Snake Agent: A Detective Inspector Chen Novel (5 page)

"Frankly, I'll be surprised if we get a glimpse of anything," Chen told him. "Even if he's in there, Tang needn't leave the house in order to make his escape."

"Why not?"

"Places like funeral parlors and temples are nexus points—junctions between the worlds. Since it's licensed, that parlor will have access to both Hell and the Celestial regions. A temple will have an actual correlate in both; so there's a version of Kuan Yin's temple in the part of Hell that relates to our district, for instance."

Ma furrowed his brow in painful concentration as he grappled with this concept.

"Sergeant," Chen said, trying not to sound too sarcastic. "Can I ask how familiar you actually are with the precepts of your own religion?"

Ma looked up unhappily.

"It
isn't
my religion, though. I was brought up by my grandparents—grandma was a Christian and grandfather only believed in money. He wouldn't let my grandma take me to church, but she told me a lot about Hell."

"You come from Da Lo Province, isn't that right?" Chen said. Gloomily, Ma nodded. Chen began to see where the pattern had begun: an impressionable child from a rural backwater, fed with half-digested facts about the nature of the afterlife from someone who almost certainly had no idea what she was talking about. He decided that a few clarifying details might be in order.

"I don't know what your grandma told you about Hell," he said, "but it isn't a fiery sort of place where the dead suffer eternal torment. When you die, you either go to Heaven or Hell, but first you have to pass through a kind of process. You see, you've got two souls, not one as the Christians tell people. One is called the
hun
, and the other is called the
p'o
. When you die, the
hun
goes out into the universe and tries to find its way to Heaven—usually it just wanders about until it gets reincarnated—but the
p'o
is different. It used to remain with the corpse for about three years, but that was before the other worlds speeded up the process to bring their bureaucracies more in line with modern times. Now, when a person dies, the
p'o
goes to the afterlife—either Heaven, or Hell—the Yellow Springs."

"Why is Hell called the Yellow Springs?" Ma asked, frowning. Chen shrugged.

"It's a bit like somewhere being called 'Big Hill.' I suppose there are yellow springs somewhere in Hell. It's also known as 'Di Yu,' the 'Prisons of the Earth'—that's probably a bit more accurate. Each soul who ends up in Hell has earned their place, and they get a fitting punishment, but it isn't eternal. Eventually you get to come back to this world when you reincarnate. Demons live in Hell, too, but they're just a different kind of entity to ourselves."

"I hope I never see Hell," Ma remarked fervently. Chen smiled.

"You probably already have. Anyway, Heaven's not all that wonderful, either—it's enchantingly pretty, granted, but Imperial Court etiquette is still positively medieval and it's just as much bound by bureaucracy as Hell itself."

"So what actually happens when you—when you die?" Ma whispered.

"Usually, if you die in a normal manner, an officer comes to you with a warrant, and takes you to the Night Harbor, which is where the boat leaves for the other worlds. In other places in China, it's different—you might find yourself going down into a cave, for example—but here, because we're a coastal city, we're closely bound in with the
feng shui
of the sea and so souls have to cross the Sea of Night in order to enter one of the other realms. When a soul actually gets to the Night Harbor, it has to pass through a number of stages—it has to pay the Gate demons, then it has to get itself weighed, then it has to get through Bad Dog village, where demonic beasts torment the evil passers-by. Then it meets a mirror which tells it what it's likely to be reincarnated as, and then it gets taken to an observation post where it can look back on its earthly home and family for the last time and ruefully admit that it's completely screwed up and deserves everything that's coming to it. Finally it has to cross a chasm to the dock, and then it gets on the boat. When the soul's time in Heaven or Hell is up, the warrant officers take it back before the Wheel of the Law and it gets hurled out again into its next incarnation, having first been given a special drink to make sure it doesn't remember anything." Chen smiled encouragingly at Ma. "It's a bit like a package tour, really. If it's Tuesday, this must be Bad Dog village."

Ma did not smile in return. He said, "You've been to Hell, haven't you? When you were still alive, I mean."

Chen refrained from pointing out that he was still alive now. "Yes," he said quietly. "Yes, I've been to Hell. I have a dispensation, I don't need to go through all the various stages, though I do have to find my way through the Night Harbor. But it takes its toll, Ma." He sighed. "And I'm not the only one. If Tang's serious about being on the run, and he has the right contacts, it's feasible that he could hide out in Hell—I very much doubt they'd let him into Heaven, though you never know."

