The Demon and the City - By Liz Williams Page 0,69

had undoubtedly hastened through it as quickly as possible with eyes averted.

She had not expected breakfast and, indeed, none came. This was no hardship, for she was not hungry, but the thirst was dreadful and she was relieved when the door opened and a scruffy, sharp-toothed woman with matted hair entered with a bowl of water.

"This is for you. You'll be thirsty," she said, roughly but not with unkindness. The woman stared curiously at Robin as she awkwardly drank.

"So, you're the brindled bitch's bitch. Not dead, are you?"

"No," Robin said, after a moment. No point in trying to lie: she was sure these people could smell the life in her.

"We don't get many live ones through here. You'd be all they could talk about if it wasn't for the other one."

"Mhara? My friend? Do you know where he is?"

"Oh, I'm not going to tell you that. He's special, is that one. Heavenkind, and they think they know who, too." The woman put on a sly look as though she enjoyed knowing something that Robin did not. "You don't know, do you? He hasn't told you."

"Told me what?"

"Oh, I couldn't say. Tesk would whip the life out of me." She gave a short, harsh laugh. "If there was any in me, that is."

Robin wasn't going to let on that she didn't know what the woman was talking about. She hid her disquiet and said, "So tell me. Who are you people?"

"Us? We're the outcasts. Too good for Hell, too bad for Heaven. People the bureaucrats don't know what to do with. All our cases are pending. Supposedly. But I know what happens—they just shove them in a drawer somewhere and forget about them because they don't want the hassle."

"Can't your families pray—or pay—to have you sent on? Tip the balance?"

"What families? We come from folk who are too ignorant to know and too selfish to care. And so we end up here in Bad Dog Village, little lost spirits whom the land turns to dog-form." The woman's foot thumped briefly on the ground, like a dog scratching. "It's not such a bad life. There's food in the hills, game and such like, though I wouldn't call them rabbits. Too many teeth. And the men are all right once you get to know them, and know your place. It's shelter."

"But you must want to move on, get back into life eventually?"

The woman snorted. "As what? Born back into the same life we left by dying? You don't know what my life was like as a human woman. This might be a shitty life, but it's still better." She rose to her feet and stretched. "Anyway, nice talking to you, but I'd better get on. And, dearie, when you get back to the land of the living, make sure you don't live the kind of life that winds you up back here, eh? I don't need the competition."

When she had gone Robin stared at the empty water bowl and thought. It seemed to her that Bad Dog Village was exactly where she had been heading, up until the point that she freed Mhara, and she only had the courage to do that because she was essentially delirious. But until that point, it had been neither good nor bad, and more of the latter than the former. She had done enough thinking about it, enough self-analysis. It was time to change, but if she was going to escape Bad Dog Village in death, then she had to escape it in life first, and she had no clear idea as to how to go about it.

The bitch-woman's comments about Mhara had been odd, as well. He's special. Well, she knew that, but did they mean only that Mhara was Heavenkind, and far from home, or something more? And if so, what were they planning for her friend?

Resolving to do something constructive, Robin made a thorough search of the hovel, but though the walls were flimsy enough, they were woven in with some kind of tough rush and she could neither force nor unweave her way through. She battered at the door until her strength was spent, but it was of no use. Frustrated, she sat down and tried to think of a plan.

Thirty-Six

The goddess did not accompany them back to the Night Harbor, as Zhu Irzh was expecting. Instead, she asked Chen and the demon to remain on deck, then closeted herself in the red lacquered room with her maid. The door remained closed for