Tempt the Devil (The Devil of Ponong series #3)

by Jill Braden

  “Who found the body?” Kyam asked.

  “Me. To be truthful, I’m not so sure he was dead yet when I came downstairs. The blood was still–” Inattra gulped. “Spreading. Slowly. As if it were leaking out of his head.” Inattra drew a long breath in through his nose.

  “What time was that?”

  “It was horrible.”

  Kyam tried to look sympathetic while a hundred questions begged to be asked. “I’m sure it was.”

  “Yeah, well, thank you for making me relive it.”

  “Sorry. I’m…” He didn’t know why, but he lowered his voice. “Trying to clear QuiTai’s name.”

  “Sure you are. You arrested her.”

  Kyam leaned on the bar and hoped sincerity would be enough to convince him. “Not for Turyat’s murder. And it was her idea, not mine. Don’t ask me why. And I truly want to get her out of the fortress, so please help me figure out what happened here, so I can do that.”

  Inattra paused with a bottle in each hand. “You better hurry, because they’ll hang her before the sun sets.”

  He didn’t need anyone to remind him that he had to work fast. “That’s why I need your help. Anything you can tell me about what you saw. Anything. Did you notice anything unusual?”

  “Other than a body on the floor, no. And the lit spirit oil lamp. That’s a fire hazard. QuiTai would fang me if she saw an open flame, especially right above the liquor. Half the Quarter of Delights burned down about six years ago when a dreamer knocked over a lamp in a black lotus den. QuiTai said the stink of cooked flesh hung over the quarter for days. Says the memory still makes her sick to her stomach. She’s fired workers for leaving lamps lit in their rooms. Everyone knows that.”

  If QuiTai was that worried about fires, there was no way she would have left a lit lamp on her bar. He could see another killer panicking and forgetting to douse the flame, but not QuiTai.

  Inattra suddenly gripped his wrist hard. Kyam saw his panic. “I was joking about her fanging me. She’d never do that. Please don’t tell anyone I said that.”

  “I wouldn’t tell a soul. I’m trying to save her, remember? What time was it when you found the body?”

  “Thank you. Thank you, Governor.” Inattra pushed a red curl out of his eyes and tucked it behind his ear. “I, uh, came down a bit after ten, I think. Much earlier than usual. I’m… This doesn’t seem real. I’ve only seen dead bodies at funerals, and then they’re clean and pretty and there’s no blood, you know? And you expect to see a corpse then. This morning, I wasn’t prepared… It…” He pressed his hand to his mouth.

  Around ten, QuiTai and Voorus were leading Mityam Muul across the wharf while the funicular began its ascent to Levapur. It would have been twenty minutes at least before she could have caught the next one. An hour later, she’d been in his office. That didn’t give her much time. She could have murdered Turyat before she went to the harbor, though.

  He pushed that thought aside while he tried to think of his next question. Large flies slammed into the typhoon shutters, a sound that made him flinch. A swarm of them had whirled through the air outside the mortuary. They always showed up in the marketplace within minutes of the butcher opening his stall. The vicious things bit hard.

  “Where there flies yet? Were a bunch of them buzzing through this room when you found the body?” Kyam asked.

  Inattra turned to look at the shutters. He moved in slow motion as if still in shock. Guilt pricked Kyam’s conscience, but he tried to ignore it.

  “Not that I noticed. There were a bunch flying around by the time they took away the body, though. Now they’re almost all gone again.”

  “Did you see Lady QuiTai this morning? Cuulon? Anyone else, even if they belong here?”

  Inattra shook his head to each.

  “Did anyone else report hearing or seeing anything unusual?”

  Inattra mouthed No as he shook his head again.

  Kyam looked around the destroyed barroom. “Where are the other workers?”

  “Upstairs, with a priestess, singing Turyat’s soul into the arms of the Goddess.”

  That surprised him. “That’s kind of them.”

  Inattra looked at him as if he were stupid. “Would you want a vengeful ghost to materialize when you were with a customer? It’s good business to make sure his spirit is ushered out of this building before it even realizes the body is gone.”

