The Demon and the City (2 page)

He found himself frowning. He missed Chen, and the Detective Inspector had only been gone for a week. If anyone deserved a holiday, Zhu Irzh thought, it was Chen, but still, Singapore Three's temporary loss was Hawaii's impermanent gain. He hoped, not without a trace of bitterness, that Chen and his wife were having a nice time. Meanwhile, he was still stuck here in the city, dealing with humans who had been foolish enough to get themselves mangled by unknown persons.

"If forensics doesn't turn anything up, we could go to the Night Harbor, couldn't we? Interview the victim directly," Ma remarked.

"I suppose so. Though I don't fancy shoving my way through that throng on a Saturday night trying to work out which spirit is minus her face. Or other bits. And I'm still having problems with my visa." Zhu Irzh gave a martyred sigh. Initially, he had been excited about his reassignment from Hell's Vice Division; the result of a political embroilment which only now was beginning to subside. The human world was novel enough to be interesting at first, but now it slightly depressed him. The colors seemed so insipid, the air so bland. It wasn't as bad as Heaven, which he'd visited only fleetingly, but it was getting close. The food was like the sort of thing you fed to cats: it smelled all right, but it didn't taste of anything. Besides, he'd had little to properly occupy him since he got here: a few routine gang killings, and a long and indescribably tedious investigation into the Feng Shui Practitioners' Guild, resulting in several boring visits to renegade dowsers. Zhu Irzh had done his best to get out of this last task, but had been thwarted by Chen. The latter seemed to be enjoying the novelty of having an underling, and had disturbingly little compunction in handing the most banal tasks over to Zhu Irzh. If one was of a flamboyant personality, the demon felt, one might as well make the most of it. He had not been allowed near the work of the Vice Division, where his experience lay. It was nothing but a waste. An earlier, oft repeated conversation, replayed itself in his mind.

"Your experience," Chen had said firmly, "has been in the
promotion
of vice, not its suppression. You surely can't seriously think they'll let you anywhere near drugs or prostitution, given that Hell's vice squad is responsible for most of it?"

The demon had bridled. "I'm not unremittingly evil—and me saying that just goes to show that I'm not a typical demon. I have feelings, too. I have a conscience. I helped you save the world, didn't I?"

Chen, though conceding that there was a measure of truth in this, had remained resolute. "I don't think you're unremittingly evil," he said. "I just think you're . . .slightly dodgy." Zhu Irzh had pretended to be annoyed, but admitted to himself that Chen might have a point. Vice was pretty much a consuming interest with him, and why not? It was fun, after all. It was a
vocation
.

However, human women tended to give Zhu Irzh a wide berth, thus negating another of the demon's consuming interests. This was perhaps understandable, but also cause for some lament. Back home in Hell, he had barely been able to turn round without falling over one or another girlfriend; here, it was a different story. And it was
cold:
even in this summer that humans described as sweltering. Morosely, Zhu Irzh poked the limp corpse with the toe of his boot, revealing the shattered pelvis and ribcage. Ma gazed at him in reproach.

"Don't do that. It's disturbing the crime scene. Forensics won't like it."

"Oh, don't worry," Zhu Irzh said. "She's probably swanning around the Night Harbor as we speak, awaiting her departure to the peach orchards of Heaven and unutterably grateful to be temporarily relieved of the shackles of her mortal flesh."

"Suppose she's destined for Hell?"

"I hope you're not implying that this unfortunate young lady deserved to die?" Zhu Irzh remarked satirically, adding under his breath, "And if she did, then lucky her."

"It's always a shock," Ma said defensively. "I don't suppose she thought that this would be the day of her death, poor girl."

Zhu Irzh laughed. "Few people ever do."

Dowser Paravang Roche, kneeling before the statue of the goddess Senditreya, was not thinking of death—at least, not of his own. Senditreya's temple was dark, shrouded in shadow and wreaths of incense. A complex sequence of patterns was outlined in silver on the floor, showing the energy lines which lay beneath the city; the energy wells of
ch'i
and
sha
. Among the hazy coils of smoke sat the statue, holding out her divining rods and her compass, and smiling down at her supplicants.

