The Demon and the City

few magnates who possessed unnatural concubines. But such a role wasn't good enough for Jai. She wanted her own empire; not just to be an adjunct, some kind of supernatural grande horizontale  . . . And now that Paugeng was established as one of the principal corporations of Asia—and perhaps, if her plans came to pass, the world—Jhai was about to blow it completely by getting involved with a policeman. No, she wasn't, she told herself sternly. Zhu Irzh was dangerous: to Jhai, to Paugeng, to the schemes that she was so carefully nurturing. She would stay well away from Zhu Irzh in the future, if she had any sense.
    She got up from the bed and crossed to the wardrobe.
    "Open," she murmured, and the doors slid smoothly aside. Her saris hung in a neat, multicolored line along one end of the spacious closet; she preferred them for work. The Indian dress was like a badge, setting her aside from the mainly Chinese personnel. But she had plenty of Western clothes, too, ordered from New York and Paris over the Net. She would not be wanting any of those tonight, Jhai thought. Soon, she would be going back down to the office, and working. Her hand snaked out and plucked a little spangled dress from its perfumed hanger. Thousands of tiny beads rustled as she pulled it over her head. Unbidden, the image of Zhu Irzh sidled into her mind: pale, handsome face alight with amusement, the gilded gaze fixed on her face and leaving no doubt as to what was going through his mind. He was taller than Jhai, too; surrounded by short men, she had reason to appreciate the fact. And he as a demon . . .she'd heard stories, erotic and disturbing. A policeman, Jhai thought, shaking her head. How in all the worlds did someone like that get to be a policeman? He looked as though he should be propping up a couch in some seraglio. Her thoughts drifted away into uncharted territory. She took some trouble over her make-up.
    When she had finished, Jhai looked at herself and abandoned all pretence that she had any intention of working. Before she left, she looked in on her mother, dressing for the opera.
    "You're dressed very smartly tonight," Opal had replied, without even looking round. How did she do that? It unnerved Jhai.
    "I've got a meeting with someone. Anyway, I think it's good for company morale if I dress for the evening." It was a pathetic excuse, an attempt to stave off the lecture which inevitably followed.
    "This is foolish! He is a demon, like—well, anyway, not a stupid man, even if he is not on our level, Jhai. He knows what you are doing."
    Her daughter took a deep breath. Once again, her mother, who had been nowhere near recent events at Paugeng, had proved that she knew exactly what Jhai was up to. "I know what I'm doing."
    "There is nothing there for you—just lust. It is not clever." Opal segued into the wider argument, a hardy perennial these days. "You should find a nice girl and settle down."
    "Oh, for God's sake, Mother!"
    "You're twenty-nine years old."
    "I'm sorry, Opal, who did you say was primitive?"
    "I am talking about a political connection."
    "I know what you're talking about. You want to fix me up with Aily Pardua. Last year, I seem to recall, it was Beth Murriday from that oil company, and look what happened to that. I'm not going to be a laughingstock just because you start parading every available young woman in town in front of me."
    "It's not as though you don't like girls . . ." her mother mused, brutally. "But all the ones you choose seem so . . .so . . ."
    "Poor?"
    "Perhaps not very appropriate. But at least they were female. Not some unhuman gentleman from who knows where."
    "One presumes that my father is out there somewhere."
    Her mother bridled. "I chose very carefully from the implant clinic. Your grandmother and I went to the cache together, the most selective place. I was twenty-three, a very good age."
    "I don't see why it was a better age than any other. I mean, I wasn't in you for long, was I? I was in some test tube!"
    Her mother's artfully outlined lips compressed.
    "Oh, look, I'm sorry." She put her arms around Opal's shoulders.
    "I know." Opal's face became indulgent. "You want to enjoy yourself a little. Well, so did I." She kissed her daughter on the cheek. "Go on. Go and have fun. But be careful."
    Downstairs, Jhai called for a car, asking for the anonymous black Mercedes coupe, without a driver. She picked up the car on the Paugeng forecourt and took the coast road to the