Tea from An Empty Cup
by Pat Cadigan

Description:
Yuki, a lost soul in a sprawling urban jungle, loses her lover in the seamy underground of chic cybersex clubs and kinky designer dreams, and Konstantin, a hardened cop, is called to the scene of a mysterious death: a young punk in a locked Artificial Reality booth, his throat slashed without any signs of a struggle. There have been other such deaths while in AR, and rumors of a new level in the game where those deaths occurred. To discover the truth behind a spreading web of lies and darkness, Yuki and Konstantin must make harrowing journeys into the dark heart of cyberspace - to an apocalyptic artificial world where virtual violence can be as deadly as the real thing and ancient Asian gods conspire to bring a nightmarish new reality to life.