Snake Agent

by Liz Williams

  “Which Ministry?”

  “Well, quite. Which indeed? Most of my esteemed colleagues have it in for me, Zhu Irzh, just as I have devoted so much of my life to making their own a misery. But whether it’s the Ministry of War, or Flesh, or Earthquakes, or Epidemics who are aiming for my downfall with the unreliable Mr Tang’s connivance, one can only speculate.”

  “And you would like me to retrieve Pearl Tang from Miu’s brothel and interrogate her?”

  “If she was still in the brothel,” the First Lord said with some asperity, “I could delegate the matter to a lesser official. However, it seems she has gone missing.”

  “Missing?”

  “Please stop echoing everything I say in that vacuous manner. Until last Darkday her services were engaged as an active participant of the brothel. Then, she apparently found a way to escape and ran away.”

  “I find it difficult to believe that a new and relatively innocent soul would be able to get very far in its flight through Hell,” Zhu Irzh said reflectively.

  “So do I. I think the owner of that particular establishment is either lying to me, and has secreted her away for his own nefarious purposes, or she has had help. Neither scenario is encouraging. I want you to find this tiresome little ghost, Zhu Irzh. Find her and bring her back.”

  PART TWO

  6

  Singapore Three, Earth

  Chen spent his walk back to the station thinking about the angles he might use to induce Tang to speak. He was, therefore, irate to discover that the industrialist had already been released on bail. Chen went straight to the captain’s office to complain.

  “Chen, I told you it might happen. I did what I could,” Sung said. His heavy face looked gray and rumpled, the sign of a difficult afternoon. “I’ve had the governor on my back and lawyers coming through the windows … We’ll get it to trial if we can, but don’t count on it.”

  “So Tang can be responsible for the deaths of several young girls, including, it seems, his own daughter—not to mention his wife—and simply walk free?” Chen asked in disgust. “Oh, I suppose I should know better by now, but it still makes me furious.”

  Captain Sung gave a shrug of sympathy. “You know how the world works as well as I do. We’re not young men, Detective Inspector.”

  “So I’d noticed,” Chen said dryly. He already felt about a hundred and ten. He returned to his desk and began studying his notes for a minor case of fraudulent exorcism, and the revised proposal for the feng shui practitioners’ licensing rules. Neither document managed to hold his attention. He rang Inari. There was no reply. The thought of Tang’s freedom chafed at him like a yak-hair shirt. Checking through his pockets, Chen made sure that his rosary, scalpel, compass and other pieces of equipment were safe. He hunted through his desk drawers for two small octagonal mirrors and a tube of superglue, which he wrapped carefully in a tissue and placed in his pocket. Then, as he had done on the previous evening, he walked out into the humid city and caught the next tram to the Garden District.

  Tang’s private car was parked in front of the mansion, half-hidden in the shadows cast by the magnolia trees. Chen sidled along the street, making sure that he was well outside the security perimeter and that no one could see him from the mansion, then took one of the mirrors from his pocket. Murmuring a few words, he glued the mirror to the underside of the Mercedes’ fender. He was taking a risk that the car might be monitored, but he was fairly sure that any security arrangements would be set to detect electronic equipment or explosives, not a cheap plastic mirror. Then he set off back down the street. He kept his hand on the second mirror in his pocket, but it remained cold.

  Once he had reached the Opera House, however, the mirror flushed warm against the palm of his hand. Swiftly, Chen found a nearby teahouse, ordered a pot of dragon oolong tea, and sat down with the mirror in his lap.

