The Demon and the City

and then suddenly it dropped her and sprang away through the snowy petals, a heavy, bolting form, four-legged. In the little exchange, someone started to weep, softly at first, and then louder, until it was a voice that boomed out across the graveyard, filling the sky and bringing down a hail of stars, hissing from the heavens into the damp soil of the cemetery. Robin cowered by the grave marker, her arms bent ineffectually over her head, pain throbbing in her knee. She felt hands beneath her and then someone lifted her up.
    "No more," she cried, and struck out. A hand caught her wrist and held it.
    "No more," someone agreed, and she relaxed. She was hurried from the cemetery, half-lifted to help her limping gait. Behind them, the green shoots of thousand-flower began to lift through the soil, in each place where a star had fallen.

Nineteen
    After a long and difficult conversation with Captain Sung, Zhu Irzh had been given a couple of days off work. Long and difficult conversations with the captain were becoming a habit, he thought resentfully. Next morning, therefore, he locked up the houseboat and walked across to Haitan market. He needed provisions, after his time away from home, and he also wanted to consider Jhai Tserai. He had to admit that she was highly entertaining, whatever demonic bargains she might have been engaged in. He grinned to himself, causing the few fellow shoppers who could see him to shuffle nervously or find something unexpectedly fascinating on the fish counter at the opposite end of the row. Zhu Irzh didn't notice; he was too busy thinking about Jhai. His longing for her was, he reluctantly conceded, more than desire; it was opportunity.
    Even if people could see him, they tended to find him sinister; including the not very alluring women who hung around the Ghenret go-downs and the slightly more attractive boys in Shaopeng tram station. If he allowed himself to become closer to Jhai, there might be an opportunity to find out more about whatever she had been doing. This, he decided, was a reasonable plan. Sung might have sidelined him in the course of the investigation, but that altered nothing. He was hot on the trail, he told himself. He was dedicated to upholding the right of the law. He forced away the knowledge that it was nothing more than an excuse.
    The market was crowded today. Zhu Irzh was obliged to queue for everything, and submitted to being elbowed in the ribs by fierce elderly ladies. At last he came to his final purchases. He had bought enough for two or three days, a diet that emphasized meat, as befitted someone with Zhu Irzh's carnivorous teeth. The meat here always tasted slightly strange, not horrible, but a bit flat. He had seen cattle in the city, roaming through the vacant lots like huge, tethered shadows, and had been wary of them until Ma reminded him that they were herbivores. In Hell, nothing was a herbivore.
    Zhu Irzh reached the boat and fumbled the round key out of his pocket. Inside, the boat was dim and stuffy. The badger-teakettle sat on its shelf, in its inanimate form. Zhu Irzh watched it warily for a moment, trying to work out whether it had moved since the morning. It seemed to have given up being a badger, at least while he was around. He opened all the windows, arranged the food in the small refrigerator, then swung himself up onto the windowsill to watch the regular Tevereya ferry sailing past, silently across the sunlit bay. The coins of the I Ching rattled in his pocket; fishing them out in a sudden whim, he shook, and threw, and threw again. The sunlight flashed up from the water, dazzling him, and for a moment he could not tell whether the light had come from the sea or from the coins that now lay so innocently beneath his hand. It was the configuration of Hsiao Kuo. The Small Get By .
    Encouraged by this, Zhu Irzh went to the cupboard and found a bottle of Hell's finest brandy, which he had been saving for medicinal purposes. He was feeling a little off-color still, not quite himself. This, he thought, was as medicinal as it got. The liquor seared an icy trail down his throat, bringing a semblance of clarity in its wake.
    "What is wrong?" asked a thick voice behind him. It was as though Earth had spoken. Zhu Irzh turned to see the badger-teakettle, Inari's family familiar, standing four-square on the deck.
    "I attacked someone today," Zhu Irzh muttered. "For no reason, with no warning, and in an embarrassingly uncontrolled manner. I'm never