The Demon and the City

irritating a thing at a time like this, he could not have said. The demon had taken him all over the Shaopeng district, waltzing her toy along. He kept trying to avert his head from her stale, hot breath.
    He had long since ceased trying to keep upright: it was easier to let go and let her swing him about as she chose. He was fairly certain that his ankle was broken because he had felt the snap, a wet blow to his lower leg, but he could not feel much anymore. Dimly, he remembered that the demon had killed Chara before picking him up and dancing off with him. He hoped devoutly that she would tire of it soon, kill him too and then it would be done with and over. She did not seem to be tiring, however, and now he saw with despair that they were back at the upper end of Shaopeng. As they whirled along the center of the street, the demon's feet striking sparks from the downtown rails, he felt a convulsive movement beneath them. At first he thought that it was the demon, throwing him around; he was too sick and giddy to think much of it, but then it came again and somewhere within his bruised brain the word "earthquake" reverberated. They had said that another quake was coming, some rumor that had been running rife in Shaopeng since the evening. It threw the demon off balance. She stumbled, and as she did so, she let him go, flinging him haphazardly from her.
    He landed at the edge of the road, and with a dulled horror watched his hands sink into the surface of the pavement as they clawed frantically for a hold. The tremor had liquefied the road surface and it trembled and quivered beneath him. He dragged himself, half-swimming, across the pavement and pulled himself upright against a teetering awning. Gasping, his hand to his mouth, he glanced across the street and saw the demon poised on a shuddering shelf of roadway. Slowly, elegantly, she pointed one clawed foot forward and then dived, graceful as a swan, into the molten stone sea below her. The road closed silently over the gap caused by her passage. Unable to move, he grasped the pole of the awning like a man drowning and before his eyes the length of Shaopeng once again opened up and cracked from end to end.

Fifty-Eight
    Zhu Irzh shook himself. For a moment there, he had forgotten who he was. As ruffled as a cat rubbed up the wrong way, he turned to Mhara. "Where's everyone else?"
    "On their way," the prince of Heaven said calmly.
    "I don't even remember becoming separated."
    "We weren't. It's just that none of us could see the others. But I could sense all of you, and that's when I realized what had happened. Shai is bending in on itself, causing distortions. The damage that the goddess has done to the meridians is creating an echo in her temple."
    Zhu Irzh looked around at the frozen plain, the great gate.
    "Where are we?"
    "In Shai . . ." Mhara looked thoughtful. "When all this is over, it would benefit the Feng Shui Practitioners' Guild to have this place thoroughly investigated. Shai contains much more than it appears."
    Zhu Irzh snorted. "If there's a Guild left . If they haven't been lynched by an angry mob."
    "There'll certainly be an investigation," Chen said, manifesting from apparently empty air. He was joined by Robin and Paravang Roche, who looked as gratifyingly baffled as Zhu Irzh himself, and finally Jhai, who snarled at the others and slunk to the demon's side. He put a wary arm around her.
    "Senditreya isn't far away," Mhara said. "She'll sense intruders." He stepped forward. "Detective Chen, this is something I must do. But I'll need your help."
    Zhu Irzh thought that Robin was about to say something, but she closed her mouth and looked unhappy instead.
    "All right," Chen said, adding with a smile, "I'm not going to argue with the future Jade Emperor."
    "We have the ingredients for a spell," Mhara said. "Something simple, and protective, and old. You five represent the elements—the demon here is fire, because he is from Hell. Robin is water, because she's a woman. Paravang the dowser is earth, and you, Detective Chen—because you are a blade of the state—are metal. And Jhai is wood, the uncertain element."
    Chen nodded, and the demon thought he understood. "Together, we are the world," Chen said.
    "And even a goddess will find it a little hard to challenge the world," Mhara remarked. "But her powers are waning. She's going back to being the human she used to be, although she won't be there yet. To fight her, I need to draw on powers that