Scale-Bright, Page 2

  Clipped palm charts flutter as she unhooks her magnifying glass. The smile she gives Houyi is thin-lipped, impatient. "Good evening, miss. Is there anything specific you're after?"

  Houyi hands over a couple hundred-dollar bills. "A consultation," she says amiably; even if the palm-reader knows no talent, she will see that Houyi's lines are not quite what they should be. They would suggest Houyi has already died once, an interruption in the tributaries of her destiny. "I've had a reading done before, but it wasn't favorable. I'm considering a surgery to change that. Do you have recommendations?"

  An honest chiromancer would have told her the idea is absurd, but this one apparently has a plastic surgeon for a brother-in-law and has pages of advice on what Houyi might want to change, which part to keep and which to overwrite—"The one for your lifespan of course, and if you have conjugal troubles..."

  Houyi's smile stiffens. So she has. Such a mortal thing, to turn a corner and find uncertainty lying in ambush against understanding that has outlasted dynasties.

  While the woman speaks she takes the opportunity to acquaint herself with table, charts, equipment, brushing her fingertips over the naked lightbulb. The viper has been here, and often; the deep pouches under the palm-reader's eyes are not just sleep deprivation. A touch here, a touch there, like a tongue lapping at a teacup's lip.

  She lets the barest sliver of her vigor seep into the woman. Chang'e will not like it, berating her for being too much the god, too free with her protection. These days it seems they are constantly in the middle of a disagreement or verging on the next. Just as well they found Julienne already a woman grown, not a fifteen-year-old orphan, or they would have worse debates over how to rear the girl. Neither of them would have adjusted well to the parameters of parenthood.

  She pays the palm-reader an additional fifty, far more than the "consultation" is worth, and leaves for a noodle shop. It is noisy, far too hot, and quite perfect for contemplation. In her days she would have found a remote spot, drawn weapons, and sharpened them—but remoteness in Hong Kong is a commodity rarer than gold and far more precious. She's learned to align her thoughts to noise, to sharpen her alertness on the whetstone of distraction. The steam brings her the smells of red pork, soy sauce and pak choi.

  The god's intent pricks her skin long before he enters the eatery.

  "Marshal Tianpeng," she says as he arrives along with the waiter, who sets out a bowl of noodle and a plate of youtiao she didn't order.

  "Nobody's called me that for eons. Zhu Baije, these days. Your courtesy is peerless, as ever."

  Physically he is imposing: a former commander of some eighty-thousand celestial soldiers can be nothing less. But his presence, she's always felt, is very small. Houyi regards him in silence, long enough for him to begin fidgeting with his youtiao.

  "Beautiful Houyi," he wheedles, "why so cold? Are we not friends of old?"

  "You were sent to earth in swine form for making unwanted advances toward my wife. Though I see, of course, that you've since regained a shape more manlike." She tries a spoonful of soup, finds it insipid. The beef brisket is an improvement, seasoned and braised with a sure hand, someone with a zeal for strong flavors.

  "That was centuries ago!"

  "You were entirely aware that not only was Chang'e married, she didn't want men in general, nor you in especial; you didn't even take the trouble of becoming a woman to woo her. I'm concerned that she couldn't protect herself—as is obvious, she could and did—but I'm unable to comprehend why you've decided to join me for a meal."

  "Chang'e seemed lonely, and at the time you were absent from heaven…"

  "Banished to mortality in the human realm, yes. Very humorous, if you think about it, given your own sentence. But I wasn't aware the absence of one partner signals a marriage's dissolution. Not that I have ever leafed through a book of heavenly laws, to be sure. Perhaps you can enlighten me."

  He holds up his hands. "How cross are you, truly?"

  "Marshal, can you not tell? Here I understood you were the final authority on women's fickle moods. Indeed reports say that fickle was what you called my wife when His Majesty summoned you for judgment."

  "Centuries—"

  "We're all immortal, Marshal. Pretend that I am a man. Your equal, if you will. Would you expect a husband to let pass this slight?"

  Tianpeng looks down at his plate, shredded remains of youtiao: fried dough going limp in a cooling puddle of oil. "Houyi, your words cut deep."