  Reflected in the surface of the mirror, as minute and precise as a digitized film, he could see the Mercedes pulling out from the curb. Tang himself was at the wheel, and as far as Chen could see, there was no one else in the car. He followed the image of the Mercedes as it turned north at the end of the street, heading into the suburbs. Circumscribed by the edges of the mirror, Chen caught glimpses of tower blocks and concrete ruins overgrown with creeper; perhaps bomb damage from the winter’s terrorist attacks, perhaps simply areas of land where building had been planned but the money had run out. He glimpsed the flashy new facade of the temple of Woi Tsin: supposedly part of the urban regeneration project, and wondered what defenses the Mercedes enjoyed, that Tang risked driving through such poor and edgy ghettos. Leaving the zones behind, Tang drove up into richer country. Mansions appeared once more, flanked behind acres of ground, and Chen enjoyed the sight of the road to Shunan, stretching in a dizzying curve around the mountainside with the sweep of the sea beyond. The sun had fallen, and the sky was a pale, aquatic green. Chen took a sip of black tea and watched as Tang turned off the road. The Mercedes bumped down a dirt track, leaving the vista of the coast behind, and slowed to a halt in front of a shack. Tang got out and went inside. Chen finished his bowl of tea and poured another, then signaled to the waitress and ordered an egg bun. After the bun, he called for another pot of tea, which he drank slowly. Tang still had not emerged from the shack. Chen visited the gents, surreptitiously keeping an eye on the mirror as he did so and feeling more than a little self-conscious. On his return from the lavatory, he found that the café owner had switched on the seven o’clock news. Chen listened as he continued to stare fixedly into the mirror. A deal had been struck over the Texan secession. The Turkistan Alliance had come to an accord with the Chinese government over the Uighur border, and the Dagestani Liberation Front had agreed to a cease-fire. Peace appeared to be breaking out all over the place. For once, the news failed to depress Chen quite as much as usual.

  The headlines were followed by a local report on the new gherao dormitory being built out in Jhu Ku. It seemed that the media’s fascination with the bioweb and its effects had still not drawn to a close. Perhaps there was something about the bioweb nexi themselves that piqued interest: after all, most were women, and most were young. Chen recalled vaguely that bioweb tech­nology had started in Malaysia, where girls signed up for a two-year stint as nexi in order to pay their own dowries … Momentarily distracted from the non-events in the mirror, Chen glanced up at the rows of motionless forms depicted on the television screen, each nexus floating serenely in her shallow bath of nutrient fluid, wrapped in the embrace of synaptic wiring as they silently and invisibly passed information to and fro. If he half-closed his eyes, he could imagine the girls lying at the edge of the sea, lapped by waves, cocooned in weed. The images were organic and disturbing. Chen had grown up in a world where technology was hard-edged: plastic and metal and steel, not soft and mortal flesh. The televised pictures of the gherao interfaces made him queasy; he began to regret the egg bun. He looked down at the mirror in his lap just in time to see Tang’s reflection walking from the shack, holding something small and evidently fragile. Chen squinted into the mirror, trying to see. The thing looked like a jar. Tang placed it carefully in the back of the car, got in and drove off. Rising from his seat, and grateful that he didn’t have to sit through yet another pot of tea, Chen headed swiftly back to the Garden District through the gathering dusk.

  7

  Seneschal Zhu Irzh knocked on the door of the demon lounge and waited. The towering clouds of Hell raced high above his head, shrouding the metal towers. Lightning snapped on the wind. Zhu Irzh shivered pleasurably. After a few moments, the door was opened by a young woman. She bestowed a long and appraising look upon Zhu Irzh, who gave her his most charming smile. The girl grinned back, revealing lacquered black teeth, each one ending in a delicate point. Her eyes were as dark and pellucid as oil and her skin was dusted with lotus powder. Beneath his silk coat, the tip of Zhu Irzh’s tail twitched once, in appreciation.

  “Can I help you?” the girl said in a little,
breathy voice.

  Zhu Irzh stared demurely down at his feet and murmured, “I was hoping for an evening’s entertainment. I don’t know if you might be able to provide something diverting?”

  The girl’s opaque gaze took in Zhu Irzh’s expensive silk coat, his black brocade waistcoat and gilded teeth, as well as the ruby that dangled from one earlobe.

  “This is a poor establishment, hardly worthy of your attention. Nevertheless …”

  “I knew you would,” Zhu Irzh said, and stepped smartly through the door.

