The Devil Incarnate (The Devil of Ponong series #2) (32 page)

She couldn’t type the letters fast enough.

Rice. Q

She could tell him that much. Details of the plan came to
her in flashes. It would work, but she needed time to fine tune it. Rice was
leverage. She’d already shown him it could mobilize mobs.

QuiTai leaned forward and typed another message.

I’ll need your private
army. Call them off. Q

It seemed like an eternity before an answer came. She
glanced through Kyam’s door to the landing. Why did he have to send so many
men? Why were the children begging and screaming? What had they done?

So you do have a real plan. My men are at
your service. TtZ

The screaming next
door stopped a minute later. Men’s footsteps clattered down the steps. She
heard the children crying, RhiLan wailing, and RhiHanya shouting out curses at
the departing men. Finally, she was able to take a deep breath. Not too late,
this time.

Will contact you later tonight with details.
Q

Her hands shook as
she ripped the long scroll from the farwriter and took it to the cooking fire.
When it was ash, she mixed it into her cup of tea and tossed it out the window.

That had been too close. She’d have nightmares for days. How
could she have been so stupid? She’d played right into Grandfather Zul’s hands.
If he’d just told her what was at stake, she would have helped him.

The shivers spreading through her body her partially rage,
partially fear. She’d put children in danger. She’d never forgive herself.
She’d never forgive Grandfather Zul.

Kyam stumbled into his apartment. His hair was a mess and
he’d lost a few jacket buttons. It took a few huffs to catch his breath. “They
weren’t here for us. I wonder why they were after RhiLan’s family.”

Puzzled, she glared at him. Her fear and anger focused on
Kyam. “You can’t honestly... How blind are you, Kyam? Those men are your
grandfather’s soldiers. They attacked RhiLan’s family to force me to agree to
do something for him.”

Kyam shook his head. “He wouldn’t do that.”

“Did you hear what I said when I came to you tonight? He was
going to kill people if I didn’t contact him.”

Kyam’s dark eyes filled with anger. His fists clenched. She’d
forgotten that she was dealing with a true believer.

She sighed and shook her head. Maybe he deserved his fate.
If only she hadn’t burned the proof. Exhaustion hit her in a nauseating wave.
She smelled her own sweat.

Oh, Kyam, if you were only the lover I need
right now! But you’re too much of Grandfather Zul’s possession for me to
endure, and I still have so much to do tonight.

“Good evening,
Colonel Zul. Thank you for your assistance.”

“Are you ever going
to tell me what you two talked about?” he asked.

“Ask him.
Apparently, he’s feeling quite chatty tonight. You might get lucky and get an
answer for once.”

RhiHanya stood by
the broken door across the landing. When she left Kyam’s apartment, QuiTai
pressed her hands together and bowed. RhiHanya’s eyes narrowed, but QuiTai
realized she didn’t recognize her in her disguise.

Past RhiHanya, she
saw RhiLan kneeling with her arms around her three children. They looked
scared, but unhurt. RhiLan’s man was on the couch, his head wrapped in bandages
and his arm in a sling.

They’d probably never feel safe in their home again. The
children would hate and fear Thampurians all their lives. This was a game for
grown-ups, she reminded herself. People got hurt. Most of them survive, and
that was the best she could do for them.

She approached RhiHanya. “You gave me three days, auntie. I
beg patience of you.”

RhiHanya jerked back, recognition spreading over her face.

“You know her?” Kyam asked. “How do you know my neighbors?”

QuiTai could have strangled him. He was smarter than this.
Much smarter. “Welcome to the party, Colonel Zul. You’re fashionably late.”

“What about the smuggler’s boat?” Kyam called out as she
walked down the stairs.

She was too
frustrated with him to bother answering. He’d missed the boat in more ways than
one, but she was too much of a coward to spell it out to him. He’d find out
tomorrow.