  "They don't need to. I do carry weapons. But to save us both time and keep up some semblance of manners you could tell me your reason for having sought me out."

  "Ah," Tianpeng says. "Ah. About that. I have what mortals would call a... liquidity problem."

  One of the waiters is scowling in their direction. They've kept their table too long. "We can talk as we walk. If you must."

  Food smells linger on them. From the marshal she catches a cloying hint of cigars. An odd choice, and no suggestion of liquor. The Tianpeng she knew in heaven was so fond of drinks he offered to dig her a wine lake as wedding gift.

  The market has frayed with the lateness of the hour; stalls are packing up and the opera troupe is gone, leaving behind synthetic feathers and tatters of faux silk, a promise of the next performance. Come daylight the street will have acquired a seediness, an emptiness of spirit that comes with storefronts shut like clenched fists and garbage bags on the footpath.

  She stops at an apothecary to buy candied dates for Chang'e, then remembers that Chang'e is not here, will not be here for a long time. She buys them anyway; they will keep, and her wife always eats compulsively after she's off a plane. "Liquidity problems," Houyi says as they pass a bakery offering the last of its egg tarts at half price. "Do I understand that right, Marshal? You have financial troubles. How did you come by them? You're a god."

  "Mercy and pity, Houyi! A pig for three hundred years."

  "It's been how long since—" She glances at him sideways. "No, don't tell me. You've been trying to purchase women's attentions."

  Tianpeng rubs the side of his temple. "Of all people you can surely appreciate that! Chang'e is unmatched in beauty, but one can't possibly be enough. It does no harm to have many loves."

  "Marshal, I suggested that you pretend I'm a man as a rhetorical bid—one I hoped would bring you a glimmer of self-awareness. This seems to have met with abject failure. I understand the virtue of fidelity. I enjoy it." Houyi shifts the phantom weight of her quiver. "But I'm not entirely unsympathetic to your plight. Are you acquainted with demons?"

  The god tugs at his beard, uneasy. "Not by choice. This is an infested city."

  "Yes, it is rather. If you can introduce me to one who might speak with me regarding a specific demon, it'd go some way to make amends for the slight you offered my wife. We can discuss your bank accounts after that."

  1.2

  What Hau Ngai imparted stays and shows. Julienne's never been clumsy, but today she balances better, toes and heels graced with recall of ballet lessons. As a child she hated them both in concept and practice, the delicate shoes so quickly worn to ruin, the costumes with their performance of pinkness and gossamer blue, the obligation of glittering smiles.

  When her parents died it caused no grief, only perfunctory numbness. Enveloped in that, a gift: she could finally stop fluttering her arms as though they are paper, she could finally graduate from ballet to Julienne.

  People notice. One of the new girls—hitherto reserved—smiles at Julienne often; she doesn't seem able to look away and their supervisor Mary has to snap at her to get back to work.

  Julienne doesn't return the smiles, though a day or two ago she would have. Will this effortless charisma last even a week, and afterward will the new girl realize Julienne isn't interesting after all? Hau Ngai's temporary grace won't make up for dull conversation, for Julienne being herself.

  By her third hour she's convinced customers to buy a laundry list of gaudy brilliance, diamonds almost to
o large to be genuine, emeralds and sapphires in latticework to clutch at throats and depend from ears, heavy as urban ennui. With each sale Mary jots something down on her phone; Julienne imagines she can hear a brain clicking like an abacus.

  Her body thrums with an urge to run, to leap, to be more than it is.

  Mary is behind her. "Julienne." A nod at a customer looking at a spotlighted case: in it, rubies set in platinum. Necklace, bangle and earrings that together can reduce a body from comfortably middle-class to homeless poverty overnight.

  She switches on her professional smile—elegance over simpering, expertise over eager-to-please—and glides over. The man is thickly built, his suit tailored, gold everywhere and a Rolex that might even be real. Clean-shaven head and eyes like an owl's: immense. "Sir," she says, "does this set interest you?"

  He adjusts his spectacles and glances at her. "Where are the rubies from?"

