luxury all that much. At least he didn't have to put up with his mother, and that was worth a bit of poverty.
The boat was moored some distance from the waterfront which, a short distance later, led round to Ghenret harbor. Chen had moved the boat closer to shore before a recent typhoon, and it was now reached via a few short hops over a series of pontoons. It looked out over the polluted waters of the Shendei, which, despite their filth, was why Zhu Irzh liked it. He supposed that Chen felt the same way. He could sit on the windowsill in the evening and watch the freighters plough across the harbor, until the swift night fell out of the sky and they became only moving lights.
It was a long way down the wharf. Zhu Irzh passed one of his neighbors on the way; an elderly lady who seemed faintly familiar, though all these people looked alike to him. She did not seem to see him, which was probably just as well. It would have been easier in ways if he had been equally invisible to his human colleagues, but the police station was covered with revealing spells, just in case something nasty decided to slip in and wreak havoc, and so Zhu Irzh stood out like a sore thumb once inside the walls of the precinct. The spells made him sneeze, to add insult to injury. Zhu Irzh tended to unnerve those folk who could actually see him, though the people who lived around the harbor seemed a fair old mix themselves. Sometimes fights broke out on the wharf; mostly, it was quiet. The whole community, with the exception of Zhu Irzh and a few other reclusive souls, decamped to the bars down the road during the evenings and lived out their dramas in more congenial surroundings.
Zhu Irzh unlocked the door and shut it behind him. The room was stuffy, so he opened the windows and let in a faint breath of air from the sea. At one end of the cubicle was a tiny shower, which generally worked. He stripped and stood, resigned, under the trickle of water. At least it was cold. Stepping from under the shower, he rummaged for fresh clothes, glancing at himself in the reflected mirror door of the closet as he did so. The reflection smiled back at him, turning and posing. Zhu Irzh frowned. He didn't feel much like the glittering image in the mirror. Any longer, and he might—terrible thought—start losing his looks. The human world was taking it out of him, depleting his energies. He needed a diversion. He needed a girlfriend.
Five
The heat grew as the night wore on. Robin slept badly, tossing the damp sheet off the futon and onto the floor, and toward dawn she got up and opened the kitchen hatch. She stood for a moment on the parapet of the fire escape, looking first up at the pearly sky and then down into the shadows of the alleyway. The animal had come back; Robin could see it scuffling among the garbage. It was even larger than she remembered. As she watched, the creature raised its blunt, dark muzzle and laughed at her as she stood half-naked on the fire escape. Its laughter was earthy, unlike the chilly mewing of the seabirds scavenging over the port. Bemused and scared, Robin stepped back into the kitchen and brewed green tea to clear her head. Her dreams had been filled with images of the city, burning.
The world is going to end.
Now, the thought seemed uncomfortably close to madness. She was imagining things, Robin thought. But surely she couldn't have imagined the whole thing? Mhara had definitely made the prophecy. She couldn't have dreamed it.
Behind her, something gave a hoarse, rattling laugh. She spun round. The brindled beast was sitting on the kitchen floor. Robin yelled. Unhurriedly it rose to its feet and shook itself. Loose hair flew around the kitchen. It was, she realized, nothing like a dog. It had tusks. There were only a few feet between the creature and Robin, and the gap was lessened when the beast stepped forward. She heard a small sound break the silence: her own voice raised in squeaky panic. The animal stopped and glanced at her in mild curiosity. Then, ignoring her, it snuffled around the kitchen bin, and Robin was overwhelmingly relieved that she had tied up the full bag of garbage and taken it out earlier. Finding nothing,