Food of the Gods

by Cassandra Khaw

  I grunt incomprehensibly, stung by his mockery, and lengthen my stride. I’m being played—that much is clear—but what remains frustratingly obtuse are the stakes at risk. Everything keeps going back to the Erinyes, and I still don’t know why.

  “Do you know where the Furies are hiding?” I ask as we snake into Chee Cheong Kai, sticking to the sidewalk, which is marginally less damp than the open sky.

  “No. But I know who you can ask.”

  THE BONES OF a city—down below the living world—no matter how large or how small, are porous, full of places that can be chiselled into rent-controlled housing and shops, reflections of the material plane and all of its grubby pleasures. The only real difference is that the environment is adaptive, capable of being unspooled into panoramic auditoriums or collapsed into mouse holes. Demons, yaoguai, household gods, the kind bound to terrestrial duties, are all united in their need for such amenities.

  Jian Wang is gentler about transference this time. I barely notice, outside of the way momentum crooks a fish hook around my diaphragm and yanks, hard enough that it bisects my lungs, a single thread of acid, and I’m left gasping as we rock to a halt.

  Banbuduo, Djinnestan, Domdaniel: successive cultures have assembled a fortress of names for this place, each as useless as the last, because no one who lives here addresses it as anything but home. I knuckle disorientation from my eyes and look up.

  The heavens glimmer, eluding focus, a watery restlessness like gazing at the skin of the ocean from far below. Occasionally, shapes float into view, indistinct but unmistakably massive.

  Blink.

  Silence becomes avaricious commotion. This world’s Petaling Street, previously hollow of life, erupts into entropy. Traders with bizarre skin tones hawk an assemblage of goods, some strange, others mundane; char siew and clandestine recordings of trysting deities, heavenly peaches and Panasonic televisions, Coca-cola bottles and an entire range of silk dresses shitted out by Anansi himself.

  “Crossroads,” Jian Wang announces, abruptly, rigidly, conveying the exact depth of his enthusiasm for this place.

  Obviously, I’m completely sympathetic. “I bet you can’t wait to make your way back there. See all the old rocks, check out the puddles.”

  The ghost withholds rebuttal.

  We drift through the kaleidoscopic crowd, which is every color except human, a biosphere of predators muzzled by the Jade Emperor’s orders. Heaven protects what it has an economic interest in, after all. Contradicting Jian Wang’s information, evidence of the Furies’ presence emerge long before we reach the center, which is a full ten minutes further than it should be, thanks to the weirdness of the space.

  “Merchandise?” I demand, incredulous. I plant my shoe in the base of a pickpocket’s spine and shove. Somehow, despite only having just arrived, we’ve been accosted six times already.

  “The Furies are very popular,” comes the prim reply.

  An understatement, in every shade of the world. Streetside artists promote voluptuous caricatures of the Erinyes, while medicine men lure passersby with oils blessed by the foreign goddesses. There are even fried chicken stores advertising flavor tie-ins, a slightly tasteless endeavour that nonetheless succeeds at amassing long queues hungry for cultural immersion. Everywhere I look, I see feathers strung up to bangles, to rings, to necklaces like webs of cold brass, all alleging one hundred percent authenticity

  “You don’t say.”

  We pierce the crowd. I sidestep a rickshaw laden with obsidian-scaled women, their eyes massive, their clothes expensively utilitarian. Their driver looks almost human until he turns, at which point the face, amber-skinned and luridly grinning, on the back of his head reveals he is anything but.

  Polite applause billows. I swivel to see an old man on a canopied dais, arms extended to invite further applause. The structure he occupies is calculated to intimidate: calcium and granite interleaved with supernatural precision, a tarp sutured from flayed eyeballs. In the middle, a conspicuous opening in the platform, just large enough to accommodate a small child.

  He drops lithely into a bow, fist against open palm; Chinese courtesy despite the mahogany of his skin, the breadth of his eyes, the attributes that mark him as Malay. While unmistakably human, he exudes an easy, thoughtless puissance, like an aftertaste from a dream.

  “Who is that?”

  “Tunku Salleh,” Jian Wang whispers tensely, voice failing as he says it, diminished by dread. “The Furies’ host.”