  Inside, he found himself in a hallway decorated with metal panels and thick with the musky scent of incense. The girl swayed closer, enchanting him with her perfume. Zhu Irzh smelled amber and blood. He murmured into her ear:

  “You’re very lovely, and if I didn’t have very particular tastes, I’d ask you to be my companion, but …”

  With a faint hiss, the girl withdrew. “What is it that you want, Lord?” she said, winter beneath her words.

  “Something closer to life than you or I, alas. Something fresh.”

  “Something to share?” the girl said, drawing closer once more. Zhu Irzh laughed.

  “Later, perhaps. There are certain desires I’d like to satisfy first.”

  The girl stood on tiptoe and he felt the sting of her teeth in his ear. His senses swam. His hands closed around the girl’s waist: she was cool and hard and flexible. He thought with distaste of soft flesh and warm blood; eyes that saw so little. Some people might get off on ghosts and humans, but he wasn’t one of them. The thought of sleeping with someone only recently mortal was less than appealing; at least he wouldn’t actually have to go through with it and then, perhaps, he could return to this young lady … The visage of the First Lord of Banking swam, unwelcomed, before his mind’s eye. Zhu Irzh reminded himself sternly that he had a job to do.

  “Do you have such creatures?” he whispered. “Human ghosts?”

  The girl gave a sniff of contempt. “Upstairs,” she said, and taking him by the hand, led him up a narrow, turning staircase. Zhu Irzh could see his own face reflected in the metal panels along the walls: his features blurred to nothing more than a bright-eyed shadow. Something seemed to rustle and whisper, just beneath the edge of hearing. Zhu Irzh smiled. The girl stopped outside an iron door.

  “In there.” She tossed her elaborate, lacquered head. “Have fun.”

  Zhu Irzh stepped through the door and found himself in a narrow room lined with stifling velvet drapes. In the middle of the room stood a divan. The room was empty. Puzzled, Zhu Irzh looked about him. From the corner of his eye, he could see an unnatural shiver of the air. Zhu Irzh strolled across the room, as if heading for the divan, then turned and struck out. His taloned hand closed on a frail wrist. Something shrieked and squirmed.

  “Hold still,” Zhu Irzh said, irritated. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  The ghost wailed aloud. Zhu Irzh could not see her very clearly; she seemed to merge with the shadows and the drifting dust.

  “Stay still.” Zhu Irzh hissed. The ghost became quiet and limp in his hands, and solidified a little further. Zhu Irzh saw a small, thin child, with wide eyes. He was not good at guessing the ages of humans; to him, they seemed to have such brief, dragonfly lives, but she was certainly very young.

  “Listen, I’m not going to hurt you, I promise,” Zhu Irzh repeated. “I just want to talk.”

  “Talk?” the ghost faltered. “What about?” The words were strangely accented; she spoke Gweilin falteringly, marking her as one who had only recently come from life. It always took a while before the language of the otherworld took root in what remained of their brains. Looking at her more closely, Zhu Irzh could tell that she retained a degree of her hun, her personality, but her p’o, her animating spirit, had entirely gone. He frowned. He wasn’t entirely clear about human spiritual anatomy, but that didn’t seem quite right.

  “Come and sit down. There. That’s right. Sit by me and we’ll talk. Now, when you died, you were supposed to go to the Celestial Realms, is that right?” Mutely, the ghost nodded. “But something went wrong and you ended up here.” Another nod. “Do you know why?”

  The ghost burst into suddenly impassioned speech.

  “No! No, I don’t know why. I always tried to be good; I really did. I don’t know why I’m in Hell …” Her face crumpled. Zhu Irzh almost felt sorry for her. This pale little thing ought to be skipping among the fragile peach blossoms of Heaven, not servicing demons in some netherworld seraglio. Some people certainly had weird tastes. Any sexual favors from this one would be subtle to the point of vapidity; one might as well not bother.

  “Are you going to take me away?” The ghost faltered. Zhu Irzh looked at her. He could almost see straight through her. That uncomfortable, nagging sensation was back. He’d suffered from this on and off since childhood, like the prick of a pin inside his mind, and had even gone so far as to visit a remedy maker. What had the old man called it? Conscience, or some such—a human disease, anyway, and there was apparently nothing that could be done about it. It irritated Zhu Irzh. To make it go away, he said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

  The ghost clutched at his arm like a moth. Zhu Irzh brushed her away.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Xi Fu.”

