The Devil Incarnate (The Devil of Ponong series #2) (20 page)

Some stories were like that.

The stupid part was that she didn’t have to do this. She
could retreat to one of her hidden homes, be the Devil, and reap her profits.
There was no reason to risk her life. It wasn’t as if anything she did would
ever be enough. Free some of the slaves from Cay Rhi? She should rush back in
with a foolhardy plan to free the rest. Pay the tuition for some children to go
to school? She was grooming them for the Devil’s work. Try to provide her
people with cheap rice? She was turning them into the Devil’s accomplices.

The corset under her Thampurian clothes fought against her
deep sigh. How she hated that strangulating squeeze!

Where were the conjoined twin goddesses of self-interest and
self-preservation when she needed them? Maybe, like the Oracle, they weren’t
real. Not for her. Forces beyond her control were at work, trying to make her
react. But what was it that they wanted from her? RhiHanya wanted blood.
Strangely enough, QuiTai felt that was what the other side wanted too. There
was no question in her mind now that all this trouble was meant to get her
attention. Most of the moves had affected everyone in Levapur, but closing the
school had been a uniquely personal message. A cold lump of fury settled in her
throat. All she could do now was take control as best she could and fight both
sides every inch of the way to the edge of chaos.

You are a spectacular idiot. They snap their
fingers, and you jump even when you don’t want to.

When the gold and sapphire façade of the Dragon Pearl came
into focus, QuiTai bit her lips mercilessly in the hope that they would turn
deep red like a true vapor addict’s. It was too bad her clothes were so finely
tailored to her slim frame, but one couldn’t have everything. To complete her
disguise, she set her face into an expression of furtive hunger and
desperation.

If anyone at the gaming tables watched QuiTai climb the
curving staircase to the vapor den, she didn’t see them. It was just as well,
she thought. If she’d known she’d caught a curious eye, stiffness in her
bearing or self-consciousness in her movements might have signaled that she was
aware of being watched. A real vapor addict would only have had eyes for the
second story.

She passed the door of the shared den. Tonight, she wouldn’t
waste time with ordinary citizens.

QuiTai flinched as
the shape of a person appeared before her. She scolded herself for not
remembering the plush carpet that deadened footsteps. Thankfully, she
recognized the bluish face and paprika curls before her fangs sprang forward.

“If you’re looking
for –” Lizzriat broke off with a gasp of recognition.

She gripped QuiTai’s
arm and yanked her down the hallway into a room QuiTai guessed was an office.
Lizzriat’s personal scent and the faint fragrance of her masculine perfume
scented the air. The door slammed behind her.

“What are you doing
here?” Lizzriat asked.

“Are Governor Turyat
and Chief Justice Cuulon here tonight?”

“You can’t be here.” Lizzriat leaned against the wall, arms
crossed.

“You know I wouldn’t endanger you on a whim. Much is at
stake. You heard about the raid on the Ponongese market today? I tell you that
blood will run in the gutters if I don’t figure out how to fix this before it
spirals out of control.”

“Taking on the entire colonial government single-handed?
Even if the Devil backs you –”

“I’m in no mood for small talk, Lizzriat. I need access to
the governor and chief justice, and I need it now. So tell me if they’re here.”

Lizzriat shook her head.

QuiTai’s heart sank. This business of trying to discuss
delicate matters with dimmed sight wasn’t going to work. She needed to see the
nuances of Lizzriat’s expression. She removed the glass lenses from her inner
eyelids and put them into the vials she kept in her purse.

The details of the room came into focus as her inner eyelids
rose: Lush Ingosolian furnishings cluttered the ornate little room; fringe and
rich fabrics swathed ever piece of furniture except the desk; picture frames
and little porcelain statues crowded onto every surface.

Lizzriat’s lacy cuffs almost covered her hands. As usual,
she wore a man’s suit. Tonight, the hat atop her curly hair tilted at a rakish
angle.

“And here I thought you were part of what’s wrong with this
island,” Lizzriat said.

QuiTai’s grin was part relief, part self-mockery. “This
week, I’m playing the part of the reluctant hero. When this is over, I’ll
return to my usual role as scourge of Levapur.”

