Going Under (10 page)

Marriage of convenience, she repeated to herself earnestly, as she had every day since it had taken place. Political thing. The Smart Thing to Do.

Thee faeries are join i to eat you alive, Tath said with arch gloom.

Zal offered a half shrug when she didn't answer him. "It's okay," he said but she thought she detected disappointment in him as he turned towards the door. Zal was never just okay about anything; demons didn't do okay. He was for or against and saying "okay" was really him signalling his disagreement with her failure to own up to her decision.

She stood behind him as he walked off, feeling inadequate. Surely she, who had taken on the whole mantle of Demonia and its power, should be able to stand being there for more than a few weeks at a time? But the idea of the relentless fighting and jockeying and politicking of every day made her furious and exhausted. She did want to go. Maybe Zal could take it better-after all, he'd come here and adopted demons out of pure choice before anyone else had. Perhaps they just fit him better than her. She wondered if that made him stronger. She'd always suspected that it was this sense of his being strong, because he'd go anywhere, do anything, that made him so magnetic to people of all races. Not for the first time she considered whether her own decision to take up Teazle's ridiculous offer and marry him wasn't entirely down to a sad attempt to equal Zal's massive natural charisma. She had to equal him, in daring if nothing else. At first, when they'd been mutually attracted antagonists, the fight had felt fair. But then, after the romance and then the love came ... well, now she wasn't so sure she could handle the competition.

There was a heavy thump on her shoulder and the scent of burnt hair. "Gah, I can hear you second guessing yerself a mile off," Thingamajig said, accompanied by the ripping sound of claws shredding themselves fresh purchase on her flak jacket. "Match made in hell, you and me, kid. Forget that willow-limbed tune-brained lunatic."

Lila swept her hand to her shoulder, fingers fanning out with razor edges forming at their tips. Thingamajig leapt away wildly with a "whee!" of sudden fire and she walked forward slightly lighter. Inside her chest Tath snickered.

Ahead of her Zal was humming a tune and trying to fit words to it, oblivious to the many demons they passed who paused to glance at him and then stare at her. Behind them she could hear the imp apologising and excusing himself through the halls, and the growls and snappings of those he was irritating. On all sides musical instruments and the neat scrolls of songsheets were stacked and carried. Things twanged and rang and clanked and hissed and rattled and hummed. Amongst the noise voices trilled and carried. As they passed other rooms and, later, other buildings a vast variety of sounds came and went.

There was no music not being practised here, Lila thought, struggling to keep up with Zal's long-legged pace and the delicate silence of his footfalls among the cacophony and the sheer mess of it all. The solid smack of hide on hide and a clash of small cymbals followed by a peevish "waahh" and a thud indicated that someone with a tambourine had taken a solid dislike to Thingamajig. No sooner had the small moment of discord occurred than she heard a drummer somewhere start to riff on the rhythm of the incident. Around them demons sang operatically at each other instead of talking. It was only because she was filtering it all that she was able to separate out the sounds sufficiently to hear one trill, "... say what you like but she'll never be one of us. Look at that freakin' imp."

"Teazle's new little pastime," agreed another, and chuckled. "Wonder how long she'll last?"

"I bet you my guitar won't be longer than any of the others."

Lila felt her mouth curl into an ugly line and for the first time in an age the scarlet scars of the magical attack that had almost killed her flared with a fiery pain. She'd heard it before, so why did it hurt now?

Stupid question.

The answer was easy. Teazle had had a lot of proto-spouses, none of whom had lived long enough to marry him.

He hadn't killed them all himself. He'd only done that when they had proved themselves more keen to pursue their ambitions and climb the social ladder than to care about him. It seemed he was a romantic to the bone and didn't take kindly to being exploited for other people's advantage.

Lila was cautiously fond of Teazle, although no more than that. There was a strange tension between them. She wasn't sure she liked him. She didn't dislike him. And he had a lot to gain from being matched to her, so she didn't think she was exploiting him.

Nor did Lila have any ambitions to do with Demonia-except the lasting ambition to be out of it as long as possible, which was growing rapidly in scale and appeal with every step she took. She wasn't the kind of party animal to thrive here. She liked reason too much. But the cause of the pain that stabbed into her chest at the demons' bitching was her suspicion that because of this very fact Teazle and Zal would both be better off rid of her. She wasn't sure she wouldn't be better off dead too some days. It was all very well to go around making jokes about can openers and cigarette lighters and being a robot, but there was a point at which the humour fell flat. And her joints hurt. And now her heart hurt her, because there was also the keen knowledge that she had been plucked at random to be this special agent, while Zal at least was some kind of genuine, self-motivated political superhero, and Teazle ... well, he was heading towards becoming a Maha Anima-a great spirit of Demonia.

She, Lila, by her own efforts was simply alive and doing what she had to. It had pleased her to marry on impulse and she had. That seemed a bit ... well ... shallow, compared to Zal's global virtues and Teazle's supreme self-composure. Demonia dealt in these kinds of values and she felt that the musical demons had seen her coming a mile off and correctly assessed her as a wannabe.

A sad tune pierced her right eardrum and she glanced around to see Thingamajig pretending to play the violin at her. Without cracking her grim expression she held out her hand to the creature and he ran up it gratefully.

"Made in Hell," she said.

"Amen," said the imp.

She followed Zal's narrow shape through the complex of the Mousa District until he came to the edge where he had left the Ahriman airship to wait for him. They stepped aboard it and with a holler the captain had the first mate heat the balloon and pull them free into the steamy noon air of the city.

The door creaked as Malachi tried to close it silently behind him. He swore under his breath. He was usually good at these things. His secretary did not look up, although he fancied she knew perfectly well that he had tiptoed past her to the garden doorway and was trying to get into his office unobserved. He might as well not have bothered however. The first thing he saw was the back of his beautiful ergonomic chair and a pair of rough leather boots parked on the top of his desk with a small pile of crumbled white salt scattered around them.

