The Devil Incarnate (The Devil of Ponong series #2) (5 page)

She bit her rough lips. The temptation to ask the Oracle a
question almost overwhelmed her.

“Never ask the goddess. She will bring you a
vision of what she wants you to see,”
her mother and grandmother had lectured.

QuiTai exhaled
slowly and opened herself to the vision.

Grief and anger rushed over her. She caught glimpses of a
Thampurian woman. One moment the woman was young and happy, the next older and
suspicious. The woman was sad and angry that her husband addicted himself to
black lotus. He was angry with her for trying to stop him from taking the
vapor, but he didn’t have the strength to pour his fury out on her. Impotent in
many ways, all he could do was let the rage, and black lotus, slowly eat his
soul and body.

In a voice not his own, he said, “She will marry the rice
merchant days after my funeral.”

The Oracle had spoken.

QuiTai’s shoulders slumped. She opened her eyes. Why would
the Oracle want her to know that? All this trouble for another useless vision.
She was so damn tired. The hot, stuffy room didn’t help. She turned to
Lizzriat. “I’m sorry to have endangered you for that.” Her hand flicked toward
the dreamer dismissively.

Lizzriat seemed puzzled. “For what?”

QuiTai cocked her head as she regarded Lizzriat. “Didn’t you
hear him speak?”

Lizzriat shook her head.

QuiTai wished she
had enough venom left to use Lizzriat as a conduit. Maybe then she’d know if she
lied. But what little she had left she might need to defend herself.

“Did his lips move?”

Lizzriat’s paprika
curls fell into her eyes as she shook her head.

There were times
when QuiTai swore she could feel time slow. Her pulse boomed at half the speed
of her normal heart beat. Or perhaps it was because her mind sped up and she
could see things at an accelerated pace.

This was interesting beyond measure, if the Ingosolian told
the truth. Could it be that the Oracle spoke directly into her mind? She tried
to think back to when she’d been very young and she’d witnessed the Qui
priestesses summon the Oracle. Had the conduit’s mouth moved then? She couldn’t
remember. They’d taken a tiny drop of her venom and mixed it with theirs so
that she’d been connected too.

She put on one of her resigned smiles with a tiny overtone
of chagrin, so Lizzriat would think she was a little embarrassed. “That’s the
problem with vapor addicts. Sometimes they ramble. Other times, they say
nothing.”

“So you didn’t find it?” Lizzriat frowned as she bowed her
head as if deep in thought.

“No. But I will go anyway. May your rice bowl always be
full, Lizzriat.”

Lizzriat didn’t seem relieved that she was leaving.

QuiTai set aside her
musings over the Oracle and concentrated on the now. The Ingosolian seemed to
be holding something back. “Is there a favor I could do for you in return,
since you’ve been so accommodating?”

Lizzriat drew in a
long breath. So there was something, but not a question that came easily.
QuiTai waited for her to work up the courage.

“I was warned never
to approach you, but the werewolves were hanged.”

QuiTai suddenly had
a clear understanding of the problem Lizzriat feared to speak about. “You’re
running out of black lotus.”

The tension in
Lizzriat’s shoulders eased.

The regular black lotus distribution had ended when the
werewolves were arrested and executed. How interesting that no one bought
enough to last more than a few days; or maybe they couldn’t resist smoking all
they had once they’d taken the vapor.

QuiTai had run every facet of the Devil’s organization
except the black lotus trade. Petrof expressly forbade any dealer to allow her
to buy it, and made an example of the one who’d dared break his rule. It had
been his way of controlling Jezereet, and through Jezereet, hurting QuiTai. But
now Petrof was dead, and QuiTai had reclaimed the criminal enterprise she’d
built for him. There was no one left to stop her from controlling the black
lotus trade.

“Could you tell the Devil – ask the Devil, if he could
send someone? I’d be grateful.” While her words were polite enough, QuiTai
could hear what it cost Lizzriat’s pride to speak like that.

QuiTai had no doubt that gratitude was grudging at best, but
it explained Lizzriat’s reluctance to summon the soldiers more than any
supposed friendship between them. “No harm will come to you for mentioning the
black lotus to me. Since his werewolves were arrested, the Devil has been
rethinking some parts of his organization. I will remind his new dealers to
bring you some.”

