Scale-Bright (3 page)

He adjusts his spectacles and glances at her. "Where are the rubies from?"

An accent, she thinks, trying to place it. "Burma, sir, of course. The fluorescence, as you can see, is a bright and distinct red. No one will mistake these for garnets."

"Red," he agrees, "as a knife-cut. Red as the inside of a liver. Red as a monk's vestments. A fine color."

Her professionalism twitches, trying to crawl away. "I'm sure, sir."

He buys the entire set, handing over a credit card as black as his suit.

Mary calls her in after work, asking if she'd consider extending her hours. "Six percent," she says, up from a three-percent commission.

A terrible temptation in her hands, like ripening persimmons. "Miss Shen, I don't think I'll be
quite
this lucky every day."

"Julienne." Honey-warm, mother-daughter intimate, the same voice Mary uses when cajoling young women into getting baubles more expensive than they can afford. "Once or twice in a day? Luck. But that set. You don't have to be shy."

"Could I sleep on it, Miss Shen?" She knits her fingers; she looks down at her lap. "It's so kind of you, but I don't want to be a disappointment."

"You're such a good girl. Of course think on it—but in the meantime I'll calculate today's sales for you at five percent. How's that sound?"

"It sounds
brilliant
," she says breathlessly. Julienne considers herself an adequate actor.

The clock tower casts shadow on an elementary class today, out for a Space Museum visit. Their teacher looks new, frizzy and flustered in that hopeless, sweet way that makes Julienne want to hold her still and brush her hair until it is silk; until she can put it against her mouth lock by tidy lock. Probably the teacher has a boyfriend and will only ever have boyfriends. Julienne doesn't glance at her a second time.

She walks briskly down the waterfront, outpacing the divine energy gifted, the energy not hers. She walks until it is dark and the Avenue of Stars fills with couples and tourists.

At eight, buildings across the harbor ignite, LEDs running in colors that—filtered through Hau Ngai's touch—give her the smell of lotus-seed paste, the richness of salted yolk. Spotlights and lasers vivisect the night. Julienne joins a bench full of laughing Singaporeans who hold up their phones, recording, live-uploading; they scoot and make room for her. In minutes they disperse, replaced by a gaggle of Japanese women. She doesn't mind until one slips close and murmurs Gwongdongwa into her ear, "I didn't mean you any harm."

Julienne chokes down panic. "Get away from me."

"I did what I had to. For survival. The wound did not heal. And I need to speak to the Lady Seung Ngo."

"She isn't here. Even if she was she'd never talk to you."

A hand on her elbow, fingernails so sharp she could feel it through fabric. "She must. And why do you taste like an immortal? You couldn't have been more enticing if you'd bathed in the blood of a hundred sages from above. Every demon within five city blocks is going to come for your flesh unless you're wearing something to conceal it—you are, aren't you? But this close it doesn't work."

Her throat is dry. "If you hurt me—"

"I don't want to do you injury. Only mediate for me, beg a boon of Lady Seung Ngo." An inhalation, then lips brushing her earlobe, moth-wings frenetic. Julienne goes rigid. "Please."

When she turns around there are only chattering tourists.

* * *

Of all matters Houyi is least acquainted with the society of dresses.

There are lines of etiquette woven into the nylon that sheathes the muscles of her thighs and calves, into the silk that bares the taut hardness of her arms and the blades of her collarbones. The laws of the skirt enforce the positioning of knees and ankles, as eunuchs once shaped the posture of imperial concubines, as the color red once dictated the conduct and silence of new brides.

She sits watching the sea; the lighting is dim and concentrates on the bar in the far corner, limns a few modern pieces that are more plastic than canvas, trapezoids painted in jagged lines and smeared pancreases. Nothing is permitted to interrupt the view of harbor and sky: no pale reflection, no neon glare. Every light source angles wallward. What few guests other than she drink and speak with care, as decorously muted as laymen in worship.

A drink arrives, though she has not requested one. Aquamarine cocktail, brightly false in a twisting fluted glass. Salt circles its rim, flecks the slice of mango still green.

"This has the look of poison," Houyi says to the woman who's taken the liberty to sit with her.

