"Okay, okay," Zhu Irzh said, surprised at this sudden paternal consideration. The sake arrived, a half-bottle with tea glasses.
"We've run out of proper ones," an unseen person said.
"I don't care," Chen said. He filled the little three-inch glass carefully to its brim and handed it to the demon, who knocked it back.
Chen said, "Well?"
"I'm really sorry," the demon muttered. He looked away, as if seeking an answer. "What I told you was true. One minute I was all right. Then you were on the floor and I was leaning over you. I don't remember a thing."
"Or don't want to," Chen said neutrally. The demon looked at him for a long moment.
"Is that what you think of me?"
"Zhu Irzh, you nearly killed me. I'm wondering if this memory loss isn't a conveniently selective amnesia. It might be paranoid, but I suddenly find myself in a paranoid mood. Someone who didn't know you as well as I think I do could conjecture that it's a useful excuse for doing whatever you please and passing it off as something you can't help. Whatever Senditreya's virus may have to do with it."
"Would it help if I said that I've wondered that myself on the way here?" Deliberately, he poured more of the sake into each glass. "With the dowser—but it's not like me, Chen. I'm fundamentally too lazy to go around attacking people. You know that. It has to be the virus, but—" Zhu Irzh paused for a moment. "What if it's permanent? This is worrying me, Chen. I don't like zoning out like that. And there was no warning. What if I start to change my appearance, like that Celestial?" He gave a fastidious shudder.
"I don't know." Chen was studiedly calm. "Wait here. I'm going to try to call Ma."
While Chen was elsewhere, Zhu Irzh listened to the conversations around him and realized that he had quite forgotten the date, what with all the fuss. It was the Festival of the Dead.
The first night of the festival had apparently got well under way, in spite of the earthquake. Indeed, the morning's tremors might even have added to the holiday atmosphere; everyone, it seemed, had a story to tell, their own narrow escape from death. The news networks were functioning, and the demon listened along with everyone else. Most of the reports centered on the collapse of the Eregeng Trade House: there was an extensive item on the actual damage, which was considerable, muffled in a sandwich of human-interest stories and geomantic speculation. So far, the death toll was running at three hundred and twenty, and rising every hour. The governor was featured, pleading for calm, and ignored at least by the five thousand or so who had already fled the city for the surrounding hills of Wuan Chih. The airport had been set off-limits. There was some scorn in the bar for those who had taken flight. This was, to a certain extent, justified.
A number of those who had gone were members of the Ereday cult, Zhu Irzh learned. They were claiming it as a personal victory for the judgement that would come. They believed Earth to be in its last days, and the doomsday date had crept forward as the years went by and the world continued to orbit in relative peace. It must have been galling to belong to the cult, Zhu Irzh thought, every time the latest prophecy proved false. You would wonder what you paid your tithes for, and he supposed that it accounted for the decline in membership. Perhaps the number of converts would rise now, after the gratifyingly dramatic events of the morning.
The inhabitants of the bar clearly felt flight to be a spineless option. The mood of bravado in the face of considerable odds grew as the news stories progressed. Someone began to sing, loudly and tunelessly. Another twitched the curtain of the booth aside with a jocular remark. He encountered the demon's icy stare and hastily retreated.
Chen slid back into his seat. "No sign of Ma. He's not answering his cellphone. I've no idea where the badger is either."
"Hell, I'd forgotten about the badger." Zhu Irzh had no great love for the creature, but it certainly came in useful on occasion.
"The precinct's in chaos—part of it has collapsed, and the systems are all down. I think we should go," Chen muttered.
"I agree, but where to?"
"There's going to be another quake, according to Captain Sung. He's been in touch with whoever it is who monitors these things. Shaopeng's close to the epicenter. It'll come later tonight."
"Shouldn't we warn people?"
"That's what the dowsers are supposed to do. The governor's office has issued a series of bulletins." Chen glanced around at the throng. "Looks like this lot has decided to ignore them."
"Do we know what happened to Senditreya?"
