Snake Agent: A Detective Inspector Chen Novel (23 page)

"What the fuck?" he shouted, wide-eyed.

Loosened by the draught, the French windows had come open and now slammed to and fro in the rising wind from the garden. Glancing towards the verandah, Inari saw that the lock had been punched out, presumably as the thing had gained entrance into the room. She did not stay to find out what might happen to the spiny thing, nor to her erstwhile host. Instead, she sprinted out into the garden.

"Leilei!" Zhu Irzh cried, behind her. She heard the rattle of bones on the floor, but she did not stop. Thrusting the night-lilies aside, she bolted through the garden and scrambled over the fence into the alley. And then, clad in yet another dressing gown but with the knife clutched firmly in one hand, Inari ran until she could run no more.

Zhu Irzh stared glumly at the ruin of what had once been his room and contemplated where to start clearing up. The divan was a wreck; the table had been split down the middle in the fight with the visitor, and two of his best tea bowls lay in fragments on the floor. Moreover, the carpet was now irredeemably stained with an inky pool of spinal fluid, which assiduous scrubbing had failed to remove. His landlady had been to see him first thing in the morning, about the noise. On seeing the remains of the creature, now hacked into fragments of cartilage and bone by the razor edge of Zhu Irzh's departmental sword, her face had taken on the expressive patina of ice. It had taken all the demon's charm and powers of persuasion, plus a month and a half's additional deposit, to induce her to let him to stay.

As for his guest. . . Zhu Irzh sighed. This was it. He had known it the minute he'd seen her. Previously, he had merely skirted the perimeters of love: tested the waters, so to speak, had a couple of practice runs in rehearsal for the real thing. And now it had dropped upon his unsuspecting psyche with all the force of a rhinoceros. Leilei's phantom face floated before his besotted imagination: the vast, dark-crimson eyes, the pale curve of her cheek, the night-velvet of her hair. She reminded him of the lilies in the garden beyond, but then, everything reminded him of Leilei now. . . With great reluctance, Zhu Irzh dragged his unwilling imagination away from thoughts of romance, and onto the immediate problems of the present.

The presence of the visitor had confirmed his already active suspicion that Leilei had been lying through her pretty teeth during her account of her reason for standing in shackles at the Ministry of Epidemics. Zhu Irzh didn't hold this against her; on the contrary, it only made her more intriguing. He preferred women with an imagination; it tended to extend into many areas. Moreover, he recognized the creature that now lay in stinking pieces at his feet: it was a hunter-tracker from the lower levels of Hell, a crab-demon which characteristically spent time scavenging in the graveyards of Laon Shu and Honan until it had gathered enough flesh to adequately disguise its skeletal form. Such creatures were rare, and expensive. Whoever had sent it after Leilei was not short of cash, and that meant that Leilei was rather more than a mere assistant's sister whom some apparatchik had happened to fancy. It also gave rise to curiosity about the demon who had shackled her in the first place: evidently he was someone sufficiently high up within the Ministry of Epidemics to be able to afford such expensive equipment as the crab-demon. Zhu Irzh could smell the distinctive odor of rising stakes, and the prospect of serious political intrigue both excited and dismayed him. Sinking to the remains of the couch, he debated the thorny question as to which aspects of recent events he should relay to the First Lord of Banking. He had the feeling that there was no optimum solution; he was likely to be castigated whatever he did, but at least there was the possibility that certain elements of his narrative would prove so useful to his employer that the rest would be forgiven. Zhu Irzh blinked at his own naiveté. He was definitely in love.

He was painstakingly constructing a suitable account of events when the phone shrilled. Hesitating for a moment, Zhu Irzh picked it up.

"Seneschal?" said a familiar voice, and Zhu Irzh frowned.

"Lord," he said, with careful neutrality.

"I have had a complaint about you. I will allow you, for the moment, the luxury of conjecturing the identity of the complainant."

Zhu Irzh took a deep breath. "Thank you, Lord, that is customarily gracious. I would surmise that any allegation might stem from the portals of the Ministry of Epidemics."

"How perspicacious of you," replied the First Lord of Banking, with more than usual acidity. "It is indeed from the Ministry, who might best be described as livid. Would you care to explain yourself?"

