Snake Agent: A Detective Inspector Chen Novel (3 page)

A rattling roar from around the corner and the singing of the rails in the heat signaled the approach of the tram. Two elderly ladies elbowed Chen out of the way and sat down in the only free seats like a pair of collapsed puppets, smiling in triumph. Chen didn't begrudge the seats, but he wished that the tram was not quite so steamy and crowded, and did not smell so pungently of garlic. Hanging grimly to a strap, he closed his eyes once more as the tram lurched towards downtown. After what seemed like several hours, but could only have been fifteen minutes or so, the tram swayed to a stop outside the Pellucid Island Opera House and Chen fought his way to the door, eventually being expelled like a firecracker onto the sweltering street.

It was now past seven, and the light was beginning to die over the port: apricot deepening to rose where a sliver of sky was revealed between the skyscrapers. The Tang family lived behind the Opera House, in the Garden District. Chen made his way around the imposing wedding-cake bulk of the Opera House, automatically noting the program. If the weekend didn't turn out to be occupied with corpses and visitations, perhaps he would take Inari to a show. Reaching the edge of the Garden District, Chen stopped and looked back. The length of Shaopeng Street ran like an arrow towards the port, golden with the gleam of neon, but around the Opera House the lamps were coming on, hazy in the growing twilight. Cicadas rattled in the branches of the oleander, and the air smelled of pollution and food. Checking the address that Tang had given him, Chen made his way through suddenly quiet streets, each garden seemingly merging into the rest and heavy with hibiscus and magnolia. Chen knew, however, that if he stepped incautiously onto the edge of one of those velvet lawns, alarms would sound and tripwires would be activated. The thought of a brace of sharkhounds racing towards him was not appealing, either; Chen took good care to keep to the pavement.

Once he reached the Tang's mansion, he paused for a moment and stood considering it. The mansion was built in the worse excesses of
fin de siècle
taste: turrets and balconies sprouted here and there, and two anomalous Greek naiads, both facing the same way, flanked the portico. Chen thought of his modest houseboat with increased longing. No lights appeared to be on, and Chen regarded this as ominous. He stepped up to the entry post and activated the scanner. There was a whirr as the defenses were dismissed, and a voice said, "Enter."

Chen walked up the driveway to find that the front door was open and an emaciated man in late middle age was standing in the doorway.

"H'suen Tang?" Chen asked in some surprise, since it seemed hardly likely that the industrialist would be answering his own front door, but the man said in a voice like an ancient bird, "Yes, indeed. And you are Detective Inspector Chen? Come in, come in."

Chen had seen Tang's face plastered beneath a hundred headlines in the financial press, but his impression had been of a jowly individual with an arrogant, impassive stare. This man was thin and reedy; a Mandarin scholar rather than a key player in the nation's industrial base. When Chen studied him more closely, he saw that traces of the jowls remained; Tang's face sagged, like wax that had been held too close to a flame.

"And Mrs Tang?" Chen murmured.

The industrialist's face grew blank, as though he did not want to listen to his own words. He said, "Through here."

Chen followed him into an ornate room, evidently some kind of parlor. The room was furnished with little acknowledgement to taste: Chen's initial impression was of a stuffy, overwhelming opulence, a banquet of crimson velvet and gilded wood. It was the kind of room that someone with too much money and a passing acquaintance with Versailles might have attempted to reproduce, unhindered by concepts relating to vulgarity. Chen was immediately reminded of the funeral parlor. On a red, stuffed chair harnessed by flying cherubs sat Mrs Tang. Her face was perfectly blank. She smiled slightly, and her hands were clasped about the Miucci purse that rested in her silken lap. At first, Chen thought she was wearing gloves, but then he saw that the skin of her hands was blood-red.

"I found her like that an hour ago," Tang said mournfully. "She hasn't moved."

Chen approached the motionless woman and crouched on his heels in front of her. Her eyes were wide open, and behind them he could see a curious gilded film. He glanced over his shoulder to find out where the light was coming from, only to find that the door was shut and the only illumination came from one of the chandeliers at the other end of the room, behind Mrs Tang. He reached out and touched a tentative finger to the pulse in the woman's throat, where he detected a faint, irregular beat.

"Have you called a doctor?" Chen asked.

The industrialist nodded. "My personal physician has been to see her. He's upstairs now, on the phone."

