The Devil's Concubine (The Devil of Ponong series #1) (9 page)

“Thank you for your assistance, Mister Zul,”
she said. “Perhaps I’ll repay the favor one day.”

She turned away from him, but didn’t get two
steps before he wrapped his hands around her waist and lifted her off the
ground. The problem with big, strong men was that they could render you
undignified without even straining a muscle. It was cruelly unfair, QuiTai
thought, as she struck at him with both fists.

“Put up a fight if you must, Lady QuiTai, but
I’m not letting you out of my sight until we’ve had a long talk.”

She kicked as hard as she could. He started
to double over, then smiled and shook his head. “That was close.”

“Not close enough, apparently. If this is
your attempt to make me help you, the answer is still no.”

“I have a better proposition, one you won’t
be able to resist.” He set her down and offered his arm. “But we can’t discuss
it until you’re somewhere safe. Come with me willingly, or I’ll toss you over
my shoulder. It’s up to you.”

She gripped his elbow hard enough to make him
wince. “I hope you know that I despise you right now,” she told him.

“The feeling is mutual, my dear.”

They strolled as if they were simply
Thampurians out for some air after dinner. If anyone had looked closely, they
might have seen her puffy eyes or trembling lips, but they might only have
thought she feared rampaging werewolves.

They did not speak or look at each other; but
a block later, they turned at the same time to check if they were followed. She
would have laughed if she’d been able to.

Kyam finally broke the silence. “So, Lady QuiTai, your safe house or
mine?”

Kyam’s
compound sat
on the outer edge of the Thampurian neighborhood, past the
governor’s mansion and close enough to the sea that she could hear the constant
surge of waves on the rocks far below. The kitchen house where he led her, while
small by Thampurian standards, was three times the size of his apartment in
town.

She huddled on a
stool, arms wrapped tight around her, while he stoked the pit fire. Slowly she
began to rock. She sang under her breath; her throat hurt too much for anything
louder.

“That’s pretty. What is it?” Kyam asked.

“Ingosolian death prayer. I’m singing
Jezereet’s soul into the arms of her goddess. She taught it to me when she first
became addicted, she made me swear –”

Two things: that QuiTai would sing the death
prayers, and that she would avenge Jezereet’s death. QuiTai had known that
Jezereet meant Petrof, who had set her on the black lotus path; but QuiTai
fully intended to keep her word now, even though the murderer was still
unknown. She would find him, and he would pay.

There was no way to stop the tears now. She
hated that Kyam, of all people, saw her break down. If he tried to pat her,
she’d rip off his hand.

Every time she thought she had control,
hopeless tears poured down her cheeks. She was suffocating on grief.

Kyam went to the sideboard and searched
roughly through canisters until he found what he wanted. Agitation seemed to
ripple through his shoulders. “I’m making you tiuhon tea. Unless you need
something stronger?”

She shook her head.

He filled an iron pot with water and swung it
on a hook out over the fire. As he wiped out two cups, he leaned against the
sideboard.

“You loved her? Why?”

She winced as her hands clenched into fists.
It hurt almost as much as it had on the skiff.

“Put your hand out. I’ll wrap it. Maybe that
will help.”

“Don’t be nice to me. I can’t bear it.”

Kyam wet a thin towel with vinegar and wound
it around her hand. “If this is your definition of nice, it explains a lot.”

She closed her eyes and tried to will the
pain out of her hand into the towel. “You mentioned business,” she said. “Tell
me what you have to offer.”

“Not until you’re fit to talk.” Steam curled
over the mugs as he poured hot water into them. After the tea steeped, he carried
the two cups to her. QuiTai took both and poured the tea back and forth between
them. When she was convinced they were equal, she handed one to Kyam.

“You think I’d poison you after going to so
much trouble to save your life?” he asked.

“It’s a force of habit. Drink yours first.”

He seemed to struggle to hold back a few choice
words before he took a sip.

QuiTai held her cup with both hands even
though the heat made her hand throb again. The tea was bitter, but tiuhon was a
restorative, something people drank to heal: it wasn’t supposed to taste good.

Then she realized her hands were shaking. She
willed them to stop. They did not. “What is this?”

“Shock, Lady QuiTai, you’re in shock. I’ll go
find a blanket for you.”

