Worldsoul

Twenty-Seven

Keep her away from me! Shadow woke with a shock, flung awake with all her nerves jangling. It took her a minute to realise that the alarm was the ifrit’s, not her own.

“What are you talking about?”

“Keep her away!”

Her next thought was that the disir had come back. Shadow jumped off the bed, reaching automatically for the sun-and-moon blade.

“You won’t need that,” a voice said. In a shaft of moonlight, Shadow could see someone sitting in the chair by the window. She fumbled for the lamp and flicked it into light. On the table beside the bed, Shadow’s sigilometer was ticking off the scale.

“Who are you?” Then she realised, and bowed. “You are a demon.”

“I am a duke of Hell,” the woman said. She wore crimson armour and a great gold ring that reminded Shadow of the Shah’s. Her hair was unconcealed. A demon does not wish to hide her hair from the sight of God; a demon does not need to be concerned about modesty.

“Do I alarm you?” the demon said, with cool amusement.

“The thing in my head does not like you. That’s enough to predispose me in your favour,” Shadow replied. The demon laughed. It sounded genuine.

“I can see why you might think that.”

“Will you tell me your name?” Shadow asked, expecting the demon to say no. But the Duke of Hell answered readily enough.

“My name is Gremory. You may have heard of me.”

“Yes. Your name is inscribed in the True Grimoire. You find hidden treasure, and draw the love and desire of beautiful women. I’m afraid I’m not up for the latter.”

The demon laughed again. “You’re used to this, aren’t you? One can tell you’re an alchemist.” She uncoiled herself from the seat and walked across the room. She smelled of fire. “Those things are my main remit, it’s true, but I can do a lot of things. Demons like variety. You’ll be wondering why I’ve come to visit you.” Back, back! the spirit in Shadow’s head insisted. She ignored it.

“I’ve had a number of visits lately. From various… entities.”

The demon cocked her head on one side. “I gather it’s been quite the circus. Well, you need not worry. I have no plans to create havoc. On the contrary. I’m here to help.”

“Oh,” Shadow said. It sounded unconvincing. “I don’t want to seem rude, but… ”

“I understand.” The demon did not seem offended. She stared at Shadow out of cold red eyes. “You are acquiring powerful patrons, powerful enemies.”

“You’re telling me.”

“The Shah, the disir, the Court… ” Gremory’s voice was sly.

As she was supposed to, Shadow bit. “The Court? I know about the first two.”

“The Court is at the heart of things. The Court wants you.”

Shadow shook her occupied head in bewilderment. The spirit seemed to have gone to ground, for the moment, and that in itself was interesting. “What in the world does the Court want with me? It’s got its own personnel. They’re powerful magicians and their interests lie in the West, not here.” But she was not surprised to hear Gremory mention it. The Court concerned themselves with demons, with grimoires and Goetic magics.

“Yet you have attracted their attention. Or at least, the attention of one of them. A man named Jonathan Deed.”

“I’ve heard of Deed,” Shadow said, slowly. “But I can’t remember where.”

“Deed is disir.”

“What?”

“He is of that lineage. He’s a male, of course. They’re different. The females are more savage.” Gremory looked modestly down at her talons. Their scarlet colouring ran down into her long fingers as far as the first joint, as though her fingers were dipped in blood. She blinked and the talons changed to bronze, then back to blood. “Naturally.”

Shadow’s mind was working fast. “So there’s a connection. Did Deed send the disir? Why did it come after me?”

“I think Deed wants you. You ought to know how it works by now. The Court wants what Suleiman wants; he desires what the Court has. Each of them feed off one another-the Court and the Has. Under the Skein, it didn’t really matter: balance was kept no matter what. Now the Skein are gone and the city’s up for grabs. Guess who’s grabbing?”

“Makes sense,” Shadow said. “So the thing in my head-the ifrit? What does it want?”

“I don’t know,” Gremory said. “Shall we take a look?”

Being possessed by two entities was not a comfortable experience. Shadow sat, trying not to squirm, while the demon evaporated into smoke and drifted into her lungs, then into her blood, then into her mind. Shadow felt as though she was standing in a crowded elevator; one that might, at any moment, break a cable and start to plummet. She took a deep breath, willing stillness.

“I know you’re in here!” the demon sang, like a child playing hide and seek. “I can fi-i-i-ind you!”

Shadow, eyes shut, tried to look within. The ifrit, which suddenly seemed very small, was running, bolting down neural pathways, disappearing into the labyrinthine causeways of the mind. Shadow, pursuing, felt herself drop, as if she’d fallen down a well. Her eyes snapped open.

The laboratory was gone. The fronds of acacia waved gently above her head, higher than they should have been against a vivid blue sky. One of Shadow’s hands was raised, imprisoned in someone else’s. She looked up to see her aunt, familiar behind the lace-edged veil that she always wore. Behind the veil, her aunt smiled.

