DAC 3 Precious Dragon (28 page)

Then Jhai reached out and drew a delicately clawed finger between Su Yi's breasts. A thin trickle of black blood followed and the Minister sighed. Her crimson eyes half-closed and she swayed forward.

"Su Yi," Chen heard Jhai murmur. "Why don't we get rid of all these people?"

"But darling," Su Yi said. "I always have an audience."

"Time you tried something new, then," Jhai said, and kissed the Minister on the mouth. Chen had to drag his gaze away; it was that embarrassing. Zhu Irzh's eyes were like saucers, Chen could see him mentally racking up different possibilities. Miss Qi's face was almost as red as the Minister's hair but there was a kind of fierceness in her expression, the look of a woman presented with a real chance of revenge.

Chen stared at the opposite wall, beyond the columns, in an effort not to look at the Minister and Jhai. But then he saw something that effectively distracted him from any thought of lust.

Someone was standing in the shadows, a crimson-clad form, lithe and strong. It was familiar, too, and when the figure shifted a little and its angular features fell briefly beneath the light, Chen understood why. The figure was Zhu Irzh's sister, Daisy. Chen nudged the demon.

"Zhu Irzh! Look!"

The demon took some distracting, but finally he glanced up, just as Daisy moved back into the shadows. But Zhu Irzh had seen.

"That's my sister!"

"Yes, and did you see what she was wearing?"

Zhu Irzh gave a grim nod. "Looks like Daisy's our girl for the kidnapping."

Chen frowned. He wasn't sure whether Daisy would have had time to bolt back after her mother's birthday banquet in order to stage a principal part in the kidnapping of Miss Qi.

Daisy melted back behind the pillars. She must have seen her brother, but there had been no change in expression that Chen had been able to discern, which suggested to him that Daisy was already fully aware of the course of events: more evidence of complicity, in Chen's eyes. He glanced reluctantly back at the scenario before him. As Jhai took the Minister in her arms and swung Su Yi around, Miss Qi raised a hand. Chen thought at first that she was merely gesturing, in horror, perhaps, but then he saw long, glistening claws, the color of pearls, slide out from beneath Miss Qi's fingertips. Before the guard at her side could stop her, or Chen offer a word of caution, Miss Qi stepped swiftly forward, sliced out with her pearl-clawed hand, and tore out the Minister's spine.

"Bloody hell!" Zhu Irzh said, appropriately enough. Black ichor fountained over the floor, over Jhai, over the guards, who stood as if paralyzed. Su Yi flopped to the floor and lay twisting and gasping like a dying fish. Miss Qi let the spine fall to the floor with a gristly rustle.

"No, don't let it go!" Jhai yelled. Chen, fighting severe revulsion, dived at the spine at the same time as one of the guards. They collided and Chen punched her as hard as he could in the face. She fell back, clutching her jaw, and Chen seized the spine.

"Come on!" he shouted, and made a run for the entrance to the passage. But the floor of the Ministry heaved like the deck of a ship and threw him to the ground. He did not let go of the spine, but it was close. The guards, the copulating demons, stood where they had last been, frozen. Only the Minister moved, in increasingly rapid convulsions. The Ministry mirrored her movements, bucking and twisting. Above Chen, a large lump of meat became detached from the ceiling and plummeted downward, narrowly missing him. Zhu Irzh grabbed him by the arm and hauled him upright. Together, they dashed for the exit, followed by Miss Qi and the others. Zhu Irzh, with unusual chivalry, shoved Jhai ahead of him.

"I can manage, thank you!" she shouted back, and her flying tiger feet made short work of the passage and Chen did his best to keep up with her.

"Miss Qi! Are you all right?"

"Yes! Much better now!" the Celestial called back. Not a very Heavenly thing to do, ripping out someone's spine, but then she had been born to battle demons and Heaven knew, she'd had a lot to put up with recently.

When Chen looked back, Zhu Irzh was nowhere to be seen. Where had the demon gone? Jhai, registering that Chen had stopped, doubled back.

"What's the matter?"

"Zhu Irzh."

"Shit!" Jhai paused, indecisively. "Look, you go ahead. I'll go and look for him."

"I don't think that's—" Chen started to say, but at that moment, Zhu Irzh reappeared around the corner at a run, carrying something flapping and dark.

"You went back for your coat?" Jhai said. "You really are the vainest man I've ever met."

