The Demon and the City

make love to you?"
    So she lay back and let him. He was very gentle, taking a lot of time, and eventually she was amazed to find that his hands and his mouth were drowning out the tug of the drug. Lost in desire, she ignored the fact that its control was slipping away until Zhu Irzh rolled over, pulling her with him so that they were both half-sitting. He cupped her breast in one long hand and reached behind her with the other, stroking her back.
    "Well, well," the demon said softly. Jhai felt a twinge at the base of her spine, and then something . . .unrolled. It happened very fast, with a twinge not unlike neuralgia. Jhai and the demon looked down. A tail was coiling around the demon's wrist. It was not like Zhu Irzh's own whip-thin tail. It was sleek, and tiger-striped. Jhai glanced down. Her rib cage was banded with shadows. She opened her mouth and her incisors slid neatly down behind her upper lip.
    "I must say," Zhu Irzh remarked, as if commenting on the weather. "This does explain a lot."
    "Zhu Irzh—"
    "You," said the demon reprovingly, nipping her throat, "are a very bad girl."
    "Don't patronize me! I didn't mean—"
    "I don't suppose you did." Zhu Irzh hissed. His erection slid along her thigh. A swift movement took her onto her back, tail lashing, and then the demon was hard inside her. She'd had no idea that demons would make so much noise, snarling and growling like that, but then Jhai glanced up into Zhu Irzh's abstracted face and realized that it wasn't him, it was her. And that was the last thought she had, for some time.
    When it was over, she sat up and looked at him. Zhu Irzh was lying with one arm flung up over his head, staring at the ceiling. She ran her hands down his chest. His breathing began to deepen.
    "Why do men always go to sleep?" She could feel his body starting to shake. It was a moment before she realized that he was laughing. He pulled her down beside him and stretched out. She thought he was watching her but his breathing slowed again and she realized that although his eyes were open and reflecting the starlight, he slept. And after a few moments, with her tail entwined with his, so did Jhai.
     

HSIAO CHU:
The Taming Power of the Small
Twenty-One
    Robin must have fainted, because she could not remember leaving the cemetery. When at last she regained consciousness, she was lying on something soft that smelled familiar, a warm, reassuring smell, and the bags beneath her were full of something scratchy. She perceived that she was lying on a bag stuffed with hay, and the dusty darkness about her was a cattle shed of some kind. She could see the beasts themselves: horned, matted, with long, ruminative faces.
    Someone came through into the stall and the cattle stamped nervously, tapping their hooves against the rough concrete. Someone murmured something. A calm blue gaze shone through the gloom.
    "It's you," Robin said. Her victim had come back, free and predatory, and she was aware only of relief.
    "I came back," Mhara agreed. The blue eyes were wells in the darkness, the color of the indigo washing powder that spilled across the market stalls.
    "What happened to me?" Robin asked. He had bound up her knee, which was stiff and sore.
    "I don't know. You were with—people, I think, but the dead. Ghosts." Mhara took her chin in his hand and turned her face to the light from the street that crept in between the slats of the go-down shed.
    "Your face is burned. I don't know how it happened."
    "It licked me," Robin whispered, remembering. She heaved herself to her elbows and looked at him. "Oh, Mhara," she said, before she could stop herself. "I'm so sorry. For what I did to you."
    "I know. It's all right."
    "Why did you come back?" she asked in a small voice. "You should kill me, by rights. I tortured you."
    "Do you think so? Not as much as you fear, perhaps. You don't know much about me, Robin, the kind of person I am." The predatory hand stroked her hair. "Do you want to rest some more?"
    "No . . . I think we should make a move. Paugeng security will be looking for you. And me." She stood and the bound knee gave way. Mhara caught her arm.
    "I'm sorry," Robin whispered. "It really hurts. I think you'd better leave me, Mhara." He gave her a long, contemplative look. She amplified: "I can't walk very far. And we can't take a taxi or a tram."
    "Then we will take a boat."
    "What?"
    "We're at the back of the Shaopeng canal. Once we get on the canal, all we have to do is follow it