"Losing your touch," murmured the gritty voice of Calliope Jones as she kicked off the desk with aplomb and spun herself around to face him. She tutted and steepled her bony fingers beneath her pale face. Curtains of stringy and unkempt strawberry blonde hair hung around it and dark rings under her eyes stood out as if she'd been lately punched. She looked more like forty than twenty. There was a faint whiff of raw aether about her, as if it was imbued in her scratty, unkempt clothing. Perhaps it was-he had no real idea just exactly how she worked her magic.

"Just the person I wanted to see," he countered, taking off his jacket and whisking it onto the hanger behind the door. He smoothed the fabric and then turned back to face her, hand checking the lie of his tie.

"Beat you to it then," Jones said, crossing her legs and getting comfortable. "What was your problem?"

"You first."

"I was wonderin' how the cash was coming along," she said, rubbing her fingertips together on both hands.

Malachi had agreed to try and find cash from the fey to pay for continued research into the formation of ghosts. He'd thought at the time it was just a spur of the moment offer meant to save Jones's ass from a pasting at the hands of her fellow Ghost Hunters when they discovered she hadn't played straight with them and had led their bona fide research down a personal alley. She was one of nature's obsessives even before she'd become a Strandloper and now her passion for the science of the deep aether and certain of its creations knew almost no boundaries. She was the one human being who made Malachi's bones shiver and he hadn't bothered to stop and analyse why.

Now her pale eyes drilled him with a gaze that was physically difficult to move under, but he had to move; his cat nature didn't like being stared at one bit. He slunk sideways and pretended to make an adjustment to some disconnected and useless bits of old aetherdetecting equipment that were gathering dust on top of a side table. That made the cut glass bottles of coloured drinks catch his eye and his hand strayed to the lock on a fine walnut Tantalus filled with three identical crystal decanters.

"Drink, Jones?"

"Water," she said, disappointing him.

He bought time by pouring himself a shot of Sweet Envy and swirling it to see the fine green tones mingle and shimmer, just a hint of poisonous lees falling to the bottom of the glass. Faery spirits were something he rarely took these days, although once ... but he didn't want to think about that. He got her water and handed it to her in his gnomish tea mug.

The Sweet Envy burned gently down his throat as he sipped, racing to his heart where it gave a piercing feeling of desire and a glow of incongruous satisfaction that was energising and brought on a kind of lazy battle awareness. He didn't in the least envy Jones, so the drink brought him back to a kind of strength.

"We're running on empty," she said, wiping her mouth on the sleeve of her cotton shirt. "The fact is, if you don't give me something today we'll have to abandon I-space for the time being, and resetting the rig when we get back out there won't be easy."

Malachi found a piece of string in the pocket of his trousers, a cord he'd made of seaweed that he always kept there just in case. He was able, through long practice, to knot it with the fingers of one hand into a small doll. He took the mug from Jones and put it back on top of the cooler, at the same time letting a drop of water from the rim where she had drunk fall on his finger. He slid his hand back into his pocket and moistened the doll with this. A little dust and energy and it came to life with a wriggle. It was the most basic form of Tell and probably as much Hoodoo as he could get away with in her presence but he wanted insurance on his instincts.

"Did they forgive you for the Fleet?" he asked, to distract her.

For a moment her eyes bugged out. "Don't you ask the sweetest questions?"

"It wasn't my fault," he said, and it wasn't. He hadn't been the one who was trying to summon a massive spectral manifestation into being, thus endangering the lives of all the Hunters, not to mention himself. He'd just been the one to point out that was what she was doing when she was only supposed to be making recordings.

Jones scowled blackly and flung her boots back up onto his desk with another shower of salt. Rime, he thought, from a nonexistent sea. Salt was supposed to proof against ghosts, but not these ghosts. He shuddered but she was too annoyed to notice.

"We're getting along fine." She glared at him.

Underneath his fingers the Tell became hot. She was lying. By the looks of her she might well be here in a last effort not to be thrown out of the group, if she hadn't been already. Not that he cared about that too much: with money she could buy them back or recruit others who were more willing to risk their lives.

"I might be able to lay my hands on some cash," he said and set his butt down on the perfectly polished surface of his desk, hands in pockets, head low and thoughtful. "In return the Fey Court will accept any news you have on the Three." He didn't and wouldn't name them properly-the Three Sisters. I saw three ships come sailing in ...: the damn tune ran through him before he could stop it and he shivered uncontrollably. "And the ghost details," he added.

"Ghost activity has increased two hundred percent in the last three weeks," she said. "More manifestations of greater density and articulation, plus more variants. And many more inside world-envelopes, not just out in I-Space. There are a lot of new apparitions. And the major spectral constellations and their various minor entourages are migrating out of the deep towards the shores, away from the void and towards material planes; world spaces and specific locations. We know that much."

He couldn't stop himself asking, "The Fleet?"

"Grows with every appearance. Sailed off its usual path. Heading for an ocean near you." She grinned, the wild light back in her eyes that made him go cold inside.

"Otopia?"

She nodded once, slowly, never taking her eyes off his.

"Is the Admiral's guest ... ?" He meant the sister, the one Zal had oh-so-casually mentioned to him as if meeting them were a common thing and not a one in a billion chance. Zal had been picked out of I-space by the Fleet when by rights he should have drowned there, lost down some unknown tributary between Zoomenon and the other worlds or Zoomenon and nowhere. His rescuer appeared to have been one sister. Malachi didn't like to think about that. Having such a thing take a personal interest in someone he knew, even if only slightly, was far too close for his comfort. And the middle sister too; pregnant with creation.