He looked down, staring at his perfectly manicured nails as if they held some clue to things.
‘I came to say that I’m sorry, Fei. That I was wrong.’
When he looked up again he saw that she had turned her face aside. But her body was hunched and tensed, her neck braced, the muscles stretched and taut. She seemed to draw each breath with care, her hands pressed to her breasts as if to hold in all she was feeling.
‘I was wrong, Fei. I… overreacted.’
‘You killed them!’ She spat the words out between her teeth.
You almost killed my child… But he bit back the retort that had come to mind, closing his eyes, calming himself. ‘I know…’
There was a second silence, longer, more awkward than the first. Fei Yen broke this one too. She stood, making to leave.
He went across and held her arm, keeping her there. She looked down at his hand where it gripped her arm, then up at his face. It was a harsh, unsparing look, a look of unfeigned dislike. There was defiance in her eyes, but she made no move to take his hand away.
‘We have not resolved this.’
‘Resolved…’ She poured all the scorn she could muster into the word. ‘I’ll tell you how you could resolve this, Li Yuan.’ She turned to face him, glaring at him, the roundness of her stomach pressed up hard against him. ‘You could take this from my belly and keep it safe until its term was up! That’s what you could do!’ The words were hard, unfeeling. She laughed bitterly, sneering at him. ‘Then you could take your gun and –’
He put his hand over her mouth.
She stepped back, freeing herself from his grip. Then she looked at him, rubbing her arm where he had held it, her eyes watching him all the while, no trace of warmth in them.
‘You never loved me,’ she said. ‘Never. I know that now. It was envy. Envy of your brother. You wanted everything he had. Yes, that was it, wasn’t it?’ She nodded, a look of triumph, a hideous smile of understanding on her lips.
It was cruel. Cruel and untrue. He had loved his brother dearly. Had loved her too. Still loved her, even now, for all she was saying. More than the world itself.
But he could not say it. His face had frozen to a mask. His mouth was dry, his tongue stilled by her anger and bitterness and scorn.
For a moment longer he watched her, knowing that it ended here; that all he had wanted was in ruins. He had killed it in the stables that day. He turned and went to the door, determined to go, not to look back, but she called out to him.
‘One thing you should know before you leave.’
He turned, facing her across the room. ‘What is it?’
‘The child.’ She smiled, an ugly movement of the mouth that was the imperfect copy of a smile. ‘It isn’t yours.’ She shook her head, still smiling. ‘Do you hear me, Li Yuan? The child isn’t yours.’
In the cage at the far end of the room the bird was singing. Its sweet notes filled the silence.
He turned away, moving one leg at a time until he was gone from there, keeping his face a blank, his thoughts in check. But as he walked he could hear her voice, almost kind for once.
One thing, it said, then laughed. One thing.
‘Is this it?’ DeVore asked, studying the statue of the horse minutely, trying to discern any difference in its appearance.
The man looked across at him and smiled. ‘Of course. What were you expecting? Something in an old lead bottle, marked with a skull and crossbones? No, that’s it, all right. It’d make arsenic seem like honeydew, yet it’s as untraceable as melted snow.’
DeVore stood back, looking at the man again. He was nothing like the archetypal scientist. Not in his dress, which was eccentrically Han, or in his manner, which was that of a low-level drug dealer. Even his speech – scattered, as it was, with tiny bits of arcane knowledge – seemed to smack of things illicit or alchemical. Yet he was good. Very good indeed, if Ebert could be trusted on the matter.
‘Well? Are you happy with it, or would you like me to explain it once more?’
DeVore laughed. ‘There’s no need. I have it by heart.’
The toxicologist laughed. ‘That’s good. And so will your friend, neh? Whoever he is.’
DeVore smiled. And if you knew exactly who that was, you would as soon sell me this as cut your own throat.
He nodded. ‘Shall we settle, then? My friend told me you liked cash. Bearer credits. Shall we call it fifty thousand?’
He saw the light of greed in the man’s eyes and smiled inwardly.
