Selling Out (14 page)

“Not the imp of drivel?” Lila interrupted, striding across the bridge at ever greater pace, dodging the beautifully dressed demon traders who had prime site stalls ranged upon the broad span.

“So rude,” the imp sighed sentimentally. “Almost like my own daughter. Now, on this street there used to be a whole frontage of the most beautiful late Rageblind architecture that was utterly breath-taking even though of course it was impossible to view directly without a slide into the most foul temper . . . I say, are you heading towards the Souk?”

“Looks like it.”

The imp pinched her earlobe between two claws.

“Ow! By god you’ll have a painful death if you do that again!” Lila hissed at it.

“We should discuss this,” the imp said in a tone of command. “Turn left here and go up to the second floor. The café is rather foul underfoot with roach and asp-nit feasting upon the droppings from the tables but the tea is first rate. Have mint tea, keep your shoes on, and listen to me. It will take but a moment.”

“I doubt that,” Lila muttered but the pain in her ear was intense and she knew she would never hear the end of it or might possibly lose part of the ear if she didn’t so she turned left as instructed, went through a greasy beaded curtain and up a flight of rickety steps to a room every bit as filthy as promised.

Three older demons were hunched in the corner, whispering and fussing over some cards and other items on a low table. They all smoked and were chewing some kind of herby stuff out of a jar, taking handfuls at regular intervals and spitting the result into an iron pot where it bubbled and gave off low vapours. They snorted this into their nostrils in a strict turn-taking round. As she took a seat at the least repulsive spot and feigned no interest in them they ruffled their feathers and spiked their quills but otherwise ignored her. Rough straw scattered on the floor seethed with insect activity. There was a strong smell of burnt frying fat, incense, and espresso.

“Well?” she muttered, watching the server appear from a hole in the ceiling. It was a spider form the size of a small dog, and clicked quietly across the roof upside down, extending a tattered menu to her on a long sticky strand of silk. Most of the hairs on its thick legs were singed and although it had no facial expressions she could detect among its eight eyes its body wore a strangely immaculate white band of apron that seemed to speak of a kind of hygienic pride. She took the menu and tugged it free. The line broke and clung to her fingers. She tried to wipe it off on the table but it just stuck more.

“It’s enchanted. It’ll evaporate in a minute,” the imp said confidently. “Mint tea. And I’ll have the double shot with just a dash of mare’s milk.”

But Lila was engrossed in the menu suddenly and not because it was stuck to her hand. “What is Essence of Humanity?”

“They make it by mage-pressing grave dirt with fresh spring water. You don’t need to worry.” The imp called up to the server, “She wants mint tea. I’m going for the double Arabica, if you don’t have mare’s milk then yak or bat will do.”

“Milks of the world,” Lila read, “see specials board . . .” She looked at the board. “Harp Seal milk?”

“Too fattening. Also it tastes of fish which does nothing for coffee.”

“Milk of Mother’s Tears . . . ?”

“Look, never mind all that. The thing is you want to go to the Souk and the other thing is that I want to prove I’m really who I say I am . . .”

“You didn’t say who you were.”

“If I could say my name I wouldn’t be a damned imp, would I?” the imp snapped. “I have to get my name. And you have . . . some business that’s probably important to someone somewhere so I was thinking I help you, you help me, match made in hell. You need someone who knows what they’re doing around demons and you don’t have that. I need someone . . . I need someone . . . so there we are. Perfection.”

Lila sighed and shook her head, “I’m not telling my business to you so you can sell it all around town. Do I look crazy?”

“Yes, frankly. You
have
got an imp on your shoulder, and everyone knows that their entire purpose in life is to drive people crazy.”

“With lots of lies. Which are pathetic, by the way.”

“Just one shot. One. I’ll get you something. Do something. Say something that will show you I’m telling you the truth.”

“Nah, you’ll just do it enough to convince me and then stab me in the back. Your entire MO is old news to me,” Lila said with conviction as the server returned, via the door this time, and slid a tray off its pristine back onto the table. It bore a glass of mint tea, steaming, and a pot of coffee with a tiny cup and a small pitcher of milk.

“You see. I bet you’re never usually that suspicious of anyone without some magical extra winding up your nerves. Of course you won’t believe me, that’s part of my curse.”

“You’re an imp. I don’t believe you because of that.”

“Sure, sure. Taste the tea. It’s all good.” The imp waited and Lila, because she had nothing to drink for hours, decided to try it. She put her finger into it first, in spite of the heat, for a quick analysis. It was tea. She raised the glass to her lips.

“Anyway if I was a real imp I’d have this hotline into your worst neuroses and be telling you that your boyfriend is too good for you, you’ll never know the half of what goes on behind your back at work because it’s in everyone else’s interests to keep you ignorant and Tartarus will be under an ice sheet by the time you manage to conquer your fear of being alive. In the meantime you’ll waste a lot of energy agonising about your old life and supporting your own denial with relentless activities that seem to be focused on work but really are just distraction tactics with vaguely work-related payoffs. Your heart is concealing something you’d really rather not face for reasons you don’t want to look at so you’ll spend what’s left of your time keeping a lid on that whilst convincing yourself rationally that it’s for everyone else’s good that you do as you’re told, don’t ask too many questions, and play at being strong in situations that seem dangerous but don’t matter to you so you can fool other people about how well you’re doing. Of course, you know very well that you’re turning into the biggest sell-out of them all.

