The Demon and the City (39 page)

A faint frown creased the denizen of Heaven's brow. "But—"

"Miss Qi will be coming with us, then?" Chen asked, more to stave off yet another difficult discussion than out of any real attempt to clarify matters.

"She will indeed."

"What, to Hell?" Zhu Irzh said. It was the demon's turn to look disapproving. "She'll be eaten alive."

Miss Qi's frown deepened. Sung said, "No, she won't. Not if she has you to look after her. You'll be leaving at ten P.M. tomorrow; I've sorted out your papers. Chen, any loose ends will be passed on to Ma."

"Hang on," Zhu Irzh said. "What about
my
loose ends? I'm in the middle of a case, you know."

"I'll get someone to handle it. Leave the paperwork on your desk and I'll pass it on."

"But—"

"Governor's orders, Zhu Irzh. Although it's nice to see you being conscientious about things."

Chen, rather to his shame, became instantly suspicious. It might be nice, but "nice" did not adequately describe Zhu Irzh's usual
modus operandi,
which during previous cases had included sleeping with suspects, taking bribes, intimidating witnesses, and generally behaving like the vice cop from Hell. Chen did not blame the demon, he knew no better, he was what he was. But nice?

Zhu Irzh subsided, with conspicuous reluctance. Chen sighed.

"What time tomorrow? And why are we going under the aegis of the Ministry of War?"

"You'll need to be at the Night Harbor by ten in the evening. As for War, I'm not sure. I think it has to do with someone's governmental contacts. In the meantime, I'd appreciate it if you could see Miss Qi safely back to her hotel."

Chen thought of an innocent of Heaven wandering the streets of Singapore Three—one step removed from Hell itself, after all—and mentally quailed. "Of course we will," he said.

Outside, it was still hot. Miss Qi took a deep breath and staggered slightly. Chen took her arm. "Careful. It can hit you like a hammer when you're not used to it."

"If it's this hot here," Miss Qi said, faintly, "whatever will it be like in Hell?"

"Hotter," Zhu Irzh said, not without a trace of satisfaction.

Chen looked at the address given to him by the captain and saw that the hotel was very close to the Opera House. The merest prickle of engineered coincidence stirred his cerebral cortex: that was where the rent-boy came from, and the missing girl. No more had come of this and that was typical enough, in this sprawl where young people went missing every day, but somehow he still didn't like it and that in itself was worrying. He had, long ago, learned to listen to disturbing instincts.

"It's too far to walk," he said. "We'll get a taxi. Zhu Irzh, are you coming, or do you have things to do?" Forget the beer. He'd have enough to cope with during the trip, because Zhu Irzh was bound to get a rise out of needling Miss Qi, so Chen was hoping that the demon would cry off and head home on his own. Then Chen could see Miss Qi to her hotel and go back to Inari, who might—rightfully—be feeling somewhat neglected. Inari never complained, however, and would deny any feelings of neglect if charged, so it was hard to tell. Anyway, Zhu Irzh had a girlfriend of his own to placate these days.

But the demon disappointed him. "I'll come along. Why not?"

"I thought you might want to spend the evening with Jhai," Chen said.

"Jhai—let's just say that a break won't do either of us any harm," Zhu Irzh said. "She's taking a bit too much for granted."

"I see." Chen did not add:
rather you than me
. He did not like the thought of playing games with Jhai Tserai, but presumably the demon knew her better. He glanced at Miss Qi. The inhabitants of Heaven are much too refined to sweat, but Miss Qi certainly glowed: a wan, ambient light of her own that made her stand shadowless in the glare of the sun.

"Miss Qi, you're melting," Chen said. "Let's get you somewhere cooler." He stepped out into the street and flagged down a cab.

Interestingly, it transpired that the taxi driver could see neither Zhu Irzh nor Miss Qi. The demon was not infrequently invisible to humans, but Chen wasn't sure what an inability to see either Hell or Heavenkind betokened. A wilful atheism? Had the taxi driver been able to see mad Senditreya during her rampage through the city? Again, interesting, but he did not press the point and they arrived at Miss Qi's hotel in peace. At least they'd put her somewhere pleasant: a small, family-run place behind a green stand of trees, at the back of the Opera House. The girl behind the desk seemed to be expecting Miss Qi and greeted her warmly. His duty thus discharged, Chen let the demon talk him into a beer after all.