She was trembling so hard that she splashed
the tea over the floor when she set the cup down. She closed her eyes, but that
only brought back the image of Jezereet dead on the floor. By the time Kyam
returned and draped a plush blanket over her shoulders, she was wracked by
sobs.

“I can’t –” A wave of grief stole the
words from her. “I knew this day would come. Not murder... but I knew the vapor
would eventually kill her. You’d think I’d be prepared by now.” She took a deep
breath and held it for a moment before slowly exhaling. “Please excuse my
excessive emotion.”

“You sound like a Thampurian.” Kyam pulled a
handkerchief out of his pocket and gently wiped her face. He held it to her
nose. “Blow?”

She gave him a dark look. “You know what you
can do with that handkerchief.”

He put the square of silk on top of a solid
wood chopping block as big as a tea table. “That sounds like the QuiTai I know
and... well, that I’m used to. A gentleman would give you time to grieve, but
as you know, I’m not a gentleman. I need the old you, and I need her quick. The
Ravidians disappeared from town hours after we met at the Red Happiness. But no
ships have left the harbor for over a week because of the typhoon, and the
Ravidians don’t have articles of transport even if one had sailed. So they’re
here, in hiding, and my instincts tell me that they’re up to no good. Time is
of the essence.”

Her temper flared, replacing the grief that
had clung inside her. “Jezereet is dead, not even cold yet, and you brought me
here to pump me for information?”

“You told me not to be nice.”

“Oh, do be quiet. Since when do you do
anything I ask?”

She tugged the blanket Kyam had given her
closer around her shoulders. It smelled as if had been put away while still
damp.

“What have you ever asked of me?”

“I ask you to leave the island every time we
meet.”

“You seem to forget that I’ve been told by my
family to stay here, out of sight and out of mind.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

He made a sound deep in his throat, as if he
fought back a reply that welled from the darkest recess of his heart. “If you’re
going to accuse me of taking advantage of your grief, maybe I should. Tell me
about the Ravidians. They had rooms in West Levapur overlooking the harbor, but
they moved out several days ago and didn’t leave as much as a speck of dust
behind.”

“I don’t give a damn about the Ravidians
anymore,” she said. Petrof would force her to find them, but her urgency had
evaporated with Jezereet’s dying breath.

Kyam gripped the chopping block with big
hands. His knuckles turned white. “You’re going to help me whether you feel
like it or not.”

Despite herself, she was a bit curious. With
their neck frills and velvet frock coats, the Ravidians stood out in Levapur.
Why was Kyam having such a difficult time tracking them? He’d had a year to
build a network of informants. Wasn’t that the first thing a spy did when he
went undercover at a new assignment? “Did anyone see them leave?”

“No one who will talk to me. But you could
find out. If you don’t already know.” He waited. “Do you?”

Exhaustion rolled over QuiTai. “I’ll give you
this; you know how to pick your times. I can’t think straight and all I want to
do is curl up in a ball and sleep, or cry. First a spy, now an interrogator. Congratulations.”

“You can’t think that I planned this! You may
be the most cynical, conniving person who ever lived, but not everyone is like
you.”

“Me in a vapor dream with my dead lover lying
on the floor. You miraculously on the scene. What am I supposed to think?”

With his jaw clenched, he said, “I told you I
didn’t kill her.”

Did she believe him?

He was rushing her. She needed time to think.
She only had his word for it that she’d been in danger. If she hadn’t been so
muddled by the vapor, she could have examined Jezereet’s room and figured out
what happened. But he’d hurried her away. Was he hiding something?

He hovered over her as if he could intimidate
her into a decision. That wasn’t fair – not that anything was ever fair
– but he was a Thampurian gentleman to his core, no matter how much he
denied it.

If he’d wanted to use Jezereet as leverage,
he would have kidnapped her. He would have kept her somewhere safe and maybe
even brought her black lotus while he used her against QuiTai. Even Petrof
understood that technique.

Her neck throbbed and her eyes itched. She
had no energy left to fight Kyam. What would it matter if she gave him a little
information?

“Do you have rum?” she asked.

He rummaged through the sideboard and found a
half-empty bottle. He poured some into a glass, took a sip, and handed it to
her. Then he poured one for himself.

She looked through the kitchen doorway. The
moon was reflected in a puddle in the courtyard. As raindrops fell, expanding
ripples collided and the moon’s image fragmented. Soon the rain drummed
steadily on the kitchen’s roof.