  “Xi, have you ever met a young girl named Pearl Tang?”

  “Yes,” the ghost said, surprised. “We were in the same class at school; I used to go to her house. In fact—” her spectral brow furrowed with the effort of fading memory. “I think I might have died in her house … And I think she was here, but I don’t know when …”

  “Do you have any idea where she is now?”

  “I thought she was still here. There were others, too, but they took them away. I saw them. Pearl wasn’t one of them.”

  “They?”

  “Some—some people. Like you, your kind. They came from the Ministry, someone said.”

  At this, Zhu Irzh frowned. The message that Pearl Tang had smuggled out to the First Lord of Banking had mentioned a Ministry. The ghost went on: “I overheard them in the hall. They came and looked at me, and made me open my mouth so they could inspect me, and then one of them said something like: I’d do for the next batch but they wanted the stronger ones first.”

  “And you say they came from the ‘Ministry.’ Did anyone say which one?”

  “No. But they had badges on their coats.”

  “What sort of badges?”

  “I don’t know,” the ghost said.

  “What would any of the Ministries want with the ghosts of the virtuous?” Zhu Irzh wondered aloud. The girl stared at him vacantly.

  “I don’t know.”

  “No,” said Zhu Irzh with a sigh. “No, I don’t suppose you do. All right. Thank you.”

  “Are you going now?” the ghost asked, with unflattering eagerness.

  “Yes.” Zhu Irzh turned and took her fragile chin in his hand. “Now, stay still.” He could see the memories of life chasing around in her translucent skull like tiny sparks. It would be doing her a favor, really, if they were no longer there to torment her. He reached through and snuffed them out between the claws of finger and thumb. The ghost’s face grew utterly blank. “Goodbye,” Zhu Irzh murmured, and left the room, leaving the ghost sitting numbly on the divan.

  Once outside in the corridor, Zhu Irzh looked about him. There was no one in sight. He sidled up to a neighboring door and opened it, cautiously. The room was similar to the one he had just left. Quietly, Zhu Irzh closed the door and tried another. This one was occupied. He could see the elegant curve of a scaly shoulder and the long arch of spine, tapering down to a coiling tail. As he stared, the girl mumbled something in her sleep and rolled over to reveal a pretty, Pekinese face and small breasts. One hand plucked fretfully at the fallen cover with claws that were long and spiraled like a mandarin’s nails. Zhu Irzh backed quietly out of the doorway and at the sudden movement the girl awoke. She uncurled sinuously up from
the couch and gave him an inviting smile. Her small mouth parted and the tip of a dark tongue protruded for a moment. Then, before Zhu Irzh could move, the tongue uncoiled, flicked out and licked him wetly in the ear. Zhu Irzh leaped back and slammed the door shut. From inside the room, someone gave a silvery laugh. Exasperated, he hastened to the top of the stairs and stopped. In the hallway stood a short, squat woman, overbalanced by a towering coil of hair. Zhu Irzh could not see her face, but her rigid back was eloquent of disapproval. Before her stood the black-toothed receptionist.

  “—seems to have come looking for one of the little ones, the fresh spirits …” the squat person was saying, in a voice like the sound of a wasp buzzing in the rafters.

  “He asked for one of the new ghosts,” the receptionist replied, in evident bewilderment. “They’ve been very popular, and—”

  “What has happened to the ghost of Pearl Tang? Is she safely returned to Earth?”

  “Her father came for her this evening.”

  “To the counterpart of this establishment?”

  “No, it was done through the ministrations of the gwei s’sa. Tang’s father did not deem it wise to return to the funeral parlor; there was trouble, he said. He planned to take her back to Earth and hide her there. He was angry about her collusion with that client, the one who was carrying messages from her. He said if we couldn’t guard her properly then he wouldn’t have bothered sending her here in the first place.”