"So," Chen said, half an hour later. "This case of yours." They were sitting in a bar next door to the Opera House; a cramped little place, with hundreds of photos of opera stars adorning the walls.

To his surprise, the demon was relatively forthcoming.

"I've been meaning to talk to you about it. It's an odd one. It has to do with Sulai-Ba."

"What, the temple of Sulai-Ba? It's a ruin, isn't it?"

"It is now, yes. In all the worlds—well, I don't know for sure about Heaven. I should have asked little Miss Qi. But I made enquiries and someone told me that it has been abandoned even in Heaven."

"I've lived here for years," Chen mused, "and I've never known much about Sulai-Ba. It was supposed to be a temple to the goddess of the sea, that much I do know, and it was here long before Singapore Three grew up around it. I heard it suddenly fell into disuse, about twenty years ago."

"It fell into disuse because the goddess died," Zhu Irzh said. He curled long fingers around his bottled beer.

"Goddesses don't die," Chen said, startled. "At least—well, Senditreya isn't dead."

"No, she's a cow, in Hell. She might work her way back up to being human again one day, if they let her reincarnate. I should think she's blown her chances of ever being a deity again, though. But this goddess was called Sulai-Ba. She fell in love with a mortal—one of
those
—but he wouldn't leave his wife for her, so she killed herself. In such a way that her spirit did not go to Heaven or Hell, or anywhere that anyone knows about. She disincarnated."

"That's technically possible," Chen said. "But it's very rare. I've never heard this story. Where did you learn it?"

"I asked Mhara," Zhu Irzh said. "Thought a prince of Heaven might know, and sure enough, he did."

"Fair enough," Chen said. "But what does your case have to do with a long-ago dead goddess?"

"I don't know. You see, Sulai-Ba's been locked for years, but people have gone in and out of it all the same. And lately, it looks as though the earthquakes jarred something loose, because there's been a lot of activity around Sulai-Ba: things heard in the night by people who live near it, things seen."

"What kind of things?"

"Big things."

"Mmm," said Chen. "What do you
mean,
exactly?"

"Someone saw something huge flying around Sulai-Ba. Something with wings and a tail."

"Something dragon-shaped, perhaps?" There was one of those disturbing instincts again, smacking him right in the solar plexus.

"Well, we don't know that for
sure,"
the demon said. "It might have been something else—a trapped Storm Lord, for instance."

"That's not reassuring. I'd rather have dragons." Dragons were essentially ancient, civilized creatures, guardians of Celestial courts, keepers of old books and forgotten spells. You could reason with a dragon. They weren't like the Storm Lords,
kuei,
Hellkind's centipede law-enforcers.

"The thing is," Zhu Irzh said, "there aren't many dragons in China these days. They're ideologically unsound. Most of them left when the Communists took over. A handful in the mountains, perhaps. But otherwise, they all retreated to Sambalai, a little way off from Heaven."

"Cloud Kingdom," Chen said. "I've heard of it."

"So, I don't know whether it's a dragon or what it is. But in light of recent events, I thought I'd better check it out."

"What concerns me," Chen said, "is this missing girl from the Opera. And I don't know why. It's hardly uncommon for those sorts of people to disappear, unfortunately."

The demon narrowed golden eyes. "It isn't. But I know what you mean. I had a dream last night in which we were wandering through Hell, looking for her, but she wasn't there."

"It reminds me of Pearl Tang," Chen said. He smiled, remembering the first case that he and Zhu Irzh had worked on together. "There must be something about young female spirits that leads to trouble."

"Of course there is," the demon said gloomily. "They're women, aren't they?"

"Well, there is that," Chen admitted, thinking of Inari and feeling just a little treacherous. Goddess knew that Inari had caused trouble enough, poor love. But she hadn't meant to.

"I think we need to talk to that boy again," Zhu Irzh remarked. "I called the Opera, by the way. The girl hasn't shown up."

"We're next door," Chen said. "And there's no time like the present. In fact, there really isn't, because I've no idea how long Sung expects us to remain in Hell on this bloody fact-finding thing."

"As long as it takes, I suppose." The demon downed the last of his beer and stood up. "Okay, let's do it."