A tremor seemed to pass over Ma's face: like a ripple of water over the moon's reflection.

"Hell? You mean we might have to go to
Hell
to get him back?"

"Sergeant, please keep your voice down. No, that is not strictly accurate.
You
will not have to go to Hell to retrieve our suspect. But
I
might."

This effectively silenced Ma. He sat in thunderous contemplation, hunched over his little bowl of tea, while Chen took his turn at peering through the grubby lace curtains of the teahouse. The funeral parlor was literally as silent as the grave. Chen turned back to speak to Ma, and caught movement from the corner of his eye. The door of the funeral parlor was opening. The portly figure of Su Lo Ling stepped out onto the street, glanced hastily around him, and set off at a brisk trot along the road.

"Stay here," Chen said, rising quickly from his chair. "Don't take your eyes off that house, and keep in touch with the patrolman."

It was a risk that by going after the funeral parlor owner, he might lose the suspect—assuming Tang was even on the premises. Chen thought it worth the risk. Stepping cautiously out onto the pavement, he could see Ling disappearing down the street. Chen followed. The street grew suddenly darker, as a cloud engulfed the sun. Not a good omen, Chen thought.

He was halfway down the street when the rain began, a torrent of water that hammered the dusty pavements and plastered Chen's hair flat against his head in the first minute of its descent. Cursing, Chen squinted through the rain and saw Ling's figure whisk into a doorway. Chen hurried up the street and dodged beneath an awning. The building into which Ling had gone seemed to be some kind of go-down; it might even be derelict. The windows were securely boarded up and the cracks taped over. The door through which Ling had gone was tightly closed. Chen put his ear to the door and heard nothing. After the events of the previous evening, he was reluctant to step into another trap without sufficient support. He was not, however, to be given a choice.

The door of the go-down was flung open, startling Chen. A long, ebony spine whipped out and wrapped itself tightly around his ankle. Chen was thrown flat on his back and dragged through the doorway. Something tall and dark loomed over him; the hem of a stiff silk coat brushed his face like a gigantic moth. He groped frantically in his inner pocket for his rosary; finding it, he struck out with it like a flail. It connected with a bony carapace, producing a trail of sparks and the odor of scorched silk. There was a hissing curse and his ankle was abruptly released. Struggling to his feet, Chen began to say the rosary, speaking the Fourteen Unnamable Pronouncements in a swift, urgent voice. His assailant sprang to the far end of the room, and Chen saw a string of rubies glowing in the shadows as the demon produced a rosary of its own. Chen had a head start, but the demon spoke in several voices at once, Pronouncements clicking and snapping from its flexible throat. Chen speeded up and beat the demon by a single syllable. There was a blast of furnace-light as a crack opened up and the demon was catapulted back to Hell, leaving a noxious wisp of smoke behind it.

Wheezing, Chen stepped clear and the smoke crystallized into dust motes and fell to the floor, where it turned into a swarm of tiny, red locusts that raced between the cracks in the floorboards. Chen leaned back against the wall. The rosary was red hot, but he didn't dare let go. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he limped back through the door of the go-down and out into the street, where the rosary hissed cold in the pelting rain. His ankle was swelling to alarming proportions. Chen, limping along, fished in his pocket for the mobile and called for reinforcements. Sergeant Ma was still waiting in the teahouse, gaze glued to the window.

"Come on," Chen said. "We're going in."

Ma's mouth fell open.

"What happened to you?"

"I was attacked. By a
something
."

As an incentive to decisive action, this perhaps left a little to be desired. Ma's eyes grew round with horror. "What
kind
of something?"

"I'm not sure. Come
on
."

"I'm not going near that place if there are demons," Ma said with finality.

"If you're thinking of disobeying a direct order, Sergeant, you'll have to face something worse than demons," Chen said, feeling mean. "You'll have to face
me."

Hastily, he and Ma ran down the alleyway and found themselves at the back of the funeral parlor. A high wall, topped with razor wire, separated the alley from what was apparently a courtyard. At their feet lay the cover of a drain. Chen looked at Ma and sighed.

"All right, then. Give me a hand."