  I contemplate pushing, but it’s vividly clear that he has no intention to say any more. So, naturally, I push. “And?”

  “And what?”

  “And what’s your deal with him?”

  “What’s my deal with who?”

  I count to ten under my breath. My work only tangentially relates to the affairs of Banbuduo, rarely crossing over save for emergencies, so I tend to be rusty on its internal politics. “That Tunku fellow.”

  Jian Wang tautens into steel, cautious and juddering with ill-suppressed emotion. “He bound me.”

  Ah. My jaw clenches shut around his explanation. There’s no comeback for that, really, no way to proceed without first bungling through a reluctant apology. I’m saved from my tactlessness, however, when a voice dredges itself into my awareness, calm, coarse and frayed from time’s courtship.

  “Jian Wang.” Tunku Salleh rolls the name on his tongue like a bead. “We’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve been assisting the Seneschal with his duties.” Beat. “We’re here to visit your Furies.”

  Slight emphasis made all the more peculiar by Jiang Wang’s absence of intonation, his speech mechanical, divested of feeling. Your Furies. A clue, perhaps, or an expression of hostility. Who knows? I’m not permitted room to ponder. Tunku Salleh advances, bonelessly graceful, wrists and knees rotating disconcertingly. Maybe, not as human as I first thought. He chuckles, as though seeing the thought, snags my hand in his and shakes it firmly.

  “Tunku Salleh bin Mohammad Zain. But you knew that, Seneschal. Chinatown is blessed by your presence.” A heady charisma, borderline chemical in timbre, permeates each word. I suspect only some of it is natural.

  “Um. Thanks.” I release his hand, resist the temptation to scour my palm against my jeans. His powdery skin feels fragile, brittle, calling to mind eggshells or insect carapaces.

  He continues, gracious. Periodically, someone will untwine from the crush of people to brush fingertips against his sleeve or kiss his hand, their veneration bordering on worship. “I am happy to report that the Erinyes are being kept in the finest living conditions. They want for nothing, Seneschal. No thread of silk, no rind of precious fruit—all they desire, they are given.”

  “Um,” I repeat. Well. This is awkward. “Actually—”

  “If you seek an audience, I would be more than happy to direct you to the Erinyes. I’m certain they’ll appreciate the opportunity to converse with someone closer to their level.” You could write books about his aptitude for flattery, the tonal intricacies of his delivery, the way his body language expresses great humility without straying into obsequiousness. He tips his head, chuckles again, as he takes a step backwards, palm tipped face-up.

  I conceal my uncertainty behind a shrug and a raised chin. If nothing else, it means an opportunity to get warm. “Sure. Why not?”

  Another quiet laugh before Tunku Salleh wends into the crowd, the mouse-bones on the tassels of his belt chiming a backbeat. “By the way, if I could be so bold, you’re very generous to take on a problem child like Jian Wang.”

  “Mm?”

  “Treacherous little pup.” Tunku Salleh reveals betel-darkened teeth, and reaches above my head. I feel Jian Wang squirm in wordless objection and then slump, nerveless, his weight diffusing. “We found him standing over his brother’s body the day he was to be sacrificed, screaming we didn’t need him anymore.”

  “...what did you do?” I crane a look upwards.

  The old Malay man brings a papier
mâché figurine into view, a humanoid figure clenched into a fetal position. Its limbs are threaded with barbed wire and slivers of vegetal green. “Something to help Jian Wang sleep. The Furies need not endure him.”

  I wring the hems of my shirt, disquiet billowing along my spine. Too many revelations and far too little sleep. “Appreciate the assistance, sir.”

  “Small matter.” Tunku Salleh grins again, dark. “When you are done with whatever you are doing, however, I would appreciate it if you returned Jian Wang. Chinatown is so lonely without his ceaseless whimpers.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “WEREN’T THERE SUPPOSED to be three of you?” I ask with my usual tactless abandon.

  The two Furies move in balletic unison; autonomous in thought, perhaps, but not in act. Every gesture is either complemented or mirrored, every expression paralleled. They exchange looks, heads tilted, evaluating.

  “Yes,” says one, at last, lapping slowly at the English words like they were an alien flavor. “We were three.”

