Selling Out (5 page)

The pencil tasted of lemonade. Her notes—all handwritten, because there was no electricity in Demonia, and because she must have something that made her look scholarly—fluttered gently on the warm breeze and would have blown away except for the pretty dark-blue paperweight that held them down. It was made of a smooth stone that Lila liked to touch, sculpted into the shape of a sleeping cat. She felt very content as she stroked it absently with her finger and let the tension drop out of her shoulders. Far from being the appalling assignment she had feared, Demonia was like a holiday.

The soft green of the library walls made a perfect frame for the soft yellow and apricot sky, she thought as she contemplated yet another spectacular demonian sundown. The batlike, birdlike, and aetheric forms of airborne demons skimmed and darted, and the pretty paper fans of the strange one- and two-person cars that floated like boats sailed soundlessly through lanes of air, their propellers whirring. The orange sunset brought out the beautiful tones of the city colours even more vividly so that the city seemed to hum or sing with hues, and between the buildings everywhere the canals wound in the perfect complement of aqua tones.

This was the problem with Demonia, Lila thought, drunk on its beauty one more time. It was devastatingly gorgeous. Every view was a postcard, every street a picture book, every store an Aladdin’s cave, every coffee house a cornucopia of sweets and scents and divine potions. There was far too much art in Demonia, and most of it was good, unlike in Otopia, where there was quite a lot of art, but much of it mediocre. And for those who didn’t think that beauty was the epitome of art, or evolution, or what have you, there were whole streets, movements, theatres, districts, societies, lunch clubs, guilds, and gangs devoted to exploring alternative philosophies. In fact, Lila had begun to suspect that if she toured the entire world she would find that there was no niche of political, intellectual, artistic, scientific, or aesthetic tradition that could not boast at least a tea house, a couple of galleries, a regular forum, and a devoted sect of followers. And this was before she could begin to take account of the social whirl of parties, dinners, breakfasts, wakes, impromptu theatrical productions, musical gatherings, orations, show trials, exhibitions, duels, fêtes, screenings, demonstrations, public experiments, engineering bees, concerts, recitals, spontaneous improvisations, races, fights, and shindigs of every conceivable kind which went on day and night, night and day.

In fact it was a relief to be sitting here engrossed by the day’s offerings from the librarian who had been retained for her by Sorcha’s family, and not to be still at the eight-day round of celebrations that had been her “preliminaries” and introduction to demon society. No debutante of any kind could have been more thoroughly exhausted than Lila by the talking, dancing, eating, drinking, and enjoying of fine things than she was—and she was fusion powered. Though recently it had begun to seem that she was canapé and champagne, or beer and pretzel, or coffee, tea, and cake powered.

Of course, demons themselves knew absolutely that overdoing a pleasure made it a chore, and so prior to her commencing study she and Sorcha had been shipped off to a spa and subjected to a week’s worth of detoxification and relaxation. Again, this was a pleasure in itself that was prolonged to the point of torment; but this moment of having had a complete glut of a particular experience was the point. It had a name, eualusia, beautiful boredom, and the pursuit of the perfect moment of eualusia was one of the more important games, one of millions, that demons played routinely.

Lila had no doubt that eventually she would find the library’s eualusic point, but it wasn’t going to be for a long time yet. She glanced back down to her page where she was trying to write a basic tourist primer on Demonian culture.

“Demon children are serious, studious, and highly focused. Demonia is governed and administered in civil, military, and economic affairs by sub-nineteen-year-olds. They are born with inherited memories, full of the information collected by all of their genetic and aetheric ancestors. This equips them for mastery of intellectual affairs by the age of ten. They are expected to apply themselves monastically to academic, civil, or military duties until the age of majority (nineteen), when they inevitably drift off into more selfish pursuits, at least some of every day devoted to an art.

“A list of what demons consider art is so long as to be unpublishable. Any endeavour or project is elevated to artistic status by the energy, devotion, and skill with which it is pursued. The demon who exerts him or her self most completely and who achieves greatness in any sphere is considered worthy of the label artist. Those who also live the rest of their lives to the fullest expression are considered Maha Anima (great spirits) and are the most powerful of their kind.

