs on nuclear power?" Pin asked blankly.

"What else? Where do you think your electricity comes from?"

"I thought it might be magic," Pin said.

Tung roared with laughter. "Magic! That's a good one. I'll have a laugh today about that—wait till I tell the lads! No, Hell used to run on woodburners in the old days, then coal, then steam. But now we're fully modernized and up-to-date under the Ministry of Industry. Who do you think introduced atomic power to Earth?"

And thinking about it, Pin supposed that was logical.

The next few days passed in a routine that was almost peaceable. Pin had never undertaken hard physical labor before now, unless one counted prostitution, although the routines of the Opera could be rigorous. He wondered occasionally whether he would have held up so well if he'd still been in his actual human flesh, now who knew where. He suspected that he would not. Here, in this incorporeal form, he rarely suffered from tiredness or hunger, except in moments of a curious ravenousness that had to be assuaged in the kitchen. He could not bruise or bleed, although strangely, he still seemed to sweat. The worst thing about lugging the ore-laden carts from the feed mine through the gap in the mountains to the plant itself was the tedium, but given that his life had been somewhat too exciting so far, Pin didn't mind this. He kept to himself and the demons with whom he worked were undemanding company, enjoying a joke and a bit of a laugh. Given a choice between the kind of teasing favored by Maiden Ming—now also who knew where—and the demons, Pin found that he had a marked preference for the latter: they chuckled when he fell over or dropped something, rather than making spiteful remarks that stung like needles, and quite often they'd give him a friendly slap on the back afterward. He didn't miss the artistic temperament, either; at the mine, people woke up and got on with their work rather than indulging in endless personal dramas which ran for weeks and ended in a blazing row. In ways, Pin thought, he wouldn't have minded staying here all that much, had it not been for his guilt about Mai and his worries about the kuei.

They still had not seen the kuei that had fallen with them through Hell, and Pin was beginning to hope that Mai was right, that it had become trapped on one of the higher levels and had given up. But the thought of it still nagged him at night, and sometimes he dreamed of centipedes.

He caught sight of Mai occasionally in the kitchens, but she was always busy. It was clear that he was not exactly a prisoner, however, so one evening, Pin went to the kitchen doors and sought her out. She was scrubbing dishes vigorously.

"Hello, Mai," Pin said.

"Pin!" She gave him a thin smile. "How are you getting on?"

"All right," Pin said with a shrug. "I don't mind it, to be honest. How's the kitchen?"

"Much the same as any kitchen. Prepare food, cook food, serve food, clean up after food. It's not as interesting as Epidemics but I've always enjoyed cooking and they certainly appreciate it. And you don't get the politics. To be honest, the worst thing about it is that I miss Ahn and talking to my mum. I'd really like to know how my son's getting on—I worry about him dreadfully."

"I'm sure your mother is looking after him," Pin said.

"She will if she can," Mai said doubtfully, "but she's old and if the kuei are after me—I can't stop thinking about it, Pin."

"You've heard nothing about the kuei that came after us?" Pin asked.

"No, and I have made enquiries. I spoke to Tung, who's not a bad old sort. I didn't say why I wanted to know, just that there had been rumors in the kitchen. She said she hadn't heard of anything but there's all kinds of shit out in the desert and maybe it had been one of the oldest demons, from the far past. They're very big, apparently, but very slow and they're afraid of the plant so they don't come near it."

"So we've heard nothing of the kuei," Pin said. "Well, that's good."

But it was not long before they did.

"I hope you don't take this personally," the Lesser Lord said, as he and a group of warriors ushered Chen and the others through the corridors of the hotel. "As you've probably noticed, we've got a few things on our plate at the moment. But I've been instructed to take you into custody over the little matter of the destruction of the Ministry of Lust. Not that I'm concerned about that myself, you understand. Good job! Thorough infiltration, no messing about, straight to the heart of the matter, and what I understand was a very effective surgical strike. The Minister's undergoing medical care right now, having a new spinal column grown for her, but she won't be Minister again after this debacle. And that's not a bad thing, in my view. We've got her spine, thanks to you, and that means that if we need to work some antithetical magic with it, we can. So jolly well done all round."

"I'm not with them!" Daisy said. "I'm an employee of Lust!"

"Not anymore," the Lesser Lord pointed out.

"You seem," Chen said to him, "to be remarkably well-informed about all this."

"Underling No, you see. Very efficient young woman. Of course, I've had to place her on a reprimand for unauthorized activity but under the circumstances it's not much more than a slap on the wrist. When she and her mother escaped from the collapsing Ministry, they came straight back to War and submitted a full report. No's mother's a wreck, of course. Won't hold office again."

"At least No found her," Miss Qi said. "I'm glad."

"She was very complimentary about your input," the Lesser Lord said. "I don't suppose you'd like to consider a move sideways? Or in this case, downward? Of course, given your attempted assassination of a government official, we'd have to keep quiet about it for a bit, but I'm sure we'd manage to get round the problem somehow."

"I don't think I could," Miss Qi said. "But it's very kind of you to offer." She managed to sound almost regretful, to Chen's admiring ears.

"Lesser Lord," Chen said. "What exactly is in store for us?"

"I'll have to take you with me, except the young lady from Lust—she's due for custody," the Lesser Lord replied, over Daisy's protest. "Can't risk you escaping." He gave Chen a jovial clout on the back. "Might come back to find War in ruins, eh? No, we're instructed to get the battle over and done with and then bring you back up to stand trial. Might be no more than a formality. Possibly."

"What battle?" Jhai said.

By this time, they had passed through the foyer of the hotel and out into what remained of the gardens. The air was choking with tank fumes and dirt, but when he looked up, Chen saw something that froze his blood.

There weren't just planes in the sky. Above the level of the aircraft, distant and yet still huge, writhed the forms of the kuei. Chen had seen them before, but only singly, never in such numbers. There must have been dozens of them. As Chen watched, one of the smaller craft cruised a little too high and a wingtip touched the trailing leg of one of the Storm Lords. The plane flipped over, spun, and dived, out of control, toward the ground. There was the distant crump of an explosion and a column of fiery smoke rose from the cityscape.

"Damn," the Lesser Lord said, wincing. "That's twice this morning."

"About this battle," Jhai said, in tones of ice.

"Ah, yes. You asked. Well, look above you. The kuei are out in strength. What does that tell you about who they will be fighting?"

"Something big?" Chen said. He felt as though he was back in the classroom.

"Correct! Today is the day that Hell goes to war with Heaven. The kuei will be defending us against dragons."

"Zhu Irzh," said Chen, a little later. "Do you know where this battle is going to be? How they plan to enter Heaven?" Despite the joviality of the Lesser Lord, he had bound their hands and had them loaded into an army truck, which was now bouncing and jolting across the plain at the very edge of the city.

"No, I don't," Zhu Irzh said. He leaned over and nudged the bored guard, a demon in an ill-fitting tin hat with a cigarette in its loose-lipped mouth, with his shoulder. "How about you? Where are we going?"