“Would you like an ice?”

“Yes, please!”

They walked along a sandy track, through a pair of ornate iron gates with curling letters above them. Shadow spelled the words with only a little difficulty: City Zoo. Her adult awareness had retreated, distantly watching: it was a little like being in a lucid dream, but with the sense of self dulled. Shadow was a child again, excited about the zoo and seeing all the animals.

“Can we see the tiger?”

“Yes, and the marmosets. You like those, don’t you? We’ve got all afternoon. We can see whatever you like.”

Shadow, happy, walked with her aunt along the track and they came to the first of the pens. A stout spotted hyena basked in the afternoon sunshine, fast asleep. Shadow did not like hyenas very much-they smelled-so they did not linger.

“Look! Do you see the camels?”

The pens were large and spacious, with plenty of room for the animals to roam. This one was the size of a field, with troughs for the camels to feed. Each had one hump, and their sandy coats made them blend into the earth.

“Aren’t they funny?” her aunt said.

Then one of the camels turned and looked directly at Shadow, who stopped in alarm. The camel’s coat was black and so were its eyes, with a flicker of scarlet within. Its lips drew back, displaying sharp, pointed teeth.

“Look!” Aunt Behamiah said again. “Isn’t he funny?”

It was evident that she could not see what Shadow saw. From a long way away, the adult Shadow realised what was happening: the fleeing spirit was taking refuge in her memories, hiding out at a day at the zoo. She remembered this day, now: it had been a happy one, with no peculiar incidents. The camel was Gremory. The beasts-a figure of strangeness to Europeans-were linked to the moon and to certain demons. Gremory, as camel, winked a black-red eye at Shadow and took a graceful leap over the barrier. Aunt Behamiah did not appear to notice. Shadow watched as the camel raced down the sandy track, and she could see something running now, flickering in and out of the trees. She let go of her aunt’s hand and sped after it, glancing over her shoulder to see Behamiah standing in complacent ignorance.

“Hey!” Shadow shouted at the fleeing dark shape. “Leave my memory alone!” She was outraged that the nice day at the zoo was being hijacked by this demon-and-ifrit show. “Not so smug now, are you?”

But as she came around a thicket of flowering oleander, the camel stood alone.

“Lost him,” Gremory said. It sounded odd, coming out of a camel’s jaws. She worked her mouth and spat sideways into the bushes. “Sod it.”

Shadow had a splitting headache. The ifrit had gone to ground, hiding deep within. Occasionally she felt a twitch, like a nervous tic, and it made her jump, but she wasn’t sure whether this was the spirit resurfacing or her own nerves.

Gremory perched on the arm of the divan. It looked unbalanced: a human would have toppled it, but the demon appeared to have no weight. Shadow filed that away for future reference.

“Sorry.” The demon sounded remarkably sincere. “Nearly had him but he gave me the slip.” She raised a long, elegant hand and Shadow saw a wisp of smoke emanating from the tip of her taloned forefinger. There was the smell of sandalwood; Gremory inhaled.

“Do you know what he wants?”

“He’s a prince of the air. Do you know what that is?”

“I’ve done my studies,” Shadow answered, irritably. “In fact, it’s what the Shah told me to ask the ifrit in the first place-that was the ruse to get it to talk to us. I suppose he did that because if this thing is also a prince, it would be bound to know, and it was probably interested. They’re true spirits-ifrits, not demons or angels-neither good enough for Heaven nor bad enough for Hell. So they wander, in groups. They have ships.” The Barquess came suddenly to mind: not much difference, perhaps.

“This one is either a renegade, or he’s lost. I say a ‘prince.’ He might be lower in the hierarchy than that-in fact, he almost certainly is. He’s possibly a duke, or something: someone who’s fallen out with the Prince himself and who’s had to go on the run. The Shah found him, trapped him, called you in and now he’s-”

“-in me.”

“Unfortunately, yes.” The demon touched her smouldering talon to her lips. “He’s going to be difficult to dislodge. Knows a lot of tricks. I do know someone who could help, bu-”

“But?”

“He’s out in the Great Desert. The Khaureg.”

After a moment, Shadow said, “Oh.”

“You’ve been beyond the city?”

“Yes, once. My knife comes from the desert.”

For the first time, the demon looked genuinely intrigued. “Does it? That means you won it.”

“Yes. I killed someone for it.”

“Who?”

“No one important.”

“Everyone’s important to someone,” the demon said. “I’m wondering if your knife is connected to the spirit that’s possessing you now.”

“If this is some elaborate plot, then the Shah could just have taken it, couldn’t he?”

“I don’t think it’s a plot. I think it’s a fortuitous incident.”

“Well,” Shadow said. “I won once. And I’ll win again.”