‘I thought a hundred. After all, it was a difficult job. That genetic pattern… I’ve not seen its like before. I’d say that was someone special. Someone well bred. It was hard finding the chemical key to break those chains down. I… well, let’s say I had to improvise. To work at the very limit of my talents. I’d say that deserved rewarding, wouldn’t you?’
DeVore hesitated, going through the motions of considering the matter, then bowed his head. ‘As you say. But if it doesn’t work…’
‘Oh, it will work, my friend. I’d stake my life on it. The man’s as good as dead, whoever he is. As I said, it’s perfectly harmless to anyone else, but as soon as he handles it the bacteria will be activated. The rest…’ he laughed ‘… is history.’
‘Good.’ DeVore felt in his jacket pocket and took out the ten bearer credits – the slender chips identical in almost every respect to those he had given Mach a week earlier. Only in one crucial respect were they different: these had been smeared with a special bacterium – one designed to match the toxicologist’s DNA. A bacterium prepared only days earlier by the man’s greatest rival from skin traces DeVore had taken on his first visit here.
DeVore watched the man handle then pocket the chips. Dead, he thought, smiling, reaching out to pick up the statue the man had treated for him. Or as good as, give a week or two.
And himself ? Well, he was the last person to take such chances. He had made sure he wore a false skin over both hands before handling the things. Just in case.
Because one never knew, did one? And a poisoner was a poisoner after all.
He smiled, holding the ancient statue to his chest, then laughed, seeing how the man joined his laughter, as if sharing the cruel joke he was about to play.
‘And there’s no antidote? No possible way of stopping this thing once it’s begun?’
The man shook his head then gave another bark of laughter. ‘Not a chance in hell.’
It was dark where Chen sat. Across from him a ceiling panel flickered intermittently, as if threatening to come brightly, vividly alive again, but never managing more than a brief, fitful glow. Chen had been nursing the same drink for more than an hour, waiting for Haavikko to come, his ill ease growing with every passing minute. More than ten years had passed since he had last sat in the Stone Dragon – years in which he had changed profoundly – yet the place remained unchanged.
Still the same shit-hole, he thought. A place you did well to escape from as quickly as you could. As he had.
But now he was back, if only briefly. Still, Haavikko could hardly have known, could he?
No. Even so, the coincidence made Chen’s flesh crawl. He looked about him uncomfortably, as if the ghost of Kao Jyan or the more substantial figure of Whiskers Lu should manifest themselves from the darkness and the all-pervading fug to haunt him.
‘You want wings?’
He glanced at the thin young girl who had approached him and shook his head, letting disgust and genuine hostility shape his expression.
‘You prefer I suck you? Here, at table?’
He leaned towards her slightly. ‘Vanish, scab, or I’ll slit you throat to tail.’
She made a vulgar hand sign and slipped back into the darkness, but she wasn’t the first to have approached him. They were all out to sell something. Drugs or sex or worse. For a price you could do anything you liked down here. It hadn’t been so in his day, but now it was. Now the Net was little different from the Clay.
He sat b
ack. Even the smell of the place nauseated him. But that was hardly surprising: the air filters couldn’t have been changed in thirty years. The air was recycled, yes, but that meant little here. He swallowed, keeping the bile from rising. How many times had each breath he took been breathed before? How many foul and cankered mouths had sighed their last, drug-soured breath into this putrid mix?
Too many, he thought. Far, far too many.
He looked across. There was someone in the doorway. Someone tall and straight and wholly out of place in this setting. Haavikko. He’d come at last.
He got up and went across, embracing his friend then holding him off at arm’s length, staring up into his face.
‘Axel… how are you? It’s been a long time since you came to us. Wang Ti and the boys… they’ve missed you. And I… well, I was worried. I’d heard…’ He paused then shook his head, unable to say.
Haavikko looked aside momentarily then met his friend’s eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Chen, but it’s been hard. Some days I’ve felt…’ He shrugged then formed his face into a sad little smile. ‘Well… I’ve got what you asked for. I had to cheat a little, and lie rather a lot, not to mention a little bit of burglary, but then it’s hard being an honest man when all about you are thieves and liars. One must pretend to take on their colouring a little simply to survive, neh?’