QuiTai
hated this
ugly, rotting apartment building on the edge of the Jupoli
Gorge, hated that it still stood despite the neglect, hated that she couldn’t
bring herself to burn it down. Every time she’d walked past it on her way to
Petrof’s house, she’d averted her eyes and held her breath. The blood and gore
had long since washed away; the bodies had been buried. That didn’t stop the
memories of the night of the Full Moon Massacre from flooding her senses. The
horror of that night would never dim. Even now, it echoed through her life.
Sometimes it felt as if all she had were vengeance, loss, and guilt.

For the first time in two years, she walked up the bowed
steps. From dark rooms behind carved window screens, cats’ eyes watched her.
Some blinked slowly, as if about to drift into sleep. Others were wide open.
Inside, she heard the hushed padding of feet across the creaking floor.

The sheet in the doorway pulled back. A woman with alert
ears held it aside as she bowed low.

QuiTai heard herself
swallow as she stepped into the shadowy foyer. The building smelled like
whiskey, of old wood and dust.

A night spirit moth fluttered against an aged green light
jellylantern on the wall. Like the Li, she could see well in its dim light. The
wallpaper peeling from the walls hadn’t changed. The balusters on the narrow
staircase’s banister were as crooked as LiHoun’s teeth. There was the doorway
that had led to her parent’s apartment. Here was where QuiZhun used to dance.
This was where her neighbor had sunk his fangs into her so she wouldn’t open the
door to the werewolves. She felt as if the building had been waiting like a
jilted lover for her return, whispering, ‘See what memories you made me hold
for you?’

Li women and children crept out of doorways and down the
hall toward her.

QuiTai turned to the woman who showed her in. “Friends may
fight, but they also forgive,” she said in Li. It was a favorite saying of
LiHoun’s, although he often used it sarcastically. His women probably heard it
often enough that even if she mispronounced any of the words they’d understand
what she meant. She jutted her chin toward the stairs. “Is LiHoun up there?”

The woman bowed lower. “He has been waiting for you,
grandmother,” she said in uncertain Ponongese.

QuiTai pressed her hands together and bowed.

She climbed the stairs.

This is the step where I realized my mother
was dead. This is the step where I heard QuiZhun scream for me. This is the
step where I went mad.

“Have you eaten,
grandmother?” LiHoun called out when she reached the top step.

She followed his
voice into the front apartment.

He sat on a mussed bed with no mosquito nets. His blankets
were so exhausted by years of laundering that they couldn’t summon up enough
energy to have a color. The weathered wood floor had turned gray. Now that the
rain had passed, moonlight seeped through the shutters. Kur smoke rose from an
overflowing try of butts.

“You have reached your decision,” LiHoun said.

She entered the room. “Yes.”

He waved a hand toward boxes on the floor. Curled farwriter
paper sat in heaps. “I saved every message from Grandfather Zul. It wasn’t
until tonight that I realized there was no record of my replies. At least you
will know the kinds of questions he asked.”

“I have too much left to do tonight to read through them.
Tell me how it began.”

“I’ve been selling
him information for years, mostly about Governor Turyat. When you returned to
Levapur with Jezereet and your daughter, it was at the beginning of monsoon
season. The brothels were slow, as they always are the first month of the
rains. I passed on old information, but soon ran out. So I mentioned how you
were a great favorite of Chief Justice Cuulon before you left Levapur and you
might renew your acquaintance. Grandfather Zul also wanted information about
him.”

LiHoun’s hands shook
as he rolled another kur.

“Go on.”

 
LiHoun struck a match. He talked around
the kur pinched between his lips. “Over time, he took an interest in you. He
liked your spirit, he said. I tried to remember things you said, because they
amused him. He expressed admiration for your business skills.”

“How very flattering. A secret admirer.”

Deep coughs shook LiHoun’s shoulders. “He seemed relieved,
genuinely relieved, that you survived the Full Moon Massacre. He had
reservations about your alliance with the Devil, but it seemed to offer you
protection and there were no further attempts on your life.”

“Until Petrof came after me.”

“I haven’t told him anything about that.”

“Did he ever ask about the Devil?”