  An accent, she thinks, trying to place it. "Burma, sir, of course. The fluorescence, as you can see, is a bright and distinct red. No one will mistake these for garnets."

  "Red," he agrees, "as a knife-cut. Red as the inside of a liver. Red as a monk's vestments. A fine color."

  Her professionalism twitches, trying to crawl away. "I'm sure, sir."

  He buys the entire set, handing over a credit card as black as his suit.

  Mary calls her in after work, asking if she'd consider extending her hours. "Six percent," she says, up from a three-percent commission.

  A terrible temptation in her hands, like ripening persimmons. "Miss Shen, I don't think I'll be quite this lucky every day."

  "Julienne." Honey-warm, mother-daughter intimate, the same voice Mary uses when cajoling young women into getting baubles more expensive than they can afford. "Once or twice in a day? Luck. But that set. You don't have to be shy."

  "Could I sleep on it, Miss Shen?" She knits her fingers; she looks down at her lap. "It's so kind of you, but I don't want to be a disappointment."

  "You're such a good girl. Of course think on it—but in the meantime I'll calculate today's sales for you at five percent. How's that sound?"

  "It sounds brilliant," she says breathlessly. Julienne considers herself an adequate actor.

  The clock tower casts shadow on an elementary class today, out for a Space Museum visit. Their teacher looks new, frizzy and flustered in that hopeless, sweet way that makes Julienne want to hold her still and brush her hair until it is silk; until she can put it against her mouth lock by tidy lock. Probably the teacher has a boyfriend and will only ever have boyfriends. Julienne doesn't glance at her a second time.

  She walks briskly down the waterfront, outpacing the divine energy gifted, the energy not hers. She walks until it is dark and the Avenue of Stars fills with couples and tourists.

  At eight, buildings across the harbor ignite, LEDs running in colors that—filtered through Hau Ngai's touch—give her the smell of lotus-seed paste, the richness of salted yolk. Spotlights and lasers vivisect the night. Julienne joins a bench full of laughing Singaporeans who hold up their phones, recording, live-uploading; they scoot and make room for her. In minutes they disperse, replaced by a gaggle of Japanese women. She doesn't mind until one slips close and murmurs Gwongdongwa into her ear, "I didn't mean you any harm."

  Julienne chokes down panic. "Get away from me."

  "I did what I had to. For survival. The wound did not heal. And I need to speak to the Lady Seung Ngo."

  "She isn't here. Even if she was she'd never talk to you."

  A hand on her elbow, fingernails so sharp she could feel it through fabric. "She must. And why do you taste like an immortal? You couldn't have been more enticing if you'd bathed in the blood of a hundred sages from above. Every demon within five city blocks is going to come for your flesh unless you're wearing something to conceal it—you are, aren't you? But this close it doesn't work."

  Her throat is dry. "If you hurt me—"

  "I don't want to do you injury. Only mediate for me, beg a boon of Lady Seung Ngo." An inhalation, then lips brushing her earlobe, moth-wings frenetic. Julienne goes rigid. "Please."

  When she turns around there are only chattering tourists.

  * * *

  Of all matters Houyi is least acquainted with the society of dresses.

  There are lines of etiquette woven into the nylon that sheathes the muscles of her thighs and calves, into the silk that bares the taut hardness of her arms and the blades of her collarbones. The laws of the skirt enforce the positioning of knees and ankles, as eunuchs once shaped the posture of imperial concubines, as the color red once dictated the conduct and silence of new brides.

  She sits watching the sea; the lighting is dim and concentrates on the bar in the far corner, limns a few modern pieces that are more plastic than canvas, trapezoids painted in jagged lines and smeared pancreases. Nothing is permitted to interrupt the view of harbor and sky: no pale reflection, no neon glare. Every light source angles wallward. What few guests other than she drink and speak with care, as decorously muted as laymen in worship.

  A drink arrives, though she has not requested one. Aquamarine cocktail, brightly false in a twisting fluted glass. Salt circles its rim, flecks the slice of mango still green.

  "This has the look of poison," Houyi says to the woman who's taken the liberty to sit with her.