Hastily Zhu Irzh said, "I went to the Ministry as instructed. I was extremely careful. I made enquiries, and conducted an investigation. High in the levels of the Ministry, I discovered a potentially important witness who was under interrogation. In order to prevent her from disclosing what she knew to a hostile authority, I removed her from the premises and brought her here. Halfway through the night, however, someone dispatched a crab-demon after her, thereby corroborating my intuition that she is crucial to the investigation."

"Well, Seneschal," said the old dry voice at the other end of the phone. "You would seem to have acted with admirable speed, albeit with less than admirable discretion. And where is this crucial witness now?"

"Ah."

"Well?"

"She's not here, Lord. She was so disturbed by our nocturnal visitor that she fled from the house. I made an extensive search for her as soon as I got rid of the crab-demon, but she was nowhere to be found."

"Unfortunate," said the First Lord of Banking, without any inflection at all.

"Yes," said Zhu Irzh, wondering fleetingly if he should endeavor to provide some sort of justification for his actions. He decided against it. Hell was no place for excuses.

"And would you care to elaborate upon this critical secret that the witness was about to spill prior to your gallant rescue?"

"Not over the phone," Zhu Irzh said quickly. "One never knows who might be listening."

"Quite," the First Lord mused, and Zhu Irzh breathed an inaudible sigh of relief. "You'd better come here then, hadn't you? And tell me in person, as quickly as possible."

"I will indeed proceed as swiftly as I can to your august mansion—however, this is the third day that I haven't put in any appearance at work and frankly, Lord, I'm reluctant to anger my superiors. Normally, I am a most conscientious employee," Zhu Irzh said, buying time.

"Don't worry about that," the First Lord of Banking snapped. "I've spoken to Supreme Seneschal Yhu. He's granted you an indefinite leave of absence."

"That is most kind, most thoughtful, although I might perhaps draw your attention to one little detail—under current regulations, a leave of absence would entail that I am not entitled to be paid for the period in question."

"No, you're not."

"So, therefore. . ."

"You had better submit an invoice detailing your expenses to date to my under-secretary. We'll review it at the end of the month, with all other related claims."

"But it is now only the second day of Sho'ei, and by my calculation the month has another seventy days to run."

"Your calculation is quite correct, Zhu Irzh. I'm delighted to see that you are numerate. Perhaps if your leave of absence goes on for too long a period and you are fired, we might consider giving you a position here as an accountant," the First Lord of Banking said, chuckling at his little joke. "Goodbye for now, Seneschal. I'll see you very soon." With that, he rung off, leaving Zhu Irzh to contemplate the prospect of an eternity in an accounts department. The very thought made him sigh. Hell indeed.

Something was sniffing at Chen's ankles. He rolled over blearily. There was a wetness beneath his hand, seeping through the fabric of his coat, and a familiar sour smell, which after a moment Chen recognized as the characteristic stench of Hell. He groaned and opened his eyes. No mistaking it; he was back. Storm clouds edged with red light like torn flesh raced overhead, and something sticky was dripping from the iron eaves beneath which he lay. Suddenly conscious of the movement at his feet, he hauled himself into a sitting position and groped for his rosary, but a leaden weight descended onto his chest, trapping his hand. A narrow visage, composed of monochrome stripes, peered into his own. Chen's gaze met dark eyes, with sparks in their depths.

"I did not think you would awake so soon," the badger said, with seeming unconcern. Its wet, black lips drew back from its teeth in a snarl and Chen saw that its long incisors were bloody. "There has been interest in you, from the little things, the vermin. I have kept them away."

"Thank you," said Chen feebly. He struggled to sit up. "Would you mind getting off my chest?" The badger rolled to the floor. A drop of something dark hissed to earth beside Chen's prone form.

"It's raining," Chen said, unnecessarily. He shook his head, trying to clear it. He felt as though someone had stuffed cotton wool behind his eyes. "We'd better get out of this. It's going to pour in a moment. Do you have any idea where we are?"