“Demon adults are tricky. They reach complete adulthood at twenty-five, after which their interest in self-sacrificing affairs, such as government, declines. Demons view governance, jurisprudence, and the administrative affairs of their world as a tedious yet essential function. It is their duty to serve nine years of complete devotion to the correct practice of these affairs, after which they never again bother with it. They become much more independent, voracious, and sexually active (in Demonia sex is an art, of course; a social as well as a personal and physical one—and although demons can reproduce sexually this isn’t their only means and reproduction is not considered an important function of sex per se).

“In old age demons become increasingly capricious, selfish, and devious. The highest mortality rates occur in the over-200s, who succumb to death matches and murders over petty arguments. The more petty, the more vicious. These squabblematches have consumed entire families, and it is unusual for any adult demon not to be involved in some sort of scheme, vendetta, or equivalent. Children are excluded from such obligations—they have the country to run.”

She was aware, as she added the final line, of Tath’s interest. Taking advantage of a quiet minute or two and her distraction he had leaked himself quietly down through her limbs and was making cautious contact with the air.

“Watch it,” Lila murmured. “No glamourising me.”

I am watching
, Tath said, hovering at the level of her skin.
And it would be difficult to add anything to your costume. Zal’s sister has execrable taste. Almost on a par with the faeries.

Lila glanced down at herself. She was wearing what, in Otopia, would be considered a dress suitable for dancing the tango. It was cut up to here and down to there and clung to her skin by charm. Where it touched it was frosted with glitter and the glitter extended out on her bare arms and legs. Her arms looked strong and tanned. Her legs were the silver metal of their natural composition from above the knee down. Sorcha had insisted that this was better than any boots to be bought anywhere in the city. Through various bits of turquoise filminess Lila’s tankini underwear showed dark blue. There was, she thought, enough eye makeup on her to make any Goth proud. She could feel its unfamiliar stickiness and again resisted an urge to rub her eyelids.

“Ah, don’t tell me,” she said, witnessing the merest flare of grass green
andalune
flip a piece of dress fabric contemptuously, “you wouldn’t be seen dead in it.”

And matching wit. Did nobody explain the complete lack of style in having coordinated accessories?

Lila got the feeling—not her own, but Tath’s overspill—that he was enjoying himself. “You can wear it later,” she promised.

“Oh . . . thank you,” replied a voice as dry as dead leaves behind her.

Before she had a chance to move something flashed past her face and whipped around her neck. It was, she thought, oddly sleek and violet for a garrotte.

Time, as it does in those moments when only actions are of importance, slowed down, aided in obedience by Lila’s processors accelerating her speed of thought and motion beyond human. Before the long thin line had a chance to bite into her she got the fingers of her right hand under it and then felt that it was no mundane line at all, but a wiry, curious flesh. It was deployed with great force however, and her own knuckles were soon pressed into her throat. If they had been flesh fingers she thought they would almost certainly have been cut in two. But they were not flesh and they did not yield to the terrible decapitating pressure of her would-be murderer. Her delicate skin became hard as metal, fusing tough around the site of contact and gripping the garrotte tightly. Then, with a kind of joyful fierceness amid the surge of all her battle responses, Lila pulled back against the line.

A bitter cold pierced her left shoulder.

At the same moment she felt Tath retreat to no more than a green-tinged haunt in her chest. He whispered, faint as a final breath,
Poison in the left strike seeks death. This is no game or casual play. You must show no mercy.
She thought he sounded afraid.

The line gave suddenly without any warning and her hand slammed down, through the desk before her, splintering it into smithereens and scattering her notes and books to the floor. In the second it took her to stand and turn she was stabbed three more times in the left upper back. From the wounds a great dullness began to spread, not cold itself, but grey and thick, like fog.

Her right thigh opened with smooth clockwork precision and she took out the gun, always loaded, that was kept there in the hollow where a bone would be. The first shots were out of it before the image of her assailant had resolved to more than a blur of lilac and blue in her vision. The ammunition was simple metal bullets—a choice she had made after Zal’s warning, because they were not often fatal to demons. She had thought that if duelling was so commonplace and stealthy traps so often employed, she didn’t want to accidentally slaughter someone attempting a lighthearted bit of maiming. There were few things more second eleven than counterattacking with excessive force. Hence, the shots were only to buy time.