Kyam rinsed out their tea cups in a stone
bowl and put them away. He turned back to her. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

His sincerity caught her by surprise. It was
amazing how a few words could change the balance. He was probably the only
person who would ever offer her any solace for Jezereet’s death.

“Thank you.” She meant it as much as he’d
meant his condolences.

“I couldn’t tell from what I saw… how was it
done?” She closed her eyes for a moment. “Do you think she suffered much?”

“It was fairly quick. But if you’re asking if
she was in a vapor dream too, no, she wasn’t. She knew what she was doing
–” He stopped.

“My poor Jezereet,” QuiTai murmured. Then
realization dawned on her. “You know who killed her.”

Kyam took another sip of his rum and nodded.

The need for vengeance jolted her out of the
fog of grief that had enveloped her. “Who did it, sea dragon?”

“Help me figure out what the Ravidians are up
to, and I’ll tell you; but not until I know everything. It’s the only deal I’ll
make with you.”

Their brief truce was over. It was better
that way. Negotiations would keep them at a formal distance. Sympathy would only
complicate matters between them.

She sat up straighter. Business. Right. A
proposition was on the table and he thought he held all the tiles. That would
work to her advantage.

Other people had been in the Red Happiness; maybe
a few discreet questions would bring her the name of Jezereet’s killer. But until
she made her inquiries, it was best to pretend Kyam had won. “It seems that I
stand corrected. You are able to force my hand.”

Kyam said, “You need food. Is rice-and-eggs
okay? It better be. It’s the only thing I have stored here, and the only thing
I know how to cook.” He dumped cooked rice into a skillet and put it over the
fire.

He was trying to set the tone for their
working relationship. If he wanted to believe that they could be chums, she’d
let him, but the moment she had what she wanted she’d drop the act.

She thought for a moment before saying,
“Since we agree that you aren’t the murderer, I’ll assume that you followed me
there. I’m still not sure why you risked the streets during a full moon when
you couldn’t have known the evening would turn in your favor. I know what you
think of me. Bitch. Whore. Shiftless. Snake.”

Only the word
snake
made him cringe. “If that’s all you were, I wouldn’t have
gone to the trouble to get you out of the Red Happiness alive.”

Her mind went back to the brothel. The
servants had standing orders to check on Jezereet every morning and evening,
but still it would be hours before anyone found her body. And then the Thampurian
soldiers would be called in to investigate.

QuiTai’s eyes widened as she realized what
would follow. “Do you have more rum?”

“Sure. Why?”

“Because my hand hurts unbelievably badly.
And because we’re about to have the ugliest conversation ever, and I don’t want
to be completely sober for it.”

“Ugly how?”

“There are going to be another two murders
tonight.”

He frowned. “The Ravidians have a target? Or
is there someone else dear to you that you think is in danger?”

“Not people. We’re going to have to kill our
consciences. Someone has to hang for Jezereet’s murder.” Now he looked
thoroughly puzzled. “You really are a fresh, Mister Zul. Think. The soldiers
are called to the scene. I assume even those incompetent bastards will figure
out that she was murdered?”

He reluctantly nodded. “It will be fairly
obvious.”

“There will be an investigation. They have to
arrest someone, to make it seem as if they know what they’re doing. If not me,
and not the real murderer, then who? I suggest we decide rather than leaving it
up to your soldiers. As you may be aware, they aren’t too particular about
actual guilt. So, which innocent is going to suffer for her death, Mister Zul?”

Grimly, he uncorked the bottle and filled
both glasses.

~ ~ ~

Kyam and QuiTai sat on the wood chopping block, back to
back. She’d shed her disguise and was much more comfortable in her normal
clothes, except for the dull ache in her throat and the sharper pains in her
heart.

The homey scent of
rice-and-eggs hung in the air. Both Kyam and QuiTai clutched glasses of rum. An
empty bottle sat between them, and they’d started on a second one.

Thunder rumbled as
rain splattered on the tile roof of the kitchen building. They kept the door
and windows shut, not because of the rain, but so the light of the kitchen fire
wouldn’t give them away. It seemed unlikely to QuiTai that anyone would dare
enter the small exterior courtyard without being invited in, much less go
around the privacy wall and pass through the inner festoon gates to the inner
courtyard where they could see into the kitchen, but she appreciated his
caution.