The badger shook its head. "I do not know this place." A second raindrop steamed to earth like molten lead, followed by another. Chen clambered to his feet, feeling stiffness in every limb, and looked about him. They were in some kind of back alleyway, a muddy track, congealed with refuse. Shacks lined each side of the alley. A door opened onto the track from one of these and from it Chen could hear sibilant voices. Then the door was kicked back, rattling on its hinges, and a pail of slops was hurled into the alley. Chen could smell something sharp and pungent, which smoked in the stormy air. He did not stay to investigate further. With the badger at his heels, he dodged among the piles of garbage and underneath the wider overhanging eaves. He was not a moment too soon. The rain began to come down in force, churning the muck of the alley to an oily soup and filling the gutters above them to overflowing. The alley began to steam in the humid air and Chen felt a stream of sweat begin to run down the back of his neck. He'd only been in Hell for ten minutes, and already he was aching, weary, and suffused in a bath of perspiration. Par for the course, he thought, resigned. Parts of Hell were really no worse than Singapore Three, a sobering reflection in itself, but it was the relentless combination of elements that Chen found so depressing. At his feet, the badger had caught the worst of the rain and now was a bedraggled heap of rats' tails. The water had brought out its shape, like a wet cat, and Chen could see the narrow body, the powerful shoulders and long claws, usually concealed behind the thick pelt of fur. But the badger exhibited no signs of distress: its opaque gaze remained on the rain, and it uttered no sound.

Eventually the rain began to ease off, and shortly after that, it stopped. Chen and the badger stepped cautiously out into the wet world. The shack with the open door was silent, and Chen avoided it, walking instead in the opposite direction. This brought him out into a maze of dark alleyways, dripping with the recent rain, but when he looked up he could see a much larger building behind the shacks: a place with a red-lacquered roof and gilded eaves. The lacquer was tarnished, encrusted with the greasy substance that seemed to permeate so much of Hell, and the gilt was flaking like eczema, but Chen recognized it nonetheless. It was the counterpart of the temple of Kuan Yin: the version that lay embedded like a rotting pearl in the scabrous landscape of Hell. On previous visits, he had always come here, direct as an express elevator to the underworld, and the fact that on this particular occasion Chen had landed summarily in the back alleyway did not escape him. Despite the warm humidity of the air, he felt suddenly cold.

"It is the temple," the badger said, rubbing it in. "And we are not there."

"No, we're not," Chen said. "And I think we'd better avoid going into it unless we absolutely have to." No point in testing the limits of the goddess' tolerance, assuming he hadn't already done so.

"Where are we to go then?"

"If that's the temple, then I know where we are," Chen said with a flicker of relief. "Just let me get my bearings." He frowned with concentration, remembering. This part of Hell, this city, was after all the counterpart of Singapore Three, and the landscapes of the two places overlapped to a considerable, though not to an inevitable, degree. Chen had never been given to understand whether Hell lay alongside the everyday world, mapping its boundaries and distinctions with faithful regularity, or whether its representation was more complex. Certainly there were differences between the aspects of Hell: the afterlife of the Christian peoples seemed very far removed from this particular underworld, for example. Yet Chen suspected that Hell lay somehow contained in the group soul of a people, delineating its pathways in accordance with their dormant beliefs. If he entered Hell from one of the portals of Beijing, he knew that he would find an analog to that ancient city. . . But these speculations were simply distracting, an attempt by his weary mind to make sense of spiritual violation. Chen marshaled his thoughts.

To the northwest of the temple lay the residential Garden District of Hell and the Opera House. To the southwest he would find the immense towers and ziggurats of Hell's Ministries. To the east lay the mansions of the underworld's elite, and in the centre of the city, like a great decaying heart, sat the Imperial Court itself: the hub of the wheel of Hell around which all else must spin in weary obeisance. But to the south was the commercial quarter and the docks; where souls disembarked from the boat that sailed the Sea of Night, and where all the dubious trades and practices for which Hell was so justly infamous were carried out. It was in this region that the correlate of Zhen Shu Island was to be found; it was here that the brothel lay into which the sad shade of Pearl Tang had been sold. And it was here, in the gloomy confines of Zhameng Square, that the most famous Blood Emporium in all Hell was located: the shop called Tso's, which Chen's brother-in-law had once owned.