Snake Agent: A Detective Inspector Chen Novel (17 page)

"Sir?"

"Today I signed a new contract for the Blood Emporium, Tso. One that will add to my already extensive coffers, and make us the envy of the district." He paused, as if for dramatic effect, then continued: "We're going to be the primary suppliers of blood to the Ministry of Epidemics. Isn't that great news? On a regular basis, for a new project they're developing. Science, my dear Tso, is truly a marvelous thing—but Art must take precedence. Our first order is for a consignment of delicacies—blood sorbets, candies, liqueurs, all the usual kind of thing—for the wedding." O Ji floated around the reception area, flicking idle fingers in the direction of the display cabinets.

"The wedding?" Tso echoed.

"That's right, the wedding. Between Lord Dao Yi of the Ministry of Epidemics and your sister."

Tso gaped at him. O Ji said kindly, "It seems your sister's come home at last, Tso. And Dao Yi's decided to forgive her. In a manner of speaking. Of course, it won't be as though she'll be First Wife this time, but still, you can't have everything. What a pity you're no longer manager here. I should think your family will be needing all the help it can get, what with the revised dowry and the penalty fees, after all. Perhaps," O Ji said with a languid, glittering smile as Tso stood motionless in the middle of the room, "we should think about giving you a pay rise." The smile widened. "Or then again, maybe not."

Three hours after he had set out from the houseboat, Chen sat wearily on the side of the dock, dangling his aching feet in the cool, oily waters of the harbor. The moon had long since set, but any stars there might have been were blurred by the neon glow of the city. He had found no sign of Inari—not a note, not a sign, not a scrap of cloth or a drop of blood—and he had run out of ideas. He felt almost too tired to move, but at last he rose from the dock and made his way back towards the houseboat. It was dark and silent. Chen paused for a moment, letting his
ch'i
senses run ahead of him. He could feel nothing. His own
ch'i
perceptions were hardly infallible, but combined with the personalized
feng shui
wards which guarded the houseboat, they were good enough to give him some warning if anything menacing—say, a Maoist demon-hunter or a vice squad operative from Hell—happened to be lurking behind the door. Chen stepped unscathed onto the deck of the houseboat and into the kitchen. Something rattled. Eyes glowed red in the faint gleam of sudden transformation, and Chen's heart leaped once, like a bird.

"Badger?"
He fumbled for the kitchen light and switched it on. The badger was a mess. Sand and salt matted its fur into short, untidy dreadlocks and its nose looked cracked and dry. Chen hastened across the kitchen and reached out a hand.

"Do not!" the badger said irritably. "I will not be touched."

"Sorry. But where's Inari?"

The badger peered miserably up at him, and seemed to deflate. "It is I who should be sorry. I could not save her."

Chen felt as though the floor had fallen in. "Oh, goddess, is she—well, she can't be dead, since she's not really alive in the first place, unless that bloody demon-hunter has—oh, never mind. Tell me what happened."

"We were hiding. From the man with the sword. We did not come back in case he also had returned. We could not find you; we did not know where you might be and Inari did not have the speaking device. We left the boat too swiftly. It was my fault. I did not do enough to distract the hunter."

"It's all right," Chen said. "Don't reproach yourself. You can't think of everything, do everything."

"It is still my fault," the badger said. Chen studied it as it sat on the kitchen counter. Bedraggled as it was, it still retained that semblance of otherness; the darkness of a creature that walked between worlds. Its eyes, black once more now that its transformation was complete, were frosted with an icy haze, yet Chen could see the light of a different day within their depths. He said quietly, "You came from Hell with Inari when no one else would even look at her—not her mother, not her brothers, no one. And you have done your best for her this last year, in a place that is not your own and that has changed so greatly from the China you knew long ago that it might as well be another planet. It is
not
your fault. Now. What happened?"

"Something came. Something from Hell. It snatched her like a bird in a snare and took her with it. I ran from it, but I turned back and I saw it go. It turned the world to blood and then the air opened up. I saw Hell once more—its storms, its iron towers. And my mistress was gone."

