Necropolis

yet these markets were full of horrible things. She saw dozens of live chickens trapped in tiny cages and — next to them — dead ones, beaten utterly flat and piled up like deformed pancakes. On the stand next door, there was an eel cut into two pieces, surrounded by a puddle of blood. A goat's head hung on a hook, its eyes staring lifelessly, severed arteries spilling out of its neck. It was surrounded by the other pieces of what had once been its body. And finally, there was a whole fish, split lengthways, the two bloody halves lying side by side. That was in many ways the most disgusting sight of all. The wretched creature was still alive. She could see its internal organs beating.
    Mrs. Cheng took one look at it and smiled. "Fresh!" she said.
    Scarlett wondered how long she could stay in Hong Kong without becoming a vegetarian.

    They continued on their way, walking past a row of meat shops. Mrs. Cheng was going to cook again that night and she was looking for ingredients. As they paused for a moment, Scarlett noticed one of the butchers staring at her. He was completely bald with a large, round head and a strange, childlike face.
    He seemed fascinated by her, as if she were a film star or visiting royalty. And he wasn't concentrating on what he was doing.
    He was chopping up a joint of meat with a small axe. Scarlett watched the blade come down once, twice…
    On the third blow, the butcher missed the meat and hit his own left hand. She actually saw the metal cut diagonally into the flesh at the wrist, almost completely severing his thumb as well. Blood spouted. But that wasn't the real horror.
    The butcher didn't notice.
    He raised the axe again, unaware that his hand was lying flat on the chopping board, the thumb twitching, the pool of blood widening. He was so interested in Scarlett that he hadn't noticed what he'd done. Scarlett stared at him in total shock, and that must have warned him, because at that point he looked down and backed away immediately, cradling the injured hand, then disappearing into the dark interior of the shop.
    What sort of man could just about cut off his own hand without any sort of reaction? On the chopping board, human blood mingled with animal blood. It was no longer possible to tell which was which.
    Scarlett didn't eat meat that night. And as soon as she had finished dinner, she went back to her room.
    The apartment had cable TV and she watched a rerun of an old British comedy. It didn't make her laugh, but at least it reminded her of home. She was thinking more and more about leaving. If her father didn't arrive soon, she would insist on it. How could this have happened to her? How had she found herself on the wrong side of the world, on her own?
    She went over to the window and looked out.
    Hong Kong by night was even more stunning than it was by day. The windows were ablaze —
    thousands of them — and all the skyscrapers used light in different ways. Some seemed to be cut into strange shapes by great slices of white neon. Others changed color, going from green to blue to mauve as if by some sort of electronic magic. And quite a few of them carried television screens so huge that they could be read all the way across the harbor, advertisements and weather information glowing in the night, reflecting in the dark water below.
    One such building was directly opposite her. As she gazed out, thinking about the butcher, thinking about the still-living fish that had been cut in half, she found herself being drawn almost hypnotically toward the building. It must have belonged to some sort of bank or financial center — the screen was displaying the performance of stocks and shares. But even as Scarlett watched, the long lists of numbers were wiped from left to right and replaced by four letters in burning gold.
    SCAR
    It was her own name, or at least half of it. She smiled, wondering what the letters actually stood for.
    South China Associated Railways? Steamed Chicken And Rice? But then four more letters appeared, tracking from the other side.
    LETT
    And that was no abbreviation. It was her. Scarlett. The two blocks had formed her name, and now they were flashing at her as if trying to attract her attention. She stood at the window, not quite believing what she was seeing. Was someone really trying to send her a message, using an electric sign on the side of a building to get it across?
    A few seconds later, the screen changed. Now it had turned white, and the message it was