other, shot with lights the color of illness.
Robin suddenly found that she was angry. She spat, "Well, fuck you. Don't think I haven't blamed myself enough. If you hadn't treated me like some little trophy, maybe you wouldn't be here now, so don't get self-righteous with me. I think I prefer you, Dev, as a hyena or whatever you're supposed to be. Maybe that's more real."
"Maybe," the thing said softly. Deveth was gone, and so was the beast. The spirit rose up into the air, a whirling mass of color. Pressure built inside Robin's skull, and there was a sharp bursting pain at the bridge of her nose. Automatically she wiped her upper lip: her nose was bleeding and she felt wetness trickling down her cheeks. Her heart hammered in her ribcage, great, slow beats growing louder and louder until all she could hear was her heart and a thin, high wailing. Through a pinpoint she saw Mhara, on his knees with his arms futilely raised. His face was streaked with blood and the swaying mass was beating at him, each lash laying open his arms and his ribcage. The silvery droplets of blood trailed slowly up into the air and floated away. Something was licking his face as it bled.
Twenty-Six
As the car pulled out behind the Pellucid Island Opera House, Zhu Irzh broke a long, tension-filled silence and said, "That—thing—that attacked me. You saw it, I'm sure."
"Yes. Yes, I saw it." Jhai shifted in the seat beside him.
"It was a Celestial being, wasn't it?"
"Yes, it was."
"I thought they were supposed to be nice?"
"They are."
"Well, that one wasn't. It tried to garrote me with its tongue."
"There's a reason for that." Jhai murmured.
"And that would be?"
"The drug you were given via the virus is a neurological enhancer. It taps into aggression and anger. It acts as an override on normal states of consciousness."
Zhu Irzh didn't have a very scientific mind, but he was beginning to see where this conversation was leading. "You fed the drug to a Celestial?"
Jhai nodded. "Yes. A while ago, I was contacted by an old friend who had become versed in dark magic. She told me that she had found a way to break the seal between the worlds, an ancient and powerful summoning spell, to bring demonkind and Heavenkind through to Earth. Normally, as I'm sure you know, it's easier to summon demons than the Celestials, but this spell worked admirably."
"And that friend was Deveth Sardai?"
Jhai nodded. "That's right." She gave him a sidelong glance and he could see the flicker of gold behind her eyes. "We activated the spell. And we summoned a Celestial, who was already on Earth for some reason—I never found out why—and bound him here."
"Do you know which Celestial?"
"He called himself Mhara. I don't know the name, but then, I'm not very well versed in the hierarchies of Heaven."
"No, I don't expect you are."
Jhai squinted at him. "And are you?"
"No, not really," the demon was forced to admit. "I know most of the major players, of course. But there are a lot of Celestial beings and none of them are that interesting, frankly."
"Anyway, we started experimenting. I told the lab staff that he was a demon, that we were working on ways to protect Earth from another invasion by Hell."
"But, in fact, your plans were somewhat more grandiose," Zhu Irzh said neutrally. "You're planning to storm Heaven, aren't you?"
She smiled. "You're quick. Yes. But not with an army. The original plan was to infect the Celestial with the drug in a viral carrier, wipe his memory and send him back."
"You can do that? Your technology's that advanced?"
"Paugeng's R&D division is cutting edge, Zhu Irzh."
"So Heaven would become infected with an aggression drug, turn against itself, be thrown into chaos. And then—what?"
"Then the people who are paying me to undertake the research would move in."
"And who are they?"
Jhai paused. "Let's just say that they have unlimited funding."
"It's one of the Ministries of Hell, isn't it? Which one? War? Though it's more the style of Epidemics, and they've certainly got reason to try and recapture some of the power they lost earlier in the year." He glanced at her closed face. "You're not going to tell me, are you?"
"I can't. I'm under oath. It would literally kill me to tell you."
"What happened with Deveth? Did she become a liability?"
Jhai grimaced. "She started asking for too much. Power crazy. She knew what I was. I couldn't hide it from her; I started to change