“Tonight?”

QuiTai hated to disappoint a customer, even though it meant
tracking down LiHoun and asking him to find someone, anyone, in the Devil’s
network who dealt black lotus.

What a surprise that there actually was one downside to
Petrof’s demise. It bothered her that she was uninformed, and that for nearly a
week that segment of her business had been neglected. The profits on black
lotus alone... Not to mention that at any sign of weakness in the Devil’s
organization, others would try to muscle in. She’d have to retaliate, of
course, and regain control by any means necessary, but she preferred to avoid
that. She had to figure out that end of the business, and she had to do it now.

“I will see what I can do.” QuiTai never promised what she
wasn’t sure she could deliver.

Lizzriat nodded sharply. She clearly disliked being in
QuiTai’s debt.

QuiTai rose and
crossed the room. Her limp was growing worse. A warm trickle oozed down her
ankle into her sandal. She was hot and miserable and the sharp edge of her
brain felt dulled, but she couldn’t let that show. “I have a favor to ask of
you in return.”

“So many favors traded in one night. How will we keep
score?”

QuiTai’s fingertips barely brushed against Lizzriat’s arm.
It was so cool to the touch that she wanted to place her hands on it and absorb
the sensation. Lizzriat didn’t pull away as she expected. “Please be kind
enough to check the hallway for me so I can slip down the back stairs.”

Lizzriat slid the door open a few inches and peered out. She
sucked in a breath as she quickly closed it. “Governor Turyat and Chief Justice
Cuulon are in the hallway – looking for me, no doubt. They take a private
room, but they might come in here if I don’t go to them. You have to leave.
Now!”

QuiTai reached past her and pushed the door open a fraction
of an inch. She pressed her ear to the door jamb.

“She’s still out
there! She can ruin us!” the Chief Justice said. QuiTai knew his voice too
well.

Lizzriat tried to
tug the door closed. The silent but determined struggle made it almost
impossible for QuiTai to concentrate on the Chief Justice’s and the Governor’s
conversation. If only Lizzriat would stop fighting her, there would be no
reason for their bodies to be pressed so close, with so much enticing
squirming.

Focus. The Chief Justice and Governor.

Of all the corrupt officials in the colonial government,
these two would be in the best position to know who had paid Petrof to kill her
and her family. She should have waited to use them as conduits – after
all, they were frequent customers of the Dragon Pearl’s den. This fear was
muddling her brain more than she cared to admit.

“If only Zul hadn’t tricked us into taking slaves –”

That voice had to be Governor Turyat.

“Shut up!”

Zul tricked them into taking slaves? They couldn’t mean Kyam
Zul, could they? Hadre? No. A name clicked into her mind. Grandfather Zul. She
could believe he was involved. From the little she knew through Kyam, his
grandfather was a sneaky, conniving, manipulative master of intrigue.

She simply had to meet this man.

But what was this
about tricking them into taking slaves? It had been their idea, hadn’t it? She
tried to remember the exact words of her conversation with Kyam on the deck of
the
Golden Barracuda
, but couldn’t
recall it well enough. She forced herself to let it go, for now. Eventually it
would come to her. Right now, she had more pressing problems.

The violent whispers continued. “This is no time to get lost
in the vapor, Turyat. She’s escaped, she has the slaves, and she could bring us
down at any second. We have to find her!”

Lizzriat and QuiTai stared into each other’s eyes as their
silent fight for control over the door waged on. Lizzriat suddenly gripped the
back of QuiTai’s head and pulled her close for a kiss. The slide of her tongue
over QuiTai’s fangs sent strong, pleasant sensations through QuiTai’s body.

Lizzriat wasn’t the
only one who knew a few lover’s tricks. With her fingertips, QuiTai lightly
stroked the inside of Lizzriat’s wrist until she gasped and let go of QuiTai.
She tugged hard on the door, but QuiTai didn’t let go.

“That usually works
for me,” Lizzriat whispered.

QuiTai swore she could still feel Lizzriat’s tongue. “I
could say the same. But you’re welcome to try again.” Jezereet had never done
anything like that.