Chen stared at him a moment, surprised by the hardness in his voice. His sister’s death had changed him. Chen squeezed his shoulder gently, turning him towards his table.
‘Come. Let’s sit down. You can tell me what you’ve been up to while I go through the file.’
Axel sat. ‘You remember Mu Chua’s?’
Chen took the seat across from him. ‘No. I don’t think I do.’
‘The House of the Ninth Ecstasy?’
Chen laughed. ‘Ah… Is that still going?’
Haavikko stared down at his hands. ‘Yes, it’s still going. And guess what? Our friend Ebert is still frequenting it. It seems he visited there no more than a week back.’
Chen looked up, frowning. ‘Ebert? Here? Why would he bother?’
Haavikko looked back at him, bitter resentment in his eyes. ‘He had a meeting, it seems. With a Shih Reynolds.’
‘How do you know this?’
‘The Madame, Mu Chua, told me. It’s funny… I didn’t even raise the matter of Ebert, she just seemed to want to talk about him. She was telling me about this girl she’d sold to Ebert – a fourteen-year-old named Golden Heart. I remember it, strangely enough. It was more than ten years back, so the girl could well be dead now, but Mu Chua was anxious to find out about her, as if the girl were her daughter or something. Anyway, she told me about a dream this girl had had – about a tiger coming from the west and mating with her and about a pale grey snake that died. It seems this was a powerful dream – something she couldn’t get out of her mind – and she wanted me to find out what became of the girl. I said I would and in return she promised to let me know if Ebert or his friend returned. It could be useful, don’t you think?’
‘This Reynolds – do we know who he is or what he was meeting Ebert about?’
‘Nothing, I’m afraid. But Mu Chua thinks he’s been there before. She said there was something familiar about him.’
‘Ping Tiao, perhaps?’
‘Perhaps…’
Chen looked down at the file, touching his wrist band to make it glow, illuminating the page beneath his fingers. For a while he was silent, reading, then he looked up, frowning.
‘Is this all?’
Haavikko looked back at him blankly a moment, his mind clearly elsewhere, then nodded. ‘That’s it. Not much, is it?’
Chen considered a moment then grunted. Hans Ebert had supposedly instigated an investigation into the disappearance of his friend, Fest, but the investigation had never actually happened. No witnesses had been called, no leads followed up. All that existed was this slender file.
‘And Fest? Is there any sign of him?’
Haavikko shook his head. ‘He’s dead. That’s what the file means. They did it. Ebert and Auden. Because we’d got to Fest, perhaps, or maybe for some other reason – I’ve heard since that Fest was getting a bit too talkative for Ebert’s liking even before we approached him. But whatever, they did it. That file makes me certain of it.’
Chen nodded. ‘So what now?’
Haavikko smiled tightly. ‘The girl, Golden Heart. I’m going to find out what happened to her.’
‘And then?’
Haavikko shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. Let’s see where this leads.’ ‘And Ebert?’
Haavikko looked away, the tightness in his face revealing the depth of what he felt.
‘At first I thought of killing him. Of walking up to him in the Officers’ Club and putting a bullet through his brain. But it wouldn’t have brought her back. Besides, I want everyone to know what he is. To see him as I see him.’
Chen was quiet a moment then reached out and touched Haavikko’s arm, as if consoling a child. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said softly. ‘We’ll get him, Axel. I swear we will.’
Klaus Ebert stood on the steps of his mansion, his hands extended to the Marshal. Jelka watched as he embraced her father then stood back, one hand resting on Tolonen’s shoulder. She could see how deep their friendship ran, how close they were. More like brothers than friends.
Ebert turned, offering his hands to her, his eyes lighting at the sight of her.
He held her close, whispering at her ear. ‘You really are quite beautiful, Jelka. Hans is very lucky.’ But his smile only made her feel guilty. Was it really so hard to do this for them?
