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Roma inhaled sharply. Paul only smiled. He did not attempt to deny it. Instead, he tilted his head in a bastardized, cherubic manner and said, “I’ve been wanting to tell you, Juliette. I must admit, when I imagined this revelation coming to light, I envisioned you more impressed than you presently seem to be.”
“Impressed?” Juliette repeated. She was perhaps three decibels away from screeching. “What part of this is impressive to you?”
“The part where I have the whole city dancing on my puppet strings?” Paul reached into his coat pocket and Juliette braced, her hands inching toward her pistol, but he was only retrieving another blue vial, holding it up into the light. It refracted little crystals onto the beige walls, lapis lazuli marks dancing in tandem to one another. “The part where I unleashed the solution to my father’s suffering? Tell me, Juliette, is it not a child’s wish for their parents to live as happily as possible?”
Juliette raised her pistol. Hesitant fright registered in Roma’s expression, and though Juliette was perfectly aware that it was dangerous to provoke Paul before they knew what more he had up his sleeve, she had too much anger raging within her to keep herself temperate to Paul’s standards.
“All the gangsters and merchants who were targeted along the river,” Juliette said. “I thought it was the Communists. I thought it was them eliminating their capitalist threats.” She laughed bitterly. “But it was you. It was you clearing the market for your business to thrive. It was you clearing your threats so the Larkspur couldn’t be questioned.”
Paul smiled brightly, rows of white teeth flashing. “Brilliant, no? And to think it all started when I found an itsy-bitsy bug in England.”
“You fool,” Juliette hissed. “How dare you—”
“It started as a favor to this city,” Paul cut in, his eyes darkening. He was starting to take offense at Juliette’s anger. He had never before seen this irate side of her. “Had you not read the papers? Heard the whispers? Everyone was talking about how capitalist ventures in this city would be threatened if legitimate politics entered Shanghai, and the Communists were looking to be the most likely contenders. I was going to help. I meant to kill the Communists. Surely you cannot disapprove of that.”
Juliette disapproved mightily. But this was not the time to vocalize such an argument.
“You wanted to infect Zhang Gutai first,” she guessed. She spared a glance around the living room, at the overturned chairs, her inspection sharpening. Instead of merely one syringe lying by his feet, she saw two. Where had that second one come from? More important, what had it been used for? “You didn’t realize you were speaking to his assistant.”
“But it didn’t matter, did it?” Paul took a step forward; Roma and Juliette took one step back. “I thought that the first insect would simply jump from one host to another and kill the Communists individually. Imagine my surprise when the old man transforms into a monster! Imagine my surprise when he becomes the mother host and releases thousands of replicate insects capable of driving everyone in this city mad!”
In her anger, Juliette’s arm started to shake. Roma placed a hand on her elbow, but it did nothing to persuade her to lower her weapon.
“The water,” Juliette whispered, half a question, half an answer that she already knew. She swished a foot, disturbing the liquid that was rising all around them. It had reached the middle of her calf now. Paul had meant to kill the Communists, but his plan evolved once the monster only ever appeared along the Huangpu River. That river was the beating heart of this city; an infection starting there meant the madness would sweep through the gangsters working at the ports, through the merchants taking meetings.
They weren’t even true targets. It just so happened that it was the gangsters and merchants who spent the most time by the Huangpu River, and that was where the monster went to release its insects.
And with every wave, suddenly Walter Dexter’s business was booming again. Suddenly the Larkspur was sweeping in with a vaccine that earned more money than an ordinary merchant could ever imagine. A vaccine that the workers couldn’t afford but bought anyway. A vaccine that other merchants could afford, only to be given a saline solution that would offer false assurance and then their death, dropping like fruit flies to clear the market for Walter Dexter to shine.
“Water,” Paul echoed. “How fortunate for the city above the sea.”
Juliette could take this no longer. She pulled the safety on her pistol. “You disgust me.”
Paul took another step forward. “My father gave up everything to find a fortune in this country.”
“Oh, your father experienced being a little poor,” Juliette sneered. “Was it worth it? Was his sense of success as a merchant worth the lives of all my people?”
Paul sighed and wrung his hands, like he was finally experiencing some guilt.
“If you really wish,” he said, as if he were doing her a grand gesture out of the good of his heart, “I’ll mass-produce the vaccine to the Scarlet Gang—”
“You don’t get it,” Juliette interrupted. “I don’t want your vaccine. I want the madness stopped. I want the monster dead.”
Paul became still, the hopeful lift of his brow lowering. He became who he had always been, the mask shed.
“Would you complain if the madness was only killing White Flowers?” Paul asked coldly.
Spittle flew from Juliette’s mouth in her vehemence. “Yes.”
“Because of him, right?” Paul tipped his chin at Roma. Ten thousand pinpricks of loathing passed in that one motion. “Well, I apologize, Juliette, but you cannot kill Qi Ren. I won’t allow it.”
“You cannot stop me,” Juliette said. “More apt men have tried and failed. Now, where is he, Paul?”
Paul smiled. That smile was the city’s damnation, planting rancor into its layers. And Juliette—Juliette felt possessed by her terror, goose bumps breaking out on every inch of skin, a shudder sweeping from head to toe.
The water in the apartment hallway sloshed quietly. Someone was coming out from the bedrooms.
Roma and Juliette swiveled around. A shaky inhale filled the room. A breathless exhale.