  The Furies look more human than I expected. Mythology depicts them as monstrous, befouled by their grim labours, their hair knotted with serpents, their visage canine in structure. But they’re not. If anything, they’re more polished than me. Cigarette-slim, the Furies are impeccably dressed, blue-black skin striking against white pantsuits, their hair voluminous haloes and their faces unlined. Surprisingly wingless, and anywhere between twenty-eight and two thousand years old, identical in every respect.

  “I. Um. I’m very sorry for your loss.” I rally behind the optimism that civic duty will protect me from certain expiry. I slip a tape recorder—an actual tape recorder, a hideous artifact from the early ’90s—from a pocket and hold it forward, a finger on the record button. “But I’m here on official business. My name is Rupert Wong. I’m here to question you about your involvement in the death of His Highness Ao Qin’s daughter.”

  Three days into this investigation and still I’m addressing the deceased as an extension of her parent. Very progressive, Rupert.

  “The contract was legitimate,” says the second Fury, pouring tea into her sister’s earthenware cup. The steam smells astringent, floral. “We made sure of that.”

  “I—” The words stick in a clump. Click. Roll tape. “I have no doubt of that, Kindly Ones. But I need to know who requested the—the...”

  I trail off and scan the room. The decor is understatedly opulent. The furnishings are Nordic, 1960s grandeur revitalized by artisan hands; the massive television in the corner, thin to the point of immateriality, a luxury even Luddites would understand. Behind the Furies, opened windows lead to an extravagant balcony, its perimeter thronging with exotic flowers.

  “Xiao Quan, of course.” The first rucks her forehead, mouth dimpling into a frown.

  I tense. “Who is—”

  The second Fury sooths their shared expression into one of quiet professionalism. “Ao Qin’s daughter.”

  The information hits like an out-of-control bus, staggering all breath and reason from my breast. It isn’t until the Furies avert their gazes, polite half-smiles gleaming, that I realize that I’ve been gaping. I cough, and straighten into an illusion of decorum. “Ao Qin’s daughter... asked to be euthanised?”

  “Not exactly,” says the first Fury, glancing at her sister. “Alecto?”

  “Of course, Megaera.” Alecto dips her head, mouth pressed to the lip of her cup. Awkward quiet seeps in, interrupted only by her deliberate slurping and the tapping of my feet. The Fury eventually relents, raising her gaze to mine.

  “Xiao Quan was not happy with her marriage. She hadn’t been happy with her marriage for a very long time.”

  “Centuries,” her sister whispers. “Centuries upon centuries.”

  “Yes. Her husband took advantage of her innocence and her father’s disregard. When Xiao Quan ran to him, begging for succor, he told her to endure.”

  Magaera husks her voice into a surprisingly accurate imitation of the Dragon King’s own. “‘You are a wife. Act like one.’”

  Her attention wraps about me, hungry, suffocatingly rapt. “Do you believe in that, too, Rupert? Do you believe wives must be wives and nothing else?”

  “I—”

  “Hush, sister. Don’t tease. Anyway, Xiao Quan did as she was told,” Alecto continues, uncurling from her seat to stride lithely towards the balcony. The sun corsets her in a geometry of shadows and for an instant, I catch the reflection of glittering scales, bejewelled eyes. “But even the strongest woman has her limit. She tired, that Xiao Quan. Tired of the beatings.”

  “The lies.”

  “The other women.”

  “Don’t forget the other men as well.”

  “Mm. The way he adopted command of her name, couching his desire as hers, donning power without consequence.”

  “The cretin,” Alecto snorts. “Anyway. After thousands of years, she eventually convinced her husband that they needed to return to her ancestral home. So that she could see her father and discuss, perhaps, a way to deify her husband.”

  “Of course, that was just a ruse,” laughs the other Fury, her humour razored with scorn. “What she really wanted was a way to be rid of him—”

  “—forever.”

  “Which was when she contacted us.”

  I shudder, shaking off their hypnotic voices like a flea-bitten mutt. “You mean she summoned you?”

  “No,” corrects Alecto. “Contacted. We’ve been here for a very long time, Mr. Wong.”

  The other: “Guests of Kuala Lumpur’s finest gentry.”

