The Demon and the City

where Maiden Ming had got to. Having no desire, in his current mood, to encounter his rival, he stepped swiftly into the nearest cubicle and closed the door. There was the murmur of conversation, which Pin could not hear, and then a brief flurry of movement. Pin raised his eyes to the ceiling and waited. He heard the door swing open, and a grunt of exertion as someone emerged. Then the bathroom door whirred open and closed. Cautiously, Pin pushed the cubicle door aside and peered out. The bathroom was empty. He stepped out and paused: on the floor, just in front of the cubicle, was a single drop of blood. In the pallor of the surrounding room, it seemed almost to glow.
    Pin knew that there was always the danger, in this particular kind of environment, that one would meet people whose tastes ran to extremes: his own memory winced from certain recollections. He despised Ming, but she was a member of the opera, and therefore one of his own. He ran to the bathroom door, listened for a moment, then stepped carefully through. The corridor was empty. Pin took a deep, steadying breath. Something had happened to Ming, presumably at the hands of one of the guests. Pin thought fast.
    Appealing to his hostess was out of the question. The role of chorus people, during their off-hours, was to attend social functions, to be amiable and amusing, and to provide discreet services for the guests, for which they would be handsomely paid. They were also supposed to keep their mouths firmly shut. If Pin started making a fuss, he'd be branded a troublemaker, and why would Jhai Tserai care, anyway? Why would anyone care what happened to some little chorus girl? People like Ming and Pin went missing every day. Sometimes they turned up alive, but usually they did not turn up at all, and one was obliged to shrug one's shoulders and carry on as usual. Pin was suddenly sickened by his environment. He considered going alone in search of Ming, but surely the place was a hive of security cameras, and he had no wish to be found somewhere that he shouldn't be. Indecisively, he bit his lip; the impulse toward heroics warred with self-preservation, and the latter won. Guiltily, he made his way back to the party.
    Back in the ballroom, the party was getting into its stride.
    Pin found Zhu Irzh sitting on a couch, talking to a middle-aged man whom he evidently knew. Pin appraised the stranger with a practiced eye, and noticed two things: firstly, the man was entirely unremarkable, and secondly, he did not appear to be enjoying himself. As the demon talked, the stranger's gaze roamed around the room with ill-concealed distaste, which did not alter substantially when it focused on Pin.
    "Ah," Zhu Irzh said, with apparent pleasure. "The young man from the opera. Chen, this is Pin, from the Pellucid Island Opera Company. Pin, this is my colleague, Detective Inspector Chen, who works for the police force."
    "Delighted," Pin said, faintly. So, those odd rumors about the demon's involvement with the police were true. That wasn't reassuring. Chen nodded, amiably enough, then turned back to Zhu Irzh. Pin sat down on a nearby chair and pretended not to be listening to their conversation, which was about the weather, all the time thinking: What has happened to Ming? At last, shame overcame his natural caution of the police and he blurted out, "I think something terrible's happened."
    Zhu Irzh and Chen looked at him, startled.
    "What? Why?" Chen asked, blinking. Having begun, Pin could hardly retract what he had said. He explained.
    "And you're sure it was your friend in the cubicle?" Chen said.
    "She's not exactly—yes. And there was blood on the floor."
    Chen sat forward in his chair and massaged his forehead. "All right. What are we going to do?"
    The demon said, consideringly, "I have a certain amount of license to roam the premises. I'll go and look for the girl. You stay here; pretend to have a conversation."
    Pin and Chen looked at one another with a mutual lack of appreciation, and reluctantly agreed. Zhu Irzh vanished in the direction of the door, and Pin and Chen embarked upon a desultory discourse about the opera for the next fifteen minutes, whereupon Zhu Irzh slid back onto the couch like a ghost.
    "She's not in the apartments," the demon said. "I can't sense her anywhere, either. I don't think there's more you can do for your friend, Pin. Maybe you should go home. I'll try and find out what's happened to her."
    "I can't go," Pin said. "I'm contracted