The Demon and the City

bright, inhuman eyes, and waves of pain. It had not been an experience that he was eager to repeat.
    "I'll double the fee," said the Madam, through pinched, painted lips. Pin sighed. He might as well go through with it, he thought. The money he could save would help him to escape from his life all the sooner. Taking a deep breath, he stepped through the door into the florid décor of the hallway.
    The Madam's assistant led him through the labyrinth of passages into a small circular room. Here, he was invited to kneel before a low, ornately carved table, and then the assistant left. Pin waited apprehensively. At last the door opened, and a group of people filed in to kneel in a circle around Pin, arranging their robes around them. He looked warily around the room. Their faces were in shadow, but nine pairs of eyes stared back at him with a consuming eagerness. The woman closest to him, wrapped in a brocaded dressing gown, was the Madam. Her raven hair was piled upon her head with pins. She gave him a thin-lipped smile, and turned up the lamp so that it cast flickering shadows across her face.
    "Now, you don't need to worry about a thing," the Madam said, kindly. Pin shivered. Her motherly concern did not reach her eyes, which were as flat and depthless as pools of oil.
    "Nothing at all," one of the other women breathed in a soft malicious voice, and giggled. Pin thought: Ming, this is your spiritual home . Rising, the Madam stepped forward. She held a braided crimson cord.
    "Now, bow your head," she told Pin. Trying to focus on the subject of money, Pin did so. His hands were tied behind his back and the Madam placed a palm on the back of his head, forcing his head further down.
    "Are you sure he's suitable?" someone said in a low voice.
    "He comes from the chorus," the Madam snapped. "An artiste. A sensitive person. Of course he'll be suitable."
    There was a disparaging snort of laughter.
    "The other one wasn't."
    "The other one was a fragile soul," the Madam replied frostily. Ming? Pin wondered with a sudden pang of guilt. He still felt responsible for his fellow-chorus member. Had she been brought here, for who knew what purpose? He struggled to rise.
    "Keep still," the Madam hissed, adding, "Light the braziers."
    The room began to fill with the acrid tang of incense, and there was something beneath the gunpowder smell which Pin thought he recognized. It was a heavy, musky odor, not unlike opium, and then he knew. It was a narcotic called sama: opium combined with nepenthe. It was useless to struggle; he would only draw more of the drug into his lungs. Raging and helpless, he let it take him, and as it did so the chanting began, rising and falling in hypnotic rhythm. The words made no sense to him, but he knew they were dreadful: they sounded forbidden and wrong. They were interspersed with a wailing incantation from the Madam in ordinary Cantonese: "Hsun Tung, great master of the gateway, minister of lightning . . .we summon you . . .we bring you in . . ."
    The chanting rose to a crescendo. Pin opened his eyes and saw, appalled, that the world had disappeared. He was in a place that was dark and yet blinding, empty and filled with chaotic movement. He was going to Hell. Pin squeezed his eyes shut. He thought he could hear someone screaming very far away, and then everything stopped.
     
    Pin found himself once more in the middle of a circle of faces. They were all looking at him, curious and predatory, and their eyes were crimson, and gold, and jade green. Pin gaped at them. He could feel the air flowing through him, as though he were made of smoke. Their faces were burnished, ebony and bronze, resembling the masks that hung around the balconies of the Opera House. One of them laughed, and it sounded like dry leaves in a winter wind.
    "What are you? Where am I?" Pin breathed, but no sound emerged. One of the circle reached out toward the lamp on the table and slipped her sharp fingers into the flame. When she withdrew them, Pin saw that they burned. She blew the flame toward him and instinctively he drew away. The fire streamed through the air and dispersed him. Then he was pulled down toward the circle, settling unsteadily into something that was hot and steaming and smelled of old blood. It was another body. Slowly, jerkily, Pin raised his hand. It was covered in a loose velvet sleeve. It had long, polished black claws.
    "Ohhh," everyone said, in a collective sigh. "It's working." From somewhere inside