“In your future alcoholism or other forms of addiction await you for when you get bored of playing at supergirl. You will become a cynical, bitter old woman who can only relate to small pets in order to avoid your intimacy issues, which by then will be of apocalyptic proportions and your loneliness will only be alleviated by certain great pieces of music which will also intensify its piquancy for reasons you never understand. There may be some dallying with literature or other arts as a way of faking contact with others of your kind but at a remove that allows your fantasies to remain untouched whilst never bringing you close to the ugly reality of genuine connections with the flawed and annoying monstrosities that are other people. You will die alone, like the rest of us, and making sense of your life in order to paint yourself the martyr will be the biggest fake ever hung in the big gallery of retrospective narrative lies and you’ll know that in your final moments and in that second everything you have struggled so hard to hold onto will vanish like smoke on the wind but it will be too late.

“See, if I was a real imp,
that’s
what I’d be saying.”

Lila spluttered and swallowed a mouthful that was too hot and then put her glass down. The tea was really good. Her tongue was burned. She took a long breath over it, trying to cool it down. Tath spun in her chest; he was a little sparkly, like a gulp of champagne and Lila had learned to recognise that as laughter. There was a sharp pain under her breastbone that had nothing to do with him. For a moment she felt intense rage at the pair of them, little parasites, but then a cold calm took hold of her.

“Now let’s get one thing clear,” she said. “My minions don’t gang up on me. My minions don’t tell me the uncomfortable truth or the comfortable truth or any kind of stuff like that to make my life harder. My minions help me to the bitter end of their bitter little lives or they get sent through the nine circles to the Infinite Pit by any means I can find and, by golly gosh, if you don’t think I have the balls to hold a grudge beyond all reasonable limits, demon, then you really don’t have two powers to rub together.”

The imp let go of her ear and pattered down her arm, balancing on her hand as it reached for the coffee pot and poured itself a cup. It disdained the milk it had ordered and knocked back the scalding brew with a single jerk of its head. Espresso dribbled down its chin, “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ bout, baby,” it said with gusto. “You and me. Match made in hell. Had the eyeballs dream. Spoken like a real devil, my lovely. Let’s hit the Souk. I’m itching for a battle of wits with those jessies.”

Minions?

I didn’t notice you protesting my valour. So can it.

Lila got up suddenly. The imp reached for another coffee, almost fell from her hand, and scuttled back up to its place. A sharp pain reported a fresh grip on her ear. She tried not to let the eye on that side tear up.

In the corner one of the large demons hawked and spat into the pot. Thick purple billows came from it and his companion sniffed deeply, reeled for a moment, and then fell senseless onto the floor. The other two cackled and scraped piles of small change from the table into their hands.

“Wait till he shrinks,” one slurred.

“Yeah, so you can carry him out first . . .” the other said. “No way. I buy the percentage.”

“Myeh, what you think he’s good for?”

“Can’t tell until . . . ah wait . . .”

The demon on the floor began to shrink. Nothing about it altered except that its breathing slowed and it got smaller, and smaller, and smaller.

Lila watched with unstoppable fascination. The demon, which had been just about her size, continued to diminish until it was no larger than a salt shaker at which point it took on a polished kind of sheen and a stony appearance.

“Crap,” said the quilled demon. “Fucking chess set is what. You can have fifty-fifty on him. Think he’d at least have done for garden statuary, demon of his bearing.”

“He must have been lying all these years about that witchery business. I said he was a bluffer. Gah, the money I’ve given him for enchantments. All up in smoke now, and I’ll be lucky if we can get enough paint on him to call him a bishop.” The feathered demon picked up the pot of bubbling mixture and flung it across the room where it splattered on the wall with a clang. The pot rolled away and the server came in and chittered in a high voice, spitting venom.

The demons attempted to get up and run for it but the server snared them in a sticky web until they paid up some sum. The quilled demon scooped up the frozen figure of the shrunken one, shook off a couple of roaches, and stuffed it into a pouch at its belt. “I’ll do the fixings and sell him. Maybe there’ll be some tips on eBay about the kind of things the humans like to buy. See you tomorrow for the cash up.”

They shuffled out, weaving and bumping each other, unsteady on their feet and cursing frequently as they clutched at the walls for support.

Lila watched this without moving.

“True friends,” the imp said on her shoulder with nostalgic longing. “Lovely that was. Just lovely.” It had a quaver in its voice. “Oh, one more thing. We can’t just roll around town with me riding here like some ordinary pestilence talking into your ear or nobody will trade doohickey with you. And I think rubies will go nicely with that big red streak in your hair. Nice touch that. Shows off your creative side.”

The casual pinprick pain in Lila’s earlobe became a swift, savage biting agony. “Oww! What the eff . . .” Her hand snapped up to her shoulder but the imp was gone, not even into its cold flame form. It was just gone. There was a cold, cut-sided stone set into her ear, like an earring stud. It pierced through and held at the back with a similar-size rock. Her fingers came away bloody. She could hear the imp almost as well as before.

“So, what are we bidding for?” it perked.

“Information,” Lila said. “When the elf Zal Ahriman became a demon something happened here to him. I want to know what and how. And when I know, I’m going to do it too.”

“Well that’s easy,” the imp whispered. “Every demon in the seven cities knows how you do that. It’s the one legend of our world that never disappoints. You don’t need the Souk at all, unless you need magic for something else. All you need to do is go through Hell.”

Zal had gone about a hundred metres when he heard a familiar voice behind him and the sound of light fey feet running.

“Hey! Wait up.”

He turned, grateful the back street behind the hotel was deserted except for an automated trash-collection bot doing the round of the bins. Poppy was bright, vivacious, sensationally dressed and together they could attract more attention in two minutes than a full-scale car crash at a city centre junction. His understated clothes and broad-brimmed hat, chosen to make him seem unremarkable in Otopia, were pointless beside her resplendent rainbow of clothing and her flaring green hair.