  Kyam tried hard not to show what he thought of that. Ingosolians were avid innovators of technology; yet Ingosolians were also serious devotees of spiritualism. He saw those as diametrically opposed viewpoints. Ingosolians, apparently, did not.

  He realized there was no need to be so superior about it. To be fair, most Thampurians also believed in all manner of demons and wrathful spirits.

  Kyam was almost out of questions. “Did you hear anything unusual this morning?”

  After a brief frown, followed by a moment of intense thought, Inattra finally spoke. “It’s not unusual, but someone was moving out in the hallway. Or, at least, I think I heard someone. The outhouse is behind the building, so workers have to go downstairs to use it. But my room is almost at the end of the hallway. Why would anyone go past my door to get downstairs?”

  Kyam jumped as Inattra slapped his palm on the bar. The transformation from bewildered to furious was instantaneous. Inattra shifted more male with each outraged flare of his nostrils. The spray of blue freckles across his cheeks darkened.

  “That little bitch! PhaSun has the room across the hallway from mine. She knew the body was there. She had to!” Inattra jabbed a finger at Kyam. “She’s been trying to get me fired ever since QuiTai named me Madam. And to think I sent her away to protect her from the militia!”

  “PhaSun?” He vaguely remembered a pretty enough young woman who seemed to live in a perpetual party, laughing and talking with far more exuberance than anyone else in the bar. She was one of the few Ponongese sex workers who lived in the Red Happiness. Most of the others lived with their families. He wondered why PhaSun didn’t.

  “She’s probably hiding with her clan by now, in Old Levapur,” Inattra said.

  That was a problem Kyam didn’t need right now. “The hillside slums. I’ll never find her up there if she doesn’t want to be found. And you know a Thampurian isn’t safe there. Is there any way you could find her and bring her to me?”

  Inattra raised his hands. “I’m staying out of this.”

  “I have only a few hours to come up with a better suspect in Turyat’s murder. I can’t waste that time poking my head into hovels and shouting PhaSun’s name.”

  “And I can? I’m running a business here, Governor, one your militia almost destroyed this morning. Now I have to fix it and open our doors tonight, so I’m a little busy.”

  “Not even for QuiTai?”

  “How long have you been on this island? Even I know the Pha hate the Devil for interfering in Old Levapur’s clan business. By extension, they hate QuiTai, because for all intents and purposes, she is the Devil, isn’t she?”

  Kyam nodded.

  “The Pha won’t help me find PhaSun if they think I’m trying to help QuiTai.” Inattra put his fist on his hip. “Not that PhaSun would be able to tell you much more than I can, and I guarantee you most of what she’ll tell you is a lie. She’s a troublemaker. Do you know that seconds after I found the body, she came running downstairs, went right into the street, and started screaming murder? Can you believe that? I had to drag her back inside and shove her into–” Inattra seemed to think better of finishing that comment. “Anyway, I made sure the militia didn’t arrest her as ‘the convenient Ponongese.’ If I’d known they’d pick QuiTai instead, I would have let them have PhaSun. You have no idea the stupid little stunts she pulls to try to turn QuiTai against me.”

  Inattra was trying awfully hard to convince him PhaSun couldn’t be trusted. He wondered what the woman knew. There were so many secrets here, and he didn’t know which ones would help him solve the murder
.

  “You shoved PhaSun where? Are you holding her prisoner somewhere inside here? Tell the truth, Inattra.”

  His lips pursed as he folded his arms across his chest. He looked up at the ceiling for a while. “Okay, but this goes no further than us. There’s a secret door in my room that leads down to the alleyway behind the café next door. I dragged her, screaming and flailing, upstairs and shoved her behind the hidden panel. She wanted to run into her room and pack some things. I could hear the militia downstairs and had to warn the rest of the workers that we were about to be invaded, so I slammed the door in her face. There’s no way to open it from the inside. For all I know, she’s standing there fuming still. But I didn’t lock her in. There’s an exit at the bottom of the stairs.”

  Kyam already knew about that passage, but he didn’t want to tell Inattra that. “I believe you, about the secret passage. And about PhaSun.”

  Inattra relaxed a bit.