  Click. The pieces clamp together, fitting jigsaw-snug, even as my suspicions sharpen into high-definition. I dig my nails into my palm and sip air until my heartbeat steadies. The Furies re-equip their bland, reptilian smiles.

  “Do you mean—” I begin.

  Megaera shakes her head as she thumbs through an iPhone, glass surface glimmering with notifications. Already, I’ve been dismissed. “No.”

  “She’s not being coy.” Her sister paces from the balcony, hands locked behind the small of her back, eyes lidded with amusement. “We were invited here from Las Vegas under the pretense of a new trade agreement between the pantheons.”

  “I—” I reconsider the angle of assault. “Under the pretense of a new trade agreement? I’m assuming that wasn’t—”

  “We don’t know,” says Alecto, apologetic. “Nothing has happened yet. We’ve been here for months, but no one has stepped forward to announce themselves as the enterprising Samaritans responsible for the invitation.”

  “And the feathers?” I’m not really interested, but Chinese courtesy demands a nominal interest in someone else’s entrepreneurial pursuits.

  “A side business that came about after we fulfilled Xiao Quan’s request. The desperate will make their own myths. Why not capitalize on them?” She shrugs. “Speaking of which, and I hate to be a bitch, but it’s time to leave. We have business to attend to.”

  I sketch an extravagant bow. “Thank you for your co-operation, Erinyes.”

  “YOU CAN RETURN me to Tunku Salleh now.”

  The panic in Jian Wang’s voice is unmistakable. I roll the crushed effigy between my fingertips, thoughtful. The queue to the Furies’ suite spills around the corridor; who knew there were so many avenging spirits in a developing third world city?

  “Really,” insists Jian Wang. A woman, seven feet tall with a scribbled-out face, fires a dirty look as she lumbers past. “It’s all right.”

  “You know, that’s funny. I could have sworn that you were trying to get out of it before.” Two feet away, a young man in fuschia clears his throat with great emphasis. I ignore him and cross my arms instead, trying in vain to maintain a measure of dignity. “You were practically extorting me, if I recall.”

  “Things change.” Jian Wang tugs at his legs, but they’ve long welded to my clavicles, mere undulations under the flesh. Skin pulls uncomfortably, but nothing breaks. “I can go now.”

&nbs
p; “No. Not until you tell me what you know.” I slap his hand in admonishment. Reckless bravado is the magician’s best friend. Blink and you’ll miss how it displaces your attention, steers you from inconvenient truths. Like my utter ignorance as to how to unknit Jian Wang from my own tissues.

  “I—” The ghost’s petulance thins to a knife edge. I jerk in place, cautious, senses bristling with warning. Fingers dig cracks into my skin, more purposeful this time. Pain spiders in waves across my shoulders.

  “Hey! Hey! Ow! Ow! What are you—hey!” I spiral in place, clutching at Jian Wang’s hands. His grip is iron, and growing more unbearable by the moment. At this point, it’s clear that the spirit has decided on an exit plan. He’s going to dig himself out, something I’m totally not comfortably with.

  So I smash and roll into a wall, hoping to jolt him loose. But Jian Wang proves more insistent than a tick. Hissing, he tightens his hold further, and I feel muscle yowl in objection at hairline tears, widening with every leap of my pulse.

  “Let me go!”

  At this point, I’ve lost the plot. And possibly the collective respect of Banbuduo, who most likely wasn’t expecting to see the local Seneschal flailing quite so vigorously. Panic overrides common sense. I claw at my back, at his wrists, at his face, all the while pinballing between surfaces, swearing in every language my mind can conjure. Agony rapidly supersedes any other concern. Animal instinct presents that age-old binary decision: fight or flee.

  I decide on both.

  I’m abysmal at magic. I’ve no illusions about that. Summonings work seven times out of fifteen, and all telecommunications with Diyu invariably include gross misspellings. But there’s one piece of wizardry I can perform faultlessly, one enchantment I know like breathing. I can send myself to Hell. Not in any figurative sense, but a bonafide ability to instantly relocate into the bowels of Diyu.

  (Trivia time, ang moh. The Egyptians were right about a lot of things, including the idea that souls have weight. Karma does, in fact, affect your spiritual buoyancy. In my case, I’ve more than enough sin to send me plummeting hellwards at record-breaking speeds upon the moment of expiry.)