Chen was not a lover of opera
per se
but he had always been rather fascinated by the life of the Opera House. Backstage was another world, of giant chrysanthemums, huge cardboard clouds, twirling parasols. It smelled of face powder and cigarette smoke and cheap perfume. Zhu Irzh was smiling.

"This is
fun!"

"It's got a certain charm," Chen said. He addressed a passing stagehand. "Excuse me. I'm looking for a young man named Pin."

"Oh. The flute player. You're looking for
him."
The stagehand gave what could only be described as a smirk.
"Very
popular, he is."

"We're with the police department," Chen said.

"Done
something, has he? Doesn't surprise me. Always thought he was up to no good. I—"

"Actually, he hasn't done anything," Chen said. "It's about a witness statement. Now, is he here or not?"

"Don't ask me. You'd need to speak to his chorus director."

"Then we'll do that," Chen said, with a faint degree of
froideur
.

"Why, no," the chorus director said, once they'd tracked her down. "I'm afraid he hasn't been in for the last couple of days. I was really becoming quite concerned." She perched on the edge of her chair, blinking behind large spectacles, her legs demurely crossed at the ankles.

Chen frowned. Miss Jhin's protestation of concern seemed genuine—a nice woman, in his professional assessment, probably born into respectability but fallen on hard times. There was something a little faded about her.

"Where does Pin live?" Chen asked her.

"Why, here, at the Opera. A lot of them do, if they've been orphaned—Pin's mother died, you see, a few years ago. She'd been one of our chorus girls, and Pin knew all the traditional songs, so it seemed natural for us to take him on. But—you see, there are so many people here, it's so busy—I should have realized sooner he was missing." She rubbed her eyes. "I'm making excuses for myself, aren't I?"

"I'm sure you did your best," Chen said. "I don't mean to alarm you, but when was Pin last seen?"

"When he went to the party."

"What party was this? Do you mean the one at Paugeng?"

To Chen's surprise, Miss Jhin blushed a deep, rusty red. "No. You see, the young people are very popular, and they get asked out a lot. Of course, we're careful, but if they
are
over age, then—"

Chen was beginning to get the picture. "I see. Who was it who held the party?"

"It was at a club. Called Cloudland, I believe. The manageress phoned me to arrange it."

Zhu Irzh leaned forward in his seat. "Cloudland? That's a demon lounge."

"Is it, now?" Chen asked, intrigued and appalled. He'd visited a demon lounge on a number of occasions in his career and none of them had turned out particularly well.

"Yes, and quite a famous one, too. I've heard mention of it in Hell—" At this point Miss Jhin gave a little squeak, although she must have been aware of the demon's origins, since she was evidently able to see him clearly enough.

"And Pin didn't come back?"

Miss Jhin blinked again. "Well—I don't know that he didn't. I'm afraid I wasn't here when the party was due to end—he was only booked for a couple of hours. But he wasn't here the next day. I thought that perhaps he'd taken the day off . . ." Her voice trailed away.

Taken the day off in order to recover,
Chen thought. He supposed that he ought to caution Miss Jhin for what was, essentially, pimping, but he doubted whether she had any real control over the process, and anyway, he didn't have the heart. Perhaps Zhu Irzh's way of doing things was contaminating the world around him.

"If he does come back," Chen said, "Or the girl—Ming?—then perhaps you'd like to call me? Here's my number."

Miss Jhin took the business card from Chen's hand as though she thought it might bite. "Thank you," she said, uncertainly. "I'll call you the moment I hear anything." Her expression became a little firmer. "Detective—I should make something plain. Pin is a good boy. He's only a—I mean, he does what he does because they're all so badly paid here at the Opera." She lowered an already breathy voice. "I'm speaking out of turn, but—it's different if you get one of the big roles, of course, but down in the chorus . . . Pin is a nice boy, really. I try to do what I can, but—if anything's happened to him . . ." Chen had the terrible feeling that she was about to burst into tears. He patted her hand.

"I know you've done your best," he said. Over Miss Jhin's shoulder, he discerned a gleam in the demon's eye, which suggested that Zhu Irzh might be about to disagree, just for the sake of it, so he added hastily, "You'll let us know, won't you?" and got to his feet.

Outside, it was still light, but only just: a deep crimson seam above the great dome of the Opera House. Chen was anxious to get back home to Inari, and Zhu Irzh, too, seemed fidgety.