Bitch,
thought Paravang Roche. He had an ambivalent relationship with his deity. He looked sourly up at the statue; studying the gilded loops of hair, the three bands tied around each wrist to signify the founding member of the dowsers' guild, elevated into goddess-hood seven hundred and twenty years ago.

To the left of Paravang, a man swayed forward on his mat, moaning and muttering. Paravang regarded him with distaste. Surely it wasn't necessary to make so much noise about one's worship. His neighbor rattled a hollow canister and shook out the yarrow sticks. Hastily arranging them into a pattern on the woven mats, he stared for a moment and then began to chuckle.

Well, good for you
, Paravang thought sourly.
I'm glad someone is having good fortune, because I'm not
. He glared at his hilarious companion, who caught the enraged look on Paravang's face and subsided. Paravang arranged himself into a more decorous position and stared up at Senditreya. Sometimes he thought she winked at him. Sometimes he was right.

Underneath the carpet, and the stone floor, and the earth itself, Paravang could feel the energy line of the Great Meridian, running to the confluence of energy, the lake of
ch'i
which lays beneath Senditreya's temple. With such
ch'i,
how could there fail to be good fortune? Paravang asked himself. One would have thought that some of it, at least, might have rubbed off on a poor
feng shui
dowser. Paravang's lips pursed in resentment. He had worked hard all his life to win first this coveted place here in the temple, and then his contract with Paugeng Mining, and now it was all going to be taken away.

Above him, Senditreya's cow-eyed gaze blurred and faded, to be replaced by another face: the color of a shadow, golden-eyed. It was the face of a demon, named Seneschal Zhu Irzh. It was the face of his most recent enemy, and to Paravang's feverish gaze it seemed quite real, as though the demon himself were standing before him. As, indeed, Zhu Irzh had been, a week ago today.

Paravang had opened the door to find him standing on the step, a most unwelcome visitor. The scene replayed itself through Paravang's mind, as it had done so many times over the past few days.

"Who are you?" Paravang had quavered. "What do you want?" He'd always taken care to limit his dealings with Hell, but it seemed he hadn't been careful enough.

"I'm here about an irregularity in your
feng shui
dowsing license," the demon said. "My name's Seneschal Zhu Irzh. Want to see my badge?" At this point he had produced a piece of paper which, to Paravang's horrified gaze, had proclaimed him to be not only a citizen of Hell, but also a member of Singapore Three's police department. To Paravang's mind, this was a truly nightmarish combination. "Mind if I come in?" the demon asked, and without waiting for a reply, had brushed past Paravang into the narrow apartment and taken a seat on the sofa. It had all gone downhill from there.

It seemed that Paravang had actually forfeited his dowsing license some time before, the result of a small
matter of unpaid taxes and undelivered bribes. Unlicensed, he was therefore practicing
feng shui
illegally, and must apply for a new license as well as pay the requisite fine to the authorities.

"Never mind," Zhu Irzh had remarked cheerfully. "I'm sure you'll get it all straightened out. Shouldn't take more than a few months." With this less than reassuring remark, he had left Paravang Roche to grind his teeth with helpless fury and hurl curses at the demon's unresponsive back. He had contacted the authorities, hoping that this might merely be some malignant joke on the part of Hell, only to find that Zhu Irzh was a fully paid-up member of the police department, assisting a Detective Inspector Chen, and completely entitled to act as he had done. Given the city's formidably ponderous bureaucracy, it would indeed take months for Paravang to retrieve his license, and a correspondingly huge drop in revenue.

Why do you despise me, Goddess?
Paravang thought now, helplessly. The endless perfidy of the divine never ceased to amaze him. You gave your all, you turned up four times a year for the festivals and twice every week for your devotions; spent your hard-earned capital on presents and offerings; wasted nine minutes morning, noon and night in the requisite prayers, and for what? Only to be scorned. Rising abruptly, Paravang threw a handful of rice at the feet of his capricious deity and walked out into the evening dusk.

The city was baking in the morning heat, and Robin Yuan was late for work. The downtown tram rattled by her, dangling like a child's toy from its pylons, as she turned the corner of the block. She started to run, but it was too late. The downtown slowed for the next stop, saw no one waiting and picked up speed, vanishing around the curve of Shaopeng Street as Robin reached the platform. She swore. An ochre-clad nun swung around to stare at her reprovingly.

