by Liz Williams
“Inari? Are you all right?”
“I don’t—oh dear.” An expression of alarm crossed Inari’s pale face. “I don’t think it’s going to be another couple of months after all.”
“It’s not that I mind you borrowing the jet,” Jhai said, sitting by Zhu Irzh’s side as the expanse of the desert once more unscrolled below. “It’s just that I’d quite like to know where we’re going.”
The demon smiled. “Surprise.”
“I could just ask the pilot myself, you know.”
“You could. Take a look out of the window.”
Jhai did so. Zhu Irzh followed her gaze and saw icy summits, impossibly high against a blue sky. Somewhere close, an invisible sentient city floated, thinking about its mistakes.
“That’s Tibet,” Jhai said.
“Yes, it is.”
“So the nearest airport in China is probably—ah. Kashgar.”
“That’s right.”
They touched down around midday and took a taxi to their destination. Zhu Irzh clutched the spell in his pocket as they drove through the hot dusty streets. Roerich had been extremely helpful, but he had admitted that this was not his area of expertise. The demon was not sure what he was expecting as they approached the Khan’s villa. Perhaps his journey would be unnecessary—after all, the other spirits that had been ensnared by the Khan were now free.
But as soon as he got out of the car and walked into the grounds of the villa, he knew that this was not the case. There might not be the same sense of hideous oppression—that had gone with the death of the Khan. But the place was still warped and haunted and filled with a terrible sorrow. Zhu Irzh stepped up to the door and went in.
“Foyle?”
There was no reply. Zhu Irzh waited for a moment, then took the spell from his pocket. Roerich had translated it into Mandarin: the demon read it carefully aloud, sending it forming into the air. No bloody incantation, this, no iron spell of death, but something calm and quiet and peaceful. Zhu Irzh watched as it hung in the air for a moment, then the words faded to a single point of light. The demon took a step back as the light started to grow.
It was a portal, but to a very different world than the one which the Khan had opened. Zhu Irzh saw a green lawn, a terrace with topiaried shrubbery in pots. The air smelled of roses, and a yew hedge grew, dark against a bank of trees. There was a sharp clicking sound from behind the hedge: a croquet mallet, perhaps. On the lawn was a table and around it sat three women, blonde-haired and wearing long, full dresses. They were drinking tea.
As the demon stared, one of the women looked up and waved.
“Rodney! Where have you been, dear? We’ve been waiting ever such a long time for you!”
“We saved you some cake,” one of the other women said.
“Coming, Mother!” Beside Zhu Irzh, Foyle’s ghost had stepped out of the wall. Other shadows followed him, passing swiftly through the light to other destinations. Foyle paused, to seize the demon’s hand and pump it. He felt quite solid, apart from a slight chill to the flesh. “Zhu Irzh, old chap! Splendid job. Knew you’d come back, though some of the other lads had their doubts. Knew when you’d got rid of the Khan, too.”
“That wasn’t me, actually.” Zhu Irzh was rarely overtaken by modesty, but something in Foyle’s manner seemed to bring it out of him. “Glad to help.”
“Marvelous! Well, mustn’t keep the mater waiting.” And with that, Foyle was through the gap and walking across the lawn to an afterlife of polite teas and cucumber sandwiches. He’d earned it, Zhu Irzh thought, and watched until the portal closed and he was standing alone in an empty, echoing old villa on the outskirts of a desert town.
“At least we’ve made the most of it,” Zhu Irzh said a day later, as he and Jhai walked up the steps to the airport. They’d had a holiday of sorts, even if it was only a twenty-four-hour break. But the phone call telling the demon that Inari had gone into labor was enough to bring both of them home.
“True. I’ll be back at the end of the month, though. The chemical plant’s going into production then. It should be—” Jhai hesitated, eyes narrowing.
“What is it?”
“Those guys at the end there,” Jhai said in an undertone. “I’ve seen them somewhere before.”
Zhu Irzh looked over at the neatly clad Chinese men. There were three of them and Jhai was right, they did look familiar. “Just suits,” the demon said, but it wasn’t until he was walking up the steps of Jhai’s own aircraft that he remembered where he had set eyes on them before: during his rescue attempt in the plane to Kashgar, when the pilot had locked himself out of the cockpit. The suits had seen him then and he was pretty sure that they’d spotted him this time, too. Just airline security, or something more? Time will tell, the demon thought. Time will tell.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Liz Williams is a science fiction and fantasy writer living in Glastonbury, England, where she is codirector of a witchcraft supply business. The author of seventeen novels and over one hundred short stories, she has been published by Bantam Spectra and Night Shade Books in the US, and by Tor Macmillan in the UK. She was a frequent contributor to Realms of Fantasy, and her writing appears regularly in Asimov’s and other magazines. She is the secretary of the Milford SF Writers’ Workshop and teaches creative writing and history of science fiction.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2010 by Liz Williams
Cover design by Barbara Brown
This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
345 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
DETECTIVE INSPECTOR CHEN NOVELS
FROM OPEN ROAD MEDIA
Available wherever ebooks are sold
Open Road Integrated Media is a digital publisher and multimedia content company. Open Road creates connections between authors and their audiences by marketing its ebooks through a new proprietary online platform, which uses premium video content and social media.
Videos, Archival Documents, and New Releases
Sign up for the Open Road Media newsletter and get news delivered straight to your inbox.
Sign up now at
www.openroadmedia.com/newsletters
FIND OUT MORE AT
WWW.OPENROADMEDIA.COM
FOLLOW US:
@openroadmedia and
Facebook.com/OpenRoadMedia