Chen sank down onto the nearest chair and rubbed his palms across gritty eyes. "I was right, badger. It isn't your fault. It's mine. If Inari had stayed on the houseboat, Hell might not have been able to touch her. If I hadn't drawn attention to the Tang case, No Ro Shi wouldn't have come here. . ." He could not seem to think straight; thoughts whirled and would not settle.

"She could not have stayed caged like a cricket forever," the badger murmured in its dark voice. "You could not have done other than you did. I heard what you said about Tang."

"What we have to do now is figure out who's taken her, and why. The obvious candidates are her family, and whoever's been running Tang. And one other party."

"The
wu'ei."

"I've been trying not to think about the
wu'ei
," Chen said, wincing from the thought.

"They will not give up. They are patient, relentless, eternal."

"They are also vindictive."

"What else could they be? They are the instruments of the Lords of Hell, its iron fist. You know as well as I that Hell is a matter of strict hierarchies. Violation of those hierarchies, that structure, results in the payment of a price. Inari violated that order when she came here, and so did I. The
wu'ei
answer only to the Imperial Court, and that Court is inflexible in its dictates—however long it may take to implement them."

"I'd noticed," Chen said. He felt hollow inside, like a reed with the pith sucked out. He had encountered the
wu'ei
only once before, and never wished to do so again. The
wu'ei
: more than demons, less than deities, but with all the infernal powers of the Imperial Court. It was their task to track down the wrongdoers of Hell, those who had violated the laws of the worlds beyond the world. The thought of Inari being back in Hell was bad enough, but contemplating her in the hands of the vast inimical presences of these underlords was little short of appalling. Rubbing his hands across his face, Chen tried to force his racing brain into considering his options. First thing tomorrow, he would go to the Night Harbor as planned, to see if he could find Pearl Tang, but he would not be coming out again. Instead, he would be traveling on to Hell. . . Beside him, the badger bristled.

"What—?"

"Be quiet," the badger murmured. "Something is coming."

Chen thrust thoughts of Inari from his mind with an effort and rose from the chair. Moving stealthily to the kitchen door, he peered through the crack. The badger dropped from the kitchen counter and whisked silently around the legs of the chair.

At first, Chen could see nothing except the deck of the houseboat and the ripple of the harbor lights on the water. Then, he noticed that something was coming across the surface of the water itself: a dark wake, bringing something behind it. The thing was no more than a faint glow, a miasma of shadow upon the heave of the sea. It disappeared beneath the houseboat, only to swarm up over the deck and pause, uncertainly. It was the missing, lobster-like ghost-tracker, and with it was the figure of a girl, dressed in the remnants of a funeral robe. The back of her head was missing. It was Pearl Tang.

Motioning the badger to stay in the kitchen, Chen stepped out onto the deck and held out his hand.

"Pearl?" he said, gently. The ghost-tracker scuttled forwards, its antennae swiveling. The ghost turned and he saw her face crumple with relief, only to smooth out moments later into a blank mask as the emotion drained away. Yet he could see fear in the lines of her insubstantial form: a quivering like heat that distorted her as he watched.

"Detective Chen?" Pearl's voice was no more than a shiver in the air.

"Come inside," Chen said. "Quickly, now. I don't know who might be watching."

Fearfully, the ghost glanced once over her shoulder, then brushed past him into the kitchen. Once inside, she was almost swallowed by the light: Chen had to look hard in order to see her at all. The ghost-tracker, finally relieved of its task, crawled beneath the warmth of the stove. The ghost whispered, "That—that person. He's gone, isn't he? The one who wanted to take me back?"

"Zhu Irzh? Yes, he's gone. I'm not quite sure where though." The possibility of Zhu Irzh and Inari both being in Hell produced a curious reaction in Chen: a lifting of the spirits, combined with a pang of sheer anxiety. He was not entirely certain how to account for either emotion.

"It's hard to remember," she said. "You were arguing, and the demon was going to take me, so I ran away. I don't know where I've been. I just drifted through places—I went to the pavilion in the park, but it didn't look like the place I knew anymore, it was full of strange people in the trees, like birds, and their eyes were bright, so I didn't stay. I went through the market, I think—I remember someone standing at the entrance with a sword, and he was all bloody, but he wasn't alive. . . I don't remember. It was evening, and I think I was going home, but before I could get there, this creature found me."