  “I may have more questions later.” Kyam nodded crisply and turned to leave.

  “I’ll be here. Cleaning up this mess.” Inattra sighed as he set a chair back on its legs. “If you see LiHoun, tell him I want to see his wrinkled face right now more than I’ve ever wanted anything.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Kyam walked out of the Red Happiness more discouraged than he had been going in. He’d taken QuiTai to the fortress too soon. He should have asked her more questions.

  He wished he could talk with her right now. What would she have seen in the Red Happiness that he didn’t? The militia had destroyed any evidence he might have found there when they looted the crime scene. All he had was the victim’s body.

  Despite his wife’s protests, the mortician had spoken about the body in detail. He’d guessed that the weapon that had fractured Turyat’s skull was probably a bottle. Given that the murder happened in a brothel bar, that wasn’t much of a stretch of the imagination. But he’d also ventured a guess that the blow had come from someone shorter than Turyat. The former Governor wasn’t tall for a Thampurian, but he was a head taller than most Ponongese men. QuiTai was short.

  But why would QuiTai kill him? If Cuulon was telling the truth – and Inattra seemed to agree with his story – she’d enjoyed torturing the former Governor. Killing him would have ended her revenge.

  As unsettling as it was, he’d always known she was cruel. It jarred him, but he had to admit she had every right to revenge after the way Turyat made her suffer. If he’d lost his entire family…

  If he lost his family, it wouldn’t change his life that much. The moment Nashruu disembarked from the Golden Barracuda this morning, he’d realized he had nothing to say to her. He didn’t even know her. They’d gone through the public rites of courtship without ever really talking. The night of their wedding, he’d gone on a mission for Intelligence that required months of undercover work. They hadn’t lived together or even seen each other since that day. He sent her boy Khyram gifts from time to time. That was the extent of their relationship. Losing family might not change his life, but leaving this island would.

  He took the stairs down to the street as he mulled over the thought that bothered him. He kept assuming QuiTai was guilty. She had motive. But did she have opportunity? It seemed impossible, but he was used to her doing seemingly impossible things.

  This wasn’t helping. It would be far simpler to find out who was guilty than to prove her innocent. So who were the other suspects?

  Grandfather, the Devil, the mysterious enemies who’d killed QuiTai’s lieutenants… if he focused on who might want to frame QuiTai for Turyat’s death, the list of suspects was endless. If he focused on the victim, there was Turyat’s wife – now she had motive. She’d been dragged to Levapur with her exiled husband. For many years, they’d looted the treasury, but once Turyat lost his office, they’d been cut off. Then Turyat had become a vapor ghoul. Now that he was dead, his widow could return to Thampur. She probably had plenty of money and jewels stashed away to make a comfortable life for herself. That sounded like a good motive.

  He stood in the middle of the crossroads and squinted against the sun. A man with a jungle fowl tucked under his arm walked past him. He turned to look the other direction. Heat thermals rose from the dirt road in waves. Everyone had gone indoors to nap through the hottest part of the day.

  Where should he go next? Probably to question Turyat’s widow. He didn’t want to upset her, but it needed to be done. As he looked upslope, he saw the Dragon Pearl. Turyat had taken his pipes in the private rooms of the black lotus den on the second floor, as did many wealthy Thampurians in Levapur. Maybe the Ingosolian owner, Lizzriat, would tell him something.

  “Forgive me for interrupting, Governor Zul, but you seem a man in search of something. Perhaps I can help?” LiHoun asked as he stepped out of the alleyway. He’d shrunk since Kyam had last seen him, and his whiskey-colored skin seemed coated in pallor.

  “Madam Inattra asked me to send you along if we met.”

  The Ponongese woman beside LiHoun was trying to seem inconspicuous, but some people were too vivacious to hide in plain sight.

  “I know you,” Kyam said as he stared at her. From where? Her bright orange sarong was a common enough color, but the designs on it were unusual.

  “We used to be neighbors,” she said.

  How could he have forgotten? Of course – those botanical designs on her sarong were made by someone from Cay Rhi. “You’re RhiLan’s cousin! That’s where I know you. RhiHalla?”