"And his diagnosis?"

Tang shuffled his feet, ashamed. "Possession."

"Yes, I'm inclined to agree. Something's apparently got to her. . . Well, we'd better arrange for an exorcism."

"Detective Inspector," said Tang, clawing at Chen's arm. "You do realize that I am anxious to avoid a scandal?"

"Don't worry," Chen said. "We'll be very discreet." He glanced at a nearby ormolu clock and sighed. It was already close to eight. "Do you mind if I make a quick phone call?"

"Certainly."

Chen stepped out into the hall, reluctant to let whatever might be occupying Mrs Tang, to overhear his conversation. He dialed the home number of the departmental exorcist, and after a moment, Lao's familiar, irritable voice answered.

"Chen, is that you? What is it this time?"

Chen explained, and Lao gave a martyred sigh. "Can't it wait till tomorrow? My wife's just put dinner on the table."

"Sorry, but no," Chen said firmly.

"If you put the victim to bed and keep their feet warm it sometimes goes away of its own accord. Green tea helps, too."

"Lao, this is urgent."

"Oh, very well," the exorcist grumbled. "Where is it?"

Chen told him.

"Not on the other side of town, then, as it usually is. . . Give me a moment to find my shoes."

Chen closed the connection, then rang Inari. "Darling, it's me. Look, I'm sorry, but it looks as though I'm going to be late tonight. Something's come up that I have to deal with myself, and—"

"It doesn't matter," Inari's voice was resigned. "I'll make some dinner and leave it on the stove. It's not a problem."

"Thanks," Chen said. He added, "How's your day been?"

"Fine," Inari said brightly. "I've been shopping. To the market."

"On your own?" Chen blinked. His wife's adventurousness was commendable but worrying. He could hear music in the background: something quick and foreign. Inari laughed.

"No, of course not. I took the teakettle with me. Don't
worry,
Wei."

"Well," Chen said. "I'll be home as soon as I can. Look after yourself."

"You, too," Inari said, and rang off. Chen stepped back through the door of the parlor. There was a rustle behind the door as something grabbed him by the throat and tipped him neatly onto the carpet. Chen found himself staring up into the furnace gaze of Mrs Tang: her eyes as hot and yellow as the sun. Her tongue flicked out, stinging his cheek like a razor. Frantically, Chen rolled away, glimpsing the crumpled body of the industrialist as he did so. Mrs Tang hissed with fury and leaped high in the air, coming down astride Chen's body. Chen snatched at his pocket, seeking his rosary, but Mrs Tang flung his hand aside. Her jaw dropped in dislocation and Chen watched with fascinated horror as her teeth began to grow, twisting into sharp points like the tendrils of vines breaking from the earth. Her clawed hand clamped around Chen's throat. The world grew red as blood.

"See?" Inari said to the teakettle. She held up the radish, carved into a delicate lace of petals. "Isn't that pretty?" She placed the radish in the middle of the table and studied it with her head to one side. Even though she had followed the instructions in the magazine so diligently, it was the first time she had managed to finish a whole one without the edges breaking off. She gave the teakettle a look of mock disapproval.

"I hope you're not sulking because we went out without telling Chen Wei. Or perhaps you're just tired. We walked a long way today, didn't we?" She grimaced suddenly, and sat down on the couch to examine her feet. Even though she had put on the thick cotton tabis, the soles of her feet still felt a little raw, but at least they had not burned as badly as they had on her first excursion. And this was now the third time she had ventured from the safe confines of the houseboat. Inari felt encouraged. "Not so bad today," she said hopefully, to the teakettle.

She thought back to the market: a marvelous place, filled with lights. When evening began to draw closer, the lamps that hung from the high beams of the market came on, sending shadows across the green mounds of pak choi and cabbage; gleaming from the glistening sides of carp and mullet. Clutching the bag containing the teakettle, Inari had walked in a trance through the coolness of the fish stalls; sensing the flickering, newly released spirits all around her as they snapped their tails and swam towards a different sea. The meat section had, in turn, been filled with the vast, bewildered shades of cattle: stepping delicately across the blood-wet floor to where the shadowy avatar of Wei Lo, lord of the herds, waited with infinite, enduring patience. Their presence, and their acceptance of their fate, had saddened Inari and she moved on, among the stalls where the vegetables were stacked in rows and the air was redolent of earth and greenness and growing, sunlight and storms. Inari bent over the leafy bales of kale, and tasted rain.

