"Mhara?" Chen said. He stepped forward to greet the Jade Emperor's son. Zhu Irzh managed a quick nod of the head: it was beneath his demonic status, he felt, to pay much respect to gods who'd bailed out of Heaven. Not that he could blame the young deity, having seen where he'd come from. He felt a sudden rush of sympathy for Mhara, an equally sudden appreciation of his own upbringing, his work for Vice. There but for the grace of God go I, thought Zhu Irzh. Literally.
"You know who I'm looking for," Mhara said.
"A goddess, I'd imagine. But which one?"
Mhara acknowledged this with a smile. "The one who's causing all the trouble."
"Just as well," Zhu Irzh remarked. "Kuan Yin's gone walkabout. But Senditreya isn't here. She vanished."
"Do you know where?"
"I'd imagine to Hell," Zhu Irzh said. "And as long as I'm not in it, too, I hope she stays there."
Mhara's smile faded. "I don't think that's likely. She won't find her Hellkind conspirators very accommodating, now that she's failed in her plans. It's more likely that they'll kick her out to face the music on Earth."
"They won't find it all that easy to dislodge a goddess," Chen remarked. "Even a failing one."
"Veil between the worlds is going to be very thin tonight," Zhu Irzh said. "What with the Day of the Dead and all."
Chen looked at him. "So you're suggesting they'll try to boot her out of Hell then?"
"And they might make a run at the city, too," Mhara said. Zhu Irzh sighed. He hadn't wanted to raise that subject, since it was all too likely and he was, in any case, hardly on the side of the angels. An assault by Hell on the city sounded like fun for everyone. The demon brightened. Mhara was looking at him, and Zhu Irzh had the sudden uncomfortable impression that the sorrowful blue eyes could see right through his golden ones, into the black soul beneath. He covered his discomfort with a cough, and looked away.
"So there's no question that she'll re-manifest," Mhara said. "The only question is where?"
"Depends whether she's still looking for Jhai."
"Jhai will go to ground. She might even have left the city by now," Chen said. "We can't count on finding them together. Jhai will just have to fend for herself."
"Then how are we to find the goddess?" Zhu Irzh asked.
"We're in a temple, aren't we? We've got oracular equipment. Use your imagination."
Robin gaped at Chen. "That's a risky thing to do, undertake a spell on the Day of the Dead. It's already dark out there."
"All the better," Chen said unruffled. "The thinner the veil, the more probable it is that we'll get an accurate reading."
"And if something comes through?" Robin asked.
"It'll probably be someone I know," the demon said airily.
"So you can deal with it then," Mhara said. He turned to Chen. "Do what you must."
In Bharulay, a woman named Mrs Soi came wearily from her back door into the yard. She had spent most of the previous evening trying to placate her mother-in-law, her aunts and her husband, none of whom got on and all of whom expected her to do something about it. She was the first to rise that morning: party or no party, the chickens had to be fed. Everyone slept in one room, and she cringed as she came out into the living area. It was awash with cracker crumbs ground into their one good carpet, paper streamers, something that looked like foam, and a stack of miniature bottles stuffed down the side of the chair, presumably by Auntie Pei who seemed to think that her sake habit went unnoticed. Mrs Soi was thirty-three, but on mornings like this she felt every day of sixty.
She had to wrench the back door open and stepped out, blinking, into the chilly darkness before the dawn. Icicles, sharp as teeth, hung from the overflowed gutter and the hens were bundles of feathers, puffed up against the cold. Those that were still alive, anyway. With mounting dismay Mrs Soi counted the skinny bodies that littered the yard, five as far as she could tell. Dogs? she thought, but they had heard nothing last night and she was awake for most of the time. She'd checked on the hens around midnight, and they had been all right. Then she raised her head and saw the cause. It was sitting underneath the japonica tree, the one good thing about this house, which they had hung with rags and paper twists to keep the spirits away. Mrs Soi noted this rather grimly, for beneath the japonica tree sat a young person with a dark golden face, smiling a pointed and beatific grin.
"You killed my hens," Mrs Soi said, strangely devoid of shock. The young person jumped down and spread out his long taloned hands.
"So sorry." He took a fluttering step across the yard; ochre robes swirled about his ankles and she saw that he had a tiger's eyes, the color of the sun. He smiled charmingly. "And now, you."
Yin Deng Soi had left her husband snoring in the communal bed. She opened her mouth to cry for help, and then her husband's face rose up before her memory: his mouth open, the smell of old beer, one hand groping for her just as she was falling asleep, the constant demands for food, drink, sex, everything that was wearing her out before she even turned forty. She looked into the demon's golden glowing eyes and closed her own.
"Go on, then," she muttered, and she felt him pick her up and soar high above the Bharulay slums, her slippered feet catching for a moment in the branches of the japonica tree, and when she at last dared open her tired eyes, she saw the rim of the sun, yellow as an eye, engulf the horizon's edge.