  “RhiHanya,” she corrected.

  She struck him as nervous, which seemed out of character for her. He squinted at her as he tried to figure out what was off. “But I’ve seen you much more recently. In the marketplace. You bumped into me.”

  “It was a narrow aisle, Governor.”

  He realized she might be offended. “Forgive me, I’m sure it was I who bumped into you. And then I didn’t apologize. How very rude of me.”

  A slow smile spread over her face as she relaxed. “Word has it that you’re looking for Turyat’s murderer. How are you coming with that, Governor Zul?”

  “Too direct for Thampurian tastes,” LiHoun muttered to her.

  “You do it your way, uncle, I’ll do it mine.” She turned back to Kyam. “Well? Do you know who killed that Thampurian? Lady QuiTai is in danger every moment she sits in that fortress.”

  It was as if she suspected he didn’t know how to investigate a murder. “I’ve just started looking into it.” Should he admit he was already stumped? “I don’t suppose either one of you was here this morning?”

  “No.”

  Their answers came a bit too quickly.

  “Did you see Lady QuiTai earlier today?”

  They exchanged a glance that made him wary.

  “Tell me,” he said.

  “We might have run into her upslope in the Quarter of Delights early this morning,” RhiHanya said.

  “Might have?”

  “We chatted for a while. Then she headed down while we, uh, went on our way.”

  LiHoun nodded as she talked.

  “Chatted about what?” Kyam asked.

  “The murders of her lieutenants.”

  From the way RhiHanya said it, Kyam thought she was telling the truth about their conversation. She was hiding something else, though.

  “When you say you went on your way, where did you go? Did you two stay together?”

  LiHoun pointed beyond the Quarter of Delights to the steep mountainside rising above Levapur. “We went upslope, to my apartment, together.”

  “Can any witnesses verify that?”

  “My wives.”

  Kyam sighed. He didn’t speak Li and he doubted LiHoun’s wives spoke Thampurian. With only LiHoun to translate, he’d only get the answers LiHoun wanted him to have.

  “You seem troubled, Governor.” LiHoun’s expression was entirely sincere, although Kyam thought he detected a hint of dark humor glinting beneath it. “Is there any way we can help?”

 
; “Only if you can tell me who murdered Governor Turyat.”

  LiHoun spread his hands. “Alas, my rice bowl has no meat today.”

  “Would you tell me if you knew?”

  He looked hurt.

  “QuiTai is in the fortress. Of course we’d tell you,” RhiHanya said.

  “I suspect there’s plenty of meat hidden under your rice that you two don’t want me to see. That’s fair enough. I’m not after the Devil, and I’m not out to trick you into giving away QuiTai’s secrets. All I’m asking for is a list of everyone who was in the Red Happiness this morning. In particular, I want to speak to PhaSun. Inattra has no idea where she went. You know everything that happens in this town, LiHoun, so I figure maybe you know where to find her.”

  RhiHanya and LiHoun whispered quickly in Li as their eyes flicked over to him and then away. RhiHanya lifted her palm. It was a Ponongese gesture very much like a shrug, but the subtle message behind it escaped him. LiHoun rolled a kur and lit it, as if that were his final say in the matter.

  RhiHanya turned back to him. “PhaSun is in Old Levapur. I left a message with the Pha that it was safe for her to return to the Red Happiness, but who knows if she heard it?” Her sour frown made Kyam think that talking to the Pha clan leaders had been an unpleasant job, but she didn’t want to complain about it.

  “Inattra suspected as much.” Kyam knew these two could gather information quicker than he could. He leaned toward them and lowered his voice. “Unfortunately, I can’t go into Old Levapur. If I go alone, I’ll never be seen again. If I take soldiers, I’ll provoke a riot.”

  “They don’t like us either,” RhiHanya admitted. “If there’s one thing the Pha hate, it’s someone from another clan ordering them around. So of course they get stubborn at the worst possible times.”

  “I wonder if PhaSun would come out of hiding if she thought it would get Inattra into trouble. You know, pass on some sort of hint that I’m going to tell QuiTai rumors I heard when I go back to the fortress later this afternoon…”