The Demon and the City - By Liz Williams Page 0,65

nails tearing her clothes. He jammed the side of a hand against her throat and Robin began to pass out, vision swimming into a sea of light and dark.

Then the dogman was pulled violently away and Robin dropped to the floor. The room was filled with snarling and growling; when she ventured to look up, she saw that the dogman had resumed his doglike form and was rolling over and over with Deveth's beast incarnation. Her teeth were buried in his throat: thick blood sprayed out across the room. Deveth lunged and tore, the yellow eyes devoid now of anything that might once have been human, and the dogman grew slack. The heavy body slumped to the floor. Deveth stepped delicately back, avoiding pooling blood. The dogman's phallus stiffened for a moment, then slid back into its sheath. Moments later, the corpse crumbled into a black, earthy substance and was absorbed by the floor.

"Men!" said Deveth, and spat.

Robin started to laugh and could not stop. She clutched at Deveth's greasy coat and pounded the floor and howled.

"You are hysterical," Deveth said coldly into her ear.

"Thank you," Robin gasped, sobering up.

"You are mine to hunt, Robin, mine to torment, mine to do with as I please. I am not subject to the rules of dogtown. The pack leader must understand that, fool that he is." Deveth was seething with anger. She rose from the floor, shook herself, and surged out, slamming the door behind her with a kick of her hind leg. Robin had never been so glad to be alone. She curled into a ball against the wall, wrapped her arms around her knees and waited grimly for morning.

Thirty-Three

"What do you mean, he's dead?" Paravang Roche asked the priest-broker, aghast.

"The man was murdered," the priest-broker said, sourly. "And the Assassins' Guild is claiming that our contract with them misrepresented the situation and the insurance does not cover it."

"What 'misrepresentation'? They knew he was a cop!"

"It appears that the Guild was under the impression that Detective Zhu Irzh was not protected by the full might of the law, being as he is a demon and moreover on assignment from another force with whom the Guild has no contract. However, it turns out that this is not the case and Zhu Irzh is to be regarded as a fully covered member of Singapore Three's law enforcement. Thus they are asking for a compensation payment for some three hundred and fifty thousand dollars."

"But my insurance with the Senditreya Endo surely guards me against attack, doesn't it? Can't I claim under my existing policy?"

"I'm afraid your insurance has lapsed automatically with the revoking of your license. We are obliged under contract to pay and therefore you will have to come up with the money yourself."

"What! But I can't work at the moment, in case that fact had escaped your notice!"

"You will just have to manage. Don't you own property?"

"No, I rent my apartment." Just as well, Paravang thought in dismay. The prospect of being evicted was all that he needed. Then it struck him that it might very well come to that, too.

"Any relatives, any friends who might be able to help you out?"

"Hardly. I don't bother with friends much. I'm not married. My father's been down on his luck—he's barely got two beans to rub together. I help him out when I can. And my mother's dead."

"Dead," the priest-broker remarked reflectively, and Paravang scowled at him.

"Yes, over ten years ago."

"Where is she now? Heaven or Hell?"

Paravang scowled at him. "In Hell, if you must know. There were some . . .family difficulties involving her own parents. I'm sure she did her best, but the bureaucracy apparently decreed that she missed Celestial entry by a whisker."

"The life-between-lives is often unjust," the priest-broker said smoothly. "And you are her only son, from the sound of it."

"Yes, that's so."

"A loyal son, no doubt. One who honors his mother at the festivals?"

"Well, naturally." You had to keep in with the spirits to some extent, and tradition meant a lot to Paravang Roche, and to his father. They had both been generous, over the years.

"A lot of Hell money bought and burned, then? Sent down to the underworld and your mum in a coil of smoke?"

"Yes, I—" Paravang had begun to see where this was going. "You can't expect me to ask for it back! She's probably spent it by now anyway." He had no idea what sort of retail opportunities existed in Hell but, somehow, he felt