Screw you
, Robin thought.
I'm late
. She was already sweating in the morning heat. Here at the junction of Shaopeng and Jhara, the restaurant backs emitted clouds of fragrant steam:
ghambang
and chowder for breakfast today. Robin had eaten prawn crackers, left over from the night before, stiff and cold in their greasy folds of paper. She watched the high-collared, shawl-suited men and women vanishing into the dark interior of the Pellucid Island Hotel and envied them.

The hot rails sang and the next downtown hurtled out of the Jhara embankment tunnel.
It's not going to stop! Too many people!
Robin thought, panicking, but the tram slowed to a halt and she squashed herself inside; leaning back from the bulging doorway and forward again as the doors closed. The downtown took off, lurching. The woman beside her directed a venomous glance at Robin.

"Can't you move?" she snapped. "I can't stand up properly."

"I don't think I can," Robin said. This was true; there was no room at all in the carriage and Robin couldn't reach the strap. It wouldn't matter if the downtown suddenly had to stop: she was too tightly constrained to fall.

"But I'm standing on my toes!" her neighbor wailed.

Grumbling faintly, the carriage rearranged itself in some minute fashion. Robin's neighbor lost height, sighing in relief. Robin stifled a yawn. Trying to keep her balance on the swaying, roaring tram, she wondered whether Deveth would call today. She had wondered the same thing for the last week, her spirits rising every morning, then sinking toward midnight as the day grew old, and still Dev did not call or come by.
Where are you, Deveth Sardai? Was I just your bit of rough trade?
If she'd had the nerve, Robin reflected, she would have called Deveth's parents, but the thought of contacting the aristocratic Sardais and interrogating them as to the whereabouts of their daughter made Robin's mouth go dry. She was fairly sure that this was one relationship which Dev would have taken care to keep quiet.

The downtown ground to a halt at Phikhat Square, spilling its cargo onto the crowded street. Wearing dark blue, ochre and gold, the money-workers made for the temples and Robin was able to sit down at last. She collapsed onto a slatted bench and watched the tops of the city whirl by in the steaming air. There were seven more stops to Semmerang and the laboratories. At last the downtown rang in triumph for the final stop, ready now to turn around and go back. Robin got out, her rubber-soled slippers padding on the platform, and headed for Paugeng Corporation and another day at work.

Inside the labs surrounding the Paugeng tower, there was a stirring atmosphere of activity and anticipation. People gathered in little knots, chattering. Robin was not part of the elite team, the chosen core, but the excitement infected her like a contagion as she hastened through the double doors of Y Lab. She passed her flustered colleagues and went straight through to the lift, heading for the basements. There, in the warren of rooms and corridors, the experiment was waiting for her, sitting up in his cot, arms around his knees, blinking blue eyes.

"How did you sleep?" Robin asked, a little anxious. "I'm sorry I'm so late."

The experiment smiled at her, vaguely. "It doesn't matter. I slept well, thank you. I dreamed."

Robin and her experiment had a number of choices about the playing of their particular game. So often it could take the form of doctor and patient, like the games you play in childhood, with the
frisson
of the forbidden. Sometimes, Robin was well aware, it could degenerate into torturer and tortured, if the controller had insufficient authority elsewhere. People take power where they can get it. Without really thinking about it, Robin knew exactly to which of her colleagues this description applied, but she did not find that axis seductive. She sympathized too much with her experiment, though she was well aware that she was not supposed to think of him as a person. He had no name, only a number. Robin, in a brief flouting of regulations, had asked him what he was called, but the experiment had only smiled and uttered a long string of syllables in a language like water. Robin, after some effort, had managed to break them down into something vaguely recognizable, and now she called him Mhara, but only under her breath, or in the privacy of her own head.

The experiment seemed too gentle to be demonkind, which made Robin's job even more difficult. But if he was a demon, then experimenting on him was necessary, wasn't it? Last year, the denizens of Hell had almost succeeded in vanquishing the city with a terrible engineered plague, and after that a number of research programs had been started up to combat the menace via scientific means. Paugeng had been given an enormous grant and the city's blessing; shortly after this, the experiment had appeared.