Ten distasteful minutes later, they were standing in the courtyard at the back of the building. The rear end of the funeral parlor was considerably less imposing than its facade. A narrow window faced the courtyard. Gritting his teeth against the pain in his ankle, Chen held up his palm.

"It's guarded. Never mind—" Gritting his teeth, he took a sheathed scalpel from his pocket. Before Sergeant Ma's horrified gaze, he slashed a character across his palm, then held his bleeding hand up towards the window. The guarding spell hissed into black steam and nothingness. Sergeant Ma's eyes were as round as tea bowls. Hoisting himself through the window, Chen landed in a narrow hallway. Checking to see that Ma was still behind him, he hobbled down the corridor until they reached the door of a room that Chen estimated to be the main parlor. Muffled voices came from within.

"Wait here," Chen said. He went swiftly up the stairs and found himself before a row of doors. Each of them flickered with a quiet light and Chen felt the rosary begin to grow hot in his pocket. His skin flushed cold, as if in response. Each of those doorways was an entrance into Hell. The left-hand side of his jacket seemed to be growing heavier: pulling downward with grotesque force. Bemused, Chen put his hand in his pocket and encountered something flat and icy. When he pulled it out, he found that it was the photograph of the unknown girl that he had taken from Pearl Tang's bedroom. Chen took a moment to reconsider the snapshot. The dragon lantern to the left of the picture looked very similar to the ones that hung outside the funeral parlor.

Chen blew on the photo, then glazed it with a thin smear of his own blood. Balancing the photo on the palm of his hand, he placed his little
feng shui
compass on top of it. The needle swung wildly for a moment, before settling in the direction of one of the doors. It seemed the girl's spirit was here.

Cautiously, Chen held out his palm to display the still-bleeding wound and released his second spell of the day. Soundlessly, the door swung open. With the rosary wrapped tightly around his knuckles, Chen stepped forward. Even with the protection afforded by the rosary, his skin began to prickle and burn: a sure sign that the room was no longer entirely in the realm of the living. Across the room, a girl lay upon a divan. Her eyes were closed, and she was curled around herself like a cat. Her skin was as white as ash. She did not stir. Chen crossed swiftly to the divan, but as he reached it, a demon leaped through a second door on the other side of the room. It was one of the more humanoid of its kind: Chen glimpsed a pale, mantis face and slick black hair. It was wearing a long silk coat which was, Chen noticed, marred with an ugly burn. They had met before: this was the thing that had so recently attacked him. The demon's taloned fingers grasped a bloody katana. It came forward in a sudden rush; the sword raised above its head. Chen dropped, hitting the floor beneath the arc of the katana. Kicking out, he swept the demon's feet from under it and whipped the rosary across the demon's wrist, making it howl. Its curiously jointed fingers flew open, releasing the katana. Seizing the sword, Chen drew back for the final blow. But as he did so, a shadow fell across his shoulder.

"Look out!" Ma's panicky voice came from the doorway. Chen turned in time to see the ghost of the girl, a skinning knife in her hand, crouched to spring. Tang H'suen was close behind her, spitting imprecations. The ghost's gaze was locked on Chen's throat. He brought the demon's katana down upon her, splitting the spirit from head to crotch and spilling her essence out across the floor in flakes of fragrant ash, while Ma leaped for Tang H'suen.

Chen turned in the direction of the demon as Ma wrestled Tang to the floor. The demon was sitting on the ground, nursing its wounded wrist, but as Chen stepped in for the kill it hastily snatched something from an inner pocket of its silk coat. It held up a black badge. The demon said mildly, "Seneschal Zhu Irzh. Vice Division, Fourth District, Hell. Can I have my sword back? When you're ready, of course."

"Cigarette?" asked the demon languidly.

"No, thank you. I don't smoke." Chen was methodically winding a bandage around his injured hand. The azure lights of the police car outside spun in endless refraction from the mirrored parlor.

"Too bad. Helps you relax, you know. How about you?" Courteously, the demon offered the packet of thin, red cigarettes to H'suen Tang, who still sat, head bowed in fury or shame. "No? I'm assuming you're not smoking at the moment, either," he said to the second prisoner, split in two, who favored him with a furious glare from an eye somewhere around the level of her waist. Zhu Irzh lit the cigarette with a touch of his taloned thumb and the sweet, faint scent of opium drifted through the air.