“Couldn’t talk anyone else into sacrificing himself?”

“If you have anyone else in mind...”

“Kyam Zul was here just minutes ago, also asking to see
Governor Turyat and Chief Justice Cuulon.”

QuiTai wasn’t sure
if she wanted to curse or thank her stars that Kyam was on the same trail she
was. She had no idea why he wanted to talk to them, but it was possible that he
too was trying to get to the bottom of the market fiasco. She’d have to talk to
him soon, even though it might be an awkward discussion.

“I showed him into
their private room, but he found them in no condition to help.”

“Then they are here.”

Lizzriat didn’t seemed happy that she’d let that slip. Her
mouth twisted in varying expressions of anger and unhappiness until she finally
sighed. “I don’t know why I risk my neck to help you.”

“It’s my charming personality.”

“Or the fact that you could cut off my black lotus supply.”

QuiTai clutched her hands to her chest. “Finally, someone
who understands me.”

Lizzriat chuckled quietly. “You could say I’m well aware of
whom I’m dealing with. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re poisonous.”

“I have a stomach full of worship and it’s giving me
indigestion. So I’ll take it as an insult – with a grain of tikkut. I’d
hoped to keep our relationship cordial.”

After examining her
flawless, buffed nails, Lizzriat finally met QuiTai’s gaze. “Cordial is such a
cold, formal word. A Thampurian word. I prefer something a bit warmer, and from
what I’ve heard, most of your relationships are torrid.”

QuiTai smiled
weakly, acknowledging but dismissing Lizzriat’s suggestive tone. “I take it the
governor and chief justice are in vapor dream?”

Her graceful shrug proved that Lizzriat wasn’t offended.
Some flirtations weren’t meant to lead to anything; they were simply undertaken
for the pleasure of it. Then she nodded.

“Excellent. If you please, show me the way.”

“I don’t know what you did to that customer the last time
you were here. All you did was hover over him. I watched him carefully, but he
showed no signs that you’d harmed him. Do I have your word that you won’t hurt
the governor or the chief justice?”

“They will not be harmed, and they will have no memory that
I was here.”

“They’d better not.” This time, there was a hard edge to
Lizzriat’s voice.

~ ~ ~

Lizzriat gestured to
the insensate figures of Governor Tur
yat and Chief Justice Cuulon
sprawled across dreamer’s beds as if to say, “Here they are, for what it’s
worth.”

Unlike the sparse
den that common people shared down the hallway, the private room reminded
QuiTai of an Ingosolian room of ardor. Copper and purple striped paper covered
the walls. She assumed the thick velvet drapes hid typhoon shutters that led to
a private veranda. The carpet was so dense that QuiTai’s heels sank into it
with each step. In the light of the oil lamp burning on a low brass table, gold
and jewels glinted from the dreamer’s beds.

“I won’t ask what
you plan to do, but I insist that you do it quickly,” Lizzriat said.

QuiTai nodded. “Ten minutes, maybe a few more.”

“I’ll come back for you.” Lizzriat put her hand on the door
but didn’t slide it open. “Don’t kill them. I have enough troubles without two
dead Thampurians on my hands. Disposing of bodies is so difficult, don’t you
think?”

QuiTai batted her eyelashes. “I wouldn’t know.”

“Of course you wouldn’t. What was I thinking?” She smirked,
nodded to QuiTai, and left.

 
QuiTai didn’t
have time to waste. Governor Turyat supposedly knew everything that went on in
Levapur, but she knew him to be a bit of an idiot. Chief Justice Cuulon was the
real power behind the colonial government. Besides, she’d used him as a conduit
before.

She gathered her heavy skirts as she knelt beside the chief
justice. After a quick glance to make sure Lizzriat wasn’t peering through the
door, she leaned so close to his face that his rumbling snores blew in hot
gusts across her lips. It was possible that there were spy holes drilled into
the walls, so she let her braid fall across her face to block the view, opened
her mouth, and brought her fangs forward.