  The fox's hair is blue highlights and ringlets, her eyelashes dusted gold, her wide mouth lipsticked peach orange. Everything clashes. She is still breathtaking—or would be, were Houyi susceptible. "It's my favorite color. You shouldn't be so rude." A small flick of her head, which instantly summons attention: all eyes are on them, or rather on Daji. "I don't think in all the centuries anyone has ever coaxed you into dressing like a woman. Not on pain of death, not for anything."

  "I didn't realize you were so interested in how I garb myself."

  Daji tilts her head. It is hard to judge the age of her body, and she wears it so close to her spirit that Houyi is unable to tell if it is stolen flesh or molded clay. "May I not touch you? They may point to this or that goddess and proclaim her the most enchanting, but they've never seen you so. You must be resplendent inside from your long duty, full of fire, my element."

  "We might do this without the games, Daji."

  The fox widens her eyes, husks her voice. "You come to me like this. Lord archer. All bare skin."

  "An offering."

  "Without heft it is artifice."

  "Artifice was your first love, and is."

  Daji pours herself off the sofa and onto the carpet, liquid as fur, as the tails that hide russet-gold in her shadow. She takes hold of Houyi's foot, tugs, and the narrow high-heel dangles: held to the archer's toes with the pressure of her palm. "You've always been so poised." The other shoe slides off and Daji's fingers lock around her ankle. "So invulnerable. It is hard to resist; it makes one think there must be a crack."

  Houyi gazes at her, at the dry heat that reaches her through nylon. The two of them are still, her legs snared in the circle of Daji's body, her knee an instant from Daji's cheek. The fox's eyes meeting hers are brilliantly outlined, black irises giving away to lamplit gold.

  Ferry horns blare. It is five past ten, the last passage of the night. In the cocktail glass ice has melted.

  "What do you expect me to do?"

  Daji's small laugh is brocade sliding against hip. "React. Even if in revulsion."

  "I'm only surprised that you would lower yourself to handle anyone's feet."

  "To me hands and feet are much the same. I thought of challenging you another way—I'd bring my claws, and you your knives. But that isn't meaningful at all."

  "No."

  The fox's hands withdraw. She remains on the floor. "What if I press the point? The guardianship of Hong Kong's banbuduo is mine, and I'm the final authority on the worthiness of your fare—either for entry or a glimpse."

  Houyi does not tense. "Then your point would be pressed."

  "I want my essence to pul
se in your heart for it is puissant; I want my thought to move your arms for they are mighty; I want my rage to guide blades in your hands for they are strong—I want to wear your skin, lord archer, because I think it'll be like diamonds spun into woman. Cold. Hard. Perfect."

  "In that case you'll only enjoy women's kisses. A little suffocating for you, isn't it?"

  Daji lets out a rippling sound, half-chuckle, half-purr. "My passions are without limits. Your spirit will be overpowered."

  "Perhaps we can agree that this particular argument's best kept abstract." Houyi holds out her hand.

  Daji takes it, levering to her feet, and Houyi sees herself cradled in furniture pliant as flesh that knows no bones, head craned back with a throat like an offering, and a smile of tongue-tip and parted lips that Chang'e will not recognize.

  The illusion passes. A clever spell that requires no props, only contact of hand on hand translating into an instant of fascination.

  Daji is beside her, prim, as though she's done nothing wrong. "So then."

  Houyi flexes the muscles in her limbs, in her fingers and toes. An instinctual reaction, even though she is aware no flesh-theft has happened. "A green viper."

  "Oh, her. Single-minded, reckless, silly. She isn't a greedy thing, but—" A vague, dismissive motion. "Her kind injures even when they don't mean to."

  "Her kind?"

  "My sweet lord archer, I serve a goddess who was ancient before heaven birthed you. A goddess who created your wife's ancestors and bade me change the course of mortal history. And when I injure, of course, it is perfectly purposeful." The fox crosses her legs. "I can arrange a rendezvous with the little snake. How big a bloodbath will it be?"

  Houyi gestures with the glass. "My transactions with demons don't always involve or conclude in killing."