I thought about what the zombies had said concerning an anchor. What kind of anchor? Anchors stop things from drifting. The major north/south meridian of the grid in the area didn’t flow in a smooth, straight line, but wandered. And its color wasn’t strong and bright as it should have been. Earlier, from the side of the mountain, I’d thought it looked as if the east/west line was defined by the Costigan and Newman houses, not that they’d been built to take advantage of a nexus that already existed on the spot. But if Costigan’s was the west and Jewel’s house was the eastern cardinal point, then what were north and south? If Willow was the loose anchor, there should have been one fixed or semifixed point at one end....
“What’s at the hot springs?” I asked.
Jin raised his eyebrows and tried an innocent look, which didn’t work on either face. “Water?”
“Come on. You told me that Leung’s killer is a magic user. There are four quarters and one of them has to be involved. I know who three are, so once I know who number four is, I can pick this thing apart. Who or what is the southern point?”
I could see he was calculating something, appraising, measuring. “The southern cardinal is a ley weaver.”
“A spider?”
Jin laughed and the sound scratched at the back of my mind like a nightmare. “No. It builds . . . things. It shapes. You left your truck nearby. It’s a good thing you’re going to get it soon.”
“What are you suggesting?”
Jin shrugged. “Only that metal gets in the way. If the ley weaver is making something, it won’t like your truck blocking the flow.”
“Why would Ridenour be down at the hot springs today? Would he have business with this ley weaver?”
“I can’t imagine what use he would have for such a creature. Nothing the ley weaver builds could help him get his wife back.”
“Ridenour had a wife?” No one had mentioned any wife to me, and if something tragic had happened, surely Strother or Newman would have said something about it.
“Yes.”
“What happened to her? How did he lose her?”
“She was banished.”
That sounded medieval. “What kind of wife are we talking about here?”
“She was a spirit wife, a huli-jing.”
I had heard that word before.... Danziger had mentioned it.... Some kind of shape-shifting Chinese fox- demon, he’d said.
“How did a nonmagical guy like Ridenour end up with a demon bride?”
“She chose him because he was the only man alive who already had any power on the lake when we came.”
“Who came and when?”
Jin bit his lip. “The first guai and I came through the gate between your years 1989 and 1994. May came before the gate closed in 1995.”
“May?”
Jin nodded. “That’s what Ridenour called the huli-jing because she came in the month of May. She liked it; it sounded like a Chinese girl’s name, Mei. She liked to pretend she was a real woman, not a five-tailed fox. She helped him with his work. He got promoted and she got stronger—that was when she grew her sixth tail. She thought she could make him important and powerful. And when he was strong enough and she had nine tails, she was going to eat him.”
“How very nice for her.”
Jin gave another shrug. “We must consume enlightenment. Our souls are so weak, we cannot learn. We can only eat; we are demons. It is the only way to escape Diyu forever, to become human again, to leave hell.”
If he hadn’t been talking about eating people, I might have felt sorry for him, but I didn’t.
“So . . . what happened? Did Ridenour figure it out and banish her before she could eat him?”
He laughed again. “No! He never knew her plans. He wasn’t smart enough. He knew she was a fox-woman, but he thought she was one of the old people—an Indian spirit come to help him. He was so surprised when he found out she was Chinese.”
“Who told him that? And what happened afterward?”
“Willow told him. She used to gather herbs with the huli-jing and Ridenour didn’t like it, so she taunted him with the knowledge. He was very angry—angry at May, angry at Willow. Then, when the telephone man died, May tried to help Ridenour catch Willow. When May disappeared, Ridenour thought Willow had killed her in revenge.”
For a second I was thrown by his reference to “the telephone man,” but I guessed he meant the lineman Willow had supposedly shot. Still, I caught his main implication. “But she didn’t, did she?” I asked. “Willow didn’t kill or banish May.”
Jin looked startled. “No.”
“Who did?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“You can’t or you don’t know?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“All right.” I stood up and squeezed my scarf and the sleeves of my coat to see how wet they still were. The sheriff’s car would be along soon, I thought, and I wondered how uncomfortable the ride to my truck was going to be. Judging by the squelching and dribbling, it would be awful.
“When she was banished, could anyone else slip through from Diyu?”
“The other little guai came, but the way wasn’t open very long.”
“Why not?”
“The one who banished her was very careful. Not like the one who opened the gate in the first place.”
“So who opened that first gate?”
He spoke with care. “I am not certain.”
“Could you guess?”
“I could.”
It was frustrating that he would volunteer some information but make me work for other bits, and he seemed to enjoy the pure arbitrariness of it. Maybe he hoped that making me angry would lead to a mistake he could exploit. I put a lid on my irritation. “Tell me your guess. And be specific.”
“Jonah Leung. He was Willow’s brother. A middle child. I don’t know that he opened the gate, but he was there when I came out.”
I had a bad feeling, but I asked anyhow. “What happened to him? What did you do when you came through the gate and found him?”
The white demon face grinned, but the human face seemed surprised. “I killed him.”
TWENTY-ONE
As I stared at Jin, I could hear a vehicle coming close, the engine grumbling while snow tires roared on the road’s rough surface. I wanted to keep on questioning Jin, but I figured the only person who would be driving this way now was the sheriff’s deputy on his way to pick me up. I grabbed my wet coat and scarf and struggled into them as we went outside.
“You’d better get out of here and lock up when I’m gone. I’ll find you again tomorrow.”
Jin made a face. “Bring something nice with you or I won’t come.”
I wanted to smack him with the heaviest object I could find, but I didn’t have anything but my bag and I didn’t have time, either. “I’ll meet you at the hot springs gate. I need to talk to the ley weaver and you’re coming with me.”