The fox's hair is blue highlights and ringlets, her eyelashes dusted gold, her wide mouth lipsticked peach orange. Everything clashes. She is still breathtaking—or would be, were Houyi susceptible. "It's my favorite color. You shouldn't be so rude." A small flick of her head, which instantly summons attention: all eyes are on them, or rather on Daji. "I don't think in all the centuries anyone has ever coaxed you into dressing like a woman. Not on pain of death, not for anything."

"I didn't realize you were so interested in how I garb myself."

Daji tilts her head. It is hard to judge the age of her body, and she wears it so close to her spirit that Houyi is unable to tell if it is stolen flesh or molded clay. "May I not touch you? They may point to this or that goddess and proclaim her the most enchanting, but they've never seen you so. You must be resplendent inside from your long duty, full of fire, my element."

"We might do this without the games, Daji."

The fox widens her eyes, husks her voice. "You come to me like this. Lord archer. All bare skin."

"An offering."

"Without heft it is artifice."

"Artifice was your first love, and is."

Daji pours herself off the sofa and onto the carpet, liquid as fur, as the tails that hide russet-gold in her shadow. She takes hold of Houyi's foot, tugs, and the narrow high-heel dangles: held to the archer's toes with the pressure of her palm. "You've always been so poised." The other shoe slides off and Daji's fingers lock around her ankle. "So invulnerable. It is hard to resist; it makes one think there must be a crack."

Houyi gazes at her, at the dry heat that reaches her through nylon. The two of them are still, her legs snared in the circle of Daji's body, her knee an instant from Daji's cheek. The fox's eyes meeting hers are brilliantly outlined, black irises giving away to lamplit gold.

Ferry horns blare. It is five past ten, the last passage of the night. In the cocktail glass ice has melted.

"What do you expect me to do?"

Daji's small laugh is brocade sliding against hip. "React. Even if in revulsion."

"I'm only surprised that you would lower yourself to handle anyone's feet."

"To me hands and feet are much the same. I thought of challenging you another way—I'd bring my claws, and you your knives. But that isn't meaningful at all."

"No."

The fox's hands withdraw. She remains on the floor. "What if I press the point? The guardianship of Hong Kong's banbuduo is mine, and I'm the final authority on the worthiness of your fare—either for entry or a glimpse."

Houyi does not tense. "Then your point would be pressed."

"I want my essence to pulse in your heart for it is puissant; I want my thought to move your arms for they are mighty; I want my rage to guide blades in your hands for they are strong—I want to wear your skin, lord archer, because I think it'll be like diamonds spun into woman. Cold. Hard. Perfect."

"In that case you'll only enjoy women's kisses. A little suffocating for you, isn't it?"

Daji lets out a rippling sound, half-chuckle, half-purr. "My passions are without limits. Your spirit will be overpowered."

"Perhaps we can agree that this particular argument's best kept abstract." Houyi holds out her hand.

Daji takes it, levering to her feet, and Houyi sees herself cradled in furniture pliant as flesh that knows no bones, head craned back with a throat like an offering, and a smile of tongue-tip and parted lips that Chang'e will not recognize.

The illusion passes. A clever spell that requires no props, only contact of hand on hand translating into an instant of fascination.

Daji is beside her, prim, as though she's done nothing wrong. "So then."

Houyi flexes the muscles in her limbs, in her fingers and toes. An instinctual reaction, even though she is aware no flesh-theft has happened. "A green viper."

"Oh, her. Single-minded, reckless, silly. She isn't a greedy thing, but—" A vague, dismissive motion. "Her kind injures even when they don't mean to."

"
Her
kind?"

"My sweet lord archer, I serve a goddess who was ancient before heaven birthed you. A goddess who created your wife's ancestors and bade me change the course of mortal history. And when I injure, of course, it is perfectly purposeful." The fox crosses her legs. "I can arrange a rendezvous with the little snake. How big a bloodbath will it be?"

Houyi gestures with the glass. "My transactions with demons don't always involve or conclude in killing."

