Zhu Irzh blinked up into the anxious face of Sergeant Ma, which hovered over him like an untethered balloon.
"Where am I?" he heard himself say, croaking feebly, but it was not Ma who answered.
"You're in a cell," a crisp voice said. Zhu Irzh turned his head, to see the woman in the fatigues sitting on a nearby bench. Her pale green eyes were as cold as a winter's night, set in a thin, drawn face. Painstakingly, Zhu Irzh reconstructed what had happened and said, surprising himself, "Fair enough."
"Seneschal, what came over you?" Ma pleaded. Painfully, Zhu Irzh hauled himself to a sitting position and leaned back against the white plastic wall of the cell. It was some kind of mobile arrest unit; he'd seen them before. The woman's hand stirred in her lap. He could see the glint of the gun.
"Good question," said Zhu Irzh.
"And the answer is?" The woman's voice was as arctic as her gaze.
"I have absolutely not the faintest idea. One minute I was fine, the next—I was freaking out. I'm as amazed as you are. I had no desire whatsoever to kill Paravang Roche. He might be a pain in the ass, but if I attempted to murder everyone in a similar position, I'd have no colleagues left."
"You're a demon."
"I might be a demon, madam, but I'm not a maniac. I don't slay people at random, I'll have you know. Killing people requires finesse, it requires style—you can't just leap on someone and start trying to butcher them."
"What, like you just did?"
The woman's voice was a razor across his senses. Zhu Irzh closed his eyes, to see if that made the pounding in his head any easier to bear. It did not. He murmured, "And you would be?" He wanted to hear her say it, though he already had a fair idea what the answer would be.
"Colonel Ei. I'm in charge of security at Paugeng Mining. And Paugeng Mining owns the site on which there is one slaughtered body, and damn nearly another."
"Is Paravang all right?" Zhu Irzh asked, not really caring, but feeling he should ask anyway.
"He'll live. He's clawed and shaken, but he'll be okay. He's had the relevant biotic shots, apparently, so you're unlikely to have infected him with anything." Colonel Ei stood and crossed the cell with a long, lithe stride. She leaned over the startled demon, gazing down into his face. He could smell soap on her skin, as though she'd scrubbed at it. She took the demon's chin in her hand and gave a death's head smile that, to Zhu Irzh's horror, made his skin prickle.
"I've placed you under arrest."
"You can't do that. I'm an officer. I—"
"I don't care which department you're with. You're on Paugeng territory now. You're subject to our regulations." She gestured toward someone unseen and the engine of the arrest vehicle roared into life. "I'm taking you to the nearest secure unit."
"Wait a moment," Ma said. "You can't just arrest another officer, there are procedures, and—" But the woman turned and strode through the door into the driver's cubicle, closing it behind her with menacing care. Ma exhaled a long breath and rolled an anxious eye in the demon's direction.
"What now?"
"I think," said Zhu Irzh, pulling what remained of his fragmented dignity about him, "we're going to have to do what she tells us."