Liz Williams - Snake Agent: A Detective Inspector Chen Novel (Detective Inspector Chen Novels)

Snake Agent 2005 by Liz Williams
This edition of Snake Agent 2008 by Night Shade Books
Cover art by Jon Foster
Cover design by Michael Fusco
Interior layout and design by Jeremy Lassen
All rights reserved
ISBN 978-1-59780-107-2
Night Shade Books
Please visit us on the web at
http://www.nightshadebooks.com

Detective Inspector Chen:

Snake Agent
The Demon and the City
Precious Dragon
The Shadow Pavilion (Forthcoming)
Banner of Souls
Bloodmind
Darkland
Empire of Bones
The Ghost Sister
Nine Layers of Sky
The Poison Master
The Banquet of the Lords of Night and Other Stories

Hanging by his heels and twisting slowly in the draught that slipped beneath the crimson door, Detective Inspector Chen tried desperately to attract the demon's attention. Yet despite his whispered pleas, the demon's eyes remained tightly shut, and his wet, black lips moved faintly, as if in prayer. Hearing the alchemist's heels retreating down the passage, Chen tried again. "Tso! Listen to me!"

The demon's only response was to squeeze his eyes even more firmly closed. Chen sighed. Tso had never liked to confront uncomfortable realities, and had gone to some lengths to avoid them, but now he, too, was dangling by his heels from a hook in the ceiling andthought Chen, bitterlythe truth of what the demon had done must finally be faced.

"Tso, I know you've probably had a bang on the head, but I'm quite well aware you're still conscious. We have to find a way of getting down," Chen insisted.

"No use," the demon whined, without opening his eyes. "There's no way out of here."

"Nonsense," Chen said, more firmly than he felt. The blood was rushing to his head and making him dizzy: the metal walls of the chamber seemed to tilt and spin. Reflected within them, his face was no more than a blurred, unhappy moon. He tried not to think about Inari, but it was hard to keep anxiety at bay. Stop fretting about your wife, he told himself. The badger will look after Inari; all you have to do is worry about getting down and getting out of here. To the demon he said, "The alchemist will be back in a little while, and then we'll really have problems. Now, listen. My rosary's on the table to your rightcan you see it? I want you to try and reach it."

The demon's eyes opened at last, dazzling and sudden. Chen stared, blinking, into the hot-coal heart of the demon's gaze.

"Reach your rosary?" Tso said, nonplussed. "How? My hands are tied."

"You'll have to swing over and see if you can grab it with your tongue."

"But my tongue will get burned!"

"When that nightmare of an alchemist comes back you'll have a damned sight more to worry about than a sore tongue," Chen said with barely restrained patience. The demon's mouth opened and Tso emitted a long, hissing breath that stank of offal. Chen was unable to repress a shudder.

"Oh, very well!" the demon complained. "I'll try."

He began to swing, dangling like some monstrous piece of bait from the hook in the ceiling. Chen watched, holding his breath, as the demon came within a couple of feet of the table. The long, black tongue shot out and flickered over the surface, missing the rosary. Tso tried again, anchoring himself to the table-leg with his tongue. The barbed, sensitive tip probed over the surface of the table, flicked the rosary, and recoiled.

"Hurts!" the demon said, indistinctly.

"I'm truly sorry. But if we don't get out of here..."

Tso tried again, and this time flicked the rosary off the table with all the neatness of a toad catching flies.

"Well done!" Chen enthused. The demon hissed with pain as the rosary seared the end of his tongue, but the barbs held it securely. Swinging back, Tso flicked the rosary in the direction of Chen, who lunged for it with his teeth and missed. The rosary, detaching itself from Tso's tongue, wrapped around an ornately carved pineapple that decorated the edge of the alchemist's desk, where it hung, dangling tantalizingly out of reach just as the alchemist stepped back through the lacquered door, ceremonial machete in hand.

Detective Inspector Chen brushed aside the chaos on his desk and carefully lit a single stick of scarlet incense. Smoke spiraled up into the air, contributing to the brown smear that marked the ceiling like a bloodstain immediately above Chen's desk and adding to the heat of the city outside. The air conditioning had failed again, a lamentably regular occurrence in the steamy South China summer. Chen bent his head in a brief prayer, then picked up the photograph and held it over the stream of smoke. The girl's face appeared by degrees, manifesting out of a dark background. She was standing in the doorway of a go-down, gazing fearfully over her shoulder. Her hair was still scraped back into its funeral braids, and her white face gleamed out of the shadows like the ghost she was. Studying the photo, and the expression on the girl's face, Chen was aware of the sudden hot glow of rage in his heart. How many more young women might have gone the same way after their deaths, unnoticed and unmourned? But whoever was behind all this had made a mistake this time, choosing the daughter of Singapore Three's premier industrialist rather than some nameless prostitute. Chen held the photograph out to the woman sitting on the other side of the desk and said gently, "Let's begin at the beginning, Mrs Tang. Are you sure that this is your daughter?"

Mrs Tang's grip tightened around the handle of her Miucci handbag as she studied the photograph. In a little whispery voice she said, "Yes. Yes, that's Pearl."

"Now, you say someone sent this to you?"

"Yesterday. I didn't go out of the house, and I'm sure no one came init was the servants' afternoon off. But when I walked into the living room, the photo was sitting on the bureau. In a red envelope. I didn't know what it was at first. There was a note, telling me what to do." She gestured towards the spiraling incense. "You can see her face for a little while, but then it fades again."

"And did you notice anythingstrange? Apart from the envelope?"

Mrs Tang moistened dry lips. "There was some ash. Like dust. At first I thought the maid hadn't been cleaning properly, but it was white and soft. Like incense ash."

"I see. Mrs Tang, I know how hard this is for you, but at least we have a lead. You must try and be hopeful."

Mrs Tang's face began to crumple.

"You will find her, won't you?"

Reaching across, Chen patted her hand. "Don't worry. We'll find your daughter, and we'll make absolutely sure that this time she completes her journey to the afterlife." He did his best to sound reassuring.

"Thank you," Mrs Tang murmured. She pushed her expensive sunglasses to the top of her head and rubbed her eyes; they were rimmed with redness. "I'd better go. I couldn't tell my husband I was coming here; he'd be furious if he knew I'd gone to the police. I told him I was going shopping."

Chen sighed. This was an added complication, but hardly an unfamiliar one. "Is there anything you can do to change your husband's mind?"

"I don't think so. H'suen's a hard man to talk to sometimes. I've tried discussing it with him, but he won't listen." Mrs Tang gave a brittle, bitter smile. "He says it doesn't make any difference; Pearl's dead and that's that. You see, he adored Pearl. At first, anyway. She was such a sweet little girl, but then she started growing up. I mean, she was always awell, she was a lovely,