"I have absolutely no idea whatsoever. I threw a spell at her, but it wouldn't have killed her—I just hoped to slow her down a bit. She might be in exile, which I think means that her powers are waning, but she's still a goddess and that means that she has abilities which are way beyond anything I could do to her. I don't know why she didn't fight back. I suspect she went somewhere to recoup her resources. Chen was silent for a moment. Eventually he said, "We have to do something, Zhu Irzh. I have a charge more or less laid upon me from Kuan Yin, and I have a duty to protect the people of this city."
"Listen to them, Chen. They have the chance to leave the city, go into the hills. Yet they won't. They know that wasn't the major quake, that there's a good chance of more to come. They stay because they are hoping for a reprieve, or they don't believe it will happen, or because they're afraid of leaving their homes to the looters."
"So you don't think giving a warning will do any good?"
"Maybe, but probably not."
"I'm going to get hold of Kuan Yin again," Chen said. "If I can." His face was filled with dismay; he seemed more ill at ease than Zhu Irzh had ever seen him.
"Sure, suits me. Though she didn't give you much of an option when it came to sticking around. I don't see why Heaven should abdicate responsibility now for the mess it's made."
They forced their way to the door, through the wide-eyed revelers, and then they were out onto what remained of Shaopeng. It was close to midnight now, but the street was still crowded. The air was filled with the burst of firecrackers, stars exploding over the shattered stump of the Eregeng Trade House.
The city government, in a rare moment of public spiritedness the day before, had strung lanterns the length of Shaopeng Street. The red globes bobbed in the little breeze and struck sparks from the uppermost downtown rails. "Look at that," Chen said, momentarily arrested. "Those are going to catch fire before long. This is typical of this government, no thought—"
Zhu Irzh caught Chen's elbow and drew him back under an awning.
"Not the only ones." He pointed. A troop carrier rumbled ponderously into view, causing an outraged frenzy among the traffic. It rolled forward on its eight fat caterpillar wheels, dipping whenever it crossed the downtown tracks and ignoring the guidance lines. People leaned out and shouted as it veered in front of cars without warning. The driver appeared not to care. On the rear-mounted gun attachment, a gaudy fringe of charms twisted and bounced with the movement of the carrier. Someone had hung a beaming demon at the tip of the automatic, with elastic arms attached to lobster claws, which waved gaily as the carrier rolled unevenly along.
"Is he drunk?" Chen wondered. This was a reasonable surmise. People were having to swerve out of the way of the carrier, which was picking up speed. It canted up onto the curb, rocked for a moment and then took the corner with care, vanishing in the direction of Battery Road.
"I think we should go," Zhu Irzh murmured in Chen's ear. A passer-by turned to the detective and demanded, "Did you see that?"
"I think it's an absolute disgrace," Chen said emphatically. There were nods and mutters of agreement.
"Was he looking for Senditreya, do you think? Has the city government been told what's happening in that quarter? Or was he just out on the town?" Zhu Irzh asked.
"God only knows. I spoke to Sung about it, but he said that the governor was refusing to listen to him."
"This is making me nervous. It's too crowded. We should get off the main street."
The back streets were as crowded as Shaopeng, but even under the brilliant fireworks it was still too dark for anyone to see them properly. Chen and the demon picked their way through the revelers, who sang and whirled through the midnight streets. A woman in a leopard mask, her black hair cascading down her back, seized the detective and danced him round. Patiently, Chen took her by the waist and waltzed her into another man's arms. They were not so far from the harbor after all, Zhu Irzh realized. He could see the cranes rising above the buildings, tipped and tilted by the quake like so many birds' necks, and suddenly they were out into Hangsu Square, where there was a cluster of restaurants before the rough part of Ghenret began. The square was heaving with people, many sitting out at tables, and the place was bright with colored lights and lanterns, strung between the eaves. There was a hectic burst of merriment from a group in the crowd. Someone was singing, a throaty, knowing voice.
Chen and Zhu Irzh made their way through the square toward Kuan Yin's temple. Here, the streets were quieter and some of the properties looked deserted. There were fewer revelers, but when they reached the temple, they found that it had been opened again and was full of people. The faithful had come in their hour of need, hoping that the goddess would indeed hear their cries of suffering, and be merciful. As soon as Zhu Irzh stepped through the temple gate, he became aware of the aura of peace that filled the temple. It made him sneeze and itch. Chen, clearly amused, said, "We won't be here long. You can wait outside if you'd prefer."
