The Demon and the City

roof came down, and now the faithful milled unhappily around its walls as if seeking shelter. "I think that answers the question of whether Senditreya's here or not."
    "Here and on the rampage," Zhu Irzh remarked. "But if so, why?"
    "It might not even be intentional," Chen said. "The very presence of a goddess where no goddess is supposed to be—especially one that has such a close connection to the land itself—could be disruptive."
    "So how do we go about tracking her down?" the demon asked. "Just follow the fault lines and the havoc?"
    "The most obvious place would be Senditreya's own temple."
    "She's not likely to hole up there, is she? It's too obvious."
    "Perhaps not, but she's likely to have come to Earth there. And Zhu Irzh—wherever she goes, it will be obvious. She's a deity." He stepped out into the road and raised a hand. "Hey, there's Ma!"
    The squad car skidded to a halt. Behind the wheel, Ma's face was white with fright and concentration. Chen, the demon and the badger bundled themselves into the car.
    "Senditreya's temple, Ma. Quickly!"
    "What?" Ma stared at him. "They're saying that's the epicenter. You'll be lucky to get within half a mile of it. Buildings are collapsing all over the place."
    "Sorry, Ma, but we don't have a choice." As Ma took the car out into the road, Chen brought him up to date.
    "Well, at least the lane's clear," Ma said, after a pause. He was right: the traffic was streaming out of the city center.
    Zhu Irzh felt a growing hollowness in the pit of his belly. It had nothing to do with hunger: it was a nauseous, heady feeling exacerbated by the uneven motion of the squad car. But he wasn't normally motion sick . . . Perhaps it was something to do with the number of worlds he had so recently traveled through—some disturbance of the inner ear. How annoying, and how undignified: demons shouldn't suffer from anything except the most esoteric and exotic complaints, not just the need to throw up out of a car window.
    Beside him, Chen's gaze widened fractionally and the badger gave a low growl. Outside the curved window of the carrier, a fascinated Zhu Irzh saw, Battery Road was beginning to change. He was aware of Chen beside him, staring open-mouthed out of the window. He could feel the structure of the world altering beneath them, the Shaopeng meridian buckling and turning as it began to alter course, pulling its tributaries of ch'i with it.
    Ma turned the corner of Battery Road and headed up Shaopeng. The disruption going on underneath the city made Zhu Irzh disoriented and lightheaded, with an undertow of nausea that he was trying hard to suppress. He kept his gaze on the fixed point of the seat in front and gritted his teeth. Chen, visibly shaken, was conferring with the badger, but the beast would not speak. Its narrow jaws remained tightly shut. It closed its eyes. Creature of Earth that it was, the demon thought, perhaps it too was feeling unwell.
    Beneath the carrier, the meridian, which ran the length of Shaopeng, lurched and twisted. Zhu Irzh's instinct was to lean forward and put his head on his knees, but he was constrained by the seat belt. He shifted uncomfortably. Chen looked at him in some alarm.
    "Are you all right?"
    "Yes . . . No. The meridian's changing under Shaopeng. It's making me ill."
    The nausea was ebbing, mercifully, but his head was pounding. It felt as though someone had rung a bell in his ear. The world was full of sickly color, coming in waves and accompanied by a hot, electric smell. Zhu Irzh concentrated on his breathing. He felt unpleasantly hot. Ma took the car onto the highway toward Murray Town, and they were moving away from the main meridian. The sickness faded a little more.
    "How are you feeling now?" Chen asked, then without waiting for a reply added: "Goddess! Something's happening here as well."
    Zhu Irzh strained to look past him. Through the window he could see a line of intense color, incredibly bright, waist-high along the air. Above it, the shabby go-down entrances and shop fronts were unchanged, but below, the structures were obscured by a seething mass of air, like something seen through a blast of heat. The air writhed and billowed, causing a sort of mental recoil. Passers-by had seen it, too, and were pointing and exclaiming. Slowly, the car ground to a halt. Ma gunned the accelerator, but nothing happened. Underneath the carrier, the ground started to shake, a queasy wave of motion traveling up through the frame of the