"Pearl, remember what you told us about your father, and the Ministry, and the person who stood by your bed and talked with your father about why he was doing these things? Do you remember anything else? Anything at all?"

The ghost looked utterly blank. She shook what remained of her head.

"You're quite sure?"

"I told you! I don't remember."

"All right," Chen said wearily. "Then we need to get you out of here and into Heaven where you belong."

"How can we do that?" Pearl asked, puzzled, and Chen replied, "Don't worry. I know someone who might be able to help."

Seneschal Zhu Irzh's second cousin twice removed was a terrible hypochondriac. Usually, this was not a characteristic that Zhu Irzh found endearing and, moreover, the cousin was a meager little person, with lank, gray hair and a permanent sniff, completely lacking in anything resembling feminine charm. She was, however, on first name terms with practically every apothecary and remedy-maker in Hell, and Zhu Irzh was confident that someone, somewhere, would have contacts in the Ministry of Epidemics. Such contacts were needed. Hell's health-care system being what it was, the waiting list for appointments at the Ministry reached practically to infinity and Zhu Irzh needed to get through its iron doors that day. As soon as he could, therefore, he collected a bunch of herbs (morning glory, purging croton and blackberry lily) and a box of blood candies, and went to pay a visit to his neglected relative.

He found his cousin sitting in an armchair, gazing beadily out at the events in the street beyond. As he stepped through the door, however, she collapsed into a huddle beneath a blanket, and emitted a faint, but convincing, moan.

"I thought you might be a touch poorly, so I've brought you these," Zhu Irzh said, trying to sound sympathetic.

His cousin opened a small, red eye and inspected the presents. She poked the candies suspiciously. "These look musty. Where did you get them? Tso's?"

"No, I purchased them in another fine emporium," Zhu Irzh said loudly, as the cousin was genuinely somewhat deaf. "Near the Opera House."

"The where?"

"The Opera House!"
Zhu Irzh shouted into her ear. The cousin sniffed, and her small bony hands tightened around the bundle of herbs.

"And these are all wilted. What did you do, sit on them?"

"They were fine when I bought them," Zhu Irzh said, bridling. "It's not my fault if it's a trifle warm outside. I'll put them in a vase for you. Anyway, how are you feeling?" He tried not to sound too apprehensive as he spoke these last words. He had a feeling he was about to be told.

Half an hour later, his cousin finally came to the end of a long list of ailments, some of them involving rather more personal information than Zhu Irzh wished to hear. The litany did, however, seem to mollify his cousin to some degree, and she even ventured a wintry smile. Beaming back, Zhu Irzh embarked upon a careful round of questions and arrived at a list of some eight medical practitioners who enjoyed a close working relationship with the Ministry of Epidemics. Armed with this list, he accepted a small and nasty cup of herbal tea and then departed, with protestations that he would come again soon. He got the impression that he left his cousin happier than when he had arrived, a consequence that disturbed him. Zhu Irzh was suspicious of good deeds.

The first two practitioners on the list were out. The third was in, but a queue of scowling, suffering citizens extended through the door and Zhu Irzh had no desire to spend another hour like the previous one, treated to a recitation of suffering. He thus proceeded to the fourth practitioner, a handsome establishment in the Shadow District, with a facade that was almost concealed behind a vast array of charms and testimonials. Stepping through the double doors, Zhu Irzh found himself in a wide and well-appointed hallway.

"Good morning," said a voice. Zhu Irzh turned to see a young woman swathed in a coral robe. She smiled, displaying small, white teeth. Her eyes were a startling, but vapid, blue.

"Excuse me," Zhu Irzh said, not quite believing the evidence of his own eyes. "But aren't you human?"

The girl gave a vacant giggle, and did not reply. Then her face ironed itself out to perfect blankness once more, and she said as if by rote, "Do you have an appointment?"

"No, I'm sorry, I don't." Zhu Irzh reached for his badge.

"One moment. I will ask if the doctor can see you," the girl said. She glided around the edge of the desk and spoke rapidly into a gilded trumpet. Zhu Irzh studied her, narrow-eyed. The girl was definitely human, and a Westerner. She was even alive: he could smell her blood, her breath, hear the faint crack of her bones inside her skin. What she was doing here, however, remained a mystery.