"There's something in it," Zhu Irzh said, and Chen was reminded that the demon still carried his grandfather's heart.

"Is it in there?" Chen asked him in an undertone as they raced along.

"Yeah, they didn't bother to search the pockets. Sloppy lot, the Min of Lust."

The passage, however, was closing in on them, the fleshy walls seeping blood and making the floor increasingly slippery. As Chen turned a corner, he heard a wet thump behind him and glanced back to see Miss Qi struggling over a bulwark of fallen flesh. He reached out a hand and pulled her through. The claws were no longer in evidence.

They ran back through the phallic gorge, the fungi now drooping in impotent purple clusters. Back through the first passage, which was now narrowed and stinking. As they neared the exit, Zhu Irzh dived into an alcove with an exclamation, and returned with someone, gripped firmly by the hair.

"Let go of me!" Daisy hissed, clawing and spitting.

"Who the hell's that?" Jhai said.

"Jhai, darling? Meet my sister." Zhu Irzh punched Daisy straight in the face and slung her over his shoulder.

And then, finally, they were out into what, for Hell, passed for fresher air. It was close to night. The parklands behind the Ministry were peaceful beneath a turbulent red sky. Chen, panting, stopped and looked back.

The Ministry's bulbous efflorescence was slowly collapsing in upon itself like a slowly deflating balloon. It stank as it collapsed, hissing rancid air into the already pungent twilight. It reminded Chen of some enormous, noxious fungus, the kind you come across unexpectedly in a damp portion of forest, that releases its spores with a stink and a sigh when you poke it with your toe. Chen felt a distinct sense of triumph as he watched the Ministry of Lust detumesce into a boiling mass of flesh. He wondered whether matters on Earth would be any different as a result. The Ministry's collapse represented no loss. But the sight of Minister Su Yi, writhing about on the floor with a bloody channel running where her spine had once been would, Chen knew, stay with him for too long a time. He looked down at the thing in his hand, the long curve of bone, the knobbled, bloody vertebrae.

"Well, congratulations," Zhu Irzh said, still in his ridiculous harem outfit. Dropping Daisy unceremoniously onto the ground, he twitched off the cape and threw it at Chen, a covering for the Minister's spine. Then he searched pockets that weren't there, finally remembering to rummage in his rescued coat. That didn't seem to satisfy him, either. "This is the second time you've been personally involved in the demolition of an entire ministry. I'm going to have to buy more cigarettes. And I want my sword back. I'll look for it later, in whatever's left. Assuming we've not been arrested by then."

But what Chen said in return was, "Where's Underling No?"

"So," Zhu Irzh said, some while later. "We've not only managed to destroy another Ministry and fatally wound a governmental minister; we've also lost an employee of the Ministry of War. They will be pleased." They were grouped in the demon's hotel room. Zhu Irzh had effected a change of clothes from his own luggage; Jhai had improvised a bedspread as a sari. Her tigress accessories seemed to have diminished somewhat. Su Yi's spine, wrapped in the ridiculous cape, lay on the floor at their feet. Occasionally, it twitched, a convulsive movement like the tail of a cat, mirrored by the still unconscious form of Daisy.

"Underling No came with us of her own accord," Chen said. "Not that I expect War not to make as much political capital out of it as they can."

"I am very sorry," Miss Qi said. Her ethereal features were crumpled with distress, which in Chen's eyes was an improvement on the frozen glaze of a few hours before. Qi, he thought, and not for the first time, was a lot tougher than she looked. "I had some regard for Underling No."

"I bet she stayed behind to look for her mum," Zhu Irzh said. "It's why she came with us, after all."

"Do you think," Jhai said slowly, "that Su Yi will really be missed?"

"I don't even know where she'll go," Chen said. "What happens when that sort of thing—well, happens to a person? You'd go to the lower levels, wouldn't you?"

"Usually," Zhu Irzh said. "But Su Yi's a minister. And she was assaulted by a Celestial. For very good reasons," he added hastily, "but it's really going to complicate matters. I'm surprised we haven't been picked up already. The Ministry of War won't offer any further support, for the reasons they gave us."

"I am prepared to stand trial," Miss Qi said. She raised her chin defiantly. "If necessary, I'll take full responsibility. I shall make sure that everyone understands that I was acting on my own initiative, while the rest of you were being held prisoner."

