Snake Agent

by Liz Williams

“My sister? Inari? Back in Hell?” He sounded surprised, but there was something overdone about it, and Chen could not suppress a sudden intuition that this was a fact Tso already knew very well. He’d always been a terrible liar: one of the few characteristics he shared with his sister.

  “You don’t seem exactly pleased,” he said, hoping to draw Tso out.

  “Of course I’m not pleased! Don’t you know what helping Inari has cost me? My job, my status, my salary, my good relations with my family … Not to mention my feet.”

  “I’m truly sorry,” Chen said, and meant it. “But you knew what defying Dao Yi might lead to. And in a way, I saved you a lot of problems by taking Inari away from Hell.”

  “I know, I know. And you’re right. If she’d stayed, who knows what Dao Yi might have done to her? He was furious about the whole scandal—he sued for false engagement, remember? But I thought he was only concerned about the money, and we paid that back with interest once the case had gone through court.”

  “I think Dao Yi felt that your family had made a fool out of him,” Chen said.

  “Oh, almost certainly,” Tso replied bitterly. “Once she’d gone, I thought all the fuss would die down but Dao Yi never really stopped persecuting us. It’s worn mother to a rag. They’re like that in Epidemics—vindictive. They’ve got long memories, like dormant germs. Just when you think you’re cured, they reinfect you. And, of course, there’s the wu’ei.”

  Even the name made Chen shiver. “Have you seen them?” Chen whispered. “Have they come to you?”

  Despite the wall of smoke, Tso glanced anxiously around him before answering. “They came once. They came in the night—I don’t remember much. They took my secrets from me—they learned for themselves how I’d helped Inari. They were limited in their powers because we hadn’t directly disobeyed the law, we’d only helped another person to do so.”

  “To travel between the worlds, without license from the Imperial Court?”

  “Yes. But what they did was bad enough. They left my father’s mind a wreck; he couldn’t stand the questioning. As for me, it was the wu’ei who reversed my feet, as punishment. O Ji—my boss—suggested it. As a warning. They crippled me, with the promise of more to come. I can do nothing for Inari, Chen. I do not dare. The wu’ei will be searching for her now, and if they find her …” He stared down at his back-to-front feet and said no more. Chen sighed. He knew his brother-in-law and there was no point in pressing him further. He said, “All right. I understand what you’ve been through, Tso, and I’m grateful you’ve given me this much. I won’t trouble you further.”

  “No. That isn’t enough. You have to leave Hell. Forget my sister and go back where you came from. If the wu’ei find you here, they’ll come after me and my family. Inari’s made her own bed of nails and she’ll have to lie on it.”

  “She never intended to return to Hell! Someone took her!”

  “Who?” Tso asked nervously. Again, Chen got the impression that Tso already knew.

  “I don’t know. But everything that’s been happening seems to lead back to the Ministry of Epidemics. If I’m looking to anyone as a culprit, I’m looking at them.”

  “Always Dao Yi,” said Tso, and spat a fiery spark of contempt. It sizzled as it hit the carpet, leaving a small, smoking hole.

  “I’m sorry, Tso, but I won’t leave Hell without your sister, even if I have to pay a visit to the Ministry myself. I’ll be as discreet as I can.”

  Tso opened his mouth as if to protest, but then he said, “Very well, then. You must do what you have to do, I suppose. But I cannot help you.”

  Agreement was the last thing that Chen expected. He glanced at Tso. His brother-in-law’s round face was as closed as if a shutter had fallen across it.

  “I understand,” Chen said quietly. “If you withdraw the wards on this room, I’ll be on my way. I won’t trouble you again.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “I have—other contacts,” Chen said. “I have a place in mind.”

  Tso nodded. He raised a hand, and the wall of smoke dispersed. Chen crossed to the door, feeling the prick of spells against his skin as he stepped through the dissipating barrier. He left Tso sitting on the couch and, followed by the badger, made his way down the stairs.

  As they came out into the courtyard, the badger said, “You cannot trust Master Tso.” It spoke abruptly, as though the words had been wrung out of it, and Chen was heartened by this display of reluctant loyalty.

  “I know,” he said. “That’s why we have to get as far away from here as possible. Tso won’t waste any time.”

