Chasing the Dragon

by Justina Robson

  Lila walked out of the epicentre along the road towards the Ahriman Manse. The sword, in one piece, lay at her back on a makeshift belt. She neither looked right nor left, nor at the ground, as she stepped over the increasingly large piles of debris in her way as she passed through the concentric rings of her destruction. In her wake groaning demons began to pick themselves up and the less stunned of the small creatures dragged themselves to shelter. At the last second she'd decided against holding the weapons in her hands. A little bit less was a whole lot more.

  She made her way steadily, ignoring everyone. When the attacks came, as they must, she parried them with necessary force, but she never slackened or speeded her pace or altered her direction even in one degree. These were not significant attacks or else she would never have been able to stage-manage herself so well. They were merely opportune assaults hastily made in case she were weaker than she appeared, almost a demon welcome of a kind.

  By the time she reached the house, having telegraphed her arrival and intentions so clearly, there was a small posse waiting for her. The steady pelting of missiles-everything from soft fruit to gunshotceased abruptly. The demons in front of her were all large and imposing. They dwarfed her in size, except for the central figure, who was slight but made up for stature by the brooding malevolence of his presence, an energy that was sufficiently powerful to make her feel like turning around and going home, though she didn't.

  Viza was the master of the Law. His accompanying creatures were the Instruments of Justice. She recognised them from a quick study of the latest photographs from the agency files. They had no exact authority to prevent her entering her own house, but she stopped as a mark of respect to hear them out in the hope that she wouldn't have to fight them.

  "Welcome back, Friendslayer," Viza said. He was almost human looking, save for his strangely extended skull and the talons he bore instead of fingers. "I trust you are here to execute justice upon your husband?"

  "If you can point me at him," Lila said lightly, "I'll be out of your hair."

  At this Viza's already significant darkness deepened and the light dimmed around them all. "Alas, I was hoping that you knew his whereabouts."

  "I'm here to find him," she said. "Do you have any helpful knowledge you might share with me?"

  "All say he is within the city, and that is all."

  "Okay. I'll start with this house and then I'll search the city then," Lila said, a model of civil compliance and practicality.

  "We have searched all the properties not directly controlled by your ... family interests ... so you may ignore those," Viza replied smoothly. "Perhaps you would take one of my assistants with you on your task to verify

  "I don't think so." She knew she had no obligation. He was simply hoping to prey on her inexperience of demon affairs and win her over with civility, which she was reasonably sure he didn't feel. That made elbowing aside the dregs of her natural politeness much easier. She lowered her chin fractionally and maintained a powerful position, unblinking. "Stand aside."

  He had no choice, though she could see it irked him deeply. The black miasma of his spread energy clotted and became flakey, like negative snow; then he gave her the merest nod of acceptance-the only concession to her authority he could bear-and twitched himself to his left so that she could pass them and enter the house.

  The hall was crowded with demons of all shapes and sizes, none of which she recognised except the Ahrimani servants who wore a purple sash around their garish colours. These immediately ran to her and were first to prostrate themselves, facedown on the floor, quickly followed by most of the others present. Those who didn't flatten bowed deeply. The slowest was a tall, horned, and tusked demon like a centaur, with a dappled, wet-looking skin. His face struggled to compose itself around the many outgrowths of fang and horn but he did lower it to her. She guessed he must be a significant member of one of the houses Teazle had most outrageously acquired.

  "Get me maps and inventory of everything we own," Lila said, walking through the way that parted for her as if it were the sea parting at the foot of a saint. "And send the vassals of all the newly sequestered families to me in the war room." She didn't acknowledge anyone with even a glance and proceeded through the house in the same way, acquiring detailed information from all her machine senses as she passed. The basic features hadn't altered, though there were many more of the lesser immediate family in residence and signs of great spending having gone on in their previously seldom-visited apartments. Even the fish pools sparkled with jewels cast carelessly into their tiled shallows.

  Besides family, a lot of whom Lila supposed must be friends and relations were about the place, trying not to crowd to see her, bowing, ingratiating, backing off, spouting greetings of enormously overblown grandeur, and trying to foist trinkets on her. She strode by as if they did not exist, and if they got too close she made no effort to avoid them, even treading on one particularly greasy individual who was trying to stop her, scraping and bowing backwards with some whiny petition about an unfairness in the distribution of wealth gained by the family. However, the servants at least had some of their heads on straight and made sure that the war room was pristine and ready for her arrival, with onlookers and hopefuls corralled to the halls on either side, as she reached the head of the vast staircase that led to its frescoed and vaulted magnificence.

  She'd only ever been shown this room by Zal after they'd been married, as part of her grand tour of the house, and remembered its heavy black grandeur, set off by a magnificent set of stained-glass windows that wouldn't have disgraced a cathedral, although the subject matter of various Ahrimani engaged in acts of torture, slayage, and sex might have.