"I'm sure sometimes they merely culminate in maiming. I'm no champion of hers, but for obvious reasons I can't turn them over to just anybody with a grudge or this club would be a much busier place, guts and bones everywhere." A young woman, no more than Julienne's age, enters. Daji gives her perhaps ten seconds of undivided attention and the girl freezes transfixed, flushing and her hand raised as though to touch the fox despite being on the opposite side of the room. Then she catches herself, hurries to join a friend's table.

"I hope you aren't aiming to take a new body, Daji."

"Having tasted yours, how can I settle for a frame so much less? Her I mean only to entertain. Now, as for Olivia—that's what she calls herself recently when she's not Xiaoqing—if you pledge not to harm or threaten, I'll contact her. With you it pays to be unusually careful. I imagine you only need to have seen her once to be able to track her again."

Houyi watches the girl out of the corner of her eye. She has pressed her palms to her face, breathing slowly, while her friend—a lanky young man—asks her what is wrong. "The serpent hasn't yet crossed the line. I promise to offer her no ill as long as she heeds my request."

The fox makes her eyebrows cavort impossibly. "Your ultimatum, you mean. I'll summon Xiaoqing and reach you when I've the time and place. Most likely she'll prefer not to meet in person. You've a landline?"

"I do know how to use cellphones, Daji."

"I just wanted to be sure," the fox says mildly. "Go along then, lord archer. I have a girl to debauch."

1.3

The second time Julienne sees the man it is at a diner thick with the aroma of salad dressings, freshly baked pizzas, and her ex-girlfriend's perfume.

One-point-five years married to a half-German man working in an advertising firm. Slated to become a partner within the next two years, and at his
age
—Julienne endures Iris's paeans to this man and swims upstream against memories of cuddling in bed. The sheer disaster of Iris' hair in the morning. The way she didn't make Julienne conscious of her shape or weight.

Over salmon salad Julienne breaks her silence to say, "You don't sound happy."

Iris breaks off mid-laugh. "Now why'd you say that?"

Projecting. Bitter. "Because I remember what you sounded like happy."

"We were together for all of three months and we were twenty. I grew up; I grew out of… it." Iris slots her smile back together, piece sliding into piece jigsaw-neat. "I think I know myself a bit better than you do."

"I came out to eat, not argue."

"Then what's with your passive-aggressive bull? Just because
you
couldn't find a man—"

Julienne puts down her glass before she gives in to the urge to throw it, lemon tea and straw. "That's what you think my problem is? Is that what you thought
your
problem was?"

Iris stares at her, grabs her purse, storms out. Julienne eats the rest of the meal alone and meticulously, even though her hands are shaking. Cheese, pepperoni and onion go down with an acidic sourness and no other flavor. She hopes she won't throw up. At fourteen she tried that briefly, and wasn't satisfied with either the side-effects or the result. Since then she's learned better.

Nausea threatens, all the same. When she exhales she feels as though her chest is collapsing, her lungs receding and folding in like umbrellas. Her larynx thinning to a thread.

That is not happening, she tells herself; she will take in oxygen, she will stay in control, and she will be fine. In a space so public she's not going to fall apart.

On the way from the restroom she spots the man. Today there are no lenses between his gaze and her, and in his hand the ruby necklace curls, casting red light on his pale skin. When she glances at him to let him know she's noticed him, that he should obey etiquette and desist, he continues to stare. A muscle in his jaw knits, as though he's grinding his teeth. For a moment she imagines he has some trouble with the jewelry, but why not return to the shop?

How did he find her?

She doesn't see him again until she leaves the mall and slows down at a storefront full of mannequins and handbags. In the reflection he looms behind her. Julienne fumbles for her phone then rethinks. This is only a man. What will Hau Ngai do to him? An arrow, a blade? Or else—she can already feel the god's disapproval at being disturbed for no good reason, at being called to attend every little panic attack and burst of paranoia.

No one gets assaulted on Nathan Road in broad daylight. All she needs to do is disappear into the crowd.

She walks, not fast, not slow: a perfect median average, the natural briskness of any Hong Kong citizen born and bred. Her feet don't stutter, her head does not turn for a glance over the shoulder. Her phone stays in her purse.

Several blocks later she's in the Shangri-La's lobby, uniformed porter shutting the door behind her. She ensconces herself at a seat by the escalator, facing the entrance. The man hasn't followed her in.