Snake Agent

by Liz Williams

  “It’s all right,” Mrs Tang sighed. Then her head snapped up. “Detective, my daughter! What’s become of my daughter?” Her shadowy face twisted. “Pearl died because of what H’suen was doing, I’m sure of it. I think H’suen’s new masters wanted a sacrifice. I think she was it.”

  “Don’t worry,” Chen said, and this time he was able to mean it. “She wasn’t a sacrifice in the way you mean, though I’m afraid it’s true enough that your husband killed her. She found out something of what he was doing, you see. But she’s safe now. She’s in Heaven, she was sent by Kuan Yin herself. I saw her go.”

  Mrs Tang’s face crumpled and she clutched at Chen’s hand. Then the distress flowed out of her face, leaving it smooth and pale. “Then I don’t care where I go,” she said. Chen glanced up. Someone was coming along the wharf, dressed in gray robes. Its face was smooth and inexpressive, with a bland smile, and it carried a bundle of documents. It was one of the wardens responsible for the passage of souls between the worlds: Chen had seen its kind before. As it neared the place where Chen was sitting, it said in a whispering voice, “Lily Tang? Here is your visa.” It passed a slip of paper to her and glided on, with a half-curious glance at Chen. Mrs Tang’s phantom hands were steady as she opened the slip of paper but one look at her face told Chen the bad news, belaying her earlier defiant words. He put a sympathetic hand on her shoulder and the nun came to sit by her side.

  “Don’t worry,” the nun murmured. “Hell’s not as bad as all that, and you may not even be there for very long. Before you know it, you’ll be reborn in the world again and you won’t remember a thing.”

  Chen did not think that Mrs Tang looked very convinced. He was about to add his own reassurances, but the smooth, gliding person was coming back.

  “Embarkation is about to commence,” the being said.

  Mrs Tang turned to Chen and grasped his arm. Looking down, he saw that her spectral knuckles were white, but he felt nothing. “Detective? Will you stay by me, on the boat?”

  “If I can,” Chen said. He rose to follow the official. And after that everything became hazy: a succession of images, the red-lacquered bulk of the boat rocking above an ocean of darkness; his own feet gliding up a gangway and a spectral wind on his face. Later, through the mercifully hazy depths of fear, came the sudden vastness of galaxies, spawned in the hinterlands of the universe and spinning out stars like grain from a millwheel.

  And then, much later still, a rasping hand grasped his arm. A voice hissed in his ear, “You do not have correct papers for dis­embarkation! You must leave now, and take your familiar with you!”

  A dim memory of protest, hands tightening, a vertiginous tilt … Chen was falling. There was a banner snapping in an eternal wind, towers of iron and bone and pain, and a red and endless sky where no sun shone.

  33

  Inari sat bolt upright, shaking. She took a deep breath, inhaling the once familiar scent of Hell: old incense, and hatred, and blood, overlaid with the more fragrant odors of tea and the perfume of the night-lilies, which drifted in from the garden. She had been dreaming a dream in which Dao Yi had snatched her back to the underworld, and was mauling her with putrefying hands … It was a moment before she realized that this was memory, not dream; another moment still before the knowledge dawned upon her that it was not this recollection that had awakened her. There was something in the room.

  Zhu Irzh, she thought. Carefully and quietly, she lay back down on the bed. Her hands, resting gently on the covers, flexed their long talons and she could feel the prickle of her incisors as they lengthened. Here in Hell, her own world, she was becoming more demonic by the minute, and she did not like it. She did not want to be this fierce, fearful thing longing for the taste of blood in her mouth, yet repulsed by her own nature and those around her. She wanted to be back on the houseboat, pottering about with the cooking, and the badger weaving in and out between her feet. Sunlight and salt, and fresh clear air … remember who you have become, not who you once were … But now she had to remember both. She could hear footsteps moving stealthily about the room. She turned over, sighing as she did so in the pretence of deep sleep, then rolled silently onto her back once more. There was a heavy rustle of silk as the curtains were pulled aside. Inari stirred, murmured, peered through half-closed eyes.

  A little pair of hands protruded through the curtain. They were delicate hands, with long golden talons shaped into fashionable spirals, and even in the darkness Inari’s night-eyes could see that the hands were as red as blood. Long fingers rippled and flexed in obscene anticipation and then, as if by magic, a length of black silk was conjured from the depths of a sleeve. The owner of the hands gave a small, breathy gasp, almost a giggle, and reached out with the garrote. Inari struck: rearing up from the bed and lashing out with a taloned hand. Silk curtains tore and something fell wetly to the bed: a long strip of decaying flesh attached to something bony, which sizzled into ash as soon as it touched the covers. Freeing herself from the bedclothes, Inari sprang to the floor. The figure wore an ornate ceremonial robe. Long hair cascaded down its back. Its eyes were huge and dark above the ruin of its jaw, and now Inari could see what it was that she had torn away: a strip of the creature’s face and rotting jawbone. The creature’s tongue lolled loosely from the back of its throat and it reached up a red hand and stuffed the tongue awkwardly back in. Then it came forwards in a crouching rush. Inari kicked out and hooked a foot behind its bony ankle, bringing it crashing to the floor. It struck out with a flailing arm and she grasped its wrist and twisted. The arm came out of its socket like a ripe plum falling from a tree. Gasping, Inari threw it to one side. She kicked the creature in the ribs and felt something cave rottenly inwards. The creature gave a whistling cry. Its ribcage began to expand outwards, each bone unpeeling itself from the sternum, dangling petals of flesh. The ribs arched back until they reached the floor, where they began to scrabble and thrash like the legs of some monstrous arachnid. Inari fled into the tiny kitchenette and dumped one of the cabinet drawers onto the floor. Seizing a long knife, she ran back into the main room in time to see that the creature had managed to turn itself right way up. It had now divested itself of all spare flesh except the legs, which remained entangled in the robe and trailed across the floor like long and empty bags. As Inari stumbled to a halt, its legs finally fell away, leaving the creature’s spine free to arch upwards over its head. Its tongue, attached only by a thin and elastic strip of skin, finally fell off. The foremost ribs, now legs, clicked as the creature ran forwards. A sharp, dark thing like the thorn of a rose protruded from the end of the spine, glistening with venom. Inari dived over the couch just as it lashed forwards. The venomous spine shot through the back of the divan, where it stuck. Scrambling to her feet, Inari struck down with the knife, hacking frantically at bone and sinew until the spine was completely severed. The thing scuttled forwards, only to be knocked flying as the door surged open and Zhu Irzh leaped through, sword in hand.

  “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.

  34

  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.

  35

  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.