"I hope you don't take this personally," the Lesser Lord said, as he and a group of warriors ushered Chen and the others through the corridors of the hotel. "As you've probably noticed, we've got a few things on our plate at the moment. But I've been instructed to take you into custody over the little matter of the destruction of the Ministry of Lust. Not that I'm concerned about that myself, you understand. Good job! Thorough infiltration, no messing about, straight to the heart of the matter, and what I understand was a very effective surgical strike. The Minister's undergoing medical care right now, having a new spinal column grown for her, but she won't be Minister again after this debacle. And that's not a bad thing, in my view. We've got her spine, thanks to you, and that means that if we need to work some antithetical magic with it, we can. So jolly well done all round."
"I'm not with them!" Daisy said. "I'm an employee of Lust!"
"Not anymore," the Lesser Lord pointed out.
"You seem," Chen said to him, "to be remarkably well-informed about all this."
"Underling No, you see. Very efficient young woman. Of course, I've had to place her on a reprimand for unauthorized activity but under the circumstances it's not much more than a slap on the wrist. When she and her mother escaped from the collapsing Ministry, they came straight back to War and submitted a full report. No's mother's a wreck, of course. Won't hold office again."
"At least No found her," Miss Qi said. "I'm glad."
"She was very complimentary about your input," the Lesser Lord said. "I don't suppose you'd like to consider a move sideways? Or in this case, downward? Of course, given your attempted assassination of a government official, we'd have to keep quiet about it for a bit, but I'm sure we'd manage to get round the problem somehow."
"I don't think I could," Miss Qi said. "But it's very kind of you to offer." She managed to sound almost regretful, to Chen's admiring ears.
"Lesser Lord," Chen said. "What exactly is in store for us?"
"I'll have to take you with me, except the young lady from Lust—she's due for custody," the Lesser Lord replied, over Daisy's protest. "Can't risk you escaping." He gave Chen a jovial clout on the back. "Might come back to find War in ruins, eh? No, we're instructed to get the battle over and done with and then bring you back up to stand trial. Might be no more than a formality. Possibly."
"What battle?" Jhai said.
By this time, they had passed through the foyer of the hotel and out into what remained of the gardens. The air was choking with tank fumes and dirt, but when he looked up, Chen saw something that froze his blood.
There weren't just planes in the sky. Above the level of the aircraft, distant and yet still huge, writhed the forms of the kuei. Chen had seen them before, but only singly, never in such numbers. There must have been dozens of them. As Chen watched, one of the smaller craft cruised a little too high and a wingtip touched the trailing leg of one of the Storm Lords. The plane flipped over, spun, and dived, out of control, toward the ground. There was the distant crump of an explosion and a column of fiery smoke rose from the cityscape.
"Damn," the Lesser Lord said, wincing. "That's twice this morning."
"About this battle," Jhai said, in tones of ice.
"Ah, yes. You asked. Well, look above you. The kuei are out in strength. What does that tell you about who they will be fighting?"
"Something big?" Chen said. He felt as though he was back in the classroom.
"Correct! Today is the day that Hell goes to war with Heaven. The kuei will be defending us against dragons."
"Zhu Irzh," said Chen, a little later. "Do you know where this battle is going to be? How they plan to enter Heaven?" Despite the joviality of the Lesser Lord, he had bound their hands and had them loaded into an army truck, which was now bouncing and jolting across the plain at the very edge of the city.
"No, I don't," Zhu Irzh said. He leaned over and nudged the bored guard, a demon in an ill-fitting tin hat with a cigarette in its loose-lipped mouth, with his shoulder. "How about you? Where are we going?"
"The lower levels, s'far as I know."
"Hang on," Chen said. "That doesn't make sense. How do you expect to gain access to Heaven from there?"
The guard stared at him. "We're not going to Heaven."
"But the Lesser Lord said the battle would be with Heaven's forces."
"Yeah, it is, but we're not going there, are we? They're coming to us, see. They're the ones doing the invading."
"What?" Miss Qi said. "That's not possible."
"Sorry, love, but the alert came a few weeks ago that this was on the cards, hence the buildup. Heaven's planning to strike at the very heart of Hell. Way I heard it, they're sick of dealing with humanity, don't want to dirty their precious Celestial hands anymore with nasty demons either, so they're going to destroy Hell and let the humans stew. No offense, miss. I can see you're one of them but I know you're just a grunt, like me."
Miss Qi appeared too stunned to speak. Chen had a hard time believing this as well, but it tied in rather too neatly with what he had recently learned about Heaven's changing policies.
"But if Hell goes," Zhu Irzh said, "and I have got family here, even if I despise them, and a home, even if I hate it, but quite apart from all that—what happens to humans who die?"
"They won't," Jhai said. "They'll either not die at all—which isn't great news, given how fast the population of Earth is increasing, or they'll have to convert to some other religion which, one presumes, won't be affected by this—or they'll die and just shuffle about like zombies. Whatever happens, it'll cause havoc. You'll get people converting the other way, because they've got terminal bloody cancer and they don't want to end up in the Christian Hell, or the Hindu one, or whatever."
"I just can't believe Heaven could do this," Miss Qi said. Her modest friendliness had now entirely disappeared and along with it her traumatized aloofness of the previous day. She looked as close to tears as Chen had seen her.
"Unfortunately," Chen said, "I do. The son of the Celestial Emperor is a personal friend, not that I like to name-drop, and he's not all that happy with the way things have been going. Neither is Kuan Yin."
"It's the Emperor's say-so, though, isn't it?" Jhai said. "Heaven's a dictatorship. A benevolent one, but still a dictatorship. What the Emperor says, goes."
"But that's dreadful," Miss Qi said.
"If you're starting to consider the Lesser Lord's job offer, I'd go for it," Jhai said. She looked appraisingly at Miss Qi. "If you don't like the idea of living in Hell, I could offer you work as a bodyguard. Frankly, the idea's beginning to grow on me."
"I—I don't know," Miss Qi said. "I've never thought of living anywhere other than Heaven, or doing any other kind of work."
"Decent pension? Not that it'll worry you, you're an immortal. I could find you a really nice apartment, great pay . . ."
"Do you think," Chen said, "that you might want to wait until we actually survive before you start debating terms of employment?"
"It's a thought," Jhai said. "But you know, Detective, I always work on the principle that survival is a given in my case. Otherwise I'd never do anything."
"I wouldn't take it as a given right now," Zhu Irzh said, craning his neck out of the blowing tarpaulin that made up the side of the truck. "Not when you see what's happening."
Chen squirmed over until he could look past the demon's head.
"Dear merciful Heaven," he said, even as it struck him that this might be an unfortunate choice of words right now.
The world was opening up. In front of the convoy, which lay along a colossal sloping plain several miles distant, was a black hollow, a void in the heart of Hell. The convoy was pouring into it like a column of ants through a gap in the soil, flowing onward without pause.
"The lower levels, mate," the guard said, taking a last drag on his cigarette and tossing the burning stub out of the truck. "Told you that's where we're going."
There was silence after that. Jhai appeared reflective, chewing her lower lip between teeth that were still slightly tigroid, until a drop of blood oozed out. She flicked it away with her tongue and went on chewing; Chen was sure that she was plotting something. He hoped it wasn't anything too rash, but with Jhai, one never knew. Zhu Irzh stared at his boots and Miss Qi seemed to return to being traumatized, although Chen couldn't blame her. He sat tight in his seat in the truck and waited for Hell to drop away.