‘Come. We’ve prepared a feast,’ Ebert said, turning, putting his arm about her shoulders. He led her through, into the vast, high-ceilinged hallway.
She turned her head, looking back at her father, and saw how he was smiling at her. A fierce, uncompromising smile of pride.
It all went well until she saw him. Until she looked across the room and met his eyes. Then it came back to her: her deep-rooted fear of him – something much greater than dislike. Dread, perhaps. Or the feeling she had in her dreams sometimes. That fear of drowning in darkness. Of cold, sightless suffocation.
She looked down, afraid that her eyes would reveal what she was thinking. It was a gesture that, to a watching eye, seemed the very archetype of feminine modesty: the bride obedient, her husband’s thing, to be done with as he willed. But it wasn’t so.
Her thoughts disturbed her. They hung like a veil at the back of her eyes, darkening all she saw. Head bowed, she sat beside her future mother-inlaw, a sense of horror growing in her by the moment.
‘Jelka?’
The voice was soft, almost tender, but it was Hans Ebert who stood before her, straight-backed and cruelly handsome. She looked up, past the silvered buttons of his dark blue dress uniform to his face. And met his eyes. Cold, selfish eyes, little different from how she had remembered them but now alert to her. Alert and open to her womanhood. Surprised by what he saw.
She looked away, frightened by what she saw – by the sudden interest where before there had only been indifference. Like a curse, she thought. My mother’s curse, handed down to me. Her dying gift. But her mouth said simply, ‘Hans,’ acknowledging his greeting.
‘You’re looking very nice,’ he said, his voice clear, resonant.
She looked up, the strength of his voice, its utter conviction, surprising her. Her beauty had somehow pierced the shell of his self-regard. He was looking down at her with something close to awe. He had expected a child, not a woman. And not a beautiful woman, at that. Yes, he was surprised by her, but there was also something else – something more predatory in that look.
She had changed in his eyes. Had become something he wanted.
His sisters stood behind him, no longer taller than her. They watched her enviously. She had eclipsed them overnight and now they hated her. Hated her beauty.
‘Come! Drinks, everyone!’ Klaus Ebert called, smiling at
her as he passed, oblivious of the dark, unseen currents of feeling that swirled all about him in the room. And all the while his son watched her. Her future husband, his eyes dark with the knowledge of possession.
She looked away, studying the palatial vastness of the room. It was a hundred ch’i across, high-ceilinged and six-sided, each wall divided into five by tall, red-painted pillars. The walls were a dark, almost primal green, double doors set into the centre of each wall. Those doors filled the space between floor and ceiling, pillar and pillar. Vast doors that made her feel as though she had shrunk in size. GenSyn giants stood before the pillars to either side of each door, the dark green uniforms of the half-men blending in with the studded leather of the door covering.
A border of tiles, glassy black and bright with darkness, surrounded the central hexagonal space. Huge, claw-footed plinths rested on this polished darkness, each bearing a man-sized vase: brutal-lipped and heavy vases, decorated in violent swirls of red and green and black. Elongated animals coiled about the thick trunk of each vase, facing each other with bared fangs and flaring eyes. On the walls beyond hung huge, wall-sized canvases in thick gilt frames, so dark as to seem in permanent shadow; visions of some ancient forest hell, where huntsmen ran on foot, axe or bow in hand, after a wounded stag. Again there was the green of primal forest, the black of shadows, the red of blood; these three repeated in each frame, melting into one another as in a mist.
A dark red carpet lay lush, luxuriant beneath her feet, while the ceiling above was the black of a starless night.
A voice spoke to her, close by. She smelled a sickly sweetness, masking some deeper, stronger scent. Turning, she met a pink-eyed stare. A three-toed hand held out a glass. The voice was burred, deep, sounding in the creature’s throat. She looked at it aghast, then took the offered glass.
The creature smiled and poured the blood-red liquid into the slender crystal. Again she saw the lace at its cuffs, the neat whiteness of its collar. But now she saw the bright, red roughness of the sprouting hairs on its neck, the meat-pink colour of its flesh, and felt her skin crawl in aversion.
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