"Certainly not," the demon replied, his pride stung. "I believe I can cope with an allergy to Heaven, having been permitted to go there so recently."
He followed Chen into the main chamber of the temple and saw that the statue was no longer there. Chen halted, in indecision.
"She's gone."
"She is out in the world," a voice said. "Doing her work."
And Mhara, crown prince of Heaven, stepped from behind the empty plinth.
It had been a very long evening. All the chophouses and restaurants along both sides of Shaopeng were still open, filled with people who were celebrating their survival of the festival with an early breakfast or a late supper, assuming they were not too drunk to eat. Those with their heads on the table or sprawled across the floor were a common sight; waiters, continually sweeping, cleaned around them. The pavements and the roadway were littered with firecracker debris: a midnight tram crushed several live crackers that lay across its rails and they shot howling into the gutter. All the lanterns had come adrift and lay in sad, red tatters across the width of the street, and the pavements were covered with broken glass from the tower windows and the remnants of the mirror war. Those of Western ancestry thought uneasily of seven years' bad luck. A drunk was veering down the middle of the road, the light of sake bright in his eyes, echoing snatches of the poet Han Li Tseng, and declaiming them as his own.
"I'm a genius!" he bawled. "A genius at last!"
A small group of office workers, dressed in the vestiges of their party best, surveyed him indulgently. Flowers trailed from their hair, and the women wore waisted corsets and slashed skirts over high-heeled boots. Their elaborate coiffures were rather the worse for wear now, straggling down over their shoulders, and one woman's dress was ripped from hem to shoulder. They laughed behind their hands, politely. One girl was too far gone to stand, and swayed against her companion, knocking him off balance. They were service personnel, the public face of the corporations, greeters and courtesans.
As they passed, the doors of the demon lounges slid open. The partygoers stopped to look, bewildered. Out of the nearest lounge came a dancing figure dressed in a kimono the color of flames. She carried a lantern, which she tossed into the gutter after a glance at the sky. She bestowed a glittering smile on the staring office workers and struck a theatrical attitude with one clawed hand against her oval brow. A long, barbed tongue licked her cupid's bow lips.
"Nearly time now!" she sang. She turned to the little group of revelers and strode swiftly down the steps. Her eyes, the golden green of a lizard's, swiveled from side to side in impossible rotation. She giggled. The man holding the swaying, drunken girl stepped back hastily as she approached, abandoning his companion. The demon caught her before she could fall and shot him a glance of mock reproach.
"How
could
you?" she asked. "The poor little thing!" She bent her head and whispered in the girl's ear. The girl laughed, then moaned and tried to push the insistent face away. The long, painted nails sank through her upper arm. The demon nuzzled at her ear. There was a noise reminiscent of someone drinking something thick through a straw. The girl sagged limply back into the demon's arms and she lowered the body gently to the pavement, arranging it neatly, her head to one side, as if playing with a doll. When the body was laid out, the hands neatly folded across the chest, she turned to the office workers, who still stood in front of her, too confused to run. The tip of the demon's tongue licked something delicately from her pouting lower lip. Beneath her, the girl's face seemed sunken, like a deflated balloon. The creature leaned back her head and gave a ringing cry. She sprang up, and bounded toward the office workers, seizing the girl's companion and waltzing him round.
"Fun!" she roared. Blood trickled from his ears. He tried to free his hands, to beat at his head, but she laughed madly and whirled him away down the street, swinging him like a rag doll. The remaining workers, stunned, took to their heels and scattered in all directions.
"Mhara?" Chen said. He stepped forward to greet the Jade Emperor's son. Zhu Irzh managed a quick nod of the head: it was beneath his demonic status, he felt, to pay much respect to gods who'd bailed out of Heaven. Not that he could blame the young deity, having seen where he'd come from. He felt a sudden rush of sympathy for Mhara, an equally sudden appreciation of his own upbringing, his work for Vice.
There but for the grace of God go I,
thought Zhu Irzh. Literally.