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Nine

Inari knew, perhaps better than anyone else, how closely her husband worked with Hell, but usually she could maintain the pretence that it did not impinge too closely upon their lives. Much of Chen's work was essentially bureaucratic, after all, with the occasional murder thrown in, and though Inari knew that he conversed with spirits and demons on a daily basis, this was generally done by e-mail or over the phone. This latest case, however, was preoccupying her. Chen had told her of the demon, the Seneschal, and Inari did not like the sound of that at all. Hell had a long memory, and no forgiveness. Suppose this demon's visit was nothing more than a pretext to get close to Chen, and therefore to Inari? Chen had given the houseboat some defenses, it was true—wards and guardian spells—but nothing was foolproof.

Inari sat cross-legged on the deck, watching the storm clouds build out over the dark line of the horizon, and her thoughts grew black and bleak. She would not return to Hell. She would sooner die, not the brief flicker of passage between one world and the next, or the many and different levels of Hell, but true death, the death that can only come to someone who has never truly been alive: the extinction of the soul. Better that, than return to what had once been home.

The first drops of rain hit the deck and Inari raised her face to the storm. Her spirits lifted with the taste of salt on the wind, a wild, fresh smell that drove the incense stench of Hell from her mind. Thunder cracked high overhead and Inari blinked beneath a wave of rain and spray. Her hair streamed down her back in rats' tails and the skin of her hands glistened as if lit from within. Inari reached out a palm and snapped lightning down from the storm: seizing a handful of energy. She tossed it up in a shower of sparks and it cascaded over her, pricking her skin like a thousand needles and sizzling in the rain on the deck. Along the harbor wall, the lamps were blurred by the rain. The houseboat tossed, churning in the squall, but Inari rose like a dancer and stepped to the far end of the prow, where she stood with her hair whipping in the wind and lightning playing around her.

The storm was soon gone, taking the heat with it. The sky cleared to a twilit green in the west and the harbor lamps shone out with undiminished clarity, reflected in the settling water. Inari sighed. Her skin tingled. She turned to go back into the boat, but then she froze. Someone was standing on the dock, watching her across the jumble of ropes and nets. Inari could see the figure clearly: a tall man in a leather coat. She could see the hilt of a sword slung over his shoulder. His hands rested in his pockets. His eyes met hers and though he did not seem to see her, she felt the shock of sudden challenge.

"Who are you?" she called, but her voice was snatched away by the wind. The man turned to walk swiftly back along the harbor wall. Inari shivered. The energy lent by the lightning was ebbing away; she heard her own hot footsteps hiss on the wet deck as she went slowly back inside.

 

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Framed