  “Why did you not lie to him? Tell him that you would leave Hell, forget Inari?”

  “Because he’d know it was a lie. Tso understands me well enough. Besides, the more lies I tell, the more trouble I’ll have with Kuan Yin later.” He sighed. Caught between goddesses and demons … what was that Western saying? Something about a rock and a hard place? Or was it a devil and the deep sea? The truth of both statements was brought abruptly home to Chen as he stepped out of the entrance to the courtyard.

  The animal spirits had come back. They stood in a patient semicircle. They were quite still and their eyes were bright. At his feet, the badger gave a long, low growl. Chen glanced behind him. There was no obvious way out of the courtyard, unless he bolted into the maze of downstairs rooms. The thought of being trapped in that narcotic maze was not appealing, but going back was better than going forwards. The spirits, moving as one, took a step towards him. Chen slipped his hand into his jacket pocket and found with a sudden sick dismay that his rosary was no longer there. As if sensing his disquiet, the animal spirits surged through the gateway and Chen turned and ran, nearly falling over the badger in his haste. He was heading for the staircase, but as he neared it a door slammed shut and he heard the snap of a bolt. He wondered fleetingly if that might have been Tso’s doing, but there was no time for speculation. Accompanied by the badger, Chen fled along the covered verandah towards the far end of the courtyard. A spirit loomed up before him with the faceted eyes and quivering wings of a dragonfly, but its mouth was soft and human and wet. Desperately, Chen shoved it aside: it felt brittle, and yet somehow disconcertingly solid. As it fell, it began to hum. The humming filled the air, and the tendrils of the black vine that covered the verandah started to coil around Chen, caressing his face and entwining painfully in his hair. At the end of the verandah was a small, closed door: if he could only reach it—but a leafy frond of vine reached out and snagged his injured ankle, bringing him down. Chen rolled as he fell, freeing his leg, but even as he began to crawl towards the door more tendrils were creeping about him and their grip was strong. He could feel the long body of the badger beneath him, struggling. Looking frantically over his shoulder, he saw a mosaic of eyes above him: green and golden and meat-red. The badger lashed out with a clawed paw but this time the spirits simply rippled, as though made of water. Still moving as one, still moving with grace, they bent their heads and the tip of a cold spectral tongue flickered over his skin.

  Then the small door at the end of the verandah burst open and something whistled over Chen’s head. A lizard spirit was catapulted, hissing, into the leaves of the vine. The dragonfly sailed up as if pulled by a string, a long spine whip cracking against its carapace­. The tendrils of the vine shriveled back and Chen was free. A hard hand caught him by the wrist and pulled him unceremoni­ously upright. Staggering back against the wall, he found himself looking into the wild, molten eyes of Seneschal Zhu Irzh.

  INTERLUDE

  Earth

  Sergeant Ma had spent the morning painstakingly filing traffic violations. It was a boring job, but Ma did not have a problem with being bored. Boring meant familiar, comfortable and safe. It did not mean golden-eyed demons with sharp and dangerous smiles, or the flittering ghosts of murdered teenagers. It did not mean kidnapped houses whirled up into the darkness between the worlds. It did not mean the utterly pedestrian, yet somehow deeply
sinister, presence of Detective Inspector Chen—now who knew where on who knew what supernatural errand. As a lowly sergeant, Ma had largely been left out of the urgent series of talks that had taken place between the captain, Chen, the lugubrious exorcist Lao and the madman from Beijing. This suited Ma very well. He could continue to potter about the office doing routine (but necessary) tasks and pretend that the nightmare world that perpetually hovered just beyond his dreams had never even existed. In a moment, Ma thought, he might even go and get another cup of tea.

  It was therefore with a sinking sense of dismay that he glanced up to see No Ro Shi, the demon-hunter, looming over him. The man seemed to carry with him a constant aura of night; he was even worse than Chen. No Ro Shi’s eyes were the dead black of old stone, and his face was as pale as a cadaver’s. No Ro Shi said, “Sergeant Ma? The captain asked me to have a word with you. Says you’ve worked on a case with Detective Chen.”

  “Only because there wasn’t anyone else,” Ma said, fear easily overriding pride.