The rest of the market was filled with things: clothes and trinkets and electronic equipment, none of which Inari understood. They were dead, and always had been; she passed them by. But she spent a long time in the remedy section of the market, studying the powders and roots, the acupuncture diagrams and the posters depicting the shiatsu meridians. Bamboo and dandelion; lotus and plantain. . . The spirits of the plants surrounded Inari, murmuring of healing, and she stopped to listen. A basket filled to the brim with pale, dried snakes rustled into life as she passed, hissing sibilant warnings into the air, and Inari looked up to find the stall holder staring at her with manifest suspicion. The teakettle stirred uneasily in its bag. Inari gave the stall holder an apologetic smile, and walked hastily on. Her favorite stalls of all contained spices and money. She lingered over cinnamon and star anise, scenting the incense meals of her childhood: her mother stepping barefoot about the kitchen, trailing odors of cardamom and ginger and fire in her wake. She studied the hell money with a grin, noting how little it cost, and she fingered the paper stoves and chairs and teacups—flimsy shreds suitable only for a dollhouse. Inari sighed, knowing that these days she could afford to replace all the furniture in her mother's home for less than the price of lunch in the local noodle bar, but she did not yet dare. The authorities were watching; the
wu'ei
constant in their vindictive vigilance, and the last thing Inari wanted was to bring more trouble on her family, whatever they had done to her. Reluctantly, she had left the market and stepped out into the rose-gold light of evening.

Now, back on the houseboat, Inari emerged from her memories to see that something was happening to the teakettle. It had begun to rock back and forth on the stove, as if in agitation. Its shiny iron sides seemed to twitch. Then the metal sides of the kettle sprouted into a thick pelt of striped fur. The handle disconnected itself at one end and flattened into a short tail. The spout of the kettle snaked through the air, as if seeking a shape, and then shortened. Two cold black eyes appeared above the spout. Teakettle had become badger.

"Whatever is it?" Inari asked in alarm.

The badger sat up on powerful hind legs and spoke in a dark, earthy voice. "Danger!" it said.

The chanting seemed to have been going on for years. Chen could not remember a time when it had not been ringing in his ears: a surging, insistent note, threaded through with discord. He blinked, trying to clear his head. A red and gold ceiling swam above him; lights sparkled by. By degrees, he realized that he was still lying flat on his back on H'suen Tang's carpet. The chandelier that hung at the far end of the room was spinning like some gigantic crystalline top. The harsh voice chanted on, and there was now something distinctly familiar about it. Chen raised his head. Lao Li, the police exorcist, was standing in the centre of the room, his feet braced apart beneath his robes. The long, scarlet tail of a charm fluttered behind him as he recited, vanishing into sparks as he called forth the words. Under the chandelier, Mrs Tang was spinning, too. She whirled too fast for Chen to see her properly, and she was emitting a wail like a steam kettle. A painful heat pricked across Chen's chest and for a dazed moment he wondered whether he was having a heart attack. Then he realized that the stinging sensation was coming from his own rosary, tucked into the inner pocket of his jacket. Chen seized the rosary and struggled to his feet to assist the exorcist. Whatever had possessed Mrs Tang was close to emerging. Chen could smell the betraying reek of Hell: spice and metal and blood. Mrs Tang's revolving form began to slow, and her head snapped from side to side. Something long and thin crept from her gaping mouth, congealing into a greasy stain upon the air. Teeth snapped from a blind, narrow head; it reminded Chen of one of the phallic clams that occasionally crept from buckets along the harbor wall. The thing bunched itself into a mass of wrinkles, aiming at the chandelier, but at that point Chen threw the rosary. The string of beads, each one a hot, glowing coal, snaked through the air and wrapped around the creature's bunched body. There was the sudden pungent smell of seared flesh and the two halves of the entity fell writhing onto the floor. Chen glimpsed a thick honeycomb of cells within, and then the demon was nothing more than a little heap of ash. Mrs Tang lay quite still, her head twisted at a distressingly unnatural angle. Chen crouched by her side and checked her pulse, though he knew it was useless. He raised his head to meet the angry eyes of the police exorcist.