  At that time she hadn't been head of the family or anywhere near it. Zal was an adoptee, through love, by Sorcha, who was herself only one of thirty children of the matriarch's sister's marriages. Zal wasn't counted lesser, but he was only a minor authority with some seventy or more individuals before him in line to the ascension. The fact that the house itself was the second-largest power unit in Demonia was what had given him so much kudos. However, Teazle was the direct heir of his own house, Sikarza. They had married, and that had yanked Zal and Lila up the ranks of the Ahriman wannabes about forty places. Further ascent waited only on some longevity to their match; time and goodwill needed to be established, and then more would follow in due course as both houses made the most of their fresh alliance. However, once Teazle had killed his mother, they had reached direct heir position themselves, seeing as they were wed to the head of an allied house. Only Zhadrakor Ahriman counted higher. But since then Teazle had gone on his monster mission to rule all of Demonia, as a side effect of his mission to help Lila, and that had pushed the whole Ahriman house into the shade of his glory. As his spouse and the only available member of their union, this made Lila head of the entire empire he had fashioned. She had greatly honoured Ahrimani by making this her base, elevating its ranks instantly to equal position with Sikarza once again as overlords of the civilised world. They owed her big-time. The Ahrimani stood to lose a lot in Zal's absence, though his death was unproven. Her reemergence had renewed all that had been lost in the fifty years since they had gone. Coupled with Teazle's reign of terror, it put her in a supreme position. Plus she didn't want to start out by flushing the Sikarzas through with blood since many of them no doubt would be the keenest rivals for her position. That might be messy, with too many possibilities for a mistake. She had to come here, and she had to make them all come to her and establish her superiority immediately and absolutely. Yes, as she reached the throne at the head of the vast ebony horseshoe table and sat down in its ugly gothic nest of snakes, skulls, and skeletons, she felt in charge, confident of her decisions and out of her comfort zone by a factor of approximately a thousand.

  The bikini gleamed with approval of the entire scheme. She placed the huge sword down in front of her on the tabletop and removed her hands from it.

  The servants took this as a
cue that they might creep forwards with an intent to place drinks, food, treats, and baskets of solid-gold fruit about the place as some kind of warming welcome. Lila dismissed them all with a wave. Gifts were toadying. Even a glass of water would be grovelling to them too much. They got nothing. She took a drink for herself in an ostentatious etched glass and placed it next to the sword.

  Vilifi, the Ahriman majordomo, a thin humanoid demon of spectral properties who had been housekeeper when she was last there, drifted to a position just behind her and asked what they ought to do with the items. She sensed a key moment. If she admitted responsibility for this, he would plague her with decisions every second of the day and she would get nowhere. It would be weak.

  She raised one armoured finger in a laissez-faire manner and let it fall to signify she couldn't care less but that he had better not bother her with such trivia again. He wasn't in his position for nothing. Demons loved subtle command. Whatever he made of it the servants holding the decorations melted away silently, leaving the guard, looking rather desperate to be curious but even more desperate not to be, and Vilifi himself, who blended with the shadows cast by the vast drapes at the stained-glass windows. As an afterthought she had all the other chairs removed from the room so that she could better claim the entire table and, by extension, any business, for herself. She seemed decently alone as the first of her subordinate house leaders arrived.

  She was a fire demon, blazing with live flame, six armed and black eyed, and as soon as she had a clear sight line she flung her chest forward and a lance of white-hot fire moving at slightly less than the speed of sound shot directly at Lila's chest.

  The sword leapt off the table, transformed itself into a whirling grey shield of strange vortices, and consumed the flame. In dismay the demon repowered her attack, using more energy, trying to push the grey anomaly backwards. She opened her cone to let the fire flow around the sides and get Lila that way. The grey disc bent the fire into itself. Then, as if it had lost patience, it turned on its side like a whirling circular saw blade and sped down the line of fire, eating as it went, spinning itself up to the demon and scattering her in a blitz of tiny smoking pieces all around the room. Her shriek of shock broke a window and the drapes began to smoulder.

  Lila hadn't had to move. The sword re-formed itself and was back on the table, in its makeshift holder, before anyone had time to draw breath. It moved so fast that the other demons who had arrived weren't sure what had happened. Vilifi appeared at that moment with the records she had requested on a box full of scrolls. She tried not to lose her temper at the archaic things and reached casually for the first of them.

  "Get me the heir," she said aloud, opening the scroll. "And make it quick. I haven't got all day."

  The air became poisonous as another demon used the moment of her distraction to chance his luck. Clouds of vile toxins appeared as if from nowhere. As they touched her skin she felt her body react, analysing, manufacturing counteragents, issuing chemistry to prevent the damaging effects from causing lasting harm to her nerves, though she was soon immune to what would have killed an ordinary human on first contact.

  Lila yawned and began to speed-read the scrolls, taking them, opening them, flicking them out to full length for a glance, and then leaving them on the floor. Her arms moved so fast they were a blur.

  The sword became a spinning sphere of white cloud. It vacuumed up the filthy air and poured fresh, clean, ionised air in its place, darting around as fast as thought so they could only see it when it paused. Plagues followed, diseases so virulent and aggressive that they killed several delegates. The cloud spawned microclouds of bacteria, viruses, and phages of its own.