  No Ro Shi gave a swift grimace that passed duty for a smile.

  “You are commendably modest, Sergeant, a quality that is all too rare in these self-aggrandizing times. Hubris is a certain path to Hell, you know.” He glanced swiftly over his shoulder. “However, the captain tells me that you acquitted yourself moderately well on previous occasions, and even Chen spoke highly of you once or twice when recounting his report of your adventures. The captain thinks you might be the ideal man for the job.”

  “Oh? What job?” Ma asked, with a sinking heart.

  “Chen thinks something serious is about to happen. Something cooked up by Hell that could affect all this sorry world. It may even have started already and that’s what you and I are going to find out. I’d take the departmental exorcist, but the captain wants Lao for a case of exorcism in the Business District.”

  “I—I don’t think—”

  “Good man,” said No Ro Shi. He clapped Ma on the shoulder and even through Ma’s regulation shirt his hand felt icy cold. “Get your jacket. And your gun.”

  The demon-hunter said nothing more on their way to the car, which Ma found ominous. No Ro Shi had said nothing about where they were going, nor why. That was the problem with these supernatural types, Ma lamented; they never told you everything, so you were left to wonder, and panic. Even Chen was better than this. In fact, Ma admitted to himself, Chen was actually a pretty decent bloke, behind all the spectral stuff. He wondered how Chen had got into this sort of thing in the first place: How did you get recruited by the gods? Did you dedicate yourself? Take a vow? Was it some kind of penance? And that last thought made him wonder what Chen might have done to pay so heavy a price.

  “I’ll drive,” No Ro Shi said, unlocking the car door. “Get in. And keep your window up.”

  Nervously, Ma complied. He did not like the thought of being at such close quarters with No Ro Shi. He squeezed himself tightly into his seat, trying to keep as far away from the man as possible without actually causing offence. He glanced at No Ro Shi, but the demon-hunter didn’t seem to have noticed and Ma felt a little reassured.

  No Ro Shi swung right off Shaopeng Street, into the series of congested underpasses that ran beneath the city. Driving down here always made Ma nervous: the lower they went, the closer to Hell he felt he was getting. He knew the relationship between the worlds was not nearly as simple as up and down, but he couldn’t shake off the feeling of unease. It was the same on Singapore Three’s rather unreliable metro. Moreover, the traffic in the underpasses was usually dreadful, especially at rush hour, and Ma had never grown used to driving in such claustrophobic conditions. Out in the countryside of Da Lo, where Ma had grown up, the roads were dusty and narrow, and the few vehicles moved at an uncomfortable bumping crawl. No Ro Shi paid no attention to the traffic. He shot between two lumbering buses, overtook a Mercedes on the inside and came out of the other end of the underpass onto the Ghenreng arterial like a cork out of a bottle. A few minutes later, Ma opened his eyes to discover that they were already halfway along the coast road that curved out from Singapore Three’s long shore to lead up into the mountains.

  “Where are we going?” Ma ventured to ask.

  No Ro Shi took one hand off the wheel to gesture vaguely in the direction of the container port, which shimmered in the afternoon haze. Ma could see the dim shadow of the typhoon shelter beyond, and then the immense expanse of the sea. They hurtled into yet another tunnel, angled into the hillside and framed with mirrors to placate any negative ch’i. No Ro Shi took a bend at speed, still one-handed. Ma’s eyes screwed shut once more.

  “We’re going out to Danlien.”

  “Danlien? But there’s nothing there—it’s just warehouses, isn’t it?”

  “A lot of the container cargo is stored there, but recently they’ve been converting spare warehouses into something else. Gherao dormitories.”

  “Gherao dormitories?” Ma echoed. He had not really followed the communications revolution very closely, preferring to take the attitude that if the bioweb worked, it worked, and if it didn’t, it didn’t. As far as Ma knew, the old electronic system was good enough, and he didn’t really understand why human beings had to be used as nexi points. But people seemed to think it was a good thing—employment had soared since the gherao system had been introduced, and the Chinese government had even been fleetingly popular as a result. Besides, the newspapers said, the gherao system was ideal for poor youngsters who lacked skills and qualifications: a year or two in the dormitory, acting as nexi nodes for the bioweb, and they’d earn enough money to set up their own small businesses. In India, so Ma had read, girls were earning their own dowries through the system, and easing the burden placed on their families. It wasn’t supposed to do the nexi any harm, either—scientists had done tests, and proved it. Ma trusted scientists: he wanted to believe in reason, and logic, and all the things that were antithetical to Hell. But he couldn’t see what a bioweb dorm had to do with the current case, and he didn’t want to look even more of an idiot by asking No Ro Shi further questions. Instead, he gazed out at the passing view and wondered uneasily what might be happening to Chen.