She was already dropping the weapon as the demon surged to its feet. It was tall, and like a dog standing on hind legs more than like a human. In its right paw the long poniard it had used to stab her dripped with red. The fogging of her body slowed as emergency counteragents were released by her phylactery. She achieved balance and a good look at her enemy.

His long snout was snarling, showing long teeth shrouded in wal rusy whiskers. Yellow eyes gleamed from narrow slits on either side of the long head where a ruff of spines rattled at her in orange profusion. The demon’s broken tail whipped back and forth, scattering drops of blue blood which steamed and fizzed.

“What was THAT for?” Lila demanded. As she spoke she was weaving back and forth, balanced on the balls of her feet, letting her AI help her intuit the opportunity for a strike. She was ready to go in bare-handed but, as her assailant wove back and forth, arms and hands—there were four of them, disconcertingly—snaking in a hypnotic rhythm, she took the time to slip a blade out of her left leg’s armoury and into her hand. Warm liquid ran down her back and she had to pass the knife across to her right side as her left arm slowly numbed.

The demon simply snarled in a guttural way for a reply. She feinted and it stood back, waiting for its poisons to take effect. Its eyes never blinked. Lila, desperate that her introduction to demon society should not begin with a miscalculated slaying, took a moment to digest the analysis of what was rushing through her bloodstream. From its filtration station in her liver her AI-self tasted the complex molecules of snake venom. Information rushed her mind, like an assault squad—it was deadly in a minute to anyone of normal human metabolism and very hard to synthesise a suitable anti-agent for in . . . Lila ignored the rest. She knew all she wanted to know. She reeled where she stood.

Convinced its attack was succeeding in paralysing her, the demon crouched and struck with a spring and a snarl. Lila used some heavy hydraulic assist in her hips and slid her torso aside in a move that anyone whose legs weren’t more than two-thirds of their bodyweight would never have managed. The demon’s blade, hand, and arm stabbed past her with a whoosh of cool air that lifted the delicate veils of her clothing with a soft movement like a caress. She brought her arm down and pinned the limb against her side with vicious determination. The surprised demon landed against her, its shoulder against her chest, and suddenly they were eye to eye. Lila stared hard and brought her head forward with a sharp jerk, slamming her forehead into contact with its skull. Its skin smelled of sulfur and pine, and it was damp, like a frog. Her free hand brought her blade around and pressed the tip of it into the soft flesh just below the orbit of its large, shiny eye. For an instant she looked into that window.

That’s not such a good idea
, Tath whispered but he was cowering inside so small that his voice was more like a ghostly afterthought.

The dazzling gaze of the demon was captivating. Deep inside the black pits of its pupils she could see a strange kind of swirling. It was slow and dark and beautiful.

Magic, you fool. For all that’s holy, stop! Didn’t that traitor teach you anything at this spy school? Strike or be damned!

In her veins the poison and her body fought one another. Murky pain made her sluggish but her machine parts, unaffected, stayed strong. The demon made a tentative pull but it was stuck fast. She pushed the knife into its skin. Blue streaked down the blade and gave off a pale smoke. She was so close to it that she couldn’t help breathing some of it into her nose. For a moment she lost the sense of where she was.

A dart of shadow shot out of the demon’s eye and into her left eye. It was cold and it went straight to her heart.

Fuck!
Tath said, discovered.

The demon sucked in a huge, fast, astonished breath and its free arm punched Lila in the head with the force of a sledgehammer. Only because she was machine did she hold her grip as her head rocked and bright pain shot through her toughened skull. The shadow in her heart began to expand and it was soft, like twilight. It made her feel sleepy and sad. The demon started to hammer her with blows. It jerked its head back and thrashed, kicking ineffectually at her armoured legs. The combination of poison and shadow made Lila feel as though she was swimming in mud but her grip on the creature was so powerful it could not wriggle free. She plunged her knife into its neck, angling up under the jaw and giving a good jerk to the blade as she did so. A gout of blue, like an ink explosion, burst out over her. Hot clouds billowed off it and blinded her. She felt needle teeth sink into her shoulder. Something pumped into her flesh, painful and tight. The shadow started to slow her heart.