“Not that I recall.” LiHoun’s gaze rose to hers. “During
that time, you also came to me for information. I rarely mentioned what you
were up to. I started holding back things. Forgive this old fool, grandmother.
If I betrayed you, it wasn’t deliberate.”

She wasn’t ready to have that conversation with him. “Do
your legs still hurt from your hours in the rain tonight, uncle?”

He rubbed his thigh.

It had to be done. Order had to be maintained. She hardened
her heart.

“Get up. Gather your women and older children. You have
penance to pay and not many hours to complete it.”

He grinned. She
realized he might welcome punishment. So many men who worshipped her did. They
hoped it would bring forgiveness.

“Bring about half
the sacks of rice stored in the Devil’s old den here. Do it quickly. Oh, and
have someone find me fresh clothes. Then tell them to leave me alone. I must
think about my next moves.”

On her walk upslope
from Levapur, a plan had been revealed to her, but every nuance had to be
examined. So much rode on her understanding of Kyam. Would he react the right
way? She had more conviction in the predictability of the Thampurian mob, but
they too were a risk.

LiHoun limped to the
doorway. “It will take us more than an hour.”

“Not much more, I
hope. I will be very angry if this entire operation isn’t completed by sunrise,
and this is only step one.”

~ ~ ~

LiHoun watched
amazement dawn on QuiTai’s face as he showed her the stacks of rice sacks he
and his women had piled in the foyer. She’d never gone to the Devil’s old den
and seen how much rice she’d bought. The stacks came to her chin.

“There is enough
left in the Devil’s den to feed non-Thampurians who need rice?” she asked
LiHoun.

“For a day, maybe
two. Your lieutenants urged people to buy more than they normally do. As soon
as word got out about the rice riots, they sold as much as they could carry,
but there’s still much more left.”

“In a couple days, things will be back to normal. Once the
price falls and people trust the supply again, we can resume our regular black
market business.”

LiHoun felt as if he’d aged ten years over the course of the
night. He hoped she didn’t have further plans for him. “Was it worth it?”

“In coin? We’ll see. Probably not. But I’m glad I did it.
Otherwise, I wouldn’t have had a tile in my hand to play against Grandfather
Zul.”

She sat on the staircase. LiHoun squatted at her feet. His
women hovered in doorways and on the upstairs landing as they anxiously awaited
a sign. He wished he could comfort them, but QuiTai was at times unpredictable.
She could seem perfectly sociable one moment and then lash out the next. He’s
seen what she’d done to others who failed her. He wondered if she toyed with
him on purpose. The tension was a seething knot in his stomach.

“I never had a
personal stake in this game. That’s what irritates me the most. Enslave the
Ponongese on Cay Rhi?” She shrugged. “I wasn’t the one in chains. Close the
marketplace? I can buy everything I want from smugglers. Close the school? I
have no children. Make Kyam Zul the colonial governor? As Voorus said, ‘Where’s
the tragedy in that?’ Spark a rebellion? I could have bought my way on board a
smuggler’s ship and gone to live on the continent. You see? Not a single good
reason why I should be dragged into this game. He could have found a simpler
way to put Kyam in that post. But no. It had to be convoluted and put people in
danger, and worst of all, he involved me. No! Worst of all, I did his bidding.
I knew I should just walk away, but I bowed to his wishes. Hadre warned me. I
didn’t listen.”

LiHoun’s phlegmy
chuckle brought a frown to her face.

“You find it
amusing, uncle?”

He wondered if she believed her own words or if they were
merely part of her act. She always jumped into the thick of things.
“Grandfather Zul should watch his back from now on.”

Her expression went blank. Every hair on his body stood at
end. She relaxed, but he could tell it she’d forced it.

“Did you know Kyam Zul is married?” she asked.

He knew his shock showed on his face. Thampurians took
mistresses, but he’d sensed Kyam had a deeper interest in QuiTai. Perhaps he’d
been wrong.

“Grandfather Zul tried to use that to turn me against Kyam.
That shows he doesn’t know me as well as he thinks he does.”

 
“Kyam Zul would
have made a good concubine for you.”