  There was a brief, epic microparasitic war that lasted three generations for the minuscule protagonists, and then the cloud re-formed itself into a thin, clear film and wrapped itself around the body of the blight demon who had thought he would murder Lila until there was no air left for him. He struggled briefly against it, thrashing as he tried to tear it, but it was a complete membrane. Then it sucked out all the remaining gas and free molecules, and water.

  Lila and the remaining living demons who were lying about in various states of recovery were able to watch as he was shrink-wrapped inexorably to death, shrivelling, withering, shrinking until at last he gave up and petrified. As the film unwrapped itself and spun back to the table, a sword again, he was left lying where he'd fallen, twisted and flattened as if the bindings were still there, his face horrified and enraged. He was about the size of a wastebasket, Lila noted as servants of the house appeared, picked him up, and carried him off.

  "And that one," she said. She tossed down the final scroll and reached to take up her glass of wine, had a sip, and placed it back down delicately on the table. "Any more before I begin?"

  But although she was certain others had come with her death already a certainty in their minds they didn't offer to make it so. Four had died in the poisoning and two of the diseases. Their stone remains were also removed to be returned to the family homes, and couriers could be heard winging off from the dispatch balcony to demand the attendance of the new regents.

  She was slightly surprised to find herself with only eleven remaining living in the audience. They bowed deeply and kept themselves well back and artificially still.

  "Listen carefully," she said. "You can fill in the recruits when they get here. I will be searching your properties in the city for my husband. If anybody gets in my way or so much as attempts to interrupt me, I will respond with mortal force. Those whose properties are clear will be granted dominion over their own once more. You will remain in exclusive and priority allegiance with the Sikarza house, but you will manage your own affairs, all of which are in need of some serious attention as I see here. If I find any of you have concealed Teazle or his whereabouts or are in any way implicated in his disappearance from free conduct I will kill you, and that goes for any I deem to be involved. Does anyone have anything they would like to say that might be useful to me?"

  Some of them took breath.

  Lila held up her hand. "I urge you to consider the fact that if your information is not useful I will liquidate half your house assets and distribute them among the commons," she added. "Half a fortune every time anyone utters a single word that is pointless. Chattels, property, and dependents are not exempt from this. But if your information is useful, then you will receive one-tenth of the Sikarzan fortune to be distributed as you see fit among your house."

  In one minute she had undone Teazle's empire and possibly saved it from a fatal implosion, she figured, since after their takeover all the houses had halted any effort to look after themselves and awaited Teazle's decrees. Since he had no interest in managing a world again, everything was in a terrible mess. Not that she wanted it either. This was as close as she could get to returning everything without looking like a fool. They could be a cartel.

  She spent a moment allocating responsibilities to those next in line at the Sikarza house who were still young enough to be able to handle that kind of authority, and then she made a final check of her subdirectors. They were all deep in thought, apparently.

  Then one stepped forward. She was a hunched, birdlike creature, with clawed feet, who was almost entirely hidden in the shelter of her enormous feathered wings. Sweeps of green and blue were shining on her, signalling deference and placidity. She cleared her throat, though this didn't help her creaking, gravelly voice, and said, "Teazle Sikarza left my house a day before he vanished from sight. He was moving on, but he did not take another house over, and no further murder was reported. My servant was near the house of the wolf lady. They say they saw him inside hours later, as they were buying spell powders in the Souk. It is all I know. May it be useful." She backed up a step after speaking, and then as the others sneered at her she muttered a curse under her breath and they stopped quickly.

  The antimagic detector Lila had engineered to be part of her skin had flared in that instant. This demon must have
a formidable power if they were all willing to stay silent. She wasn't sure how she'd manage against it. Hopefully she wouldn't have to. "I will go there directly," Lila said and stood up. She picked the sword up casually in her hand and paused to finish her drink before walking out.

  She took her time, waiting for a dagger to the back or some other check. She was almost disappointed when nothing came and she was able to leave the house unmolested.

  The wolf woman was Madame Des Loupes. There was a certain full-circle satisfaction at hearing the last sighting might be there, Lila supposed. She wondered if Teazle had been looking for a way to clear himself, but that seemed unusually forward-thinking for him. It could be that he had run out of other places to look. His acquisitions were extensive. If he had completed a search of the remaining small private homes, he would then have been left with the Wild. She was glad it had all stopped before it went that far. Demons of the Wild were something she never wanted to see again in any lifetime.

  Madame's house, on the other hand, was something she did want to see for herself. As her foot touched the street, however-a street remarkably clear of pedestrians and other traffic-she realised she was going to have a few delays. Clusters of demons were massing in the alleys that lined her route back to the Souk. As she walked they attacked her singly and in groups, piling one after the other in a great eager rush, their energy like a wave breaking in a fury of destruction until she was aware of nothing except herself in constant motion and the sword, a whining hum of vicious glee in her hands.