"This is Hell, dear," Zhu Irzh said. "No one's going to care whether we were really involved or not, they'll just prosecute us anyway."

"Perhaps I could bribe someone," Jhai said.

"Not even you are rich enough to put forward the kind of money Hell would want for this," Chen said. "But it's a generous offer."

"What happened to 'you have to act with authenticity'?" Zhu Irzh asked.

"I am acting with authenticity."

At this point, Daisy began to stir. Miss Qi eyed her with distaste. "I cannot be certain," the Celestial said, "but I believe that is one of the people who kidnapped me."

"Daisy's always had an eye to the main chance," Zhu Irzh said. He gave his sister a little push with his foot. As he did so, she blurred. A second Daisy appeared a few feet away.

"Well," Jhai said. "Looks like your sister's got some magic of her own."

Zhu Irzh snorted. "It'll be borrowed, you can be sure of that." He leaned over the unconscious girl and shook her. The second Daisy shimmered and was gone. "Daisy! Wake up!"

Daisy stirred again, moaned, hauled herself upright against the bed. "What—?" She looked up at her brother. "You fucker, Irzh."

"You're a fine one to talk," Zhu Irzh retorted. "I'm not the one who's been in the pay of the Minister of Lust, am I? What were you, Daze, some kind of hired help?"

Daisy spat out a small, glowing coal that sizzled a burn in the carpet. "Screw you. While you've been swanning off on Earth, Irzh, I've been the one trying to keep the family together in the face of Mother's treachery."

"Daisy, what are you talking about?"

"The Ministry of War, Irzh, is what I'm talking about. Remember Grand-dad's coup? I suppose you were very clever, getting hold of the old bastard's heart like that. But Mum's been trying to stage a coup of her own."

"I think you'd better explain," Chen said, quietly, but his tone seemed to reach Daisy in a way that her brother's antagonism had not. Something like fright glittered across her face.

"A while ago, not very long, something happened down here in Hell. I don't know what it was, but it caused no end of a stir. Suddenly the kuei were everywhere, asking all manner of questions—of everyone, even respectable families. People became very frightened. The Emperor hasn't done much for years, and suddenly, all this activity and interest."

"Like stirring a hornet's nest," Chen said.

"And then a whole section of the kuei disappeared. Went to Earth, to that city of yours. Looking for something, or someone. Mum got the wind up. She was really shady about what she was doing, but eventually I found out—stupid bitch had been playing politics and attracted the attention of the kuei. When they went to Earth, she and a bunch of other people held a séance—can you believe?—tried to summon up a human spirit to find out what was going on. They managed to finish off the first one, some little girl from the Opera—her spirit ended up in Lust, that's how I know all this. Then they tried to get hold of someone else and Mum ended up being possessed—what a mess."

"Those men at the party," Jhai said. "I thought they were gate-crashing."

"So mother is involved in a plot," Zhu Irzh said. "Why does that not surprise me?"

Jhai snorted. "Sounds like my mother."

"Are you saying," Chen said slowly, "that your mother has been involved in some kind of anti-Imperial coup?"

Daisy nodded.

"Like I said," her brother remarked, "doesn't surprise me. Mother's always been ambitious. And if she was stupid enough to attract the attention of the kuei, then the Minister of War's the only one powerful enough to protect her. And possibly not even then."

"About my kidnapping," Miss Qi said. Frostily, she drew herself up.

"All right, I'll admit it," Daisy said, very sullen. "I've been trying to get hold of Grandfather's heart for a while, in case Mum tried to do something stupid with it. Then you got hold of it, and I panicked. I cast a replica of myself at the banquet and arranged the snatch."

"But you seemed surprised to see me," Zhu Irzh said. "You must have known we were here, along with Miss Qi."

Daisy spat out another coal. "Of course I knew. I started keeping tabs on you when we first found out you were coming to Hell."

"Which raises the question," Chen said, "as to why we were invited." Chaperones to Miss Qi, to make sure she was granted passage? A legitimate excuse, for War to bring a Celestial down to Hell? What had been planned for Miss Qi?

"I think this robs us of any real support from War," Miss Qi said. "Detective Inspector Chen, we have to leave. I have been through enough."

Chen agreed. "If we can," he said. But when they opened the curtains, they found out the answer to that.

"My gods," Jhai said, staring out over the hotel parkland. "There's a lot of it, isn't there?"