“I think, instead...” Lizzriat’s fingernails dug into the
scar on QuiTai’s palm.

Pain she hadn’t felt in days burned through the welt.

“We’re ruined. Ruined!” was the last thing QuiTai heard
before Lizzriat won the battle over the door.

QuiTai gently rubbed the deep pink scar line, even though
that didn’t make it feel better. “Ooh. You fight dirty.” Her gaze traveled down
to Lizzriat’s dapper half-boots and back up to her eyes. “I approve.”

“Normally I wouldn’t care, Lady QuiTai, but I’m glad you do,
because you strike me as a vindictive sort.”

“Such cruel words.”
QuiTai clasped her hands over her heart. “Alas, as you well know, it’s time for
me to go. But, um...” She flicked her tongue over her lips as her gaze made a
rather pointed journey from the ruffles of Lizzriat’s shirt to the last button
of her waistcoat. The corners of her lips curved. “Mmm.”

She’d let Lizzriat decide what that might have meant.

QuiTai limped past the stirring dreamers to the typhoon
shutters. Rain fell so heavily that she could only see the outline of the
building across the street. She gripped the veranda post and found a tenuous
toe-hold in the intricate carving before climbing down.

By t
he time
QuiTai dropped into the ankle-high muddy water that ran through the street, her
clothes were soaked. She lifted the hem of her sarong above the torrent as she
limped upslope toward PhaJut’s brothel, where she hoped to find LiHoun.

QuiTai slipped through
the back alley doorway into PhaJut’s brothel
in the Quarter of Delights. Like the Red Happiness, PhaJut’s place catered
mostly to foreigners, although his sex workers were all Ponongese.

The sour smell of the old building made her nose wrinkle. Stacks
of broken furniture crowded the dark back hallway, as they had when she’d worked
there. She ducked into the brothel’s kitchen and handed the cook a few coins to
fetch LiHoun, since she didn’t dare let the customers see her. Then she crossed
the hall to PhaJut’s office to wait. If PhaJut objected to her visit, too bad.
Her rapidly dwindling supply of tact had been nearly depleted in the Dragon
Pearl.

Luckily, he wasn’t in his office. It was a small, dimly lit
room with a desk and only one chair – he’d always liked to make his
visitors stand. There wasn’t much on his desk, not because PhaJut was an
orderly person, but because brothels, while legal, tended to be secretive
businesses. Her desk at the Red Happiness was also bare.

She moved the desk chair close to the window before she sat
and faced the door. Just this one little piece of business and then she could
rest. Her chin sank toward her chest. She jerked back her head and opened her
eyes wide. Lethargy crept over her. She bit her lip and stretched her arms.

Quiet footsteps headed down the hallway. She rose and
perched on the window sill in case she had to make a quick escape. The door
creaked open. LiHoun peered into the room. Seeing her, he slipped in and shut
the door behind him.

The bandy-legged old
cat man drew close to her. He pressed his hands together and whispered, “Have
you eaten, grandmother QuiTai?” His vertical pupils were so enlarged that the
muted jungle green of his irises were mere halos.

“Yes, and you,
favored uncle?”

“Well enough.”

That was an unusually short answer for him.

“Is something the matter?” Her tone was sharper than she’d
meant it to be. “Forgive me, LiHoun. I’m not at my best tonight.”

Her hands clenched into fists as she tried to stop the
sideways slip of her mind. Damn that conduit back at the Dragon Pearl for
taking another pipe! Damn her venom for lingering in his system and keeping
them connected now that she had no use for him. He was dragging her under,
against her will, into vapor dream again.

LiHoun’s unblinking gaze grounded her. “I can smell sickness
on you,” he said.

She showed him her ankle. “The werewolf bite isn’t healing.”

“My women…”

“I put your family in enough danger when –” She
wouldn’t finish that sentence, but he had to know she meant when she’d sent the
escaped slaves to his house the night they’d run from Cay Rhi. “Anyway, we have
business to discuss. The Dragon Pearl is almost out of black lotus. I doubt
anyone has received a delivery since the werewolves were executed.”

LiHoun nodded. “It’s the talk of the runners in the quarter.
Everyone is looking for a source. Some say the Devil is holding back to drive
up prices. They’re all worried.”