The drop of her venom hung heavily at the tip of her fang
before oozing into Chief Justice Cuulon’s open mouth. For a moment, she
wondered if her new crisis of faith in the Oracle would affect her ability to
link with his memories, but suddenly she was at a gambling table and she knew
she’d connected with him.

He set a tile down
on the felt. The image on it writhed into another form. He picked it up and
made a joke, but his pulse raced. He stared at the tiles in his hand. Some
images on the tiles melted, others turned into nonsense symbols. That was the
first layer of vapor, the dreamer’s dream. It rarely made sense. She delved
deeper, as she’d been taught.

QuiTai realized her breaths were too fast and shallow. She
was growing dizzy. Wearing the corset had been a mistake. She forced herself to
slow the rate of her breathing, even though it felt like suffocation. She
didn’t have time for this nonsense. If she’d always been the Oracle – an
Oracle – then there was nothing different about this time. She knew how
to follow threads of memory to the event she wanted to see. She’d always been
able to do that.

What first?

She was back at the gambling table with him, only it was a
different night than in his vapor dream. Several soldiers entered the Dragon
Pearl. Chief Justice Cuulon panicked. The jolt sent her pulse racing too. His
thoughts became like a feral animal wanting to run but too afraid to let him
move. She hated that feeling, like those dreams she’d had as a child where a
boar crashed out of the jungle undergrowth as she helped her mother collect
herbs, and her legs wouldn’t work or she could only move in slow motion. His
heart pounded along with hers as if in a race that neither of them could win.

What was it about
the soldiers that frightened him?

He had tried to appear unruffled, but he glanced at the
soldiers constantly. Not being able to control his flitting gaze frustrated
her. But between those looks she was able to piece together information. The
soldiers weren’t the usual colonial militia. Their uniforms were better quality
and bore no insignias. If she hadn’t known from the chief justice’s thoughts
that they were soldiers, she would have thought she was looking at a private
army.

If he or the governor had brought these soldiers from
Thampur, why did he want to hide from them?

“Memories are a web,
not a time line. They connect to similar memories. The more connections, the
stronger the memory. Picture the scene as the center and trace outward from it.
Soon you will have enough fragments to tell a story,”
grandmother had
lectured.

But there were so many fragments! And every time the chief
justice spied a soldier, she felt like burrowing under the dreamer’s couch and
covering her eyes.

This is getting me
nowhere I want to go. What’s this link? Chatting with the governor in this
room, but when? If only people would glance at a newspaper and focus on the
date with each memory, or say something like ‘I’m glad Typhoon DurMat didn’t
hit Ponong two days ago.’

She searched the connected memories. In one, he stood in the
upstairs hallway of the Dragon Pearl with the governor.

“She’s still out there! She can ruin us!”

Governor Turyat had
scratched his arms, reminding her of Jezereet. “If only Zul hadn’t tricked us
into taking slaves –”

Anger and fear
welled up in Chief Justice Cuulon’s chest at the mention of Zul. “Shut up!”

Governor Turyat had
ignored the chief justice as he looked around. “Where is Lizzriat?”

She’d felt Chief Justice Cuulon’s surge of longing for the
vapor, but he said, “This is no time to get lost in the vapor, Turyat. She’s
escaped, she has the slaves, and she could bring us down at any second. We have
to find her!”

QuiTai clasped her hands over her mouth. She had heard this
discussion. She knew the date it took place.

Chief Justice Cuulon heard bumping against the sliding door
that led to the commoner’s den. A slight smile tugged at her lips as she
remembered her brief struggle with Lizzriat.

The memory muddled at that point, as if often did when the
conduit attached no importance to the events, but it had a strong connection to
another memory. She followed the strongest thread.

The governor and
chief justice had been in this same room. Lizzriat had lit the oil lamp on the
brass table between the dreamer’s beds and then scooped the black lotus tar
from a vial into two pipes. She’d knelt by the table and started to cook one
over the lamp flame. The governor had leaned forward with glittering eyes and
inhaled the scent, but the chief justice had gripped her wrist.

“We will cook our
own,” Chief Justice Cuulon said.

Anger flashed over
Lizzriat’s face but was quickly replaced by a placid countenance. She rose. “As
you wish. Gentlemen.” She bowed and left the room.