  PART FOUR

  42

  Hell

  Shrieking and chittering, the animal spirits swarmed up the side of the building and vanished sullenly into the hanging mass of the vine. Beneath the verandah, Chen gaped at Zhu Irzh as though he’d never seen him before. The demon’s hot golden gaze seemed to burn even more brightly, fierce as fever, and the skin of his face was tight and damp. He was holding one hand close to his body, cradling it protectively.

  “Zhu Irzh?” Chen said. “Are you all right?”

  The demon spoke quickly, the words running together.

  “No. No, I’m not. I had a most unwelcome visitor, a sala­mander creature—I touched its tail and it poisoned me. I was on my way to an alchemist’s when I saw it again, or something like it, that lizard­ thing, it was sliding under that gate, so I followed it to order it to tell me who’d sent it, and I found you. What are you doing here, Chen?” he added, as if in afterthought.

  “I came after our mutual friend,” Chen said, with a warning glance upwards. “Did you get my e-mail?”

  “Yes. I took it to the—the proper authorities, I didn’t tell them where it came from.”

  “Which authorities? Did they believe you?” Chen asked, taking the demon by his uninjured arm and steering him through the gate. The demon’s arm was radiantly hot beneath his hand, as though he was holding his palm above a stove. Zhu Irzh nodded.

  “My employer. And yes. Yes, he did.” He stumbled as they stepped through the gate and leaned back against the wall.

  “Where’s the alchemist?” Chen asked urgently. The demon was obviously not in a very good way.

  “That’s the fucking problem, I don’t know,” Zhu Irzh said wildly. “I went to some apothecary, some quack, and he refused to treat me. I’m damn sure the thing that attacked me was sent by Epidemi
cs, and all the doctors here are under license to them. The whole medical profession has probably been ordered to give me the runaround until I fall down dead and end up Imperial Majesty knows where in some horrible lower level for the next few hundred years.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” Chen told him.

  Zhu Irzh snorted. “So you say. I don’t know how long I’ve got. Not long, probably.”

  Looking at him, and allowing for the usual hyperbole of the supernatural, Chen was inclined to agree. The demon’s hand was so swollen that his talons protruded from his fingertips like pins from a pincushion, and the flesh was shiny and cracked.

  “Look,” Chen said, taking a deep breath as he made his decision. The goddess wouldn’t approve, but then Kuan Yin hadn’t approved of anything he’d done in the last year, so what else was new? He’d just have to square it with her on some yet-to-be-­determined­ day of reckoning, along with everything else. One thing was certain, however­: Kuan Yin wouldn’t like it. Healing demons was definitely­ not within his job remit. He glanced quickly around him. Twilight was falling fast, and the glowing red lamps of Hell were casting bloody shadows around them. Squalid buildings lined the street, and across the way Chen glimpsed the neon sign of a demon lounge.

  “Have you got any money?” he asked Zhu Irzh.

  “Some,” the demon replied.

  “Go over there and hire us a room.”

  Even in his anguished state, Zhu Irzh’s mouth twitched in a smile.

  “Detective Chen. I’d no idea you thought of me like that.”

  “I don’t think of—oh, never mind. Make sure you get a room facing the street, on the ground floor. Tell them you’re on your own; show them your badge if you have to. Then open the window.”

  Zhu Irzh stared at him for a moment, then apparently decided that trust might be an appropriate emotion. “All right,” he said. Wincing with pain, he ran across the street and hammered on the door of the demon lounge with his good hand. The door opened. Chen saw the demon speaking to someone within, then reaching awkwardly into his pocket and extracting a handful of notes. He vanished inside. A few minutes later, a window just above the street flew open.